Catholic World, Volume 072, October 1900 - March 1901

Page 1

Google This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non- commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http : / /books . qooqle . com/

Page 2

Page 3

MAY 2 I 1801 Carbarn (Collrgc ILtbrarg FROM THE BEQUEST OF JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D. (Claw of 1814) FORMER PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE "Preference being given to works in the Intellectual and Moral Sciences." XI Jlkt.lfOO-l 57/lat./?0/.

Page 4

Digitized by Google

Page 5

Digitized by Google

Page 6

Digitized by Google

Page 7

Digitized by Google

Page 8

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF General Literature and Science. VOL. LXXII. OCTOBER, 1900, TO MARCH, 1901. NEW YORK : THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 120 West 60th Street. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 9

Copyright, 1901, by The Missionary Society of St. Paul the^Apostle in the State of New York. Thi CouiMBtft Pmm, 1J0 Wut SOth St., New Yomc. Digitized by Google

Page 10

CONTENTS. Amalfi, the Beautiful.— {Illustrated), . 340 Hagiology. A Study in.— Rev. fames American Mail, The. {Illustrated.)— M. Gillis, C S.P., . . • 758 Katharine Roche, .... 44 Hugo's Praise of Love.— Rev. Joseph Animal Life, The Upbuilding of.— Wil- McSorley, C.S. P., . . . .727 Ham Set on, LL.D., .... 229 Huxley, Thomas Henry.— Rev. fames Australian Bush Priest and his Mission, /. Fox, D.D., 796 An. (Illustrated.)— Barry Aylmer, 377 Isabel, Lady Burton. {Portrait.) — Authority in Religion. — Richard E. Georgina P. Curtis, ... 90 Day, Litt.D., 75 Jesus Christ our Redeemer— The Pope's Bier of the Crucified, At the. {Illus~ Encyclical Letter, .... 553 trated.)— Anna Sprague McDonald, 717 Leo XIII.'s Message to the Twentieth Bladensburg, Near: A War Tale. — /. Century, 425 O. Austin, 101 Library Table, . . . 549, 688, 827 Brittany, The Heart of. {Illustrated), 751 Missionary Movement in the Anglican Burger's Birthplace, A Pilgrimage to. Church, The.— Rev. William Sulli- {Iltustrated.) — Carina Campbell van, C.S.P., 315 Eaglesfield, 82 Modern Martyrdom, A.— S. F. Hopkins, 739 Buried Casket, The —Ethel Nasi, . 458 Mother of John, The.— Mary Sarsfield Catacombs were of Christian Origin, Gttmore, 511 The. {Illustrated.) — Right Rev. Music as a Civilizing Agency.— Cari- Monsignor Campbell, D.D., . 161,772 na Campbell Eaglesfield, . . .711 Catholic Cameos. — Nora Rylman, 15,158 Painter of Heaven, '•* The. (Illustra- Catholic Church and the Future, The. ted.)— Mary F. Nixon- Route/, . 615 —Hon. fudge Cortright, . . .562 Painter of the Virgin, The. (Illustta- Catholic Missionaries from France and ted.) — Mary F. Nixon-Roulet, . 305 Germany, The. — Rev. Thomas f. Pan-American Exposition, The Possibi- Shahan, D.D., 34 lities of the. {Illustrated.)— Anna Catholic Women's Association, The. Blanche McGitl, .... 197 {Illustrated.) — Louise Girod, . . 497 Passion Play at Oberammergau, The Chinese Children under the care of the Blessed Virgin in the, {Frontispiece.) Sisters of Charity, A School of, Passion Play, The. {Illustrated.) — (Frontispiece.) fames f. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . 241 Christ Blessing the World at the Begin- Peter's Denial of Christ, (Frontispiece.) ning of the Twentieth Century, Pitman's Rosary, The.— C. S. Howe, . 396 (Colored Frontispiece.) Port of Coffins, The. (Illustrated.)— Christ the True Civilizer. /Catherine E. C. Vansittart, . . .577 F. Mullany, 489 President Eliot's Address at Tremont Church as She is, The, and as we pre- Temple. (Portrait.)— Rev. George sent Her.— W. F. P. Stockley, . 606 McDermot, C.S.P., .... 56 Cliff Haven, A Fortnight at. — Marion Protestant Missionaries disliked in the /. Brunowe, 254 Far East ? Why are.— Fr. Penman, 387 Columbian Reading Union, The, 140, Regimentals " 11 The. — Edward F. 284, 421 Gareschi, 362 Columbus, The True Landing-Place of. Religious Communities and their Critics, 701 (Illustrated.)— F Mac Bennett, . 784 Rivalry, The Story of a.— Roscelyn Bay- Country without Strikes, A. — Rev. fohn ard Lee, . . . ' . . 571 A. Ryan, S.T.L., . . . .145 Saint Paul's Teaching, Timeliness of.— Development, The. and not the Evolu- Ward Hunt fohnson, C.S.P., . 638 tion of Dogma. — Thomas L. Healy, 349 Saint Paul the Apostle and our Modern Dogma and Dogmatism — E. F. G., . 468 Life. — Rev. foseph McSorley, Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation.— C.S P, 428 Rev. fames f. Fox, D D., . 660 Science to Religion, The Testimony of. Durham Cathedral. (Illustrated.) — — A. A. McGinley, .... 235 Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., . . .17 Shaun Malia, The Honor oi.—fohn A. Editorial Notes, 139, 283, 419, 692, 832 Foote, 67 Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII.. The. — Spiritual Element in Art. — Gabriel Rev. A. P. Doyle, C.S. P., . 426 Francis Powers, . . .221 England's Conversion and the Hierar- Spiritual Writers, Old. — Rev. foseph chical Jubilee.— Rev. Father Cuth- McSorley, C ' S.P., . . . .209 bert, O.S , F.C., 1 Statistics of Parish Schools, . . .834 Father Lemius' Sermon to the Ursulines, 693 Sweetheart Abbey. (Illustrated.)— Ag- Forbidding of the Marriage, The.— Ed- nes C. Storer, .... 441 ward F. Gareschi, .... 589 Talk about New Books, 121, 267, 402, 529, French Canadian Life and Literature. 671, 807 — Thomas O'Hagan, M.A., Ph.D., 628 Temporal Power of the Pope, The Lat- Funeral Wreath, The ; or, the Ghost's est Word on the. — Rev. Humphrey Photograph. — Bessie O* Byrne, . 176 Moynthan, D.D., .... 289 General Election in the United King- Tides, The. — William Seton, LL.D , . 453 domf The, 116 Unification of the Ursulines, The, . 665 Gleanings from '* Evangeline," . . 29 Virgin and Child, (Frontispiece.) Governor-Elect, By Grace of the. — Anne Whittier's 14 Countess," The Story of. Elizabeth CTHare, . . . .326 (Illustrated.)— Mary E. Desmond, . 478 Greek Island, From a. (Illustrated.)— Yuletide in Mediaeval Times.— N. Ryl- Clare Sorel Strong, .... 645 man, 301 POETRY. ** Blessed are the Poor." (Illustrated.) 41 Count that Day Lost."— Arthur Up- — Denis A. McCarthy ; ... 360 son 386 By Calvary.— Michael Earte, . . 738 Departed Friend, To a. — Susan L. Compensation.— Arthur Upson. . . 233 Emery, 265 Digitized by Google

Page 11

iv Contents. Good Friday, 783 44 Hail, Rabbi."— Rev. Wm. P. Cantwell, 710 Love's Witness. — Bert Mart el, . . 33 Lullaby, The, 28 Martyrhood.— Arthur Upson, . . . 614 Mary to Christ on the Cross. — Nora Rylman, . . v . . 771 Nature's Method. — fulia* E. /ohnstone, 14 New Year, A. — Charles Hanson Towne, 528 Pain. — Arthur Upson, .... 627 Robert Southwell, To, Martyr, Jesuit, and Poet.— Joseph F. Cashman, . 195 Saint Paul, A Paraphrase of, . . 234 Snow, The First. —Atoystus Coll, . . 576 Song of the Sea, A. {Illustrated.)— fulian E. Johnstone, . 604 Sorrow's Epiphany. — Mary Blake Morse, 510 Soul's Release, The.— Anna Cox Ste- phens, 208 Sweeter than All. — Caroline D. Swan, 561 Truth.— Arthur Upson, . . . 314 Two Ways, The. (Illustrated.) — Charles Hanson Towne, . . 467 Winter Night, A.— fames Buckham, . 496 NEW PUBLICATIONS. Abraham Lincoln, The Religion of, Ages of Progress, The Three, American Anthology, An, Anneke, a Little Dame of New Nether- 8i5 543 676 545 Arden Massiter, 267 Autobiography of a Tom-Boy, The, . 809 Baby Goose : His Adventures, . . 413 Blessed Damozel, The, .... 683 Book for all Readers, A, 812 Books and Culture, Essays on, . . 407 Captain Ribot, The Joy of, . . .811 Cardinal's Snuff-Box, I he, . .810 Catechism of the Christian Doctrine, . 136 Christian Dogma, The Beauty of, . 268 Christian Philosophy : God, . . . 279 CitharaMea: Poems, . . . .411 Conspiracy in the North Case, Written in Red, or the, 810 676 Counsel upon the Reading of Books, Daniel O'Connell and the Revival of National Life in Ireland, . Day in the Cloister, A, . Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, The, . Dictionary of Architecture and Building, Biographical, Historical, and Descrip- tive, A, Divinity of Christ, The : An Argument, Dr. Dale, Eleanor, 534 External Religion : Its Use and Abuse, 269 Father Damien : An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu, Feet of Jesus, At the, Felix de Andreis, CM., Life of, . Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets, The, First Love, Days of, Gateless Barrier, The, . Grey Fairy Book, The, . Guidance of Authors, Notes for the, Guy's Fortune, .... Hans Memlinc, .... Henry George, The Life of, . Hidden Servants, The, . His First and Last Appearance, . History of the Christian Era. General, , History of the German People at the close of the Middle Ages, . Holy Mass: A Morning Paradise, Hory Year of Jubilee, The, . H6tel de Rambouillet and the Pr6- cieuses, House of Egremont, The, Individual, The : A Study of Life and Death Isle of Unrest, The, Jackson, Andrew, .... Knights of the Cross, The, . L'Aiglon, Land of the Shamrock, From the, Last Days of the Nineteenth Century, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, Life and Times of St. Benedict, The, Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 685 815 270 529 820 532 408 684 547 825 543 279 274 545 410 54i 809 814 410 540 542 54i 273 674 685 404 822 276 678 127 671 275 813 673 533 Life of our Lord, The, .... 409 Life of Sister Mary Gonzaga Grace, of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vin- cent de Paul, 534 Light. Let there be, .... 270 Light of Day, The; .... 679 Lives of the Saints for Children, Little, 687 Lorna Doone : a Romance of Exmoor, 683 Lyrics, 543 Maid of Maiden Lane, The, . 129 Martineau, James : a Biography and a Study 404 Master Christian, The, . . . .121 Meditations of the Heart, . 126 Motifs, 809 Our Mother, 406 Oxford Conferences : Hilary Term, 1900. 547 Parker, Theodore, Preacher and Re- former, 414 Peking; : Histoire et Description, . .138 Peter and Paul on Olympus, The Judg- ment of, 413 Pilgrim's Guide to Rome, The, . .412 Pippa Passes, 680 Praise and Adoration, . . . .125 Prayers, A Form of, . . . ' . 278 Princess of Arcadv, A, . . . 539 Protestant Rule of Faith and the Roman Catholic Church, The, . .277 Psalms of the Little Office, Meditations on the, 125 Psychology, 817 Psychology, Fact and Fable in, . . 818 Quong Lung, The Shadow of, . . 127 Return to Christ, The 533 Richard Yea-and-Nay, The Life and Death of, 807 Robert Orange, 412 Round of Rimes, A, 812 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, The, . 546 Rulers of the South, The : Sicily, Cala- bria, Malta, 537 Sacerdotalism in the Old and New Tes- taments, 281 Saints and Friendly Beasts, The Book of 546 Sermon on the Mount, The, . . . 686 Shakespeare's Life and Work, . . 543 Son of St. Francis, A : St. Felix of Can- talice, 126 Stringtown-on-the-Pike, . . . 407 Sun and Shadow. Songs of, . . . 129 Things beyond the Tomb, The, . . 4x0 Tide, The Flowing, .... 272 Tractatus de Indul^entia Sancta Maria; de Portiuncula, 132 Troubled Heart, A, and how it was Comforted at Last, . . . .687 Tuskegee, 817 United States in the Orient, The, . . 677 Way of the World, The, and Other Ways 538 Wedding Day in Literature and Art, 547 Wesley, John 816 Woman of Yesterday, A, 413 World Crisis in China, . . . .123 Digitized by Google

Page 12

England's Conversion and the Hierarchical Jubilee. REV. FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S F.C. Nature's Method. Catholic Cameos. Durham Cathedral. The Lullaby. (Poem.) REV. JULIAN E. JOHNSTONE. NORA RYLMAN. (Illustrated^ rev. hugh pope, o p. (Poem.) BERT MARTEL. Gleanings from 44 Evangeline." Love's Witness. (Poem.) The Catholic Missionaries from France and Germany. REV. THOMAS J. SHAH AN, D.D. The American Mail. (Illustrated.) Katharine roche. President Eliot's Address at Tremont Temple. (Portrait.) REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P. The Honor of Shaun Malia. john a. poote. Authority in Religion. richard e. day, litt.d. A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. (Illustrated.) CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD. Isabel, Lady Burton. (Portrait.) georgina p. curtis. Wear Bladen sburg : a War Tale. J. o. austin. The General Election in the United Kingdom. Prioe, 25 Cents ; S3 per Tear. THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK. P. O. Box *, Station N. ART AND BOOK COMPANY, 11 M.rntu n^W^ fr *.

Page 13

PETER COOPER'S CLARIFIED ^GELATINEJfr FOR Wine Jellies, Blanc Mange, Charlotte Ruase. Oar PULVERIZED GELATINE It thi mast convenient for family use, »• It requires much Utt time to dissolve. "Columbia" Modern WASHER. PRICES "RIGHT," Machinery "UP-TO-DATE" and Guaranteed. LAUNDRY MACHINERY, For Asylums, Convents, Hospitals, EXTRACTOR WILSON LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO., buiumtiia, Pa. Prices, Full Information. Ettlmattt on Application. It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those *ho advertise in The embolic W';-> •Thi* Publication is printed with IKK manufactured by FRED'S ■. LEVEY CO., S9 Beekmmn St.. JT«w York.

Page 14

Digitized by Google

Page 15

Page 16

CATH WORLD. Vol. LXXII. OCTOBER, 1900. No. 427. ENGLAND'S CONVERSION AND THE HIERAR- CHICAL JUBILEE. BY REV. FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C. IFTY years will shortly have elapsed since Pius IX. re-established the Catholic Hierarchy in England, < by decree dated September 29, 1850. Fifty years ! and how momentous in the history of the Church. The Revolution, which was in many ways to affect the condition of the Papacy, was already seething. Pius IX. had but shortly returned from his exile at Gaeta, whither he had been driven by the ungrateful Roman mob; France had finally delivered herself from the degenerate Bourbon, and was once more for a short while styling herself a republic ; in Germany the aspiration for national unity was gaining in intensity and resolution, though few Germans at that period knew how intimately German destiny was bound up with the fate of the man who was already laying hold of the government of France. In the Balkan peninsula events were leading towards the Crimean War, which was to mould European policy for so many years to come. The moment was full of grave significance to English in- dustrialism. Chartism had shaken society as it had seldom been shaken before ; a new economic regime was being in- augurated. The old policy of protection had given way to free trade ; labor had entered upon a path of national pros- perity tempered by much individual hardship, caused by the The Missionary Society or St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York. 1900. VOL. LXXII*— I Digitized by Google

Page 17

2 England's Conversion [Oct., keen spirit of competition; and what we must chiefly notice here, the Irish famine had sent crowds of immigrants to Eng- lish towns to form the nucleus of many a Catholic mission where hitherto Catholics were unknown. THE TIME OF RE-ESTABLISHMENT PROPITIOUS. At this psychological moment it was that the church in England entered into a new phase of life with the re-establish- ment of the hierarchy. Coming at the time it did, we cannot but recognize in the act of Pius IX. the hand of God guiding the destinies of His Church. For three centuries English Catholics had been without canonical sees. For nigh upon three-quarters of a century after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne they were practically without any sort of episcopal government. Those bishops who remained firm in their alle- giance to the faith (and, thank God, most of them did !) were imprisoned or exiled. The last surviving bishops, Goldwell of St. Asaph and Watson of Lincoln, died in 1585, the former in Rome, the other in prison. But it was not until 1623 that the authorities at Rome seemed to recognize that the old order of things had passed away, not again to return. The religious revolution under Elizabeth was complete. Unlike that brought about by Henry VIII., it was no longer merely a question of recognizing Papal supremacy. The re- formers under Elizabeth had struck at other essential points of Catholic belief — the Mass, invocation of saints, and the doc- trine of purgatory. Moreover it was held to be the political interest of Elizabeth to champion the Protestant cause, and she undoubtedly did her work thoroughly. Catholicism was in- deed crushed. At Rome they seem to have hoped against hope that Elizabeth's measures would end with herself or be reversed by some political change. At first it was the Spanish Armada that was to restore Catholicism to its rightful place in the kingdom ; when that failed, the intervention of France or some other political scheme was projected. Even in England the faithful Catholics hoped for a speedy end of the persecution; but they looked not for foreign intervention, but rather for some internal change in the government's policy. When the Spaniards came, they rose almost to a man to repel the foreigner ; they would not buy even religious tolerance at the price of disloyalty to their country. But when, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, they found that their loyalty did not save them from still more Digitized by Google

Page 18

1900,] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 3 cruel persecution, they lost heart and knew that England was Protestant in very truth, and the most they hoped for now ,was that they themselves, the few who remained steadfast, should be allowed to practise Catholic worship unmolested and free from penalty. EVENTS TENDED TO A RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION, It is sometimes contended that if bishops had been sent to England during those days and the supply of priests main- tained, the faith would not have died out so completely as it did. There can be no doubt that much confusion was caused in the Catholic body by the absence of episcopal authority; and the dissensions arising from the Archpriest controversy were undoubtedly a source of weakness to the Catholic cause. But the whole condition of England at the time was so ab- normal and the increase of wants so astounding that it is diffi- cult to apportion blame even where in ordinary circumstances blame might justly be meted out. Nor can it be said that the presence of bishops in England at that time would have made any appreciable difference to the situation. The fact is, the Reformation in England, as in Germany and elsewhere, is a phenomenon which can hardly be explained merely by human motives and circumstances. To view it aright we must regard it as a terrible scourge permitted by God for the purification of his church. Whoever studies the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries must recognize that events were consistently tending towards a great religious revolution. The worldliness of the higher clergy and the laxity of the religious orders had de- prived the church of that moral influence which she had used so beneficently in earlier times. DECLINE OF RELIGION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Not that there were wanting, even in the worst period, saints and holy sduls; but these were unable to stem the torrent of vice and infidelity which derived its force in great measure from the evil lives of those who ought to have been leaders in religion. Catholicism in the sixteenth century was in much the same condition as Judaism before the good King Josias. Wickedness reigned in the high places, to the scandal of the whole people. There are periods in history when re- volution seems the only way to safety. Such a period in very Digitized by Google

Page 19

4 England's Conversion [Oct., deed was that which preceded the Reformation. Not that the dismemberment of the church was thereby justified. Schism is never justifiable. The sin, however, rests not only with those who actually make the schism, but even more with those who by their actions create a situation which apparently justifies schism in the minds of the people. It seems to be in- contestably proved that the English people did not willingly break from the Catholic faith. The changes in religion were forced upon them by those in power. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the worldliness and infidelity of the higher clergy, and the want of earnestness too frequently manifest in the lives of religious, had prepared the way for an acquiescence in the new order of things on the part of many amongst the people. We know how the Blessed Thomas More regarded with sorrow and alarm the absence of religious spirit among many of the bishops of his time. The future martyr was one of a band of earnest spirits who yearned for reform in the church, and among the clergy. Had the English episcopate in the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. been generally as true to the episcopal character as was John Fisher, the martyr-bishop of Rochester, there would probably have been no Reformation. The people, under the guidance of the bishops, would have been able to withstand even the royal power. But the bishops and higher clergy as a body had lost the secret of spiritual leadership in their thirst for temporal honors and courtly positions, and in the hour of trial were the first to prove false to the faith. In the time of Elizabeth a new generation of bishops proved more steadfast, but the mischief was already done ; the people had ceased to look to them for guidance. For this reason, perhaps, it was well that the old hierarchy was permitted to die out ; and an entirely new tradition was formed with the appointment of the vicars- apostolic : men who, having nothing to hope for in this world but persecution and suffering, accepted their office in a truly apostolic spirit. For much the same reason, perhaps, it was well— looking at things from a historical point of view — that the shipwreck was as complete as it was ; and that the faith was permitted almost to die out. Once worldliness and in- sincerity find a place in religion, it is difficult for religion to regain its simplicity and fervor, except by death and resur- rection. People cannot escape from the consequences of their sin by a mere act of their own will even when the sin is for- given them. The taint remains till the purification is complete ; Digitized by Google

Page 20

1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 5 and moreover the law of consequences will work itself out with inexorable fidelity. The church is still suffering for her sin in those days pre- ceding the Reformation. Not only does the schism remain amongst us of the North, but in Catholic countries the paralysis of the church in more modern times is a direct result of the worldly ambitions and moral laxity which placed the church in great measure at the mercy of the secular power. A NEW ERA OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. During the past few years, however, we may justly say the church has entered upon a new era of spiritual life and power. Shorn in great measure of her former external pomp and splendor, she is once again becoming the Church of th$ Peoples, to whom men look again for guidance and teaching. This is especially so in those very countries where for centur- ies past Catholicism has been banned and crucified. Nobody can observe the trend of public opinion in English-speaking countries, for example, without noticing how men are disposed to listen to the voice of the church, whether uttered in papal encyclicals or in the native pulpits and press; how gradually the religiously-minded portion of the population are beginning to adopt Catholic doctrines and to reverence Catholic consis- tency. The church is, in truth, becoming once more a power over men's minds ; so that there is good reason in the conten- tion put forward so frequently of late, that the regeneration of Catholicism to all its former spiritual power, and even greater, will be brought about by God's grace through the Northern races. One need not introduce Anglo Saxon (or should we say Anglo-Celtic ?) imperialism into one's judgment of the future church, to acknowledge that it is precisely in the countries where the church has suffered most that she promises to renew her youth in the ages immediately before us. In these nations the church has practically a virgin soil, un- hampered by the traditions of secular interference, accepted in the Latin nations ; and with a people calling out for spirit- ual guidance and willing to listen if spoken to in intelligible language. The success of the church will depend upon her power of reaching the people's heart and understanding their practical needs. Digitized by Google

Page 21

6 England's Conversion [Oct., GREAT LEADERS. That the church will recognize her task and eventually suc- ceed, we may rest assured. Nt>t without providential signifi- cance has been the raising up in the new English Church of such prelates as Wiseman and Manning, and of such an in- tellectual leader as Newman. These men belonged primarily to England, but they belong also to the Universal Church of the future, for they have boldly and successfully drawn out the lines upon which the church will advance in the ecclesiasti- cal, social, and intellectual domains of Catholic life. Wiseman won for the church in England the respect of the nation, because he proved by his actions that a Catholic can be an Englishman. When he landed in England as first Arch- bishop of Westminster, in 185 1, he was received with a howl of execration, as though he were the general of an invading army pledged to overthrow the throne and constitution. In a few years his simple, transparent English character, his readi- ness to help forward any national movement for the welfare of the people, and perhaps most of all his trust in the honesty and fair-mindednes3 of his countrymen, won him the esteem of all classes, and in his person the church at large triumphed over ignorance and bigotry. Cardinal Manning was in truth the ideal bishop of the English working classes. His courage- ous handling of the social problem at a critical moment re- called to the minds of men the best traditions of the Catholic episcopate ; reminding men of St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Martin of Tours, of St. Dunstan and Stephen Langton. In him the bishop was verily the father of the orphan, and the friend of the poor. NEWMAN A PROPHET OF THE FUTURE. And who can tell the influence of Newman in the church of the future? There are those who regard him as the prophet of the new school of Catholic apologetics yet to be created, which will be able to meet successfully the difficul- ties of the modern mind — difficulties which we must sorrow- fully acknowledge seem to be treated with but indifferent suc- cess by the old school. In his "Theory of Development" we have, perhaps, the germ of the Catholic system which will some day explode the fallacies and counteract the mischief of the modern evolution-theorists in religious thought; for there is a subtle distinction between development and evolution ap- Digitized by Google

Page 22

I9OO.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 7 plied to dogma. One is sound, the other is false. The evo- lution thebrist denies the supernatural source of the dogmas of faith ; whereas the development-theorist starts from the principle of a supernatural origin, but shows at the same time how the supernatural is to a great measure conditioned by natural causes ; or, in other words, how God makes use of his ordinary providence in making his special Revelation. Much of the enthusiasm for the evolution theory is nothing more than a reaction from the crude theories of earlier days when divine wisdom and omnipotence was supposed to be synony- mous with a divinely arbitrary wilfulness. The theory of de- velopment shows how divine revelation is made with a divine regard for the ordinary laws of life, whilst at the same time it defends the divine freedom against the evolution theorist, who would limit divine action to the sphere of scientific law. The ecclesiastical historian of a century hence will assuredly be able to illustrate the greatness of these three heroic leaders of modern Catholicism — Wiseman, Manning, and Newman — better than we can at this present time. They have sown the seed ; the harvest is yet to come. For us it is sufficient at this moment to recognize that in these men we have provi- dentially placed leaders, under whose guidance a regenerate 'Catholicism will spring yp in these lands. A THREE-FOLD PROBLEM. Meanwhile, looking ahead, we see that the reconversion of the English race to Catholic unity presents a threefold problem, bristling with difficulties. There is the hierarchical problem, the social, and the intellectual. Let me explain. By the hierarchical problem I mean the organization of the church both in regard to internal affairs and in its relations with the state. At present the organization of the church in England is based chiefly upon the idea that England is a missionary country. Consequently the ordinary laws that in Catholic countries govern the relations between bishops and priests, or between the clergy and the laity, are not in force. Moreover the church is independent of the state ; there is no concordat, thank God ! to prevent synodal meetings of the episcopate or to intimidate the clergy in their pastoral utterances. Our priests draw no salary from the government, but they are free to administer the sacraments and preach the word of God under the sole authority of ecclesiastical superiors. Yet the .system is not without its difficulties; chief amongst which is. Digitized by Google

Page 23

8 England's Conversion [Oct., the growing claim of the laity to be consulted in regard to temporal affairs, especially the financial ones, of the church. It is said that as the laity supply the money, they ought to have a voice in its disposal. The spirit of the demand is thoroughly English and constitutional, and there can be no doubt that if the priests were relieved from_ the harassing worries of pro« viding money for the building and maintenance of church and school, they would have more time to give to other and more important duties. In the old Catholic days in England the laity did in fact, more or less, manage the financial and tem- poral affairs of the parish, and a similar system will have to be found in the future. Such a system cannot be created off-hand ; and at present would doubtless meet with strong opposition on the part of those who are content with things as they are. In some dioceses temporal councils, composed of clergy and laity, already exist. These probably form the germ whence the new system will spring forth, and in time, no doubt, each parish or district will have its temporal council assisting the clergy. Besides this question of the participation of the laity in the temporal affairs of the church, there are others affecting the status of the rectors of missions and the relations between the higher and lower clergy — questions which I believe are already under the consideration of the authorities. QUESTION OF EPISCOPAL JURISDICTION. Further, there is the question of the episcopal jurisdiction itself. During the last three centuries this jurisdiction has been much limited in the interest of Catholic unity. It was felt that if the unity of the church was to be preserved against the attacks of the schismatics, ecclesiastical authority should, as far as possible, be concentrated in Rome ; hence many of the powers of bishops were withdrawn and vested in the Roman congregations. Whether a process of decentralization is possible at present, is a point for argument; but it seems probable that as the church progresses in these northern countries, greater discretionary powers will have to be placed in the hands of the bishops, who being on the spot can best deal with local needs. At the same time we may be sure that the unity of the church's organization will in no way be permitted to suffer by the Catholics of any land. That Catholic unity for which our fathers suffered during the past three centuries will not be wantonly sacrificed to any sentiment of nationalism. Digitized by Google

Page 24

1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 9 Still, the process of creating an organization suited to the character and exigencies of the English-speaking people, an organization unhampered by traditions which in other coun- tries bind and degrade the church and minimize her influence, may be peculiarly irritating both to clergy and laity. Eccle- siastical politics, as well as secular, are apt to create parties and cliques, which unless animated by whole-hearted loyalty and devotion to the church, and ready tb prefer the general welfare to mere party triumph, make the church an arena of passions instead of an assemblage of brethren. And there is no strife so bitter as that concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. That there should be divergences of opinion amongst Catholics in matters of policy is to be expected. In every healthy, in- telligent community such divergences exist. But in every healthy community, too, such divergences are restrained and moderated by regard for the common welfare. Where this mod- erating influence is present there need be no fear of divergence of opinion ending in sectarianism or schism. Let English- speaking Catholics keep in mind the best traditions of their party government, and they will avoid the dangers arising from disputes about ecclesiastical policy. A loyal spirit and good temper will pilot them through many a strong debate, where otherwise good intentions will but end in shipwreck. There is, however, one point in the reorganization of the Church among English- speaking peoples upon which all Catholics are more or less agreed — the education of our Catholic children in Catholic schools. Over this question it is quite possible that the church will have a severe struggle with the secular government before a completely satisfactory settlement is obtained. The secular- ist party is growing in strength and bitterness, and want of vigilance on the part of Catholics may result in irreparable mischief to the faith of a future generation. THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. The second great problem with which the church has to deal is the social problem. She has before her a condition of society in which good and evil jostle together. The past cen- tury has been marked by an intellectual awakening of the masses of the people to their human rights, and by an enor- mous development of the labor market. The rate of wages has increased, and with the higher wage has come 'greater com- fort and a wide-spread taste for luxuries. Wealth has acquired a position in society it would never have dreamt of a century Digitized by Google

Page 25

10 England's Conversion [Oct., ago, and has created new classes and factions. Money rules the world, but labor is striving hard to rule money. Energy, restless and self-reliant, is the characteristic quality of the age. Men are conscious of their manhood; they strive as men, they claim to be treated as men. But the age has its vices as well as its virtues — vices which tend to its demoralization and demand the saving influence of the church. Foremost amongst these evils must assuredly be put intemperance and the growing disregard for the sanctity of marriage. Intemperance is on the increase, notwithstand- ing the efforts of the temperance societies ; divorce is becom- ing more frequent, and domestic life is tending to lose its power over the imagination of the nation. Against these two evils it is necessary for Catholicism to throw the whole weight of its influence. The church has in- deed no more sacred duty to society than to guard the sanc- tity of marriage and the home. The home is the nursery of moral and religious life as well as of national vigor. Let home life, with all its intimate affections and responsibilities, be de- stroyed, and society becomes poisoned at its very spring. Yet nobody can view the present wide spread tendency to minimize the responsibilities of conjugal and parental relationships with- out a feeling of dread for the future. Of the moral mischief wrought by intemperance it is needless to say much. Cardinal Manning and Father Mathew in a past generation, Archbishop Ireland and Monsignor Nugent in the present, have given us no unnecessary warning. The church must, then, maintain with vigor a relentless war against these two radical evils of modern civilization. She cannot be too urgent in her crusade, for the moral ruin is great which is already being wrought in our midst by these two evils. THE SOCIAL PAX VOBISCUM. But beyond this the church, if it would gain the English- speaking peoples, must show itself in very truth the reconciler of classes and factions. The economic struggle of the past century has divided society into two bitterly opposing factions — the capi- talist and the worker. The duty of the church is to .foster a spirit of justice and charity between employers and employed; to reinstate in commercial relations the element of human fellowship so long cast out by a grasping and selfish individual- ism. But in order to do this it is needful that the church bring back to the worker a proper sense of the dignity of Digitized by Google

Page 26

1900.] and the Hierarchical Jubilee. n labor. In the olden days, when the spirit of Catholicism en- nobled labor with the patronage of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the workman regarded his craft with reverence and was proud of the work of his hands. The tendency of modern labor has been to degrade labor with the laborer. To work for one's living became almost a badge of disgrace, arid the workman himself, losing his proper pride in his work, now takes delight merely in the wages he is able to obtain. So long as this condition of things lasts there will be no true reconciliation between capital and labor. Human fellowship is founded in self-respect, and a proper pride in one's own life; but how can the workingman be truly self-respecting, if he is lacking in a respect for the labor of his hands? The gospel of labor — the truth that every man is bound to work at something useful for the community, and that all useful work is honorable ; here we have a necessary portion of the message Catholicism holds for the English people. To create a nobility of labor, to guard the sanctity of marriage and the home, and to com- bat the vice of intemperance, are the lines on which it is need- ful for the churfch to work, to save and convert the social life of the English nation. CONVINCE THE MODERN MIND. We come now to the third great problem — the conversion of the intellect of English speaking peoples. There can be no doubt that the conditions of thought have changed completely since the old days when St. Thomas and Duns Scotus formulated their wonderful systems. Not that the fundamental problems of the mind ever vary, but that the forms in which these problems present themselves, and the further questions to which they give rise, are different in every age. At the present time, in view of the progress of science and criticism, the theologian has necessarily to recast his arguments, to take up new posi- tions, and arm himself against a new sort of objection. He must be able to appreciate the value of a modern critical objection against a received text of Scripture ; he must know exactly what the Hegelian philosopher means when he speaks of Substance stnd the Categories ; and he must be able, more- over, to understand the intellectual sympathies of the modern mind. Otherwise he will never obtain a hearing, and his treatises and sermons are so much wasted energy, so far as the intellectual world is concerned. The time has come when the church can no longer remain Digitized by Google

Page 27

t 12 England's Conversion [Oct., on the defensive, guarding its own traditions and past glories. To convert the world she must go forth to meet the world ; and to convert the world's intellect, she must fully appreciate and understand the world's intellect. The defensive tactics of the last three centuries will have to give way to the Jiberty and self-assertion of the early scholastics. We need to be bold; to grapple with the problems which present themselves to the intellect of the world in which we live, and not merely to intrench ourselves in the well-worn tomes of the past. In a word, we need to remould our theological studies in face ,of a new intellectual situation, and we need to enter more boldly than we have done of late into the atmosphere of the world's thought. It has been truly said that in the struggle between supernatural dogma and modern science, Protestantism will prove unable to maintain the integrity of its belief in the supernatural, and that Catholicism alone will stand victorious over infidelity. But are we Catholics as prepared as we should be to wage battle in defence of our Faith with modern science and criticism ? So far the most successful attempts to place the defence of the Christian faith upon a modern scientific basis, which the scientific mind is bound to respect, have come from non-Catholics such as Harnack, Caird, and Driver; men whose work, invaluable as it is, suffers from the want of that complete grasp of Christianity which Catholicism alone gives. Yet this is a matter with which we English-speaking Catholics especially are concerned, since to convert the English people we must convince the modern mind. THE SECOND* SPRING. The conversion of English-speaking peoples is thus no simple task, but one demanding a broad outlook, a generous policy, and an unflinching courage. Mere controversy about the Roman prU" macy, mere ceremonial display, though valuable as details, are not enough ; we have to plant the Catholic Faith with Catholic ideals of life in the very heart of the nation. But to do so it is necessary to speak direct to the heart of the people; and how can that be, unless our own hearts are beating in sym- pathy with theirs? Catholicism, wherever it finds a dwelling,, naturally takes to itself much of the character and methods and qualities of its surroundings ; and so, whilst enriching the nations by its presence, becomes itself enlarged by the national ideals and qualities it thus absorbs. In this mutual blending of themselves with each other, the church and the nation both Digitized by Google

Page 28

1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 13 acquire new strength and new beauty. Who can tell what the future has in store for both the church and the English-speaking race in the days when they shall be again united P It is a far-off vision of things to come ; we of to-day live only in the seed- time. But in the fifty years that have just gone by we have seen enough to convince us that a new period of church his- tory has begun, in which the English-speaking peoples will take no inglorious part. With this promise of the harvest to come, we may well take heart to face courageously the difficulties of the immediate future. Undoubtedly we are entering upon a period of peculiar anxiety, when Catholics will sometimes find themselves in disagreement with each other as to the actual policy to be followed. Such disagreements are natural; they show that the situation of Catholicism is no longer simple in detail but complex, and there are few minds that can grasp a highly complex situation. The saving quality that we need in such a period is, as I have already said, a generous loyalty to the Faith, and to each other : a loyalty that will prevent mere divergence of legitimate opinion from becoming a breach of mutual charity. Such loyalty, combined with energy, is the duty every Catholic owes to Mother Church to day, lest her strength be weakened and her task be left undone. Crawley^ England. Digitized by Google

Page 29

Nature's Method. [Oct., nAiPUI^B'S METHOD. J\|othing for e\7er dies; the past life li\7es In each and etfery one of hurr]ankjnd : And each archaic form its quota gi\7es To lerjd its magic to tl^e rrjystic mind. Still in the man the Ii\7es tf]at Went before And rendered possible his higher self, Their srqall existence filled, their beirjgs o'er, Etfist, — as iq the father lives the elf. ^fes, tK|is# is J\|ature's laW: the die outWorn, She casts again, still losing to repeat Prom morn to e\7e, aqd from e\?e to nr]orn, The type of things that ha\te grown obsolete. <A thrifty F|usWife, hoarding up the gains That she has gathered Witf] exceeding pains. Julian E. Johnstone. Digitized by Google

Page 30

1900.] , Catholic Cameos. 15 CATHOLIC CAMEOS. (Done with a pen.) BY NORA RYLMAN. MfcRE PERPETUA. N a green and quiet corner of London stands the old court suburb of Maryville, in which the author of Vanity Fair once wrote his copy. And in Maryville Square are several tall, red houses, with long, narrow windows, which taken all together form the convent of Our Lady of Good Counsel — the home of the Purple Dames, as we will style the good sis- ters, because" of their purple robes — which, by the way, were donned soon after the great French Revolution, as black was distasteful to many whose friends had looked through the little window during The Terror. The Purple Dames are a French order, and M&re Perpetua is partly Gallic, partly Celtic in origin. Her father, Count S , held office under the Second Empire, when the eagles of France flew high, and her mother was the daughter of a captain in the Irish Guards ; a woman of wit and wisdom, sad- ness and mirth, as the daughters of Green Erin often are. Mfcre Perpetua (who was then Petite Jeanne-Margot) was in Paris during the famous siege. She heard the roar of cannon, ate horseflesh, saw the red fires of the pttroleuse, wept for the martyred priests, paled for France when the Uhlans entered Paris. She stood on a balcony outside her father's hotel as the steel-helmeted men rode by, did Jeanne-Margot ; ii^ her hand and at her breast were violets, and a golden eagle glittered in her gold brown hair. After the fall of the Empire she and her father became globe-trotters. " I would enter religion, mon pfcre," said the girl. " Maman sleeps in P&re la Chaise ; the empress (my godmother) is in exile. I would take the Crucified for my Spouse, would pray for the lost and you." To which the count (who was a philosopher) replied : " Pa- tience, petite ! Be not like the paysanne who disliked lobster salad before she tasted it. See the world, then leave it if you will. You can carry your memories with you." Digitized by Google

Page 31

i6 Catholic Cameos. [Oct., And so it comes to pass that Mfcre Perpetua's mind is like unto a picture gallery in which are many paintings. One picture is of sandy Savannah, another of the levees of New Orleans. Another is of a slight, white-robed figure — the figure of the Father of Christendom giving his blessing to the city and to the world. Yet another is of a frescoed room in a Roman palace in which the companion of her wanderings — her father — lies dy- ing, with dark eyes dimming, and pale lips murmuring : " Love God, seek heaven, little daughter. I who have trod- den all earth's ways, I who have had life's cup filled with the bitter and the sweet, know that none other is worth loving; that only heaven is worth seeking." So, when the Roman earth covers all that is earthly of the philosophic count, Jeanne-Margot becomes one of the community of Purple Dames ; and in course of time is transferred from the house in France to the house in London, in sedate, old- world Maryville Square. The sisters have both a day and a boarding school, and Soeur PerpStue is loved by the pupils of both ; by Wee Win- nie, the poor little waif from the sunless slums, and Donna Bernarda, the heiress of a princely house. "How picturesque!" say some visitors, as they look at the white- veiled, purple robed, blue-eyed, sweet faced nun, sitting under the old mulberry-tree, talking to petite Marie, the baby pupil, or pacing up and down a gravelled pathway, office book in hand. " How beautiful ! " say others, when they go into the chapel and see her keeping her watch before the Adorable Sacrament, the Spotless and Holy Spouse. " Lay i^ot up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven ; where neither rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal." These words are the keynote of Mfcre Perpetua's life. Her treasures are above ; she looks to grasp them — "At that Marriage Supper where the sainted Round His Throne, like lighted candles, stand." So we will leave her — loving, praying, adoring, working ; waiting for the coming of her Bridegroom and her Lord ! Digitized by Google

Page 32

St. Cuthbert's Town and Cathedral. DURHAM CATHEDRAL. BY REV. HUGH POPE, O.P. " Durham citie upon the shoulders of a mountainous Atlas is iSO envy roned again with hills that he that hath seen the situation of the citie hath seen the mapp of Sion and may save a journey to the Holy Land ."— The old chronicler Hegge in his " Legend of S. Cuthbert." LL who have seen the city of Durham can endorse the words of the old chronicler. Cuthbert's town and cathedral are literally "seated on a hill." The name Durham is a corruption of " Dun," a hill, and " holme," a river-island, and here again the traveller can endorse the appropriateness of the name, for the River Wear almost completely surrounds the hill on which the cathedral and castle stand. As one approaches from the west the great central tower rises before you, looking, under the rain-cloud passing over, black and sombre. The gale roars round it, the rain frets its way into the stone, eating away the once delicate moulding ; but still the great fabric stands unmoved and unchangeable despite its eight hundred years of storm and rain, of siege and plunder. Its early history is well known. When England was har- ried by the Danes, St. Cuthbert's rest at Lindisfarne was dis- vou LXXII.— 2 Digitized by Google

Page 33

18 Durham Cathedral. [Oct., turbed, and his children, removing his incorrupt body, went forth to seek a secure resting-place for their treasure. The saint by marvellous signs indicated Dun holme as the place of his choice, and here they laid their treasure down, protecting it with a shrine of boughs. Hence the Bow-Chapel, known as St. Mary-leBow. It was a red-letter day for Dunholme when St. Cuthbert came to it, on account of the Danish invasion of 876. The 44 Bough 99 church was superseded by a nobler edifice, known as the 44 White M church ; but this in its turn was to give place to the present magnificent cathedral, which is justly looked upon as 44 the finest Norman building in England." The foundations were laid August 11, 1093, by Bishop William Carilepho, in the presence of Malcolm, King of Scot- land. The bishop put monks there, and they labored at the building, except when engaged in the divine service or at meals. But the chief credit of the foundation is due to one who gets but little mercy at the hands of the ecclesiastical historian, the notorious Ralph Flambard. Besides being the founder of the famous Kepyer Hospital, 44 for the weal of his own soul, and redemption of the souls of William the Con- queror, and Matilda his queen, who had nourished him ; of King William II., who had advanced him to the bishopric ; of "Thl finest Norman building in England." Digitized by Google

Page 34

1900.] Durham Cathedral. 19 King Henry I., who had confirmed him in it ; and of all who had bestowed, or should bestow, gifts or alms on the Church of St. Cuthbert," * Flambard devoted himself during the twenty- nine years of his bishopric to the building of the great cathedral. He finished it nearly to the roof, and was able to trans- late the relics of St. Cuthbert to the shrine, afterwards so glorious. When we enter the cathedral and stand where the baptistery is now, we can see where Flam- bard's Norman work ceased. Like so many of England's ca- thedrals, the successive changes of style are well marked, and the present building now pre- sents "a most instructive series of examples illustrating the grad- ual change of style which took place during the reign of the three first Henrys, till by degrees the pointed had completely su- perseded the semi circular arch, and the heavy clusters of the Norman pillars were polished in to the light shafts of the Early English, "f Thus, the great central tower, which in its present state dates only from 1478, is in the Perpendicular style, and was built by Bishop Neville to replace the old tower destroyed by fire in 1429. The Galilee, of which more anon, marks the Transitional stage, and the western towers and the Chapel of the Nine Altars are Early English. It may be of interest to note that the great central tower was not meant to remain as it now is, but was intended to be surmounted by a lantern like that on the Church of St. Nicho- las in Newcastle- on-Tyne. The story goes that a Dominican friar designed this lantern tower, but as it grew under the builder's hand men said that it had no supports, and would fall on the removal of the scaffolding. But the friar, master of his art, continued to build, and when the day came he stood * Surtees Society, vol. xcv. p. 14. ^Beauties 0/ England and fVa/es, Bragley and Britton, vol. v. p. 38. "Like the lantern on the Church of St. Nicholas in Newcastle-on-Tyne." Digitized by Google

Page 35

20 Durham Cathedral. [Oct., under the tower and bade them take away the scaffolding: "I have too much trust in my work to fear lest it should crush me." And it still stands. As we go round the church, proceeding up the south aisle, we note the graceful curve of the aisle; this with the groining overhead forms a vista, making the distance appear even greater than it really is. Behind the choir lies the Chapel of the Nine Altars, forming perhaps as strange an east end of a cathe- dral as can be found. Instead of the customary Lady-chapel behind the high altar, we have nine altars set side by side in the east wall. Now that they are useless and dismantled, they present a somewhat unworthy ending to the church, but with- out doubt they were very gorgeous in Catholic days; now nothing remains save the defaced and blank reredos. The origin of this very peculiar feature in the church is said to be in the weakness of the foundations at this end. Bishop Hugh Pudsey, who was also Patriarch of Jerusalem, attempted about 1 1 50 to add a proper Lady chapel ; he was prevented, how- ever, by the ground giving way, and in consequence we have the present abrupt but unique ending of the churchy Before leaving this part we must look at the site of St. Cuthbert's shrine. It lies behind the high altar. What a spectacle ! The ruthless hand of the destroyer has spared nothing, and the account given by the commissioners of their examination of the saint's shrine would be, were other evidence wanting, a sufficient proof of the brutality with which the Dis- solution was carried out. The way they handled the saint's incorrupt body was revolting. In the words of the chronicler : " After the spoil of his ornaments and jewels, coming nearer his sacred body, thinking to have found nothing but dust and bones, and finding the chest that he did lie in very strongly bound with iron, the goldsmith did take a great fore hammer of a smith and did break the said chest open. And when they had opened the chest, they found him lying whole and un- corrupt, with his face bare and his beard as it had been a fortnight's growth, and all his vestments upon him as he was accustomed to say Mass withal, and his meet wand (crozier ?) of gold lying beside him. Then when the goldsmith did per- ceive that he had broken one of his legs when he broke open the chest, he was very sorry for it and did cry, 1 Alas ! I have broken one of his legs.' Then Dr. Henley (one of the com- missioners) hearing him say so, called upon him and bade him cast down his bones. Then he made answer again that he Digitized by Google

Page 36

1900.] Durham Cathedral. 21 Chapel of the Nine Altars. could not get them asunder, for the sinews and the skin held it that it would not come asunder. Then Dr. Legh did step up to see if it were so or not, and did turn himself about and spoke Latin to Dr. Henley, that he was lying whole. Yet Dr. Henley would give no credit to his word, but still cried 4 Cast down his bones.' Then Dr. Legh made answer, ' If you will not believe me, come up yourself and see him.' Then Dr. Henley went up to him and handled him, and saw that he was whole and uncorrupt."* The common tradition is that the saint's body still reposes *Surtee3 Society : Rites of Durham , p. 86 Digitized by Google

Page 37

22 Durham Cathedra^. [Oct., in the same tomb, and is that one which was discovered in 1827. This was a skeleton, and had been interred as such, for the vestments on it had not come in contact with corruption. The /Catholic tradition points to an altogether different part of the cathedral as the saint's present resting-place, hamely, the foot of the stairway by the northern of the two west towers. The choir in its present state is comparatively modern, for the stalls date only from 1690. The reredos, however, is much older. It was erected in the year 1380, and it cost seven masons a year's work to put it in place. Made of Caen stone, it cost ^533» a sum equivalent to more than ten times that amount nowadays. There were no less than one hundred and seven statues on it. They were all painted and gilt. Of all the statues which once adorned this exquisite choir only one re- mains, and that so near the roof that it is at once clear that its height alone saved it from the zeal of the iconoclasts. It is of interest to note, when looking over the list of the altars in the cathedral, that of the thirty no less than five were, under various titles, dedicated to Our Blessed Lady. Thus we find "Our Lady of Houghwell," "Our Lady of Bol- ton," " Our Lady of Pity," " The Altar of the Virgin," and "Our Lady of Pittie" in the north aisle. Before we leave the choir we must notice Bishop Hatfield's episcopal throne. It is, as far as we know, unique. You mount up to it by some half-dozen steps, so that the actual seat is on a level with the canopies of the stalls. Beneath the throne is his tomb and an altar where Mass was to be offered for the repose of his soul. But the most interesting portion of the church is the Lady- chapel known as the " Galilee." When Bishop Pudsey failed to build the Lady chapel at the east end, he placed it at the west end. This chapel is in the late Norman style, and was in building from 11 54 to 1197. The arches supporting the roof are very striking. On its east wall the " Mater Dolorosa " is still faintly discernible, while here and there patches of color have survived the efforts of the destroyers to obliterate them. Two points in particular make this chapel noteworthy. It was the only part of the church accessible to women and it contains the tomb of the Venerable Bede. St. Cuthbert, according to tradition, had a great dislike for the gentler sex, and it is said that when curiosity induced a fair dame to enter disguised as a monk, St. Cuthbert cried Digitized by Google

Page 38

1900.] Durham Cathedral. 23 An Antique Knocker. out from his tomb. Certainly the following extract from Anglia Sacra* shows the strength of the feeling on this point: 44 In the year 1333, on Thursday in Easter week, Edward the Third came to Durham, and lodged in the priory. On the Wednesday following, Queen Philippa came from Knares- borough in one. day to meet him, and being unacquainted with the custom of the church, went through the abbey gates to the priory, and, after supping with the king, retired to rest. This alarmed the monks, one of whom went to the king and informed him that St. Cuthbert had a mortal aversion to the *Cf., also, Surtees Society : De Vita S. Goderici, p. 463, note. Digitized by Google

Page 39

24 Durham Cathedral. [Oct., presence of a woman. Unwilling to give offence to the church, Edward immediately ordered the queen to arise, who, in her under garments only (her mantle, etc., being buried), returned by the gate through which she had entered and went to the castle, after most devoutly praying that St. Cuthbert would not avenge a fault which she had through ignorance committed." * This Galilee chapel, therefore, served for the women, and here at ten every Sunday a sermon was preached for them by one of the monks. Cardinal Langley lies buried here, died 1438, while hard by we read : " Hie jacent fossa Venerabilis Bedae ossa." We notice that the writer of the article " Durham " in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica speaks of St. Bede's interment there as doubtful. No one else seems to doubt it, but it is to be remarked that in Hegge's Legend we read that in the tomb of St. Cuthbert Prior Turgot found the bones of Venerable Bede, the head of St. Oswald, and the remains of three bishops of Lindisfarne. If we are uncertain as to the resting-place of St. Cuthbert after his rude disturb- ance by the. reformers, we may well be so with regard to that of the Venerable Bede. But the Galilee served for more purposes than one. Dur- ham is a County Palatine — i e., its bishop has royal rights there, and is said to judge " ut in palatio," viz., "regali." In his own right he is Earl of Sadburg, and judges hold their commission from him. He is also sheriff paramount, and the * Galilee was his court. Hence we find in the Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense citations to the Galilee of Durham Cathedral for inquisition to be made touching a divorce, as also for the punishment of those who violated the rights of Farne Island (cf. pp. 945 and 734). The power of the bishop was thus enormous; and while we are perhaps astonished to find Edward III, ordering him to provide a thousand armed men for the invasion of Scot- land, to be ready at Newcastle by Palm Sunday, "pro quibus volueritis respondere," f we are yet more astonished to find Henry II. so far recognizing the bishop's palatinate rights as to declare by charter, when sending his justices of assize thither, that he did so by license of the bishop, and "pro hac vice tantum.":}: On the other hand, we find no less than three letters from the Third Edward commanding the bishop ♦Quoted in Beauties of England and Wales, vol. v. p. 40. From. Anglia Sacra, i. p. 760. f Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, p. 989. % Camden's Britannia, Gough, vol. iii. p. 109. Digitized by Google

Page 40

Durham Cathedral. 25 to send ten marks yearly for the support of the Friars Minor at Oxford. These date from 13 14 and 131 5, and in the last the writ runs thus: u De eo quod mandatis nostris parere non curastis, plurimum admiramus," and concludes with a threat of "Galilee was a place of refuge." force. This looks as though the bishop was not favorable to the friars!* Besides this, the Galilee was a place of refuge, and all criminals who could fled to the cathedral, where they knocked to have it opened. The appointed watchers at once reported their advent to the prior, who enjoined them to keep within the precincts of the church yard, and gave them a yellow cross to wear on a black gown. This was known as St. Cuthbert's Cross. The Galilee bell was then rung, so that all might know that some one had taken sanctuary.f "And if full oft the sanctuary save Lives black with guilt, ferocity it calms.'* — Wordsworth^ "Ecclesiastical Sketches." In a little chamber off the Galilee is a newly-discovered monastic well, the sources of which are many miles distant. • Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, pp. 1027-1064-8. fCf. Hutchinson's Durham* Digitized by Google

Page 41

26 Durham Cathedral. [Oct., If we open the window we look down upon the rushing Wear far below us ; the jackdaws are sailing on the high wind, as they sailed in Bishop Pudsey's time when the Galilee was building! To the right lies the town, above us lies Elvet Bridge, and below us was the "Old Bridge." Bishop Richard of Durham made over to the monks the right of fishing be- tween these two points. We return to the church for one last peep. What a crowd of memories come in upon us! If we shut our eyes for a mo- ment, we can see the cowled forms of old, we can hear the sounds of the office chant, we can listen to the notes of "the three paire of organs," once the cathedral's boast ; but we open them again and the twentieth century rushes in as we hear the guide saying : " Yes, sir, that 'ere 's the tomb of the great 'Atfield." We take one last look at the mighty pillars which drew from Dr. Johnson the truly Johnsonian remark, " Rocky solidity and of indeterminate duration," and we feel "there were giants in those days." How did they rear such a fabric? How did they keep it in repair? The Register so often quoted tells us that by order of the bishop the monks had to pay twelve marks per annum to keep up the cathedral : " in '•We can listen to the notes of 'the three paire of organs.'" Digitized by Google

Page 42

1900.] Durham Cathedral. 27 "Adown the steep steps." recompensatione laesionis quam Dunolmensis ecclesia patitur ct patietur." * We pass out into the cloisters, which have been ruined by restoration. The windows are gone. Those on the east repre- sented the life and miracles of St. Cuthbert. On the south side used to be a stone where on Maundy-Thursday every monk washed the feet of one boy and gave him thirty-three pence, seven herrings, three loaves, a wafer- cake, and drink. The prior at the same time did the same kind office to eigh- teen poor men whose feet he washed and kissed. It is seme- * Registrum^ p. 1233. Digitized by Google

Page 43

28 The Lullaby. [Oct., what startling in this connection to read in the church-wardens' account for the year 1694: "Spent at ye summons of Mr. Dobson maide for ye returning ye list of our poore, at the Bishop of Durham's request, who promised %to send moneys in- to ye parish that the poore might not come to his gates."* It is time to finish, and we have not half exhausted the cathedral and its precincts. The chapter-house, the manu- scripts, the university, all demand a notice, but time and space press. We go down the steep path under the frowning battle- ments of the castle, which stretches its buttresses all over the hill. It was once the residence of the bishop, but " tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." "Monastic domes! . . . Once ye were holy, ye are holy still ; Your spirit let me freely drink and live." — Wordsworth, " Ecclesiastical Sketches" THE LULLABY. HE Poet wandered, mute and slow, Along his palace, Space, Till Poesy, beneath the snow Of Slumber's cozy lace, Had laid her new-born babe of Thought — When lo, its fleeting smile Unloosed the seal that Silence wrought Upon his lips erewhile. And then the silver palace-star Outshone the light of day, As Beauty lingered at the bar Where Slumber sings her lay. * Surtees Society : Memorials of St. Giles, Durham, p. 189. Digitized by Google

Page 44

i90o.] Gleanings from "Evangeline" 29 GLEANINGS FROM " EVANGELINE." PIRITU ALLY-MINDED persons often find a rather hard task facing them when they venture to harmonize the claims of human affection with those which Divine love possesses. The love of man for woman or for his fellow-beings in gen- eral, and the love, the personal and spiritual affection which the Almighty demands, are seemingly in mutual rivalry. Yet the genius of our poet Longfellow seized the slender thread that links the two, and held it captive until it spun out into that enchanting Tale of Love in Acadie. And who will say that he was not a genius whose soul yearned for what is heavenly ? It must have been thus with him, else he scarcely would have sought for inspiration among the children of that One, True Church whence the soul of Poetry has never wandered. His keen insight made him realize that his own Protestantism was without the genuine spirit of poesy, and that he would have been dwarfing his genius had he appealed to his own creed for the inspiration he desired for his portrayal of the worth of human love. The worth of that love was ever present to him. He takes it for granted, in fact, as we may gather from his pleading in the Prelude to the Tale : "Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devo- tion, Ltst to the mournful tradition still sung in the pines of the forest ; List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy." He would tell us of human affection that is brimful of hope, that knows no weariness, but is all endurance ; that, while restless with unearthly yearning, is ever sweetened with unending patience; of woman's devotion, its beauty, its vigor, its queenly fortitude. And the oftener we read the poem we feel somehow that the affection portrayed did not cease with being merely human. We feel rather that it became elevated Digitized by Google

Page 45

30 Gleanings from "Evangeline" [Oct., to a higher sphere than that of earth, that Heavten bestowecj a reward for its constancy, that it was, if anything, the natural branch whereon the spiritual fruit was to be grafted. Some may wonder, perhaps, if Heaven has bestowed any reward for such a condition of heart. But there is that en- nobling scriptural appeal of St. John : " My little children, love one another, for love is of God." It comes home to us more forcibly when we remember that he who made it so repeatedly was in deed and in truth the bosom friend of the Divine Mas- ter. And it would really seem that St. John was the better fitted to preach his message of world-embracing love from the .fact that he enjoyed the intimate confidence of his Lord. And so we take it that Longfellow wished to proclaim the excellence of affection. Apparently he endeavors to elicit for it the sanction of Holy Church in the person of Evangeline's guardian and companion, dear old Father Felician, who was wont to cheer the maiden with those encouraging words : # " Patience, accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work of affection ! Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is god- like. * Therefore, accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made god-like, Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven ! " "Till the heart is made godlike"! — was it ever thus made in her case, or was her affection wasted after all ? Let us see. There is that picture of her childhood days teeming with joyousness and sunshine. She and Gabriel, the beloved object of her later wanderings, were as brother and sister. They learned their letters, their hymns, and their devotions under the guidance of Father Felician. They were always together: at the forge where Gabriel's father labored ; on the sledges in winter; up among the swallows* nests that hung amid the raf- ters of the neighboring barns. Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children. In due time came their betrothal one evening at the old farm-house, the abode of Evangeline and her father; then, on the morning following, the feast in the orchard, where the friendly peasants made merry and sang the bridal songs of their native Acadie. Digitized by Google

Page 46

1900.] Gleanings from "Evangeline" 3i But alas for the length of mortal joy! That same day the drum-beat of a conquering hand resounded over the meadows down by the sea. The doom of eternal exile unexampled in story, the broken-hearted colonists preparing to set sail for shores unknown, the ruins and ashes of beloved homes, the service of sorrow, and the burial of the maiden's father in sight of the departing ships, and Gabriel gone away — whither or for how long was a mystery of mysteries to her, — these were the ill-timed events that ushered in the long, immemorial wan- dering of Evangeline. To meet Gabriel again, to share with him the cares and the delights of home- life, and if so be, to rear up and offer to their Lord, as the fruit of a blessed wed- lock, a race of sturdy youths and daughters — would it indeed come to pass? You know how she haunted the church-yards, and gazed upon the crosses and tomb-stones, and lingered by many a nameless grave, wondering whether he might sleep within its bosom how she would utter the sweet yet sad " I cannot," when people expostulated : " Dear child, why dreamest and wait for him longer? Have not others hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal?" For you will remember that she was but the fiancee of Gabriel, that merely the ceremony of espousals had been performed and not the marriage rite, and that hence she was free to take another if aught occurred to prevent the reappearance of her beloved. You will recall, too, the nearness of the meeting when she and her fellow-wan- derers, sleeping in a boat one night along the Lower Missis- sippi, were concealed from view by the willows just as Gabriel and his companions sped northward on their hunting-trip, the loud splash of their oars not sufficing to awaken the exiles ; then, her disappointment at finding him departed when she reached the bayou lands of Louisiana, whither his father had fled from Acadie ; finally, her profitless search among the Ozark Mountains, through the Michigan forests, the Moravian missions and settlements, amid the noisy army-camps and bat- tle-fields, through secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities. Thus did the long, sad years glide on. Fair was she and young when in hope began the pilgrimage to the shrine of her heart ; faded was she and old when, in disappointment, it ended. She never thought that those years would go while they were going, and at her journey's end she seemed to have done nothing at all. Her life, it appeared to her, had Digitized by Google

Page 47

32 Gleanings from "Evangeline" LOct., scarcely begun. Her days had grown old out of season, com- pared with what was in her to do ; and, blessed inspiration ! she was driven by a sense of the littleness, the earthliness, the limited power of even the fire of a woman's affection to look on to a more spiritual state of life as to a sphere wherein all that she was capable of might be brought out and become effective. The graces begotten of suffering were beginning to blossom forth amid those streaks of gray upon her forehead. She was now realizing the value of that chastening of soul produced by painful trials, the refinement of spirit, the calmness, the serenity of mind that they forestall and confer. It was given her to know at last that this world is not a place of rest ; that when her Lord and Master had come hither, he chose merely to sojourn, to pass a little while, and that during the brief interval he had known no rest — had not where to lay his head. She took courage, nevertheless, for Christ had overcome this world of turmoil, had granted unto men the vision of that abode whither their hearts could find the endless peace of the elect. And thus it was that the depth of her affection went out to Christ, and that she knelt to receive his blessing, and the bridal ring which betokened her spiritual espousals, on the day she entered the Sisterhood of Mercy. Human love had become transformed by its blending with the divine. And so, following meekly the Sacred Feet of her Lord, one Sabbath morning she enters the plague-stricken almshouse in the City of Renn. There she had at length found a home and a coun- try full of sweet reminders of Acadie and Gabriel. His image haunted her, it stood ever before her, radiant with beauty in its death-like silence. Through the almshouse gate she passes on into the garden. Sweet on the June air comes the odor of the flowers. We watch her gathering the fairest ones, and see her give them to the dying, that they may once more re- joice in the rare gifts which God has given the earth. "Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit." Something told her : 44 At length thy trials are ended." Suddenly she thrilled through and through with an almost life- rending shudder. With a cry of anguish so piteous that the dying heard it and arose in wonder, she exclaimed : 44 Gabriel, O my beloved ! " But no ; Gabriel, too, is dying ; not even her name can he whisper. It dies unuttered upon his lips. And while his head is yet resting upon her bosom, the sweet light Digitized by Google

Page 48

igoo.] Love's Witness. 33 of life leaves his eyes for ever, and Evangeline closes them tenderly in death, sighing resignedly, with an adoring angel's love : " Father, I thank Thee ! 99 The poet tells us that they are sleeping side by side in their nameless graves in the little Catholic church- yard down in the heart of the city — sleeping unknown and unnoticed. It remained for him to make immortal the wondrous story of their mortal love, to write upon the memories of men in letters of unfading gold the sweetest tale of woman's love for man, of God's joy in beholding its constancy, of the two- fold reward bestowed : the woman's consecration of herself for ever in his service of mercy, and the consoling glances of her dying Gabriel's eyes. Her life, it is true, had been a " vexation of spirit." She had known what it was to possess the power of loving, and the object of her love was leaving earth for the last time when she found him. And yet her disappointments served to en- noble her life. They had cast her soul upon Christ alone, to find in his infinite love that sense of spiritual satisfaction which men and the things of earth are powerless to impart. And if we remember Evangeline at all, it is indeed as the loving, wandering maiden ; but above all as one who merited the supernal vocation of a spouse of Christ, as one destined to be numbered among that host of virgins whose exceeding great blessing is to " follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." LOVE'S WITNESS. Who dwellest God in unity of Three, Oh ! Love divine, Behold on earth another Trinity, A type of Thine. Bert Martel. VOU LXXII — 3 Digitized by Google

Page 49

34 The Ca tholic Missionaries [Oct., THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY. BY REV. THOMAS J. SHAHAN, D.D. HO EVER has undertaken to deal scientifically with the external conditions of Catholicism in the nineteenth century knows how difficult it is to find statistics that are at once full and re- liable. Like the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic Church is often too busy to indulge in the contemplation of its success.4 It knows well that the strong organic forces that it disposes of are working with more or less freedom, and that they are for ever accomplishing some measure of progress. They are like the tides and currents of the sea, which cannot be balked of their appointed functions by any human obstacle or interference. But since the social sciences have opened up a new world of endeavor to man, the statistics of every form of organized humanity have taken on a new value. Hence the appearance within the last few years of a number of works destined to show with accuracy the progress of that oldest and most wide-spread of social organisms — the Catholic Church. As the mediaeval dioceses and abbeys opened annals and chroni- cles in imitation of the " Liber Pontificalis " of the popes, so the various national churches of Europe and America have been imitating certain traditional publications of the Papacy and improving their ecclesiastical almanacs and " annuaires." From the pen of Father Werner, S.J., have come several volumes of ecclesiastical geography that permit the student to keep abreast of the actual administration of Catholicism. The Annte Ecclisiastique of Egremont and the Annuaire Pontifical of Battandier are the beginning of works that may furnish the churchman with the counterpart of the Statesman s Year Book or the Annual Register. To the Gerarchia Cattolica, that pursues its stately way, the Roman authorities have been adding the Missiones Catkolica, a publication appearing at irregular inter- vals and giving trustworthy official figures of the missions that depend on the Congregation de Propaganda Fide. For some thirty years the Society of the Propagation of the Faith has been publishing, besides its monthly bulletins and yearly Digitized by Google

Page 50

1900.] from France and Germany. 35 compte-rendus, an illustrated monthly magazine entitled Catho- lic Missions, in French and German. In addition, one of its members, Monseigneur Louvet, has given us a valuable sum- mary of the missionary activity of the Catholic Church in this century in his extensive work Les Missions Catholiquts au XIX siecle (1898). The Leo Society of Vienna has undertaken the creation of a voluminous work in German, Die Katholische Kircke, which is to furnish reliable information concerning the status of Catholicism throughout the world. The Vatican of Georges Goyau and others has made known to the non- religious world a field of spiritual activity that it little sus- pected. In all such and similar works the truly catholic and organic character of ecclesiastical unity becomes tangible ; the results of a powerful spiritual life get themselves expressed in mathematical formulae; the elements of a stimulating compari- son are furnished, and to no small extent the hemming bar- riers of language, nationality, distance ace lowered. On the heels of general and comprehensive works appear others of a more detailed and local character, some of them of permanent value, like the Catholiques Allemands of the Abb6 Kannengieser (1893) and the Alletnagne Religieuse of Georges Goyau (1898), works written with tact, criticism, and sympathy, models of conscientious scrutiny of the religious conditions of a national church. The Abb6 Kannengieser, in particular, is a strenuous Catholic publicist whose graceful and erudite pen is consecrated to the work of reconciliation of France and Ger- many on the basis of a better mutual knowledge. He believes, with Silvio Pellico, that men hate one another only because they do not know one another. His Reveil cTun Peuple is a classic description of the way in which German Catholicism arose from its fatal lethargy ; his account of the good Pfarrer Kneipp has been translated into several languages ; his vigor- ous handling of the actual impossible conditions in Hungary, where three million Jews and Calvinists oppress the consciences of nine million Catholics, shows a more than ordinary sense of precision and power of condensation.* It was Kannengieser who revealed the great soul of Ketteler to France, f and made known the irresistible power that lies in the organization of the Catholic community for specific purposes of defence or propaganda. The phenomenal growth of the German Empire within the * fuifs et Catholiques en Autriche-Hongrie. Paris, 1895. t Ketteler et V organisation sociale en Allemagne. Paris, 1894. Digitized by Google

Page 51

36 The Catholic Missionaries [Oct., last two decades awoke, not unnaturally, the religious forces of the nation. Imperial colonies opened the way to German missionaries and sisterhoods. The carefully cultivated good will of the Sultan ; the dramatic journey of the Kaiser to Jerusa- lem and his gift of the House of the Blessed Virgin to the German Catholics ; the vengeance on China for the murder of two German missionaries ; the reception at Berlin of Bishop Anzer, have enabled the Protestant Emperor to take on the character of a, Charlemagne, and to emphasize with considera- ble effect the chief duty of an imperial authority — efficient protection of all the interests of his subjects. So it comes about that the time-honored protectorate which France has exercised in the Orient over all Catholic interests is called in question at Berlin. The dignity and independence of the empire, the malevolence and sectarian spirit of the dominant politicians in France, the very patriotism of the German clergy, conspire to further the contention of the Kaiser. Thus France must see her , ancient prestige diminish with the growth of German Catholic missions in the Orient, notably in Turkey, Palestine, and China. Once she stood for all the " Latinie " of Islam and all the interests of Europe in China. The heroism of her Crusaders and the diplomacy of her kings made the nation of the " Franks " synonymous with the power and in- fluence of the entire West. Henceforth Mohammed and Confu- cius will keep their eyes upon the ancient rival of France ; its growing wealth, commerce, population, have earned for it a larger place in the sun. Surely no modern nation that has ac- cepted the gods of commercialism and industrialism can com- plain if Germany is skilful enough to evoke them as far as the Spree and the Pleisse. Nevertheless, the Holy See has not yet failed to recognize for France the immemorial right of protection and surveillance of the interests of Catholicism in the Orient. In spite of the pitiable warfare carried on since 1880 against vital interests of the Catholic religion in France ; in spite of the furtherance of the political designs of Russia in Palestine, the Holy See has not yet admitted that the French protectorate of Catholicism in the Orient is the " strange anachronism " that prominent Catholic organs of Germany proclaim it. On May 22, 1888, the Congregation of the Propaganda recalled by a formal cir- cular to its missionaries that the consuls and diplomatic agents of France were still, as of old, the official intermediaries with the governors of Oriental society. On his return from the Digitized by Google

Page 52

1900.] from France and German y. 37 Eucharistic Congress at Jerusalem, in 1894, Cardinal Lavigerie obtained from Leo XIII. a decisive declaration in the same sense. With his usual energy, Lavigerie founded a society " pour la conservation et defense du protectorat frangais," and on July 20, 1898, the Holy Father wrote him that the Holy See fully recognized that the French protectorate of Christianity in the Orient was a glorious heirloom of the past, a noble mission assured by secular custom, and by international trea- ties, one which the Holy See had not the slightest intention of interfering with. Only a year ago Monsignor Lorenzelli, papal nuncio at Paris, in presenting his letters to the President of the French Republic (July 22, 1899), seized the occasion to refer to the " prerogatives " and the " acquired positions " of Catholic France in the Orient, declared them of growing im- portance, and assured the government of France that the Holy See considered these quasi-immemorial rights as a natural con- sequence of the attachment of the French people to Catholi- cism, the heroism of their missionaries, and the " heureuses intuitions du pouvoir politique." On the other hand, the Emperor of China recognized formally, no later than March, 1899, that the protectorate of Catholicism in China was still incumbent on France, that only the French minister could treat officially with the administration. What will become of this time-honored responsibility when the new China is evolved out of the revolution that is now raging, who can foretell ? The latest work of the Abb£ Kannengieser undertakes to furnish the statistics that confirm beyond a doubt the flatter- ing words in which Leo XIII. justifies the political prestige that France has so long enjoyed among the Catholic com- munities of the Orient.* It is in reality a comparison of the religious forces that each of these great nations disposes of in the great province of the foreign missions. En passant, is not the concern which the statesmen of the world are be- ginning to show for the foreign missions an index that the spirit of religion is far from dead or decaying among the people; that, with Montesquieu, the popular heart everywhere recognizes the religion of Christ as infinitely superior to all others, not only for the welfare of the soul but even for that of the body? What a light all this throws upon past history; for the living, real paganism of Greece and Rome was, as a * Les Missions Catholiques : France et Allemagne. Par A. Kannengieser. Paris : Lethielleux. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 53

38 The Catholic Missionaries [Oct., matter of fact, not a whit more lovable or beneficial than the ferocious and intractable gentilism of Pekin. Insert Alexandria and Carthage in the place of the latter capital, and many pages* of Cyprian and Eusebius will be seen to be identical with the despatches of modern journalism. The French nation is, indeed, entitled to the protectorate of Catholicism in the East, for it is everywhere the propaga- tor and the nurse of that religion. It seems incredible that 7»745 French missionaries, mostly priests, are scattered through the foreign missions — a body that almost equals the entire Catholic clergy of the United States in the last census. They are everywhere, in Turkey and China, in farther Asia and in Africa, in Madagascar and in Egypt, in Palestine and Persia, wherever the name of Christ is preached. From one hundred to one hundred and twenty orders and congregations are de- v6ted to this sublime task. Sixty of these societies count, each, over a thousand members. What an afmy of reserve! And how justly Brunetifere said lately at Besangon that outside of France the interests of the nation were identical with those of Catholicism ! That overflow of men which France never gave for the development of the material world she willingly grants to extend the limits of the 14 kingdom of heaven." Who can count the labors and the merits of this vast host, the churches and chapels, from the splendid basilica at Tunis to the palm-hut chapel of Madagascar; the schools and academies, from the superb institution at Beyrouth to the schools for catechists in Japan ! This new apostolate pursues everywhere fanaticism, ignorance, and human suffering, in those Oriental lands so long neglected by the politicians of Europe and America, only to be drowned in blood when the cruel passion of avarice was taught that they were at last too weak to de- fend their ancient wealth and power! M. Kannengieser has gathered for the first time, and al- most entirely at first hand, the statistics of these numerous missionary bodies of French Catholicism. The reader will find in his pages a detailed account of the organization of the French missions; the correct name of each order, congrega. tion, society, or brotherhood ; the number of its houses or enterprises, a brief account of its origin and purpose, the sum total of its missionaries. The Society for Foreign Missions at Paris (Soci£t£ des Missions Etrang&res) rightly opens this glorious catalogue of martyr es designati with its 1,200 priests, nearly all laboring in India, Indo China, China, Japan, Corea, * Digitized by Google

Page 54

1900.] from France and Germany. 39 and Thibet. Founded in 1663, long before the thought of foreign missions had entered the heart of Protestantism, this noble institution has sent more than 2,000 priests to the Orient since 1840. 77 martyrs are written on its Golden Book, and of these 26 were executed by formal sentence for the crime of being Christians. Yet it counts to-day 340 young clerics in the famous S£minaire de la Rue du Bac at Paris. They will take the place of those whom the whirlwind of pagan revolu- tion in China has lately destroyed. The society has 28 great provinces, and 33 archbishops and bishops. Are not these figures enough to prove the • vigorous survival of religion in France? Here is the material for some writer of genius who will write us a Catholic work after the style of the 44 Peuple M of Michelet, and show of what marvellous generosity the great heart of France is still capable. These missionaries are sel- dom 44 born in the purple." They are the plain men of France. But they know how to labor, to love, and to die for the high- est goods of humanity — the soul, the future, their neighbor. And the race that produces them must one day return to its high pedestal among the nations of the earth. The Society of Jesus keeps 750 French Jesuits in the field of the Oriental missions. Its services at Constantinople, in Siam, and in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centur- ies are among the brightest gems in its crown of merit ; but they are not superior to the deeds of sacrifice daily performed by this army of apostles in China, Japan, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, and South Africa. Their colleges at Beyrouth, Cairo, and Alexandria are famous in the Orient. In Syria they possess some 180 schools, and train over 13,000 children — a greater victory than that of Napoleon over the Mame- lukes, a more permanent glory than the famous campaign of Syria. The French Lazarists extend their activity from Constanti- nople to Pekin, from Egypt to the depths of China. The Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers follow in their wake, and teach, with Catholicism, the French language to a countless army of children of the poorer and middle classes. The Lazarists have excellent colleges at Constantinople, Smyrna, and Alexandria. They are numerous in South America, where they have between 60 and 70 establishments, with at least 100 priests. For further details of this apostolic zeal of France we refer our readers to the work of the Abb£ Kan- nengieser. Digitized by Google

Page 55

40 The Catholic Missionaries [Oct., The Catholic women of France have not been less generous in self-sacrifice ; indeed, they have surpassed the missionaries. There were in January of this year 9,150 French Sisters at- tached to the Catholic missions in Asia Minor, China, India, and Africa. Prominent among them are the Sisters of Charity (Filles de St. Vincent de Paul). They keep no statistics of themselves or their works, for the edification or curiosity of the public, preferring to let their good deeds go on unnoticed, like the sun or the sea. It is calculated that the French Sisters of Charity are in number about 33,000 — an army of angels who do not need the plaudits of a Whittier, a Gerald Griffin, or a Dalton Williams to encourage them in their sub- lime calling. Bravery and devotion are their atmosphere, the love of all humankind their ordinary motive-power, exhaustion and death their common reward. Every age, every misery, every abandonment, every suffering, finds in them gentle hearts to compassionate, strong and willing hands to soothe and heal. They have on the Oriental foreign missions 83 establishments, not to speak of the numerous sisters of French nationality in the South American houses. In all there are about 1,500 French Sisters of Charity engaged in the work of the missions. The French Sisters of St. Joseph/ de Cluny number about 4,000. They are the creation of that strong woman, Anne- Marie Javouhey, who dared to face the barricades of Paris in 1848, and was known as " la plus remarquable figure de la colonisation frangaise au dix-neuvi&me si&cle" because of her labors in all the French colonies. There are about 1,200 sisters of the foundation of " Mfere Javouhey," the prop of their native land as well as Catholicism. Catholic Germany has no such figures to show. Indeed, it would be unjust to ask them. United Germany is a new creation. The colonial life of the Fatherland is yet embryonic. The Catholic pDpulation of Germany is not more than 19,000,- 000.* The wealth, prestige, and political power are largely in the hands of Protestants. The dominant state, Prussia, can- not be accused of any serious leaning toward Catholicism. Heresy and indifference are for ever gnawing at the vitals of the Catholic communities of the empire, by .reason of mixed marriages and the strong pressure that a bureaucratic state exercises in favor of Acatholicism in the land of the " Paritat." Catholic Germany sends 1,100 missionaries to the * From these figures Kannengieser excepts the Catholic population of Alsace-Lorraine (1,230,792;, since it furnishes missionaries and religious women to both nations. Digitized by Google

Page 56

1900.] from France and Germany. 41 whitening harvests, and 364 religious women. The missions cared for by the German Jesuits are those of Bombay in India, of Brazil (Rio Grande), and of the Zambesi in Southern Africa. They number 489 — fathers, scholastics, and brothers.* The Society " du Verbe Divin " at Steyl, in Holland, founded in 1875 by an exiled German priest, Arnold Janssen, has 117 missionaries in Argentina, Africa, Brazil, and Oceania. Within a decade the Pferes du Saint Esprit, the P&res Blancs of Cardinal Lavigerie, the Oblats de Marie, the Missionaires du Sacr£ Cceur, whose seats are at Paris, have opened separate novitiates in Germany. These original French enterprises extend thereby their activity throughout the German colonial posses- sions. The figures of the parent stock from which this multitude of brave and holy men and women is drawn are not uninter- esting. There are 36,847 religious of both sexes in the Ger- man Empire (inclusive of Alsace-Lorraine, which contributes about 4,000). Of these 32,731 are religious women, and 4,116 are men.f It is calculated that the members of the religious orders and congregations in France number, inclusive of postu- lants and novices, about 200,0004 One would think that domestic persecution, instead of thin- ning the ranks of the orders and congregations, was multiply- ing them. In 1879 *he "Foreign Missions" had only 480 mem- bers, they are now about 1,200; the " Filles de la Sagesse " were 3,600, they are now 4,650 ; the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny were 2,067, they are now 4,650 ; the Petits Frfcres de Marie were 3,600, they are now 4,850. In spite of the tyran- nous and iniquitous fiscal spoliation that really holds the knife at the throat of all these communities, they have thriven, for the spirit of sacrifice and charity is apparently immortal on the * In this number Kannengieser includes the 78 fathers, 68 scholastics, and 77 brothers of such institutions as Canisius College, Buffalo ; St. Ignatius' College, Cleveland ; Sacred Heart College, Prairie du Chien, etc. These are not missionaries in the sense of the Oriental or African missionaries. To some extent the same is true of the Jesuit missionaries in Brazil, where they look after the religious interests of the German colonists, grown quite numerous. t These figures are taken from Kannengieser's summary of the second "fascicule" of Die Katholische Kirche, published by the Leo-Gesellschaft at Vienna. Cf., also, Kloster- Schematismus fuer das deutsche Reich u. Oesterreich- Ungarn (Paderborn, 1899, 3d ed.), with the criticisms of Kannengieser (pp. 13-23). X The chief authority for the status of the religious orders of France is £mile Keller, Les Congregations religieuses en France, leurs ceuvres et leurs services (Paris, Poussielgue, 1880). The figures of this voluminous book (pp. HV.-758) have been corrected to date by the personal researches of M. Kannengieser. According to the annual almanac of the French clergy (Le Clergi Francaist Annuaire Ecclisiastique, rSgq) there are in France 681 religious congrega- tions, 131 of men and 550 of women. Digitized by Google

Page 57

42 The Ca tholic Missionaries [Oct., soil of France.* Neither Voltaire, nor Renan, nor Constans, nor Paul Bert have been able to extinguish the stout old Gallic spirit of faith. The figures of this article justify yet the old Crusader cry: "Gesta Dei per Francos." When we consider the budget of this wonderful French work of the foreign missions we are still fnore astonished. In 1898 the Lyons Society of the Propagation of the Faith collected 6,700921 francs. Of this sum 37,000,000 of French Catholics gave 4,077,085 francs, while the 49,000,000 Catholics of Italy and Spain gave only 430 692 francs. Since 1822 the Lyons Society has collected, mostly in France, and spent entirely abroad and without distinction ot the nationality of it§ prot6g£s, over forty million dollars, while the kindred " Work of the Holy Infancy " has collected and spent some twenty million dollars, more than one-half of which came from France. In the fifty years of its existence the Bonifatius Verein of Catholic Germany has col- lected for internal missions the handsome sum of $6,200,000, In the same period Catholic France has spent on the basilica of the Sacred Heart at Montmartre $6;8oo,oco ; on Our Lady of Fourviferes (Lyons) $2,400,000; on the basilica of Lourdes $3,000,000. Her five Catholic pro-universities have cost her $8,000,000, while yearly nearly one million dollars are spent on the Catholic " free schools " of Paris, in protest against an iniquitous school legislation. Since the " lois sc£l£rates 99 the Catholics of Northern France have spent $8,000,000 on their primary schools. Clearly, if figures speak the truth, France remains yet the " heart of oak " of Catholicism — a land of Catholic conviction, good will, and generosity. Kannengieser may rightly conclude that " in spite of malevolence and calumny France remains one of the essential elements of Catholicism — not because of her numbers (for Austria- Hungary has almost as large a Catholic population, and Germany and Austria combined have a larger one), but because France is first in all that pertains to the ex- pansion of Catholicism, because aJl the great Catholic works of this century are the fruit of her heart and her brain, because if she disappeared from the scene there would be made at ♦The following words of Taine are instructive : " Whoever is concerned for the public welfare and for justice must impose a halt in presence of such institutions (the monastic). All the more, as it is useless to persecute them. It is in vain that the rude hand of the law- maker is raised to crush ; they will flourish again, since they lie in the very blood of every Catholic nation. Instead of 37,000 religious women of France at the outbreak of the Revolution, there are now 86,000; 1. forty-five out of every ten thousand Frenchwomen, as against twenty-eight in the last century " (La Revolution Frangaiset v. i. pp. 218 sqq.) Digitized by Google

Page 58

I90O.] from France and Germany. 43 once a void in the Christian world the mere imagination of which makes one shudder." ♦ The missions of Catholicism have been always our pride, but we too often forget that they are almost entirely the creation of the Church of France. Her sons and daughters founded them, bedewed them with their sweat and blood, spent themselves on them. Her citizens have been the principal con- tributors to the work, notably in this century. The total of the genuine army of salvation that labors on the foreign missions of Catholicism is about 60,000 men and women, priests and brothers. Most of the 12,000 Catholic missionaries are French- men ; a still greater share of the 44,000 Catholic Sisters of the missions comes from the " sweet land of France." Her laymen have gone by thousands as working brothers, humble servants, masons, carpenters, in any capacity, so as to aid in the good work. Only the construction of the mighty cathedrals of the Middle Ages, only the Crusades, only the development of our American Catholicism, ever called forth such devotion. It is, perhaps, the most architectonic manifestation of the great notes of unity, catholicity, sanctity, and apostolicity by which the true church is known. Catholic University, Washington, D, C. Digitized by Google

Page 59

44 The American Mail. [Oct., THE AMERICAN MAIL. BY KATHARINE ROCHE. ES, Stephen's wife is very pretty ; she is nice too, and Val and I are very fond of her. But for us, you know, she might never have married Stephen. You never heard that story? Well, I will tell it to you ; but you must not repeat it, for Val and I would not like it talked about, you see. Stephen first met Effie three years ago — Effie Van Dessen she was then ; she is an American. She and her father were over, seeing the old country. Not that it is their old country, for of course they were Dutch originally ; oldest inhabitants of New York, and that sort of thing. It was in Dublin that they met. Val and I were at school at the time, so I don't know much of the course of events ; but I know that Stephen came home to Kildonnel very much in love, but without having asked Effie to marry him. Old Van Dessen was a millionaire, and perhaps that many times over, so Stephen was afraid to speak up, and was very bad with a broken heart in consequence, and a great nuisance to his family. Val and I decided that it would be better to get him married and done for, and then, perhaps, he would fall out of love again and be good for something. (Our hopes on this point have not been realized, but that 's no matter.) So we made up our minds to help him — we had met Effie two or three times when Stephen had had us out for a day, and we approved of her — but we did not exactly know how to set about it. However, we had to make up our minds pretty quick in the end, and this was how it happened. One Saturday morning, near the end of the summer holi- days, Stephen got a letter the mere sight of which turned him sky-blue and scarlet, and which he put into his pocket unread. We knew who it was from, of course, and we were very much interested, and very nice to Stephen ; and in the course of the day he told us all about it. The letter was to say that old Van had got a cablegram which obliged him to go right back to New York, and that they were going down by the Ameri- can Mail on Sunday morning so as to catch the Cunard steamer Digitized by Google

Page 60

1900.] The American Mail. 45 Algeria in Queenstown. There must have been something in the letter about wishing to see Stephen ; any way, his one idea was to go to Dublin that evening, so as to travel down with them on Sunday and see them on board. He was to go by a train that stopped at our station about nine in the evening, and when the time came he and I set off in the polo cart. But as luck would have it, something went wrong with one of the wheels; it came off, and there we were landed in the middle of the road, unable to go a step farther, and the train due in five minutes at a station nearly a mile off. Stephen jumped out and ran, taking his bag in his hand and calling out: "I'll send some one up from the station to help you." So there I sat, on the ruins of the cart, after I had takeji out the horse and tied him to a gate. At the end of the five minutes I heard the train go by, sharp on time, so I knew that Stephen had not caught it ; and presently he came back, look* ing so wretched that I had not the heart to laugh. He did not say a word, but began to help me with the cart, which we pushed into a field where we knew it would be safe till morn- ing, and then we led the horse home* When we got to the house Stephen went straight upstairs, and Val and I went into the drawing-room and told Alice what had happened. She was very sorry; she knew more about Effie even than we did, I think ; and she took out the railway time-table to see if there was any possible way in which Stephen could get to Dublin in time. But there was not ; the only train which arrived in time was the night mail, which, of course, was an express. "If we could only stop the night mail," said I. "You might as well stop the American Mail to-morrow morning while you are about it," said Val, " and save him the journey to Dublin." "If we only could. O Val! what fun it would be." " We could stop them right enough ; they would n't dare to pass a red flag. But it would be no use ; they 'd be so mad that they would n't let Stephen into the train at all." "That's true. There's no use in thinking any more about it. Stephen must only do without seeing Effie Van Dessen this time." "After all," said Val, "there are plenty of girls just as nice as Effie." " Shut up ! " said I. " You don't understand. When a Digitized by Google

Page 61

46 The American Mail. [Oct. man is in love, if he can't get the right girl his heart breaks, and he turns into an old bachelor, crusty and selfish. I would n't like that to happen to Stephen. Besides, if he does not marry, the Dalys of Kildonnel will die out ; for, of course, neither you nor I would ever be such fools as to have girls tied to us." " I would n't mind Stephen's having a girl tied to him," said Val — 14 at least, not if the girl was as nice as Effie. Suppos- ing Alice were to marry, it would be nice to have Effie living here. Come, Hugh, isn't it time to go to bed?" •'AH right," said I, but I hadn't any intention of going to bed yet awhile ; an idea had come into my head and I meant to try and carry it out. So I waited until Val had had time to be in bed and asleep, and then I went up to Stephen's room. He was n't in bed, of course, but standing at the open window, looking out at the line of telegraph posts that marked the railway, and thinking, I suppose, of what might have beeni "Stephen," I said, 41 would n't it be a sort of a comfort to your mind just to see the American Mail go by in the morn- ing? Effie might be looking out of the window, you know." " Of course," said Stephen gloomily ; 44 1 intend going." 44 All right," said I. 44 Val and I will come with you. We'd like to see the last of Effie too." 44 No, no," said Stephen crossly. 44 1 don't want a pair of jeering cubs at my heels." 44 Jeering cubs ! " The words cut me to the heart, but I answered calmly. 44 That won't do," I said. 44 We are quite as fond of Effie as you are, and we won't be deprived of the consolation of a last glimpse of her. How can you be such a dog-in-the.manger, Stephen ? " 44 Well, well ! You can come if you like. It does n't much matter. Be off now, any way." I was off, and went back to my own room, where I found Val fast asleep. I woke him up and took him into my con- fidence, and then I kicked off my boots and lay down in my clothes, first placing my alarm-clock, set for four o'clock, on a chair by my side. Two minutes after, apparently, it went off with a screech. I jumped up to see what the matter was, and there was the daylight shining in. I woke Val, and a hard job it was, and we stole out by the kitchen door and went down to the rail- way line. Digitized by Google

Page 62

VAL AND I RAN DOWN THE TRACK TO FLAG THE ON-COMING TRAIN." Digitized by Google

Page 63

48 The American Mail. [Oct., We did not take any special care to complete our wardrobe. It was early dawn and we intended after the train had gone by to go back to our beds. When we reached the track we had some time to spare. We thought it more convenient to walk down the track a little to a place where we knew the ex- press trains were accustomed to slow up. It was at this place we would seize our opportunity to have a look at Effie and possibly a word with her. We hastened down the track. We had not gone far before we noticed something was wrong. Some of the rails had been loosened by some agency or other, either by the train that had passed some hours ago or by some band of rob- bers with intent to wreck the " Mail " and seize the rich plunder in the agent's care. The full significance of the situation came to us in a flash. In fifteen minutes the " Mail " would be due. The engineer with his keen eyes would probably see the dange* ahead, for it was broad daylight, and he would slow up any- how before reaching this point. Anyhow the train might pass along safely. But then the other alternative flashed on us. Suppose he should not see the loosened rails ; suppose he should be behind time, and rush on without stopping. To us the thought was dreadful, and in an instant I knew what I would do. I seized a pole I found lying close by the track, and taking the red neckerchief that I had tied about my throat, I fastened it to the pole, and together Val and I ran down the track to flag the on-coming train. We had not gone far be- fore we saw a puff of steam in the distance. The train was on time. We ran on, holding up the red flag as high as possible and waving it vigorously. The train came rushing on appar- ently without any slowing down. The train seemed very close to me, but I stood my ground. They saw me presently and whistled, first an ordinary whistle and then an unearthly yell. Then the steam was shut off. The train was so close to me by this time that I thought it would never be able to stop soon enough and I tried to move to one side, but I seemed to be paralyzed. However they have powerful brakes, and after what seemed to me an interminable time, the train was pulled up, a few feet from me, and the guard was shaking me and asking how I dared to stop his train. I recovered myself then and told him about the loosened rails, as I called them, and his anger was diverted from me to the danger that had possibly been averted. He and a couple of passengers went down the line to investigate. For our main purpose, which was to see Effie, nothing could have been Digitized by Google

Page 64

1900.] The American Mail. 49 more favorable. The train was sure to be held here for some minutes until the rail could be replaced, so I set out to make the best use of my time. The train was a short one, with only two passenger carriages in addition to the mail vans, for they only carry first class passengers by that train. It seemed very crowded ; some of the men climbed down to the line, and the ladies, most of them looking very sleepy, put their heads out of the windows. Sure enough there was Effie among them, and there was Stephen jumping over the fence to get at her. As the guard's back was turned, we allowed him to scramble up the side of the carriage and get into the Van Dessens' compartment. I believe he thought that Providence had stopped the train on purpose to let him go to Queenstown with Effie Van Dessen. I wondered if he had money enough to pay his fare. I had brought all mine and Val's with me, and I had put Stephen's purse into his pocket while he was dressing, but I did n't know how much was in it. If he had even enough to pay his fare he could borrow some in Cork, but it would be awkward if he had not enough for that. In fact it might be awkward even if he had. Just as I was thinking about this who should I see but a barrister chap, called Jem Hayes, a friend of Stephen's, who had been staying with us at Easter. I went up to him and caught him by the sleeve. "Halloo, Hugh!" he said. "Are you the hero who has saved all our lives ? " M Yes," said I. " What brings you here ? Are you going to America?" " No such luck," said he. " I 'm going to the Cork assizes." " Do the Cork assizes begin at nine o'clock of a Sunday morning ? " "They don't begin till to-morrow at eleven," he said, as if I had really been asking for information ; " but an old friend of mine has a house in Queenstown for the summer, and I am going to spend the day with him." " Oh, Mr. Hayes ! if you are not really obliged to go to Queenstown to day, will you give your ticket to Stephen ? He wants to go with Effie Van Dessen, and the trap broke down last night, so that he missed the train ; but now that the Mail has stopped he could go if he had a ticket." *• It was providential that the train stopped," said Mr. Hayes, looking hard at me. "And suppose I do give my ticket to Stephen, what is to become of me?" VOL. LXXIIo- 4 Digitized by Google

Page 65

5o The American Mail. [Oct., " You can spend the day with us and go on by the even- ing train." " But I promised O'Brien." " You can go to him another day. Come with us now ; the governor will be delighted to see you." "And so will Alice/' said Val, who came up at that moment. Val is sharper than he looks. It never once occurred to me that there was anything up between Hayes and Alice until I saw how he veered about the moment he found that she was at home. "Well," said he, "if your people won't think it an in- trusion— " "No, no; they'll be delighted. Here, give me the ticket." And I almost snatched it from him as he took it out of his purse. " Good luck to you ; you are making a deserving pair happy." And I scrambled up into the carriage where Stephen was sitting next to Effie, beaming in the most absurd manner. "Here," said I, handing him the ticket; "and here, in case you should be short. And be grateful to Providence for stop- ping the train for you." It was magnanimous of me to give all the credit to Provi- dence, but I wanted Stephen to be innocent of the knowledge for the present. He took the ticket out of my hand as if it was quite natural that I should have been able to get it on a desolate stretch of railway line, two miles from any station. "Thanks,"' said he. "Tell Alice that I'll be back to- morrow. Don't you know Miss Van Dessen, Hugh?" "Of course he does," said Effie, holding out her hand. I don't think she gave all the credit to Providence. But if she did not look quite so idiotic as Stephen, she looked pleased enough to make me glad I had helped them. " Here 's the guard coming back. Good-by, Miss Van Dessen. A pleasant voyage. Good.by, sir," to old Van, won- dering at the same time what relation he was going to be to Val and me, and I jumped down. The guard was very polite by this time, saying that I had saved the train ; which was nonsense, for of course the engineer would have seen the broken rails in time to stop ; but I an- swered most graciously that I was glad I had happened to be there, but that any one else would have done the same in the circumstances. And then the guard hunted the passengers into their places, I waved my cap to Miss Van Dessen, and the train went on. Alice at home had missed her three worthy brothers very soon Digitized by Google

Page 66

*9°o.] The American Mail. 5i Val had with great presence of mind taken Jem Hayes away as soon as I had secured his ticket, and when I got home I found them having coffee in the dining room. I had some, too— goodness knows I wanted it; and then we took him out and amused him till breakfast time. The governor and Alice were very much surprised to see the barrister when they came down to breakfast ; but the governor is always hospitable, and we soon found what a blessing it was to have some one who could tell the story from the right point of view. That 's the good of those barristers ; they can keep on looking at a thing from any point of view they please. If Mr. Hayes had any suspicions, as I was afraid at first he had, he did not let them out, but spoke of the presence of mind and readiness of resource — that was true, anyway — that I had shown, until the governor "hoped that I would turn Digitized by Google

Page 67

52 The American Mail. [Oct., out good for something after all " ; and Alice looked at me as if I had saved the country. Mr. Hayes had a very pleasant day; and so, I think, had Alice ; and in the evening we put him into a quiet train of a placid disposition, which never fussed or over-exerted itself, but which was sure to bring him into Cork in good time for the assizes next morning. The next day there were paragraphs in all the papers about the courage and presence of mind shown by the sons of Mr. Daly, of Kildonnel, and much bad language about the miscreants who had tried to wreck the train. Val and I were savage about it, but the governor was delighted, and Alice cut them out and stuck them into a book, which was acci- dentally burned some time after. Stephen came home on the Tuesday, in such good spirits that we hardly knew him. He told us in confidence that it was all right between him and Effie, and that he was going out to New York in the spring to be married. Her father had been very good about it, he said. His big signet ring was gone, but he had a little one, stuck with pearls, hanging to his watch-chain. It had not yet dawned on him that we had had anything to do with stopping the train, but he was grateful to us for getting him his ticket and backing him up generally. In a few days there came a letter to me from the secre- tary of the railway company expressing the "thanks of the directors for my prompt and courageous action in the case of the American Mail," and enclosing a perpetual free ticket over all the company's roads. For one moment after I read that letter I was in heaven. I really was so proud of my perform- ance that I forgot that the railway directors had no very great reason to be grateful to me. " Look, look, Val ! " I shouted, thrusting the letter into his hand. " Oh, I wish you had one too ! M " But you can't keep it," said Val quietly. " Don't you see ? They think you saved their train, whereas in all probability it would have stopped anyhow. You can't possibly keep that ticket, Hugh." Of course Val's theory was probably correct, but it was hard to be obliged to refuse such a thing. However, the following Wednesday, Board-day, I went up to Kingsbridge. I had made Alice give me cake and sand- wiches, so as to make her think I was going for a long bicycle ride, and I used my free ticket for the first and last time. Digitized by Google

Page 68

igoo.] The American Mail. 53 When I gave my name to the officials, one of them took me to the board-room without making any difficulty. I felt more frightened when I found myself sitting at the long table opposite to the chairman than I did when I faced the American Mail, but they were very polite at first. "I am very much obliged to you for the free ticket, sir," I said to the chairman, "but I can't take it." " Cannot take it," said he. " Why not ? You deserve it if ever any one did." " I don't deserve it, sir. The engineer would surely have seen the danger anyway. Moreover nothing could have been more providential for us than the stopping of the train just then and there ; and even if there were no danger, we had a scheme to stop the Mail anyhow as it slowed up. My brother was extremely anxious to go to Queenstown with some friends, who were leaving by the Algeria. He intended to go to Dublin the evening before so as to catch the Mail at Kingsbridge, but the trap broke down and he lost the train at Arduff." " How did you happen to be on the spot at the time, then ?" 41 We came down to the track in the hope of seeing our friends at the window as the train passed." "Who were your friends?" 44 Mr. Van Dessen, of New York." I could see that the name made an impression. The direc- tors were most of them business men, and they could appre- ciate old Van's dollars. 44 Mr. Van Dessen is a great man in his own line," said the chairman, 44 but I should not have thought him likely to inspire such romantic devotion." Two or three of the others laughed. I think they guessed. The chairman went on : 44 Well, Mr. Hugh Daly, much as I respect Mr. Van Dessen, I cannot admit that a desire for the pleasure of his company is a sufficient reason for stopping the American Mail. That is an offence which cannot be allowed to go unpunished. Mr. Hare, will you take this boy into your office while we decide on our action in the matter." The secretary took me by the arm and led me out of the board-room and across the passage into a small office. Putting me into a big arm-chair by the window, he sat down at his desk, put his chin on his hands and looked at me. It made me feel queer to be stared at like that, but I did not want the fellow to see that I minded it, so I sat as quiet as I could and wondered if Jem Hayes would defend me at my trial. Digitized by Google

Page 69

54 The American Mail. [Oct., *• One of those barrister chaps.'' After some time an electric bell sounded ; the secretary caught hold of me — by the collar this time— and we went back into the board-room. There the chairman talked to me for an hour or so about the iniquity of stopping trains at all, and particularly those on the Great Southern and Western line, and how they could get me put in jail, and make the governor pay damages for the inconvenience I had caused. That frightened me more than the jail, I can tell you. However, in the end I found that they were not going to do either this time; because of their great respect for the governor, and also because they would never have known anything about my intention if I had not told them myself. " What made you tell ? " one of them asked. "Because of the free ticket you sent me. I couldn't keep that ; and then I was not going to tell lies when you ques- tioned me." Then they said I should promise never,%in any circum- Digitized by Google

Page 70

1900.] Tub American Mail. 55 stances short of life and death, to stop a train in Ireland again. I promised ; it was not likely that I would ever want to do it again; and I had to listen to another lecture on the kindness of the board, and then I was told I might go. •'Will you give me a pass home, sir?" I said to the chair- man. "I haven't money enough to pay my fare." "How did you come up?" "On the ticket you sent me"; and I could hardly keep the choke out of my voice as I said it. The chairman nodded to the secretary, who left the room and came back in a minute or two with the printed form, filled up with writing in his hand. " Good-by ; remember me to your father," said the chair- man; as if I were likely td talk the matter over with the governor! And then I got out of the room somehow, and went down to the platform, where I met an engine-driver that I knew, and I talked to him till my train started. Stephen went to New York in the spring to be married ; he took me with him to be best man, and I had a high old time of it. He knew all by that time. He wanted to take Val, too, but the governor said one of us was enough. But we had a wedding of our own at Kildonnel first : Alice and Jem Hayes. I tried to make them admit that I had had a hand in their marriage too; but some people have no gratitude. Stephen and Effie 'show much nicer feeling on that point, and recog- nize their benefactor. My nephew is called after me. Oh! of course, the governor's name is Hugh also, but it 'is after me the little chap is called. I think he is going to be a credit to the name. Digitized by Google

Page 71

Charles William Eliot, LL.D., President of Harvard University. PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS AT TREMONT TEMPLE. BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P. R attention has been directed to an address pronounced some time ago by the President of Harvard University to the American Unitarian Association. We regret that it was delivered ; we think it unfortunate that a man in the speaker's position and with his responsibilities should have given expression to the views put forward by him ; we think it lamentable that the representatives of a very considerable religious influence should be an approving audience of the views stated in that address. There was an incident in connection with his appearance there which pleased and interested us. It was a practical Digitized by Google

Page 72

1900.] President Eliot's Address. 57 refutation of the philosophy to which Dr. Eliot was to give voice, in presence of the association, when his son, as head of that important body, introduced him to the meeting. We heartily congratulate the distinguished father and the distin- guished son on an event so graceful; we have to go to Catho- lic sources almost exclusively for a parallel to the sympathy and union exhibited in the incident. In the monuments of art and letters the Catholic son piously acknowledged what, under God and next to Our Lady, he owed to parental care in the shaping of his career. When at Tremont Temple the father stood, for the moment, under the patronage of his son, there must have been one of those impulses of feeling which compensate for much that frets even the most favored lives. The " love and freedom 99 which the President of Harvard takes as the distinguishing characteristics of the coming time — takes as the leading tokens of the religion of science, or, as others call it, the religion of humanity, do not account for the incident and the exquisite pleasure it afforded to the actors and the spectators. If the religion of science were in posses- sion, if it went down into the depths of society, soothed the sorrowful, lifted despair from the defeated life, and shed charity on the heart poisoned by envy or embittered by the thought of sordid poverty, then it might claim it had borne a message of love and freedom. But as long as it only utters its encouragements or consolations to audiences resting in the ease of wealth, accustomed to the refining and luxurious charm of marbles, paintings, flowers, breathing the delicate atmos- phere of choice essences, enjoying the graceful indolence of polite literature and the recreative labor of scientific specula- tion, the religion of science, if it do not unchaih furious pas- sions to overthrow society at the moment, will surely pave the way for its destruction in the future. This prospect is what Dr. Eliot gives in certain principles he has enunciated. It is strange, when he saw his son, and felt at the sight the pleasure which only a parent can feel — when he saw his son, we say, in a position so creditable and in a relation to himself so unusual and delightful, it is strange it did not occur to him that his theory of unrelated succes- sions in the history of mankind could not account for the position and explain the feeling of pride and triumph he must have experienced in that moment. To us it was a moral and intellectual consequence of the activities of six thousand years transmitted through their ancestors from Adam to the two gentlemen in Tremont Temple. The family is a unit, as it Digitized by Google

Page 73

58 President Eliot's Address. [Oct, was when the home constituted the university, when the father was king under an authority above expediency, and priest when religion was not a seventh-day posturing, and morality was not the eclecticism of interests or whims. The President of Harvard and the President of the American Unitarian As- sociation were drawn towards each other by moral relations cultivated in the earliest home, born in home after home in the march of their fathers from the cradle of the race, on over the face of Europe, on over the broad Atlantic, and under the vicis- situdes of American life. These affinities of soul, recognized with varying degrees of intelligence from pole to pole, and com. manded by the revelation of God to be guarded with the phy- sical ties by which they are united, the President of Harvard re- fines down into an essence which he labels 44 the sense of kin." This term, which is intended to stand for religion, morality, all that comes within the super-animal life of man, is an equivalent for what the psycho moralists of social solidarity style 44 the instinct of kind." Social solidarity, the scientific suggestion of new politico-social ventures, vague indefcd whtn employed by Dr. Eliot, refers everything to the sense of kin, the basis and the cement of society, as society itself is the copartnership of Dives and Lazarus. It is true he recognizes the rags, the sores, the hunger of the one partner, but the system becomes a solidarity whenever — and that is now — Lazarus demands a share of the good things from Dives, in- stead of waiting for a reward in Abraham's bosom. The sense of kin ! the instinct of kind ! — this hypothesis of the religion of science in lieu of the charity of Christ! in lieu of the moral principles on which the nations of the world stand, and the life of intercourse, of mutual help depends ! That is to say, on which the only life possible to man depends, because he is a creature to whom society is essential. Now, for this being, drawn by moral forces into union with his brethren, Dr. Eliot, with the ethico psycho-physiologists, would forge the chain of 44 instinct of kind," 44 sense of kin"; in other words, the "instinct," the 44 sense " which draws the wolf to each fellow of the pack. We misrepresent the school, it may be said. But the difference, if any, between, the tie which links sheep to the flock and wolves to the pack has not been pointed out. The thinkers of biological sociology rely on the economy of the bees, the ants, the beavers, to prove the social sense in these and in a man a matter of degree. Why not the social sense of wolves ? We are only pushing this principle of 44 sense of kin " home ; we are not misrepresenting any class of scientific speculators. Digitized by Google

Page 74

igoo.] President Elioi's Address. 59 Notwithstanding his "social solidarity/' the wolf has remained unpopular; there is no sympathy with him. Yet he has "a sense of kin," and a very decided one too, for he objects to- the confusion of close animal affinities as much as though he had a sense of moral affinities. Even the title, " Progressive Modern Liberalism/' presents a difficulty. If it were selected by the honest fellow who reports Dr. Eliot, we would not object, because a wide and comprehensive heading can hardly be said to be altogether wrong. Something spoken will have come under it, and so the reporter deserves his honorarium ; but the President of Har- vard is at the head of one of the greatest universities in the world ; we look for exactness from him. Progressive liberalism alone might mean anything in thought, reform of institutions,, the art of poetry, or criticism from the days of Babylonian state papers on brick until our own day ; it might mean any* thing, in fact. The word " modern " only limits the meaning in sound ; for although Dr. Eliot's school denies the authority of the past and refuses to take anything on " transmission," "hearsay/* "tradition," it is all the time busy with the past. But as we look over the address we find political institutions have no accredited place ; so French Liberals and English Whigs are out of court. Broadly, what he conveys by it is- the rejection of authority in religion, in morals, and in "jus* tice " ; or possibly he meant jurisprudence — for we find him confounding infallibility with inspiration, and possibly be may confound the science of law with that part of justice which is- expressed in enactments and precedents. Of this last there can hardly be much question. We regret to write about him in a way which seems discourteous ; but let it be remembered that a great deal of the controversy, nay,, the jarring of the world, is due to the inexact use of terms, just as many honest but animated differences dividing men are owing to the point of view. In illustration of his position, that authority had gone by the board, he passed from the considera- tion of divine justice to that of human justice, and mentioned that many jurists confessed their inability to say what even human justice meant. It is hardly fair of Dr. Eliot to advance a statement which, while verbally true, is absolutely misleading ; we use no stronger term. Human justice, as within the scope of the jurist, is practi- cally covered by tort and contract. In your active relations with a man you may be said to be limited to an agreement of some kind with him, or the doing of some wrong to hinu Digitized by Google

Page 75

60 President Eliot's Address. [Oct., From this it is very clear that in a civilized state you have expressed a wide range of justice. Now, it happens that any contract for which a consideration has passed may be enforced ; and any wrong to an individual which is at the same time in- jurious to society may be punished. We are guardedly narrow in our statements in order to escape objections which our space would not permit us to dispose of, but in what we have said we have practically secured Dr. Eliot in person and property against his neighbors, and his neighbors against him ; and though posi- tive law may not be coincident with the Golden Rule, it ex- tends very close to the frontier of that magnificent aphorism. We should be glad to know whether the Golden Rule con- veys to the speaker anything but a gilded sentence. That posi* tive law does not quite cover the ground is owing to difficul- ties which jurists and moralists recognize ; but the inability to frame enactments to meet every kind of injustice is simply in superable, but that does not release men from the obligations of morality. Lazarus, who seems to be a favorite of Dr. Eliot's — we are afraid an ad captandutn favorite — is, in our opinion, entitled to relief from Dives; the only thing wanted is to com- pel the latter to relieve him. It is possible that the paternal legislation which the speaker fairly enough vindicates against doctrinaire criticism, but on utterly mistaken grounds, would meet many difficulties in the life of Lazarus — not the beggar but the worker — which the policy of the law has not yet recog- nized as coming within the scope of practical enactment. This, however, po far from proving the point that we cannot know what human justice means, rather tends to prove the contrary. Whatever the jurists in question meant, the truth is, no legislation, no foresight, in the very imperfect condition of mankind in this world of probation, can anticipate all possible cases of injustice. Cruelties are practised for which no law could be devised, and which form a large part of the misery of life. The proud man's contumely, the insolence of office, and so on, whatever of suffering patient merit takes, whatever bends the weak beneath the strong, the scoff which chills the gaiety of childhood, are evils which no law of parliaments can reach. To relegate these things to the future of humanity, when the millennium of sociology dawns, is to abandon the central point of his address ; but this is what Dr. Eliot has really done in his hypothesis of the curative effect of improved surroundings. We do not deny the importance of these as an aid to moral influ- ences, but we object to them as the substitute for morality. Are there no tyrannies, no injustices in wealthy homes, no incompati- Digitized by Google

Page 76

1900.] President Eliot's Address. 6i bilities of temper, striking at the life of the state itself in their ten- dency to break up the exemplary element of society — the family ? The address not only points to the disintegration of Prot- estantism as a controlling influence, but to the failure of Chris- tianity as an elevating power. Yet surely Christianity intro- duced ideas and motives to which the world owes all its pro- gress since the establishment of the Roman Empire. The grandeur of the Augustan reign was the beginning of deca- dence, or disruption, or of cycles of Cathay. Even Gibbon ad- mits this. The worst he can say against Christianity is that it was one of the causes hastening the decline, not even a cause of the decline. Even though it were a cause of the decline of that state, this would be no ground for condemnation if it im- parted a new principle of life to a dying world. Now, this is exactly what it has done. Rome fell, not through Christianity but inherent principles of dissolution, while Christianity saved mankind by the new vigor and the order it infused into the conflicting elements. In this address not only is the divinity of the Lord ex- punged from the record, but His honesty as a man, His integ- rity as a teacher, is seriously impeached. It is to be supposed that the hearers of an address on progressive modern liberal- ism were not prepared for this latter part of the result. It is probable Dr. Eliot would not admit this consequence in so many words. But what will be the effect when a prelection treats of intellectual and moral progress on lines independent of authority ? The Divine Life is simply looked at as if it were contained in ancient documents which saw the light for the first time to day, and not as the foundation of a world-wide system which has existed for centuries, and of which it has been the constant centre and inspiration. The truth of the New Testament miracles cannot be got rid of by saying the advancement of knowledge shows that many things accounted miracles can be explained by natural causes ; still less by the fact that we cannot assign causes for the sim- plest phenomena we observe. The modesty which Dr. Eliot claims as the striking feature of modern inquiry should go a step beyond the color of a flower, or the varying shades of leaves of the same flower, to the supernatural facts he so lightly dismisses as incredible because he cannot account for them by the knowledge he possesses. It is idle to talk of the pathos of the Lord's suffering, the elevation of His morality, and the influence which the beauty of His character must for ever ex- ercise, when the speaker simply rates Him as an impostor. Even Digitized by Google

Page 77

62 President Eliot's Address. fcOct., if we are confined to the New Testament record, we must take the whole record, the Lord's own testimony to His divinity, that of others, the facts of His Birth, Resurrection, and Ascen- sion. Either the whole is an unexampled fabrication, or the whole is true. Dr. Eliot would not speak of the Lord as an impostor we are very sure, but He was that or He is God. The question was largely debated through the civilized world be- fore, at, and even after the Council of Nicaea ; debated, if not in the form it now assumes, certainly on considerations tend- ing to this form. That circumstance has at least this value: it shows that within a space of time comparatively near His own day our Lord was a real character of more than human im- portance in the eyes of all civilized men, friend and foe alike. He was by no means the abstraction into which He is refined in the alembic of Dr. Eliot's critical imagination. He is no longer above all men, immeasurably abote all men, as He was then, in fortitude and courage ; He seems to the speaker as though He were a quasi-poetical conception of sorrow, gentleness, weakness, inconsistency; and the estimate of nineteen cepturies is folly. We are obliged to pass from this aspect of the prelection — an examination of it would be in the highest degree valuable for such Protestants as are still loyal to the revelation of God, and to all Catholics tempted by the curiosity of "the liberal spirit " to see the foundations of supernatural religion laid bare, if not altogether removed — but we would require more space than can be afforded. In a word, we may say that if . the Lord were merely a man, He was simply mad in standing up against the established religion of His country, with the vast wealth and traditional strength that made it humanly impreg- nable. The measure of its prestige and power can hardly be conceived ; we can but faintly suggest it by the massive force of the English Church before 41 Brummagem " statesmanship and the polities of companypromoting turned England to the idolatry of Carthage. The weight of the English Establish- ment pressed on the heart and mind of the outsider — that is, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Dissenter generally — as some- thing overwhelming. He might rave against the parson, as his political ally inveighed against the squire as the personification of the landed interest, but he felt that he gnashed his teeth in vain. Yet in comparison to the iron rule of the Jewish Church the strength of the English Establishment was as a reed. To overthrow an institution of unbounded wealth and an influence to which all kinds of motive and all kinds of interest contributed, the selection of a few ignorant peasants, timid as Digitized by Google

Page 78

i9<»-] President Eliot's Address. 63 their class has been at all times in the presence of knowledge and power, would be simply unaccountable on any ordinary hypothesis save that the Lord was an imbecile. Read into this the doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries, His holding aloof from the governing classes, His refusal to avail Himself of the enthusiasm of the masses, which at one time waited on His will, and walking to His death like a sheep to the slaughter. It was a character changeable as the wind, and compact of •qualities never united in the same individual in any such •degree. A mere man possessing in the highest degree qualities absolutely antagonistic, while he declares a mission searching and revolutionary beyond anything ever dreamt of by Roman agitators or conceived by Greek philosophers and tyrannicides, and to the promotion of which He brought these reciprocally destruc- tive qualities, strikes one as the creation of an unregulated fancy. We have " the Man who Laughs," we have the monster of Mrs. Shelley — each a remarkable creation — but the Christ of Dr. Eliot, despite the appeal to the pathetic story, we commit to the category of those narratives which the parish priest of Don Quixote gave to the flames. But when we know it was God that came to send fire upon the earth, to bring the sword and to set families at war in their own bosom, and that all this proceeded from a heart the ful- ness of whose love for man cannot be measured, we under- stand the Galilean peasants, the fearless resistance to the rulers, the protecting hand over the outcast or the weak, the victory of the ignominious death. This was how the world — at Nicaea as of the preceding centuries— still vibrating with the events, viewed the Lord's character. From its presence the pru- dence of Socrates, the high philosophy of Plato, the infinitely practical genius of Aristotle, the speculations of the schools, had gone like the talk of childhood. As the tale was re- peated with more precision to persons who already possessed some outline of the facts — to senators sick of a life which was as death, to philosophers tired of the emptiness of words, to matrons living in a loveless void, maidens hanging on the edge of the gulf as their relaxing hands clung passionately to higher and purer memories — the Man of Sorrows stood before them all, laid hold of heart and fancy, body and soul, as He does to- day under the law and order of Britain, or amid the fury of Chinese massacres. And now we ask, can it be disputed that all modern society, in its highest aspirations and its characteristic graces, its manners, its unselfish principles, its accomplishments, the small Digitized by Google

Page 79

64 President Elioi's Address. [Oct., charities and the great by which civilized men are marked off from the savage or the slave — can it be disputed that this modern civilization rests on the Christian dispensation? The love which Dr. Eliot tells us is to be the bond of the future, the chord responding to progressive liberty, the cement of society, the hope and the triumph of Lazarus— this is what he would convey when he speaks of the beggar lying unrelieved at the rich man's gate ; this lovfc is in reality the keystone of the Christian arch. It will not be deepened and widened by calling it "instinct of kind," 44 sense of kin." Indeed, we are reminded of the sharp contrast suggested in the employment of these words 44 kin " and " kind " by Hamlet, reminded of what the experience of the world tells us, that the 44 kin" or the 44 kind " has been violating natural and revealed laws since man had a brother, the father an heir waiting in expectancy, the wife or husband desires outside the home which ought to be consecrated by their children's presence. No, it was the deprecated motive of salvation which gave to the words kin or kind the most human, because most humane, meaning — that is, the Christian acceptation. The reward of eternal union with God in heaven, which Dr. Eliot condemns as the inspiration of a selfish spirit of good will to others, has been always the sufficing, can alone be the sufficing power to prompt men not merely to sacrifice themselves for others, but to be bare)y Just to them. We have read a good deal of this kind of thing, partly with amusement, partly with contempt; but we speak distinctly, we must speak distinctly, when we find a man with the responsibilities of the President of Harvard preferring a mere name — for this is what altruism is — to the imperial law of charity, which by the commands of Christ clings to each one's life, as the religion itself clings to it. If we can- not escape from what we owe to God, if our indebtedness begins with the moment when our eyes open to the cares coming with the day, sits with us at the desk, in the mill, in the senate, at the bar ; so does this law of charity preside over each moment of our lives. This was the force which trans- formed the world — every one knows it ; the ergastulum of the Roman slave-owner brightened in its presence as the prison to- day is made lightsome when the priest or the Sister of Charity brings something more than the hysterical or emotional rotun- dities of parsonical or blue-stocking declamation. Why should we be asked to yield up this love of our neighbor for the sake of the Lord Christ because Auguste Comte took the idea that sociology could replace Christianity, and Socinus's followers Digitized by Google

Page 80

190°.] President Eliot's Address. 65 went farther than the wildest Arians infuriated by disappointed ambition and defeated hate ? What security can these give us for the exchange? They promise us the elevation of the race through our self-sacrifice, our self-effacement now. But we do not see our own advantage in that; we say, with the unprinci- pled Irishman, Posterity has not done anything for us ; and then what security have we for the elevation of the race? Comte's prediction? Dr. Eliot's promise? As FalstafTs tailor says, " We like not the security." Iiv very truth Dr. Eliot makes his security of no value by declaring that progress hitherto had been made by " a succession of sudden, spasmodic, and unconnected shocks." If we concede this, he rightly infers we have no part in the past from this posi- tion ; but then, we ask, what part have we in the future ? What security have we that the next generation will not be divided from us by a cataclysm so wide that there could be no possible inheritance of our good qualities and the merits of our deeds of sacrifice and altruistic self extinction. The President's view, that there will be no more shocks because the entire past has been a succession of shocks, does not sound quite convincing ; we should be inclined to draw quite the opposite conclusion. We are afraid we must still hold that there is a continuity in the life of the race, proving its origin from God, its preservation by Him, and its destiny a union with Him for ever. We think this a very reasonable view ; we are satisfied to do good to others be- cause it pleases our best Friend, the Friend of whose goodness to us we are unable to say a word. We simply ask, What right has Dr. Eliot to require Lazarus, in one breath, to observe the obligations he owes to law and order, if he have nothing to give him except the gratification of what people call the great correcting principle of altruism ? It will not do. He is more healthy, in a way, when he says that Lazarus will insist on his share of the good things, and not allow himself to be put off by promises of rectification in a future life. If Dr. Eliot believed there was such a life — that is to say, in a real sense — he would take it as a compensation for all. Because he will not allow the sufficiency of the readjustment for any disappoint- ment or tribulation here, we are compelled to think he does not believe in another world except in some way more shadowy, dim, and unsatisfying than the beliefs in those regions of the ancient world to which no special revelation had gone. We sincerely regret to have to say this ; we are very sure Dr. Eliot is a most amiable and excellent man, as well as a VOL. LXXII.— 5 Digitized by Google

Page 81

66 President Eliot's Address. [Oct., man of high attainment. But we find nothing to anchor our opinion in throughout the whole address. Certainly it speaks the language of modern science, as a particular view of rela- tions in physical and social phenomena and a particular method of criticism on historical and religious monuments are called; but this language, like the terminology of clubs and drawing- rooms, merely means that one belongs to a set, is free of the guild. We fear it partakes too much of the character of mutual admiration societies to afford guidance in solving the profound and appalling problems which have been standing before mankind since it started on its career. We fear more: that if this pronouncement of Dr. Eliot represents the general opinion of the leisured and the cultivated classes, there is a near breaking up of the law and order which insure him the advantages he enjoys, while Lazarus is lying at the gate or fretting out his heart in sordid and harsh surroundings. The cry has taken form before our time. We read of it in old Rome : To the Ccelian Hill ! We read of it in French cities : Up with the barricades! We read it in the passionate verse of Heine: Now for a spell of hatred! Turning the world of men into an African forest — and this is what the cry portends, what the implications of Dr. Eliot lead to — is not the way to secure the progress of the race. We are as anxious for that as he is. We see that an improvement of immense degree accompanied the early spread of Christianity, an improvement so vast as to resemble a new creation. The principles and motives so powerful then have been equally efficacious since; they are holding the states together now by their influence on individual conduct. There is much which shocks the under- standing and the heart — wars, fraudulent monopolies, the op- pressive powers of capital — but these evils have not their origin in the teaching of the Lord ; they are in direct antagonism to His commands and the example of His life. But when they exercise their baleful influence despite the restraints of Chris- tian morality, we are very sure that the removal of all such restraints, so far from leading to the perfection dreamt of by the apostles of the Religion of Humanity, would land the world in an anarchy of horror in comparison with which the excesses of revolutions at their worst would be a crowning mercy. The civilization which Christianity wrought has, in addition to other things, infused perceptions which Dr. Eliot sees very clearly, and which would make the revolted Lazarus a man-eater more insatiable than the tyrant he overthrew. Digitized by Google

Page 82

1900.] The Honor of Shaun Mali a. 67 THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALIA. BY JOHN A. FOOTE. F the terrible periods of starvation that swept over Ireland, beginning in the year 1845, the famine of '48 will be remembered as the most destructive and devastating. While the suffering in the congested districts of the larger cities was wide-spread, yet, to counterbalance this, there was in these places an organized system of relief conducted along both public and private lines. It was in the small hamlets and among the isolated tenant-farmers that the famine wreaked the greatest havoc, for among those people there were no philan- thropists to give aid. The cabin of Shaun Malia was situated on a barren tract of land, in the mountain region, some twenty-five miles north- west of Cork. There he lived with his wife and child for the . five years that had ensued since the death of Captain Sander- son. This death marked an epoch in Shaun's hitherto unevent- ful life ; for the old captain, and his. ancestors for generations back, had been lords of the broad domain that surrounded Sanderson Manor. A typical country " squire " of that period, the captain was a heavy drinker, an ardent sportsman, and a poor business man. His estates were so heavily encumbered at his death that his son despaired of reclaiming- them, and con- sequently they passed into other hands. With the passing of the old family Shaun lost his position as gardener, for the manor house was boarded up after the sale and the Sanderson family moved away. Many a time after- wards, while tilling the soil of his stony farm on the mountain- side, he sighed for the good old days of the easy-going cap- tain. It was hard work, the markets were far away, and rent-day came with certainty whether the crop proved good or bad. It had been a weary enough struggle since the first famine year to keep starvation away ; but now, with the failure of the potato crop through the blight, the end seemed very near. For awhile they managed to subsist on the half-decayed pota- toes that they dug from the ground ; but Shaun knew that this Digitized by Google

Page 83

68 The Honor of Shaun Mali a. [Oct., was almost as bad as starvation, and that they must soon be made ill by the decaying vegetables. Even this source of food was nearly exhausted when little five-year-old Mary fell ill. The first day of her sickness Shaun sat by her bedside, motionless, a despairing glare in his eyes, and his pale, bearded face haggard with both mental and physical anguish. Maggie, his wife, with a wistful smile on her wan face, sought to comfort him with words of hope as the night wore on ; but in the gray hours of dawn, when she thought that he was sleeping, she softly stole out of the cabin. When he followed her, he found her leaning against thje window- ledge, sobbing as if her heart would break. "Come, Maggie, tnachree" he said; "sure it'll do ye no good to be actin' this way. I was thinkin' uv a plan just whin ye wint out, an' whin the daylight comes I '11 thry it." Drying her eyes confusedly, she allowed him to lead her back to the dwelling while he eagerly unfolded his plan. " A good many years ago," he. said, " I had a chance to do a favor fur a great an' good man — a priest now he is, in the City of Cork. At the time he told me if I ever needed a frind to write to him. Maybe he 's forgotten me, but it '11 do no harrum to thry an' see. So, whin the daylight breaks, I *11 walk to the village, an' — although God knows it '11 go aginst me to do it — I '11 beg the price uv the paper an' postage, an' write to him." "It's a long way to the village — a good eight miles," she said, dubiously; "an' ye 're not sthrong." " Yes," he answered wearily, as he sat on the side of the bed where the sick child lay tossing uneasily, " it 's a long way, but it 's our last chapce. We must thry and save her." With the first glint of the rising sun he made ready to de- part, and he kissed the child before leaving. Maggie followed him to the door and laid her hand on his coat sleeve with a pathetic little gesture : "Are ye sure ye have the strength, Shaun?" she said. "Ye know Pat Murray, the ould man, started for the village two days ago, an', an' — " Shaun looked at her curiously as he noticed her hesitation. " I know what ye mane," he said. " They found him along the road yesterday. But don't worry. I 'm sthrong, an' I '11 be back to-night, with the help of God. Goodby!" She stood at the door, crumpling her worn apron in her hands, and watched him until he was swallowed up in the hazy mist Digitized by Google

Page 84

1900.] The Honor of Sha un Malia. 69 of the dawn that covered the valley and made the lanc^cape a nebulous blur. A cry from the sick child drew her into the cabin. She smoothed the little sufferer's tangled auburn locks and moistened her fevered lips with water. Then, taking her in her arms, she crooned a soothing air until the child slept. It was night when Shaun returned, dragging his feet after him as if they were weighted. He stumbled toward the bed, and lay on it with a long-drawn sigh of weariness, closing his eyes that he might the more thoroughly enjoy the sense of rest that came to him. Maggie came close to him with evi- dent anxiety to hear the result of his errand. After awhile he opened his eyes and spoke : " 1 sint the letter on the first mail. I met Squire Bagley — him that used to visit at Sanderson's — and I tould him that I wanted sixpence to post a letter. He gave me a shilling an* I bought this for her." He pointed with his thumb towards little Mary, and Maggie noticed for the first time that he held a package in his hand. She opened the parcel and found a sixpenny loaf of dark bread, and then she broke some of the loaf into water, treasur- ing the crumbs as if they were gold. Before feeding the mix- ture to the child she offered some to Shaun ; but he would not eat any, and turned to gnaw the sodden potatoes that were on the rude table. Another day dawned with no change in the situation. To- wards evening a gale began to blow, followed by a cold, pelt- ing rain — a hint of the approaching winter. Here and there the rain dripped through holes in the worn thatch, and fell in monotonous splashes into little pools on the earthen floor of the hut. The scanty nourishment that had been given to little Mary seemed to have served no purpose but to feed the fever that was consuming her, for after nightfall she commenced to rave violently. Towards midnight the air grew very chilly, and Shaun put a fresh piece of turf, of which he had a plentiful supply, on the smouldering embers in the huge stone fireplace. The wind wailed dismally down the chimney, and, as if in answer to an unexpressed thought, Shaun shook his head de- jectedly, saying: "No, there's no use thinkin' that anny one would vinture out to-night." A few minutes later there was a contradiction to his speech in a guarded knock that came to the door. Shaun and Maggie both rose to their feet and listened. The knock was repeated. " It 's the answer to me letter," said Shaun, trembling with i Digitized by Google

Page 85

70 The Honor of Shaun Mali a. [Oct., agitatioa as he started toward the door to unbar it. A tall, heavily. cloaked man in riding costume stepped in, in the wake of a gust of wind-driven rain and dead leaves. He shook the rain from his hat, and took in the outlines of the room as best he could by the turf light, his eyes at last resting on Shaun. "You are Shaun Malia?" His voice, proportioned to his physique, was deep and resonant. " 1 am," said Shaun. The stranger walked over to the door, and after peering out for an instant, set the bar in place. Then he continued : "You wrote to a certain priest in Cork asking for assist- ance. He was on the point of sending you some money when I came to him, a fugitive from justice on account of a political offence. My needs were urgent, immediate ; I had to leave for America. I knew that I could not take shipping from Cork, so I decided to ride through these mountains on horseback to Limerick and sail from there. He gave me the money that was intended for you, and he told me that I might take refuge with you to night, and tell you that he would send you relief as soon as he could — within two or three days at the longest." Shaun reeled as if he had been struck. "Two or three days!" he muttered weakly, clutching at the doorpost for support. "Two or three days! " Lurid fires of anger burned in his sunken eyes, and grasping the stranger roughly by the coat lapel he drew him over to the bedside of the sick child : " Will death wait two or three days ? Can ye tell me that, you that was so ready takin' what was hers to save yerself ? Oh! but ye 're a brave man to come an' tell me." "Shaun! Shaun!" cried Maggie, clutching his arm in alarm, "don't be talkin' like that. The priest had a right to do as he plazed with his money, for 'twas not ours. An' sure he knew best annyhow. Don't be abusin' thd man that comes to our door for shelter." The stranger, surprised at Shaun's outburst, remained silent, gazing with an expression of sympathy at little Mary, who tossed and muttered in the throes of her fever. Then, when Maggie hesitated, he began, speaking slowly : "I'm very sorry. Of course I did not know that things were as they are or I would not have taken the money. But it is not yet too late, and if you will accept — " "No, no!" said Shaun. " Don't mind what I said. I'm not right in me mind, I guess, since she took sick. Maggie is right, for the money did n't belong to me." Digitized by Google

Page 86

I 1900.] The Honor of Shaun Mali a. 71 " Hark ! " said the stranger, and he stole over to the single window and peered out into the darkness. Commanding silence by a gesture of his hand, he listened intently for a few mo- ments and then came back to the group at the bedside. He spoke without any evidence of excitement : "It is as I suspected; my trail has been discovered and I have been pursued. There is a company of soldiers down there in the roadway; even now they are surrounding the house. Of course I cannot escape, so, my friend, you can free yourself of blame for harboring me and save your child's life by giving me up to the soldiers. There is a reward offered for me; if I am captured in here it may go hard with you." Shaun stood for an instant, dazed with the sudden turn events had taken. "If ye can't escape," he said, his eyes vacantly following the outlines of the one room of the cabin, "an* it'll mane life to her, I — but, O God! help me; I can't be a thraitor!" He said this with a sudden energy, as if he feared that the tempta- tion might prove too strong for him. "Quick! Decide!" said the stranger. "I hear footsteps outside." Shaun, not answering, ran across the room to the chimney. There was a loud hammering at the door and a voice shouted: "Open, in the queen's name!" " Come on," whispered Shaun ; " there 's a way to escape. Off with yer cloak an' up the chimney. It 's wide enough to hould ye, an' it 's built rough inside, so ye can climb. Go to the top an' stay there until the soldiers lave. Maybe they won't find your horse." " • " But — " said the stranger, making ready to talk. " Hurry," said Shaun, stripping off the stranger's cloak and throwing it under the bed. "In with ye now an' up; an' may Heaven speed ye ! " The stranger disappeared from view in the yawning black hole above the fireplace, and an occasional chip of plaster fall- ing told of his progress upward. The hammering at the door redoubled ; and Shaun, quickly removing his coat to make be- lieve that he had just risen, withdrew the bar and let the searching party enter. Two officers came first, followed by a file of soldiers. " Well," said the elder officer, " you seem to be mighty hard sleepers here ; it took you a long time to open that door." Digitized by Google

Page 87

72 The Honor of Shaun Mali a. [Oct., " I ax yer pardon, sirs," said Shaun. " We have sickness here an* I 'm not overly nimble meself." " We are in search of an escaped criminal, accused of several treasonable acts against her Majesty's government/' said the officer. " We have every reason to believe that you are harboring such a person, in defiance of the law. But be- fore searching the premises I will inform you that a reward of fifty pounds is offered for information that will lead to this man's apprehension." Maggie sat by the bedside soothing the sick child. The little sufferer began to call her father's name in a piteous tone of voice, and he hurried to her and kissed her, whispering terms of endearment in her ear. 44 Well, what do you say to my proposition ? You need the money ; your child requires attention ; we will capture him anyhow.' Shaun sat at the head of the bed staring at the wall with a strange, blanched face. 44 I need the money an' she needs it," he repeated absently, fingering the bedclothes. Maggie looked at his face and be- came frightened at its expression. *' Shaun ! Shaun ! " she cried. He buried his face in his arms, and a half-smothered sob was heard. The soldiers looked on curiously. Suddenly Shaun rose to his feet, and shouted hoarsely; " Search the place ; don't tempt me anny more ; I can't tell ye annything! " It took but a few minutes to examine the hut. The cloak worn by the fugitive; still wet with rain, was taken from under the bed. Shaun looked on with a stolid face. Prepara- tions were then begun to start a roaring fire in the fireplace, so as to smoke the fugitive out if, as they suspected, he had taken refuge in the chimney. Suddenly several shots were heard, and a soldier ran in, saluting the commanding officer, and said: 44 Sir, a man on horseback has just ridden through our lines on the roadway below. We fired on him, but did not succeed in wounding him." 41 Curse the luck ! " said the officer ; 44 we shall never find him now among these mountain roads. But to your saddles and after him; we must do our best." Then he addressed himself to Shaun, saying: 44 The finding of the criminal's cloak here in your dwelling looks bad for Digitized by Google

Page 88

1900.] The Honor of Shaun Mali a. 73 you, my man; but in view of your unfortunate condition, and the consistent, though in this case reprehensible, sense of honor you have manifested, I have decided to overlook your part in to night's business." In a few minutes the cabin was cleared of its unwelcome visitors; and Shaun and Maggie, uttering prayers for the escape of the unfortunate they had harbored, sat down to await the coming of daylight. But weakness, coupled with the excit- ing events of the night, proved too much for them, and after awhile both slept. Sunlight was streaming in through the window when Shaun awoke, and outside a blackbird was lustily warbling his last song before flying to the south. The sound of strange voices blended with the song of the bird, and Shaun, throwing open the door, looked out. Two gentlemen were coming up the path from the roadway. One of them was a stranger to Shaun; but in the other, a gray-haired, kindly faced man in clerical garb, he recognized his friend of long ago — the man to whom all Ireland turned in the dread years of famine — Rever- end Theobald Mathew. " Thank God ! Thank God ! " was all that he could utter as the priest came towards him and grasped his hand. " I was afraid that you had forgotten me, until you sint word last night," he managed to say at last. " No, indeed, Shaun," said the priest ; " I have often thought of you, and often prayed for you, since that time when we met in Cork." Turning to his companion, then he said : " Dr. Burnham, this is Shaun Malia, of whom you have heard me speak. He was a gardener in Cork when I was a young priest ^here, and one day I asked him to do some work on the grave of a dear friend of mine, Father O'Neil, I was away for over a year, and when I returned I learned, quite by accident, that he had cared for the grave all of that time. And he thought that I might have forgotten him ! " Father Mathew laughed — a merry, contagious laugh it was; and the doctor said : "Father Mathew does not forget friends in a hurry; he only makes them in a hurry." "Won't ye step inside?" said Shaun. The two visitors entered, and the doctor made an examination of little Mary while Father Mathew learned from Shaun and his wife of the Digitized by Google

Page 89

74 The Honor of Shaun Malia. [Oct., escape of the mysterious fugitive. Then, the doctor having finished his diagnosis, they awaited his decision. " It is a condition of malarial fever brought about by im- proper food and exposure/' said the medical man, " and there need be no fear of an unfavorable prognosis if she receives proper treatment and nourishment/' "That's the point," said the priest. " Now, Shaun, I have made arrangements with Dr. Burnham to have your little girl taken care of at his hospital until she is entirely well. The doctor needs a hostler and a gardener, so, if you can come to terms with him, the position is yours." Father Mathew, smiling expectantly, looked from Shaun to his wife. The little woman, overcome with joy, buried her face in her apron and sobbed hysterically; while Shaun, with a lump in his throat and his heart beating as if it would burst, could only say: " God bless you ! It 's more than I desarve." One afternoon in the early autumn, about a year after these events took place, Shaun was trimming the hedge in front of * Dr. Burnham *s lawn when one of the servants handed him a letter. It was addressed in a bold hand and bore an American post-mark. A thought of the fugitive he had harbored and saved a year before came to Shaun's mind. "It must be from him," he said; "now I'll find out his name." He eagerly tore the envelope open and found enclosed two slips of paper. One of them was a draft for $100 ; and on the other, written in the same bold handwriting, were the words: "A birthday present to the little girl, from one who has had reason to know and appreciate the honor of Shaun Malia/9 Digitized by Google

Page 90

190a] Authority in Religion. 75 AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. BY RICHARD E. DAY, LITT.D. O difficulties that encompass man as a spiritual being are those of a finite mind occupied with infinite concerns. If man were released from gs^QSf%d!%m *ke infinite in the forms which it assumes to ^^^9 his reason and conscience, the problem of his existence would no longer appeal to him. The questions of his origin and his end derive their interest and charm not, as the physicist often supposes, from his structural and functional affinities with the animal kingdom, but from his conscious ob- ligations to a Being of absolute might and perfection. Even physical science derives its dignity from the moral character of man. A BENEVOLENT POWER MUST SUPPLY FOR THE DEFICIENCIES . OF PHILOSOPHY. Man's subjection to a spiritual order and a Divine disposer is not more evident to him than his unfitness to trace his defi- nite and practical relations to that order and its Architect by the light of nature. The history of philosophy and natural re- ligion is the history of a pursuit, more or less sincere, directed to that end, and never issuing in certainty or unanimity. The tragedy of philosophy is the moral impulse goading humanity to the discovery of religious truth, and the darkness in which that object is lodged. The explanation of man's position most consistent with the government of the world by a benevolent Power is that the knowledge suited to his needs is offered for his apprehension by other means than philosophical inquiry. One is led to suppose that a body of teachings bearing on the spiritual constitution and duties of men must have been directly delivered at an early period to the human race; and such a body of teachings is found in the Holy Scriptures, and in the apparent relics of a primitive Revelation preserved by the ancient nations. I assume that the Jewish system and the Christian are, as they purport to be, partly supernatural in substance, merely premising that no one has ever regarded them as products of philosophy in any accepted use of the \ Digitized by Google

Page 91

76 A UTHORITY IN RELIGION. [Oct., term, and we adopt without discussion the intimations of science as well as of theology, that the oldest traditions of mankind contain memorials of its primary spiritual experiences. AUTHORITATIVE TEACHING NECESSARY FOR CERTAINTY. It follows inevitably from the nature of Revelation that it must be accepted by the majority of men, if at all, on other than philosophic grounds. The close relation subsisting be- tween revealed religion and the moral sentiments indicates the dependence of the former on an internal instinct for its vindi- cation ; while the objective character of supernatural Revela- tion implies its connection with external authority. The internal and the external witness alike make their final appeal to faith, by which moral probability is raised to practical certainty. Emerson's dictum, " The faith that stands on au- thority is not faith," has doubtless formed the opinion of many, but it is a curious error. The most perfect type of faith is the trust exercised by a young child, and his faith is always supported by authority. It reposes on the word and character of another. To Emerson faith signified immediate knowledge of God. Such knowledge exists ; recognition of it is not confined to Transcendentalists. But it is not faith. Many look upon authority as something independent of rea- son, forgetting that in the family, the school, the market-place and the court of law, as well as in the temple, authority is the chief medium between truth and the mind of man. Authority is but another name for evidence — evidence clothed with personality. A revelation from God is received on the evidence of the prophets through whom it is delivered, and, after them, on that of societies or books that preserve the divine utterances. Thus evidence comes to be embodied in a holy society or a sacred volume. The society may itself reqiyre evidence, so much as is necessary to establish its possession of the prophetic teachings. Christianity has a book and a church, using the latter term in a loose and indistinct sense ; and the controversies in which bearers of the Christian name are involved concern both. For them the only question that should arise relates to the continu- ity of existing organizations with that which was founded by Christ and the Apostles; for, if a religious body having such continuity exist, it is competent to interpret the book and testify to its inerrancy. One would expect on a priori reasons to find a perpetual corporate power commissioned to declare Digitized by Google

Page 92

1900.] Authority in Religion. 77 the tenets of the Christian faith, and would rationally suppose that one of the many organizations which profess to hold that faith in its purity must be its divinely constituted interpreter, AUTHORITY MAINTAINING UNITY. Two distinguishing marks of the early church were unity and authority. Error and disobedience were equally abhorred. Variation was often present in the opinions of the Fathers ; theological inquiry was never more active or more truly free than at that period. But speculation was subject to the love of Catholic unity, and the church possessed in the great coun- cil an infallible organ for defining the truth. Not only were the venerable creeds of the first five centuries brought into enduring form under the fashioning of authority, but the canon of Scripture was determined by the operation of the same unquestioned principle. While unity was preserved and a spiritual supremacy everywhere allowed, the Bible and the creeds were venerated. The violation of unity and the rejec- tion of authority in the sixteenth century opened the way for that destructive criticism which is dissolving the faith of entire communities in the modern world. The original intention of private judgment was to determine the sense of the inspired text ; and in the sixteenth and the seventeenth century barriers were erected in the shape of creeds, confessions, and catechisms against its too liberal use, while a corrective could be applied as occasion required by means of heresy trials. But a principle so agreeable to human nature could ill be restrained ; and to-day, in alliance with a false scientific spirit, it assails the Word of God in very sub- stance. So long as this criticism was practised only by the avowed enemies of Christianity — a Strauss, a Renan — the churches that had introduced so novel an instrument into the sphere of theological definition could regard the ultimate ap plication of their principle without alarm. Their alarm began when chairs of theology, and even pulpits, began to re-echo the revolutionary opinions, while assemblies « of religious leaders * divided on the inerrancy of the Bible. BIBLICAL CRITICISM DESTRUCTIVE. The biblical criticism most in evidence to-day is engaged in removing the historic basis of Christianity, reducing it to a mass of poetic myth, priestly invention, and " tendentious 99 apologetics. Besides disputing records and traditions of the Digitized by Google

Page 93

78 Authority in Religion. LOct., Jewish race that antedate by many centuries the Babylonish captivity, the radical critics seek to destroy the very fibre of belief, the supernaturalism which is a distinctive element in the history of the chosen people and the primitive church. The master assumption of the advanced school is that a miracle is incredible, no matter how well attested, and that writings which bear the form of predictive prophecy, yet relate to actual occurrences, must have been penned after the event. These views are adopted in quarters hitherto conservative in association with the exercise of private judgment. Individual judgment generally tends to associate itself with authoritative opinion of some sort; and, if it discards organized authority, it can do no better than ally itself with that current opinion which has the intellectual preponderance. The Higher Criti- cism to day enjoys an intellectual eminence, and speaks with a sonorous tone. STREAM OF TRUTH DEFILED WITHOUT A LIVING TEACHING AUTHORITY. With the failure of belief, the sects that acknowledge no living, teaching authority are exposed to the inroads of spirit- ism, Christian Science, theosophy and esoteric Buddhism, which threaten to swarm over the new world like that brood of secret and sorcerous cults which overran the Roman Empire early in the Christian era, contending with Christianity for spiritual dominion. The professors of magic, conjurers and diviners that have u familiar spirits " and " wizards that peep and mutter," have invaded the old strongholds of faith. The occult is taking the place of the miraculous in a multitude of minds; and many whom the rationalistic critics had convinced that Jesus wrought no miracles have become persuaded that he was an adept, a secret Buddhist, or an esoteric philosopher. Tubingen and Leyden prepared the way for Isis and Hermes Trismegistus. A supernatural Revelation, imparted by means of super-* natural agencies, in language often obscure and mystical, re- quires a divinely guided interpreter. If God has spoken to men through the medium of a book like the Bible, he has ap- pointed an authoritative court for the determination of that which he has uttered. It is conceivable that he might have given a Revelation the full sense of which would have been patent on its face, as he might have created a material and intellectual universe that would offer no secret for science to ex- Digitized by Google

Page 94

igoo.] Authority in Religion. 79 plore. But he has chosen to do neither. It is conceivable, also, that he might have left the understanding of the inspired books, as he has left the study of matter and mind, to unassisted reason as an intellectual and moral exercise ; but he would hardly have done so if the comprehension of that Revelation was vitally related to the eternal destiny of his creatures. There is this further consideration. The universe is constructed on a harmonious plan capable of comprehension by human faculties; and it is a philosophical possibility that , man will ultimately trace all the laws of created things by the illumination of reason. But the Gospel without an infallible teaching church is an absurdity. Christ established a church as a means of salvation ; and, if this church were not endued with the power of directing men to its fold and guiding them aright after they had submitted to its instruction; the end of its institution would be defeated. Revelation would be a contradiction in its essence. THERE MUST BE AN INFALLIBLE CHURCH TO GUARD THE SUPERNATURAL. A church endowed with infallibility can have no desire to lay down its office of declaring the miraculous in Revelation ; for it is itself upheld by that element. Since the exercise of its teaching gift requires the perpetual assistance of the Holy Spirit, it will have no object in belittling the Divine presence and power, and accommodating mysteries to the temper of a secular age. Whatever value the Higher Criticism may have in its eyes, that value will not be enhanced by the applicabil- ity of this method to subjects justly within the province of faith. Depending for the exercise of a prime function on a supernatural agency, it can never regard the supernatural as foreign to religion, or find its defence an onerous task. To an infallible church the miracles of the Old and the New Testa- ment are not something to ignore, apologize for, or extenuate. On the contrary, it will vindicate this element of religion most earnestly at a time when unbelief is most arrogant and a false spirit of science most presumptuous. Authority in religion would cloud its own title if it denied the supernatural. The conservative office of a living authority extends not only to doctrines, but to the sphere of morals and life. It has often appeared to the critics of that church which alone professes to embody the principle of authority that it was more concerned about dogma and sacrament than moral belief Digitized by Google

Page 95

8o Authority in Religion. [Oct, and practice. A current ethical philosophy insists that no necessary relation exists between morality and the observance of sacraments. Surely this assertion springs from a superficial survey of the spiritual life and Christian history. According as devout attention has been given to the Eucharist, the in- terior life has risen in excellence, and this result has been re- flected in outward purity and charity. When the Eucharist is received as " the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die," the contemplative nature is ready to exclaim with Thomas k Kempis : " This Holy Communion draweth men back from evil, and strengtheneth them in good"; while active natures, going forth like Sir Galahad in his quest of the Holy Grail, are inspired to heroic doing in the service of holy things. I am aware that some ethical thinkers conceive of holiness as a state external to morality, if not altogether visionary and unpractical. No religious mind will have difficulty in perceiving that holiness is the perfection of virtue ; and the mind that regards spiritual perfection as a thing unreal and unmeaning will still be com- pelled to admit that the initial approach to Christian holiness has always been by the pathway of self-denial and strict per- sonal morality. I cannot imagine how historic Christianity could have served the moral interest of mankind more effect- ually than it has done by exalting this sacrament for eighteen hundred years as the medium of- a personal union between the soul of man and its Maker. But it would be even more difficult to imagine how a doctrine so repugnant to carnal reason could have been preserved for eighteen centuries with- out the support of an authority claiming a divine commission. SUBMISSIVENESS TO AUTHORITY CREATES THE BEST RELIGIOUS TEMPER. The submissiveness which religious authority enjoins is often unwelcome to the intellect ; but it is, I believe, in the spirit of the teachings of Jesus. It is likewise most favorable to the development of a true personality ; for it demands the subordination of private, reason to the mind of Christian so- ciety, as expressed for nearly two thousand years through an unerring oracle., There is an important analogy between the individual in the church and the individual in the state. The idea of indi- vidual liberty in politics as opposed to social obligation is withering fast. It belongs to that set of crude eighteenth cen- Digitized by Google

Page 96

1900.] Authority in Religion. 8i tury notions which obtained a strong hold on the popular mind, but which probably no respectable philosopher now maintains. Their ground assumption is that society is fur- nished forth with powers and attributes out of a fund of natural rights which individuals have surrendered for their common advantage. From this error arises the conception of a conflict between' individual rights retained and social obliga- tions created. Forty years ago men were still debating how to reconcile the warring rights of society and the individual ; and to some thinkers the solution seemed to be in the tri- umph of the individual by moral perfection and the gradual abolition of positive law. To day none but the Anarchist dreams of the abolition of political society ; and it is coming to be universally admitted that the individual good and the social weal are identical. There never was a time when the individual could stand apart from society to criticise it. Indi- vidual liberty under the state has no existence apart from social duty. Equally hollow is the conception of individual liberty in religion apart from the religious organism, or of Christian liberty as distinct from the authority of the church. Christian society was not formed by the voluntary action of Christians giving up their individual privileges : it sprang into being by the word of Christ ; and the privilege* of the per- sonal religious life depend on a vital relation with the organic unity. The life that is simply individual is starved and barren. The opinion that is merely personal is an eccentricity and anomaly. The true being of the private mind consists in its subordination to the whole, and in that relation its useful- ness and honor are found. Real freedom is not in isolated independence, but in joyful obedience. The only guarantee of such freedom is an authority just and benevolent in its character, immutable in its basis, unvarying and unerring in its rule. voi. lxxil— 6 Digitized by Google

Page 97

A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE. BY CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD. 0 y HERE are few German poets whose songs are read as widely by English and Americans as those of Gottfried August Burger, and his im- ■l mortal ballad of " Lenore " has been translated UXf-wfciMBB-q^ every modern tongue. Sir Walter Scott was the first to study and translate Burger into English, and his paraphrase of " William and Ellen," as he prosaically called the German 44 Lenore," gives one who is not acquainted with the beautiful original a vivid picture of it. The swing and rhythm of the German lines are rendered exactly by Scott's "Tramp, tramp, along the land they rode, Splash, splash, along the sea." Scott also translated "The Wild Huntsman," and there are six or more excellent English versions of the 44 Lenore." The Digitized by Google

Page 98

1900.] A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. 33 Danish aftid Portuguese languages have poetical translations, and our own Bryant loved Burger and gave him a high place in German literature. Burger's ambition was to write for the people, and he suc- ceeded far better than he dreamed, for it is safe to say that^ his ballads are loved and learned by heart as universally by the peasant as by the upper classes. The Harz people all know him, and many an old peasant believes firmly in the legend of the "Wild Huntsman" and can point out the spots immortalized by the witches and ghosts Burger so graphically portrayed. His birthplace in the little village of Molmerschwende is visited by many a tourist, and the old house stands just as it did when the poet first opened his eyes on the night of Decem- ber 31, 1747. It is interesting to state that many biographers have fixed the date on the first of January, 1748, but the latest researches have proven it wrong. A tile roof has taken the place of the original straw, but nothing else has been altered, and the house bids fair to stand another century or so. These old Harz houses were built to last, and the elements beat in vain upon their staunch founda- tions and tough oaken frames. Molmerschwende lies far from the beaten track of the Harz tourist, and the nearest railroad station is a two hours' walk over the hills. This but adds to the attraction, and it was fas- cinating to look upon the very same houses, the tiny church and grave- yard, which Burger must have passed so many times in life. There are many remote descendants still living in the village, and upon my asking an old man where the poet Bur- ger's house was, he pointed to him- self and answered laconically, 11 1 am The quaint customs ok the PEOPLE. Digitized by Google

Page 99

84 A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. [Oct., the poet Biirger." It seems that he was really the village "bard," and he appeared quite miffed when I had to explain that the poet I was looking for had been dead over a hundred years. Burger's father was the pastor of the little community of four hundred souls, and the parsonage is still used by the Molmerschwende ministers. The present incumbent took the greatest interest in showing me Burger's bedroom, which he now used as his study, and from the windows we looked out upon the dearest old garden in the world, terraced and filled with the most delightful jumble of flowers and vege- tables, rare roses as big as a tea-cup side by side with the gaudy poppy or cornflower, beloved by every German, and fruit trees just planted anywhere. The pastor assured me that he loved his garden, it was his delight ; and he did not greatly share my admiration for Burger, which was not to be wondered at considering Burger's sharp epigrams on the clerical pro- fession. But to go back to the house, which was well worth the two hours' tramp to see. It is a solid, two- story, old-fashioned structure, with oaken frame, crossed and intercrossed with beams and filled in with withes and earth mixed and bound firmly together, and the whole covered inside and out with a smooth coating of plaster. The walls are enormously thick, ceilings very low, and the lower rooms are damp and musty; but the sun shines cheerfully through the casement windows of the upper story, and there were boxes of flowers standing on the wide window ledges. The house stands in the church-yard enclosure, but the old wall has made way for a fence. One gable end faces the street, and the front door is reached by entering the gate and walking down the length of the house till you reach it. These old Germans did not enjoy having their doors open on the street, and the harder they were to find the better it must have pleased them. The interior is odd and characteristic of its time, especially the smooth floors of slate, which looked and felt decidedly cold, the tiny casement windows, and the massive rafters which stretched across every ceiling. These were all ruined, as far as picturesque effect was concerned, by being painted white. Just fancy painting oaken beams two hundred years old a glaring white ! It was a sin. The walls, which were bare in Burger's day, are now papered, but the furniture in the house was much Digitized by Google

Page 100

1900.] A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. 85 Legends are told of the many castles throughout the Harz country. the same, some of it being stationary, and the arrangement of the stiff front parlor was just as Burger's mother most admired. Poor Burger had little comfort in his father's house, and his childhood is one of the most pathetic in history. His mother neglected or scolded him, and her character was such that he could not love it. She was a woman of the most un- bridled temper, with scarcely any education ; yet her famous son wrote that he had never met a more wonderful mind and spirit than hers. " Had she been educated, she would have been the greatest of all women," he said, " but she was not, and she and the Herr Pastor spent most of their time quarrel- ing." One of her fiery tirades is still quoted, and she is .sup- posed to have said that " Hell was paved with the skulls of ministers, and one place was being kept for her husband, who richly deserved it." Instead of educating his son as he should have done, the easy old pastor, who loved his long pipe and comfort better than anything else in the world, sent the little fellow when only seven years old to the distant village of Pansfeld, where he was supposed to take lessons of the resident minister; but Digitized by Google

Page 101

86 A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. [Oct., where he played, instead, with the charming little daughter. His whole after life showed the evil effects of the home influ- ence, and the lack of right direction explains most of the sins of his checkered career. Never was poet or man more unfortunate than Burger in his married life ; it does not seem possible to imagine more terrible and trying circumstances,' and his unfortunate passion for his wife's sister changed and embittered his entire youth. Why Burger married the older sister when he knew that he loved the younger, he never explained ; but it nearly drove him crazy, and in sheer desperation he opened his heart and con- fessed the whole tragedy to his wife. The letters in which he tells how she received the confession and the amazing domestic arrangement which the trio entered upon are more interesting than a novel, and indeed far stranger, since no novelist would attempt to portray or to make capital out of so unnatural a plot. But Burger was fortunate in one thing, in that he was born in so lovely a spot and in being allowed such freedom to roam over hill and dale. It was just the education he needed, and it is not so much to be regretted that he could not decline u mensa" in his twelfth year. The old le- gends were all there to be gather- ed, the peasants all believed im- plicitly in them, and no one could have entered so intimately as did Burger into their daily life. He loved the common people, and al- ways thought they had something rj real to say. Had his moral train- ing been good, the rest might easily have been acquired in later life. German lit- erature was waiting for some one to study her in- finitude of le- gends and old- wife tales, and The Source of the Danubf. immortalize Digitized by Google

Page 102

1900.] A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. 87 them through the alembic of the poet's brain, and no other part of Germany could have been as favorable as this Harz country. Here there is a story for every spot; the wild huntsman still roams over the hills and sweeps through the valleys with his ghostly train, and it is easy to find old peasants who solemnly declare that they too have seen his dread figure, or assure you that no grass has yet grown on the spot where the pastor's daughter killed her babe, which Burger has immortalized in his poem of the unhappy girl. It is a wonder that this beautiful country has not produced more poets. Klopstock, Korner, Burger, and Kleim are the greatest thus far ; but the curious dialects of the mountaineers, the unique customs and manners, have aroused many Harz- born professors in the different universities to investigate them, and this literature is copious and most interesting. The best biographer Burger has had is a Harz man, Professor Proehl, who has also collected the legends of the entire Harz range. Burger loved his beautiful Harz, and he wrote that his first acquaintance with Mother Nature dated back to the long Digitized by Google

Page 103

88 A Pilgrimage to Burger's Birthplace. [Oct., walks which he took to the pastor in Pansfeld. It was then, as he strolled through the fields of nodding poppies or waving grain, and climbed the hills all covered with groves of pine, oak, and fir, that he first realized the influence which nature was to exert over him. "Back to Nature!" was his cry in after years to the poets of his day, and it may be said that no German poet expressed so well the theories which Herder was trying to popularize among his contemporaries. There was at that time no nationality in Ger- man literature; no political union, and no com- mon bond to unite the various peoples, dialects, and customs of the Fatherland, and Herder was the first to see that there could be no ex- pansion of their literature till it had become na- tional. But Bur- ger was the first great poet to translate Her- der's revolution- ary theories of national poetry into practice, and he went so far as to add that the only poetry which . was destined to last w a s that which is written for the people, about the people, and, if possible, by the people themselves. He was to Germany what Burns was to Scotland, though in richer measure ; both poets drew their material from the people's songs, and both had many personal traits in common. The weak, loving heart of each man was too illy controlled by reason and judgment, and though Burger's life was far A Harz Maiden in Bridal Dress. Digitized by Google

Page 104

1900.] A Pilgrimage to Bergen's Birthplace. more tragic and unhappy than Burns's, the foundation of their misfortunes rested upon the same causes. Political and literary life had died in Germany with the Thirty Years' War; and Grimmelshausen, the German Cer- vantes, had sung the swan song. Till Burger came with the genius to sing of the underlying life of the people, no poet,, great or otherwise, had thought it worth while, and his ser- vices are for this reason beyond calculation. If Herder was the Columbus to show the way, Burger was the poet to im- mortalize it for all time. The motive of all his ballads is taken directly from old tales and legends, some from the French and Italian ; but he was specially indebted to English ballads, ard Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry exerted a strong influence upon his genius. He urged Herder and other poets to make some such collec- tion in German, and he considered that it would be of the highest poetical worth. His own failing health and the fierce struggle against poverty which embittered all his years pre- vented him from attempting it himself, and his third and last most miserable marriage ended so tragically that his spirit was broken, and he welcomed the death which came in his forty. sixth year. Poor unhappy Burger ! His best life was in his poems ; his sins and shortcomings were but the result of his faulty education ; and his sweetness of temper, his tender charity and humility, and his loving, impulsive heart are what we choose to remember of the man. Indianapolis, Ind. Digitized by Google

Page 105

90 Isabel, Lady Burton. [Oct., ISABEL, LADY BURTON. BY GEORGINA P. CURTIS. |'MONG the biographies of noted Catholic women that have appeared of late years the Life of Isabel, Lady Burton, recently published in England, stands out pre-eminently. It reads like a romance I or a fairy tale, while at the same time it shows forth clearly the devoted love and faith of a woman to her church, while living in the world and wedded to a non-Catholic. Born of an ancient English Catholic family, Lady Burton was married to a man who took her to many countries and scenes. She shared his travels, his vicissitudes, and all the varied phases of his public career. The account of her own and her husband's life is brought out in two" large volumes, and is edited by Mr. W. H. Wilkins, who has proved fully equal to his task, both in talent and in sympathy with his subject. The biography occupies nearly eight hundred pages, and is so teeming with interest that it is diffi- cult to select any one part as being most worthy of attention. Lady Burton's father, Mr. Henry Raymond Arundell of Wardour, was twice married. His first wife, Lady Mary Isabel, daughter of Sir Hugh Clifford Constable, died a year after her marriage, leaving one son. Mr. Arundell married, two years later, a Miss Eliza Gerard, sister of Sir Robert Gerard of Garswood, and an intimate friend of his first wife. Of his numerous family by his second marriage Isabel, the subject of this memoir, was the eldest. The house of Wardour is one of the most ancient in England, and all its members have been loyal Catholics. They form a living and historical witness to the fact that Catholicism is the ancient faith, and make it difficult for the Anglican Church in England to prove that there was no change in belief at the Reformation. Sir Thomas Arundell, who was born in 1500 and who married Margaret, daughter of Lord Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, founded the house of Wardour. There had been knights of Arundell before the Conquest, of whom it was said that " Ere William fought and Harold fell There were Earls of Arundell." Digitized by Google

Page 106

1900.] Isabel, Lady Burton. 9i Lady Burton's mother was descended from the Dukes of Leinster in Ireland and the Earls of Plymouth (now extinct) in England. Thomas, the second Baron Arundell, married Blanche, daughter of the Earl of Worcester, and it is this ancestress that Lady Burton was thought to strongly resemble both in character and personality. In the Great Rebellion, when her husband was away serving with the king, Blanche, Lady Arun- dell, held Wardour Castle for nine days, with only a few men, against the Parliamentary forces. She then gave up the castle on honorable terms, which the enemy broke as soon as they had taken possession. On Lord Arundell's return he drove them out, and proceeded to blow up his castle, sacrificing his home to his loyalty to his king. The grandson of Sir Thomas Arundell went to Germany and entered the service of Rudolph II. He took the standard from the Turks with his own hands at Grau, while fighting with the imperial army of Hungary. For this act of bravery he earned the title of "the Valiant." Rudolph II. made him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and decreed that his descendants of both sexes should for ever enjoy the title. They appear in the Austrian lists as counts of the empire. Lady Burton always used the title when not in England, and took rank of precedence at foreign courts as the Countess Isabel Arundell (of Wardour). This title was not recognized by Elizabeth or James I. ; but was acknowledged by James II., as a document still extant shows. Lady Burton used to say : " If the thing had been bought, I should not have cared ; but since it was given for a brave deed, I am right proud of it." Her ideas on the psychical and physical aspects of heredity are expressed in her own words, anent the fact that she never had any children: "Since I have none to come after me, I must needs strive to be worthy of those who have gone before me." And worthy she certainly was. She possessed all the qualities that made her ancestors famous. We see in her the roving spirit of adventure of the knights of Arundell ; the in- tellectual and administrative traits, the clear-headed decision and worldly wisdom of the founder of the house of Wardour. We see also the courage, the fighting instincts, and the dare- deviltry of the old Knight of Arundell who in the reign of Henry VII. raised the sieges of Tiroven and Tourney, and of "the Valiant" who wrested the banner from the infidel Turks. In her, also, breathed that devotion and loyalty to the Digitized by Google

Page 107

92 Isabel, Lady Burton. [Oct., throne which marked the Lord Arundell who died fighting for his king. She herself has left on record how deeply she was moved, when travelling in Jerusalem, to hear some English sailors singing the national songs. She was like her ancestress, Blanche, in her bravery, her proud but generous spirit, in her determination and resources, and in her passionate love for her husband. Above all Isabel Arundell was a true daughter of her race in her devotion to the ancient faith ; a loyalty that never left her, that ruled her whole life, and that no amount of learning or worldly knowl- edge (and her intellectual gifts and cultivation were remark- able) ever weakened. This faith we trace years after her marriage, at a time when she had lived the best part of her life, and had tasted about all it is given to mortals to know of joy and pain. During the absence of her husband in Syria, while in retreat at the Convent della Osolini at Gorizia, she wrote the following thoughts in her journal: " My life seems to be like an express train, every day bring- ing fresh things which must be done. I am goaded on by time and circumstances, and God, my first beginning and last end, is always put off — thrust out of the way, to make place for the unimportant, and gets served last and badly. ... I thought I heard Him cry : ' Go voluntarily into solitude ; pre- pare for me, and wait for me till I come to abide with you/ I am here, my God, according to thy command — Thou and I, I and Thou — face to face in the silence. ,Oh, speak to my heart, and clear out from it every thing that is not of thee, and let me abide with thee awhile ! Not only speak, but make me understand, and turn my body and spirit, and soul into feelings and actions, not words and thoughts alone." She says elsewhere: ^Solrtude is a necessary consolation; no great mind was ever known that dreaded it." And again : 41 Every right-minded person must think, and thought comes only in solitude." She thinks also that ' there is "danger of eccentricity in an excess of solitude." ! Isabel Arundell was born on - Sunday, March 30, 1831, in London. She was educated chiefly at the convent of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre at New Hall,* Chelmsford* Her earliest years were passed at Furze Hall, near Inglestone, Essex, a charming old-fashioned house in the midst of beauti- ful country. One of the first books mentioned in her child- hood is Disraeli's Tancred. A liking for books of Eastern lore and scenes is one of her earliest characteristics. Digitized by Google

Page 108

1900.] Isabel, Lady Burton. 93 Even in her youth her character and personality were re- markable. Added to this she was very handsome, with an air of high breeding. In person she was tall and well formed, with a very expressive and mobile face. At eighteen years of age she left Furze Hall and went to London with her parents, brothers, and sisters. The following winter she and her sister Blanche were introduced to London society. Here Isabel en- joyed herself thoroughly, as every happy, healthy girl must when society is not indulged in to excess, or made the sole aim of life. Her introduction took place under favorable con- ditions; her parents' position, and her own beauty and wit, making her at once a well-known favorite. But the end of the season found her still h^art-whole and single, although many had asked for her hand in marriage. The following year the whole family went Mr.Arundell's limited that a dence abroad necessary, not impress ably at first, it dirty, and be told it was cleanest towns But she grew to Boulogne, means were so short resi- was deemed Boulogne did Isabel favor- She thought was amazed to one of the in France, to love the place, and re- turned to it in thought ever ^^^^fl with affection- ate devotion, for it was here that she met Richard Bur- ton, her hus- band. Burton was the son of Joseph Net- terville Bur- ton, a lieuten- i ^1^^^^ ant-colonel in the 36th Regi . ment. He was , . _ Sir Richard Burton. , , . born in 1 82 1 and was the eldest of three children. No account of Isabel Arundell's life would be complete without a thorough understanding (if any one could be said to have understood him) of this most extra- ordinary man. Burton entered the army and was commissioned to the Indian service when he was twenty-one. His intellectual gifts, his power of assuming any character he pleased, his facility in acquiring languages, his love of ad- venture and contempt for danger — all singled him out as a Digitized by Google

Page 109

94 Isabel, Lady Burton. [Ocf., remarkable man. He was very dark, of an almost gypsy aspect. In fact, although he had no known Oriental blood, Lady Burton always thought it strange that he had so many characteristics of the race. He possessed the same power to read the hand at a glance, the same restlessness and inability to stay long in one place, the same philosophic endurance of any evil, and the same horror of a corpse, that distinguish the highest gypsy races. While in the East he could disguise himself so well as to pass for a dervish in the mosques or as a merchant in the bazaars. He undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca, disguised as a pilgrim, and accomplished it in safety, his real identity and nationality never being suspected. It is a proof of the power of the man that he carried the assumed character through to the end — for one mistake or slip would have caused him to pay the forfeit with his life. Such was the man to whom Isabel Arundell gave the whole pure, devoted love of her passionate and loyal heart. Burton on his part was strongly drawn to her, but they left Boulogne without coming to any understanding, and it was not until six years later, when she met him again in London, that he finally offered himself. Meanwhile Isabel had refused many brilliant offers; she had waited and watched and%followed his career, and hungered for him, as only a woman of her type could do. Having made up his mind, Burton's wooing was quick and passionate, and ten days from the time they met again they were engaged. She said to him : "I would rather have a crust and a tent with you, than be queen of all the world." It was eminently characteristic of Burton that it was three years from the time of their engagement before they were married. In the interim Burton made a trip to Africa and another to Salt Lake City, setting forth on each expedition without telling Isabel good-by, so as to spare himself pain, and writing to her very irregularly. It needed a mighty love to tide a woman over these three years, as it needed a loyal love to make her faithful to her choice the six years that pre- ceded her engagement. Bat Isabel came out of it loving Barton more instead of less. She employed her time in preparing herself for her future life. She learned to cook, to fence, to shoot, to groom horses, milk cows, and do any and all of the work that she might be called on to perform when travelling or stopping in out of the-way places. Life with Richard Burton would have been intolerable to some women. He was by nature selfish Digitized by Google

Page 110

1900.] Isabel, Lady Burton. 95 and disposed, perhaps unconsciously, to make demands on the faith and endurance of a wife that many would have utterly failed to fulfil. Not so Isabel. Joined to her life-long and unswerving devotion to Burton she had splendid health and strong nerves, and the ability to go with him everywhere, even to inaccessible and dangerous places. "She could ride, walk, swim, shoot, and defend herself if attacked ; make a bed, ar- range a tent, cook the dinner, wash the clothes in the river, mend them and spread them to dry ; nurse the sick, dress wounds, pick up a smattering of the language; make a camp of natives respect and obey her ; groom her horse, saddle him, teach him to wade through rivers, and 3leep on the ground with the saddle for a pillow." Will it seem from this that she was masculine or strident ? Never was a woman more intensely feminine and tender, as perfect a combination of strength and gentleness as could be found. They were married in January, 1861, with Mr. Arun- dell's consent, but unknown to his wife, who strongly opposed the match. Isabel says, in the early days of her married life : " 1 belong to God — the God who made all this beautiful world which perpetually makes my heart so glad. I cannot see him, but I feel him. He is with me, within me, around me, everywhere. If I lost him, what would become of me ? How 1 1iave bowed down before my husband's intellect. If I lost Richard, life would be worthless. Yet he and I and life are perishable, and will soon be over; but God and my soul and eternity are everlasting. I pray to be better moulded to the will of God, and for love of him to become indifferent to what may befall me." The first! few months of their married life were spent in modest lodgings in London, Burton's means being too limited to allow of anything else. Mrs. Arundell had objected to the match because of unpleasant rumors about Burton's character ; but she in time became reconciled to it, and very fond of her son in-law. We cannot enter on the question of Burton's career with- out mention being made of his public life. He was never a favorite at the Foreign Office, and never obtained such a posi- tion as his gifts and education entitled him to. Burton was a .man of honor, but he lacked policy and discretion, and had a sublime disregard for consequences, even when he knew he Digitized by Google

Page 111

Isabel, Lady Burton. [Oct., was spoiling his own chances and laying himself open to sus- picion and doubt. He was too high handed and interfering ; and thus, in spite of his gifts, he was not fitted to be a diplomat or to hold the post of consul at a foreign port, and his wife's whole life was devoted to a defence of him, to fighting his battles, and trying to get the Foreign Office to give him the preferment he coveted. There is no doubt that if Burton had possessed, in addition to his great talents, his knowledge of languages, and his experience in Eastern affairs, a policy and tact that dealt with issues diplomatically, he would have had a great career ; but he did not know how to be honest and politic both. A few months after their marriage Burton was given an insignificant post at Fernando Po, on the West Coast of Africa, with a climate so deadly for European women that Lady* Burton could not accompany her husband. ; She re- mained at home for several months; then Burton obtained leave of absence, and his wife joined him and they made a charming trip to Madeira and Teneriffe, with a month at Ortova. Here they ascended to the highest peak of a neigh- boring mountain, an expedition that lasted for several days, and which Lady Burton describes delightfully. She says, •quoting Ibsen : 41 1 went up into the infinite solitudes. I saw the sunrise gleaming on the mountain peaks. I felt myself nearer the stars. I seemed almost to be in sympathy and communion with them." • Their second post was at Santos, Brazil, whither Lady Burton accompanied her husband ; but by far the most inter- esting part of her biography is their next post, Damascus, where Burton was consul for about three years. They both loved Damascus and its Eastern life. Here they had a unique position, as well as interesting and varied society, and two charming residences, one on the outskirts of the city, and a summer retreat at Bluddn, among the mountains. It was a difficult post to fill successfully, owing to the dif- ferent races which had to be dealt with. There were the Beda- win Arabs ; the Wali, or Governor General of Syria, and his followers; the Jews, the Christian Protestant missionaries and their families, and the native residents of Damascus. Burton, unfortunately, made himself disliked by all classes. It was said of him that " he usually did the right thing in the wrong way," and it was so in this case. Not all his wife's tact, the ;pains she took to please all classes, and to smooth ov$r his Digitized by Google

Page 112

1900.] Isabel, Lady Burton. 97 mistakes, succeeded in shielding Burton from official displeas- ure, and he was finally recalled home. Their course at Damas- cus in one way was full of honor. They refused all bribes that were offered from many quarters if they would act on certain lines. At one time Burton was promised one hundred thousand dollars if he would lend his influence and support to a certain scheme. Burton departed very hastily for England, and Lady Burton was left behind, as their custom always was, " tjo pay, pack, and follow." The hard work — disposing of their effects, the saying good-by, and winding < up of their affairs— always de- volved on her; but she was not a woman to shrink from what had to be done. The Burtons remained some time in London, and then were given the consulate at Trieste, in Austria. Here they lived for eighteen years, and in time Lady Burton became attached to it. Wherever she went she always made a home, and found interests and charitable work to occupy her. During their consular life they made several trips to other countries, one while at Damascus through the desert to Pal- myra, and later to Jerusalem and India. While in India they went on a journey to Goa, thirty-six hours by steamer from Bombay, so as to visit the church that contained the remains of St. Francis Xavier. The saint's body is enclosed in a gold box that rests in a beautiful silver sarcophagus enriched with alto-relievi. The remains are displayed once in a century to the pilgrims who flock to Goa. Besides these long journeys the Burtons made many shorter trips. The last years of their life at Trieste were chiefly occu- pied with literature. Burton wrote a great deal, and also translated the Alf-Laylah wa Laylah, or Arabian Nights. For this work he received $50,000. At the time of his death he had just finished another translation from the Arabic, called the Scented Garden. Burton might certainly have used his great talents as a writer and master of Oriental languages to translate some- thing better than these two books, notably the Scented Garden. About this latter book so much controversy has raged, and Lady Burton was so involved in it, that mention must be made of it. Here again Burton's peculiar character comes in. It was his habit to investigate every thing on earth, both good and bad, and when he was at Rome to do as the Romans did. He was a Mussulman in Arabia, a Mormon in Salt Lake vou lxxii.— 7 Digitized by Google

Page 113

98 Isabel, Lady Burton. [Oct., City, and an Englishman in England. Hence he set about translating the Scented Garden in the same spirit. It was a notorious book, and one that could do no good. As Lady Burton said : 14 Fifteen men would read it as my husband wrote it, from a scientific stand point. The rest of the world would only read it to gather evil." Burton had left his wife control of all his MSS. at his death. The prices offered her for this book were enormous, and would have made her comfortable for the rest of her life. Did she accept it and let the matter go out of her hands? She herself has recorded what a tre- mendous struggle she had. It was the first time she had ever gone against her husband's known wishes, but her duty in the matter was so clear that she did not hesitate. She burned the whole MSS., and by so doing believed that she " cut the cords that held her husband's soul to earth, and left him free to soar to his native heaven." It was typical of her strong faith and resolute spirit. A woman of her character, living a life so much before the world, could not avoid frequently being misjudged. In nothing was this more apparent than in her action in regard to her husband's conversion. Whether Burton was ever really a Catho- lic we do not know. His character was so complex, he was so steeped in Eastern mysticism and Sufis'm, that what he really believed it would be difficult to say. But one thing is clear : that he gave his wife to understand that he was at heart a Catholic, and that he signed a paper to that effect, and also that he habitually wore a crucifix she gave him. Burton died very suddenly in October, 1890, and as soon as Lady Burton saw that his illness was serious she sent for a priest, who administered Extreme Unction. No one who knew her could doubt that she acted in good faith, but as the action has again and again been criticised as "the usual method of Roman Catholics," it may be well to say a few words about it. The Church, as a prudent and tender mother, is ever anxious to give her children the benefit of a doubt. It may be that a man has not approached the sacraments, or lived the life of a Catholic, for years, or even openly declared himself. But if he has been a Catholic the sacrament is administered to him when he is dying, and the act is in accordance with the belief that no one knows what passes between God and the soul at the hour of death. A man may be to all appearances deaf and insensible to the things of earth, but he may be able Digitized by Google

Page 114

1900.] Isabel, Lady Burton. 99 to hold communion with God that we know not of. How far he is aided by the last rites of the church we cannot tell, though our faith can make us guess. In this sense alone Isabel Burton acted as she did, and was abundantly justified in so doing. After her husband's death she went to live in London, and employed her time in works of charity, in editing the record of her husband's life, and in building a beautiful tomb, shaped like an Arab tent, over his grave in Mortlake. Her own writings are, an Inner Life in Syria, and Arabia, Egypt, and India. It is fortunate that the world has the Life of Captain Sir Richard Burton by his wife, and also the Life of Lady Burton edited by Mr. Wilkins, for otherwise the only record of these two interesting people would be from the pen of Sir Richard Burton's niece, Miss Georgiana Stisted — a book that is almost beneath contempt. Miss Stisted, who seems to have a bitter hatred for the Catholic Church in general, and for Lady Bur- ton in particular, has spared no pains to gather as much slan- der and falsehood within the compass of one volume as could well be met with. She does not seem to be so much concerned about upholding her uncle's Protestantism as with vilifying the wife he loved. This book came out after Lady Burton's death, when she could not refute it; but her friend, Mr. Wilkins, has made such a splendid defence of her life and character that we are fain to think Miss Stisted is disposed of in the minds of all who love justice, whatever their religion may be. Cer- tainly Lidy Burton's memory remains untarnished. This beautiful and noble woman died in London on the 22d of March, 1896. She was conscious up to the last, and passed away after months of great suffering. After receiving Extreme Unction she bowed her head and said " Thank God!" a few moments before her spirit returned to Him who created it. Her life is a lesson for all time to women living in the world, and especially to those married to non-Catholic hus- bands, of what an ardent faith and resolute will can do to pre- serve the religion of their childhood intact. Burton always made it plain that he honored and respected his wife's devo- tion to her church. She wrote of her husband in her diary years before : " I am like a swimmer battling against strong waves, and I think my life will always be thus. Were I struggling only fcr Digitized by Google

Page 115

lOO Isabel, Lady Burton. [Oct., myself, I should long before have tired ; but since it is for my dear one's sake, I shall fight on sa long as life lasts. Every now and then one seems to reach the crest of the wave, and that gives one courage ; but how long a time it is when one is in the depths ! " In every crisis of her life this woman turned to the one Source where many look for strength and some find it. Lady Burton found it. To quote from her memoir : " The secret of her strength was this : to her the things spiritual and invisible, which to many of us are unreal, how- ever loudly we may profess our belief in them, were living realities. . . . There are some natures who can believe, who can look forward to a prize so great and wonderful as to hold the pain and trouble of the race of very small account when weighed against the hope of victory. Lady Burton was one of these; she had her feet firm set upon the everlasting Rock. The teaching of her church was to her divinest truth. The super- natural was real, the spiritual actual. The conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, between good an- gels and evil angels, between benign influences and malefic forces, was no figure of speech with her, but a reality. In these last years of her life more especially the earthly veil seemed to have fallen from her eyes. She seemed to have grasped something of the vision of the servant of Elisha, for whom the prophet prayed : * Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see, and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and Ire saw. And behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.' " Digitized by Google

Page 116

1900J Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. ioi NEAR BLADENSBURG : A WAR TALE. BY J. O. AUSTIN. _ % mm I! jj:T lies near the old highway, some two or three \l miles from Bladensburg — a great lichen covered ll rock, with faint scratches on its upper face. The big oak alongside leans over it protecting- ly, so that dead leaves and falling twigs often catch in its crevioes for a moment's visit on their way to earth. The lazy water in the gully alongside, rippling over the pebbles, is ever splashing out a laughing salute. Overhead the saucy chipmunks peer down sharply, as if they alone could read its story. And, indeed, true it is that the tale has well- nigh passed from the memory 6f men. A score of years ago rude letters, carved upon the stone, were barely visible ; now the dripping rain has worn still deeper, and a few green, moss-filled scratches are sole remnants of the old inscription. Strange enough! Had the slightest tilt been given to that big boulder when first it came there, those letters would stare up undyingly. As it is, every rain storm helps to wipe away the last faint traces of human handiwork, and ere long they will have gone to join the torrent that once rushed through that choked up gully, and the primeval forest that darkened the sky above. This is why it seems well to us that the tale, even though a gruesome one, should be recorded. One evening in August, years and years ago, a horseman was passing along the high-road towards Bladensburg. The country was rife with war and rumors of war just then, and every farmer lad for miles around had abandoned spade and plough to join the force defending Washington against General Ross. These were no days for pleasure trips, for men had to ride life in hand. And still our traveller, though holster-pistols and side-arms proved him not unprepared for possible dangers, cantered along unconcernedly straight toward the English camp. By this and by his weary look one might have guessed him to be a messenger from the Patuxent, seeking the English general at Bladensburg. Both he and his horse were well travel-stained ; and his sharp survey from the top of every hill, Digitized by Google

Page 117

102 Near Bladensbvrg : a War Tale. I Oct., and the impatient grunt given as he invariably sank back in his saddle disappointed, marked him a stranger to the locality expecting every instant to sight his journey's end. On the hill just abreast of the great boulder the road was lined on one side by a thick woods, and on the other by a dots dare hedge, through which a five barred gate gave passage to an open field. As the horseman, having passed the gate, began to descend the hill, there sounded quick hoof-beats from a bridle-path in the forest, and he wheeled about hastily and barely in time to see a girl on a great brown mare break from amid the trees, cross the road, and soar over the gate into the field be- yond. A spring from the saddle, a few hurried steps, and he reached the gate quickly enough to catch a glimpse of a blue riding-habit vanishing in a clump of trees. He leaned thought- fully against the bars for a moment or two and then walked slowly towards his horse. "By Jove!" he said, remounting, "I'd like to know if that 's Holt's daughter. I don't see who else it could possibly be. The jump was simply stunning. Why, the Bradford hunt's nothing to it!" Standing in his stirrups he shaded his eyes and scanned the landscape ahead as far as he could see. Rough and hilly country, a glimpse of a winding road now and then, thick crowded forest of pine and cedar, with here and there branches of red sumac, or the white leaves of a silver maple in the great stretch of green, and behind it all the western sky making gorgeous background for one or two airy pink clouds floating along like wreaths of tinted smoke — he could discover nothing else, "Well," he soliloquized, "at any rate I must try to reach camp before that splendid sky fades away." He gathered his reins, called to his horse, and was about to again descend the hill, when somewhere over towards the setting sun, and seeming scarce a hundred yards away, a bugle-call awoke the echoes. Our traveller drew reins and smiled con- tentedly. " That saves us ! " he cried gaily. " I've done my very best and missed the mark. They have no use for me now until morning." And a few minutes later he was within the five- barred gate and riding along the path that the young horse- woman had followed. Very soon he reached a driveway lead- ing toward a good, 'comfortable-looking dwelling, built of some mud colored, stucco like substance. Facing him was a wide veranda, and around its pillars twined clustering vines of honey- Digitized by Google

Page 118

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. 103 suckle, and thick ivy spreading over the side of the house hardly left room for the windows. On the veranda, lying back in an arm chair, with book and spectacles beside him, an old man was noddingk half-asleep. He roused up as the stranger approached, and answered the military salute with an invitation to ride around and put up at the stable. There a negro boy relieved the visitor of his steed and directed him further on to the north side of the dwelling. This rather surprisingly turned out to be the front. From the marble steps a great broad lawn stretched down into a valley where night mists were already gathering. At the foot of the steps the old gentleman was waiting, and, taking a letter pre- sented by the stranger, began to read it while the two walked together up the steps. " Delighted you have come, lieutenant," he cried very warmly at last, folding the note. " It was really good of our friend the captain to think of sending you. Why, you're a godsend. We haven't had a visitor in an age, have we, Miriam?" Excepting Captain Whittaker," answered a lady from with- in the threshold, and the young man found himself facing the young horsewoman who had taken the five-barred gate in such gallant style. " Lieutenant Woodleigh, of his Majesty's 90th Foot," an- nounced the host, and " my daughter, sir." Then the old gentleman led the way into the interior of the mansion, and the visitor followed until they reached the guest chamber, where he was left alone to prepare for dinner. At the evening meal the lieutenant found himself placed next to Miss Holt and opposite a broad-shouldered young fellow whom the host introduced as his nephew, Mr. Caleb Curtis. " Not a bad looking brute " was the soldier's internal comment, and indeed, for a mere "backwoodsman," Curtis proved wonderfully well-bred and quite at ease. I had the captain's note," the girl found opportunity to whisper to the guest while Mr. Holt and his nephew were dis- tracted with conversation about some business. The lieutenant smiled and bowed grandly. He did not fully understand, but he did appreciate that the young lady must have been whiling away some of her weary hours by conducting a clandestine correspondence. He smiled again as he recalled how the captain had warned him to be very circumspect. That ad- monition was followed about as carefully as is usual in similar Digitized by Google

Page 119

io4 Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. [Oct., cases. While telling Mr. Holt various interesting anecdotes of the campaign under General Ross, Woodleigh 's glance would wander over admiringly to the bright eyes and auburn hair of' the girl listening with such vivid interest. ' She, was all the more attractive to him because the war had given such scant opportunity for feminine society. "As simple as a child," Whittaker had said, and Wood- leigh wondered for a time how a " simple child " could manage to secure interesting visitors despite watch and. ward. He un- derstood her better as her character came out in conversation. Her training was homely. " Conventionality " and " propriety " were words not found in her vocabulary. She was in perfect ignorance of the way people act and talk in the great world. But nevertheless she had views of her own on most subjects, and among other convictions held that it was never a duty to be miserable, even though Caleb's religion so taught. Her naiveti was simply charming to Woodleigh, man of the world ; and so it came to pass before many minutes that he was ask- ing himself had not Whittaker made a mistake in considering him a safe customer on account of having so constantly knocked about in society. In London it might be so ; he could be counted upon to amuse any young lady whose life was grow- ing dull; but here, off in an American wilderness where he had n't spoken to a well-dressed woman for months, his past experience made him, if anything, a trifle more susceptible to the influence of bright eyes and winning smiles. He did his best to be witty and entertaining, and succeeded so well that Caleb, after one or two unnoticed remarks, lapsed into utter silence, while the father and daughter seemed content with saying just enough to keep up Woodleigh's flow of anecdote. Once the young men's eyes met, and Woodleigh saw a sullen look that startled him for the moment ; but he thought no more of it than to feel the glow of triumph which comes to the winner of every race. It was in vain, though, that Woodleigh puzzled himself try- ing to guess the reasons for the rather peculiar make- up of this family circle, and for their residence in this lonely, out- of-the-way place. Though almost certain that reduced fortune must have something to do with it, he could not reconcile this theory with the splendid dinner-set, the cut glass, and the fine old wine. The wine — ah ! it was long since the lieutenant had tasted real Burgundy, and after Miriam's withdrawal he found some difficulty in restraining a tendency to exuberant praise of Digitized by Google

Page 120

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. 105 the vintage. Mr. Holt seemed determined to celebrate the ad- vent of a visitor from the old country, and Woodleigh was in poor training for a carouse. So before they left the table he had grown so enthusiastic over the coming capture of Wash- ington that he and Curtis, who had developed an unsuspected patriotism, fell into a quarrel which ended with the latter's un- cle ordering him from the room. Woodleigh was dimly con- scious of having said something rather insulting concerning American valor, and he now found Mr. Holt taking him severely to task for his boyishness. "You're right, I know," said his host; "these cursed col- onists are utterly stupid. It makes one's blood boil — raw militia men daring to face Ross andCoburn ! But the boy has- a lot of Yankee notions in his head, and you must be more careful than at home. If I hadn't known how to keep a civil tongue in my head Miriam would have been an orphan long ago. Come, we '11 go into the parlor, and if you see Caleb again don't be stiff ; remember he was born and brought up in this place, and his good old blood is tainted from bad at- mosphere." In the parlor Miriam sang her father's favorite song, "The Vicar of Bray," and the old fellow indicated approval partly of the singing and partly, Woodleigh suspected, of the senti- ment. The music over, they started their nightly game of cards, Woodleigh supplying the place of Curtis, who did not appear again. Even' with the long windows open the room soon grew uncomfortably warm, and after a game or two some one proposed taking a walk in the grounds. The three went out together, but as they were descending the steps Mr. Holt was called, and, turning back into the house, promised to be out again in a moment. The young people stood at the foot of the steps for an in- stant and then began their promenade, keeping within a short distance of the house. A little toward the east ran a narrow lane, where on either side great high bushes lined the path, locking their branches overhead. Into this, at Miriam's sug- gestion, the young couple slipped to walk up and down "while waiting for papa." The path was not very wide and there was barely room for two to walk erect under the sloping boughs. " Did you know," said the young lady saucily, " that a big shot-gun was covering you as you rode up that avenue?" "No," very coolly. Digitized by Google

Page 121

106 Near Bladensburg : 4 War Tale. [Oct., " Aren't you afraid ? " " I think not." She looked at him curiously. "Caleb 's a dead shot if he is a Puritan." " We often have to face dangers more serious, perhaps, than Mr. *Curtis's shot-gun without being frightened." She clapped her hands delightedly. " I '11 tell him that ; he '11 like you more for being so brave " ; and they went on toward the house. Woodleigh could not tell whether or not his companion was in earnest. In fact, he did not bother his head with thinking much more about Curtis. He was out to enjoy himself, and very soon began indulging in lively descriptions of London society, with Miriam for an enchanted listener. Now, of course the stars were shining and the late moon just peeping over the far horizon. To be sure, the playful evening wind softly rustling the leaves wafted the breath of sweet scented honeysuckle down into the lane. What queer figures waving branches make upon a moonlit path ? and how strange a look faces wear when interlacing twigs play over them in flitting shadows? And in such circumstances how great the temptation to become romantic ! Society sufficiently discussed, Woodleigh chanced to mention something about reading. " Oh, I am so fond of books ! " was Miriam's instant excla- mation. " Have you read much ? 99 " All of Miss Austen's works," she answered, rather proudly. " Ah, yes ! I know them ; and have you read Mrs. Rad- cliffe's stories?" The girl blushed a little. " I have read half of Romance of the Forest. There was an awful time about it ; Caleb said it was a bad book and that I should n't be allowed to read novels. Beg pardon, did you not speak?" Not a word." Nor had he spoken, but mentally he had been punching Caleb's head. "It's cruel of papa," the girl went on. "He doesn't real- ize how I am suffering. Business keeps him occupied from morning till night, and I am alone with no amusement except to ride Gypsy or read Watts's hymns and the Bible. The days drag on so slowly, I often pray that the house will be attacked by soldiers, or burned — or something to vary the monotony." Digitized by Google

Page 122

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. - 107 Woodleigh was undoubtedly very sympathetic. "It's too bad you have so little to read. I realize how much a book will do to cheer one up. There was a young fellow named Marryat whom I knew at home, and he lent me a tremendous lot of stories and sketches once when I was sick. I assure you they made the hours fly." Now, he might well have let the subject drop there ; but no, Miriam was interested and he continued, and some malig- nant sprite hovering around those bushes prompted him to repeat some of his friend's clever sketches. " Shockingly sentimental, you know, some of them were ; but it was all in fun. He'll get into literature some day and then he '11 change all that. I remember one story particularly foolish, but rather interesting, called The Fair haired Bride.*' And in a melodramatic way Woodleigh ran through the plot as far as the fifteenth chapter, wherein the villain proposes to the heroine under an orange- tree in the conservatory. It was now ten o'clock — the locking-up time at the Holt residence. A few minutes before that hour Caleb, as usual, had left the house to unchain the big mastiff that served as night guard. Everything was deathly still. A whisper might be heard yards away, and the young people in the bushes were speaking in tones perfectly audible to Caleb, distant though he was. Woodleigh's words brought the angry blood to the young fellow's temples and caused him to wheel suddenly in the direction of the speaker. Then he heard Miriam's voice and stopped short; she listening to such a sentence and an- swering with a laugh! Curtis turned back, sick at heart. The mastiff growled and rattled his chain unheard. His master disappeared from sight, and the house door slammed with a mighty crash that startled the couple in the lane and brought the lieutenant's fingers to his sword-handle. Then they recog. nized the sound, laughed nervously at their momentary dis- comfiture, and continued their promenade. Mr. Holt joined them soon for a few minutes' walk, and then all three retreated to the house ; for despite the visitor's laughing protestations, the others insisted that he should retire early so as to be in good trim for the morrow's battle. Soon the house grew dark, and all slept. All? Over in one darkened room a man lay face downwards on the floor, sobbing and panting like a frightened child. Clenched fingers, and gritted teeth, and a tear or two told that he was not asleep, and that his thoughts were not of the pleasantest character. Digitized by Google

Page 123

io8 Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. [Oct., An hour or two before daybreak Woodleigh was awakened by Mr. Holt, wljio, clad in dressing-gown and bearing a candle, came to hurry the young soldier off to the camp, where the sound of a heavy fusillade could be heard. As the host had surmised, the young lieutenant was but too anxious to be at the scene of action. Jumping from his bed, he was ready to start in short order. "If you are willing to walk, my nephew can guide you by a short cut which will save a great deal of time," suggested Mr. Holt as Woodleigh came into the hall ; and Curtis at his elbow, with sword girded on and a musket over his shoulder, gave an assenting grunt. The lieutenant cared for nothing but to reach the battle as quickly as possible. He imagined that a night attack had been made by the Americans, and he was blaming himself bitterly for his own unnecessary delay. So they started off at once, and the old man stood at the open door, candle in hand, until they passed from sight. The two men walked along rapidly and in silence. Curtis led the way down the hill into a part of the grounds Wood- leigh had not seen before. Over a great sloping lawn and down towards the fringe of cedars alongside the little river they hurried, and as they emerged from the shade around the house further on in the valley they could see the silver stream winding in and out among scattered groups of pine and cedar, with the lovely moonlight playing full upon it. The trees up near the house behind them, outlined against the sky like monster sentinels, were throwing long, slender shadows down toward the water's edge. The Bring had ceased, and all was very still. Woodleigh could hear his guide talking to himself in a low whisper. "This may be a good chance to find out something about this queer family group," thought Woodleigh. Who and what was this young man, half-groom, half-gentleman ? The lieuten- ant made up his mind to know. " Do you read much ? " he broke in suddenly. "Why I hardly know," said the other, startled, turning around to answer. "I liked to read once, but since leaving Harvard I have favored it but little. You see I have n't much time to spare for recreation." " Ah," said Woodleigh questioningly, " you were born in the North?" " I 'm a Yank, yes indeed," was the answer. " And I sup- pose you wonder how I got into this part of the country," he Digitized by Google

Page 124

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. 109 went on, smiling. "You see, I'm serving for my Rachel. My uncle was very badly in need of an overseer, and he made it a condition of our engagement that I should live here three years as his manager. This way, if you please," and turning into a path alongside the stream they went along more easily and rapidly. " Another condition," continued Caleb, making a wry face and smiling again at Woodleigh, "is that I must re- main a non-combatant, support neither side, and hold my tongue as to everything done in the house. I tell you " — his tone grew serious — "it makes one ready to call himself a traitor sometimes." Woodleigh had been feeling a new sympathy for the young fellow; at the last sentence he was won over completely. The boy had spirit. It was too bad he had been wounded by fool- ish boasting, and Woodleigh was. on the point of saying as much when his guide, as though divining that intention, threw up his hand haughtily with — " I know what you would say ; oblige me by not speaking of it." Woodleigh bit his lip. " What infernal Yankee impudence ! " he muttered to himself ; and the pair walked on in silence. They were still in the thin wood that lined the stream at this point. The water was very low, and from time to time the bed of the river — if river it could be called — might be seen only a foot or two beneath the surface. The current rippled over sandy shoals and whirled around dead branches fastened in the mud and bowing under their weight of leaves. Here and there were great gaps in the bank torn by the roots of fallen trees. Near one of them Curtis suddenly stopped, and as he wheeled around Woodleigh could see his set teeth and white face. "Will you fight?" he cried. Woodleigh gasped in perfect amazement. They were in a clearing some forty feet in width, and the moon directly over- head lit up every inch of ground. The spot was well chosen at any rate. " I mean it," went on the other, unsheathing his sword. "You can guess the reason; or if you cannot — " In vain did Woodleigh remonstrate. Curtis was bound to fight, and on the moment. There was no help for it. Wood- leigh placed himself on guard, and the two blades crossed with a ring. To a fencing-master it would have seemed a farce. The two men were about evenly matched as to strength, Digitized by Google

Page 125

no Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. [Oct., but while the Englishman was perfect master of his weapon, his opponent was but an awkward and untrained swordsman. Almost at the first pass the lieutenant's blade drew blood. He would have stopped, but the other obstinately refused. They closed again, and again the American received a wound. The Englishman dropped his point and retreated a few paces. " This is mere foolishness ! " he cried. " I am only playing with you." Caleb was too wild to see it. " Blast you ! " he cried ; " one of us has got to die. On guard there ! " and he gave a sudden rush at Woodleigh. The Englishman's sword caught in Caleb's waist-coat and held, and the latter with a quick turn snapping the blade, buried his own to the hilt in Woodleigh's side! It was done. The victor looked down at the twitching corpse savagely, drew his sword away, and after cleansing it on a bunch of grass walked on again in the direction of Bladensburg, making a detour sufficient to keep him clear of the English camp. On reaching the American lines he was challenged and halted, and when he had declared himself a recruit was at once pounced upon by a stout, round faced, middle-aged person who declared that Caleb was just the one to replace a man shot an hour ago on picket duty. Then a couple of soldiers happened along who knew Curtis by sight, and, looking askance at the new recruit, hastened to tell what they knew of him. Their story heard, the old fellow turned to Caleb. "You may have heard of me?" he said — "Joshua Barney. Now, if you really want to go into action with us there 's a chance' for you among my men. If you run, or do anything suspicious, you '11 be shot." 4* All right, commodore," was the answer; " I want only a chance to prove myself." So, with a hearty slap on the back, his new commander sent him off in charge of a captain of marines. It was to be a hot fight, Caleb learned, and he rejoiced at it ; with joy would he have slain every man of the British force. And indeed the chances seemed good for his having all the bloody work de- sired. He saw his friend the commodore join a group of three or four men in uniforms, among whom an excited talk was going on. One of these he recognized as President Madison. There was some difference of opinion among them, evidently, as to the plan of operations to be adopted, and before long Barney left the group arm-in-arm with one of the men — the Digitized by Google

Page 126

igoo.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. secretary of war, Caleb heard some one say. Then the Presi- dent and the commander of the forces, General Winder, moved toward the left, where the Maryland militia, arrived but a few hours before, had taken up their position. It looked as if some quarrel had occurred. That was about all Caleb had noticed when, with the breaking of dawn, an artillery duel commenced between Barney's marines on the right and the British batteries facing them. Under cover of the English fire four thousand of General Ross's troops came breasting up the hill. The first line of Americans was driven in and scattered. On came the charge with a terrific rush. Rattling musket shots, roaring cannon, smoke that blinded eyes unused to powder, a sweeping line of red coats bearing down upon them — alas for raw militia- men ! One regiment breaks and gives way, then another follows, and soon three or four thousand of the American troops are on the run, carrying the President and his officials off with them. Over where Caleb is working at his gun the fight still rages. Blood is flowing and men dropping to the ground at every instant. The Americans are outflanked. Barney's face is red with passion, his men are fighting hand to-hand with the British, one against three or four of the enemy, while their own comrades are vanishing on the road to Washington. The old sea dog is storming away and slashing Britishers with might and main when a wound in the thigh brings him to earth. His men give up the unequal contest, and the battle is over. Then, while the prisoners are forming in line of march, Caleb, half dazed with the heat and the strangeness of it all, sees an officer in a red coat walk up to Barney and, with a gracious bow, hand the old hero his sword. It is the English general parol* ing the foe deemed worthy of special honor. That was the morning of the 24th of August. The evening of the same day saw a strange scene in the old Holt mansion near the Bladensburg road. First, without any ostensible reason, Captain Whittaker appeared, asked for Caleb and commenced an examination of the premises. Then, while the search was going on, father and daughter were ordered down to the sitting-room, where the captain put both under pledge to afford no aid to any of the Americans. 44 Unless they are particular friends," added Miriam laughing- ly on concluding her promise, which she supposed to be some requisite formality. But the captain was acting very qucerly to-day. He faced her suddenly with a questioning look. Digitized by Google

Page 127

ii2 Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. [Oct., " Understand," he said rather rudely, " this is no child's play" ; and after a moment's thought, "here, put your hand on this Bible and swear that you have not aided and will not aid any of our enemies. Perhaps you will have some regard for your oath." Miriam flatly refused. " For your father's sake do it," pleaded the old man. " This will ruin me." The girl's cheeks were flushed with anger and shame. After hesitating for an instant she stepped to the table, laid one hand upon the book and, raising the other, repeated the oath after the captain in a steady voice. This over she left the room hurriedly. It was in vain that her father knocked at her door, it was in vain that she was summoned to dinner, again and again. She felt that she had made sufficient sacrifice in submitting patiently to the soldier's insulting language, in listen- ing to his insinuations against her own and her parent's honor, in their own house. Nothing but reluctance to drive her father forth disgraced and ruined would have induced her to take the hateful oath. It was all so strange : Caleb's disappear- ance, the search for concealed prisoners, Captain Whittaker's transformation into a suspicious enemy. A voice beneath her window startled her from a reverie, and she found herself listening to the chat of a couple of soldiers stationed below. She grew sick and faint as she heard one of them relate how a foraging party had discovered the lieuten- ant's body in the wood. And even as she stood beside the window two or three men came slowly toward the house solemnly bearing something covered over with a British flag. Miriam fled from her room and out of the house, and, scarce knowing where she went, hurried down toward the river, halting only when she reached the big boulder where she and Caleb had passed so many pleasant hours together. What could it all mean ? " Miriam ! " It was the barest whisper, but she recognized the voice, and instantly her cousin stood beside her. " Where is Lieutenant Woodleigh ? " were her first words. Caleb's heart sank. He was in instant danger of his life, and here she seemed anxious only for the Englishman. He told his story in a few words. The conversation overheard, his resolve to enter the army, the chance opportunity, and Wood- leigh's death. Miriam was pale and shivering. Digitized by Google

Page 128

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. 113 "And as soon as you tell I shall be hung," he concluded. She stamped her foot angrily. " How dare — " and stopped. " Caleb ! Caleb ! how could you ? It was all in fun. Haven't we always trusted one an- other ? Her lover was silent. " You may consider yourself safe, I think," she went on more composedly ; " I shall explain and you will be set free. I understand the captain's conduct now." Caleb nodded his head wearily. " Good by," he said. " I am glad to go out of life. They have no code of honor in the army, you know. Good-by, girl, and God forgive you ! " Miriam was walking, away. She turned back at these words. " O Caleb ! if you would only understand ; if you knew how I loved you ! " There were big tears in her eyes. Caleb was puzzled. Had he made a mistake ? But that laugh of hers in the lane last night ! and now her slowness to assist him ! " Caleb," broke in his cousin again tearfully, " I can do no more to help you now, but I am true to you. You are mis- taken, believe me." And sighing, as she remembered her pro- mise, she walked toward the house. She was in the outskirts of the wood. Through the scattered trees could be seen a dozen soldiers standing in line beside an officer. A gruff word of command and she heard the click of musket locks. A sec- ond word and a row of gleaming brown barrels pointed up- ward. Then there came a deafening roar as of a cannon. While she stood wondering, the action was repeated and a second roar rent the air. She understood now. That hole yonder in the field was Lieutenant Woodleigh's open grave, the men were the firing party. And as there came a third terrific crash of guns close by her, she clung to the nearest tree for support. And then, then as she was praying wildly that they would go away and let her move from the horrid place, there rose to the silent evening sky the first low note of " Taps," the soldier's night-call. The men had grounded arms and were standing motionless. It almost drove her mad to wait there while the bugle- call lasted, but it was over finally, and the firing party fell into marching order and moved slowly toward the house with arms reversed. They had said their last good-night to the young VOL. LXXII.— 8 Digitized by Google

Page 129

ii4 Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. [Oct,, lieutenant. Miriam was free to go. She glanced back toward the rock ; Caleb had vanished. It was well. Hold ! some one was lying beside the rock, with face buried in a heap of rotting leaves. She hurried back. It was Caleb. Her cousin was prostrate and motionless. There were no signs of blood upon him ; simply he had collapsed under the long strain and was in a faint. Miriam chafed his hands and smoothed his forehead distractedly. Had she done wrong ? All this suffering — was it not for her sake ? Caleb opened his eyes. " Not dead yet ? " he said slowly. What would you have ? The girl was only mortal. An in- stant more and she was speeding toward the house again ; this time on a different errand, and Caleb, left sitting by the rock gradually reviving, had been reconciled to life again by that last word and a warm caress from Miriam. As she drew nearer the house she slackened her footsteps into a slow walk— her plan was forming with womanly quick- ness. Once get Gypsy to the rock — what ! would she perjure herself ? That hateful oath crossed her mind again. Every in- stinct in her soul prompted her to Caleb's aid, but could she violate her sworn word? As she walked along out came Eph, the negro boy, from the house, tiptoeing along silently toward her with mysterious finger upheld. Through the growing dark- ness she could see he was in a state of terrible excitement. " They 's a huntin* Marse Caleb ; some one saw him down the road," he whispered, trembling. " Cap'n says he '11 hang him. Jus* foun* lieutenant s body dead in the woods/' Her soul revolted against such justice as seemed likely to be dealt by Woodleigh's friend. The dead man had fallen in fair fight. And at any rate her cousin was a prisoner of war, not a murderer ; or if he was not a prisoner, then her oath did not apply to him. Ah, good ! that presented a loophole out of her difficulty. A few sentences to Eph, and she walked quietly into the house and sat down by her window awaiting results. There were but one or two men around the house. Doubtless the others were out on the search. Eph crept over to the stable unseen, and fastened a bridle to Gypsy ; then, leaving the saddle hanging on its nail, he hurriedly led the mare down toward the river, keeping well within the shadow of the fence. Night was falling rapidly. Up on the hill behind him a chance cry now and then betokened the presence of the search- ing party. In a moment dark figures loomed up against the sky. Digitized by Google

Page 130

1900.] Near Bladensburg : a War Tale. 115 They were climbing the fence and advancing straight toward Caleb's hiding place. As Eph came out into the open a shout from one of the men at the house and an answering rush from the searching party told that he was seen, and there came into view a new line of figures running up from below. At the same instant Caleb appeared on the edge of the woods. Eph loosed the bridle, and, as the mare sprang down to her mas- ter's side, the latter vaulted upon her back. But armed men were closing in upon him from every hand. To pass toward the road was impossible. Behind, the river cut him off from the woods, where darkness and safety awaited him. It seemed as though aid had come merely to mock at his utter helpless- ness. What chance was there now for escape ? But Caleb was not the one to surrender while a single chance remained. He wheeled the mare like a flash and dashed into the wood. Rapid orders were given, a line of soldiers swept down on either side, and a dozen followed in his tracks, driv- ing him straight towards the river. Caught like a rat in a trap, Gypsy as she faced the wide banks felt a sudden vicious lash such as she had never received before in her life. A quick dash, a mad bound, and she was across the stream crashing through the bushes on the further side. Then a dozen muskets spoke and shattered twigs and leaves went flying about her master's head. Another second and both mare and rider were lost to view amid the trees. Gypsy returned next day riderless, her brown sides crusted itfith horrid red. Beside the great rock the body was buried when they brought it back from the place where it lay. Win- ters came and went, and year by year the autumn leaves would nestle in the rock just as of yore, but not many seasons had passed before there were deep cut letters on its face pray- ing for the repose of the betrothed resting underneath.

Page 131

n6 General Election in the United Kingdom. [Oct., THE GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. F a man writes an article to advance a sordid and unscrupulous policy he should have the cunning not to permit his object to appear. The Pall Mall Magazine for September contains an article entitled "Justice to England," the aim of which is avowed, namely, to transfer thirty seats to England from Ireland, of which twenty are to be allotted to London in order that there shall be " a safeguard against effective and injurious interference in Imperial affairs of British trade." This modest proposal would confer on England what would be equivalent to sixty seats on a division, as against Ireland and Scotland, and this to maintain interests and speculations which have been severely criticised by honorable men ; would confer on London what would be equivalent to forty seats on a division in order that those persons who profit by company-promoting at home and abroad would possess a free hand to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Even as things are there is an over- whelming majority in both Houses of Parliament behind the moneyed men ; but that majority may not last. The people may for a timfe think of themselves. This is the awkward cir- cumstance in connection with the activity of commercial bub- bles in England, or the artificial inflation of the value of for- eign concessions, or the political creation of financial interests on the frontiers of colonies and dependencies. A few failures causing general disaster, a few crashes arousing public excite- ment or producing foreign difficulties, and the present majority in the House of Commons would be swept away. For the time the people would at least have the satisfaction of punishing un- worthy representatives ; it might happen that things would go on well for awhile ; that the interests of the working classes would be looked to ; some measures wanting to their complete emancipation would be passed if the House of Lords were in a suitable state of panic. Then a change of feeling would come, and once more the moneyed interest would return to power, to be again wrecked by a new scandal. This is the story of the " ins " and " outs " brought to light by the turns of the political wheel, and men have been bearing patiently such alternate advancement and retrogression in the hope that the cause of liberty and reason Digitized by Google

Page 132

1900.] General Election in the United Kingdom, i 17 would ultimately triumph. The Pall Mall Magazine politician would deprive Radicals of this hope. There has been upon the whole a great advance since the Reform Bill of 1832. The measure contained principles of growth which ripened under necessity ; but only for the necessity, only for the hard pressure put on labor by the strength behind the tyranny of capital, the franchise would be as exclusive now as in 1832. That is, legislation would be absolutely and not relatively in the hands of the classes. One of the issues ingeniously presented that will go before the electorate in October or November is the redistribution of seats proposed in the interest of London. The rest of England does not seem of much account in this reform ; the ten seats remaining may be apportioned in a manner not unfavorable to wealth, but in any case possibly the spreading of them over the electorate may not inordinately change the proportion of influence in the constituencies commanded by the government and the opposition respectively. The twenty seats for London would unquestionably render changes of power less frequent, and thereby indefinitely postpone matters of vital consequence to the workingman — indeed, to all who earn small incomes by industry of the hand or brain. The mischief of the proposal can hardly be conceived ; it would be a constant danger to the rural districts and provin- cial towns. The London members could, without any incon- venience, be always on the spot ; it entails, on the other hand, a considerable sacrifice to men from distant parts of England and from Scotland to attend at all in London ; it would be impossible for them to attend from day to day during the en- tire session. We are not pressing the claims of Ireland to con- sideration at this moment — we shall say something about them when we come to examine the question of the transfer of the seats on its merits ; what is important for English readers of the Radical party is the proposal which would give London a dominant influence in Parliament. There are sixty-one mem- bers from the London divisions now. In all matters of local as distinguished from English interests these members can be relied upon to vote as one man. Certainly in all London ob. jects, where there is no excited hostility from the country out side, the sixty-one votes would go solidly for such objects. The natural development of a capital is a thing to be de- sired in the highest degree. There are accessories to the fact that a town is the capital which must always promote its prosperity. As the seat of government and patronage, of law and legislation, large numbers are held in it by office and drawn to it by interest and expectation. It is the centre of Digitized by Google

Page 133

ii^ General Election in the United Kjagdom. [Oct., fashion, literature, and art ; but, besides these advantages common to capitals wherever situated, London is the greatest commercial centre in the world, its river the most crowded port in the world. If the proposal put forward by the writer in the magazine mentioned were carried out, the commercial interests of every town and port in England would be sacrificed to those of London, the welfare of the artisan and laborer all over Eng. land would be at the mercy of employers, sustained in the com- mon interest of capital by the eighty-one London representatives. If thirty members maintaining the slave-owning interest kept back the emancipation of the West Indian slaves for three generations after the question had become not merely a movement of justice and humanity on the part of able and enlightened men, but one in which the possessions affected by the institution were in danger, it would seem that twice that number of representatives arev more than sufficient to uphold the interests of London. The truth is, that thirty members would be as effective in watching over genuine London inter- ests— as distinguished from the schemes of company-promoters, stock-jobbers, and money-lenders of all descriptions — as ninety members for preserving the interests of the more remote dis- tricts of England. Eighty one members for London would be a force of hardly less value than half of the representation of Great Britain outside London. The Irish representation as it stands saves the United Kingdom from the supremacy of the classes. Not a movement for the benefit of the people since very early in the nineteenth century but was aided by the Irish Liberal members, and th$y for the greater part of the time constituted the majority of the Irish representation. Suppose we begin with the great Reform Act ; we find that Ireland sacrificed her own chances of political advantage to the advancement of Liberal principles throughout the' three kingdoms. She has not been always fortunate in her self- denial; for she was frequently betrayed by the official Liberals — that is, by the Whig section of the party. Her constant friends were men like Bright and Cobden ; it is hardly to be thought they would have been so faithful to her unless they had found .her faithful to their aspirations. If the Noncon- formists are now within the constitution, they owe their place to the Irish Liberals. If it should ever happen that no re- ligious distinctions shall separate any part of the Protestants of England from other Protestants there, the establishment of equality will be due to principles vindicated in the long contest between the Catholics and Presbyterians of Ireland Digitized by Google

Page 134

1900.] General Election in the United Kingdom, 119 against the Episcopal Protestantism of that country. The at- tempt to separate the principle of a state church in Wales from a state church in the rest of England is an effort to throw dust in people's eyes ; and to separate the principle of disestablishment in England and Wales from that which suc- ceeded in Ireland, is nothing more than Mr. Lowe's metaphorical application of " the mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother clever indeed as a tu quoque of expediency, but not as a deduction from principle. Clever it was for a man ready, while upholding the Establishment in England, to ask concerning that in Ire- land : " Why cumbereth it the ground ? " So far as to the useful- ness of the Irish representation to the masses of England and the enactment and assertion of the principles which protect the weak, the ignorant, and all who are born under unfavorable conditions, from the wealthy, the oveimastering, and those who are highly trained in the science of taking advantage of others. But there is another and a more vital aspect of this ques- tion of the transfer of part of the Irish representation to Eng- land. As we face this we are astounded at the cynicism of the reasons advanced for the proposal. The population of Ire- land is diminishing and that of England increasing, therefore the conditions of proportional representation on which the numbers were originally based no longer exist. The amount of taxes paid by Ireland relatively to that of England is nearly six times less than it was when, at the union of the two legis- latures, the Irish proportion of members in the Imperial Par- liament was fixed. On this statement Ireland should now be left only nineteen members. Then there is the Home- Rule difficulty, which the writer finds a nuisance. It will again be raised, h6 says, to "bother" England,* and prevent her from attending to imperial interests in China, South Africa, and wherever there is money to be made by the acquisition of ter- ritory, or the compulsory recognition of a sphere of influence where the tenitory may not be seized owing to the jealousy of the other powers. If this were a reason at all for interfer- ence with the Irish representation, it would go the whole length of extinguishing it. If the company. promoters and the usurers of London are not to be checked in their fraudulent enterprises, Home Rule must be put away as a parliamentary question. The time which the House would give to the inter- ests of moneyed men in Asia and Africa is wasted by debates on Home Rule. But this would be rather an argument for the withdrawal of the whole representation, and as Ireland pa>s £10,000,000 yearly in taxes, the awkward consequence would fol- Digitized by Google

Page 135

120 General Election in the United Kingdom. [Oct. low that that country would be taxed without even the pretence of consent for the benefit of capitalists in a hurry to grow rich at the expense of labor, and of every interest apart from the means by which a few individuals may accumulate vast fortunes. In passing it may be said that the idea should not be en- couraged that men are at liberty to compromise the relations of the Empire in order to make money. If companies choose to em- bark in adventures abroad, they should do so at their own risk. It is immoral for men to go to a foreign country, whether civ- ilized or semi-civilized, to make bargains, and carry the Empire with them to enforce their compacts. By the grant of a railway concession, say, they undertake to construct a line. If they fail to obtain the necessary supply of labor in the country, they require the Empire to insist that the government of the civilized or semi- civilized country shall put its people at their disposal. This, we submit, is immoral, and we do not think the immorality lessened by the demand that Ireland shall be practically disfranchised. But the writer has, without intending it, demonstrated the justice and necessity of the Home-Rule cry. The figures under his hand prove that by the Union Ireland has been steadily sinking in wealth and population, England advancing in both, not by steps but by bounds. " Sir, do not unite with us," said Dr. Johnson to an Irishman ; "if you do, we shall rob you." This prediction has been verified ; and the writer in the Pall Mall Magazine takes as the justification of his proposal / the effect which wise men said should follow when Ireland handed over all control of her resources to England. Trusting in the generosity of the more powerful country, as we may put it, Ireland has been impoverished, the other enriched ; but lest she should have the power to speak of her own folly and of the advantage taken of it by England, she is to be silenced in the only place where usage accorded some freedom of utterance. The prospect is gloomy ; but we do not despair. There is a court of public opinion wider than the British Isles. Whatever happens in Ireland will in some degree be known in America, in France, in Germany, in Russia — in a word, all over the world. Strange facts got out when Ireland was fenced from the rest of mankind by fleets whose business was to prevent communication with foreign nations. If there be an honest press in any country, occasional excesses of power shall be heard of — eventually to serve as acts of impeachment in that day when civilized states will come together to proclaim the rights of the whole human race and to condemn the state which conspicuously violated them. Digitized by Google

Page 136

The Master Christian, by Marie Corelli,* is a work intended to show that the author has a be- lief in the facts of science founded on knowledge; and this being so, we are not surprised that over a hundred thousand copies of the book should be sold. The population of a country dear to Miss Corelli was spoken of by one of its philosophers as so many millions, mostly fools; and we may say the dabblers in science are a hundred thousand — mostly simpletons, not fools quite. When Squire Thornton took the two ladies from London to visit the wife and daughters of the Vicar of Wakefield, the latter were greatly impressed by their airs and fine conversation. Some remarks sounded odd to the simpletons of the Wakefield vicar- age, but then it was their own dulness and want of fashion which failed to find a catastrophe in the quotation, "Jerning- ham Jerningham, bring me my garters ! " or the greatest elegance in the confession of one of the ladies that " she was in a muck of sweat." When Miss Corelli opens her scientific novel with a sentence of bad English, the hundred thousand are only to be excused for expecting a woman of science and a teacher should write like an ordinary, well-bred person. They display ignorance of the privileges of a scientific female. To do the fair writer justice, she manifests a consistent superi- ority to usage in the employment of words. We once heard of a man who took an action for libel on the ground that the defendant, in a published statement, described him as so ignorant that he could not spell the simplest words correctly. As a matter of fact, the plaintiff's spelling was bad — scanda- lously bad — but he retorted that as a gentleman he was entitled to spell any way he liked. When Miss Corelli informs us that the sacred chime pealed forth melodiously, 41 floating with sweet and variable tone," we beg, with as much diffidence as Mrs. Primrose and her daughters displayed towards the Lon- * The Master Christian, By Marie Corelli. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 137

122 Talk about New Books. [Oct., don ladies, to doubt is " variable " an activity. " Muck of sweat," to their unsophisticated minds, sounded as vulgar; and "variable/' to our unscientific judgment, seems a capacity and no more. The statue of " Le Mourant " shows " with deft and almost appalling exactitude the last convulsion of a strong man's body gripped in the death agony." In such a sentence as this, "exactitude," though unusual, may be permitted, but "deft exactitude" is not only what Polonius would call a vile phrase, but it does not bring out the idea the writer had in what she would probably call her mind. She meant the piti- less force of the perfect chiseling which made sinew, starting vein, and eye of agony tell the sculptor's thought. A deft hand for lace-making, type-writing, and tying parcels comes in suitably. She introduces the Archbishop of Rouen, who does not seem to be a saint, because- he is a handsome man, believing the doctrines of the church of which he is a dignitary ; she contrasts him with Cardinal Bonprfc, who is a saint because he has rejected the fundamental principle of the religion of which he should be an authoritative expounder. That our Lord founded a church she seems to deny with the cardinal, but in her unpleasant way she admits it by saying it was founded on the " Lying Apostle," with a capital L. She pro- fesses to love the Lord, and we hope she does; but why not speak in other terms of the great servant to whom He said : " Lovest thou Me more than these ? " The cardinal's dream is worked up ; and possibly that class of science man known as the medical student and science woman called the mantua-maker will mark passages with mar- ginal notes : How fine ! This is true ! Bravo, Corelli ! and so on as the reserve or boldness of sex prompts. It is a very turgid affair, in our poor opinion — " lurid," " red," " dazzling," " a light that was neither of earth nor of heaven " ; but this we accept, "and to be the inward reflection of millions of flash- ing sword blades," which we give up in despair. We watch for the cardinal's waking, an interesting event which comes to pass — his eminence " bathed in a cold perspiration " — at which we are not at all surprised, suffering under such rhetoric, in- stead of sleeping the sleep of the just. Angela, the cardinal's niece, "was a rare type of her sex — unlike any other woman in the world " ; we hope so, for she is intended to be a model of purity, and we find her listening Digitized by Google

Page 138

1900.] Talk about New Books. 123 without a blush to gross, hideous statements made by Aubrey Leigh, a reformer of the world. She carries on a conversation with a fashionable and vicious priest, who for some unknown reason has the name of the orator of the Gironde. This makes one think Miss Corelli such a priestess of liberty as that Delphic one who 41 Philipized.'* Money in the case of the fair Greek interpreter of the oracles, over a hundred thousand readers for the prophetess of 44 science." We are introduced to the Comtesse Sylvia Hermenstein, who is led up to us as a " Lady Hamilton." Now, Lady Hamilton was as profligate a woman as ever lived, and would be a fit companion for the London ladies re- ferred to in the beginning of this note. Why introduce her name, unless the writer panders to Holywell Street ? As one would expect, Sylvia communicates a matter in confidence to the virtuous Angela — nothing less than the dishonorable purr suit of her by a marquis. And yet a hundred thousand read- ers ! The marquis turns up : she sees him in time, escapes from Angela's apartments through the door used by the models, and the marquis and Angela carry on a conversation of a detestable character — Angela representing virtue in the dialogue, and the marquis, what shall we say ? — the good taste of Miss Corelli. It is hard to choose between Angela and the marquis, or the good and bad side of the author's understanding. We shall say nothing of the marriage of Leigh and the Comtesse Sylvia except that the cardinal should not have been present if he were a decent man, much less the saint the author tries to make him. The religious idea which among Protestants is attached to what they regard as the most important con- tract in life would not permit a Protestant clergyman to sanction by his presence such a travesty of the rite as we find there depicted. It is enough to point out, when Miss Corelli puts one who is a cardinal and an archbishop in the scene as an approving spectator, she clearly shows what she thinks her hundred thousand readers may be led to believe where the doctrine and practice of the church are concerned. We pity them ; we pity Miss Corelli. The crisis in China has created a demand for books on China and books of almost every kind are sent out to meet the demand. The work* under consideration is meant to supple- * World Crisis in China. By Allen S. Will, of the Baltimore Sun. New York and Baltimore : John Murphy Company. Digitized by Google

Page 139

124 Talk about New Books. [Oct., ment the older histories of China, and to give up to date in- formation on the social, educational, and political systems of that empire of 400,000,000 of people, particularly as to the points of contact between China and the United States. Its aim is to enable the reader to comprehend clearly and in their full significance the successive stages of the crisis as they are presented from day to day. This is a very difficult undertak- ing, and we are not aware that the author is specially quali- fied for the task. But as no two experts are in agreement as to the full significance and meaning of the recent events, and still less as to what is to be the outcome of it all, Mr. ^Will is as well entitled to be heard as any one else. The first chapter deals with the causes of the crisis in 1900. It is, in our opinion, superficial and immature. The second chapter _ brings down the narrative of events to the 26th of July, when the fate of the legations was still in suspense. It is a compilation from the newspapers, and belongs now to past history, so much having transpired since. The third chapter, on the interests of the United States in China, is mainly a reprint of the correspond- ence which took place between September 6, 1899, and March 20, 1900, with the governments of Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan on the preservation of the " open door " by the powers in their respective spheres of interest. Subsequent chapters — the author goes backwards — give ac- counts of the Chinese-Japanese War, the great Taeping Rebel- lion, a glance at Chinese history from the beginning, and an account of the era of Foreign Interference. Chapters on Chinese government, Chinese religion and civilization, and an account of the four notable characters, the Empress Dowager, the Emperor, Li Hung Chang, and Kang Yu Wei, complete the list of the contents. The useful purpose of bringing with- in easy reach, for the sake of reference, the events of recent years is served by this book. No attempt is made at style. " Europe stepped in and by a show of force gobbled the chief plums," " France took a slice of the pie," are specimens which relieve the usual monotony of bald statements. There is a fairly good map of China showing the railways built and the projected railways; but the provinces into which China is divided, and to which continual reference is being made, are not indicated. Praise is the first and the easiest duty of man to God ; then service will follow naturally; for if we sincerely praise God, we Digitized by Google

Page 140

igoo.] Talk about New Books. 125 shall more readily serve and obey him. " IJraise," says Cardinal Manning, " is the voice of ^grateful and generous love, lifted up in thanks, benediction, and worship. It is the free, loving joy of a heart grateful for the past, and for blessings now at hand. The spirit of thanksgiving and praise ought, therefore, to have a larger part in our devotions." This little book * is devoted to the cultivation of the spirit of praise; and is almost in its entirety taken from Holy Scripture, chiefly from the Psalter — that best treasure-house of the high- est devotion. The recourse to Holy Scripture and to its use in the devotions of the faithful is in the highest degree to be desired, and since the bestowal so recently of an indulgence on the devotional use of Scripture, is evidently according to the church's mind and desire. The volume contains selections for every day for three months, with an appendix for the Sundays, and for the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and of the Blessed Sacrament. People who are seeking for a volume of profitable spiritual reading might advisedly give Peregrinus a trial. The very conception of his volume f is an omen of success that becomes guaranteed when we find him accomplishing his task with such abundance of patient care, fervor, solid devotion, and graceful finish. The book is one we are grateful for having received. How true is Father Tyrrell's striking preface ! The learned Jesuit has been multiplying claims upon the favor of the Catholic public until now one is forced into a state of wonder- ment that men have so long been blind to the precious and * beautiful suggestions he is ever discovering in the common heritage of the Christian Church. The Introduction to the present volume may be said practically to insure its favor, for it will bring every intelligent reader to perceive the crying need that the author so aptly meets. That Catholics as a rule do not use the Sacred Scripture half enough is a byword. That the most intelligent and cul- tured of our people utterly fail to appreciate the transcendent beauty of the Divine Psalms is being borne in upon the observing minds of the rising generation. Father Tyrrell's suggestions and Peregrinus' work will be as the gleam of a beacon-light to many souls kept in ignorance of the charm and spiritual power * Praise and Adoration. Compiled by B. S. A. Warner, year of Jubilee, 1900. London : R. and T. Washbourne ; New York : Benziger Brothers. t Meditations on the Psalms of the Little Office. , By Peregrinus. With an Introduction by George Tyrrell, S.J. St. Louis : B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 141

126 Talk about New Books. (Oct., of the church's litujgy. May the latter redeem his half-pledge to issue a companion volume covering the whole Psaltery, and may Father Tyrrell long continue his noble work of training our people in sensible, artistic, and devotional development of the great truths supplied by Holy Church! It is really diffi- cult to exaggerate the impression made by the latter writer's constant and successful attempts to arouse men to the cultiva- tion of deep personal piety. From both Catholic and non- Catholic readers we have already heard enough to convince us that his work is to live long after the present generation shall have given way to another yet more appreciative of his rare combination of delicacy, learning, and fervent love of church and God. A sweetly-simple tale is that of the hero of Lady Kerr's biography.* The subtile charm lingering about the very places and houses inhabited by this humble saint seems to be trans- ferred to these pages, penned in sympathetic appreciation of his life. Touching, devout, and edifying, the new book is a pleasing addition to the similar volumes that have preceded it. Nor is it without receiving a great deal of needed instruction that our fin de siec/e enthusiasts will read the story of this obscure and lowly- spirited peasant, who acquired so prominent and effective an influence for good in the proud society of sixteenth-century Rome. How little harm and how great a good would have resulted from a " Reform " headed by men as saintly, unselfish, and zealous as this humble lay-brother. Queen Floradine of Flower Land, by Mrs. Cora Semmes Ives, is a beautiful little play for 41 little tots," giving them a fund of amusement and profitable instruction truly refining in its influence upon their hearts and minds. Meditations of the Heart f is a collection of morning and evening prayers done with exquisite literary taste. The author is a Jewess, and the book is introduced to the public by Rabbi Gottheil. It is the breathings of a devout soul. The devo- tional spirit disarms criticism. We might, however, were we so inclined, take issue with the sentiment one meets in the open- * A Son of Si. Francis : St. Felix of Cantalice. By Lady Amabel Kerr. St. Louis : B. Herder. f Meditations of the Heart. A Book of Private Devotions for Old and Young. By Annie Josephine Levi. With an introduction by Rev. Dr. Gustav Gottheil. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Digitized by Google

Page 142

1900.] Talk about New Books. 127 ing chapters, which spurns dogmatic truths and lauds anything that— " Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds." Dogmatic truth is the soil in. which the plant of morality and the flowers of devotional life grow. It is curious to see how people will appear to repudiate creeds, and in the next breath affirm a most positive creed. The devotional effect would have been intensified if the author could have appealed to Jesus the Saviour and Redeemer. Now, if ever, is the time for titles suggestive of information concerning the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. The pres- ent volume,* however, is concerned altogether with the Chinese immigrants to this country, and in particular with their quarter in the city of San Francisco. Doubtless all the information given concerning many strange customs of this curious race is thoroughly to be relied upon as the outcome of long familiarity with the scenes described. The volume is concerned with the doings of the thugs and " highbinders," whose infamous practices now and again cause a stir among the police officers and newspapers, but still re- main to a great extent unchecked. From the story-reader's point of view the book must be considered rather " scrappy," and, in not a few respects, rather improbable. One is con* strained to hesitate before admitting that real records can so nearly resemble loose pages from "The New Arabian Nights." The Knights of the Cross \ is an historical novel conversant with the politics of the growing state of Poland when first united with Lithuania. The theory which the romance is writ- ten to illustrate is that of a Slavonic hegemony in Europe. Air is given to the racial hostility towards Germany which people generally thought was a new feeling, but which the writer presents as one old at least as the fourteenth century. The introduction of the translator, among other mistaken ideas, gives currency to this one. The translator states impressions from a survey as inferences from movements. This may be interesting as the manifestation of his own mental operations, but it is not a philosophy of history. In the novel there is an appearance of falling off from the power which asserted itself in The Deluge, It would be hardly * The Shadow of Quong Lung. By Dr. Doyle. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, f The Knights of the Cross. By J. Henry Sienkiewicz. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 143

128 Talk about New Books. [Oct., possible that a man of Mr. Sienkiewicz's ability would not at times give proof of strength, but upon the whole the work is labored and inferior. There is an absence of the spontaneity which gave the charm to imaginative description and the con- ception of character in his other works. The humor which rose to the universal in Zagloba, and which flashed from and around the other characters brought into contact with him, is entirely absent, he tries to be playful his gambols are elephantine. The number of hard names which frightened a critic in his earlier novels is here, but in the earlier novels no one thought of the twelve consonants which spelled them. The reader was borne onward by the current of the story and animated by the energy of the action. It is different now. He hardly keeps the interest alive by efforts made strenuous by an apparent consciousness of failing power. The hero Zbyshko is an exaggeration of the simplicity and shrewdness which mark young Percival in Sir Walter Scott's novel. We recognize, with Sir Walter, that in a candid and straightforward nature there is often found a fine insight into men and a remarkable ability to deal with complications. The hero in the novel before us is a fool extricated by some hid- den Deus ex machina from the difficulties in which he involves himself. We are, therefore, unable to feel pity for his danger or to be glad at his escape. We are only surprised that the public at the scene of the execution could have been so deeply affected ; we are more amazed still at the sobbing of men and women when the nervous tension was relieved by the incident which procured his release. Yagenka is evidently drawn on the lines of Diana Vernon, but not a particle of the wit, the grace, the nobleness of that exquisite creation can be traced in her ; yet she is not with- out a certain attractiveness indeed, but this proceeds from the one reality which belongs to her — her love for Zbyshko. As we have said, the writer is too able a man to fail completely, but he falls short in working out the conception. Nor is this altogether due to his appropriation of the creation of an- other man. Either in real life, or in works of imagination, how many of the characters of Shakspere had already had existence! Yet in his hands there was given to them an element by which they became so transformed as to become beings of another order. However, when he comes to the battle of Tannenberg all his old power returns to him ; all because his own noble ideals Digitized by Google

Page 144

igoo.] Talk about New Books. are with him, the faith which burned like fire through the entire framework of the earlier novels and imparted that life to his creations which sprang from intensity of passion. The account of the battle is as detailed as that from a modern re- porter, but the most trivial incidents are arrayed in light. It is a panorama the reader has before him ; the eddy and whirl are as plain as though the bodily eye were watching the fortune of the day, and the particular deeds of daring. He hears the rear as the battle surges hither and thither, the neighing of the horses, the shouting of the captains, the clang- ing of the armor. Above all, rising like a conquering force, the hymn to Our Lady swells over the field, or, when the battle cries cease for a moment, its subduing majesty rolls along like the great voice of falling waters in which nature speaks for ever to the echoes, or like that voice when the sky silences all the voices of the earth. We close this notice with the reminder that the most dangerous rival to fame is the re- putation a man has already acquired. The Maid of Maiden Lane* is a novel, by Amelia E. Barr, of that part of the eighteenth century beginning very shortly after the acknowledgment of the United States by the powers of the world and running into the throes of the French Revolution. In New York in 1791 there were numbers of exiled royalists from France, very hospitably received, although the sympathies of Americans were with the French republicans. The writer has the advantage of knowing what took place in France, so that the interlocutors speaking in 1791 are made to possess a marvel- lous foresight. There is a scene in England and there is one in France — the latter reminiscent, the former actual in a noble family. Whatever may be the reason for selecting the eigh- teenth century as the period for novels, there is decidedly a strong tendency in that direction at present. We think the work before us lively and by no means a bad reflex of the life and manners of the time. I.— A NEW PRIEST-POET. f Julian E. Johnstone is a young priest of the Archdiocese of Boston. In this volume he offers to the world the first flower- ings of his gift of song. It is an offering to arrest the culti- * The Maid of Maiden Lane. By Amelia E. Barr. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. f Songs of Sun and Shadow. By Julian E. Johnstone. Boston: W.B.Clark Company. VOL. LXXII.— 9 Digitized by Google

Page 145

Talk about New Books. [Oct., vated and hold their attention. It will whet their eagerness for the author's future work, leaving in them expectations that will not be taken aback if that work wins for itself an eminent place in English verse. It is not at all too much to say that no poet living has a wider word-resourcefulness than Father Johnstone. Indeed, he comes very near to exhausting the poetical possibili- ties of English vocabulary. This extraordinary praise we give him, though we acknowledge in the same breath that his power has led him now and then astray, both in the indulging overmuch a fondness for unusual and awkward-looking words, and in the displaying of a positively blinding lavishness of color-words in his descriptive stanzas. True this is a fault that indicates strength, not weakness — the strength of great wealth in the raw material of poetry and of irrepressible emotional vitality. Instances of this blemish are not many ; examples of the opposite excellence, of noble force and exquisite felicity, are too abundant to count. Let a random specimen or two suffice : " Cliffs over which the tempest never rings Nor flies its flag of lightning." — From "Immortality" " Shall soul like Shakespeare or like Dante die : Fade like the flowers on a young girl's grave ; Die like the belted bee, the butterfly, Or the weak wind that swoons upon the wave ? " —Ibid. "There on a snowy couch, the snowy maiden, Her golden hair upon the pillow spread ; With fairest flowers and whitest lilies laden, In shimmering silk lies dead." — From " The Darkened Room" In poems of a free, wild spirit Father Johnstone takes keen- est delight. The sweep of the sea, the crash of the cataract, the rolling of thunder and tempest are, in his own words, " deep in the blood and the heart of me." We readily credit him when he sings : " I long for the keen salt air of the sea And the Titans' tumult and thunder, And the solemn strength and sublimity Of the songs of the sea-gods under!" — From " Sea- Longings" Digitized by Google

Page 146

i goo.] Talk about New Books. 131 Or again : " Oh, give me the flush of the rosy morn And the flash of the sun on the sea, And the blush of the haws on the black of the thorn, And a run in the sun o'er the countryside dun, With a horse speeding on like a shot from a gun, And a fence to leap over that others would shun — And I '11 laugh at the rich in my glee." — Ibid. But when he handles a staid theme, as in his poem against war, or would deliver " a sermon in verse," he is far less at ease. His fancy needs a vigorous stimulus, a sweep and a dash, "the keen salt air" of a big, outdoor, passion-full inspiration, to disclose its best ; though, like all such natures, he is ten- derly susceptihle to pathos and gives it voice in haunting melody. Has our young paet a message to men, a " burden " to his time, or sings he only lyrics that please for the hour ? The long poems, " Life and Death " and " Immortality," leave us with reason for saying that he has an evangel to the world's heart and soul. We would urge him to a profound study of his age and of the times which have been its parents ; to a root-deep grasp on the spiritual and philosophical attitude and development of the poetry of this century. Impressed so mightily are we with the sacredness of the poet's calling ; with the conviction that a poet is only then worthy of immortality when he is a seer, when he spells out the guesses of souls into a sure symbol of saving faith ; and so sadly certain are we that English poetry needs a savior of this insight and of this power to teach and inspire, that we give to Father Johnstone the encouragement that comes deepest from our heart, and hold up before him the most exalted inspiration we can conceive in urging him thus to consecrate his exceptional abilities. Only we must add a caution. Both these longer poems disclose to a searching reading too bare a scholastic structure. They are glorified syllogisms wherein the " Atqui " and the 41 Ergo " are too prominent. Take Browning's glorious " Saul," or his " Abt Vogler," or even "The Grammarian's Funeral," and see with what matchless poet's art the reasoner's art is suppressed out of notice. The argument, especially in " Saul," is profound ; it leaves us with burning conviction, or at least with the sense of having met a powerful appeal, yet not even in afterthought Digitized by Google

Page 147

132 Talk about New Books. [Oct., do we awake to the fact that a man has been arguing at us. Father Johnstone has raised the language of his lesson into a region rarely transcended ; let him shake off the sticks of its didactic method and then, once his soul has grown fast about his mission and become aflame with it, he will throw a spiritual splendor into the dark places of the poetry of this age which will win him great gratitude, and, there is bright reason to hope, enduring fame. For this let him be patient. Years con- sumed in the desert of study, and, for he is a priest, and we may and ought to say it, of prayer, since, once again, the poet's is a sacred office, and of what is his highest song save of the things of God? — years thus consumed will be rewarded richly, if some day he be hailed as the precursor of a holy era unto which the poetry of our English tongue is now groan- ing for redemption. Our highest ideal of the poet's spiritual splendor we lay before the young and gifted author whom we have briefly reviewed. We could pay him no higher compli- i meyt. We congratulate him and bid him God-speed ! 2 — THE PORTIUNCULA CRITICALLY EXAMINED * The second volume of Sabatier's work on the religious and literary history of the middle ages is occupied with the con- sideration of documents relative to the famous Indulgence of the Portiuncula. It is a work of great erudition and research, and it brings to the consideration of the question all the accuracy and scientific precision which modern criticism demands. In the first chapter the author treats of the official tradition of the Franciscans concerning the Indulgence, giving original documents and his explanations of them. This carries the matter to about the year 1330. The second chapter is occupied by an account of popular tradition extending to the beginning of the fourteenth cen- tury, while in the third tfre two streams are shown to flow into one. Then follows a description of the manuscripts bearing upon the Indulgence, and finally St. Francis' own account of the vision wherein our Lord bade him ask for the Indulgence, and the various events connected with his petition. As this Indulgence of the Portiuncula is one of the most extraordinary ever given, the history of it, as thus written by Dr. Sabatier, cannot but be of interest. For himself, the learned * Tractatus de Indulgent ia Sancta Maria de Portiuncula. Paris : Paul Sabatier. Digitized by Google

Page 148

1900.] Talk about New Books. 133 author for a long time doubted the Pardon's authenticity, and it was only upon examining original documents that he came to the conclusion that these were probably trustworthy, and that the matter by no means admitted of absolute denial. The tradition concerns itself with-the little church at Assist — one of the three which St. Francis repaired. It was, or is, a little bit of a chapel only a few feet in length, and originally was the oratory of a certain family of the Portiunculi, whence it received its popular name. The real name of the church was St. Mary of the Angels. Here St. Francis, before he had wed- ded the Lady Poverty, while he was still the heir of Ser Bartholin the wealthy merchant of Assisi, used to withdraw in prayer ; it was the falling walls of this church which he beheld himself in a vision bracing with his shoulders; it was here he resolved on founding his order. And so in every way the church was connected with the great moments of St. Francis' life. It was in his thoughts, arid there was nothing strange in the fact that this little chapel should be chosen as the place for the great Pardon. The story says that in 1221, when Francis was kneeling there in prayer, our Lord appeared to him and told him to go to Pope Honorius III. and ask, in our Lord's name, a plenary indulgence for all who should enter the church. , St. Francis did as the vision bade. He visited Honorius at Perugia, told his vision, and asked for the favor. Honorius granted his petition by word of mouth, giving to all the faith- ful an indulgence from the penalties due their sins as often as they should enter the church on the second day of August. Two years later the Indulgence was given in writing by Honor- ius in the presence of the cardinals, although many of them, even then, objected to the granting of it. Such is the account as tradition gives it. Against this, how- ever, three things may be alleged : First, the silence of early biographies of St. Francis. Of these there are five, and not one of them mentions either the vision or the concession of the pope. Second, the known dislike of St. Francis for asking any privileges for his order. This feeling on his part was often and freely expressed. Even when the brethren wished him to obtain for them license to preach everywhere, St. Francis re- buked them because they desired a privilege. " What, breth- ren!" he exclaimed, "do you not know the will of God? It is by humility we gain the good will of our superiors. When Digitized by Google

Page 149

134 Talk about New Books. [Oct., the bishops see you living in holiness, then, of themselves, will they ask you to preach for them. Let it be your singular privilege to have no privileges which may puff up your hearts with pride and breed discontent and strife." So said he at the famous chapter of Mats, in 1219, in the presence of five thousand friars, and certainly, it is argued, he would not be found two years later asking from the pope a privilege, and that of the most extraordinary kind. In the third place, it is alleged against the authenticity of the Indulgence, that while St. Francis' contemporaries are quite silent, there is, after his death, an ever-growing embel- lishment of the story of the vision and its attendant circum- stances. There can be answers made to thesp objections, which are not so formidable as they appear at first sight. The last rea- . son given is, after all, more an explanation and excuse for denying the reality of the Pardon than ground for refusing to believe in the granting of it. As to the second objection : however much St. Francis ob- jected to privileges for his spiritual children, the Indulgence certainly would not seem to come under that head, as St. Francis understood the meaning of the word. To him the Indulgence was not an exemption but an incentive to new endeavor and new holiness; it was a grace given, not a dispen- sation asked from the common order. And this would be all the truer to him, because no sort of ^profit came to the friars from the Indulgence — nothing, indeed, but added toil and labor. The silence of his contemporaries is the most weighty argument that can be brought forward. Although there are five lives of St. Francis they are reducible to two, so far as originality goes — the life of the Three Companions and that of Thomas of Celano. Of the first we no longer possess the work in its original form, and so this can hardly be counted as of much value. Of the second it must be remembered how totally different was the point of view of the mediaeval biog- rapher from that of the modern. The latter tells of events, he deals in details ; but the former sought, not to give the exterior acts of life, but rather a picture of inward emotions. And so it is that Thomas of Celano omits all accounts of St. Francis* journey to Spain ; he says nothing about his mission to Palestine in 12 19, certainly to us one of the most charac- teristic events in St. Francis' whole life. St. Bonaventure's life of St. Francis is full of the same Digitized by Google

Page 150

Talk about New Books. 135 omissions, and so it is not wonderful that there, too, nothing is said of the Portiuncula. Besides, St. Bonaventure was emi- nently a peaceful man, and his biography of St. Francis was written confessedly from second hand sources and with the sole end of healing the breaches which had already opened among the friars. These unfortunate differences, which had arisen even dur- ing the life of St. Francis, is probably the real reason for silence concerning the Indulgence. Already in 1228 the breth- ren were divided into two parties — those of wide observance under Brother Elias, and those of strict observance. Brother Elias and his followers desired to make the splendid church he was building at Assisi — building in opposition to all St. Francis' wishes — "the head and mother of the order." The foundation of the church had been laid by Gregory IX., who had succeeded Honorius. As cardinal, Gregory had been op- posed to granting the Indulgence in the first instance, and now it was doubtless his influence over Elias, aided by the man's natural inclination, which caused the suppression of the matter of the Indulgence in the account of the Three Com- panions, whereof Elias was one. And this is all the more likely since one great point made by the_ strict observants was that the church of St. Mary should be chosen as centre of the order. They were worsted in the contest, and this would be an added reason for omit- ting all account of an Indulgence which involved the glory of the little church when the victors were the historians. Doubt- less this would do much to account for contemporary silence. But if there be silence, still certain facts concerning the early Franciscans can only be explained by assuming the authen- ticity of the Indulgence. Only thus is it possible to explain the praises, the wondrous encomiums of the little chapel. Only on this ground, too, can be adequately explained the devotion to the place which St. Francis and all his most devoted fol- lowers certainly possessed. In view of all these facts it does not seem too much to assert that not only did St. Francis really have the vision, but the Indulgence was really and formally granted, although N no contemporaneous record of it now survives. It may not be out of place to add a few words concerning the extending of the Portiuncula Indulgence. In its original form it was granted only to the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, and for one day — from sunrise to sunset. 0 Digitized by Google

Page 151

136 Talk about New Books. [Oct., Gregory XV., in 1622, extended it to all the Franciscan churches, and lengthened the time from the first Vespers of the feast — that is, from noon of August 1 — until sunset of the following day. Another extension was made in 1678. Hitherto the Indul- gence had been applicable only to the living, but in that year Innocent XL proclaimed that by way of suffrage it might be applied to the dead. Finally, the Indulgence was extended to every church throughout the world where the Third Order of St. Francis was canonically established. This privilege is in force to day. 3.— A NEW CATECHISM BY A JESUIT. Although the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore enjoined the preparation of a catechism, which catechism, when pre- pared and published, was to be used throughout the whole of the United States, the Archbishops of St. Louis and of Chi- cago have given their imprimatur to the publication of the catechism mentioned above. Presumably the authorization of the publication is an authorization of its use in Sunday and day schools. The clergy will, therefore, be interested in a comparison of the two, and will, of course, make such com- parison for themselves. The order in which the articles of faith is presentee} differs from that of the authorized Cate- chism, and approximates to that adopted by Rosmini in his very valuable Catechismo disposto secondo f ordine delle Idee. The Jesuit Missionary places the instruction concerning the Ten Commandments and Sin before that concerning the Sac- raments. The language is less abstract and scientific than that of the Baltimore Catechism, and he brings forward more prominently and states more clearly the truths which affect the practical life and draw the heart more readily to God. A proof of this the reader will find by comparing the sixth chapter with the second lesson of the Baltimore Catechism* The questions and answers, as will be seen, are fundamentally the same, but the Jesuit Missionary has brought prominently forward points — the mercy of God, his being the source of all happiness and of all beauty — which, while not unnoticed in the authorized Catechism, do not receive the prominence they deserve. * Catechism of the Christim Doctrine. Prepared by a Jesuit Missionary. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 152

1900.] Talk about New Books. 137 The Jesuit Missionary seems deliberately to have adopted a method condemned by modern teachers. Not unfrequently does he give as answers the monosyllables yes and no. In fact, he has in this very respect changed the method adopted by the authorized Catechism. Many experienced teachers will find this a fatal defect. The author of a catechism ought to be intimately acquainted with dogmatic and moral theology, so as to be able to choose out of the vast mass of scientific theology the truths which are to be presented to beginners, and to present those truths in such a way as to lead on, without correction or erroneous suggestion, to those deeper and more profound truths which occupy the mind of the theologian. The author of this catechism we are sure has these Qualifications ; and for this reason we think he will admit that the answer at the bottom of page 19 to the question, How could those be saved who lived before the com- ing of the Saviour ? " is not given so clearly as not to lead to misapprehension. It is, indeed, literally right ; but it does not bring out what, in our judgment, ought to have been brought out — that the Gentiles as well as the Jews were in the super- natural order, being obliged to worship God by faith, hope, and charity, the articles of faith including belief in the coming of a Saviour. Neither Jew nor Gentile has ever been saved by keeping the natural law merely, as the term natural law is commonly understood, unless he also fulfilled the obligations of the supernatural state to which every human being was raised in the beginning. The full reply to the question would have made it clear that Jew and Gentile were alike in this re- spect, but that the Jew differed from the Gentile in having this obligation brought home more clearly to him by the positive ceremonial law. A somewhat similar criticism might be made of the answer given to the question (p. 35) " Who gave the Ten Command- ments?" The ten commandments had, of course, been known more or less clearly and fully to every man from the very beginning, long before their solemn promulgation on Mount Sinai. Again, it is going too far to say that the observance of Sunday requires reading good books and attendance at Vespers. These practices are, of course, highly to be commended ; they are not commanded. Having said all that we can in criticism, we conclude by commending it to the attention of the clergy as having the Digitized by Google

Page 153

138 Talk about New Books. [Oct., great advantage of simplicity, clearness, and the enforcement of just those truths which are most essential and useful. 4.— BISHOP OF PEKIN'S BOOK ON CHINA * Monseigneur Favier, missionary in China for thirty eight years, and now Vicar-Apostolic of the Pekin district, has just published a book of exceeding value. The war in the East has directed the attention of all the world to the people of the Orient, and there has been a great demand for accurate knowledge concerning the customs and manners of the Chi- nese. Little is known of their history, though the Chinese claim for their civilization an antiquity greater than any of the European nations. This demand for information concern- ing the Chinese is illustrated by the efforts of the booksellers to create any kind of a book about China and to put it on the market. Monseigneur Favier's book comes at this juncture to satisfy this eager demand. No one is better qualified to write of the Chinese people than the missionary who has spent his life among them. Monseigneur Favier knows the language thoroughly, he has been among the people in season and out of season, and he has studied their history and racial traits, so that there is not living a European who is better fitted to write of China and the Chinese than the learned bishop. Ttie book contains a complete history of the various dynas- ties, together with an accurate description of Pekin and the lega- tions as well as of the quaint customs of the people. It has, moreover, innumerable illustrations, and all done by Chinese artists — that is, the pictures that are at all artistic. The bizarre posturing of the Chinese figures and the most extra- ordinary style of Chinese dress are evidences either of strange customs or of a rude state of the pictorial art. However, the book is of very great value just now. It is published by the St. Augustine Society of Belgium, and may be ordered through the Catholic Book Exchange. * Peking : Hixtoire et Descr ption. Par Monseigneur Alph. Favier, vicaire apostolique de Peking. 524 gravures anciennes et nouvelles reproduites ou executees par des artistes -chinois d'apres les plus precieux documents ; 79 gravures hors texte Bruges: Societe de Saint-Augustin, Desclee, De Brouwer et Cie ; New York : Catholic Book Exchange. Digitized by Google

Page 154

Editorial Notes. 139 EDITORIAL NOTES We cannot refrain from expressing our surprise and chagrin that a certain reputable publishing house of this city, whose name heretofore has been associated only with what is decent and wholesome and of good repute, should have so far for- gotten its standards of honor and decency as to father the latest Corellian blasphemy on the American reading public. The Galveston Horror is certainly beyond anything that has ever occurred in the history of this country. In its sud- denness, in the appalling loss of life, in the destruction of property, it was equalled only by the Scriptural Deluge that swept so many from the face of the earth. In the providence of God these terrible calamities have their own place. It was one of the consoling things about the catastrophe to see with whit unanimous and spontaneous generosity the country poured , out its wealth and practical sympathy to alleviate the misery. Another chapter in the history of Higher Criticism closes with the sale and demolition of the great Bible House, the home of the American Bible Society for fifty years. The American Bible Society is the direct outcome of the Protestant Rule of Faith: that the world is to be converted by the reading of the Scriptures. It began its work with the beginning of the century. It has had an immense income, amounting in 1875 to $577,569 a year. It has done a tremendous work. Since its foundation it has printed and disseminated 31,893,332 Bibles, enough probably to sow the world knee deep with Bible leaves. But the love for the Bible has been killed in the hearts of the people, and the reverence for its sacred pages has withered under the chilling blasts of Biblical Criticism. The fountains of revenue have been dried up, and the American Bible Society is obliged to seek more economical quarters. Of course we know that there has been a ruinous competi- tion in England between the Oxford and International socie- ties, but when there is a big plant for the making of Bibles, and when there is no demand for the output, so that the society cannot actually give its Bibles away, there is only one alternative — to go out of business. There is no better evi- dence of the decay of Protestantism than the demolition of the old Bible House. Digitized by Google

Page 155

140 The Columbian Reading Union. [Oct., THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. k0R the information of new readers the statement is here given that The. J7 Columbian Reading Union is intended to be a useful auxiliary to the Catholic reading public. It endeavors to counteract, wherever prevalent, the indifference shown toward Catholic Rterature, and to suggest ways and means of acquiring a better knowledge of standard authors. 1 he desired result can be advanced by practical methods of co-operation among those in charge of libraries, managers of Reading Circles, and others. All societies of this kind will derive mutual benefit by the interchange of opinion and suggestion which- will be encouraged and made profitable through the influence of a central body. In the vast domain of juvenile literature lists of books are needed to meet the constant demands of educational institutions, and of parents who rightly exer- cise a vigilant supervision over the reading matter supplied to their children. By special arrangement with Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. — 91-93. Fifth Avenue, New York City — the Columbian Reading Union has secured a liberal discount for its patrons, as indicated in the following list of books: The Christ, the Son of God. Fouard & Griffith (2 vols.), $4.00 $3.00 $0.2 s St. Peter and the First Years of Christianity. Fouard & Griffith, 2.00 1.50 .14 St. Paul and his Missions. Fouard & Griffith, 2.00 1.50 •IS Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Bossuet, .... 1. 00 75 .08 Stories on the Rosary. Louisa Emily Dobr^e (Part I.), .50 .38 .06 Stories on the Rosary. Louisa Emily Dobr£e (Part II.), .50 .38 •OS A Child's History of Ireland. Dr. P. W. Joyce, . 1.25 •94 .11 When we were Boys. William O'Brien, M.P 1. 00 75 •13 Sacred Scenes and Mysteries. Rev. J. F. X. 0 Conor, S.J., 1. 00 75 .o& The World's Unrest and its Remedy. Jas. Field Spalding. . 1.25 •94 .08 Nova et Vetera. Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J 2.00 1.50 •13 Hard Sayings. Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J., .... 2.00 1.50 •i$ One Poor Scruple. Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, .... 1.50 1. 13 .10 Idea of a University. Cardinal Newman, .... 1.25 •94 .12 Verses on Various Occasions. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 •94 .ia Loss and Gain : The Story of a Convert. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 •94 .10 Callista : A Tale of the Third Century. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 94 .11 The Dream of Gerontius. (Cloth.) Cardinal Newman, •35 .27 .02 The Dream of Gerontius. (Full leather.) Cardinal Newman, 1. 00 75 •03 Meditations and Devotions of the late Cardinal Newman, 1.25 •94 .10 Present Position of Catholics in England. Cardinal Newman, , 1.25 •94 .10 Historical Sketches. (3 vols.) Cardinal Newman. Each, . 1.25 •94 .10 Manual of English Literature. Thomas Arnold, 2.00 1.50 •15 Spiritual Letters to Men. Fe*nelon, 1. 00 75 •05 Spiritual Letters to Women. F£nelon, .... 1. 00 75 •OS Journal of a Few Months' Residence in Portugal. Mrs. Quilli- nan (Dora Wordsworth), 2.00 1.50 .12 Retail Net Post- Price. Price, age. Digitized by Google

Page 156

1900.] The Columbian Reading Union. 141 The following highly approved works may also be obtained from Long- mans, Green & Co., and a special discount will be allowed for patrons of The Columbian Reading Union, in proportion to the number of volumes ordered. The retail price only is here quoted : History of St. Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) and of the Sisters of Charity. By Monseigneur Bougard, Bishop of Laval. Translated from second French Edition by Rev. Joseph Brady, CM. 2 vols. $6.00. History of St. Catherine of Siena and Her Companions. With a translation of her Treatise on Consummate Perfection. By Augusta Theodosia Drane. 2 vols. 8vo. $5.00. MemDir of Mother Francis Raphael, O.S.D. With some of her Spiritual Notes and Letters Edited by Rev. Bertrand Wilberforce, O.P. 8vo. $2.50. The Life and Works of Dante Alighieri. Being an Introduction to the Study of the Divina Commedia, by Rev. J. F. Hogan, D.D. 8vo. $4.00. The Monks of the West : from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. By the Count de Montalembert. With an introduction on Monastic Constitutional History, by the Rev. F. A. Gasquet, D.D. 6 vols. 8vo. $15.00. The English Black Monks of St. Benedict. A Sketch of their History from the Coming of St. Augustine to the Present Day. By Rev. Etheldred L. Taunton. 2 vols. $7.50. The Life and Time9 of Cardinal Wiseman. By Wilfrid Ward. 2 vols. 8vo. $6.00. Many of the volumes mentioned in the foregoing list represent the highest standard of Catholic literature, and have a claim on all lovers of good books. It is to be hoped that the members of Reading Circles will form the resolution of doing something on behalf of these prominent Catholic authors by having their books made known to friends, and brought to the notice of those responsi- ble for selecting the books to be placed in public libraries. The leaflet which has been prepared under the direction of the Columbian Reading Union con- tains brief notices and critical comments on the various authors whose works are recommended. This leaflet and an order blank appended may be obtained by sending ten cents in postage to the Columbian Reading Union, 415 West Fifty-ninth Street, New York City. * * ♦ Pope Leo XIII., when opening the Vatican archives to students of receg- nized ability, stated that The first law of History is not to dare tell a lie; the second, not to fear to tell the truth ; besides, let the historian be beyond all suspicion of favoring or hating any one whomsoever. The same idea seems to have been in the mind of the ancient writer who penned these words : Which if I have done well and as becometh the history, is what I have de- sired ; but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me. — Machabees xv,jg. In the records of the American Catholic Historical Society there is much to be found in defence of the truth and in refutation of falsehood. Rev. Hugh T. Henry, of St. Charles' Seminary, Overbrook, Pa., has given much attention to the numerous falsifications concerning Catholics in an interesting article on The By-Paths of History. After buying and paying for a book on the history of Digitized by Google

Page 157

142 The Columbian Reading Union, [Oct., music, written by the well-known musical critic, Mr. W. J. Henderson, he found that it contained historical blunders and a savage attack on the work of Pope Gregory the Great. The authority quoted is the oft- refuted Dr. Draper, who wrote a book on the intellectual development of Europe. This book is sup- posed to have led the Hon. Andrew D. White, former college president, into numerous false notions— not yet retracted — concerning historical events in rela- tion to the Catholic Church. As a conclusion Father Henry decides that the monuments of bigotry in general literature are generally perversions of histon ; and suggests that a suitable medium for calling attention to these perversions would be the quarterly publication of the American Catholic Historical Society, 7 1 5 Spruce Street, Philadelphia: Catholic readers should send notice promptly oi every book containing erroneous and offensive statements regarding Catho- lics in the past and present. In this way the old and new falsehoods of anti- Catholic prejudice could be recorded, and the circulation of unreliable books restricted. Father Henry also commends to Catholic readers the copious, learned, and impartial treatment of Catholic subjects found in Chambers' En- cyclopedia, and condemns the verbose and prejudiced statements given in the Britannica, especially in reference to Gregory the Great, the Jesuits, and Blessed Thomas More. Dr. Spofford has collected into A Book for all Readers, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, much of the book-wisdom and some of the book-wit gathered during his long experience as librarian-in-chief of the Congressional Library, which he, after years of struggle, has lived to see worthily housed. We have here information as to the acquisition and proper care of books, the management of a library, and all things of special interest to book-lovers ; the whole enlivened by many curious particulars and some facetious remarks. In forming a library of general reading a question which is sure to arise is that of novels. Here Dr. Spofford is wisely conservative. A subscription library that must cater to the public taste in order to exist may be obliged to load its shelves with worthless fiction ; but for an endowed library it is sufficient to have a fair representation of each important class of contemporary novels. The function of the library is to instruct and improve, not to furnish amusement. And as the appetite for incessant and indiscriminate novel-reading seems to be growing to a disease, the librarian who properly feels the importance of his calling will at least avoid pandering to it. » % An interesting chapter is given to the enemies of books, chief of which are dust, damp, overheating, gas, insects, mice, and thieves. With brushes, ventila- tion, electricity, poison, and traps the librarian can deal with the lower degrees of the scale ; but to escape the book-pilferer, short of the heroic remedy of " keeping a man standing by each book with a club," is a difficult problem where the public has free access to the shelves. Dr. Spofford's suggestions for dealing with that torment of the librarian, pam- phlets, are to bind the more important singly or collectively, or have them filed in pamphlet-cases. Yet there will always remain a mass of miscellaneous pam- phlets which seem to have no value, yet any one of which somebody, at some time, may want to see. To tie these up in bundles, or heap them in piles in a cellar or garret, is little better than sending them to the junk-shop. A better plan is to have a room, if possible — if not, a set of shelves— devoted to miscella- neous pamphlets. Give each pamphlet when received an accession-number

Page 158

1900.] The Columbian Reading Union. '43 written in bold figures on the front cover, and place it on the shelf in the order of its accession, irrespective of date or subject. Guide-numbers, at intervals of 20 or 25. can be placed on the edges of the shelves, or guide-cards between the pamphlets. The accession-series should be distinct from that of the main library, and there is no need of an accession-book. Catalogue briefly under the subject (in either the general or a special catalogue) with a symbol to indicate that the number refers to miscellaneous pamphlets. The reader who finds from the catalogue that the library has a pamphlet on the subject he is studying gives the number to the assistant, who by the guide-numbers on the shelves can lay his hand on it in a few seconds. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is devoted to binding, of which the various processes, styles, and technicalities are clearly explained. Hints to readers not accustomed to great libraries, and to librarians how to help such readers, are also given, with some remarks on the art of finding references and quotations. Rare books are discussed, and due warning given to the inexpert buyer not to be deceived by very rare or unique in catalogues. Putting incunabula aside, no book is necessarily rare because it is old. But if he should be the lucky pos- sessor of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 1459, it may interest him to know that a copy brought ,£4.950 at the Syston sale in 1884, being the highest recorded price for a single printed volume. Or if among old rubbish in his garret he finds a copy of the Bay Psalm Book, 1640, let him not part with it lightly, for it is worth over a thousand dollars. The most expensive book that was ever published in the world is the official history of the War of the Rebellion, which is now issued by the government of the United States at a cost, up to date, of $2,334,328. Of this amount $1,184,391 has been paid for printing and binding. The remainder was expended for salar- ies, rent, stationery, and other contingent and miscellaneous expenses, and for the purchase of records from private individuals. It will require at least three years longer, and an appropriation of perhaps $600,000, to complete the work, so that the total cost will undoubtedly reach nearly $3 000,000. It will consist of 112 volumes, including an index and an atlas, which contains 178 plates and maps, illustrating the important battles of the war, campaigns, routes of march, plans of forts, and photographs of inter- esting scenes, places, or persons. Most of these pictures are taken from photographs made by the late M. B. Brady, of Washington. Several years ago the government purchased his stock of negatives. Each volume will, therefore, cost on an average about $26,785, which probably exceeds the cost of any book of the kind that was ever issued. Copies are sent free to public libraries, and 1,347,999 have been so distributed. The atlas cost $22. The remainder of the edition is sold at prices ranging from 50 cents to 90 cents per volume. But there does not seem to be a large popular demand, for only 71.194 copies have been sold, for a total of $60,154. The book can be ob- tained by addressing the Secretary of War. The material used in the preparation of these histories is taken from both the Federal and Confederate archives. The reports of commanders of armies, corps, brigades, regiments, etc., are carefully edited and arranged so as to give a consecutive account of all engagements ynth as little duplication and unneces- * *

Page 159

144 The Columbian Reading Union. [Oct., 1900.] sary material as passible, and as the writer represents both sides of the struggle, it may be regarded as impartial. * * * The latest recipe for a successful literary hit is as follows : Get a fresh idea. Don't improve on somebody else's. The public shuns a literary imitator. Get a bright thought of your own, entirely original. Then write it out in article or in story. Go over it and cut it down one-half. Why ? Because brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the soul of success as well. Don't use long or obsolete words. Every-day language skilfully handled is ample. Don't send people to the encyclopaedia or dictionary to get your meaning. Some will do it, bvt the number is very, very small. Better be on the safe side and use simple words. The most effective sentences ever written were made of words of not more than two syllables. Try and tell the world something it doesn't know and wants to know. Do that, and success is yours. Fancy writing is a grave into which hundreds of young writers are being buried. By fancy writing I mean soaring away over a moonlight, or badly de- scribing a sunset, as so many are doing. You must leave fancy writing to some other author; you do the helpful and practical sort. You may not receive the approval of the intense literary set. But that need not worry you. There is another big portion of the public whose approval is worth having. Just try for that first ; then, if you can get the other too, so much the better. The helpful writers are the authors of the future whose work is going to be in demand. Literary sunsets and moonlights are all very pretty, but there is just about one -author in every fifty who makes a reputation on them. M. C. M. INDIAN FAMINE SUFFERERS. From Appeal in August issue, Cash, $133.00. Digitized by Google

Page 160

B.I Babbitts is for folks who want their money's worth of soap Don't buy soap and premium knick-knacks together. You're likely to pay too much for your pre- miums and much too much for your soap. Babbitt's Best Soap for nearly half a century has lead all laundry soaps in purity and economy, and it still leads, and always will lead. Your full money's worth of soap-quality and long-lasting economy in every cake. No Premiums and no need of them — the best sells on its merits. Made by B. T. Babbitt, New York Digitized by Google

Page 161

ue mass duuk. * uo. The "ONEITA" I (Patented April 25, 1893) Klastic Ribbed Union Suits 1 8 No Buttons Down the Front Made Especially for Women are complete undergarments, covering the en- tire body. Per- fectly elastic, fitting like a glove. Convenient to put on, being entered at top and drawn on like trousers. thow|nfl th§ 0nly iuUom on tht 6aw*nt. With no other kind of underwear can ladies obtain such perfect fit for dresses, or wear comfortably so small a corset. The Oneita has done away with the annoyance of all buttons, bands, and double thick- nesses of cloth under the corsets. \ '. *. "• ONEITA KNITTING MILLS. Office: No. i Greene St-, New York Send for Illustrated Booklet X earline jossesses eculiar roperties rudent eople urchase earline ress Public renounce earline erfect JKiLilJLIiV is * so*fy powder- contains all the soaP nec- essary and something else. Millions use Pe&rline with satislacuon — Hundreds have imitated Pearline to their own and ike peoples disgust. ME MANUAL OF PRAYER Do you like a really i-ood I»^e^-ipQP^e

Page 162

A Country without Strikes. bbv. john a. by an, s.t.l. Ofcthofto Cameos, nob a bylman. flhe Catacombs were of Christian Origin* (Illustrated.) * • EIGHT BE.V. MONSIGNOB CAMPBELL, D.D. ifhe Funeral Wreath ; or, the Ghoif s Fhotogmph. bbssijb o'BYBNE. TO Robert Southwell, Martyr, Jesuit, jfficfPoet. (Poem.) " ' M JOSEPH F. CASH MAN. The Possibilities of the Pan-American Exposition. (Illustrated.) ANNA BLANCHE McGILL, The Soul's Release. (Poem.) ANNA COX STEPHENS. BEV. JOSEPH Mc80BLEY, C.8.P. GABBIEL FBANCIS POWERS. WILLIAM SBTON, LL.D. (Poem.) Old Spiritual Writers. Spiritual Element in Art. The Upbuilding of Animal Life. A Paraphrase of St. Paul. The Testimony of Science to Religion. a. a. moGINLEY. The F*aeibn Play. (Illustrated.) james j. walsh, m.d., Ph.D. A t dr&ight at Cliff Haven. m abion j. b runo we. To a Departed Friend. (Poem.) susan l. xmeby. Prise, 25 Centsc 13 per Tear, THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK. P. O. Box *, Station N. ART AND BOOK COMPANY, 22 Pattrattter VUw, UmlM, E. C • —MB Iflff fteM MM I

Page 163

PETER COOPER'S CLARIFIED 4fGELATINE^ FOR Blanc Mange, Our PULVERIZED GELATINE It tht most convenient for family use. at It requires much less time to dissolve. Wine Jellies, Charlotte Ru8§e. "Columbia" Modern LAUNDRY MACHINERY, For Asylums, Convents, Hospitals, and other Institutions. WASHER I'HirhS "RIRHT," Machinery "UP-TO-DATE » and Guaranteed. EXTRACTOR. WILSON LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO., Send for Prices. Full Information, and Pnlnmhio Do Catalogue M. Estimates on Application. UUIUIIIUId, rd. It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those v\ho advertise in The Catholic World Magazine, HOTEL EMPIRE. BROADWAY AND 63d ST.. N Y. CITY EUROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. AB80LVTKLY FIREPROOF. The Standard of Excellence at Moderate Cost. Within ten minutes' walk of all the Theatres and great Department Stores, and easy of access from all Railroad terminals and Steamship landings. PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE EXCLUSIVR- NESSOFCLIBNTELLE. PERFECTION IN CUI- SINE, and EFFICIENT SERVICE WILL FIND 14 THE EMPIRE M AN IDEAL HOTEL- Send postal for 4 * The Empire Illustrated " and rate card. W. JOHNSON QUINN, Proprietor. When a Housewife f SEES THE TRADE- ilARK BELOW On Enameled Ware it It Safe to Bny; not till tht n. NO POISON can lurk in Agate Nickel Steel Ware (send for parn-yj* 4% phlet showing why), but ^ without this mark there is no immunity . from danger. A re- cent analysis made 9 of 17 different makes \ showed in every instance one of these three poisons as a part of their coating viz.: ARSENIC, LEAD AND ANTIMONY. Each Cooking Utensil ( make 5000 different kinds) the "L. & G. Agate Nickel Steel Ware" has, besides this Track-Mark, burnt In the enamel, a label attached with Chemists9 certificate as & guaranty of ABSOLUTE SAFETY ., Pamphlet of vital interest to ererv housewife* FREE to any address, [S- La I a nee & Grosjean Mfg. Co., |V( Boston. New York. Chicago, ■ The INKS used on this publication are manufactured by 8IGMIgNHdf7I*I*HAN CO., New York.

Page 164

Digitized by Google

Page 165

The Blessed Virgin in the Passion Play at Oberammekgau. Character taken by Anna Flunger, the Postman's Daughter. Digitized by Google

Page 166

CATHOLIC WORLD. Vol. LXXII. NOVEMBER, 1900. No. 428. "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." BY REV. JOHN A. RYAN, S.T.L. {Catholic University). UT compulsory arbitration, you know,'" said a young Englishman who was with us, fresh from Oxford and post-graduate courses of political economy from John Stuart Mill to Boehm-Bawerk, " ' is an impossibility, a contradiction in terms. You cannot make men work whether they want to or not ; you cannot compel men to arbitrate nor fix prices by law/ " * That 's what all the authorities of the business world and political economy say/ our New-Zealander replied ; ' but what they say we can't do, we are doing/ 99 These two paragraphs appear in Henry D. Lloyd's last book* as part of a conversation that took place in the capital of New Zealand during a session of the Court of Arbitration. Each of the speeches is in its own way characteristic. The scholarly Englishman gives what he conceives to be the scien- tific objection to the principle of compulsory arbitration, while the practical New-Zealander opposes his argument with the logic of facts. And the logic of facts, says Mr. Lloyd — at least, so far as New Zealand is concerned — is all on the side of compulsory arbitration. In six chapters he describes, re- spectively : the provisions of the New Zealand law ; its success in the boot and shoe industry; the superiority of the rule of committees, as in compulsory arbitration, to the rule of mobs, * A Country without Strikes. By Henry D. Lloyd. 1900. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York. 1900. VOL. LXXII.— IO Digitized by Google

Page 167

146 %tA Country without Strikes:' [Nov., as in strikes ; how the new law has taken the women of New Zealand out of the sweat-shops ; how this law of parliament has become a law of trade, and finally what it costs and what it pays. THE NEW ZEALAND LAW. The compulsory arbitration law of New Zealand was put on the statute books in response to the desire of the people for self-protection. The enormous losses caused by the great mari- time strike, nine years ago, had taught the progressive New- Zealanders a lesson. They became convinced that labor trou- bles ought to be decided by arbitration rather than by war. The Minister of Labor, Mr. Reeves, immediately set out to study the arbitration laws of Europe, America, and Australia. After going over the whole ground thoroughly, his conclusion was that in all these countries " voluntary arbitration has failed for generations." The reasons for this failure he summed up in the words of a Manchester merchant: " Everyman who thinks that he is going to lose a strike is ready to go to arbitration, while the man who thinks he is going to win will not have it/* Hence he resolved to try the experiment of compulsory arbi- tration, and brought a bill into parliament embodying that principle. That it was "an absolute experiment,M he frankly admitted ; " but," said he, " if we are not to deal with this question in an experimental manner, how are we to deal with it at all?" To this view the New Zealand parliament assented almost unanimously, and in 1894 passed the bill substantially as it was introduced. Its main features have been thus sum- marized by Mr. Lloyd : 1. "It applies only to industries in which there are trade- unions." This is because the great strikes invariably occur where labor is organized, and because the Arbitration Court could not afford to waste its time over the petty disputes of indi- viduals. But any seven men may form a trade-union, and come under the provisions of the law. In fact, both laborers and capitalists are encouraged to organize. • 2. " It does not prevent private conciliation or arbitration." The law encourages employers and employees to adjust their' differences by private arbitration, and to that end sup- plies them with forms of procedure, and provides for the en- forcement of their decisions. Indeed, the Arbitration Court can act only when it is appealed to by either of the disputants. Digitized by Google

Page 168

1900.] "A Country without Strikes:* 147 3. " Conciliation is exhausted by the state before it resorts to arbitration." There is a Board of Conciliation, whose members are chosen by both the association of employers and the association ol employees, for each " industrial district." It can investigate, visit, and intermediate, but it cannot compel obedience to its decisions. Hence if the loser refuses to accept its award the winner appeals to the Court of Arbitration. 4. " If conciliation is unsuccessful, the disputants must arbi- trate." The Court of Arbitration is composed of three members, one of whom is chosen from a list submitted by the working- men of the colony, one from men named by the capitalists, and one from among the judges of the Supreme Court. In disputes of more than ordinary complexity two experts chosen by the contesting parties may be added to the board, thus in- suring a thorough presentation of the points at issue. Pending the court's examination, the employer is forbidden to shut down, and the employees to stop work. Nor may employees strike or employers shut down beforehand, to evade arbitra- tion ; for the court, if appealed to within six weeks, has ample power to put an end to such strikes or lockouts. The Court of Arbitration has power to visit any premises, compel the at- tendance of any witnesses, and the production of any books or papers, and can imprison those refusing to obey. Its decisions cannot be set aside for any informality, nor can they be " chal- lenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed, or called into question by any court of judicature on any account what- soever." 5. " Disobedience of the award may be punished or not at the discretion of the court." The law is fully protected against all forms of evasion. If employers or employees can show good reason for shutting down or quitting work during or after arbitration, of their diffi- culties, they may do so ; but if they wish to resume work dur- ing the life-time of the award they must comply with all its provisions. As a rule, the court punishes disobedience of its decisions by fines and imprisonment. SUCCESS OF THE ARBITRATION LAW. The new act was first brought into operation in the dispute between the federated boot manufacturers and the associated unions of their workmen. In 1891 the employees' union de- Digitized by Google

Page 169

148 "A Country without Strikes." [Nov., manded that only union men be employed, and this demand was made the subject of voluntary arbitration. Representa- tives of both sides rhet, and arrived at a satisfactory agree- ment, only to find that a few obstinate manufacturers of Auck- land refused to accept its terms. The will of the many was set aside by the blind selfishness of the few. Then followed a most disastrous strike; then an agreement that lasted three years, and after that a refusal by some of the manufacturers to prolong that agreement. At this time (in 1895) the men appealed to the Court of Arbitration. The chief points in the court's decision were these : It re- fused the request of the men that only unionists should be employed, but enjoined that members of the union should be given the preference, for this had been "the custom of the trade." It limited the hours to not more than nine in a day, nor more than forty-eight in a week. It also fixed the number of apprentices in each department, and decided that the mini- mum wage should be ten dollars a week. Both sides could be assured that these rulings were fair because they were given with great deliberation after all the conditions of the industry had been made public and discussed by witnesses and experts. However, the manufacturers who had been before the court were hostile to the order giving union labor the preference, and complained that they would be placed at a disadvantage, since the manufacturers outside of the association could disre- gard the award. The latter were not allowed to do anything of the kind. They were summoned by their employees before the court, and although they pleaded " conscientious scruples against belonging to the masters' association," they were com- pelled to carry on their business under the same conditions as their competitors in that association. The result of the application of compulsory arbitration in the boot making industry of New Zealand is thus forcibly de- scribed by Mr. Lloyd (p. 60): "Instead of strikes, riots, star- vation, bankruptcy, passion, and all the other accompaniments of the Homestead method, there has been — debate ! The total loss is a few weeks' time of only a dozen men. The manufac- turers have not been ruined ; they have not had to shut down their works ; they have not fled the country. The working- men have gone on working, buying land, and building homes and paying for them, rearing children, and building up indus- try and the state as well as their homes." Digitized by Google

Page 170

1900.] " A Country without Strikes" 149 THE WOMEN WORKERS BENEFITED. The women workers of New Zealand have been especially benefited by the new law. For a long time the shirtmakers and other clothing operatives were compelled to work for less than living wages. After several attempts to better their con- dition by organization and voluntary agreements, they appealed to the Court of Arbitration. The award of the court fixed the minimum wage at a figure which was a compromise between the contentions of the two sides, gave members of the union the preference, and abolished the sweat shop. This was in the city of Wellington. In Dunedin forty-two of the forty nine firms in the tailoiing business arranged a schedule of wages with their employees, which the other seven refused to sign. These seven were summoned before the Court of Arbitration, and during the proceedings the reason of their obstinacy be- came manifest. They had been defrauding their customers by charging custom prices for factory work, and were unwilling to pay a scale of wages that would make this dishonesty im- possible. The court promptly put a stop to this deception, and compelled these seven manufacturers to accept the same conditions as the other members of their trade. The arbitra- tion law has thus proved a force for honesty in business, as well as for fair dealing between masters and men. Through the publicity of the court's proceedings, the manufacturer's power to cheat his consumers is notably lessened ; for when the workers are called in as witnesses they may let out some of his "trade secrets." Through the good work done by compulsory arbitration in the tailoring and clothing business of New Zealand, the con- sumer gets better goods for his money, the employer is pro- tected against cutthroat competition, the women have higher wages, uniform terms, and better conditions in the factory, and, most important of all, the sweater finds his occupation gone. " He may yearn as he will for the return of the good old times, and for the music, so sweet to his ears, of the 4 Song of the Shirt' as it used to be sung, but he will yearn in vain. In New Zealand the 'Song of the Shirt' is a lost chord " (p. in). THE LAW FAIRLY APPLIED. One of the most notable facts in the working of the new law is the uniform fairness with which it has been adminis- tered. The first judge of the Arbitration Court, the "Tory Digitized by Google

Page 171

150 "A Country without Strikes:' [Nov., Judge," as he was sometimes called, was feared by the work- ingmen because of his social affiliations, but he has surprised them by deciding in nine cases out of ten in their favor. Yet he has not acted the partisan. Thus, in cases where there were special circumstances, he did not insist that union men should be given the preference, but only that they should not be dis- criminated against. In another case he refused the demands of the unionists, because they represented but a small minority of the workmen in that particular trade. That the decisions of the court have always been substantially just is shown by the fact that no employer has gone out of business, although the a'vards have almost all been in favor of the men. Those who wish to get a more detailed account of the work- ing of the Compulsory Arbitration Law should seek it in the pages of Mr. Lloyd's interesting, even fascinating, book. I quote a brief resume* of the success of the law as he sees it : " There has not been a strike by organized labor, with one in- significant exception, since its passage. It has harmonized all the labor troubles brought under its cognizance. The courts have been constantly strengthening themselves and the act by their administration of it. Capital has not fled, but, on the contrary, industries of all kinds have been flourishing as never before. There have been a few attempts to evade or disregard the decisions of the courts; these the judges have proved themselves fully able to control and punish. Although the de- cisions have almost all been in favor of the men, because it is a time of prosperity and their demands have been made on a rising market, the employers have found no serious embarrass- ment in complying with them, and some of the employers are the strongest supporters of the new measure'1 (p. 13). MORALITY OF COMPULSORY ARBITRATION. The chief ethical* objections to the principle of compulsory- arbitration are : first, that it violates individual liberty and free- dom of contract ; and, secondly, that it attempts to fix wages and prices by law, instead of leaving them to be determined by the conditions of the market. A further objection may be made to the New Zealand law because of its tendency to favor trade-unions. As to the first objection, we acknowledge that both em- ployer and employee have the right of freedom of contract so long as the contract is not harmful to good morals or the pub- lie welfare. The right to contract freely is therefore, like every Digitized by Google

Page 172

1900.] "A Country without Strikes." 151 other right, limited. Within the limits just noted the em- ployer may pay what wages he chooses and to whom he chooses, while the employee may exercise similar freedom of choice. But suppose that the state finds that one of the parties is insisting upon an unreasonable freedom of contract, upon a conception of his individual liberty that encroaches upon the individual liberty and rights of others, and suppose that the party whose rights are being violated by such insist- ence is the public, the state itself — is the state powerless to defend its own rights? Certainly it is not. For instance, if the community is put to great inconvenience by a strike, the state has surely the right to interfere, and even compel the disputants to accept the decision of a disinterested arbiter. This interference will, indeed, be a limitation of the right of free contract ; it will prevent both sides, perhaps, from enter- ing the precise contract desired by each — but the right of free contract is, as a matter of fact, a limited right. Neither em- ployer nor employees live unto themselves ; they have obliga- tions to the community. And the community has a right to insist on the fulfilment of these obligations. Of course, the employer has the right to go out of business, and the em- ployees the right to quit work ; but so long as neither wishes to make a change, the community has the right in self-protec- tion to insist on a speedy termination of the dispute. PUBLIC CHARACTER OF DISPUTANTS WARRANTS STATE INTER- FERENCE. Nor can either of the parties object to the result of the state's interference, to the fairness of the public arbiter's de- cision. It will not be perfect, to be sure ; but, since the dis- putants cannot agree between themselves, it will be the only approach to a just decision that is within the range of possi- bility. " We say to the capitalists : ' You and the laborer and the consumer and the public are all interested. We — the state — are the only agency known to society which can protect and harmonize all these interests — provided always that you cannot or will not harmonize yourselves. We cannot leave you to settle with each other in the old way ; for that, we know, leads to strikes, devastation, hate, and /even bloodshed. In this world of laborers, capitalists, consumers, and citizens you, the employing capitalists, are a very small minority. We don't propose to sacrifice you or to do you any injustice ; but, rest Digitized by Google

Page 173

152 "A Country without Strikes" [Nov., •assured, neither do we intend to allow you to do us any wrong or injustice. You can stay in this business or go out of it, as you choose ; you can go into any other business you prefer ; but if you stay in business in New Zealand, you must settle your irreconcilable differences between yourselves and your men by reference to a disinterested arbiter, and not by strikes or lockouts'" (p. 118). Thus spoke a New Zealand defender of the compulsory Arbitration Law. His is the logic of common sense, as well as of right reason and sound morality. Had the State of Mis- souri been in a position to address similar language to the dis- putants in the recent street railway strike of St. Louis, how much money, time, and comfprt would not have been saved to the citizens of that city ! But Americans, practical as they are supposed to be, still cling to the old fetich of individual liberty, which in this instance is but another name for industrial anarchy. IN PRIVATE DISPUTES THE COURT IS AN ADVANTAGE. So much for the right of the state to compel arbitration in self-protection. Let us now suppose a strike by which the public suffers no inconvenience whatever, the only persons in- terested being the employer and the workers. Of course, such a supposition is never, or scarcely ever, realized in the modern world ; but we shall assume it for the sake of justifying state interference in every kind of strike. The employees of a certain " private " industry formulate demands which their employer refuses to grant. They then go out on a strike, hoping that their powers of endurance will prove greater than their employer's. Each side deliberately re- solves to inflict great economic loss upon the other. Both realize that the one who is better prepared to endure such loss is the one that will win. It is an irrational proceeding, as irrational as war. In fact, it is war ; for it is a conflict in which victory will rest with the more mighty, not with the more righteous. The moral aspect of the dispute is deliber- ately ignored. And yet there is a moral question involved ; for both sides cannot be right in all their contentions. Hence the party that is in the wrong may win, and by his victory in- crease his power to work injustice upon his opponent. But just as the combatants are marshalling their forces for the economic struggle the arbitration court is called in. Each side is allowed a representative on the board, and the third Digitized by Google

Page 174

1900.] "A Count/? y without Strikes:' 153 member is a distinguished " outsider," a judge, " skilled in the examination of facts, and in the disentanglement of controver- sies." The court calmly inquires into all the conditions and theories of the dispute, and gives full opportunity for publicity and discussion. The "conditions of the market" thus become better understood by both court and contestants than they ever could be through the passion, bitterness, and hatreds of a strike. Finally, when the evidence has been all heard and weighed, a decision is rendered on the basis of justice. What reason, then, can either side have for complaint ? THE MORE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS MUST PREVAIL. "A very good reason," replies the individualist; "the state should not have meddled at all in the matter of a private con- tract." Let us see whether this position be sound. Undoubt- edly both employer and employees have a right to contract freely, but this right must yield to other rights that are more urgent and more sacred. The right of the employer to fair profits, and the right of the employees to a fair share of the wealth that they have helped to create — at least, to as much of it as will afford them a decent living — are more important than the right of free contract. Now, it is the business of the state to protect rights in the order of their importance. The right of free contract ceases when it comes in conflict with the right to a living wage. Hence when the employees contend that the contract into which they have entered, or into which their employer desires to force them, will not afford them a living wage, it is the right and the duty of the state to step in and examine into the merits of this claim. If the claim is well founded, then it is the business of the state to compel the employer to enter into such a contract as will safeguard the supreme right of his men to a decent living. In acting thus the state is merely defending its weaker citizens ; pro- tecting them in their right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Nor can it be flippantly retorted that the dissatis- fied employees are free to go elsewhere, and that this freedom is a sufficient protection for their natural rights. Usually they are not free to move about so readily. Their interests are too closely associated with their present position, and this fixity of interests gives them a certain " vested right " to remain where they are. The same reason for state interference and compulsory arbi- tration holds when the employees are in the wrong. If an Digitized by Google

Page 175

154 "A Country without Strikes:' [Nov., employer is in danger of being forced out of business by the unjust demands of his men, the state is bound to protect his natural right to fair profits, and to compel the men to work under reasonable conditions, or else seek other employment. The practical philosophy of state interference has been well expressed by a New-Zealander in these words : " We cannot understand why compulsion cannot be used to prevent econo- mic as well as any other crime, or to repel economic invasion of one class by another, which is just the same thing, for all intents and purposes, as the invasion of one country by an- other " (p. 125). UNLIMITED RIGHT OF FREE, CONTRACT IS BASED ON A FALSE ASSUMPTION. The whole argument for an unlimited right of free contract is based on a false assumption, the assumption that in all agree- ments between labor and capital the contract is really free. As a 'matter of fact whenever an employer, relying on an over- stocked labor market, forces his men to accede to his terms, the name free contract is a misnomer. There can be no free- dom of contract between laborers who must work to day or starve and a capitalist who may pay the wages demanded or wait until hunger compels the men to submit. And, as the labor market is overstocked the greater part of the time, the employer's plea for non-interference and freedom of contract is in reality a demand that he be allowed to use his economic advantage to force his men into a contract that on their side is not free in any adequate sense of that word. I use the - words "economic advantage" advisedly, for most political economists, I think, agree that the capitalist does possess an advantage over the laborer in the economic struggle. The so- called orthodox school of economists taught that industry would be best regulated by being not regulated at all. There was to be no state interference. The laborer was to work for whom he pleased and for what wage he pleased, and the capitalist was to hire whom he pleased and pay what wage he pleased. These theorizers fancied that the two sides were sufficiently equal to insure the best results to the community and the most just conditions for themselves by being " let alone." But the newer school of political economists know that the real relation between labor and capital, instead of one of equality, is more truly described by Lassalle's Iron Law of Wages. Lassalle said, in substance, that under the reign of capitalism the laborer's Digitized by Google

Page 176

1900.] "A Country without Strikes." 155 wages would be forced down to the point at which he could just support life and reproduce his kind. This, of course, was an exaggeration ; for the laborer— chiefly by organization — has thus far been able to maintain a standard of living considera- bly higher than that fixed by the " Iron Law." ; But there is no doubt that Lassalle correctly described the tendency of the modern industrial organization, and of unchecked capitalism. The laborer, separated from the tools of production, is com- paratively powerless ; the capitalist, in possession of the tools of production, is practically all powerful. Hence the laborer is seldom in a position to make a contract that is genuinely free ; hence the justice of state interference in the matter of compul- sory arbitration. A common objection against compulsory arbitration is that it attempts to set aside the law of the market, the law of supply and demand, and to fix wages and prices by statute. It is, therefore, an attempt to do what is at once unjust and impossible. Let us listen again to the answer made by the New Zealander : * COMPULSORY ARBITRATION DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE LAW OF THE MARKET. " Compulsory arbitration does not attempt to interfere with the law of the market. On the contrary, it gives the law of the market for the first time a full chance to work. It brings the law of the market into full and free discussion. It offers experts who know the law of the market best on both sides to tell all they know about it. It gives it publicity and debate. It is true the arbiter makes a decision, but a decision must be made anyhow, and has been heretofore made in most cases by the casting vote of suffering, selfishness, or passion. The casting vote of Judge Edwards is better, we New-Zealand, ers think " (p. 123). Compulsory arbitration, then, does not ignore the law of the market, and fix an artificial wage or an artificial price. If ' it did its decisions would be nothing short of disastrous. It merely ascertains as thoroughly as it can the possibilities of profits and wages in any given case, and then, keeping within the limits of these possibilities, makes the award that seems most just to both sides. In this sense it does fix wages and prices by law, instead of leaving them to be fixed by the anarchy of competition. Digitized by Google

Page 177

i56 "A Country without Strikes." [Nov., FIXING THE MINIMUM WAGE. The fixing of wages by compulsory arbitration includes, as a matter of course, the fixing of a minimum wage. Such has been the invariable rule of the New Zealand Court of Arbitra- tion. This recognition of the minimum wage by public law is in itself a great advance toward the reign of justice in the world of industry. It means that the state pronounces un- limited competition immoral ; for it fixes a limit below which the laborer's wage may not be forced. This policy is indeed contrary to the principles of that antiquated political economy of which I spoke above, but it is in agreement with the principles of sound morality. For, "there is a dictate of nature more imperious and more ancient than any bargain be- tween man and man, that the remuneration must be enough to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity, or fear of a worse evil, the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice " (Leo XII I., Encyclical "On the Condition of Labor "). The New Zealand law does more than recognize the right of#the laborer to a minimum wage. It authorizes the court to award fair profits to the employer, thus assuming that there is such a thing as excessive profits. Indeed, the whole difficulty that is expressed in the phrases, " the labor question " and " the social question/' may be summed up in one sentence : "Capital gets too large a share of the wealth that it helps to create.,, The history of the New Zealand Court of Arbitration shows that in most of the disputes it has acknowledged this complaint to be true. Hence it has not hesitated to lower profits and raise wages where the conditions seemed to justify this course. NEW ZEALAND LAW A PRACTICAL SUCCESS. The charge that the New Zealand law is unjust because of its friendliness for labor unions may have a certain academic value, but it has no weight when tested by concrete conditions. In the conflict, or rivalry, or competition— call it by any name that expresses struggle— between capital and labor, the econo- mic advantage is always on the side of capital. If labor is not organized, the capitalist's advantage is still further increased. Hence the state, whose business it is to help all classes to a position of equality of opportunity, does wisely and justly when Digitized by Google

Page 178

1900.] "A Country without Strikes" 157 it encourages labor to organize, and thus to lessen the in- equality of opportunity that exists between it and capital. It is simply helping them to defend their natural rights against their stronger competitors. The Compulsory Arbitration Law has thus far proved a splendid success in New Zealand. It marks a triumph of justice and social order over injustice and economic anarchy. It has its imperfections, to be sure, chief among which is the danger that the arbiter may not always be wise enough or fair enough to make such equitable awards as have thus far been made. But the difficulties of compulsory arbitration are not worthy of comparison with its advantages. Why should it not be tried here in America? The academic objections to it are all founded on worn-out sophistries, while the practical objec- tions can be tested at very little cost by putting the New • Zealand plan into actual operation. How long will the prac- tical American people allow the warring factions of capital and labor to afflict the community with senseless and costly ftrikesj? Even if labor and capital should be left to their own folly and obstinacy to fight out their disputes in their own way, the public should not be compelled to suffer with them. " Indus- tries, it is a fundamental thought in this New Zealand legislation, are not individual creations ; they are not made by the work- ingmen alone, nor by capital alone, but are a social creation and subject to social control" (p. 173). Digitized by Google

Page 179

i58 Catholic Cameos. [Nov., CATHOLIC CAMEOS. {Done with a pen.) BY NORA RYLMAN. HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP. (--/ vignette, and a memory?) N the heart of England's heart, by which, be it understood, I mean Shakspere land, is a city of many gun-works and foundries ; and in a sombre street of this same city is St. Chad's Cathedral, and the Bishop's house. I hfcve called the street sombre, but I might with truth have styled it grimy. It is in the Gunmakers' quarter, and the smoke of many factories has turned Our Lady into a black Madonna! Pass through the great door, and all is changed. All is peace, sweetness, light, in the great temple Pugin built. On the left hand side, near the Lady Chapel, is the recum- bent effigy of a marble prelate, mitred, with his crozier in his hand. It is the statue of the first bishop * of the city, of a priest who did great and notable work for the church in his day — the day, be it said, of Newman, whose friend and diocesan he was. An outsider once described him as "a little man with a large heart." This was truth ; he was a humanitarian in the truest and broadest sense of the word — a Catholic Humanitar- ian ! He gave strong evidence before the Royal Commission as to the wrongs of the convict system. And he founded a mission in a typical old (English) town, in which Black Friais and White, Brown Friars and Gray,. had worked and prayed/ and kept fast and vigil throughout life's little day. From thence he was transferred to St. Chad's. The sunless slums knew the Little Bishop, as well as the poor Irish children in his schools, for whom he had a truly paternal care. When Holy Church needed him in any and every place * Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham. Digitized by Google

Page 180

igoo.] Catholic Cameos. 159 his motto was the motto of the Napiers : " Ready, aye ready." He it was who gave the celebrated lectures on " Our Con- vents," in that town hall whose walls had re-echoed with the trumpet notes of the captains who fought for freedom. He it was who told the celebrated anecdote about the broken bough, as an illustration of old-time Protestant prejudice. In case you do not know it, here it is: i " Once on a time there was a religious house, past whose garden wall ran the stage coaches. Some of the" boughs over- hung the stone wall, anil the coachmen were in the habit of pointing to the broken branch of an apple tree, from which the village urchins stole apples, and saying: ' Lookee there — that bough was broken by a nun a-tryin' to escape over the garden wall.' " Query : Why did not the fugitive unlatch the garden gate ? Great as his zeal was his charity. A convert was much troubled by the unkindness and bigotry of her Protestant husband. The one who had encouraged her in her own home had simply been her little dying child, who was truly one of the household of Faith. " He whose feet are shod with silence " took the little fel- low, as we will trust and think, to Mary's arms ; but still the heart of the father was like unto the nether millstone. The mother told the Bishop [then Doctor ), and he said : 41 Be of gooti cheer, daughter. I am going to the Holy Land, and will pray for him in all the hallowed places." And he did. His prayers were heard. One day the dead child's father said to his wife : " Why should not I have a talk with Father So and So ? " " Why not, indeed," was the joyful reply. " Come with me to the Priory now." So they went together, and the Faithful Shepherd and faithful wife had their exceeding great reward. Some there are who think that an archbishop must neces- sarily lead a stately and dignified life ; must live, as it were, Tn the ecclesiastical purple — have little or nothing to do with holy simplicity. Such as these should have known Our Arch- bishop! His life was simplicity itself; his fare was plain, his habits ascetic and even penitential. His ear was open to al). " Come to me early, come to me late. Never think it too early, never think it too late," was his advice to one of his spiritual children. Digitized by Google

Page 181

160 Catholic Cameos. [Nov., ■v. Like him who wrote " Lead, kindly Light," he was sim* plicity itself. Apropos of the Cardinal I may just recount a true little anecdote : " The great Oratorian was one day going home to The Ora- tory by rail from a distant part of the city. He looked worn, thin, and pale, and his coat was, to say the least of it, shabby. A poor Irishwoman was touched by compassion for the 1 poor ould jintleman,' and she dived into her pocket and brought out a penny, which she gave to the Cardinal, bidding him get himself some little thing." The author of " The Dream of Gerontius " valued and kept that penny, which we, I think, may term an Angel's Penny, remembering by whom and to whom it was given. Both Archbishop and Cardinal are now sweet memories. One has left the grand cathedral and the sombre street, and the other The Oratory and his lilac-trees. One sleeps in the God's Acre of a Dominican convent, whose foundress (Mother Margaret) was his spiritual daughter ; the other sleeps in quiet Rednal, where the birds sing sweetly. Peace to them both! Of both can it be said, what doubtless they both often thought : O Domum, dulce Domum ! We can see your lights afar, And we shall cross your threshold When we 've burst the prison bar. O Domum, dulce Domum ! By the Saints of Jesus trod, We will sing it with thanksgiving In the City of our God. Digitized by Google

Page 182

Chapel of St. Cecilia. THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN- ORIGIN. BY RIGHT REV. MONSIGNOR CAMPBELL, D.D. HAT have now come to be called the Catacombs of Rome, originally, and in the language of those who constructed and used them, were termed Coemeteria — places of sleep, rest, repose. The name expressed the feelings, the beliefs, the hopes of Christians, who see in the separation of the body from the soul by death only a term of repose from labor, to endure till the material part is resumed at the resurrection. It harmonized with the language of the Liturgy, which com- memorates the departed " qui dormiunt in somno pads M — who sleep in the sleep of peace — and it agrees with the inscriptions placed upon the graves, where the faithful are left as a de- posit to be taken up — " depositi in pace M — while the interment itself is called the deposition. From the fourth to the ninth century the term Catacombs VOL. LXXII.— II Digitized by Google

Page 183

162 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., was applied exclusively to the subterranean galleries under and immediately around the Church of St. Sebastian, on the Ap- pian Way. The etymology of the word is one of those vexed questions that admit of many solutions, the One usually ad- mitted deriving it from the union of a Greek pronoun and a Latin verb, kata and cubare% and signifying near the resting- places. It seems to have been adopted as a local designation to describe a district on the Appian Way, at a time when the Christian necropolis attracted attention by its extent, and had become a landmark. The circus of Romulus is mentioned as "Circus ad catacumbas " — the circus near the catacombs — as many other places on the outskirts of Rome are described in the early topographies: Ad duos lauros, Ad nymphas, Ad ursum pileatum, Ad clivum cttcumeris, Ad centum aulas, etc. It was only in the ninth century, when calamities had obliterated the name and the memory of most of the other cemeteries, that with their history their special designations were lost, and the names of all the cemeteries merged in the name of the one that continued to be visited. The catacombs form a net-work of passages, or subterranean galleries, excavated in the tufo that underlies so much of the district round Rome. < At first confined in extent, and with boundaries more or less regularly defined, the passages became interlaced *ks they continued to extend, till they formed the apparently inextricable labyrinth they now present. In the sides of these galleries are rows of horizontal niches, each the length of a human body, some large, some smaller, according to age, called, in the language of the epitaphs, locus or locu/us. These are mostly single, but when constructed for two bodies they received the name bisomus; if for three, trisomus ; for four, quadrisomus. Rarely larger excavations are found, which are called polyandra, where many bodies lie interred together. The loculus was closed sometimes with a marble slab, more f re- quently with tiles closely cemented. Often the name of the deceased is carved on the marble, or painted with minium on the tiles, with acclamations full of affection and hope, fre- quently rudely executed, sometimes badly spelt, but always touching in their simplicity. Symbols and figures expressing the finest sentiments of the Christian faith, and prayer ; a monogram, a dove, an olivq-branch, are met with ; but by far the greatest number of those graves are nameless, and a mark made in the wet lime — a gem, a coin, a shell, vessels of various kinds, even a bit of brick embedded in the mortar — was all Digitized by Google

Page 184

1900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 163 *• Symbols and Figures representing the finest sentiments of Christian Faith and Prayer. that was placed by the relatives to indicate the resting-place of the deceased. Along the sides of the galleries we meet with larger open- ings, consisting of a retiring arch formed over a sarcophagus- shaped tomb, excavated also in the tufo. To these the name of " Arcosolium 99 is given. The urn or tomb had been closed by a broad slab of marble laid table-fashion on its mouth, and portions of this covering commonly remain, or its trace in the lime. These arcosolia are sometimes left bare, but often are plastered, and decorated with paintings or mosaics on the lunette, on the surface of the vault, and on the walls of the Digitized by Google

Page 185

164 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., gallery on each side of the arch. They are the graves of dis- tinguished or meritorious Christians ; often of martyrs or con- fessors of the faith. Originally, indeed, graves of this form seem to have been reserved exclusively for the martyrs, and the poet Prudentius, describing one of them, says: "This is the tomb under whose cover rests the body of the martyr Hippolytus ; it is now become an altar consecrated to God. The table from which the Sacrajnent is dispensed is the same marble that guards in4 the urn the martyr's bones.'* In this the church militant strove to resemble the church triumphant, where the Seer of Patmos beheld under the altar "the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held ; and they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth." It is from this early usage that the rigorous prescription has come down in the Catholic Church requiring for the celebration of Mass at least a consecrated stone containing in its cavity some small portion of martyrs' dust. At intervals along the passages openings lead to small chambers, cubicula, some square or rectangular, others circular .or octagonal, with flat, or vaulted, or dome shaped roofs, termi- nating sometimes in an apse, with columns carved out of the tufo, cornices and arches, walls coated with plaster, or bare ; and when plastered, covered, sides and roof, with historic and allegoric paintings, and ornamental designs. Entering one of these cubicula, we see a small chamber, not more than twelve feet square. Its pavement is formed of parallelograms' of black and yellow marble. The walls and ceiling are coated with fine stucco ; an arcosolium, flanked by white marble pilasters, occupies the centre of the wall facing the entrance. The roof is a flat vault. In the centre the Good Shepherd is depicted carrying one of his sheep on his shoulders, bearing it to its rest. Curves and radiating lines, flowers and tracery, divide the surface of the vault into com- partments. In one we see Adam and Eve standing by the tree of knowledge ; in another, Noe in his ark, in a third the multiplication of the loaves, in a fourth the resurrection of Lazarus. A dove, symbol of the soul liberated from the body, bearing the olive-branch of peace occupies the angles. The two side walls each contain two loculi ; the slabs of marble that closed them are wanting, and no inscription is left to tell whose were the bones that lie there, crumbled to small parti- Digitized by Google

Page 186

1900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 165 A Typical Cubicllum. cles and dust. But every available space is covered with paint- ings. Above, in a consecutive series, we have the story of Jonas. A ship in a raging sea, and the sailors casting out their wares, while Jonas is fast asleep. Then Jonas cast into the sea, and the great fish ready to swallow him up. Next, the monster is ejecting him upon the dry land, and lastly, the prophet is seen reclining under the gourd. The allegory is simple, and the allusion to the resurrection clear; in the Digitized by Google

Page 187

166 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., The Story of Jonas.— Symbolic of Resur- rection. prophet's own words : %i The waters compassed me about even to the soul; the deep hath closed me round about, the sea hath covered my head. I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains ; the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever ; and thou wilt bring up my life from corrup- tion, O Lord my God." Lower down is another series. To the left we have Moses striking the rock, from which water is flowing. Then a man,, seated on the bank of a stream, is holding a line to which is attached a fish that he has caught. On the opposite bank a man is standing and pouring water on the head of one who is half immersed in the stream. No one can doubt that Baptism is here meant to be represented. The rock, which is Christ, dispenses water, which is his grace ; the apostolic fisher, seeking for souls, has found one; for we, as Tertullian says, "like little fish, are caught and regenerated in the water of Bap- tism." To this succeeds a single figure, a man carrying a bed on his shoulders, doubtless the paralytic cured at the pool, also a type of the remission of sin through the saving waters of Baptism. Over the arcosolium are three subjects intimately con- nected with each other, and bearing on another doctrine. In the centre seven persons are seen seated at a table, on which bread and fish are pre- pared, and on the ground, in a row in front of the table, twelve baskets filled uith loaves are arranged. This is a sub ject which is over and over again represented in the cemeterial paintings, as it is treated over mosf.s striking the rock. — typical of Baptism. The Rock is Christ. Digitized by Google

Page 188

t 1900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 167 and over again in the writings of the early Fathers, so that the allusion to the mystic banquet of the Eucharist, and the multi- plication of the loaves, a miracle itself typifying the sacrament, is universally understood. To the left of this central group, on a sacrificial table, or tripod, lie a loaf and a fish ; a man is standing with his hands extended over the bread in the attitude of consecration, and the figure of a woman with arms extended in prayer is represented hard by. To the right of At the Sacred Table, with the ICHTHYS, or Fish, representing the Body of Christ and the Wine Jar, His Blood. the central group Abraham, Isaac, a ram, and a bundle of fagots are depicted. All three subjects, the mystic banquet, the sacrifice of Abraham, type of the sacrifice of the cross, and its actual representation in the sacrifice of the altar, recall to the initiated the most solemn mystery of Christian worship. We have said, to the initiated ; for there was a secret disci- pline during the infant period of the church which forbade in- discriminate manifestation of all her doctrines to the unbap- tized. Discourses addressed to assemblies where catechumens were among the audience are frequently interrupted by ex- pressions as " norunt fideles" : the faithful, that is, the bap- tized, know what we mean. And there is a celebrated passage Digitized by Google

Page 189

9 168 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., that has come down to us in a homily of St. Augustine spoken to the select audience, where he alludes openly to this reserve : "If you ask a catechumen, Do you believe in Jesus Christ? he will answer at once, Yes ; if you ask, Do you eat the flesh of the Son of man ? he knows not what you say." In those paint- ings we have a most striking example of this discipline. They were before the eyes of all, catechumens as well as baptized, and accident might have exposed them to pagans. Ichthys noster, our Fish, is what Tertullian calls our Lord, and he was a contemporary of these very paintings: "We as little fish, according to our great Fish Jesus Christ, are born in water, and cannot be saved except by remaining in it." But from the Ichthys, the fish lying by the bread, what could the uninstructed understand? The initiated well knew that the five letters of the Greek word gave Iesus Christos Theou YlOS Soter — Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. On the wall of the chamber which we have been examining, to the right of the entrance, our Lord is shown calling Lazarus from the tomb ; a consoling suggestion to the mourners who visited this family grave, and a fitting sequel to the subjects that went before: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood .hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." From time to time truncated columns are found constructed in the corners of the cubicula, or made of the tufo itself ; and in the lime may be discovered fragments of glass basins or vessels, which used to be kept filled with oil to feed the lights that were burned in them. Near the tomb of a martyr, when its construction did not permit its covering to become the table of the altar, columns like these were used as substitutes. Besides the cubicula formed in the tufo, in most of the ceme- teries chambers are met with regularly constructed of brick, embedded on all sides in the soil, cruciform sometimes in shape, with every characteristic of a church in small proportions. The passages and chambers of the catacombs are not all on one level. Under or above the principal level or floor others exist ; two, three, and sometimes four different ranges of galleries, one under the other, communicating by stairs or by gradual slopes that imperceptibly lead from a higher to a lower floor, and again to the upper levels, are found in the more ex- tensive catacombs. Air and light are admitted to the ceme- teries by shafts that open to the surface, called luminaria, and these often branch downwards in two, three, or more directions, lighting up not only a gallery, but several cubicula. Digitized by Google

Page 190

1900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 169 Till about sixty years ago all the cemeteries forming this city of the dead were supposed to be connected and united in one net work encircling the walls of Rome. It was even popu- larly believed that the galleries passed under the city itself, and communicated with the crypts and subterraneans of the basili- cas, and that they extended to the base of the hills and the shores of the Mediterranean. In reality the catacombs are forty six in number, historical- ly distinct, and materially separated. The cemeteries on one road have no connec- tion with those on another ; even those on different sides of the same road or on the same side, and close together, are totally unconnected. The catacombs of St. Sebastian have no connection with those of St. Callixtus on the same side of the Appian Way. The the good sheph*rd.-type of the ^ " * Redeemer. Ostrian cemetery on the No* mentan Way is not united to the cemetery of St. Agnes, which is distant from it only a few hundred yards. Exceptions are to be made in the case of some groups of cemeteries, such as the cemetery of St. Callixtus, which in its later development stretched its passages into the adjoining cemeteries of St. Soteris, Lucina, Balbina, and Hippolytus. But this connection happened after the peace given to the church. On the Salarian Way some cemeteries became connected by each coming in contact, at different ends, with the same arenarium. All these strictly Roman catacombs are contained within a limit of three miles from the walls of Servius, the walls which bounded the city at the time of their excavation. The Aurelian walls which now limit the city, on the Via Appia, are a mile farther out. " Hominem mortuum in Urbe ne sepelito, neve urito" — Neither bury nor cremate & body within the city boundaries — was a law of the Twelve Tables, which the Christians had neither the will nor the power to disobey. Beyond the three-mile limit Christians existed in the pagit or villages, scattered over the campagna, where a bishop of their own presided, with churches and clergy for themselves, and cemeteries for their special use. Such were the cemeteries of St. Zoticus, ten miles from Rome Digitized by Google

Page 191

170 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., on the Via Labicana, and the cemetery of St. Alexander, seven miles from Porta Pia on the Nomentan Way. To judge accurately of the size and extent of the Roman catacombs, it would be necessary to have complete plans of all, like those of St. Callixtus and Domitilla, published by De Rossi. In the absence of these ample scope is left for flights of fancy. Generalizing from certain proportional data, the combined length of all the subterranean passages of the. catacombs has been calculated at three hundred and sixty British miles. But this is to be understood of the full development of the galleries, intersecting and underlying each other in even four or five ranges, beneath a surface area comparatively limited, de- termined partly by nature in the lie of the ground, partly by law and respect for private property. This sketch of the general appearance of the catacombs brings us to an examination of their origin, the conditions under which they were held, and the purposes to which they were devoted. It was an idea, now exploded, that the catacombs were the work in great part of pagans, that they were simply arenaria, or sand-pits, that had been abandoned and were converted by Christians into places of burial. It was P. Marchi who first placed the facts in a clear light, by the help of geology, architecture, and history. De Rossi developed the arguments more completely, aided by his brother Michele, in an appendix to the first volume of his Roma Sotterranea. The catacombs cannot be disused arenaria, be- cause they are excavated pre- cisely in the particular stratum of tufo which was useless as building material. Three states of this volcanic formation are met with in the campagna : first, the lithoid tufo, a compact and solid stone, extensively employ- ed in building ; second, friable tufo, or pozzolana, so valuable to mix with lime in the com- position of mortar; and thirdly, granular tufo, not sufficiently hard or compact to be used for building, and useless as sand The Raising of Lazarus.— A Type of the Resurrection. Digitized by Google

Page 192

igoo.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 171 Chapel of the Popes restored. till broken up and pounded at great cost and trouble. Yet the excavators of the catacombs sought constantly the stratum of granular tufo, avoiding the lithoid as too hard for working in, and the friable as deficient in cohesion and dangerous ; when they met with a mass of this kind, they stopped short at once, or turned aside, to prosecute the gallery in another direction, in a stratum of granular tufo. Another argument against the theory that the catacombs Digitized by Google

Page 193

172 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., were disused sand-pits is the utter antagonism of the two systems of excavation. Examples of both are abundant. The passages of the catacombs are narrow, averaging little more than two feet in breadth, where two men could not work abreast ; the galleries of the sand-pits are wide enough for a wagon to pass : the sides of the passages in the catacombs are vertical, and at right angles with the floor and roof ; the galler- ies of the sand-pits are elliptic vaults ; in the catacombs the passages form sharp angles at the crossings ; in the sand-pits the angles disappear, and the turnings are round ; in the cata- combs the object was only to excavate passages wide enough for communication, and leave solid thicknesses of tufo on each side, where as many graves as possible could be opened; in the sand-pits the object was to extract the greatest possible quantity of sand, and leave supports barely sufficient to sustain the roof; the catacombs are excavated in different levels, floor beneath floor ; the sand-pits never. It is true that many of the principal cemeteries are connected with arenaria. But often this meeting was quite fortuitous, and when there is a regular- ly constructed communication, it can be seen that the fossors used the sand-pit as a place for the deposit of their excava- tions. The history of the persecutions in the second half of the third century offers another explanation. The cemeteries, as we shall see, were confiscated ; the Christians were forbidden to enter them under pain of death, and they were consequently obliged to multiply secret approaches, and use the sand-pits as vestibules and masked entrances, or places of refuge and hiding in case they were surprised in the cemeteries. The catacombs were, therefore, not abandoned arenaria. Neither were they excavated by the pagans for places of inter- ment. The sepulchres of the Romans, putting aside the puticuli (where slaves and people of the lowest orders were thrown to- gether into pits), were either family burial places or sepulchres for members of certain associations. Both invariably consisted of three essential parts, besides accessories. First, there was the monumentum, marking the place, which took a variety of forms, mausoleum, temple, pyramid, tower, tumulus, etc., ac- cording to the taste and means of the builders. Ruins of these are seen along the ancient roads. Second, the ceUa, or sepul- chral chamber proper, usually below the level of the monu- ment. Third, the area% or precincts, a surrounding space sacred and inviolable, which could not be bought or sold, after being once dedicated to its purpose. The limits of this were marked Digitized by Google

Page 194

€900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 173 on the monument, so many feet of frontage, so many of depth back from the highway. The accessories generally included a house or shelter for a custodian. The ashes of the dead were placed in ollce, or urns of marble, terra cotta, or alabaster, and deposited in semicircular niches, which gave the name of columbaria to the chambers. In spaces between the niches small, elegant tablets showed the name and condition of the deceased. There were in imperial times in Rome funeral associations, chiefly composed of a foreign element, Eastern worshippers of syncretic mysteries, who, in- stead of burning their dead sodales, interred them in niches resembling the loculi of the catacombs. " Some of their cemeteries have been discovered, showing an ana- logy to those of the Chris- tians, but they are small, nar- row, miserable constructions, corresponding with the di- minutive and obscure associa- tions to which they belonged ; and they completely want those large subterranean chambers, universal in the catacombs, which were used as places of meeting ; for the associations in question always held their assemblies in the schola, or rooms built above. There is more analogy between the catacombs and the Jewish cemeteries in Rome, which perhaps were the original model. In them, however, the loculi were usually built up, in- stead of being simply closed by a slab, as in the catacombs. Among the thousands of epitaphs found in the catacombs, among the signs and symbols employed in the decoration of the tombs, there is nothing to show the presence of a single pagan sepulture. Designs borrowed from contemporary art are freely used, especially in the older cemeteries, before Chris- tian art had formed for itself a cycle of ornaments and a sym- bolism of its own ; but nothing incompatible with Christian sentiment. Profane inscriptions are occasionally met with, but it is evident that they were used as materials of construction, and they are found inverted or defaced. No pagan could Our Saviour, Ninth Century. Digitized by Google

Page 195

174 The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. [Nov., possibly have been buried in the catacombs, for the Christian held in equal horror promiscuous burial and communion with false worship. It was regarded as a kind of apostasy to be interred with pagans. St. Cyprian relates how a certain bishop was deposed from his see because he permitted his children to be buried "in collegio exterarum gentium" in'a guild of non- Christians. So jealous were they of the exclusive sacredness of their cemeteries, that Christians who died out of the church's peace were repelled in death from the gates of her cemeteries, as in life they had been excluded from her basilicas. The exclusively Christian origin of the catacombs seems to be satisfactorily proved by what has been said, but additional argument will be found as we proceed to examine the legal conditions under, which they were held. No people had greater regard than the Romans for the religion cff the dead and the sacredness of a sepulture. It was to them a place of religious a body in it. Sepulchres could not,; be alienated, did not pass like other property to the heirs. They were "religious " places, which the added consecration of the pontiffs made 11 sacred." The Christian catacombs were, in their first beginnings, burial places excavated in the land of private citizens, converts to Christianity, and were known by the name of their owners, and shared with their brethren in the faith. Praetextatus, Maximus, Lucina, Novella, Priscilla, Jordanus, just as they gave their houses in Rome for the assemblies of the faithful and so provided the first churches, or Titles, for the parishes, gave in like manner to the members of their domestic churches a portion St. Cecilia. veneration. Sumptuous and magnificent monuments flank- ed the great suburban roads. Guardians constantly resided near the tombs to care for them becomingly, and any violation of their sanctity was severely punished by law. This protection extended not to the tombs of Roman citi- zens only, but to the grave of a stranger and barbarian : " Religiosum locum unus- quisque sua voluntate facit, dum mortuum infert in locum suum M — Any one may make a place religious by burjing Digitized by Google

Page 196

1900.] The Catacombs were of Christian Origin. 175 in their burying places. They needed no concealment, for law and public sentiment protected them ; they raised their fronts openly on the Appian Way, beside the monuments of the Cornelii and Caecilii. On the Via Ar- deatina we now enter the vast cemetery of Domitilla through the arches of a noble monument of the Christian Flavii, built by that imperial family on one of the most frequented roads of Rome. It is a singular fact that the Roman law, while it persecuted Christians as followers of a pro- scribed religion, and condemn- ed the church itself as an illegal society, continued to tolerate it D 3e.M C©YC-ZOJNTCDN UC1MIAEAMIATIBE A Christian Epitaph, with the 1CHTHYS, the Fish. as a funeral association ; never violated or profaned its sepul- chres, only rarely forbidding their use or confiscating them. It required a special edict in the reign of Valerian to first invade the catacombs. In the third century collegia^ or clubs, were numer- ous: pagan priests, augurs, epulones, followers of Jupiter, Her- cules, Apollo, and Diana, tradesmen and clubs for the poor, who contributed a monthly sum for the right of burial in the common ground of the association; these held periodical meet- ings and funeral feasts. Trajan found it necessary to forbid all associations of this class, but continued to permit the burial clubs. The Christians took advantage of this exception, not only to protect still more their cemeteries, but to erect upon them schola, or chapels for their funeral and liturgical assemblies. Legally, then, the cemeteries which had grown round family tombs came to be held by the Christians, incorporated, as we should say, into societies. The regulations for their manage- ment were controlled by the ecclesiastical authorities. Rome, from the second century, was divided into Tituli — what we call now parishes. Pope Dionysius in the third century, and Mar- cellus in the beginning of the fourth, reorganized those titles and the cemeteries, providing for the regular administration of the sacraments, the superintendence of services for the dead, and burials, especially of the martyrs. The priests incardinated in the City Titles had jurisdiction over the corresponding ceme- teries, celebrating by turn in them and presiding at the assemblies. Digitized by Google

Page 197

i76 The Funeral Wreath; [Nov., THE FUrNERAL WREATH; OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. BY BESSIE O'BYRNE. UCH a desperately new house you never saw ; it was papered and polished, varnished and painted, from top to bottom. Then the furniture was all staringly fresh and bright. They said it had been occupied six months, but it looked as if no one had ever sat down in it since the things were set in and ranged in order in the rooms. We took it from an agent, and he remarked at the time that it was an opportunity we would not often meet with. 11 Circumstances/* he added, " had rendered it necessary for the owner to go abroad, and a completer or a more modern dwelling it had never been his good fortune to offer to housekeepers." It was modern — that was an undeniable fact — and so full of conveniences that it was enough tp drive any one wild to see the way it insisted on your washing your hands. Silver spigots of all devices popped up at you out of closets and odd corners, little marble basins were burrowing everywhere, and bell-handles and speaking-tubes adorned the walls. There were so many registers that the furnace seemed to be discouraged, and declined heating any. There was a bay window at the side and one at the back, and even the commonest rooms were corniced. To be sure, there was not any yard to speak of ; that had been swallowed up in the back-building improve- ments ; and when you looked out at the sitting-room windows, they introduced you face to face with the affairs of the people next door, who wisely declined to be stared at, and so lived behind drawn window-shades. Every house in the row was like its neighbors, but ours and that next door were twin creations of the same brain. There might possibly be a little variety in the others, in the quantity of nails used or the shade of paint put on ; but ours and our neighbor's did not vary in the size of a tack or the dash of a brush. Cousin Jane is naturally timid and easily impressed. " Agnes, don't you think we had better keep our blinds down ? " she asked ; " they keep theirs so next door, and they are ex- actly alike, you know." Digitized by Google

Page 198

1900.] or, the Ghost* s Photograph. 177 " But we can't see if we do." "Yes, I know that does make a difference; but then, again, they seem to be such solemn people they may expect it." " Expect us to be uncomfortable ? " I asked. " Not quite that ; but they look out of the cracks of the upper shutters, and peep over the kitchen blinds at us, always in such a gloomy, depressed way, as if we worried them and preyed on their minds, that I thought maybe it would be better to make a little sacrifice, if you did n't find it too in- convenient." 41 Pshaw ! " said her sister Nell ; " that 's just nonsense. You were born to be somebody's slave, Jane, and are always finding cords to bind yourself with. The truth is, I was going to suggest taking down the staring white things altogether, to break the monotony. The lace curtains are drapery enough, and I cannot endure a whole row of vacant white eyes glow- ering at me when I look ujd at a house." Jane gasped for breath : " Oh ! pray don't think of such a thing, Nell. Agnes knows how impressive the agent was on the subject of no alterations being attempted. He said there was a particular reason for it; didn't he, Agnes?" " Well, well," said her sister, "then don't bother; the people next door are nothing to us. All we have got to do is to be comfortable till we hear from John." John was Cousin Jane's husband, and he had to start for Liverpool on important business as soon as he got us the key of the house ; Uncle William, the girls' father, was to remain behind in charge ; but just as we were settling nicely into place he was sent for to go to his cotton mills to superintend the improvements they were making in consequence of the fire that had burnt down the old building two months before. Then Jack, my brother and uncle's ward, got an invitation from a college friend to go somewhere in a birch canoe, and we could n't have prevailed on him to give it up if we had been a dozen lone women instead of three. 44 Uncle will be back in a day or two, and there 's neighbors enough to keep you from being lonely, I should hope," said Jack. And he strapped his portmanteau and departed, leaving us three desolate creatures. Three, did I say ? I mean five ; for were not Ann Maria and Judy as susceptible to loneliness and unprotected self-dependence as we were? I should say even more so, since we tried to rise above it and put cheerful faces on the matter, but they persisted in sighing heavily and VOL. lxxii.— 12 Digitized by Google

Page 199

1 78 The Funeral Wreath; [Nov., discovering food for gloomy reflection in everything that happened. The oven in the range would not burn nicely. "What would you expect?" said Judy. " A houseful of dis- solute craytures of women, widout so much as a coat or a hat hung up in the hall! It's a wondher we're not all murthered in our beds, so it is." "Lawsy me!" giggled Ann Maria. "I'd jest as lief be a nun, and a litter liefser, for they don't have to work and slave themselves, and they don't never need to be scared to death for fear of seeing a feller's boots peeking out from under the bed when they go upstairs at night." " We must not be hard on the girls," said Cousin Jane gently. " You know they are very considerate in some things, and it is really quite dull and lonely for them." Jane was not very strong. John's going was such a sudden thing that she had no time to miss him till he was gone, and then she gave her whole time to it, and did it thoroughly. "Look at her eyes," Nell would cry, indignantly; "she's been crying, actually crying! And just behold what she's been up to, shut in here by herself — reading his love-letters ! Oh, dear! it's enough to make a girl forswear such nonsense for life, to see what a noodle it has made of her sister. Separated for six weeks, and she wears the martyred air of /a creature that has buried every hope on earth ! " Yes, that was the truth; Jane did allow herself to become greatly depressed, and when Nell said that she enjoyed being a slave, she might have added she was ready to become a martyr too. But even worrying about John Arden, who was a dear, good young husband, and in no earthly danger, was better than getting fussy over the family next door. Yet I must confess they struck me as being very queer people. There were several of them, I suppose, but I had seen only a pale, sad-eyed girl and an elderly woman, both dressed in the heaviest and most uncompromising mourning. Their conduct was more remarkable than their appearance ; and while they evidently seemed to have a really unwarrantable interest in us and our affairs, they at the same time endeavored to keep it a secret, and themselves as much out of sight as possible. Looking up suddenly from my work, I would see a sorrowful eye apparent- ly fixed on me, and instantly retiring behind the corner of the white shade when discovered ; and yet I felt I was not the object of interest. Nell was watched the same way, so Digitized by Google

Page 200

£900.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 179 was Jane ; and we almost encouraged her to grieve about John, so that she would not have time to find herself the object of this odd scrutiny. We were going to live in our new house for a year. At the end of that time Uncle Williams improvements and machinery would be all perfected, Jack's studies completed, and John and Jane in a position to go abroad for that Conti- nental tour we had lived in expectation of so long. Meantime we were going to be economical and study, so as to know more and have more when we were all ready to enjoy it properly. •'We might set to work and make up things," said Nelljj " it will save a great deal, and I have been reading all thfc tourist's books I could find to discover what we will be likely to need." " There 's a closet with a glass door lined with red silk in the third story entry ; it would be a good place to keep our Continental stores in, would n't it ? " "Yes; and do you know I have never looked into it?" said Nell. "Let us go and investigate its capacity at once." I pause here a moment and take breath before entering on the serious part of this narrative, as Bluebeard's wife, holding the key of the fatal chamber in her hand, lingered before placing it in the lock, and felt the indefinable thrill of warn- ing that runs electrically before evil comes* Up to this moment we had been calmly happy, disturbed only by the natural regret of a fond wife and the maidenly pensiveness of our two domestics. Now our minds were to be- come a prey to harrowing emotions, and the sensation of con- tent and self-reliance was to be obscured by shadows of doubt and lurking mystery. Without alarm or trepidation we mounted the stairs — those modern stairs that creaked as if every fibre of their nerves re- sented our tread — and reached the landing where the dreadful closet stood. We looked at it a moment in silence. "Isn't it nice?" said Nell. How well I remembered her words ! " Umph ! " was my equally indelible reply. " I cannot see why they put it here, it's such a queer place for a closet, and there is no recess for it to fill up." Nell had opened it, and a strange smell of decaying leaves came out in quite a little gust. It was empty, except one Digitized by Google

Page 201

i8o The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., of the shallow shelves, and that held a funeral wreath — faded and unsightly, but still a first-class funeral wreath. Both stood still and stared at it blankly. There were nine .camelias that had once been snowy white, but were now an ugly brown ; there were geranium leaves in plenty, all shrivelled and yellow, and quantities of mignonette and sweet alyssum, with some fossil orange flowers dropping to bits. " Good gracious ! " cried NelJ, the first to gain courage and words. " Whose is it ? What can it mean ? " " Let us shut it up again," murmured I faintly ; " it seems like a grave." " No ; I do not think it would do to leave this thing here," said Nell slowly. 41 Judy or Ann Maria would discover it, and then we should have to give up living here at once. I believe I will hide it or destroy it. Oh dear ! what a dreadful thing to have to do. It 's almost like injuring some living creature." She was a resolute girl, high-spirited and courageous. I thought it better not to interfere or mar her heroic mood ; so I stepped back a little as she pulled out the fearful ghost of former bloom. As Cousin Nell pulled this mass of remains towards her a shower of dust and leaves came with it, and a small photo- graph fluttered to the ground. I picked it up. Oh such a sick, ghastly face, so sharp and thin and long and sallow ! A man who had had consumption, and fought against death until there was nothing left to carry on the battle with. What a frightful memento of misery en- dured and the triumph of hopeless, wasting disease! Why do people want to torture themselves by preserving such private and individual racks whereon to stretch their own sensibilities? "That is the legitimate proprietor of the wreath," whis- pered Nell, shuddering as she looked over my shoulder at the dreadful man. "Isn't it dreadful? It seems as if we had the horrid things on our hands for life and should never get rid of them." "You shouldn't like to burn them in the range at night, should you ? " I hinted. I knew nothing could tempt me to do it, but I hoped she would discover more decision than I. She shook her head. "Then there's the loft," I said. " Yes, that 's it," she answered with a sigh of relief ; " that is the very place." And she gathered up the crumbling thing and I took up the photograph, and together we mounted the Digitized by Google

Page 202

1900.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 181 ladder in the upper back entry that communicated with the dark, empty space between the ceiling of the upper story and the roof. As Nell, reaching her arm over as far as she could, dropped the wreath among the joists and rafters, I pushed the photograph after it, and a little shower of dust and shreds of leaves rose on the still air, as if in protest against the act. " Let us go down as soon as we can, and promise never to name the affair to each other ; it will only keep us thinking of it," I said, and scrambled off the ladder, leaving Nell to draw over the sliding door and follow, which she did immedi- ately and with some trepidation. As she commenced at once to talk about Paris and our winter there, that was soon to be so delightful, Judy came in on tiptoe and with elaborate caution. " Do you know, Miss Agnes, what Ann Maria and me found out about them quare people that do be watching us so next door? They're all mad, miss. Yes, miss, jist what I am tell- ing you — they 're as mad as March hares ; and if they was to take the notion to break in on us, what 's to hinder them from murtherin* us in our beds? Sure there is no law in Ameriky that would meddle wid them for it, they say." Ann Maria, with a face no less portentous, came tiptoeing in her wake. Evidently they considered that extreme caution was their only safeguard in the peril that surrounded them. " I see it myself," whispered Ann Maria. " I see it with these here eyes. I was alooking up at the windows, sort of sly — 't'ain't no wrong, for they 're for everlasting a looking and a spying at us — and I see that daughter of theirn come to the third story back and lift the shade for half a minute; and Miss Nell, as sure as you sit there, it is all crossed with iron bars, like a menagerie." " The window covered with bars ? " repeated Nell. " Oh ! I think you must be mistaken ; if there were bars we should see them outside the blinds." That 's it ! that is just it ! You see, they 're all crazy, and they have to be locked in that way ; but they don't want folks to know it, so they put their curtains between the bars and the windows, so as to hide it." "There must be a child in the house," said I, endeavoring to be perfectly calm, and even indifferent. " It was the nursery you noticed, Ann Maria, and you know we often protect such places in that way." Ann Maria took the explanation ill. She sniffed derisively Digitized by Google

Page 203

182 The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., and tossed her head. " I had a second cousin who was head nuss in a lunaty asylum," she remarked, " and them bars ain't to keep no baby in, as she would tell you if she see 'em. Why, they looks more like things on a wild beast's cage than anything I can think of else." " Troth, I would not wondher if they had them there," said Judy. " I heard something like a roar onct, and the whole family have a quare look, as if they were scart out of their wits at something." We heard Jane's step in the hall outside. "There, there!" cried Nell, in a suppressed tone; "do not, for your life, let your mistress hear you talk in this fool- ish way. * She is delicate and nervous, you know, and what only serves to amuse us would distress her." So saying, she pretended to be telling them something about the arrangements of the furniture when Cousin Jane just came in, and, assuming a cheerful air, dismissed them all with a warning look. " Serves to amuse us ! " I repeated her words to myself, but failed to find their applicability ; for I could not discover such a sensation even distantly connected with our lonely household and our queer neighbors ; and to add to the dole- fulness of our position, Jane had come to say that she really believed she was sick. She confessed to feeling rather miserable for a day or two past, but a visitation in the form of chills had come upon her that morning, followed by a low but decided fever ; so that she could no longer conceal her sufferings, and meant to give up and go to bed. Of course we had known it would come to this. She had gone on moping and crying secretly ever since John left, and this was the natural consequence, and only what might have been expected. " I should not mind it so much," faltered Jane, " but all my sewing, that I meant to do so nicely, is cut out and basted ; yet I do not feel as if I could hold a needle in my fingers if a fortune was to be won by it." Nell and I promised eagerly to do it all, and induced her to lie down and let us call the doctor for advice. That was an odd way of Jane's ; she never felt sick with- out calling up a host of neglected duties to prey on her mind and make her worse. We knew, even before the doctor told us so, that she was extremely nervous, and needed entire rest and cheerful surroundings more than medicine. Yet he gave Digitized by Google

Page 204

1900.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 183 her some, and, whatever it was, the effect it produced was sleep — sleep of such a decided character that she seemed to sink into it as if she never meant to rise and come to the surface of the waking. day world any more. We sat in the sewing-room and did our best with the cut- out and basted work. It was late ; Judy and Ann Maria had retired, and we only waited to see if Jane would rouse in time for a second dose before we followed their example. Nell proposed lying on the soft sofa beside her bed, while I slept in the back room. Jane lay in such a deep sleep that she did not stir in the least, and you could not tell that she was breathing until you stopped and listened. It grew oppressively silent all over the house ; it was quiet enough at the best of times, but to night it was positively awful. Nell made spas- modic efforts to be conversational and agreeable, so I knew she was feeling nervous and frightened. I tried hard to be careless and merry, and signally failed. We had talked of the hitherto unfailing theme, our trip abroad, and discovered it to be without a charm. The truth is, we were both trying not to think of those horrid discoveries of ours — the funeral wreath and the ghastly picture — and I knew, and so did she, that there was no other subject in our minds all the time. " Dear me ! " said Nell, pretending to ruminate and look in- terested in the recollection, " it is next month that Mollie Denis meant to be married. I wonder if she will come to town and do her shopping." " It would be a relief to have such a gay creature here, would n't it ? " I hinted. Nell drew a sigh of inexpressible longing. " Oh," she said, " don't I wish I could hear her laugh ! It would startle the shadows in this dreary new house." Yes, that was the vexation ; had it been an old house one would not have minded a shade of gloom more or less, for it would have been in character ; but in a fresh, strangely modern dwelling, all shining red and white, there could be no pro- priety in mysterious horrors and haunting terrors. Just as I came to this conclusion and, feeling a little nerved by it, determined to shake off the oppressive shadows that weighed me down, I heard a faint sound like the turning of a screw. Nell started and laid her hand on my arm with a quick, tight grasp. The sound lasted quite a little while, and ended with a dreadful click, like the final turn of a screw in a coffin lid ! Yes, that was what it reminded me of, and by a miserable Digitized by Google

Page 205

The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., fatality I saw that Nell shared the thought. Her hold tight- ened and she drew a gasping breath. Something like a foot- fall, but very soft and almost noiseless, followed and grew more distinct every moment, for it was coming towards us. The door stood a little way open and a faint light glimmered in the hall outside ; our terrified eyes turned in that direction and beheld the outline of something white moving cautiously along among the shadows. It was a man — the man, the pro- prietor of the funeral wreath — and he seemed gliding through the air directly towards us — no doubt come to avenge its dese- cration and demand it back. Nell opened her lips as if to shriek, but no sound left them ; and, stretching her hands out to ward off the terrible presence that still kept advancing towards us, she fell down in a heap on the carpet, leaving me to face the horror alone. It entered the room and seemed to go toward a writing desk in the corner — a large affair, with a case of books above it, that was kept locked and never used by any of us — according to a promise exacted by the agent. I think I spoke to this fearful apparition, for I remember the sound of my own voice as I faintly whispered, " She put it in the loft," meanly desiring to save myself and implicate the insensible Nell; but I could not make a tone higher than a shrill whisper, and my heart seemed to cease beating and to swell with an awful throb that smothered my breath and turned my body to ice. And yet the apparition appeared totally indifferent to us both — I could not but be aware of that, even in the midst of my fear — and, having stood a silent moment or two beside the secretary, it turned and seemed to disappear in the shadows of Jane's bed-chamber. As soon as it got out of sight I got back my breath and scrambled onto my feet. I believe I had followed Nell on the carpet, and found myself behind an easy-chair as a sort of bar- ricade against the wandering spirit's nearer approach ; my cou- sin becoming suddenly conscious at the same moment. "Has it gone?" she asked; and I hope my eyes were not quite so wild or my face so entirely white as hers. " It went into Jane's room," I replied in a whisper. And in a second Nell's courage came back, for she loves Jane with her whole heart, and, though two years younger, always takes a tender elder sister's care of her. "In Jane's room!" she repeated. "Ah! what does the ter- Digitized by Google

Page 206

1900.] or, the Ghost1 s Photograph. 185 rible thing want with her? She did not touch it." And she actually seized the sofa pillow as a weapon of defence and fol- lowed the Ghost. It was not there. Jane was sleeping still so very heavily that even our exclamations of wonder and the attempt we made to search did not disturb her. Yes, we did look for it; but we first waited a little while to be quite sure if it were gone. You cannot imagine how our courage came back when we knew it was entirely out of sight, and we even tried to persuade ourselves that we must have been dreaming and no dead man had even thought of paying us a visit on such a trifling pretext as a funeral wreath. But we could not quite accomplish that, nor could we feel sleepy any more, nor desire to go to bed across the hall in the room that belonged to us. The first thing we had done on regaining our self-control was to lock the door by which the spirit had entered, and our search had all been made inside the two rooms. Neither of us thought it best to go beyond them ; and Nell closed and fast- ened the door in Jane's room, out of which it seemed probable the spirit had departed. Then we made both of the apartments pretty light — that was because it seemed more cheerful — and sat down, our excitement being now subsided, to feel very doleful and depressed. However, the safest thing we could do was to get out of temper, and we fretted and scolded and started at every sound until daybreak, and then we fell fast asleep and dreamed most uncomfortably. I thought we had both found refuge down a trap door that led away under the house to a wide open country, green and beautiful, with great moss grown rocks and little glens full of wild flowers. Somebody seemed waiting for us here, and led us into a little grotto with a stationary washstand and silver bell handle in it ; but just as we were admiring its completeness a window was closed and we discovered it to be crossed with iron bars that prevented our ever getting out again. Nell sprang up in great excitement and beat and rattled at those bars so as to shake the very ground beneath our feet. Gradually a voice seemed to break through our dream. It cried : 44 Miss Agnes, are ye slapin', or is it dead ye are ? Miss Agnes ! oh, Miss Agnes ! What 's the matter wid ye all ? " Digitized by Google

Page 207

i86 The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., They were Judy's tones, and they had evidently reach* d their climax in a wild, shrill scream. I sprang up and rubbed my eyes. Oh, what an aching, weary creature I felt ! And the recollection of the ghostly fig- ure made my head reel as I tried to remember just where I was and all about it. Nell lay across the foot of Jane's bed, and both still slum- bered profoundly. I opened the door. "It is just nine o'clock, miss," remarked Judy with a re- signed air. " I 've been knocking at this door, when Ann Maria gave out, ever since seven. The breakfast 's stone cold, there 's two letters come, and a young lady 's in the parlor wid a thravel- in' bag." It was evident from Judy's manner that she had weighed the amount and nature of her communications, and considered a desperate calmness best calculated to show them off to their fullest effect ; therefore she repeated all these items in a stud- ied monotone that told well. " Goodness gracious ! " I cried. " Nine o'clock — letters — a young lady ! " " Who is it ? " muttered Nell, gathering herself up. "Yes, Miss Nell, she said she was an ould friend, and that she would not disturb ye for the world, but could jist sit be the parlor winda and read till ye got up." Judy drew a card out of her pocket. " That 's her name," she continued ; " an' as she has been waitin' so long for her breakfast, she may be famished by this time." "Why, Nell, it's Mollie Denis!" I exclaimed. "Oh, I am so glad! " And turning into the next room, I washed my sleepy face and brushed my tumbled hair with all the eager haste I could.' Nell followed me in a few moments and shut the door care- fully. " I have been thinking we had better keep our secret, dear," she said with quite a pathetic pity expressed in her voice for herself and me. " I know it is awful, but we can do nothing till my father comes, and now we are four ; and Mollie is so lively it will not be so bad, you know." " That is true, and Jane would be so terribly alarmed." "Yes. She is awake, and reading her letters. John is safe and well, and papa says the work goes on finely at Low- ville. She will be soon well, of course, and to tell her about that terrible thing last night would only set her off again." Digitized by Google

Page 208

IQOO.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 187 You could not possibly be dull where Mollie was; she was not at all wild or loud or rollicking, like some lively girls are ; she was only quietly and irresistibly droll, and saw the funny side of everything at a first glance. It was no effort with her — it was simply her nature to amuse ; and so we all sat down to breakfast together. It was almost noon ; a stranger would have looked on us as a family of gay-spirited people. Of course Jane got well as soon as she read John's letter; and Mollie told her she would ask her matronly advice on many housekeeping points, which made her feel important and delighted, because, though Jane never did anything about the domestic affairs, she was greatly flattered to be considered com- petent in all such respects. We had never seen Mollie's lover ; he lived in the city, and she had met him while visiting her aunt. He was a dear, good fellow, she told me, but rather sor- rowful just then, having lost a loved brother that the whole family looked up to and reverenced. The reason she was to be married on the sixteenth of the following month was that her lover's family would see no one for the first year of their mourning — which would expire on the first — and they needed a fortnight to be able to bring themselves to bear the moder- ate glimpse of gayety which a private wedding, with no stran- gers present, made necessary. "They came to see me when I was at Aunt Susan's," said Mollie, "and they seemed nice, good, sepulchral sort of people, with smiles like a bit of gilding on a tombstone and manners as set as little flower-borders around graves. George is not so melancholy as the rest, so you need not look so sympathizing. He has rather caught their ways, and he sincerely mourns his brother's loss, but he can laugh — I heard him before we set the day. " Then you have never visited them ? " said Jane with a glance of surprise. She had gone to John's home with Nell and stayed a month among his people before she was married, so she considered it odd that any one else should venture on matrimony without that initiatory step. " Not yet," confessed Mollie. " I am afraid they would be shocked by my good spirits if I did ; so George thought it better to wait till that awful year of gloom was past, and then his family could conscientiously welcome me." " Do they live in this part of the town ? " asked Nell. " I cannot tell, really. I never learned the streets, and al- Digitized by Google

Page 209

1 88 The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., ways address George at his office. When we get the important shopping over, I '11 tell him that I am here, and I shall be glad to have you see and like him." "Which we will be sure to do," said Nell confidently; and having become quite enlivened by our increased number, we began laying plans for home pleasures and quiet enjoyment of Mollie's visit during the next few days, almost forgetful of the terrible skeleton that was hid in our closet. But twilight brought a reminder in the person of Ann Maria, who came flying into the sitting-room with a white face and round eyes, and no ceremony whatever. 44 O Miss Agnes ! there 's an awful thing in the loft ! I went up to put away Mr. Jack's fishing-net, and I saw two eyes like living coals looking down at me ; so I dropped it and ran for my life ! " Nell turned pale, and I gasped for breath. " Come for that fearful wreath again/' I thought ; but a large, comfortable-looking cat wound slowly down the stairs, and passing out of the back entry, went over the fence in a dignified, leisurely way that established her respectability and mortality. "That's a real cat, I think," said Jane timidly. She in- clined to the spiritual view, and was already quite alarmed. 44 Of course it is," said Mollie, and it was then she saw it. " It looked a heap wilder than that," protested Ann Maria, " and bigger, and more frightfuller every way." " Still that was it," said Nell with decision, and so dismissed the case. 44 But how did it get into our loft ? " she said to me after- ward. 44 O Agnes ! I cannot bear to think of that sight last night, and I wish you would just write to father and tell him all." She had expressly forbidden me doing this while daylight lasted, but now that night was coming on it seemed a differ- ent thing. 44 1 think it would be nice to all sleep in these two con- necting rooms," she said, later in the evening. 41 It is so cheerful to talk till you fall asleep." 4kWhat an idea, Nell!" said unconscious Jane. 44 You used to say it bored you to hear people talking all the time you were trying to doze off." 44 Yes, that was when the conversation consisted of little screams and inquiries, such as, 4 What 's that ? ' 4 Oh listen, Nell ! ' Digitized by Google

Page 210

1900.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 189 or, 4 Do you hear that queer sound ? ' That 's your style, you know ; and you have another way of keeping alive the interest by giving me little terrified pinches whenever you hear a sound, that ruins my temper and makes my arms black and blue." Jane laughed ; she felt so happy about hearing from John that she had forgotten all her fears, and positively denied ever having felt them. As we went up to bed she glanced up the third-story stairs. "There's the closet door ajar," she said, in a dismayed tone of voice ; " the agent said it was to be kept locked, and that rummaging thing, Judy, has gone and found a key for it." " Why, Jane, what new discoveries you are making about that agent! Every day some fresh instruction, till it really seems as if the house is not ours at all. I will go and fasten the door." And Nell ran up to attend to it, calling out as she went, "you stay there and wait for me, please." But no key was to be found, and she had to leave it just as it was. She carried her point about the bed arrangements, and we all four slept in the two communicating rooms. Jane claimed Mollie, and we two frightened ones were left together. " Why, what a blaze of gas you have in your room," com- plained Jane ; " you '11 heat it up directly." " One can't get undressed in the dark," said Nell. " And only see : she 's locking her door ! " cried Mollie. " Oh, what an old-maidish trick on a warm summer night ! " Nell turned the key again and set it open. " What could I have been thinking of ? " she said, laughing. I could have told her easily, but I only watched the shadows on the wall outside, and trembled secretly at every fancied sound. I resolved to remain awake and watch, and began a length- ened conversation with a view to induce Mollie to a like course ; but I felt my words becoming too burdensome to lift into utterance. Great gaps seemed to stretch between me and the rest, and I kept sinking into wells, and bringing myself to the top again with a painful jerk. Then I had a long, pleasant blank that was empty of care and trouble, and fear of ghostly things. Suddenly it was filled with a ringing cry of alarm, and a sharp consciousness, confused and painful, was thrust upon me. I sat up and saw Jane and Mollie and Nell all on the floor Digitized by Google

Page 211

190 The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., together; Jane keeping up her cries of terror, and they two looking about them in every direction, without seeming suffi- ciently composed to see anything clearly. "The robber!" cried Jane — 44 the dreadful robber! I saw him come in at the door and he tried to open the desk that the agent was so particular about ; and now he is in the dining- room collecting the silver. ' Mollie ran quickly and closed and bolted the doors that led into the hall. " If it was a robber we are safe now," she said. "Tell us what he looked like, Jane." 44 He was fearful," said Jane to begin with, determined to see everything in its worst light. 44 He had dreadfully fixed eyes, and his face was pale — chalked over to frighten us, I suppose. He had left his shoes down-stairs, and had no coat on." 44 Let us make an alarm from the front window," said Mollie. 44 It is no use," said Nell desperately; 44 it is not a robber; it only wants its own, and Agnes knows it." 44 What do you mean ?" asked Jane, aghast. 44 Do you think we have anything belonging to the wretch ? " 44 Oh, don't mention it ! " said Nell, shuddering. She sat down and hid her face in her hands, really overcome with our miserable position. 44 Let us call a policeman to search the house," insisted Mollie. " Aunt Susan always said it was the safest way." 44 There are things beyond the control of the force," mut- tered Nell ; and so we all sat shivering with fear and bewil- dered with conflicting thoughts till the summer dawn came to relieve us of our horror. Then we four searched the house and found there was not a pin missing. 44 We are a set of fools," said Mollie, as we concluded our investigation. 44 Jane dreamed it all, and we helped her to be alarmed at the recollection." 44 No, but I did see the man," persisted Jane. 44 1 could n't get asleep right — I suspect it was because I took a powder the night before— and I was just as wide awake as I am now when he came prowling in." 44 Stalling, you mean." 14 Yes, Nell, that is more like it; but I knew he had come to prowl and steal, and so I could see through his tricks of walking so straight and stiff and keeping his eyes fixed as if he were dead." Digitized by Google

Page 212

1900.] or, the Ghost's Photograph. 191 "What shall we do?" asked Nell, whose desperation grew intense at every word her sister uttered. "We can keep the girls up to-night for company," sug- gested I. " To help us to be more frightened," said Mollie. " What- ever it is, it knows how to get in mysteriously, for there 's not a bolt drawn nor key turned in the house. I believe it 's a spirit, and I am going to watch for it myself to>night." 44 Alone?" we asked all together. " Why no," confessed Mollie, laughing. " I intend to send for George, with your permission. I meant to wait a week, and let it get a little nearer the end of the season of mourning ; but as your stock of male relatives are all gone, and men being at a premium, I think it a good time to bring mine forward. He is not afraid of ghosts I know, and he is one of those quiet, sensible men who ought to have some courage." We all began to be much interested in Mollie's lover, and again Nell postponed writing for her father; for, as she said, it would give him trouble and make him very captious if he could discover no cause for her alarm. " A man in the house is all we want, Agnes ; and we must be as agreeable to Mollie's lover as possible, so as to betray him into late hours, and to frighten that horrid thing off with our merriment and good spirits, and the pretence of having a protector with us." Just as we sat down to tea that evening, rather flushed with the expectation of a pleasant change, Jack and uncle dashed in among us in high spirits, and it came out that the birch- canoe party had found rowing and poling such hard work that a little of it satisfied them, and they changed their plans into a walking tour. Jack, being away far enough from home to be sociable with those he met, discovered among the tourists just the kind of man uncle needed in his factory-work — a univer- sal genius who held the key of mechanical invention between his handy thumb and forefinger. He had secured this prize and carried him down to the mills, where uncle received him like a deliverer from a mass of confused responsibilities. Both uncle and Jack were in excellent spirits, and we all grew gay and hilarious, quite forgetting our late depression, and meanly undervaluing the coming knight we had counted on so largely an hour before. It was rather late when he came, and Mollie had been talking so amusingly with Jack that I am afraid the most of Digitized by Google

Page 213

192 The Funeral Wreath ; [Nov., us had forgotten all about her lover. Ann Maria, much flushed with the abundance of the article on hand, announced rather lamely : 44 A gentleman, miss " ; and Jane stepped forward, so did Nell, so did I. With one accord we all three started back and uttered three distinct sounds. " The robber ! " screamed Jane, with quite a little yell. "The dead man!" murmured Nell. " Come for his wreath ! " added I. , Yes, there he was, the haunting spirit, whose dreadful presence had filled us with terror and nameless distress, actually arrayed in evening dress and walking into our parlor. Was that all ? No ; behind him came the sad-eyed lady whom we had seen from our windows, and her equally mourn- ful daughter, followed up by a comfortable-looking, plump, rosy-faced old man, who seemed determined to be jolly, though he evidently had a hard time carrying out the idea. "The family from next door," murmured Jane faintly, evidently giving way before such a combined pressure of cir- cumstances. "We had expected to do ourselves this honor somewhat later," began the elder lady, in a voice as regular and mono- tonous as a passing bell. " The deep shadow that has obscured our lives is not yet shifted, but the approaching duty of a new connection has led us to waive for awhile the luxury of seclu- sion and anticipate time a little." She then solemnly kissed Mollie and shook hands with us all. Her daughter followed in just the same manner, with a more timid spirit ; but the old gentleman rubbed his hands briskly, and made several bows in different directions. " Glad to see you all," he said in a series of cheery jerks ; "happy to greet neighbors and family connections at the same time. Pleasant, very pleasant ; sorry to say we 're all rather down — lost our eldest — fine fellow — the image of George here ; great blow, but must be borne." Here he rubbed his hands with increased energy, and seemed to feel that we now knew his family history, and there was nothing left to do but be comfortable. But the dreadful young man ! Mollie had gone to his side instantly, and looked sharply at us all as we uttered our im- pressible exclamations. But he only gazed in astonishment Digitized by Google

Page 214

I90O.] OR, THE GHOSfS PHOTOGRAPH. 193 around him, and then seemed to seek his mother's eye for counsel and direction. " Oh ! what is it ? " she asked. She was so full of her owa systematized sorrow that she had not noticed our dismay* Nell tried hard to overcome her doubt, astonishment, and shrinking repugnance, and speak reasonably; all I could do was to hold my tongue, but Jane did not even do that. " Papa, he frightened us all out of our wits — indeed he did. Of course I know now he is no robber, because Mollie Denis could n't be engaged to such a character ; but I know John would object to it, and it really was alarming — " " Object to what, Jane ? Be intelligible." But uncle re- quired too much of my poor confused little cousin. Nell did better. "We have certainly seen Mr. Millard in here," she said, trying to be very composed. w It was impos- sible to hide our feelings on recognizing him, and it is due to you all to make an explanation." So she told about the figure we had seen, not particulariz- ing the nightdress, but Mollie's lover grew white and red, and stammered without uttering anything we could under- stand. His stern and solemn mother glowered at us, but his agreea- ble father burst out laughing. " Yes, follow my example," he entreated ; " it is the only way we can come to a really clear conclusion. The poor lad walks in his sleep, and somebody has opened that staircase door that I wanted built up when Harold died ; but our people promised his widow, who believed in making a treasure of her gloom, to leave everything just as it was, to make her miserable again when she comes back from abroad next year. And so it had to remain. It was locked on your side, and I did not know that there was a key to be found." I looked at Nell, and she at me; we both drew a long breath. "There was a funeral wreath," said I. "There was! there was!" cried the bereaved mother in a* harmonious groan ; " we meant to have it preserved, but it was mislaid. Our lost Harold was the last to use that door; it was made for him and his brother to consult about their studies and communicate, without the formality of leaving the house on either side. They were deeply attached and singularly alike in everything." It shall be closed up," cried Mr. Millard, senior, decidedly ; vol lxxii.— 13 Digitized by Google

Page 215

194 The Funeral Wreath. [Nov. but his son only kept changing color like a chameleon, and looking at his boots. " I can give you the wreath ; I found it," said Nell. " So we did your great cat, who came down from the loft to day and startled us all." " Oh, it will be an unspeakable pleasure ! " said the elder woman with unction; and she added: "The lofts connect; in- deed, the whole house was built so that our tender intercourse could be kept up easily." " I am sorry our poor George gave you any uneasiness," whispered his sister. " He always dreaded that he would go out in his nightdress; but we feared he would walk from the window, and so we had it barred." Mollie laughed. She had been looking from one to the other, and trying to stifle the inclination, but it would not be repressed. Uncle's amazement, Jack's bewilderment, Jane's propriety, and her future mother-in-law's solemn woe, all mixed together and crowned with her lover's abashed dejection, and his father's desire to make it all pleasant, were too much for her ; she began a smothered titter, which swelled into a full- grown laugh, in which most of us joined. " Please don't speak of it again," she said when she got her breath. " What overcomes me is, that I sent for him as a valiant knight to protect and succor us lonely damsels, and find that he has been the cause of all the mischief." " Unintentionally, unintentionally ! " murmured her adorer faintly, which was the first successful attempt he had made to break the silence ; and though Mollie called him a courageous fellow, I never saw a more cowardly face than his whenever he met our eyes. 41 1 thought he looked plumper than the photograph," whis- pered Nell, "even when I believed him to be a spirit." " Yes, so did I ; but they must improve in the other world, you know," I replied ; " and the likeness is astonishing." It was hard work to make the somnambulist at ease, but we felt we should soon learn to like him as a legitimate ac- quaintance, particularly as his father declared the door should be built up at once to prevent any ghostly intimacy. Digitized by Google

Page 216

CO ROB6RC $OISCBW€££, mflRCPR, 3€$UIC, JIM) PO€C. 6reat soul, crowned victor over £ite and Deatb. Wbo ran tbc measure or tbp bitter race, 6irt in tbc invulnerable armor or 6od'$ grace, Bis £opc, tbp sword, tbat all tbings conciucrctb, Cbp memory comes upon me like tbe brcatb or incense tbat dotb specdilp errace Jill cartb-born tbougbts, all pain ambitions base, And in mp beart deeds palorous tpbisperctb. Poet and Priest and martpr, tbree in one— H perrect one-a poem in 6od's sigbt f raugbt u>itb inerrable music, and a ligbt Celestial, bepond ligbt or star or sun, Be tbou mine unrorgottcn paragon, ilnd mp pain reet shall eper step arigbt. Joseph F. Cashman. Digitized by Google

Page 217

Digitized by Google

Page 218

igoo.] The Pan-American Exposition. 197 THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. BY ANNA BLANCHE McGILL. U5T now in Buffalo Pan-American is the name to conjure with. Despite illuminations, the burst- ing of bombs, and other noisy pyrotechnics making night hideous in honor of rival political candidates, the fact stands that the presidential election itself is of secondary moment in the minds of the Buffalonians — the Exposition is the prime interest. . Already in Delaware Park, one of the most beautiful suburbs of the Queen City of the Lakes, things are beginning to assume an aspect that transports the fancy to the land of the Aztecs, and beyond the Isthmus of Panama to the southern half of the Western hemisphere whose development, commer- cial and otherwise, during the nineteenth century, the Exposi- tion will express. James G. Blaine is quoted as the originator of the plan to bring American countries into closer associations ; his princi- pal aim being to gain for the United States from the South American and Mexican colonies more of those commercial ad- vantages at present enjoyed chiefly by Europe. The imports of the South American colonies are stupendous ; many of them, especially various kinds of machinery, are obtained from Germany at a cost much greater than they could be supplied by the United States. One omniscient observer, who recently travelled through an extensive territory south of our bounda- ries, tells that the only articles he saw which were made in these United States were some Fairbanks scales and a soli- tary soda-water fountain — the latter being the subject of much curiosity and, indeed, suspicion in the town which claimed the distinction of possessing it. There is no question that the failure of the South American colonies to come up the Atlan- tic for their commerce, instead of continually crossing it, has been due to the limitations the protective tariff has put upon our trade and to the shortness of our credit-term — so much briefer than that of European countries. Too, the recent war has left among the Spanish sympathizers an antipathy to us, Digitized by Google

Page 219

Digitized by Google

Page 220

1900.] The Pan-American Exposition. 199 which the Pan-American promoters hope to remove, as they are also trusting to demonstrate the mutual advantages that may accrue to the sister hemispheres from a closer social and commercial relation than now exists. One of the most artful means to secure the confidence and good will of the countries whose co-operation is desired (a means which is also a graceful courtesy) has been the selection of the Spanish Renaissance as the dominant architectural style. From the present aspect of things, the result will be uniquely beautiful and picturesque. Already graceful, stately buildings are rising, adorned with entablatures and arabesque?, topped by domes, towers, and minarets upborne by arcades and colon- nades, which with loggias, pavilions, and porticoes, suggest Alhambra and the lands of old romance. In a busy corner of Delaware Park workmen are transforming North American clay and mortar into staff of Latin-American colors — buff, green, and red ; for the architectural plan is to be emphasized by chromatic effects of these colors. The impression produced is by no means garish, as only subdued tones are being em- ployed ; dull red and green in the entablatures, bas-reliefs, and on the roofs; buff and old ivory tints in the body of the buildings. The fervent jingoists or patriots who resent our flying Spanish colors so prematurely after the late belligerent relations may perhaps prefer finding the suggestion for the tinting in the bow of beauty the sun throws over Buffalo's marvellous neighbor — wonderfully-hued Niagara. For after all, as the Columbian Exposition was the White City, the Pan- American is to be the Rainbow City. In the day-time such a color scheme will be achieved by floral decorations, landscape gardening, the blue waters of lagoons and canals, the irides- cence of cascades and fountains — by the buildings themselves, whose tints will increase in intensity from the Triumphal Arch to the Forestry, Horticulture, and Machinery Halls, with their warm buffs and terra cottas, till is reached the full resonant chord of color struck by the Electric Tower with its white, blue, green, and gold. Charles Y. Turner, N.A., has this in- teresting color-work in his hands. At night the rainbow effects will be continued by floating lights, by two hundred thousand electric lamps and their reflections in fountain jets and lagoons. Karl Bitter, who supervised much of the sculpture for the World's Fair, is the director of sculpture. The arrangement of medallions, entablatures, and one hundred and twenty five groups of statuary is his inspiration and design. Digitized by Google

Page 221

200 The Pan-American Exposition. [Nov., The Buildings are Grouped to create the Court effects. In harmony with the general architectural plan, the build- ings have been placed so that inviting vistas will continually gratify the vision. All around the rainbow village will run rows of trees, many of them poplars whose green spires seem to bear out the Spanish Renaissance of the structures within ; while the buildings themselves will be artistically grouped in court-settings likewise accentuating similar outlines. If these court-settings realize all their names suggest, they will indeed be scenes of beauty. The design for the Court of Lilies is a colonnaded basin bordered by roses, dahlias, sweet peas, and gladioli, and filled with rare aquatics, Nilumbiums and Victoria Regias. This court, the Court of Cypresses and the Court of Fountains, will lie beyond the Triumphal Arch spanning two mirror-lakes, and past a spacious esplanade, which will lead on either side to the Fair's architectural masterpieces — the Machinery and Transportation building and that of the Manu- factures and Liberal Arts. The entrances to the former are crowned with tall, intricately ornamented towers, having open lanterns ; the red tile roof extends in broad overhanging eaves. Digitized by Google

Page 222

1900.] The Pan-American Exposition. 201 The exhibits in this building will testify to the development of machinery from the days of old-fashioned Dutch wind-mills to the modern glories of American wind- engines, and will il- lustrate the history of transportation from the age of antique coaches and calashes to the present reign of automobiles and other horseless carriages. The Government, Forestry, and Ethnology buildings, the Stadium and Temple of Music, bid fair to be pleasing structures. But perhaps the keenest interest will centre in the Electric Tower and the Electricity Building, for there the most enor- mous power-plant of the world, Niagara, will be fettered to contribute five thousand horse-power for utility and decorative illumination. The numerical details of the Tower are too im- pressive to be tiresome ; the height of this lofty monument to the genius of Franklin, Edison, and other modern electricians is three hundred and twenty-five feet. Its base, sixty feet high, will be a solid panel of illuminated vari-colored spray. Above this will be several pavilions from which will rise the tower's crown consisting of three stories; the first of these, an arcaded loggia, brilliantly colored and ornamented ; the second, a lofty, circular colonnade whose pillars, gracefully far apart, will stand out artistically against the sky, letting in those bits of blue that send the imagina- tion to Moorish minarets or Span- ish towers. From the centre of this colonnade winds a spiral stairway ending in a domed cupola of jewel glass on which will be poised t h e Goddess of Light, the dominant genius of the ex- position. Digitized by Google

Page 223

202 The Pan-American Exposition. [Nov., The Electric Tower will be made Beautiful by a Display of Iridescent Colors. Digitized by Google

Page 224

1900.] The Pan-American Exposition. 203 The resources of architecture have been called on to deaden the aggressive whistles and snorts of locomotives which usually disturb the air, and one's equanimity, in the vicinity of fairs and the like. No one will be aware of the disfiguring presences of trains and trolley-cars at the Pan-American, for one of the triumphs of the architectural arrangements will be the Propylaea, the handsome screen of the railway stations. A massive arch will be at each end, topped by two open towers. These en- trances are to be connected by curving colonnades, wreathed in arabesques of growing vines. The Mecca of showmen, the Midway, will consist of " the Streets of Mexico," "A Trip to the Moon," aerial navigation, Japanese Tea-Gardens, Ostrich Farms, " Venice in America," and other attractions — it is to be hoped of a higher tone than those demoralizing exhibitions which have been hitherto dis- graceful commentaries not only on the individual showmen, who selected them to pander to depraved, positively immoral taste, but also on the exposition-managements that permitted them. For the Venetian village a number of pigeons have been brought from Venice. Half of the original flock died on the voyage across the ocean ; some one, tired of the noise of many hammers and the drudgery of tedious preparations, makes the facetious comment: "And the others wish they too had died on the way over." The occasion has moved New York State to magnanimity. It is pledged to erect a permanent building ultimately to pass into the Buffalo Historical Society's possession. This marble building will be one of the few classic specimens of architecture on the grounds. It will stand in the park north of North Bay; the design for it is after the Doric, following as far as possible the Athenian Parthenon. Buffalo may well be proud of the philanthropy of her citi- zen, Mr. Albright, who has donated four hundred thousand dollars for the Art Gallery. This will be virtually a Palace of Art which might delight even a Phidias — in fact, Phidias would find himself much at home therein, as the structure's proto- type is that stately Erectheum which stood on Athen's acropo- lis. The Gallery will be placed on an eminence, approached by ample flights of marble stairs and broad terraces adorned with floral decoration, fountains, and Greek statuary. Across the front of the building and around the sides will run nobly columned porticoes, bearing the imagination back to classic days Digitized by Google

Page 225

Page 226

1900.] The Pan-American Exposition. 205 of Zeno and the Academy. William A. Coffin, the American painter and art critic, is making the collection of treasures for the exhibit, which will consist of paintings and sculptures illus- trative of American art. After the Exposition, the Buffalo Fine Arts Society will take permanent possession of the beautiful building, so appropriate a home for such a society. So much for the Exposition, its material structures and the reciprocal commercial advantages the United States hope, and justly, from their association with Mexico and South America. But if the spirit of this country is willing, there may be another enrichment for us, to which too little consideration is likely to be given— a social and aesthetic enrich- A Vista in the Park. ment. The Anglo-Saxon, in the self-righteousness of his neait and the pride of his increasing power, has of late been wont to regard the Latin civilizations with a superior condescension, that sees opportunity for helpful propagandism only from his own mag- nanimous, munificent side, not recognizing the possibility of re- ceiving enlightenment from those civilizations. Now the report goes, though we wish to tell it not in Gath, that the Mexicans and South Americans prefer commercial association with Ger- mans and the French, because American brusquerie and lack of courtesy are so obnoxious, even in these business connec- tions, to the people who have such ancient and deep-rooted legacies of urbanity and courtesy. So, it seems, we must learn to mend our manners. Digitized by Google I

Page 227

206 The Pan-American Exposition. [Nov., It has been a custom to regard the people of Mexico as of a civilization much inferior to ours, and, likewise, the other Latin Americans as ignorant, decadent, and " priest ridden." As to the first misapprehension, for such it is, the fact of the matter is that socially the Mexicans are refined and hospitable; morally, brave, charitable, and peaceful ; while intellectually they bDast achievements of which we have a guilty ignorance. Their universities are neither few nor insignificant; their litera- ture is rich in fiction, poetry, history, and archaeology, while their art is so far advanced that their picture, " Las Casas," is considered one of the great world-paintings. The oldest art school in America is their National School of Fine Arts, which is a survivor of the art academy of Fray Pedro, a Franciscan monk of 1529. As for the Latin-American countries south of the Isthmus, neither are they, nitionally and artistically, so insignificant as might be supposed. It must be remembered they are the heirs of two of the most interesting civilizations the world has known — that of the Incas and that which followed when Pizarro and his companions (by the divine right of discovery) de- throned and replaced Atualpha, the Inca monarch, taking possession of his roomful of gold, and all Peru besides, in the name of the Spanish government, whose sway then extended from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and whose civilization, illustrated by luxurious living and splendor of institutions, is yet the delight of romanticists and the won- der of historians. Such a civilization the conquerors brought with them, so the American Eldorado became a New Spain, the remnants of whose glory still remain and in a very vital condition. With the exception of a few individual cases, like the unpardonable cruelty of Pizarro, no effort was made, as in our own colonization, to crush, or rather crowd-out, the aborigines and other inhabitants. And this, not for the sake of drifting from the present theme to historical disquisition, but for the sake of showing the state of affairs which now ex- ists as a direct and logical result of the policy then employed. The early Spanish missionaries insisted on kindness to the peoples of the new land, who were educated, Christianized, and who, in consequence, show an earlier and superior culture to that of the tribes we have too long neglected. Many Indians and other natives of the Latin Americas have so far advanced as to be, socially and intellectually, equals of the Spanish. As a testimony to their early civilization, may be taken the fact Digitized by Google

Page 228

iqoo.] The Pan-American Exposition. Digitized by Google

Page 229

208 The Soul's Release. [Nov., that a South American bishop was at the Council of Trent before Protestantism was released from its swaddling clothes. The church has been one of the greatest factors in conserving the vital interests of the subjugated races and in improving their social condition. Higher education in South America has been by no means neglected. There are eighteen universities, many of them boasting five hundred pupils, and a goodly number of colleges and schools of law and medicine. In order that the Exposition be, as its name indicates, a common gathering ground for the peoples of this entire conti- nent, there should be an appreciation of the merits of the civilization of Latin America. The same graceful courtesy that is extended to the Latins by adopting their styles of architecture should be shown in a recognition of their services to art, literature, and religion. This spirit may be made mani- fest in the Congresses which are always an important accom- paniment of expositions. The direction of these Congresses should not be permitted to fall into unsympathetic hands. A broad-minded liberality, conjoined with an appreciation of what the Latin civilization has done for the major part of this con- tinent, will make these Congresses great schools of liberal edu- cation for us of the United States. THE SOUL'S RELEASE. BY ANNA COX STEPHENS. j Y walls are no more prison walls ; I now can see 'tis sunlight on the casement falls ; And bars I thought were iron, cold and grim, Were only transfixed shadows — something dim — That caught their darkness from the soul within. Enmesh'd am I in heaven's latticed gold, (A sunbeam surely hath no power to hold?) From out the glory conies a Voice afar; The veil uplifts — the eternal gates unbar. Digitized by Google

Page 230

1900.] Old Spiritual Writers. 209 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS * BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P. T is evident enough that reading exercises a most momentous influence on the average modern life. This being so, and the supply of matter being ; nowadays practically inexhaustible, we find that people are coming to pay very considerable at- tention to the choice of profitable books. No one has failed to notice the multiplication of select lists, classified catalogues, essays, and indeed volumes bearing titles such as " The Best Books," " What to Read," or " Writers That Have Helped Me." And this sign of a general attempt toward discrimination is a guarantee that much waste of time and much useless labor 'is to be saved by those who will use the experience of their predecessors. Now, it seems not unworthy of comment that this concern about choosing the best books is not manifested equally in all provinces of literature. Discrimination is so evident a blessing that one is anxious to see it widely extended. Neither is there any reason to believe it less necessary or less profitable in one department of reading than in another. Considering, then, what part religion plays in a human life, and of what in- tense importance to the soul is healthy spiritual growth, we are tempted to regard as a crying evil any prevalence of care- lessness in the choice of spiritual books. That readers — espe- cially the young reader— ^should be carefully warned against the poisonous fiction circulating among us so freely is no doubt most desirable ; but is there a lesser reason for wishing that readers— and again, especially the young reader — were supplied with the purest spiritual nutriment provided by the noblest minds of all ages and countries ? IN DEEPER VEINS OFTEN THE RICHEST ORE IS FOUND. An early familiarity with writings of this sort will in many instances be the introduction to a life of highest endeavor, and the suggestions found in these books will flash a welcome light upon a pathway that countless souls have vainly longed * A Biok of Spirit uil Instruction. By Blosius. Translated from the Latin by Bertrand A. Wilberforce, of the Order of St. Dominic. St. Louis : B. Herder. VOL. LXXII.— 14 Digitized by Google

Page 231

2IO Old Spiritual Writers. [Nov., to tread. This holds good of every human being ready to pur- sue intelligently the great end of human existence ; it is more emphatically true of those children of the Faith who are will- ing to avail themselves of their right to use the precious heirlooms, accumulated for them through long ages in most abundant measure. For not simply the examples of the saints, our ancestors, but their teachings as well, are bequeathed to us. Not only the guiding hand and the cheering smile of these conquerors of the world, but their thoughts and words too,' reach us across the lapse of centuries, and we find our- selves thrilled by the inspiring whisper of some far-away voice echoing out from the pages of a treatise penned, perhaps, before America was discovered, or even before the Roman Empire fell, and, despite queer phrase and unaccustomed accent, impressing us with the burden of a message apt to lead men onward now, as it did of old. A LITERATURE OF THE .LOVE OF GOD. To those who appreciate the privileges of this larger Com- munion of Saints it is needless to insist upon the precious boon of well chosen spiritual writings. They realize at what small cost they may enter into the fruits of others' labors, and profit by kinship with a countless host of sainted men and women. But to others the real fascination exercised by good spiritual books remains unknown. There has not yet come to them the deep joy of constant and intimate familiarity with the souls of saints ; they still are strangers to the sweet de- light of penetrating into the secrets of God's intercourse with men and learning from the masters of this art the way to ad- vance towards proficiency. We say the charm of spiritual reading is unknown ; perhaps for some the very possibility of its practice is a secret. They do not understand that there is a literature of the love of God as well as of romance ; that there are helps for the cultivation of progress in spiritual things just as in the domain of letters, philosophy, and art; that some of the great masterpieces of the world's literature are at the same time hand-books in the science of the saints, and that whoso will may revel to his heart's content in an exhaustless and infinitely varied store of productions bequeathed to us by the consummate artists of the spiritual life. Similarly, not a few remain oblivious of the fact that even their very neighbors avail themselves of these privileges, that friends and acquaint- ances, as well as strangers, are drinking deep at this sacred Digitized by Google

Page 232

1900.] Old Spiritual Writers. 211 fountain, and, wondering how anybody can find pious books of absorbing interest, they go through life careless of their birth- right, blind to their choicest opportunities, never tasting the delights that thousands and tens of thousands have found to be so precious and yet so easy of attainment. It seems well- nigh incredible, and yet it is an ascertained fact, that there exist among us people of education, refinement, and noble in- stincts for whom the Bible is a sealed book and A Kempis an unfamiliar author ; though it is but fair to say that at least some little cultivation of spiritual reading is a very common practice among our people. A PRUDENT SELECTION A NECESSITY. Perhaps no one needs to be convinced that in the use of spiritual books choice is everything. First of all, they are count- less and a selection of some sort is an evident necessity. Again, as most of us no doubt have experienced, disappoint- ment, and even disgust, may come from the reading of a book composed with the obvious intention of elevating the mind to things high and holy. And this misfortune, in some instances, may be quite unavoidable, even though we are doing our best to follow the bidding of The Imitation and "read with humility, simplicity, and faith. " * Moreover, it is undoubtedly true that some volumes are calculated to harm rather than help certain souls. This may be the case for various reasons. It is al- together possible, for instance, that the author's point of view may be unknown or unrealized by the reader, and that advice intended for the cloister may be put into practice within a household circle, causing infinite discomfort and issuing in general spiritual hurt. Or, it may happen, again, that the very language of a lofty writer may be so grossly misunderstood as to mystify and deceive, thus giving rise to habits of thought neither healthy nor true. Another danger may come from the use by certain authors of statements or methods so distasteful to some readers as to cause their minds to react with consider- able violence, and thus to distort their whole conception of spiritual realities. Yet another consideration is that, lacking guidance, many a reader may never happen to get hold of the true masterpieces, either because these precious jewels lie con- cealed in "the dark, unfathomed caves" of libraries, or else because on account of some minor blemishes they are too uninviting to be given careful scrutiny. * Imitation^ 1 5. Digitized by Google

Page 233

212 Old Spiritual Writers. [Nov., A GUIDE TO THE BEST IS A DESIDERATUM. All these facts make it a matter of special regret that in these days of time-saving and labor- minimizing inventions so little has been done to enable the lover of spiritual books to gain a good acquaintance with the literature at disposal, that among the published " lists," " suggestions," " courses," " librar- ies," and "catalogues" such small attention has been paid to this very real need of a most numerous, intelligent, and deserv- ing class of readers. For it oftentimes happens that even those Catholics who should be well equipped with information on these matters can offer but the scantiest help to the inquirer. The time, then, has come when we should look around and discover whose fault it is that our literary treasures of spiritual teach- ing remain to so great an extent unloved, and even unknown. This does not imply that at present spiritual books are hard to obtain. Every Catholic library and every ecclesiastical book- store contains more devotional works than could be read in an ordinary life-time. But the question is, are the best books known and used ? What information is obtainable as to the classifica- tion and value of spiritual works ? Who has decided that those most conspicuously present are preferable to the countless thousands of unpublished, untranslated, or out of print volumes that form an integral part of the Catholic's heritage ? Where can the reader obtain advice and aid for choosing the very finest spiritual books ever produced in any land or epoch ? One may say these interrogations are without point, since the present supply is so abundant. But " there be books and books." The views now prevalent favor the presentation and hearing of every claim to excellence, and " those who know " owe it to the public to open up all impassable avenues. If this clear duty be not performed, our people will remain de- frauded of their own, or — what is a less misfortune though a greater shame — Protestants will become the pioneers in voyages of discovery into our "old possessions." It would be interesting — or rather, perhaps, discouraging — to ascertain how much people know about the History of Spiritual Literature. Even those who represent our best in the line of intelligence, taste, and general education, those who manifest an undoubted love of things spiritual and who cherish a good spiritual book as a priceless treasure — even these, we may say, know scarcely the alphabet of this language. Now, it is not to be maintained for a moment that wide acquaintance Digitized by Google

Page 234

igoo.] Old Spiritual Writers. 213 with spiritual authors is either a guarantee or a necessity of spiritual excellence. But it does seem pitiable thit this "age of the press" cannot be made familiar with God's gifts to his church in the line of spiritual instruction ; it does strike one as regrettable that the power which has been yoked to the service of science, letters, and controversy should not be made to do its utmost in the cause we are pleading for. That much has been done already, we admit — nay, we maintain ; that all has not been done, few would be ready to deny. What we should look forward to, then, is the earnest and steady attempt to do for the spiritual literature of Catholicity what has been done for even the dialects, fables, and folk-songs of nearly every nation in Europe.' It is to be presumed that no one will imagine this hope is cherished through any pretence of possessing a "scientific spirit," or through a mere partisan zeal for the fame of our progenitors in the Faith. Neither is it because of any lack of activity among spiritual authors of the present day. But if St. Bernard could say to his contemporaries, u We are but pygmies seated upon the shoulders of giants," what shall be our own comment when we contrast the achievements of to day with those of past epochs ? Let none of us be the puny- spirited laudator temporis actiy for we cannot help seeing that in many respects our century has improved upon the achieve- ments of the past : but let us all realize likewise that in the matter now under consideration we have much to learn from voices that are still, and that the original work of ten thousand latter-day scribes is but a poor substitute for the neglected productions of immortal genius. CONTRIBUTORS TO SPIRITUAL LORE. It is good that we possess such writings as those of New- man and Dalgairns, Manning and Faber, Grou, Caussade, and Lallemant. It is a further good, however, that beside these we have a great multitude of other writers that no man may num- ber, out of every nation and tribe and people and tongue. Almost since the beginning instructions on the spiritual life have been passed on from master to disciple with astonishing care and fulness. So for our enlightenment we have the teaching given by the Fathers of the Desert to the young monks gathered about to imbibe the wisdom of the ancients : Ephrem, Macarius, Cassian, Nilus will speak to Christians of this day as they did to their listeners in the Syrian desert or on Digitized by Google

Page 235

214 Old Spiritual Writers. LNov., the banks of the Nile so many centuries ago. All the many Fathers of the Church, Eastern and Western, likewise have carefully set aside for our good vast, inexhaustible stores of spiritual nutriment that they — perhaps the wisest and holiest men of all time — drew from the bosom of God and the wounded side of Christ. And the doctors and the theologians of the Middle Ages, these again have deposited with us an in- finite treasure of spiritual teaching, full of a surprising sweet- ness, for they were as tender and holy as they were wise and learned. Great mystics, too, that have flourished in every age and land — in the sixteenth century, in the fourteenth, in the twelfth, and in the sixth ; in England, Spain, Germany, and France, in Europe, Asia, and Africa — men and women, bishops, statesmen, and missionaries, courtiers and peasants, nuns, theologians, and recluses, such as these have added precious contributions to the spiritual lore of the Christian Church. Using the others, let us not neglect these. Spending a frequent hour in perusing the manuals of the various sodalities and confraternities whose spirit we would absorb, let us be sure we are also doing our utmost to arrive at the essential, eternal, and changeless piety that has been the common characteristic of all the saints that have ever existed. We read with gratitude such charming and helpful recent biographies as Fouard's Christ and St. Paul, Lacordaire's Saint Mary Magdalene and St. Dominic, Drane's Saint Catherine of Siena, Montalembert's Saint Elizabeth, Cape- celatro's Saint Philip Neri, Bougaud's Saint John and Saint fane Frances, Chocarne's Ptre Lacordaire, Monnin's Cure cTArs, and Elliott's Father Hecker ; but let us look to it that we assimi- late, likewise, those older lessons to be drawn from the stories of Paul, Antony, Ammon, Pachomius, Moses, Thais, Stylites, and the hosts of other sainted souls in whose quickening presence the ancient deserts blossomed as the rose. If we have on hand at present only such scant though delightful records of them as are obtainable in Butler's Lives and Hahn Hahn's Fathers of the Desert, at least we can help to create a new demand for fuller accounts ; and we can ask for the publication of such teaching as has been bequeathed to us by the many masters of spiritual doctrine in all ages, now given over to an unde- served oblivion. NO CAMPAIGN AGAINST RECENT SPIRITUAL WRITERS. Be it well understood we are not agitating for a campaign against recent spiritual authors, some of those mentioned above Digitized by Google

Page 236

1900.] Old Spiritual Writers. 215 having done more for the cause of high spiritual development than can well be estimated. An attempt to discredit the modern ascetical writers as such would be mere folly. But we must declare with regard to them, in the first place, that good ones are relatively few ; in the second place, that the mass of them represent a comparatively new temper of mind, and, in the third place, that in any event the older writers have an in- alienable right to live. Most of us have heard St. Philip Neri's answer to the question what sort of books he liked best. " I prefer," said he, " those wherein the authors' names begin with the letter S " — meaning, of course, the writings of the Saints. Do we realize how few of Saint Philip's favorite volumes are in circulation among us now? Not that to-day we read no books whose authors are on the list of canonized saints, but that, ex- cepting St. Augustine's Confessions, with perhaps a few volumes from the works of St. Bernard or St. Bonaventure, the modern reader can obtain scarcely one of the books which were in existence at the time of the good St. Philip. THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD AND THE NEW WRITERS CONTRASTED. Now, there is a further evil in this deprivation than the mere limiting of our choice to a less numerous catalogue. The spirit animating a great many modern ascetical writings is quite different from that dominating the works that have disappeared. In the latter there was greater liberty and simplicity, more in sistence on the end, and less specification of means, slighter em* phasis of the need of external human direction, and more frequent recommendations of attention to divine guidance in the internal order. But now method is sometimes developed at the expense of freedom, the warning to obey made more common than the suggestion to love, and perfection of drill occasionally attained by a thorough suppression of individual differences for the original existence of which God's providence was responsible. " A spirit of breadth, a spirit of liberty, that is the Catholic spirit," writes Father Faber, " and it was eminently the badge of the old Benedictine ascetics. Modern writers, for the most part, have tightened things and have lost by it instead of gain- ing." This, perhaps, may explain why some authors become unpopular among a class of readers very reluctant to suppress their own personality, and to resign their liberty of spirit. But it is unjust to attribute to spiritual writers en masse a tendency of this sort, and recourse to the older books will reveal a great body of teaching stamped with the Church's broad seal of Digitized by Google

Page 237

2l6 Old Spiritual Writers. [Nov., approval, and yet amply justifying the use of a sacred liberty and the cultivation of the purest and simplest life of love. But let us be fair. The abnormal condition existing among Christians during the last few centuries both caused and justified this rigid insistence on rule. In times of rebellion and treachery authority can take no chances, and during the fatal dissensions of the sixteenth and following centuries the church's far-seeing wisdom dictated greater insistence upon strict discipline and more caution in fostering or permitting a personal initiative which might easily lead to license. Still, though most jealous of the rights of legitimate authority, we must concede to the above- mentioned writer that some have carried the reaction, or rather permitted it to carry them, too far, suspecting every display of initiative, discouraging all freedom, and relegating into oblivion all spiritual doctrine which favored the development of per- sonal piety in any but officially and explicitly authorized methods. Father Faber has expressed himself on this point in words that leave us clear as to his opinion. " Most certainly," he writes, " our great defect is the want of liberty of spirit. This is the chief reason why the service of love is so comparatively rare among Christians. ... In nine cases out of ten, to tell such people (persons living in the world) that they must draw up a written rule and keep to it, and that the captivity of set times for spiritual drill is their only hope, is as good as telling them that persons living in modern society must not attempt to lead what is called a devout life. How many have given up devotion altogether, because they have tried a rule and found they could not keep it ? . . . If spirituality is made dry, it will never wear. It will crack in a dozen places in a week, like the skin poncho of a Patagonian. . . . There are whole treatises on the spiritual life which people living in the world read through, and feel quite hon- estly that the method proposed to them is a bondage which it would be a simple indiscretion for them to attempt. Every young gentleman must be a quasi seminarist, or give up devo- tion. Every young lady must be a kind of half nun, without a habit, or she may as well cease to attempt to be anything bet- ter than all the other young ladies around her. Oh ! how all this stands in the way of love, of wise love, of such love as Jesus would have from every one of us. To turn the world into a great lax convent is not the way to further the cause of our dearest Lord. . . . The failure of this regimental kind of holiness, as well as the idea that no other kind is safe Digitized by Google

Page 238

1900.] Old Spiritual Writers. 217 or solid, comes entirely from the want of liberty of spirit. Now, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. No one can be at all acquainted with the old-fashioned Benedictine schocl of spiritual writers without perceiving and admiring the beauti- ful liberty of spirit which pervades and possesses their whole mind. It is just what we should expect from an Order of such matured traditions. It were well if we had more reprints and translations of them." * WHO ARE THE OLD BENEDICTINE WRITERS? It is back to the old writers, then, that we must turn for the strongest sanction of that type of spirituality which promises the best results in this latter day world — a goodly lesson on the indestructible vitality of the principles of internal personal reli- gion. But who are they? and where are their books? St. Benedict we have heard of indeed, but what is the old-fashioned Benedictine school? We have never been told to read their writings, we cannot even imagine how we are to go about looking them up. True, indeed ! So complete is their obscurity that a well- educated Catholic might vainly devote much time to a search after writers of the type alluded to by Father Faber. Alas ! how few of us ever learn even the names of the writers in Migne's imposing array of volumes idealized by Matthew Ar- nold's famous passage into a striking figure of the Church's world wide Catholicity ! And who realizes the nature of the contents of these Latin and Greek treatises ? Indeed, a public so greedy of translations would not rest satisfied with the pres- ent state of things if it came to appreciate the peculiar value of dissertations and discourses hidden within those solemn cov- ers, or scattered through musty folios, or lying unedited in the MSS. of the great libraries of Europe. For these are to the books on which our money is frequently wasted as St. Peter's and Milan, Cologne and Notre Dame, Westminster and Canterbury are to the mean creations of modern builders. We cry out loudly when we think of Lincoln and York in the hands of heretics, but we are all the while unconsciously despising more precious heirlooms of the Ages of Faith. The soul-stirring chant, the upspringing arch, the majestic Summa of the Middle Ages have their worthy companion in the spiritual treatise; for the Creed that was old when France was young worked out its perfect expression almost at its birth, and won its right to glory in souls and books that soon will be nearing their twen- * All for /esi/s, c. viii. Digitized by Google

Page 239

218 Old Spiritual Writers. [Nov., tieth century of existence. And in every age since the first, new masters of the science of love have arisen to enshrine their sacred wisdom in immortal words ; but these Dantes, Shak- speres, Goethes of our spiritual literature remain unknown or un- attainable to the average latter-day reader, who often must con- tent himself with books portraying what Father Faber calls " the regimental kind of holiness." SOME MOST VALUABLE TREATISES. Who are the old writers, does any one ask? Why their name is Legion ! Not alone the Benedictines, but a multitude of other writers as well, await the summons to come forth and edify. Go into the sacred presence of Migne's three hundred and eighty massive tomes and the mighty folios of the Bol- landists, and there dream of the rich veins of unworked ore within those silent mountains. Perhaps scarcely a single vol- ume is without some precious legacy from a good old spirit- ual writer now forgotten and unreverenced by a people which, having inherited a priceless patrimony, is ignorant of its worth. There, for instance, is Macarius of Egypt ; beside him Epipha- nius, Chrysostom, Nilus, and Dionysius, in their Grecian strong- hold facing the shelves that bear Ambrose and the zealous Jerome and the matchless Augustine. Here is Sulpicius Seve- rus, the Christian Sallust, biographer of St. Martin, and yonder John Cassian, Abbot, with Prosper, the great layman of Aqui- taine, and Prudentius, penitent and poet. Now we note the anonymous work De Vita Contemplativa, and then the com- mentators on St. Benedicts Rule, and further along a group of mystics, Rupert of Deutz, Honorius, Bernard, the Victorines^ Hildegard, Gertrude, and Bonaventure. We gasp in wonder. Why has no man told us ? Would that a wise editor were to put these books within our reach ! BLOSIUS THE BENEDICTINE. It is because Father Wilberforce has done just such a work as this that he is heartily to be congratulated. The writer he has so gracefully introduced to us is an old sixteenth cen- tury Benedictine, mentioned by Dom Gu^ranger as the last of the school possessed of such wondrous freedom of spirit. Father Faber has said : " St. Gertrude is a fair specimen of them," and Blosius was a most ardent disciple of hers. That sweet calm, that gentle freedom for which she was noted, he absorbed by a constant study of her writings, reading them with lively devo- Digitized by Google

Page 240

1900.] Old Spiritual Writers. 219 tion at least once every month,* and like her, illustrating in life how one may cultivate liberty of spirit " without seeming to recommend negligence, or to countenance unpunctuality, sloven- liness, or caprice."t Blosius, then, may be regarded as one whose works should be circulated widely among our generation, and Father Wilberforce's labor will undoubtedly serve to build up many a spiritual edifice and store it with the choicest of treasures. There had been something done already in the line of translations from Blosius, but this recent publication is a distinctly new and peculiar piece of work. It places us in the possession of what is practically a primer of contemplative prayer ; and many of us — however mean our own personal chances for progress in this direction — dare not deny our high appreciation and great love of everything pertaining to those peaceful heights so far beyond our present hope. Nor may we think it anything but good to lift up our eyes to the moun- tain-top, nor may we blind ourselves to the fact that by means of such books as this not a few chosen souls are likely to be led quickly and easily along the path of contemplative love. SANCTA SOPHIA AND THE SCALE OF PERFECTION. Two most precious works of the old Benedictine school, re- edited some years ago— Father Baker's Holy Wisdom and Father Hilton's Scale of Perfection % — have done such immeasurable good that one may look confidently for great benefit from this new publication, possessing as it does an advantage over them in clearness of style and brevity, though for real worth the older books are still unrivalled. Taken in connection with several other signs, the appearance of this volume may be con- sidered an omen of a Benedictine revival, of a new flowering from that imperishable trunk, a new spreading abroad of the spirit which, with its eternal whisper of Peace, makes earth resemble Heaven. Using the words of a review notice upon another recent book, we may say of Father Wilberforce's translation that " it is an evidence of the growing desire of those who foster the spiritual life to return to the old simpli- city in ascetical methods and doctrine/ § Who will declare it is a needless task to translate the Instructions of Blosius, or the Dialogues and Treatises of the Catherines of Genoa and Siena, or the works of Tauler, St. Teresa, St. John of the * Life of Blosius \ a Benedictine ofYhe Sixteenth Century. By Georges de Blois. Trans- lated by Lady Lovat. London : Burns & Oates, 1878, p. 131. \ All for Jesus, p. 355. X The Scale 0/ Pe -feet ion has been out of print for quite a while, but Messrs. Benziger Brothers state that a new edition is now in course of preparation. $ The Amer can Ecclesiastical Review, October, 1900, p. 431 ; notice of The Spiritual Life ana Prayer. Digitized by Google

Page 241

220 Old Spiritual Writers.* [Nov., Cross, and the Blessed Angela. Who will assert that these are of no practical benefit to our people ? Who will say they are too " lofty " to be profitable ? THE OLDER WORKS ARE SUITABLE TO MODERN MINDS. Shall we decide that readers can bear many poor books, but never a single " lofty " one ? Must we think the infinitesimal dan- ger incident to the study of mystical authors is counterbalanced by no splendid vision of holiness that blazes in upon dark lives to illumine them with light divine? Are there no calls to the prayer of mystical union among our contemporaries? Must the climate and temperament and habits of thought of our race shut them out from all hope of progress in the path that leads to the summit of the holy mountain of prayer? Why not a twentieth century mystic as well as a fourteenth or twelfth ? Why not an American as readily as a European ? Why not, if God wills it, great gifts of divine union to some man or wo- man in this great metropolis as well as to Angela of Foligno, or Juliana of Norwich, Richard of Hampolle, the Englishman, or Richard of St. Victor, the Scot ? What grace has been given one nation or one epoch that God may not as easily vouchsafe to ours? Times and persons are chosen by an invisible election, and no mind may reason upon the mystery of the distribution of grace. But let us neither narrow the spheres of spiritual growth, nor deaden any influence that God has set at work. Surely the possibilities of progress include advance into contempla- tion, and surely the writers that have nourished this spirit among others may serve to foster it here among us. Shall we sneer at the title Blosius places above his twelfth chapter? — " What a spiritual man may hope for if he perseveres in the practices laid down in this book." Shall we contradict Father Wilberforce's comment ? — that the exalted union with God therein described is yet within " the ordinary laws of God's providence in the supernatural order." Rather let us agree with both author and translator, rather let us encourage knowledge and love of these high things, rather let us pray and labor that the old days may be renewed, and that now, as in St. Teresa's time, men and women in the world, lay people, mar- ried persons, the sons of toil and the children of wealth, all may cherish ardent desires of progress towards those peace- ful regions reserved for the souls chosen by God to enjoy the sweet privileges of the mystic. Digitized by Google

Page 242

1900.] Spiritual Element in Art. 221 SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. BY GABRIEL FRANCIS POWERS. N these latter days of much-vaunted progress and civilization we hear a good deal about the beau- tifying of our American cities, and, truth to tell, they need every scrap of beauty they can acquire. As a "fault this is excusable. We do not deco- rate the house until it is finished building; and in spite of some crudeness and ignorance in the would be art movement, it is so sincere that it gives proof of more than incipient vitality. Where there is effort there is awakened conscious life. As a nation we have our deficiencies, but there is this sturdy manliness in us that we will own to them and that, once known, we endeavor to repair them. We are doing our best now that the house is built to wipe out or disguise the universal ugliness of our fabrication. And though the art-cry, in certain circles, is enough to make the ordinary mortal wish for any place where " beyond these voices there is peace," yet, since in the American community — as in the Jewish syna- gogue— every man is at liberty to rise up and comment on his reading, we are going for a few moments to increase the clamor and interpret in our own small way the holy writ of one phase of art. It has been my privilege to attend the lecture of a reformer who is honestly doing his utmost to improve (I had almost said introduce, but refrain me lest I offend against the code) — to improve, then, municipal art. And as he took his illustra- tions chiefly from Italian cities, showing with enthusiastic ap- preciation what has been done there, and what, similarly, might be done here also, I feel in a manner justified in taking up his subject and adding to it some few remarks — not deliberately omitted certainly, but overlooked by him. To begin with, concerning the American city, he would have the streets u open to God's clear sunlight," and reverently we answer "Amen," Some of us will be sadly embarrassed as to how we shall reach our offices when the " L " railroad is brought to earthly levels ; but let the companies devise some other line of transit, and let us have God's sunlight on every cabin, tenement, and smoke-soiled hovel, by all means. Sec- Digitized by Google

Page 243

222 Spiritual Element in Art. [Nov., ondly, the lecturer would have the bill-board removed or con- tained within certain bounds ; and again we would say amen. Advertising on the colossal scale has become more than a nuisance — the advertiser is a kind of public pestilence. Having taken a trip twelve months since through two of the finest States in the Union, I was so nauseated with the alternate advertisements posted through miles of beautiful scenery that I resolved irrevocably, were death itself the penalty, never to take Fig Syrup or Chew Plug Tobacco. My friend the lec- turer's third plea was for color, and, chiefly, that most beauti- ful of colors, "the green of living foliage." In this, to my think- ing, American cities are blessed even above their Continental sisters ; how many there are where car-lines and residences do not prevent the leafy bowers from springing away overhead into the blue, and where birds, many and liquid-voiced, twitter their sweet anthems all day long. Indeed, I believe we should distinguish, when we speak of the ugliness of our cities, between the hideous and polluted down-town sections and those happier quarters where a rich new soil, patient endeavor, and the peace of domestic life make homes as beautiful as any we could wish to see. It is in the business district, the mart and work- shop of the city, that all things become deformity and con- fusion. And of this, for the philosophy of grave reasons, it seems almost vain even to hope. Yet let us still hope notwithstanding, and let our lecturer in the meanwhile show us some of his views of Italy. He had seen there, in truth, many a thing worth seeing. The glory of architectures raised with more than human reverence for their beauty ; beautiful distribution, beautiful picturesqueness, beautiful workmanship, in each separate branch in which the brain and the hand must needs work together, but — the traveller was not a Catholic; I know that I am hereby laying myself open to the charge — one of excessive meanness and smallness — of picking another man's good work to pieces : but, in reality, nothing could be further from my mind. The lecture was an excellent one in every re- spect, and I have myself defended it against the eternal cavillers ; but there are things in a Catholic city the true meaning and quality of which even a religious-minded non- Catholic would fail to see. Thus, he showed us the interior of St. Mark's in Venice, a sight that stirred the audience to raptures of applause. The light from those high windows flooded down upon porphyry column and golden cornice, illuminating the baroque, thousand colored, gleaming picture, rich in con- Digitized by Google

Page 244

1900.] Spiritual Element in Art. 223 trasts as some Eastern scene ; and he told us of its gorgeous- ness, its incomparable splendor and magnificence, its wonder as a work of art. Of the faith that raised it, the love that crusted it with jasper and with jacinth, the hope that makes of it a living sanctuary for hushed voices and the incense of prayer — not a word. Then on the lecturer's curtain shone that delicate young St. George of Donatello's, a thing so exquisite that the pure art of the fifteenth century seems embodied in the brave, strong, boy-faced knight. And the lecturer spoke of the loveliness of the statue, the splendid courage of its type of championship, the heroism of this lithe figure for whom " one dragon would scarce seem enough." But of the spiritual development that formed the armorers into a guild — religious quite as much as commercial ; that made them place the labors of their hands under a saint's patronage, and the image of that saint in the aisle of the old Or San Michele, where they might honor it with prayer — again, and of course, not a word. The statue was held up as the pattern of a beautiful trade mark ; and though we are not in the habit of calling the representations of our patron saints, even upon blazon and seal, a trade-mark, possibly it may be regarded as one. Yet between St. Mark and St. George, the winged lion of the Evangelist and the dragon of the " white-horse knight," it seemed to us that no real insight was given into the funda- mental beauty of a Catholic city, or any convincing word said as to what constitutes the real atmosphere of beauty in Italy. The distinctive beauty of Italy, the true character of Italy, is not in its limpid sky alone, not alone in the Virgilian loveliness of wave and field and vintage, nor even, in its cities, in the mere shaping of material objects to mechanical symmetry and vapid grace of form, but — how wastefully idle and elementary it seems to say it ! — the Catholic life, the inspiration of deep- breathing truth, the belief in things above the corporeal ; in a word, the growth and blossom of a spiritual element flowering forth everywhere, by highway and by-way, in color and in stone. This is the art and beauty of Italy. This is Italy itself. You cannot buy a fragment of cinquecento tapestry but the figures upon it are saints' figures; a bit of terracotta moulding but it is a Madonna or angels ; a vessel of chased silver but it was once a stoup for holy water ; and so on and so on, through all the different branches of production, high and low, and near and far. Looking up to the greater art of the painters, Digitized by Google

Page 245

224 Spiritual Element in Art. [Nov., we find it almost wholly religious. Some, concession is made, laterally as it were, to the classical atmosphere of the Renais- sance, and some to the teachings of theological and philosophi- cal poets: the literature and the art of each age truly, as it has been said, reflecting the other ; but the main stream and current — strong, deep, and pure — is always simply religious. As a child, trudging with a child's eyes and a child's thoughts through the Roman picture galleries, this annoyed me exceed- ingly. Another Holy Family! Another Magdalene! Another Ecce Homo ! Those old painters had positively nothing but one idea." But, as I grew older, two facts stood out clear to me: first, that it was the Catholic Church, ever demanding noble interpretations of the human forms of her divine life who, both by giving the initial impulse and multiplying the possibilities, created Italian art ; and secondly, that the painters themselves, spiritually-minded usually, even where not absolutely blameless in life, had found this the highest source of inspiration, and had clung to it, for the sake of art primarily, not for bread alone. You have heard that the creed we hold crushes and sti- fles art ; walk through the first great gallery named to you and use your eyes. Every one of those glorious canvases has at- tached to it some master's name. What constraint may ever have been exercised was right and just, for in the harmony of the basilica there is a moral as well as an art-law ; there are columns as well as chapiters ; and vault-arches as well as lunettes in the lower tiers; and the younger sons, because they are free to adorn and beautify, are not free to sully the walls of the King their Father's house. The mothers of Italy, through centuries of their children's falling into fire and water, have learnt to put them in leading-strings until they can walk straight alone. If you watch the process you will become convinced that those much abused barbaric leading-strings not only hold back the child from peril but uphold it and help it mightily to progress. Besides which, restraint is a rule in art. That type of the mother and child suggests the whole history of the art of Italy. Ere the little one can speak its hand is trained to make the Sign of the Cross, dumb profession of faith in the Trinity and in the redemption through Christ our Lord. It has no sooner begun to lisp than the scarce articulate sounds are shaped to the blessed words of the Ave Maria. Cimabue, scrawling his first figures in Florence, was as the child spelling tentatively, with eyes lifted to the face of the mother, her softly spoken and yet deep-souled prayer. His most per- Digitized by Google

Page 246

ixx>.] Spiritual Element in Art. 22$ feet work is a Madonna. Giotto the realist is as truly a reli- gious painter as his master. Orcagna, Mermin, and Taddeo likewise. Angelico has been called the last of the mystics, but Botticelli and Filippino Lippi, those most exquisite transi- tionists, have, in their most ideal pictures, kept inviolate the old tradition ; the work of Raphael and Titian we all know. And if I added three names more, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, and Pompeo Batoni, this latter bringing us to the close of the eighteenth century, we would have still, each one in his own century, besides the thousands passed over in silence, the little child, no longer a child now, crossing itself with the cradle-faith of its childhood and saying, no longer weak lipped but with the full, strong tones of manhood, its Hail Mary of the long ago. These features should be noted, for they are salient ; they have marked all great art with their stamp and signet, and people may tell you anything they like about Rome and Flor- ence and Venice — they have not told you the A, B, c until they tell you that. The springing dome, the carved bronze portal, the holy statue in the niche, the open-air fresco ; and those humbler wayside shrines everywhere multiplied — believe me, here are the chief factors in the beauty of our Italian towns. When I reached the term of my first ocean voyage, a son coming into his heritage full-grown, I was surprised that the sky looked no less blue to me than in my own far southern birthland. When I entered the streets they chilled me, for some reason unknown. I set myself to solve the problem, and failed. It was not their ugliness alone, which (with all due respect and apologies) was appalling, but something less seen than felt. Not until months later did the truth dawn upon me — there were no wayside shrines! No meek, gentle-faced Madonnas at the corners, no wreaths of living blossoms or stone lilies, no tremulous flame of faith and love there burning, no golden-lettered scrolls hailing this one Most Pure, the Help of Christians, Refuge of Sinners, Comfort of Mourners, and so on through the soul's life-long litany. Here was a hard country built up of steel and iron, where men toiled for the love of gain more than for bread- winning ; a land where they do not rest until they lie down exhausted, having known fever and sweat of labor all their days and but little of the truth of life ; a market and a fac- tory where dull heads and dull hearts have not felt the need or dreamed of the possibility of raising up any sign or symbol to make present the things beyond. And I, who having re- vol. lxxii. — 15 Digitized by Google

Page 247

226 Spiritual Element in Art. [Nov., ceived a Christian education, yet at one time amused myself with imagining that religion was a thing conditional not vital, to be taken up or not at pleasure, as we take up or do not take up music, science, or politics ; I then began to realize what those wayside shrines are, and what they mean. How many burdens they have helped to bear, from how much sin delivered ; and how, in the dim twilights, when the world darkens around us and the soul grows heavy with fear and the memory of all the sorrows it has ever known, that flicker of a lamp has burned like some beacon of a better hope and a better waiting, and, through the lowering shadows and fast-closing night, one tender Face, invisible almost and yet clearly felt, has looked down with holy eyes of pity — and has seemed almost to smile ! This, above all else, is what we want when we come to beautify the city ; for man is not made of clods of earth alone. As you tread those beautiful old streets of elder Italy, whether bent upon duty, business, or pleasure, you seem merely to be walking from shrine to shrine. Householders, wishing to place their homes under the patronage of Mary, caused her image to be painted or carved above the door, upon the chief space of wall or at the corner of the building. The religious orders, with wider view, arched the street chapel or unfolded the pious fresco on the outside of their cloisters ; chiefly in the interest of the unknown thousands who would go back and forth each day. It was a way for the men of prayer to speak to the men of action, a way as humble and unobtrusive as that standing of the monk in ragged brown upon the curb- stone of the piazza to tell the idlers in the market-place about God and about the soul. And if it be true that in the mere lifting of reverent eyes to the Mother's face the soul that looks to her is made more pure, who can weigh the incalculable in- fluence of the wayside Madonna upon the generations of passers by? How many silent heart liftings, how many holy thoughts, how much of sorrow eased and hope restored ; and how the trust and confidence in her must have been increased by that even unconscious reading, at every step, of the angel's greeting and the sinner's cry. There can be little doubt, I think, but that the wonderful devotion to Our Lady in Italy, an heirloom bequeathed us by our first fathers, has been kept living and active always, in great measure, by those numberless sanctuaries their piety lifted up. I have one memory of youth that is sweet to me, and I will place it here, though I may be digressing, as we insert a Digitized by Google

Page 248

1900.] Spiritual Element in Art. 227 picture in a text. I was strolling home in the gloaming one quiet evening and, just as I passed the SS. Apostoli, the Angelus bell rang out suddenly on high. A young priest who was walking in front of me uncovered his head and bowed it as he walked in prayer. Simultaneously, in the little vicolo beyond, an old woman knelt down before the image of Mary. Not a word was spoken, not a sound broke the gray stillness, but that passing scene has stayed with me as something un- speakably beautiful and remote. Longfellow, who was a Catholic at heart, as every true poet is and must be, had seen this aspect of Italian life. It appears to have filled him with grave and thoughtful reverence : "This is indeed the Blessed Mary's land. . . ." Now, we do not want to Italianize America, we have our own national character and genius, but in the old civilizations, possibly, there may be something to learn. This land too, yea even Longfellow's, is — or properly should be, since it is con- secrated to her — the ' Blessed Mary's own. And if we are all to have a part in the beautifying system, why cannot we Catholics make it ours, a noble one surely, to introduce her image wherever it is possible to introduce it. My lecturer pleaded for the blazoning of city arms on public buildings to relieve their monotony by one bit of bright color. Could not we also relieve the monotony of private buildings by another bit of bright color? "What !" you say, " a Madonna stuck over the door or at the corner to make the old place look like a church?" That precisely; and let it look like a church if it must. I know an American house in an American city where the free-born American residents have not been ashamed to enthrone Buddha, goggle-eyed, cross-legged, and hideous, above the threshold of their home. Nor is this mode of decoration in Italy confined to one class alone ; it is common to poor and rich alike. In painting, the Madonnas range from the pure-toned, brilliant productions of the Umbrian school to the crude handling of the same sub- ject by the house painter. In sculpture, from the rare figure of marble or alabaster to the costless plaster cast. In majoli- ca, from the exquisite faced Virgins of Delia Robbia — amazingly variegated in color, or clean white on backgrounds of dazzling blue — to the ungainly, devout effigy of earthenware, moulded and tinted by the potter's hand. I have in my mind's eye as I write two Roman houses ; one modern, spacious, and massive, the green shields of plantain- Digitized by Google

Page 249

228 Spiritual Element in Art. [Nov., leaves from the garden spreading wealthily to the street, and everything about it giving evidence of solidity and prosperity. In the angle of the wall a niche, ribbed and carved as a nautilus shell, has been opened and there stands a veiled head of Our Lady, meek and beautiful, of Carrara marble, in fineness of quality sparkling as sunlit show. You may have seen along the Tuscan sea-coast, above the purple water and deep green of the pine forests, those solemn mountains rise where the noon light striking the open quarries makes them gleam even so. Another house in a little street, a house so mean you and I would not want to live in it ; old, too, as the very hills. It has plain, white-washed walls, small windows, steps worn low with age. Here, above the door, is another niche, scooped by so poor an artist the base line is awry. In it stands one of those plaster Madonnas which, with us, cost about thirty cents. Here, in the lowlier home, there is also a small lamp burning. But for sheer picturesqueness, apart from higher merit, the narrow arched door, the steps, the iron knocker, and that little niche of pure azure with its pure white prayerful figure, are as beautiful as any I know. Of course in this country we have the climate against us ; but there are ways and means of securing us from that. When I build my own home, far-away resting-place in some sunset Utopia, there will be a fair figure, a figure tall and stately, above my cottage door. There will be a lamp burn- ing, a beacon and a symbol. There will be carved over the entrance " Heavenly Gate," over the big bay where the dawn comes in " Hail, Morning Star," upon the study wall " Seat of all Wisdom," " Mother of Christ " above my children's cribs, and " Cause of our Perfect Joy " there where we meet for play. But at the Lady's feet I carve, deeper than all, the prayer my childhood and my youth first learned to love in the old home far away. And oh ! rhapsodies of wild fugue and turn of rip- pled measure ; passionate tziganes of crazy fiddlers mad with the dreams of poets; deep and sweet symphonies, world-wide and ten- der with mute words ; cradle songs of the sea and boat and voice on the moonlit waters ; laughter in minor keys and sobbed-out prayer ; clear notes from the earth's working life ; dim notes from the earth's nature- life; strong music of the human heart, and softest bars from the mind's fleeting melodies — where were you ever bound to words so pure or trained to other song so sweet as this, culled blossoming and fragrant from the lips of love ? — "Ave Maria." Digitized by Google

Page 250

1900.] The Upbuilding of Animal Liie. 229 THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE. BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D. " On nis cellula e cellula." — Virchow. F the three great discoveries of our century from which physiology may look for important results — namely, the law of the conservation of energy, organic evolution, and the fact that organisms are composed of cells — it is, we believe, this last named discovery to which the future opens the widest field of labor. It is now generally accepted by physiologists that the sub- stratum of all vital phenomena is the cell ; in the cell the low- est stage of individuality has been reached. The mammalian egg or ovum is merely a cell composed of an inner part called the nucleus, and around the nucleus is a slimy, colorless sub- stance termed protoplasm ; and life depends on the growth and development of this original animal cell after it has been fertilized by a cell from the male element. Some animals, the largest of them, Amceba, barely visible to the naked eye, and which are grouped together under the general name of Protozoa, consist of a single cell, and these lowly, unicellular organisms take nourishment, respire, and ex- crete the same as do the higher forms of life. And as the size of every cell has a limit, when it has attained a certain growth the single-celled animal divides into two halves ; and hence we may say that reproduction in its widest sense is merely a special case of growth. And in each daughter cell there must be both nucleus and protoplasm, for vital phenomena can come about only through the undisturbed correlation of the two parts of the cell. But if the microscopic, unicellular or- ganism, when it has reached a certain size, reproduces by the division of its cell-body, and if each of the halves then con- tinues to grow until it likewise divides into two halves, may we not consider this animal immortal ? Weismann answers in the affirmative ; for here the species is maintained by uninter- rupted division, and a corpse is never found except through some external cause. Death, according to Weismann, is not a phenomenon inherent in the nature of life itself. He views death rather as a phenomenon of adaptation, which has been Digitized by Google

Page 251

230 The Upbuilding of Animal Life. [Nov., evolved in the course of the life-history of the earth as advan- tageous to the species. But the higher, multicellular organisms, where a contrast has developed between the cells which serve for reproduction and the cells of the rest of the body, Weis mann does consider as mortal. For here if only one single egg of the sexual cells reproduces, all the rest of the organism may perish without the species becoming extinct. Weismann's argument sounds very plausible. But there are physiologists who do not agree with him in considering single-celled animals immortal ; they deny that reproduction by simple division can go on without end. And while some maintain that when the single-celled organism divides into two halves this ends its individual existence, even though no corpse appears (for here reproduction and death coincide), Maupas has shown by experiment that a single-celled animal after dividing very many times, after hundreds of generations, does indeed perish unless it be allowed to enter into a correlation with another single-celled organism which corresponds to fertil- ization in the higher animals. Only after this process (the two cells are seemingly blended into one for a brief space) were the individuals able to divide again as before. But in answer to Maupas another physiologist, Professor Gruber, takes Weismann's view and asserts that even although the individual cells which do not conjugate may perish, the material of the cells which do conjugate cannot be said to die, since after separating they are able to continue to reproduce by division, and hence he claims that for these single-celled animals death is not a necessity. But in reply to this in- genious argument Hertwig tells us that at least a portion of each of the two conjugating cells must be said to die during the process of being together, for tiny fragments of the two cells are broken off, and these fragments by becoming dis- solved and consumed as it were by the protoplasm, surely afford reasonable evidence that a certain part of the individual cell perishes. But without going further into the question whether death be a necessity for the Protozoa% let us empha- size the fact that it is only by the multiplication of cells that the development of a higher animal from the egg takes place : and cell-multiplication is always the result of cell-division ; no cell comes into existence except as the product of an already existing cell. Nor does cell-division ever cease during the life of the highest animal, although in old age it becomes slower and Digitized by Google

Page 252

1900.] The Upbuilding of Animal Life. 231 slower until it stops at death, which is the natural end of de- velopment for multicellular organisms. But now let us speak of a somewhat different form of life from the single-celled animal. It is where several cells among the Protozoa after reproduction by division, instead of living apart come together to form a colony. And in these colonies of the Protozoa the individual cells are, as a rule, all alike, and these cell-republics may be viewed as the intermediate links between the truly unicellular animals which do not come to- gether, and the higher multicellular organisms where the cells are specialized so as to form tissues and organs. But let us add, for it is an interesting fact, that in these primitive cell- republics of the Protozoa the members do occasionally break away from their fellows to lead again an independent ex- istence. But now let us speak of animals whose cells are arranged in layers and tissues to serve a special purpose, and which be- long to the higher division of the animal kingdom called the Metazoa. And we may remark that the cells which form this higher division enjoy the advantage of greater protection by having come to live permanently together. Indeed, the prin- ciple which controls all development is the principle of utility ; and the higher we rise in the series of organisms the closer does this dependence, this clinging together of cell group to cell-group become. And it is this co-operation of all the cells, this surrender of their own individuality in the new indi- viduality of the whole animal, which marks the great advance of the Metazoa above the Protozoa. And Man himself belongs to the Metazoa. We now find the individual cell no longer able to exist apart from the others ; the cells have developed into a compact mass; although it is true that in the lower forms of the Metazoa small groups of cells may become de- tached from the main body and yet live. Thus, the fresh- water polyp Hydra may be divided into many pieces and each piece be capable of independent life; each piece is able to become again a complete Hydra. But, as we have said, the higher we rise in the animal series, the closer does the de- pendence of the different cells one upon the other become. We now find a marked differentiation and a division of labor among the cells ; and all the greater is the advantage to the individual cell from this life in common ; until finally, when •we come to the very highest animals, we find the nerve-cells ruling the cells of all the rest of the body. Digitized by Google

Page 253

232 The Upbuildisg of Animal Life. [Nov., Now, what has brought about this cell-differentiation in the cell-community? How have the cells assumed different charac- ters? How has movement in the higher animals become the specific function of the muscle-cells ? How have the nerve- cells acquired to so high a degree the capacity of conducting stimuli? How has the function of secretion got to be the specialty of the gland-cells ? The answer given by physiolo- gists is, that as the multicellular animal went on increasing by cell-division, and as the cells became distributed in all directions and were formed into a compact mass, the more various be- came the mutual relations and external conditions of the cells and cell-groups ; and thus, by adaptation to changing external conditions, the cells and cell-groups finally diverged and grew to be unlike in all their characteristics ; they contributed in a different manner to the whole labor of the cell-community ; and this combined labor was made advantageous and harmoni- ous through Natural Selection, for only those multicellular animals survived in which the celLgenerations were in harmony with surrounding conditions. In a word, adaptation to a chang- ing environment (controlled in a natural manner through natural selection) is the fundamental principle in the upbuilding of animal life. And we find this principle most beautifully realized in the cell community of the body of Man. In man the nerve- cells of the central nervous system rule despotically over the myriads of other cells, uniting with one another tissues and organs and causing the whole complex organism to work to- gether in harmony. And now when we turn backward and take a bird's-eye view of animal life through the ages, we perceive a constant development from the simple to the complex form of organiza- tion, in which special parts have become widely differentiated for the exercise of special ends. The single-celled Amoeba, which reproduces by division of its cell into two halves, may continue to exist in its primitive conditions and may be con- sidered by Weismann as not subject to death ; but the gradual changes which have taken place on the earth's surface have allowed higher forms of life to appear. These forms, through the God-given power of selection and adaptation, were able to keep pace, as it were, with the changes in the environment and to rise in the scale of being, until organic life has come to be what it is to-day, where the cells, tissues, and organs of the very highest multicellular animals are under the potent sway of the central nervous system. Digitized by Google

Page 254

1900.] The Upbuilding of Animal Life. 233 We conclude by saying that we have found no study so in- teresting as the study of Physiology, and in physiology there is no problem more surrounded with mystery than the cause of the attraction of certain cells for each other, an attraction which is exerted only between the cells of the same species. Nagali suggests that electrical forces in the two elements may be the cause of the sexual affinity, while Hertwig holds it to be a phenomenon of very great complication. Be this as it may, we may safely say that there is no better way for Man to study himself than through the study of the cells: all our medical ideas to-day rest upon the cell as a basis. If we are ever to explain the relations existing between intellect and abnormal physical conditions, if we can ever ascertain how much truth there is in Lombroso's seemingly exaggerated notions, it will be through the study of cell physiology. COMPENSATION. AFTER the dry*eyed years of calm content There came a dream of homing as I slept That left me, when its sweetness was forspent, Weary and sore at heart — but then, / wept ! ARTHUR UPSON. Digitized by Google

Page 255

A PARAPHRASE OF ST. PAUL. "For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have errea from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows." — I. Tim. vi. 10. HERE 'S the source of joy in life— In money ? What can cause such sinful strife As money ? Let no man dare to say me nay : Where gold is God, sin holds its sway With money. Let withered age, though steeped in vice, Take money To Beauty's shrine, and ask her price In money : 'Gainst youth and hope oft vice will win : Lo ! beauty yields — nor thinks it sin — For money. Oft friends you think most truly tried Love money : When trouble comes they leave your side For money : The faith they pledged in life's young day- Should fortune frown, it flies away For money. If they sell wares and you sell brain — For money — They wear broadcloth, you a chain. O money ! Your chain bears hunger in each link ; Your friend grows fat, you starve and think — For money. The king of beauty, truth, and worth Seems money ; For man's debasement it had birth, Vile money ! Yet, demon, ah ! how brief your power ; The slaves you make last but an hour — Ha ! money. Oh ! here's to him, along life's path Of money, Who never dares his Maker's wrath For money : His name shall shine on judgment day, When this earth's pomp has passed away — And money. Digitized by Google

Page 256

1900.] The Testimony of Science to Religion. 235 THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. BY A. A. McGINLEY. HERE is a certain phase in the prevailing spirit of the conversion movement to the true Faith which might be regarded scientifically as a strik- ing phenomenon. This is the ever-increasing body of scientific testimony to the merely in- tellectual soundness of Catholic teaching and practice. New developments in the world of purely scientific thought, as their analysis penetrates deeper into the realm of the metaphysical, are every day making demonstrations of the same spiritual truths that are embodied in their purest essence in Catholic doctrine as it has been believed and taught throughout the cen- turies, ages before the inception of modern scientific research. This often comes home to the observing and thinking Catho- lie mind to day with sudden surprise. One comes upon some new scientific truth that has been lately announced from the rostrum of the university with almost a blare of trumpets, and is being published and quoted broadcast with credit only to the keen intellect of the man who has thought it all out by the slow, laborious processes of psychological research. A second examination of this new truth reveals to the intelli- gent Catholic mind a singular resemblance to some teaching of his faith that is so familiar to him he has hardly been aware of its existence in his mind. He turns to this new dis- covery of scientific thought again and strips it of its rhetoric and of the phraseology of the laboratory, leaving but the bald and simple statement of the principle of truth underlying it all, and finds then revealed nothing more, or rather nothing less, than some fundamental teaching of his faith which he learned at his mother's knee. These are some of the glorious though hidden triumphs of our religion which are being won in these later days, and they are what are leading inevitably, though it may be secretly, up to the final world-conquest of Catholic religious truth before another century passes. They are, or they will prove to be in the end, the real results of the movement towards conversion to the true Faith which our time will be noted for in the corn- Digitized by Google

Page 257

236 The Testimony of Science to Religion. [Nov., ing centuries, rather than the statistical testimony of numbers which we receive from time to time of the steady growth of this movement. The value of one such demonstration of the sound and invincible truth of a single Catholic doctrine brought home to the minds of the thinking world outside is greater than the demonstration of multiplied columns of statistics, either for or against the numerical increase of church-membership. No one can estimate the far-reachingness of such a testimony, or to how many minds and hearts it has brought conviction and peace, and, sooner or later, real conversion. The world to-day as never before is influenced by the thinkers; the dictums of science, modified, simplified, and popularized, find their way down to the lower strata of life, and influence even the commonest intellects. Here, indeed, when they are false, do they work their greatest havoc. The low criminal in the Tombs will talk as glibly of " hereditary influence" in justifying his crime as will the professor of sociology in the university. The theory of evolution, reduced to its simplest and lowest terms, has met the intellects of the ignorant and unstable enough to make them spell out of it a refutation of the doctrine of free will, of original sin, of the belief in hell, of the efficacy of baptism, or indeed of any truth of revelation which their ignor- ant, unspiritual minds cannot grasp. The glamour of the pseudo revelations of science has cast a spell over many minds of the highest order of intellect in our day. What can be ex- pected of the effect of this false science, when brought within the limits of their comprehension, upon minds of the lower order? Here, then, is where the Spirit of God seems to be at work in our time, working out the testimony of religious truth through the very processes designed to refute it. The results of psychological investigation — if it is pursued to its final results honestly — must end inevitably in the clear demonstration of such truth as the Church has taught under the guidance of the Holy Spirit since her teaching office began. Singularly enough, too, not only do we meet outside the Church with this testimony of the truth of the doctrine, but often the very customs and traditions of the Church are taken up and "rediscovered," as it were, by non-Catholics for their ethical or educational value in the common relations of life. A merely psychological appreciation of the common devotion of the Rosary would admit that method of prayer to be perfect in its design of fixing even the crudest and most undeveloped mind in contemplation upon a series of mental images so Digitized by Google

Page 258

1900.] The Testimony of Science to Religion. 237 sublime and uplifting as to have the power, even ethically considered, of influencing the human life towards the best and noblest ideals. This is the process of reasoning by which the scientific thinker estimates the value of the different elements that go towards the building up of our common life. He is beginning to reckon with this wonderful element of religion that has steadily held its sway over the hearts and minds of men during the centuries, and to explain the causes and effects of its influence in his own terms. Let him use his own terms for awhile longer; it is but a short step from them to the full and true Catholic interpretation of the fundamental truths which lie at their base. Not only in the intellectual but in the moral world is there a growing conviction of the value of Catholic ideals in the up- lifting of the race ; and here the question is a far more imme- diate and vital one ; it strikes at the root of things, at the springs of life : the family relation and the outrage done upon it in modern times by the evil of divorce. From a painful consideration of the effects of this evil upon society in our day the moralists have been led to consider some of its causes. One of the most singular instances of the results of such re- search by the Protestant mind was recently shown in an article published in the Revue des Deux Mondes by Mme. Laura Marholm, a wonderfully gifted Norwegian woman, who has drawn much attention to herself in Europe of late by her high mental attainments. The movement of " Feminism," or the study of the modern development of woman, has in France been agitating the minds of the leaders of thought almost to the extent of a political movement. It is on this subject that this writer ex. presses some striking opinions as to the causes of that falling off in the moral standards of the race which to-day leads so inevitably to the evils of divorce and infanticide. She traces this directly to the rejection by Protestantism of the veneration of the Mother of God which has throughout the ages exalted the divine ideal of the Mother and Child as the highest conception of human life. Her reasons for thinking this are, it is true, mainly ethical or natural ones, and she argues principally from this point of view. There is, however, a strong demonstration of Catholic truth at the bottom of them. " The worship of Mary," she says, ".was the great poetic achieve- ment of the masculine soul, sending up to heaven, as to a natural fount, that longing for something detached from the Digitized by Google

Page 259

238 The Testimony of Science to Religion. [Nov., senses and higher than they by which man has always been tormented. It represented the sweetest note of his inner music. He showed his most complete understanding of the high des- tiny of woman, and the mystery of human life, when he raised the Mother and Child to a place over the altar. When he trans- figured the companion of his existence into a sacred being, and showed the baby stretching out its little arms toward the heart of every man, he sanctified woman in her function as a mother, and made it sacrilege to ill-treat a child. Infinite was the softening of hearts, incalculable the amelioration of manners which beamed from every one of those images of God's mother." " The glorification of the mother," she insists, " was calcu- lated to deliver man from the baleful fascination of the mere woman." She argues that one blessed result of the " worship " of Mary was that it helped to clear up man's understanding of woman ; it made him patient with his companion in life by lifting his thoughts to a superhuman ideal. " Protestant- ism," she says, " by suppressing the worship of the Virgin and the devotion to images, has committed the huge mistake of transferring the adoration of man from womankind in the ab- stract to some particular woman. The next step was to re- quire of all mortal women the virtues of the celestial woman, and to scan with a distrustful eye their persons, their bearing, their actions, and their sentiments. Protestantism asked more of woman than had ever been asked before, and got less." There is a subtle, if rather novel, argument in all this as to the false basis upon which Protestantism builds its moral standards. A consideration of these standards brings one ever back to the same conclusions as to its instability as a religious system. It demonstrates always in the end its worship of mere human nature, uncrowned by those sublime and uplifting ideals towards which the Catholic mind is ever taught to look by its veneration of the saints and of the Mother of God. Huxley made this same argument very emphatically when he wrote : " No human being, and no society composed of human beings, ever did or ever will come to much unless their conduct is guided and governed by the love of some ethical ideal." One of the cleverest literary men of the day, Professor Peck of Columbia University, a leading man of science and a non- Catholic, has said some remarkable things on this subject of faith and reason in his essay on the life of the late Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a philosopher of the modern German school who became insane from the effects of too much thinking in the Digitized by Google

Page 260

1900.] The Testimony of Science to Religion. 239 realm of speculative thought. Nietzsche, like many another of these philosophers of pure reason, " thought and reasoned and exhausted ingenuity for some original explanation of the moral problem ; he racked his brain and tortured his imagination and scourged his fevered faculties to mad exertion in the quest. Yet did he add one atom to the discoveries of those who went be- fore? The contrary is true; for after he had reasoned and argued and thought and written until he had reached at last a definite result, he had not gone one single step beyond his predecessors. . . . " There is something in all this that is most terribly pathetic — this wrecking of a splendid intellect for the sake of painfully establishing as something new a thesis that was first laid down two thousand years ago. Yet this is just as true of all those modern thinkers who are treading in the path that was worn smooth by other feet before our civilization had been born. For there is really nothing new in modern thought. It has only sublimated and refined and enlarged and expanded what was handed down to it from a remote antiquity, while its essen- tial teachings are older than the hills. " The mind of man exhausted all the possibilities of philoso- phic thought some twenty centuries ago, and since then human ingenuity has formulated nothing new. Everything has been thought, everything has been written ; and it is all Mayd — be- ginning nowhere and ending in a fog. " Unthinking persons sometimes speak of mere ' blind faith/ But in the sphere of things like these, it is rather Reason, un- guided and uncontrolled, that is really smitten with eternal blindness, that gropes and stumbles, and, after toiling painfully over many a weary path, finds itself fainting and exhausted at the very place at which it started; while Faith alone, whose undimmed eyes have been divinely opened, sees clearly down the endless vista of eternity. Reason falters, but Faith is sure. Reason becomes at last impoverished, but Faith grows richer with the lapse of time. Reason sickens and falls fainting by the way, but Faith goes on serenely to the end. "There is need of Faith to-day in philosophy and in religion, two spheres which in the highest sense are one ; for in the end it is Faith alone that satisfies the needs of every human soul. It is here that we find the secret of the wonderful power of Catholicism — that it has learned and thoroughly assimilated this great fundamental truth which Protestantism seems unable to acquire, so that there comes to us the warring of unnumbered Digitized by Google

Page 261

240 The Testimony of Science to Religion. [Nov., sects and controversial clamor without end between those, on the one hand, who would make religious truth turn on the pointing of a Hebrew text in some ink-smeared palimpsest, and those who, on the other hand, imagine that salvation is to be secured by setting up sporadic soup kitchens and by stocking missionary homes with particolored pen-wipers. "But he who wanders in the darkness of uncertainty and who has found in Reason but a treacherous guide, needs some- thing higher, deeper, richer, and more spiritual far than this. Struggling onward through the storm and night, repelled and driven further by the cold, chill formalism that looks out on him superciliously from its grated windows, he plunges with a grow- ing terror into a still deeper darkness, following perhaps the fitful lead of Atheism that with ghastly grin beckons him on- ward when he shrinks back shuddering at the chasm's brink where yawn abysmal deeps of infinite despair ; until at last, be- yond the beating of the storm and the gloom of an unfathom- able darkness, he sees the House of Faith, serenely radiant with light, filled with the sound of melodious music, and open- ing wide its gates to shelter and defend, and to diffuse through all the depths of his poor shaken soul the peace, the comfort, and the divinely perfect beauty of an endless benediction." * * Harry Thurston Peck in A Mad Philosopher. Digitized by Google

Page 262

. .. : Rev. Alois Daisenberger, the old Parish Priest.— The Father of the Modern Play. THE PASSION PLAY. BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D, UNICH is very pleasantly situated, and its art treasures and art atmosphere, to say nothing of more material j attractions, draw many visitors at all times. In the early autumn hotels are apt to be crowded, but the summer generally finds the South German metropolis empty of visitors. This year the crowd came and went, all/the summer, timing arrivals so that of a Friday night, most , of the -hotels were filled. Many a traveller, confident in his* knowledge of Munich during the VOL. LXXII.— 1 6 Digitized by Google

Page 263

242 The Passion Play. [Nov., summer season, drove to his favorite hotel late on Friday only to find that " there was no room at the inn." This year's crowd, too, was much more cosmopolitan than usual. The at- tractions of the Bavarian capital talk a language that is under- stood by people of taste the world over. But the end-ofthe- century visitors were not only gathered from the remotest and most unexpected regions of the earth, but also from all classes, conditions, and creeds. To most of them Munich was but a station by the way, for in every European language could be heard discussions on the incoming trains of the possibilities of finding accommodations at Oberammergau. The name of the little village in the Bavarian mountains was twisted into more curious forms on foreign tongues than it would be possible to in- vent if the invention of new-fangled pronunciations were intend- ed. Some fifteen thousand people a week, of the most diverse nationalities, were making their way to the little village to see and hear the Passion Play. To the ordinary traveller, by the way, it must have seemed almost inexplicable that so many people of such varied characteristics should find a common centre of attraction in the decennial fulfilment by their descend- ants of the vow of mediaeval villagers. To those untouched by the enthusiasm of the moment the crowds on their way to Oberammergau seemed rather to be following the fad of the year than going as " Passion pilgrims " from lofty religious, or even artistic, motives. Most of those who have written about the play have acknowledged that some such thought was in their minds on their own journey to Oberammergau. Personally the writer felt this poignantly ,f or it seemed too bad that the empty fad- ism of modern life should invade the simple Bavarian village and take from the villagers the earnest religi- ous purpose that has kept the Passion Play for our generation as one of the beautiful remains of the ill- understood days of mediae- val Catholicity. Like many another, I came away with a nicodemus, the Disciple in secret. very different feeling. The Digitized by Google

Page 264

igoo.l The Passion Pla y. 243 Joseph of Arimathea. impression produced can only be compared with that made upon the traveller who, rebellious to the yoke of the guide-books for the moment, comes unexpect- edly on some magnificent old cathedral. It seems scarcely possible that the commonplace realities round about could ever have given birth to such an incarnation of the artistic spirit. The realization comes that men of other times and other moulds than those to whom we are accustomed may also be kindled by that divine spark we are so apt to look upon as reserved solely for the cultured after our own fashion. It has been said that the vast influx of visitors into Oberam- mergau would inevitably do away with the old simplicity of spirit of the villagers, that was not alone so admirable in itself but was the real root of the religious-artistic purpose that in- spires the Passion Play and makes it the worthy shrine of world pilgrims. The danger undoubtedly exists. So far, how- ever, the veritable charm of the Passion Play itself remains absolutely unspoiled. Great business interests have grown up in connection with the presence of visiting multitude*. A large tourist agency negotiated last year to take the problem of accommodating all these visitors off the hands of the com- munity for the privilege of distributing lodgings by tickets sold beforehand. The offer was promptly rejected, though it represented a larger assurance of profit than was anticipated in the ordinary routine of letting lodgings to the pilgrims as they came. It was felt that the offer would mean exorbitant prices. Passion pilgrims who dealt directly with the villagers themselves this year were not impressed by any special evidence of a grasping spirit. The people realized their opportunity, but took no undue advantage of it. The visitors who are heard to complain, and with reason, are those who trusted the tourist agents to provide for them, and found that these were intent simply on exploitation, not business. The blame for this must rest where it belongs. This year's experience has done not a Digitized by Google

Page 265

244 The Pa ssion Pla y. [Nov, little to shake public confidence in tourist agencies for such occasions. Oberammergau and its population must not suffer from the contre coup of the unpleasantness. The ordinary visitor to Oberammergau who came rather with the idea of witnessing an impressive religious spectacle, but with scarcely a thought that the artistic side of the Passion Play might prove of intense interest, received his preliminary surprise when the chorus made its appearance just after the second signal gun. The color scheme of the beautifully draped dition of the part of the leader of the chorus. Tall and straight, but with the perfectly white hair and beard that many cares have brought to him before their time, with a dignity of carriage and motion that bespoke one of nature's noblemen, this humble peas- ant drew to him all eyes and fixed all attention at once. In his striking white robes, with his white hair, gold-crowned, he was a figure to fill the vision. The members of the chorus on either hand in bright red cloaks served to concentrate still more all the attention on this magnificent choragus who was to prove so interesting an exponent of the unusual feature of the play — the long recitative interludes. Mayr, the village wood-carver, is the best type of the Oberammergau villager. His Christus drew the attention of at least the German world for three decennia, and his work this year, in a very different THE PLAY. John, the Bkloved Apostle. robes that set off the stal- wart villagers so well was calculated to inspire com- plete confidence in the taste that had selected the rich colors and arranged their ef- fective contrasts. We have heard much of Mayr as the Christus of three decennia. Pilgrims of former years, be- fore seeing this year's per- formance, lamented that he was no more to be seen in the principal part. Surely he could not have added more to the success of this year's spectacle than he has done by his impressive ren- Digitized by Google

Page 266

1900.] The Passion Pla y. 245 character, demonstrates that his success was not due merely to accident and favoring circumstances. The man has, as so many of his village compatriots, something of the artistic over-soul that finds a fitting expression in whatever he does. The chorus had its faults, and its singing was not always as impressive as might have been wished. It contained 35 voices. Singing to 6,000 people practically in the open air it can be easily understood that it lacked the requisite volume. But the voices were all well trained and pleasing. What vil- lage of 1400 inhabitants anywhere else in the world will be able to supply as many trained voices? — especially as some of the best singers were neces- sarily taken from the possi- bility of service in the chorus by their selection for acting parts in the play proper. The fact that the chorus was spread out in one thin line, the different singing parts widely separated from each other, militated against the effective rendition of many of the choruses. As it was, the gentler and appealing parts were thoroughly effec- tive, the deprecatory and triumphant phases failed of their due impressiveness for peter, the prince of the apostles. lack of numbers and volume of tone. After the first entry of the chorus, if anything were needed to convince the first-time spectator of the thoroughly artistic spirit in which the great theme was to be handled, it came in the first tableaux : 44 The Expulsion from Paradise " and u The Adoration of the Cross." All through the play the tableaux gave proof of excellent taste in plastic art and of a most dis- criminating color sense. Those who took part in them, even the small children, had evidently been trained with painstaking thoroughness. At times even most strained positions were re- tained for considerable intervals without a quiver to spoil ihe effect of the picture. To those accustomed to the blaze of light on all tableau effects on the modern stage there seemed a lack of light, perhaps, and the subdued illumination of the in- terior of the central portion of the stage failed to bring out Digitized by Google

Page 267

246 The Passion Play. [Nov., the details of the picture. Even this had been foreseen, how* ever, and the attention of the director of the tableaux had been very happily concentrated on his central figures. After these two tableaux of the prelude came the beginning of the play proper, the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sun- day. The procession was managed most effectively. Alto- gether some 400 people came on the stage for the spectacle, and it needs but little experience of things theatrical to realize how difficult a matter is the handling and grouping of such a crowd. The costumes were well designed to bring out the idea of the heterogeneous crowds that had flocked to Jerusalem for the Passover. The combinations of colors were once more pleasingly tasteful. Some idea of the careful attention to de- tails, not alone for this scene but for all others, may be gathered from the accompanying photograph of one of the Jewish boys who took part in it.* The movement of the crowd and the ebb and flow of interest in various groups were well brought out. Perhaps there was not enough of that half-unconscious murmur that always emanates from large crowds, and that in the theatre, where numbers are supposed to be represented by individuals, requires very special conscious effort to produce. There was on the whole a satisfying naturalness about the mob that is most difficult of reproduction. And then the play was on. For 3^ hours in the morning, and, after a little over an hour's intermission, for 4^ hours in the afternoon 6,000 people looked and listened with rapt attention. To hear that the Greeks at their Dyonisiac festivals sat out a dramatic trilogy, three full tragedies of ^Eschylus or Sophocles, and then a farce, meant to most of us the inevitable conclu- sion that the Greeks were very different in their mental and * Another evidence of the care exercised in selecting accessories for the play was brought to us rather unexpectedly while wandering through the fields on the outskirts of the village the evening before the performance. Some children were solicitously guarding a donkey. The intelligent little animals had attracted our attention in many parts of Europe, for it often seemed that they were more alive to the responsibilities of life than their masters. This one, in the words of one of our party, bore a knowing look and carried itself with a dig- nified air, and somehow seemed conscious of its own importance. The children told us that this was the Passicn-ass— that is, the one which Christus rides in the Palm Sunday procession in the play— and that it had been selected especially for its good looks and good temper, two rare good things in other creatures than asses. They also pointed out that this particular member of the donkey family carried in the dark lines along its backbone and over its shoul- ders a very distinct figure of the cross that, according to the tradition, all asses have borne ever since the original Palm Sunday procession. The animal seems to have been selected partly at least for this reason. The solicitous care of the children for this humble member of the Passion troupe was an index of the attitude of mind of the villagers generally towards those who took part in he play and so brought their village to the knowledge of the great world. Digitized by Google

Page 268

1900.] The Passion Play. 247 ( 1 physical makeup to the moderns. During this summer, however, over 300,000 people have come to the Passion Play, and found the long day, as a rule, only too short. There were many things be- sides the length of the per- formance to recall the Greek dramas. The stage with its two entrances in the pros- cenium wall, and the central recess as the representative of the antique middle door, at once recalled the old Athe- nian stage. At Athens, be- yond the proscenium could be seen the blue ^Egean Sea, with the scattered isles of Greece— a fitting background for the scenes from Grecian fable and history. At Ober- ammergau, the rugged moun- tains, oft with cloud-capped tops, recalled the Judean hills and seemed to fittingly shut out the every day practical world from disturbing the real or the mimic in the simple life of the village. The festivals of Dionysius were' religious as well as artistic, and the subject-matter of the Greek dramas was bound up with the religious feelings and traditions of the nation ; so too at Oberammergau, religion had art in its most unconscious simplicity and gracious sincerity as a handmaiden for the production of lasting effects. Only a people whose lives were thoroughly in touch with the religious scenes and feelings they portrayed could have commanded the unwearying attention of the multitudes of visitors. It seems invidious to single out characters for special men- tion. Somehow, after seeing the transformation that comes over these humble villagers in their various parts, one is tempted to believe that almost any of them could take any character satisfactorily, and that it -is only the accident of cer- tain physical traits that allots them to special parts. Naturally, A Jewish Boy in the Tableaux. Digitized by Google

Page 269

248 The Passion Play. [Nov, the mind recurs oftenest to the Christus of the play. Anton Lang, who took the character for the first time this year, is physically a most satisfying figure. His handsome, manly face, surrounded by its long, blond hair, recalls the faces the Italian and German painters love to give the Christ. His expression is extremely attractive. There beams from his modest coun- tenance the earnest of a gentle, pure-hearted nature. Just after the conclusion of the performance we saw him come out of the dressing-rooms, only to be immediately surrounded by the village children, for each of whom he had an affectionate greeting. Though it was September, and the novelty of the Passion performance must have long worn off, the children ac- companied him in a sort of triumphal procession to his home. Of his acting not much remains, then, to be said. The Chris- tus. of the play must look the part. In certain situations, as the parting at Bethany, the washing of the feet of the disciples, especially when it came to Judas' turn, and the Ecce Homo, it is hard to imagine a more perfect Christus. The striking acting of the play was by the Judas. Johann Zwink, who takes the part now for the second time, was the much admired John of the plays of 1870 and 1880. Zwink makes a veiry modest living as a decorative painter in the in- The open Stage with the Background of Mountains in the distance. Digitized by Google

Page 270

I90O.] The Passion Play. 249 Anton Lang, the Christus. tervals between the plays. It can be well imagined, however, that he really only lives during Passion Play years, for he is a born actor. He brings out all the intense tragedy of Judas9 character, and somehow leaves the impression that the ill-fated disciple was not so bad as he is traditionally painted. The re- morse of the traitor Apostle was so well done that it could scarcely fail to arouse human sympathy. The villain of the play would seem to be much more Caiaphas — whose part was also very well done— than Judas. This year's John, who had the part also ten years ago, is physically very well adapted to represent the ideal John. In the scene at the foot of the cross, where his new relationship to Mary was proclaimed, he was most satisfying. At other times he failed somehow to ful- fil expectations, though of course it must be borne in mind that, after the Christ himself, it is of the Apostle whom he Digitized by Google

Page 271

250 The Passion Pla y. [Nov., loved that we are apt to have the most exacting ideal. Of the other male characters, the Pilate and the Peter were particu- larly good. Old Thomas Rendl, as the old Galilean fisherman m gradual course of transformation into the Father of the Church to be, was a taking figure of great human interest. Of the women characters not so much can be said in praise as of the men. Anna Flunger, while not strikingly beautiful, has a very sweet, pure face, and but for her evident youthfulness looked the part of Mary very well. In the part- ing scene at Bethany, however, and in the meeting on the road to Calvary, she failed to fulfil expectations. At the foot of the cross during the crucifixion, and at the taking down from the cross, she seemed to be uplifted by true feel- ing, and looked the stricken mother in a way that touched the audience very deeply. Bertha Wolf* as the Magdalene was more uniformly satisfying. The women did not, however, at all rise to the occasion as did the men. This is all the more striking from the fact that the women of any social stratum in Europe always impress the traveller as being a little above the level of their husbands and brothers in cultivation of feeling. THE TEXT OF THE PLAY. As it is at present presented, the text of the play is the result of a process of evolution. The old mediaeval mystery play, with its many resorts to the supernatural and the comic elements in connection with the parts of Judas and the devils, was modified to suit his own taste by each new director of the Passion Play for several centuries. Finally, Father Rosner, a Jesuit at the time when theatricals flourished in Jesuit colleges, elaborated this old play into a classical form. He introduced the tableaux from the Old Testament, and the chorus was his invention. His text was, however, too classically elaborate for the simple villagers, and the present text is due to a simplifi- cation of Father Rosner's work. This was entrusted by the Oberammergauers to Father Ottmar Weiss, who about the be- ginning of the present century wrote the wording of the play as it exists at present. About the same time the present ♦Our party stopped with the parents of Fraulein Wolf at the Gasthaus turn Thurm, under the shadow of the steeple of the village church. They were simple country people, contact with whom only emphasized the surprise that the villagers should be able to produce the Passion Play with such impressive art. Fraulein Wolf herself was the simple village girl one meets in any of the out-of-the-way villages of South Germany. When she gave us her autograph we asked to have, not her present name but the name she would bear next year. She confessed and did not deny, though with many a blush, that she might have another name next year ; but we did not get that as an autograph. Digitized by Google

Page 272

igoo.] The Passion Pla y. music of the play was written by Rochus Dedler, the school- master of the village. Some find fault with the simple, straight- forward character of Dedler's music. There are undoubtedly times when it seems utterly inadequate to the situations. But then any music would surely fail in sublimity under the cir- cumstances. For the purposes of the villagers' performance it is hard to see how more . elaborate music could be made more effective. Text and music are together a triumph of artistic adapta- tion of simple means to magnificent ends. After Weiss and Dedler the Passion Play, as at pres- ent given, owes most to Rev. Alois Daisenberger, who for nearly a half cen- tury before his death, in 1883, was the pastor of the village. This highly edu- cated clergyman devoted himself to the intellectual johann zwink as Judas. as well as spiritual uplifting of his people. With a wide knowledge of world literature — he read seven languages — he was particularly interested in the classic Greek drama, and made some translations from Sophocles. He encouraged the " practice plays," as they are called, which in the intervals be- tween the Passion Plays are meant to bring out new dramatic talent and improve the old. Some of the interval dramas are from his pen. The present acting traditions of the Passion Play are largely the result of his training. His was the guiding spirit behind the simple village enthusiasm which has led to the pro- duction of an artistic masterpiece of religious feeling that brings to the Bavarian mountains every ten years hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is easy to understand how readily he might have considered this dramatic work beyond his pro- vince, but had he done so he would have missed his greatest opportunity in life, for good Daisenberger's work is appreciated very much at Oberammergau, and the acting traditions estab- lished under his guidance will endure. Digitized by Google

Page 273

252 The Passion Play. [Nov., SIDELIGHTS ON THE TEXT. The weaving of Old Testament tableaux into the action of the text as interludes to the scenes of the play brings out very strikingly the figure of the Christ in type and in reality as the central point of both dispensations. To many of the audience this came almost as a revelation, so that a certain novelty attached even to the development of the play itself.* From conversations during the intermission and on the train to Munich after the performance some interesting points in com- parative religious psychology could have been gathered. To Protestants generally, and there were very many of them, it seemed to come as a distinct surprise that so much of the Scriptures should have been embodied in the play. They had the old idea that lay Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible. To most of these it was a source of still greater surprise to find from the history of the play that during the Catholic middle ages such Passion Plays were given not in one or two, but in most of the towns and villages of Catholic countries. Perhaps the deepest impres- sion produced was on those who had never realized be- fore the reasons for Mary's prominence in the Catholic mind beside her Son. To some of these the human element of the Christ's char- acter in relation to his Mother came almost as a revelation. More prejudices as to Mari- olatry were brushed away by such scenes as the parting at Bethany, the meeting on Cal- vary, and the foot of the crogs, than could have been effected by volumes of controversy. Great positive good is ac- complished in this way. ♦The character of the audience was most heterogeneous. There were many Hebrew faces. Not a few of those present might be judged from appearances and casual acquaintance to know but little of Christian origins. One of the German comic papers pictured two of these talking during the intermission. One is supposed to say: * 4 Do you know, the piece is not half bad " ; to which the other rejoins : 44 True, and I am interested in knowing how it turns out." Bertha Wolf as Magdalene, Digitized by Google

Page 274

1900.] The Passion Play. 253 THE OBERAMMERGAUERS. The inhabitants of the little village whose work has attracted the attention of the civilized world do not seem, on casual ac- quaintance, any different from other Bavarian peasants. That they are the Passion Play itself is the best proof. Long years of artistic tradition and of conscious effort to reach ideals have had their effect, and a spirit of true culture, in no superficial sense of the term, now seems inbred in the families whose heritage it has been to take in turn the principal characters of the play. The Langs, Zwinks, Flungers, Rendls remain the simple villagers they were and continue their humble avoca- tions, but a spiritual uplifting has come into their lives that makes them capable of dramatic work that fixes the attention of the great world. Much of this is due to the force of tradi- tion itself, of which enough account seems never to be taken in human history. What men are expected to do they usually rise to, though it may seem to those who see only the surface that they are incapable of it. There is besides in the villages of Ober and Unterammergau a mixture of national elements that might be expected to make itself felt in the world. Long ago there was a thriving Roman colony, ad Kofeliacas, near the present site of Oberammergau ; one of the main thorough- fares over the Bavarian mountains passed through the village ; Charlemagne, according to an old tradition, was born not many miles away, at the foot of these mountains; the Pepins cer- tainly had a castle in this region ; so that it is probable that the intellectual awakening in Europe after the night of Gothic in- vasion was felt here very early. In a word, there are phases of the history of this neighborhood that helped to account, perhaps, for the people's power. What is in the blood will come out if opportunity presents itself, and if a worthy tradi- tion encourages its expression. The Oberammergauers stand as a happy example of Christian culture apart from ordinary worldly influences. It is to be hoped that they shall long re- main unspoiled by too close contact with what is worst in the civilization outside their village. Digitized by Google

Page 275

254 A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. [Nov., A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. BY MARION J. BRUNOWE. T isn't very nice to acknowledge, of course, but it did — that Cliff Haven experience — almost did begin by a row. Not a rough-and-tumble fight exactly, but a very decided difference of opinion : the Observing One wanted to travel by water, the Gentle One preferred rail. As they had planned to travel together the outlook was ominous. 44 1 want one more real long journey in a steam-car, I — I do ! " cried the Gentle One, who retained many of the expres- sions of her childhood. "H'm! journey in a stuffy old steam car in the middle of summer, and such a summer! I must say I admire your taste." The Observing One was cool — so far, though the mer- cury stood in the nineties. 44 1 want to go in a steam-car/' persisted the Gentle One. " Oh ! but, dear, think of the beautiful journey by water ; think of moonlight on the Hudson, and sunlight and shadow on Lake George, and the blue, blue waves of Lake Cham- plain ! — and— and — 99 " I want to go in a steam-car/' said the Gentle One. The Gentle One was also an admirer of Nature, but she wanted to go in a 44 steam car" — that was all. So they went in a " steam- car," the Gentle One and the One who did n't feel very gentle just then, and they had steam within and without and on all sides for ten long and weary hours ; for even the most enthu- siastic lover of scenery from a car window finds his enthusiasm oozing and dribbling away when the thermometer stands nearly ioo° in the shade. 44 Is n't it lovely travelling in a * steam-car ' ? " observed the Observing One. It was 12 M., and the Hudson, sparkling and glancing in the morning sunlight, had dwindled into a narrow stream, its western banks disfigured by hideous and constantly recurring ice-houses. To be sure out of the misty heat rose memories of the romantic, shadow-haunted Highlands, the soft blue haze of the distant Catskills, the calm, broad bosom of the most beautiful of rivers. But now all that was past, as Digitized by Google

Page 276

igoo.] A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. 255 on they swept through pastoral scenes of no peculiar signifi- cance, except for the cows and the heat — always the heat. There was a flying glimpse of Albany, a vision of her glorious Capitol, and then Troy, and shirt factories, and cows, cows, cows! The inhabitants of these regions should be of very placid temperaments if they imbibe the milk of all the bovines that decorate the fields about. . . . Saratoga! and ten minutes respite from the awful heat, for there was a breeze there. And then the Gentle One said: "I wish we had gone in a boat." Whereupon her companion, being feminine and human, did not refrain from saying, 44 1 told you so ! M But the temperature was now almost forgotten in the gran- deur of the mountainous region through which they were fly- ing. It was like getting into the Michael Angelo corner of the Metropolitan Museum — only more so, much more so. There was the same feeling of exaltation and overpowering awe ; the same in kind, only greater in degree, for between the mighty Adirondacks on the one side, the ever-broadening ex- panse of Lake upon the other, and beyond that again the delicate outlines of the Green Mountains, all petty annoyances were buried and forgotten. The last beams of the setting sun were gilding the pretty little Bluff Point (Cliff Haven) station as the train drew in. In its wondrous gold and crimson rays were outlined two familiar figures, M and N , who had come to meet the tra- vellers. A short drive through the beautiful Assembly grounds, and travellers and friends and travelling bags, all found them- selves deposited, one promiscuous and laughing heap, upon the wide veranda of the B Cottage. Heat and dust and weari- ness were speedily forgotten, and a most welcome supper thoroughly enjoyed. Already the Adirondack air, charged with all the buoyancy and lightness of a mental elixir, was asserting its magical charm. The Auditorium at the evening lecture is usually the ren- dezvous for the entire School. The lecture itself this evening being on French Art, illustrated by stereopticon views, proved not beyond the mental capacities of two people who had travelled ten hours in a 44 steam-car " during one of the hottest days on record. It was the last of the course, and most en- Digitized by Google

Page 277

256 A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. (Nov., joyable. Many old friends unexpectedly encountered added to the pleasures of the evening. A little while at the Boston musicale, and then welcome bed ; sleep rendered possible, for the first night in weeks, by delicious whiffs of cool air from the Lake, as it lay placid and gracious beneath the soft light of a full moon. The Gentle One said she was glad she had come — even in a 44 steam car " ; everybody seemed to know her and like her; it was so "homey." Sunshine glorious and golden lay like a benediction upon Cliff Haven, its magic Lake and its mountainous environs, next morning. Yet the air was not overwarm, being tempered by the cool breezes sweeping down from the mountains and across the broad bosom of the waters. It being Saturday, there were no lectures scheduled, but it soon became very ob- servant to the Observing One, or any one else who cared to observe, that there was a favorite lecturer to be "seen off." 44 Oh, he is just 4 gorgeous* I" enthused the gushing girl from the Curtis- Pine. 44 He has a wonderful mind," remarked Miss Philadelphia, with calm and reproving dignity. Both and all agreed that his lectures had been among the most attractive of the season. It fell to the fortune of the Observing One to catch a glimpse of his tall figure as he presently scurried past on the 44 dead (American) run " for his train. She could n't help wondering (rather disrespectfully, but he's big enough to forgive it) if he ever ran faster on a certain base ball team, in college days of yore. She was glad she had seen him, for he is the author of some fine books in the domain of theology. It was easy to account for the dictum of Miss Philadelphia. The air was full of echoes of what had been, as well as an- ticipation of what was to come. Strange to say, considering the abstruseness of the subject, certain Biological expositions (or their expositor) seemed to have captured at one fell swoop all hearts as well as all heads, while 44 Constantine the Great " had been treated in a manner unique as well as scholarly. Two or three learned doctors of philosophy from the Catho lie University seemed likewise to have left especially pleasant and profitable memories behind, while the conductors of the Shakspere and Dante courses, still fortunately going on, had so far won golden opinions. A cursory glance over the Sylla- bus showed, in glaring black and white, all that had been missed by people who waited for the height of the season be- Digitized by Google

Page 278

igoo.] A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. 257 fore hieing hither. " Early Writers of English Comedy," " Music : Its Nature and Influence/' "Ireland's Poetry," "Catho lie Education in New York," " Care of the Indians," " Growth of the Navy," " Biology," " Constantine the Great," "The Study of Language," " The Field of Economic Study," "Philosophy of Theism," " Italian and French Art"— all, all had been and now were no more. However, there was much yet to be ; the coming fortnight promised its own attractions, both along intellectual and social lines. A saunter to the combination P. O. and country store brought back vividly some memories of days that had gone ; for among the little heaps of attractive-looking books for sale upon the counters, books by such Catholic writers as the late and always to be lamented Brother Azarias, Orestes Brownson, Christian Reid, Rev. John Talbot Smith, Maurice Francis Egan, Miss Tincker, Walter Lecky, the author of My New Curate, Father Mullany and others, were encountered a few volumes by that gifted soul, that large-hearted, courtly gentleman, Richard Malcolm Johnson. Gently handling the volumes, it was easy to hear again in memory that voice now stilled in death, to see again that tall figure, bent somewhat by age, to recall every detail of his personality, dignified, courteous, and kindly, a gentleman of the old school in every sense of the word, whose silvery hairs were well-nigh belied by eyes and voice of joyous youthfulness. That, however, and other fasci- nating memories, belonged to the days of the Summer-School's infancy. The child had indeed grown since then in wit and wisdom, in grace and beauty too perhaps, but hardly beyond the charm of those early days, when everybody knew every- body else in a sense not quite possible now. " One of the natural conditions of growth," said N , to whom some of these thoughts were expressed. "We are all of one family still, but there are at least five hundred of us on the grounds now." " But you indeed seem to be acquainted with the entire five hundred," observed the Observing One ; " you bowed to and ' greeted everybody we met this morning, and we must have al- ready encountered at least a couple of hundred." " One of the unwritten laws of Cliff Haven," was N 's pleasant explanation ; " every one is supposed to recognize every one else without the formality of an introduction ; that they are here is hall-mark enough." This was delightful, Arcadian, Utopian, and quite indigen- VOL* LXXII.— 17 Digitized by Google

Page 279

258 A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. [Nov., ous to the soil. Put in practice upon Broadway, Manhattan, it might indeed eventually lead one to the police station or the mad-house. Alas! life cannot all the year be an idyl. . . . •'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; The flower that bloomed but yesterday Tomorrow may be dying!" So sang A , merrily dancing up, a vivid figure in her crimson gown and wealth of chestnut hair. A comes from Boston, but she quite upsets the Bostonese preconceived idea of gravity of demeanor. She is all enthusiasm and joyousness, with a deep, a very deep, substratum of earnestness beneath. The particular roses which A wished to gather that morn- ing grew in the pine grove down by the Lake, a delicious re- treat, cool and leafy, pungent with the balsamy odor of the pine, glorified by its outlook over beautiful Champlain, and far to the mountains beyond. " You must not, you verily must not miss the pine grove on such a morning," cried A with decision; "it is a place to see visions and dream dreams." 14 And to meet one's friends— of both 'persuasions/" put in M slyly. M is " just horrid " sometimes. But A 's Bostonese sense of decorum saved her from comprehending so entirely frivolous a remark. As it turned out, the grove was a place to meet one's friends of all and every " persuasion " : old friends as well as new ones ; learned and reverend lecturers as light-hearted and gay, when off duty, as school-boys on a holiday ; men and maidens, young, old, and of age uncertain ; here and there a matron of gracious and dignified presence; a sprinkling of children — noticeable among them " Little Fanny, the Sunshine of the Brooklyn," and one brown dog. Canines seemed to be at a premium; not so felines; they attend lectures — on oc- casions, as Mr. Henry Austin Adams can testify. A concert of unusual excellence — all home talent — was given in the Auditorium that evening in aid of the chapel fund, and netted a goodly sum for this object so dear to the heart of the President of the School. Is it not that poetic soul Sidney Lanier who has defined music as " love in search of a word " ? As the dulcet waves of melody swept through the house that evening it really seemed that Catholic loyalty and love could have chosen no more fitting means of expressing Digitized by Google

Page 280

igoo.] A Fortnight at Cuff Haven. 259 the sentiment which filled all hearts present : the desire to aid in enlarging and beautifying that dear little chapel, so appropriate- ly dedicated to " Our Lady of the Lake." Here morning after morning, in the height of the season, as many as five-and- twenty Masses are celebrated at the five altars, betokening the very evident and active interest taken by the clergy in one of the most important Catholic intellectual and social move- ments of modern times. Daily attendance at Mass on the part of the laity is also as edifying as it is general. Who in- deed but a heathen could absent himself in such an atmosphere of Catholicity? It is this atmosphere — Catholic to the core — which constitutes perhaps one of the chief charms of the Champlain Assembly. Here indeed is met and fulfilled that long-standing social need of the Catholic laity in a non-Catho- lic country. Nowhere else have the members of a common faith such an opportunity to meet on a basis of intellectual equality. No aristocracy is recognized; all are "in the swim." Visitors from such Catholic centres as New York, Philadel- phia, or Boston do not, perhaps, realize what a "rest-cure11 in this respect Cliff Haven offers to those from Western or Southern cities, or even the more narrowly provincial of the Eastern towns. The tension is removed; one does not, as it were, unconsciously arm one's self at every turn; one is not tempted to minimize, even though it be ever so little, one's glorious heritage of Catholicity. Here, in a word, may be en- joyed " that bright life of the spirit which belongs to those who dwell in the ages and regions of faith." Vive! Catholic Summer-Schools, if but for this, and this alone. . . . An unexpected cold wave made the air clear and brilliant, though nipping, next morning. In the course of breakfast at the restaurant a characteristic incident excited the broadest of smiles — to put it mildly. The new-comers found themselves at table in the vicinity of three long tables decorated exclusively with boys, " college youths 99 of varying ages. These animated decorations were enjoying themselves, oh ! immensely, " guying 19 (to use boy phraseology) the pretty waitresses who were good-naturedly endeavoring to supply their numerous wants — the latter, for the most part, bewilderingly expressed in the vernacular of the day. Of a sudden — "Cheese it, fellows! — the boss!" Silence utter and profound had descended like a flash, as " dignifiedly " threading his way through a maze of tables, the Digitized by Google

Page 281

26o A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. [Nov., while taking in, and then throwing off as it were at a glance, all mere mundane things, " the boss " advanced. Seated at the head of one of the long tables, the dignified countenance ex- panded into a genial morning smile, whereupon fifty other countenances relievedly beamed in sympathy. But such demure beams! — in comparison the lady of "prunes prism" fame 14 was n't in it " for one moment. '•I've been watching this performance every morning," said M ; 41 it 's great fun. They 're the boys from the Camp, you know; and although they 'swear by' Father S , they live in wholesome awe of his decorous sense of table eti- quette." It was during High Mass that Sunday morning that, in the sermon of the day, the first intellectual treat of the week was enjoyed. Literary beauty of language and charm of delivery, both most evidently inspired by genuine feeling, brought home the lesson of a beautiful text. A quartet choir of quite un- usual excellence furnished the music of the Mass. A long afternoon was pleasantly spent in wandering through the woods, sauntering along the "singing sands," idling upon the rocks gently lapped by the blue waves of the Lake, dream- ing dreams and feeling one's spirit sensibly expand beneath an expanse of turquoise sky which the valley of Champlain, and only the valley of Champlain, can boast. Except upon the trackless prairie there is, perhaps, in the country no greater sweep of sky than that which, from mountain range to moun- tain range, circles o'er these flashing waters. It is as if mere time and earthly space were set aside and infinity before one. An entertainment, musical and literary, at the 44 New York "* that evening was honored by the presence of two Right Rev- erend Bishops. These very genial gentlemen not only at- tended, but under the influence of a wager unaffectedly con- tributed each his share to the pleasures of the occasion. 44 I dare you to sing a song," said the fun-loving Bishop- from the wilds of Virginia to his colleague from little Dela- ware. 44 1 will if you * speak a piece,' " was the quick and laugh- ing retort. 44 Done ! it 's a bargain." To the confusion of Monseigneur Delaware, who forgot he was daring some one as good as an Irishman, he unexpectedly found himself in the predicament of the bird who if he can't sing must be made to sing. It was 44 do or die," and Mon- Digitized by Google

Page 282

1900.] A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. 261 seigneur bravely 44 did," leading off in a sweet tenor with a semi-comic, semi-serious college song, in the chorus of which the whole company spontaneously joined. Then did Monseigneur of Virginia honorably fulfil his part of the bargain, " bringing down the house " with witty and humorous descriptions of the wild and mountainous region over which he 44 had the honor to administer." There was a bit of pathos, too, here and there under that laughter-moving tale, for the Bishop of a Southern or far Western diocese exempli- fies in his life more than a taste of the genuine missionary's experience. Next morning, alas ! opened with a downright pour — a cold, miserable, midsummer Adirondack storm. To be quite honest, the Observing One did n't enjoy herself at all that morning, or even the next. She found the " main lecture " of the day on both these occasions very tiresome. It was pleasant, how- ever, to observe that the warm and ready sympathy of a Cliff Haven audience is not dampened by rain ; it is an audience keenly, intellectually critical, yet responsive and kindly withal. That evening, during a reproduction of the Passion Play in motion pictures, a magnificent tenor, interspersing the pictured scenes with arias appropriate to the theme, was received with enthusiasm overpowering enough to literally almost take the roof off the Auditorium. It was during the course of that rainy day, just indeed when the down pour was at its height, that Miss D , from Washington, arrived : Miss D , vivid and joyous as a day in spring, and with no patience at all for anybody confessing to the "blues." In Miss D 's eyes everything was couleur de rose. 44 My dear, I am ashamed of you ! You — you of all people down in the dumps ! I can't understand it. And — don't apolo- gize for anything; this kitchen is just the dearest thing on earth!" It was certainly the warmest (on Cliff Haven earth) at that moment, and gathered round a roaring fire sat a shivering cir- cle, who did n't care if it was the kitchen so long as they were warm. « We — we only came in here for a few moments," explained somebody apologetically. 41 We — don't always sit in the kitchen, you know ; we — forgot our rubbers." 44 And so did I," announced the distinguished new-comer ; 41 therefore am I one of you." And down she sat, toasting her Digitized by Google

Page 283

262 A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. [Nov., toes with most genuine delight. In the animation of that voice and manner cold and wet were soon forgotten. "Trinity College" was talked by Miss D on Wednesday morning to a large and attentive audience, who had assembled to receive and do honor to this favorite author. This meet- ing with our authors and litterateurs in the flesh has always been a more or less pleasant feature of the Summer-School since the session of 1892, when, at New London, under the auspices of Rev. Thomas McMillan, and at the home of George Parsons, and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the first reception to Catholic authors was held. Many have attended the various sessions, among whom we might recall Brother Azarias, Richard Malcolm Johnson, Sara Trainer Smith — all three since deceased — Maurice Francis Egan, Rev. H. J. Heuser, Rev. Hugh T. Henry, Katherine E. Conway, Mrs. Blake, Rev. Talbot Smith, Margaret M. Halvey, Rev. J. F. X. O'Conor, S.J., the emi- nent astronomer Father Searle, C.S.P., Rev. William Living- ston, Henry Austin Adams, Rev. J. T. Driscoll, Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, Rev. F. P. Siegfried, Mr. Horgan, art editor of the New York Tribune, and several others. And it has even been known — oh ! wonderful fact — that authors and publishers, else* where not always on the best of terms, here meet and indulge in little love-feasts. O gracious Summer-School! to so shed abroad thy benign influence. Wide and varied indeed are the subjects touched upon at Cliff Haven. Within one short week that burning question, " Higher Education for Women," along Catholic lines, so ably pleaded for by Miss D ; the Catholic Social Settlement work, explained by the Rev. Director of St. Rose's Settle- ment, New York, and a Conference on Sunday-school work, ably presided over by Mrs. Burke, found place upon the pro- gramme. The Sunday-School Conference was of most vivid and vital interest, being contributed to by men and women who were making this spiritual work of mercy an important part of their life-work. Clergy and laity, young and old, brought to the meetings rich experiences garnered through many an hour of self-sacrifice, and recorded with simple unos- tentation. Edifying and most moving was the account given of the work being done by the " Camillus Society " at Dun- woodie, an association of young seminarians who voluntarily pledge themselves to devote their holidays to the comfort ahd instruction of the inmates of prisons, asylums, and hospitals. God bless such a work ! Could it be generally known it would Digitized by Google

Page 284

igoo.] A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. 263 be an inspiration to thousands. This zeal, brilliancy, and earnestness of our Catholic clergy, young and old, is a feature which cannot fail to strike even the most casual observer, and augurs brightest prospects for the future of the Church in America. And not far behind the clergy would seem to be those prime workers in every uplifting movement— the women: "the ladies, God bless them ! " It was, in fact, wholly through the efforts of the Alumnae Auxiliary, an association comprising among its officers and members many of the most gifted and intellectual women of the East, that the magnificently con- ducted Shakspere and Dante courses were inaugurated* Dur- ing this fortnight the scholarly and poetic insight of Dr. D illumined the heights of the " Paradiso," while to the accom- plished Dean from Long Island fell the task of elucidating the wondrous lights and shades of the master mind of all the ages. A cross between lecture and entertainment were Mr. • K 's wonderful experiments with compressed air, while Father G and Mr. A , — old favorites — drew crowded audiences morning and evening, respectively. Under the learned Jesuit's inimitable method of treatment, "Mental and Moral Pathology " proved a subject fascinating beyond words, while " The Novel 99 in the hands and manner of Mr. A re- flected more of brilliancy and wit than invariably graces the writers of the same. On the score of entertainments, New York, Brooklyn, Bos- ton (dignifiedly), Philadelphia (calmly and perhaps a bit exclu- sively), Rochester, The Healy, The Curtis- Pine (an authority on style), and The Club vie with one another in attractive- ness, though it has been whispered that when Father S honors the School with an invitation to a Camp Fire Club and Cottages one and all hide their diminished heads. Whether 'tis so or not, there is a wonderful fascination about a Camp- Fire gathering in the heart of the Adirondack region. Familiar faces and figures are thrown into strong relief by the dancing flames. Here the shifting light plays upon the benevolent countenance and silvery head of the Rev. Treasurer ; there it outlines clearly the personality of the mild-mannered Secretary (at heart a very Ozanam of loyalty and zeal) ; now it circles about a figure known and loved of all the School — one of the prime movers in all its most important affairs — the Rev. Chair- man of the Board of Studies. Songs are sung, stories are told, and the evening has gone all too soon. Digitized by Google

Page 285

264 A Fortnight at Cliff Haven. [Nov, What with boating and bathing, golfing and running — field sports of every kind ; with trips to Ausable, Burlington, Cum- berland Head, Montreal, or Saranac, the days as well as the nights fly upon the wings of Mercury. So indeed it seemed to the two who all too regretfully saw their fortnight drawing to an end. Already the air was full of rumors of what another season would bring forth. Six new lots had found purchasers in as many days ; Buffalo in the van, with plans for a magnifi- cent cottage. A cottage to be exclusively reserved for priests promises to be another and unique feature. Four more build- ings by private individuals complete the list, while the " Cliff Haven Yacht Club," long a dream, will shortly become a reality. That the Catholic Summer-School has evidently come to stay, all the world can now see ; that it is as yet perfect, even its most ardent admirers do not quite claim ; that it has im- mense possibilities of growth, only the wilfully, woefully blind • can fail to perceive. In years it is as yet but a child — though a wonderful child — and has no doubt some of the faults inci- dental to every young thing. This is its morning of life. With added years will surely come "higher joys, deeper in- sights and relationships 99 ; but in the eyes of those who have tenderly fostered the child and watched it grow from its birth, but nine short years ago, these are the days around which a magical charm lingers — the "charm which touches all things and turns them to gold." Truly "the morning of life comes but once, and when it fades something goes which never re- turns." It is perhaps this joyous, indefinable "something" which adds so much to the present charm of Cliff Haven. The child has such sweet and winsome ways, it is impossible to resist her; for once beguiled by her mischievous smile, one is her slave or gallant knight lor ever ! Digitized by Google

Page 286

A DEPARTED FRIEND * . OD be with you, my beloved, Wheresoe'er you go ! v /^Through the Valley of the Shadow You have gone, I know. By death waters, dark and deep, Ah ! how tranquilly you sleep. God be with you, my beloved I Was it like a star That your soul flashed from your body Unto realms afar, Beyond night and time and space, To the Vision of God's Face ? God be with you, my beloved! Was it o'er your bed You saw Jesus one swift minute ; Then He vanished, — And in patient pain you wait For the opening of Heav'n's gate? Paradise or Purgatory, Which is yours to-day ? Ah I one bliss your sweet soul knoweth, None can take away. You are calm, and glad, and still, In the doing of God's will. * To the dear memory of Fanny Cushing Parker, sister of the late General Charles P. Stone, U. S. A., both converts to the Faith. Digitized by Google

Page 287

266 To a Departed Friend. [Nov. Paradise or Purgatory, Perfect peace is yours. Neither sin nor fear of sinning Darkeneth your doors, Where, within a quiet room, You have welcome found, and home. Paradise or Purgatory? Wheresoe'er you be, Never more you know that anguish — Life's deep mystery, — Never more you feel that cross, Fear of sin and fear of loss. God be with you, my beloved ! Though my tears fall fast While I say my rosary for you, Peace is mine, at last. He keeps watch twixt you and me, Howe'er long our parting be. Paradise or Purgatory? God knows where you are ; And your soul is in His keeping, Whether near or far. Unto truer Love than mine My beloved I resign. SUSAN L. EMERY. Cambridge. Digitized by Google

Page 288

The author of Arden Massiter* who is a priest, could have permitted his rank to appear on the title-page of Arden Massiter without fear of ad- verse criticism. It used to be regarded as infra dig. for priests to write novels ; and those clergy- men of the Established Church in England who tried this kind of literature were looked upon as free lances are in the warfare of political parties. There is a change — and, perhaps, for the better — of opinion in this respect since Fabiola and Callista> exceptional in subject and treatment, set an example which was sure not to be followed slavishly. Arden Massiter, if examined as a novel, will hardly be found to conform to the rules of that species of composition, as we gather them from the practice of the most successful writers ; yet we regard it as a distinguished success. There is nothing of a story ; events of an interesting, adventurous, and startling character, arising out of the social and political con- ditions of Italian life, involve Arden Massiter, the hero, in diffi- culties. The other characters are more directly concerned in the action of lawless elements plotting against and plotting with the new order than he is, and some one or two, moved by passionate feelings of shame and indignation at the ruin of their country, are disposed to head a reactionary movement. Politically Massiter's sympathies are with the latter, and he would be prepared to throw himself ardently into their cause ; but Dr. Barry binds him in the net of Italian conspiracy and paralyzes him. Instead of being a great influence in a reac- tionary movement, he is engaged all the time in extricating his friends of the reactionary party from the meshes of an able conspirator, who is at the head of more than one revolu- tionary society, while pretending to be ready to throw his talents and power in with the restorers of the old order, and * Arden Massiter. By Dr. William Barry. New York : The Century Co. Digitized by Google

Page 289

268 Talk about New Books. [Nov., while preparing to reap a rich harvest by selling all parties to the government. The style is admirable. The description of Roccaforte seems to be drawn from direct personal inspection, or at least the account of one who had examined the awful old castle with minute and intelligent care and repeated the result. The walls live in their suggestiveness. The galleries, chambers, stairs, the winding and difficult road up to the outer gate, over which the motto Sangue lave Sangue warns from the high arch — all of them more than hint dark tales of the past when we learn what a fierce race ruled there. We have not enjoyed for many a day a higher pleasure of the taste and memory than that roused by Dr. Barry's book. America's Economic Supremacy is a collection of essays by Mr. Brook Adams. They are on different subjects, and it is only when one looks through them that he discovers a connec- tion of aim in the series. For instance, it would be hard to suspect the existence of any relation between the article on the Spanish-American War and the one entitled " Natural Se- lection in Literature," but they approach each other through "The New Struggle for Life among the Nations/1 "England's Decadence in the West Indies," " The Decay of England M ; for in fact the article on selection in literature is avowedly presented as an illustration of recent changes in the charac- ter of the English people. However, there is a good deal that is suggestive in the inferences, even though many of these are too wide, and we may add that the statistics are valuable. The Beauty of Christian Dogma* is a suggestive book, dealing with a subject surprisingly unusual, the " application of the rules of aesthetics to Christian Dogma, and the demonstration of how and in what sense the truths the church teaches are beautiful." The declaration of such a purpose immediately opens up a line of thought that might run on indefinitely, and arouses a ques- tion in the mind as to how the author can have treated a truth that all Christians have felt, and many have incidentally expressed, though few have ever made the professed subject of a treatise — viz., the association of sentiment with doctrine in religion. * The Beauty of Christian Do%ma. By the Rev. Jules Souben. New York ; Benziger Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 290

1900.] Talk about New Books. 269 Such an essay as this, then, cannot but be fruitful of good. Nowadays especially we are accustomed to hear the author's thesis denied. Dogma is in disrepute among a multitude of shallow thinkers, and one of the chief objections they make is that positive dogmatic definition is narrowing in its effect on the soul, unfavorable to the growth of religious sentiment in the heart. " Wide views " of Christianity are in vogue, and that sect and teaching are most lauded which are most " liberal " and "tolerant." Yet here is a little volume, well conceived and executed, showing that all that is beautiful and spiritually en- couraging in Christianity comes naturally from precision and accuracy in dogmatic teaching. By way of preface, the author rests his reflections on the basis of the necessary connection between truth and beauty as laid down first by Plato, and then acknowledged and enlarged upon by all philosophers, notably by the scholastics. Fortunately this rather philosophical cast of thought is not continued ; it is given only as a basis ; the various essays that compose the volume consider the spiritual influence of the various fundamental doctrines of the church, God, The Trinity, The Incarnation, The Sacraments, etc., upon the soul of the believing Christian. Many apt and beautiful quo- tations are given, and in general the author has succeeded remarkably well in his stated purpose. We would call atten- tion especially to one feature of the book, the quotations from the Sacred Scriptures, placed in such connection and form as to draw attention to their beauty. We could wish that some such indication as this might be the means of sending many souls to the holy books, if only to find in them poetic beauty, for this would effectually provide an introduction to the too much neglected spiritual stimulation of the written Word of God. That Father Tyrrell's most recent volume * has gone into a new edition is a fact both pleasing and significant. It gives us an indication of the great good that is being accomplished by its circulation, and it proves that our people do appreciate fine work. Rarely have a brief set of conferences contained the germs of so much healthy thinking as in the case of these clear and splendid presentations of the eternal principles of real religion. Buy it and think it over. Not only is the writer a trained thinker ; he is a spiritual- minded man of high degree. And further, he is a stylist of no * External Religion; Its Use and Abuse. By George Tyrrell, S.J. Second edition. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 291

270 Talk about New Books. [Nov., mean merit. The beautiful clothing of his wholesome thought is the proper dress to recommend it to those whom the author wishes to reach — the intelligent souls of his generation who are looking for instruction on the eternal principles that rule man's relationship with God. A Day in the Cloister* is one of the most recent results of the present literary activity among the English Benedictines. The writer, with characteristic Benedictine kindness and hospi- tality, introduces his imaginary guests within the cloister of a typical monastery, and conducts them through every depart- ment of one of those famous religious establishments, explain- ing everything about the monastic life and those who pursue it. Incidentally the author treats his readers to a little con- ference on some of the many phases of community life, always with a delicious interest and attractiveness. There is an atmosphere of ripe tradition about everything Benedictine. The life of religious peace planned and com- menced by " the spiritual father of Europe " far back, almost in the beginnings of Christian times, smacks necessarily of rich Catholic antiquity ; it recalls the power of pure Christian charity for regenerating human life, it speaks particularly of the beauty of true Christian sentiment, it boasts of triumphs no less in art, in architecture, in music, in industry, in civilization, than in religion and sanctity. Rich with the religious and artistic endowments of the centuries, it has attracted the attention and love of lofty souls and world-sick hearts, and having drawn them, it has held them and sustained them with the pure, simple religion of Christ as it has been handed down within the cloister. A visitor to a monastery, it would seem, must of a necessity live in the past ; but if this excellent little work is, as its editor claims, 14 a plain and unvarnished description of life in a modern monastery," the past lives again, and one of the chief reminders and exponents of the strength and beauty of Chris- tianity, the monastic life, is in no danger of being absorbed in the rush and worry of contemporary worldliness. In Let there be Light f we have the story of a club of work- ingmen, of exceptional ability and information, whose object is *ADay in the Cloister. Adapted from the German of Dom Sebastian Von Oer, O.S.B., by Dom Bede Camra, O.S.B. St. Louis : B. Herder. f Let there be Light. By David Lubin. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Digitized by Google

Page 292

1900.] Talk about New Books. 271 to cure the evils of society. The number is very few ; some one or two have no moral or religious opinions of any kind, but they pin their faith to the conclusions of advanced social- ism and attach an equal value to the discoveries, hypotheses, guesses, and unverified hints of science men. The principal leading religious bodies of America are represented — an enthu- siastic and uninstructed Italian standing for the profound and laboriously built theology of the church. The number of such creeds in the field is four: the Baptist, whose champion is a negro; the Jewish, answered for by the president, as philo- sophical as Philo ; the Presbyterian, by an Irish Orangeman named Moore ; and the Church, by the eloquent and ignorant Italian. They discover the power to reform society in a new reli- gion called the Church Universal. Though one of the objec- tions to the old forms of worship was the remoteness and life- lessness of the ceremonial, they introduce a ritual in scientific travesty of that of the Church and that of the Jewish dispensation. This, which is done for the purpose of attaining simplicity by bringing the mind of the worshipper in close communion with the ceremonial, is accomplished by a process more difficult to understand than the esoteric meaning supposed to be hidden in Egyptian or Assyrian rites, or any of the ancient worships from Babylon to Rome in which there was supposed to be folded up a sense from which the outside world of believers was excluded. The geological tiers of the new church suggest a protest against the cosmogony of Genesis. 44 The heavenly bodies " to be seen through a glass dome, is like a provision to meet the Bible for regarding the worship of 44 the host of Heaven " as a conse- quence of man's fall to a lower depth through the government of the senses. The attacks on the Catholic Church by the dif- ferent speakers — so feebly answered by the irrelevancies of the Italian — for her idolatry as the cause of social crimes, could be well retorted on themselves ; for in their unidolatrous new tem- ple it is intended that orreries are to be so arranged 44 as to be in view in front of the worshippers." 44 The altar," he directs, shall <4.be quite large," 44 the size of a stage " — a measure about as definite as the Yorkshireman's 44 size of a bit of wood.'' Then other specifications are given which remind us of the ceremonial of secret societies that make war on the etiquette of courts, but which are far more elaborate in their own pro- ceedings than any court. The profanity would be shocking if it were not childish ; and yet we are quite ready to acquit the Digitized by Google

Page 293

272 Talk about New Books. [Nov., writer of any intention to offend us. We shall conclude by saying that we are informed Mr. Lubin is a Jew. When he makes the Jew Ezra victorious in all the debates we are re- minded of the apologue of the man, the lion, and the piece of sculpture. To his arguments for the rising of the masses against the existing order we retort the fable of the Belly and the Mem- bers, and to his hope in the union of international interests we rejoin the practical differences exemplified in the story of the besieged town. There is but one way in which the races of the world can be brought into harmony, one way in which the interests of rich and poor can be reconciled. Mr. Lubin has not found the road to either. The prospect of the first seems no nearer despite the conference at The Hague when we recol- lect the recent instance of a war falling within one or more of its resolutions. The prospect of the second seems as remote as ever when we find the nations of the world looking to distant regions in which to shoot their excessive production, instead of adjusting the scale of production with regard to consumption at home. We are not afraid this remark may be thought a de- nial of the relation of supply and demand ; for, whatever value there may be in the principle under normal conditions, the compulsory acquisition of a market for excessive production is not the observance of an economic law, but the commission of a national crime. The solution of the two problems will not be effected by Mr. Lubin's scheme of a " Church Universal," but in world- wide obedience to the Church of Christ. For this consumma- tion we must wait with hope. * The Flowing Tide* by Mme. Belloc, is an extremely in- teresting book, in which the author gives what she herself calls a record of the " Catholic impact upon English life during the century which is just expiring." If there is any subject of universal interest to the Catholic reading public, it is the story of the revival of the true faith in England. The present book is not a comprehensive account nor a philosophical study of this revival, but rather a small sketch built up around per- sonal recollections. The general effect is rendered very pleas- ing by the reminiscent tone which runs through nearly every chapter, making the style lively and attractive. A glance at the table of contents reveals a list of important and interest- ing subjects, some of which, however, would appeal to the * The Flowing Tide. By Mme. Belloc. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 294

1900.] Talk about New Books. 273 reader as having very little bearing on the English Revival; a careful reading of the entire book, though, will show that while there is some room for objection on this score, the plan is on the whole substantially consistent. It must be confessed that the chapter on the Irish in America is very weak. In general the book contains much valuable information on its subject, imparted in an effective manner, and inspiring its reader to a more thorough study of a question of world-wide importance. The Council of Trent teaches that Holy Mass forgives us our daily faults. " He left to the church a sacrifice by which is represented the sacrifice of the cross ... to apply to us its salutary virtue in remitting the sins which we daily commit." This remission is not limited to the forgiveness of venial sins, for the Council adds : " By the oblation of this {sacrifice] God being appeased, and granting grace and the gift of penance, blots out transgressions and even great crimes, provided that with sincere heart and right faith we approach penitently to God." St. Alphonsus explains this teaching of the Council as to the power given by God to the Holy Sacrifice to remit sins that it is not direct, such as is the remission accorded in the sacrament of Penance, but indi- rect by exciting true contrition in the hearts especially of those who hear Mass with attrition ; and that it involves, of •course, the submission of all sins to the power of the keys. The more frequently, therefore, the faithful hear Mass the -better, and the more methods placed at their disposal in which to hear it, the more is it likely that they will avail themselves of thit privilege. Father Kennedy has given in this little book* a method of hearing Mass which many will find useful. It is full of devotion, based on the idea that Holy Mass is the one survival on earth of what constituted the happiness of our first parents before they fell, and the foretaste of what -constitutes the happiness of heaven — the walking of God with man and of man with God. With this underlying idea the author gives a running commentary on the Ordinary of the Mass. We cannot quite concur with the author when he says (p. 52) that had not our Lord Jesus Christ taught us to say our Father, it would not only be the utmost hardihood but * Holy Mass : A Morning Paradise. By the Very Rev. R. O. Kennedy. Notre Dame, <Ind.: The Ave Maria. VOL. LXXII.— 18 Digitized by Google

Page 295

274 Talk about New Books. [Nov., the wildest lunacy or most audacious presumption so to ad- dress God in heaven. On the contrary, we think that the natural light left man ought to have shown God to him as analogically the father and benefactor of all ; and that at all events the Jews of old, David and the prophets, knew Him as such. " Blessed art Thou, O Lord the God of Israel, our Father from eternity to eternity," David said to all the assem- bly of the children of Israel (I. Par. xxix. 10). "The son honoreth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a Father, where is My honor? and if I be a master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of hosts," are the words of the last of the prophets (Mai. i. 6). The rather queer story of The Gate less Barrier* is written with very decided ability ; and owing to the sharp discrimina- tion of character it has an interest not depending on a plot. So much the better, for there is not even the faintest attempt at one. Old Rivers, a rationalist of a cynical kind, with a ten- dency to the investigation of "phenomena " of the border land between this and the other world, as one would examine ap- pearances in this one with a view to the discovery of a law, is a clever study. We think it possible there are men like this Mr. Rivers who, while refusing to accept anything not verified as a fact of experience, would be prepared to hear all that might be said concerning an alleged preternatural phe- nomenon, and probe it to the bottom regardless of conse- quences to accepted views concerning such subjects. He is a strong character with insatiable intellectual curiosity. This impels him, even at the point of death, to insist that his nephew should investigate the facts connected with a singular apparition said to haunt a disused room and a pleasure-ground on which its windows look. He does not like to die without knowing the truth of the matter. The results reported by the nephew are contemptuously criticised as involving puerilities of transmitted consciousness — or, as he prefers to call it, multifold identity — and a postulate of reincarnation. With an urbanity more exasperating than abuse, he employs his nephew's ser- vices for the task which he regrets may take some time ; since neither himself nor the physicians who amiably expended their limited and somewhat empirical skill upon him could fix the date at which his disease should prove fatal. The work is^very clever and can be honestly recommended. * Tht Gate/ess Barrier. By Lucas Malet. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 296

1900.] Talk about New Books. 275 From the Land of the Shamrock* by Jane Barlow, is a series of sketches of Irish life by one who knows, the land and people. " In the Winding Walk " there is the impress of the sad truth that war is not altogether " the pomp and cir- cumstance " which glorified it in Othello's mind when all was gone that for him had made life worth living. The sketch is very amusing despite the shadow of death. The mother of a soldier at the war dictates to the school-master a letter to her son. She used to be very proud of his height — " a head and shoulders higher than half of the lads," she said ; but this seemed to be a disadvantage at the front. " Bid him to be croochin' down back of somethin' handy, or he might anyway keep stooped behind the others." The school-master did not like this way of looking at the business. " Bedad now, Mrs. Connor, there 'd be no sinse in telling him any such things. For, in the first place, he would n't mind a word of it, and in the next place — goodness may pity you, woman, but sure you would n't be wishful to see him comin' back to you after playin' the poltroon, and be- havin' himself discreditable ? " " Troth and I would," said Mrs. Connor, " if he was twenty poltroons." And she proceeds earnestly to show herself the reverse of a Spartan mother. We suspect there is a shot at " a highly distinguished general," recently in active service, in the allusion to a draught report dictated by that gallant officer "to his discreet secrev tary." " Pilgrims from Lisconnel " is unsurpassable. The whole piece is a sustained exercise of the spirit of drollery not rest- ing for a second. Woods, bog, mountains, roads, donkeys, huts, men and women, and a baby are seen in this aspect, and presented as seen. The incident of an illiterate woman taking to the church "a secular song book" to aid her devotions, is merely in keeping with the spirit of the whole. The expedi- tion — some dozen or so of miles — is like travelling to a far country. The natives at the end of the journey make the acquaintance of a French lace maker. " A Christmas Dole " centres round a touching instance of that fidelity of old servants to the honor of the family by which they were employed so often witnessed in bygone times, and which Scott has vivified in Caleb Balderstone. As in the other sketches, the raciness of description is in evidence ; * From the Land of t/n Shamrock. By Jane Barlow. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 297

276 Talk about New Books. [Nov., the gift is inseparable from anything Miss Barlow turns to, and one could never tire of it. It Would be impossible to do justice to the " Field of Fright- ful Beasts " ; but if there be any truth in the saying that men are children of larger growth, poor Goldsmith's description of children as little men cannot be far wrong. We shall just hint at the origin of the little boy's idea and its consequences. • Little Mac Barry, walking with his nurse, saw cows and a pony looking over a wall as high as a house. He concluded that the field inside the wall was on a level with the road outside. He would not show his dismay, but he took care to refuse going along that road again. In an adventure all by himself — that is by giving his nurse the slip and taking his dog with him — he discovers the exact state of affairs. In his great delight he proposes to his great grandmother that she should accompany him in a walk through the fields. The old lady having ob- jected, he proceeded to overrule her reasons, winding up in this way : " And as for the Frightful Beasts, if that 's what you are thinking of, I really can not imagine who put it into your head that there were any such things." We can promise the reader excellent entertainment; nor are we afraid that the sketches will afford less gratification to the jaded man of the world than to him who has preserved in age much of the freshness of boyhood. The Isle of Unrest* by Henry Seton Merriman, is a tale part of the scene of which is laid in the island of Corsica, so long notorious for its lawlessness, and where vindictiveness has been a cherished cult for generations. The time of the story is immediately before and during the war between France and Germany in 1870. It is not often we come across a more spirited and healthy novel. There is not one bit of prejudice in it from beginning to end. Even the thriftlessness, treachery, and ferocity of the Corsicans are gently dealt with, weighed in a fine balance in which extenuating circumstances are employed with a benevolence entirely removed from fantasy on the one hand or sentimentality on the other. He does but simple justice to the gallantry of the French in the war ; even he can- not do justice to the magnificent devotion with which all classes rose to defend the country when the Empire had fallen — all except the class which prospered by the corruption of the Empire, the very class which now is fattening on fraud and ♦ The Isle of Unrest, By Henry Seton Merriman. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 298

1900.] Talk about New Books. 277 proving its devotion to the principles of progress and enlight- enment it professes by the bitter and irritating persecution of that church with which so great a part of the country's fame is indissolubly united. Is the Bible alone the rule of faith ? Did the Saviour establish a church ? Where is that, church ? These three questions are discussed in the first part of Father Godts' book.* The second part treats of the consequences both of a false rule of faith and of the true rule of faith after answering the question why some do not see the church. This little book is better fitted for busy men and women than for scholars and divines. Father Godts has taken pains to render himself ac- quainted with recent literature. He quotes a really striking testimony from Dr. Briggs as to the true relation between the Church and the Bible : " The New Testament does not give us the entire instruction of Jesus Christ, the sum total of apos- tolic instruction. It does not decide the mode of baptism ; it does not clearly determine whether infants are to be baptized ; it does not definitely confirm the change from the Sabbath to the Lord's day ; it does not clearly fix the mode of church government ; it leaves undetermined a great number of ques- tions upon which Christians are divided. The Bible does not decide all questions of doctrine. The Bible does not decide all questions of morals. It does not decide against slavery or polygamy ; it does not determine a thousand political and social questions that have sprung up in our day." There are some blemishes which we fear will stand in the way of the usefulness of this little work. The author is mani- festly dominated by the love of God and of souls, but yet is at times too anxious to make a point. Were this not the case he would not have ventured to ask, as he does on page 16 : " How many clergymen and writers in England alone were regular pagans or atheists?" So far as clergymen are con- cerned, we doubt whether there were any regular pagans or atheists among them ; certainly there were none known to be such. The answer given by Father Godts in the note enumer- ates, indeed, some well-known holders of Socinian and other heretical tenets, but includes no regular pagans or atheists. Such over-statements tend to weaken the confidence of fairly well informed readers in the impartiality of the author's judg- * The Protestant Rule of Faith and the Roman Catholic Church. By Rev. G. M. Godts, C.SS.R. Brandon, Manitoba : Christie. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 299

278 Talk about New Books. [Nov., ment ; they do not destroy this confidence, for this is not a specimen but one of a few exceptions. Readers will not be carried away by beauties of style; and there are not a few mis- prints. On a single page (p. 15) we find Marion for Marcion and Arian for Arius. Cardinal Deschamps is referred to more than once as Cardinal Deckamps; Mozaic appears for Mosaic. The work, however, cannot fail to be of service to a sincere, single-minded seeker of truth. Although there are some mistakes and exaggerations, it abounds in facts and arguments clearly and sometimes powerfully stated. See, for example, the state- ment of the argument for the necessity of a living authority (p. 24). The author is well acquainted with the workings of the human heart, and shows how the church supplies its wants ; especially for those for whom it is written it is useful, for he brings out clearly the truth that the Church is Christ's Church, established by him for man's salvation. The abundance of the citations from Holy Scripture will prove very helpful. The work will do great good. The bishops of Aberdeen and of Argyll and the Isles have approved of this Form of Prayers?1 prepared by the Marquess of Bute for the use of Catholics gathered together for worship, when circumstances are such as to render it impossible for them to hear Mass. The Bishop of Aberdeen recommends it to the faithful of his diocese. The Form of Prayers is pri- marily meant for the use of a congregation, it being of a strictly liturgical character; but it will adapt itself easily, like the private recitation of the office, to the use of individuals. The service may begin with a hymn ; then follows, after one or two prayers with versicles and responses, the Venite with the invitatory, varying according to the season and office. Another hymn may then be sung, and afterwards, with proper antiphons, the psalms of Lauds as found in the Breviary for feast days ; except that the Te Deum is on some occasions used instead of the Benedicite. Then follows the lesson, taken as a rule from the Missal, and generally from the Gospels. A third hymn may then be sung ; the Form of Prayers does not give these hymns. The responsory, taken from Prime, is then said. Then there follows the Benedictus, except that on certain feasts the Magnificat is substituted for it. The office proceeds then as * A Form of Prayers, following the Church Office, for the use of Catholics unable to hear Mass upon Sundays and holydays. By John, Marquess of Bute, K.T. Second edition. London : Burns & Oates, limited ; New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 300

1900.] Talk aboui New Books. at Prime; a legend abridged from the second nocturn is read instead of the martyrology. According to the season, one of the four antiphons of the Blessed Virgin brings the service to a conclusion, unless it is seen fit to sing a fourth hymn. The invitatories, antiphons, responsories, and prayers proper for all the Sundays of the year, for all the great feasts, and for many saints, are also given. If there were any one to take the lead, this, or a work a little more popular in its character, would be of great use in holding together Catholics at a distance from church. There are many places in this country of this kind, and where many have fallen and are falling away from the faith. What is being done in Great Britain could surely be done here. What is wanted is a leader and organizer. This little work adds another to the many services which its noble author has rendered to the church, particularly to that revival of the ancient liturgy which we believe he has much at heart, and to which his edition of the Breviary so greatly contributed. A new edition of this most valuable work is, we understand, on the point of being published. W. Chatterton Dix has expressed some very devotional thoughts concerning the mystery of Calvary and the groupings about the Cross in verses. They make a booklet* printed in attractive form and bound with good taste. I.— CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, f As the author of Christian Philosophy tells us in his preface, the volume is the fruit of thought and study to present the truth of God's existence with best advantage to the mind of the present day. And since modern thought is by no means a harmonious unity, he has certainly adopted the best plan in presenting the Catholic view side by side with the doctrines familiar to the non-Catholic world. And it will be refreshing to the scholarly mind to see the outline of each writer's vietf accompanied by accurate references to his works. But when we consider the author's desire to present his thoughts in a manner that will appeal to the modern mind, and when we re- member, on the other hand, the present ever-growing tendency to avoid at least the appearance of possessing any precon- * Diys of First Love. By W. Chatterton Dix. London : Barclay & Fry, ltd. t Christian Philosophy : God. Being a contribution to a Philosophy of Theism. By Rev. John T. Driscoll, S.T.L. New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 301

28o Talk about New Books. [Nov., ceived prejudices when entering upon the task of criticism, we certainly regret to see too free a use of such adjectives as erroneous, false, fallacious, etc. Though it may be perfectly true that certain philosophers have erred in their conceptions of a principle that underlies an argument for God's existence, still, when one wishes to appeal to the modern mind in the strongest way possible, he would do well to refrain from sub- joining a list of Errors to his own statement of that principle. It is indeed necessary to scientific treatment of any question to state the various opinions as to its solution and to criticise each ; but it is more in accordance with the modern spirit to refrain from styling those opinions errors which we criticise unfavorably. But even in this point our author is superior to a great number of writers who seem to take pleasure in call- ing every opinion they reject an absurd and unreasonable hypothesis. A little more attention to this point of method would, we think, decidedly improve his presentation of the questions discussed. About one-half the book is given up to the establishment of man's right to retain the idea of God, which idea, though neither innate nor intuitive, is so easily formed that we may consider it a fact of human consciousness. This method is, in our opinion, superior to one of systematic doubt concerning the existence of God. Having established the right to retain our idea of God as representative of an objective reality, the author takes up the question of creation, and thenc'e passes on to discuss the nature of the creator. After having discussed some of the more prominent attributes of God's being, he comes to the consideration of God's activity — his Providence. This is a weak chapter in the book, and should have been in some way amalgamated with the chapter on Evil, which follows those on Prayer and Pessimism. The book concludes with a discussion of the Natural and Supernatural, which gains both in interest and scientific value by the author's usual method of stating and criticising the modern views upon the question. One cannot help comparing Father Driscoll's work on God (which we hope will be followed by others in the series he entitles Christian Philosophy) with the work of the learned Jesuit, Father Boedder, on Natural Theology, in the Stonyhurst series of Catholic Philosophy. And we do not think that Father Driscoll's work will suffer by the comparison. From the scholarly point of view, the new book has a sufficient raison ditre in its great superiority to the old. And if the ordinary Digitized by Google

Page 302

1900.] Talk about New Books. 281 reader be not frightened away by the number of references and foot-notes, we feel quite certain that he will peruse the book not only with profit but also with much interest. As an aid to the seminarian's study of Natural Theology we know of no book, either in Latin or English, that can fill its place. Let us hope that Father Driscoll will give us many more such works. And if he will take a little notice in his future works of the point of method referred to above, he may give to the world a series of English works on Catholic philosophy which — considering aim and purpose — will be well-nigh perfect both as to the matter and method of presentation, and easily superior to anything that has yet appeared. 2. — SACERDOTALISM.* The great, perhaps the greatest, obstacle to the conversion of Protestants is the absolute independence of mind and character which springs from the fundamental principle of private judgment in matters of religion. This principle was not worked out, its consequences were not foreseen, by the Reformers. What it involves is clearer now, and the general break-up of religious opinions of which we are witnesses is the result of this fuller realization. " Every Englishman is his own Pope" is declared by Cardinal Vaughan to be the inmost con- viction of far the greater number of the dwellers in the British Isles. Americanism is defined by a writer in a recent number of the Dutch Reformed Review as the right of every individual to work out his own career, social, political, and religious, ac- cording to his own ideas, without let or restraint of any kind. Mr. Radciiffe Cooke recently in the Times gives expression to this generally received and allpervading spirit of Protestantism when he says: "Our preference of the Protestant over the Romanist system springs from our love of liberty, our con- viction that no human being can possess or exercise any spiritual power to the advantage or disadvantage of any other human being, and our consequent rejection of pretensions founded on a belief in such power." Sincerely religious Prot- estants find their greatest difficulty in the alleged interposition between the soul and God of human mediators involved, as they have been taught, in sacerdotalism. The subject, therefore, of sacerdotalism is one of the highest importance ; in fact it is, in our opinion, the crucial question, * Sacerdotalism in the Old and New Testaments. By the Rev. J. D. Breen, O.S.B. London : R. & T. Washbourne ; New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 303

282 Talk about New Books. [Nov. the parting of the ways. Has God ever established an order of men who are to act for men in religious matters — to be His ministers in imparting grace? This subject Father Breen dis- cusses, and although his pamphlet is short, it deserves to be read and re-read. We have never seen the sacerdotal character of the Christian ministry so clearly proved from our Lord's words in the institution of the Holy Eucharist as it is here. The distinction, too, between the priesthood of Christ according to the order of Aaron and the priesthood of Christ according to the order of Melchisedech, between His bloody and His un- bloody sacrifice, is shown to afford the full and perfect solution to the Protestant objections based on the passages found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author is both a Hebrew and a Greek scholar, and this pamphlet derives its special value largely from this fact. It enables him to point out, in addition to what is mentioned before, that a function of the Jewish priesthood was the receiving confession of sin as a part of the divine law given to Moses : the Douay version obscures this, by translating Lev. v. 5 by " do penance " ; the more correct version being "confess." This pamphlet deserves care- ful study. NEW BOOKS. The French Academy, 853 Broadway, New York: Mflie, By Jules Le Maitre. Translated by Francis Berger. 12 cts. J. B. Herboldshimer, Gibson City, III.: The Enslavement and Emancipation of the People. 75 cts. Government Printing Press. Washington, D. C: Bulletin of American Republics. The Digestibility and Nutritive Value of Bread. Henry T. Coates, Philadelphia : Lyrics. By J. Houston Mifflin. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia: The Confessions of St. Augustine; in ten books. M. H. Wiltzius, Milwaukee: The Three Ages of Progress, By Rev. Julius E. Devos. Preface by Bishop Spalding. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston : Theodore Parker. By John White Chadwick. Macmillan Company, New York: The Soft Side. By Henry James. The Golden Legend. Vol. vi. 50 cts. The Temple Classics. Marlier, Callanan & Co., Boston : Cithara Mea. By Rev. P. A. Sheahan. $1.25. Fr. Pustet & Co., New York: 7 he Holy Rosary. 5 cts.: $2. 50 per 100. Longmans. Green & Co.. New York : The Things beyond the Tomb. By Rev. T. H. Passmore, M.A. Doubleday. Page & Co., New York : A Princess of A ready. By Arthur Henry. Digitized by Google

Page 304

There should be found some way to compel the arbitration of industrial difficulties. We com- mend to the closest attention of our readers the leading article in this issue, "A Country without Strikes." It discusses the ethics of arbitration and effectively answers the favorite contention against arbitration — of the necessity of preserving the freedom of contract. In the matter of the great anthracite coal strike, it is no longer a question between the operators and the miners. It involves the comfort and con- venience of the millions of people who live along the Atlantic seaboard. The strike will do not a little to convince the pub- lic that in a great industrial battle, as this is, the public are the chief sufferers, and the public will devise ways and means whereby these battles will be brought to a speedy close. The proposition of establishing a Labor Department in the national government, which will be represented by one who will have a voice in the President's Cabinet, is growing in favor. The argument is well put, that if the Indians have their representative in the Interior, and the farmers in the Agriculture, why not the industrial classes, representing the wage earners of all classes? There is no better way of meet- ing the industrial difficulties than by giving them the fullest discussion. While not a little must be done to secure unto labor its just rights, there is also a great work to be accomplished by squarely presenting to labor its duties and responsibilities, and insisting on the performance of the same. The American government in the interests of her mission in the Far East is obliged to resist the partition of China, and by her moral influence to offset the efforts of other nations to dismember the Empire. The United States can contribute far more than any other nation in the advancement of the Chris- tian missions in China, because the Chinese believe that we are actuated by no desire of dominion, while they fear the aggressions of all other nationalities. Digitized by Google

Page 305

284 The Columbian Reading Union. [Nov., THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. READING CIRCLE DAY at Cliff Haven, N. Y., gave an opportunity to all in attendance at the Champlain Summer-School to learn something of the work for self-improvement which the Catholic Reading Circles have accom- plished. Mr, Warren E. Mosher, editor of Mosher s Magazine, especially de- voted to this movement, presented a list of the circles now organized, and regretted that many had failed to make any report. Some of the small circles recently formed may be somewhat timid, but it is to be hoped that this sort of timidity will not be regarded as a virtue worthy of imitation. For the general study of the movement for post-graduate work on different lines of study, it is necessary to get the facts concerning all the circles. It is well known that some have exceptional advantages in their environment and in having gifted leaders, but those less favored should be encouraged in every possible way. This is the chief reason why the Champlain Summer-School has endeavored year after year to bring together on Lake Champlain all representatives of Catholic Reading Circles. One of the very best reports is here given, showing the remarkable progress during the past year of the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle in Boston, under the expert guidance of Miss Katherine E. Conway. The report was read by the secretary, Miss Sabina G. Sweeney, and was as follows : We closed last June the eleventh year in the history of the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle of Boston. With not a misgiving, and unswerving ia our purpose " For the Church of God," we began the work of the year. The first important step was the biennial election, resulting in one change in the board of officers, due to the retirement of our faithful secretary, Miss Ellen A. McMahon, who declined renomination. Later our valued treasurer, Miss Mary J. White, found it necessary to send in her resignation. The Circle congratu- lates itself, however, on retaining both these efficient workers on its administra- tive board; and both have constant and unmistakable assurance of the grateful remembrance of their associates. The preceding year found our studies of Con- troverted Points in Church History unfinished, and it was thought best to com- plete this course before entering upon a new course of study. Resuming this work, we reviewed the dark days of the French Revolution, and saw how Catho- lic interests were preserved ; we noted again the struggle of Napoleon and the Church; reviewed the Pontificate of Gregory XVI.; and reflected with keener insight and fuller understanding on the great events of the Pontificate of Fius IX. This period closed the course on Church History, one that proved of ines- timable value to the members of the Circle, and an excellent preparation for the work that followed later in the year. After a careful study of The Bible in the English Tongue we were ready, at the opening of the New Year, for our studies on The Saints, Heroes, and Poets of the Sacred Scriptures. It is our privilege to number among the friends of the Circle many zealous priests of the church that, through the centuries, has guarded and protected the Scriptures. Fortunate were we at this point in the year's work to be able to turn to these authorized teachers for help and guidance. As preliminary to the new course, the Rev. Joseph V. Tracy, pro- fessor of Sacred Scripture at St. John's Seminary, came to us, giving valuable suggestion and advice, and extending kindest encouragement. In connection Digitized by Google

Page 306

1900.] The Columbian Reading Union. 285 with the study of Genesis the Rev. William P. McQuaid addressed the Circle, dwelling especially on the tenth chapter, " that most authentic, ancient, and complete account of the dispersion of men and the foundation of nationalities." Our Very Rev. Vicar-General, Dr. Byrne, guided us through that grandest thing ever written by pen, the Book of Job, and we profited by the wisdom of Job in his solution of the never-ending problem — man's destiny, and1 God's way with him here on this earth. There came still later the Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., to share with us the fruit of deep research and study in his treatment of The Mosaic Record as Confirmed by Scientists and Explorers. To lead us safely over that storm-centre of criticism and doubt, the miracle in the Book of Josue, came still another friend, the Rev. Patrick J. Supple, D.D. The Circle's appre- ciation of the great kindness of these good friends finds constant expression, and on this occasion most gladly makes public acknowledgment of its deep sense of gratitude. In addition to our devotion to the study of the Bible as the inspired word of God — never weak while there are men capable of defending it — we have enjoyed the Bible as the most fruitful source in the enrichment of literature, music, and other arts, and even of what are now the commonplaces of speech. The mid-month meetings throughout the year have, in the main, been de- voted to a consideration of current fiction. Many of the recent successes in the field of historical novels have been informally discussed, and an appreciation gained of what these romances are doing in brightening the severe and hard lines of days ofttimes dark and troublous, especially in the history of our own country. Novels more distinctly religious have been given a share of considera- tion, and frequently special books of fiction have been recommended by the president. A very successful lecture course opened in December. Through the cour- tesy of the Rev. W. G. Read Mullen, S.J., the first lecture was given in Boston College Hall, the Most Rev. John J. Keane, D.D., Archbishop of Dubuque, giv- ing as a compliment to the Circle his lecture, The Soul of Art. The Circle took this occasion to make an offering of one hundred dollars to the fund of the Catholic University of America. In Africa near the Boer Country was the subject of the second lecture, given by Mr. Paul du Chaillu. The Rev. Thomas P. McLaughlin, of New York, closed the course, giving great delight by his beautiful rendering of many of the Songs of Ireland. Not the least of the many pleasures of the year were visits from our Summer-School friend, the Rev. John Talbot Smith, LL.D., and later from our beloved honorary member, the Rev. James A. Doonan, S.J. The year has witnessed a most agreeable exchange of courtesies and friendly interest between the Catholic Union of Boston and the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle. In February a reception was tendered the Circle by the Union, and a most enjoyable evening resulted. In April the Circle returned the compliment, and took the occasion to present to the Union a hall clock, as a mark of its appreciation for long and helpful interest in the work and aims of the Circle. A literary and musical programme was given, representing almost entirely the work and talent of the Circle. In recording these proofs of fellowship and good will the Circle takes pleasure in expressing its gratitude to the Union and pledging assurance of devoted friendship. We are pleased also to record further proof, in the form of a most generous offering, of the constant loyalty of our good friend, Mr. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick.' Digitized by Google

Page 307

236 7 be Columbian Reading Union. [Nov., While our duties in performing the regular work of the Circle have in great measure claimed our attention, we have been ever mindful of our summer home by the lake at Cliff Haven. We cannot mention this home without expressing deep gratitude to Miss Ellen Wills, whose untiring efforts made of it so great a success during the summer of '99, and whose services were freely and generously given. We have reduced the debt on the cottage during the year, but are not yet where we may pronounce this work complete. Through the kindness of the Hon. Thomas J. Gargan and Mr. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick we have additional time, which in this case pre-eminently is money. We look forward to a speedy cancelling of the debt, and bespeak the hearty co-operation of the members of the Circle in carrying to ultimate success its future plans. There has been an increase of membership during the year, thirty-one names having been added to the roll. We close with an active membership of 135. It is our sad duty to record the recent death of one of our oldest and most valued members, Miss Mary E. Nason. The close of the season found the members of the Circle interested in the visit of the Cuban teachers to the Harvard Summer-School. Valuable suggestion has been offered by Professor de Moreira, of Boston College, and of the Harvard Summer-School, in connection with this matter. The Circle stands ready to co- operate in whatever may add to the pleasure of these strangers, who are so little used to prolonged absence from home. The large attendance at the twenty-two study meetings, the interest and faithful study evidenced in the papers presented, together with the work ac complished, testify to the value and need of such a society as the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle. The good accomplished is an encouragement to the beloved president, Miss Katherine E. Conway, who has planned, directed, and made possible the successes of the year. Standing always true and strong in defence of our guiding principle, she embodies all that is sacred in hospitality, friendship, and good will. Conscious as we are that the best of prophets for the future is the past, we trustfully ask God's blessing on our work, and may he ever be our hope, our stay, our guide. The patrons of the Champlain Summer-School, as well as those in charge of Reading Circles, will be pleased to learn that Miss Marion J. Brunowe, one of the m>st distinguished graduates of Mount St. Vincent's Academy on the Hudson, has prepared a number of literary talks on distinguished women. These Talks are an endeavor to give, after the manner of Sainte-Beuve, in his inimitable Causeries du Lundi, a comprehensive estimate of the writers under discussion, by means of an easy blending of biography, abstract of work, and in- terspersed critical comments. This method was also that of Matthew Arnold at his best, as we are reminded by Professor Saintsbury. The women selected are : Maria Agnesi, 1718-1799 ; Jane Austen, 1775— 18 17 ; Mrs.Oliphant, 1828-1897 ; Kathleen O'Meara, 1839-1888. Second Series: George Eliot, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Siddons, Rose Bonheur. Third Series : Lady Gjorgiani Fullerton, Augusta Theodosia Drane, Vittoria Colonna, Adelaide A. Procter. For terms and further particulars address Miss Marion J. Brunowe, No. 106 Ashburton Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y. After an extended trip to Europe Miss Helena T. Goessmann, M.Ph. — B Hlevue Place, Amherst, Miss. — is now ready to give lectures on the following subjects : *

Page 308

1900.] The Columbian Reading Union. 287 Pleasant Hours in Paris : In the Palace and Galleries of the Louvre ; Notre Dams Cathedral ; Some Shrines of Paris ; A Summer Day at Fontainebleau ; At Versailles with Marie Antoinette ; Among the Tombs of the Kings of France (St. Denis) ; A Month at the Paris Exposition. English Impressions: Some Historic Corners of London ; An Afternoon in the Tower of London ; Walks in Westminster Abbey ; Coaching Trips through the Isle of Wight ; The Regatta at Henley. In the Swiss Country : A Month on Lake Lucerne ; At the Home of Wilhelm Tell (with readings from Schiller's Drama) ; A Visit to the Castle of Chillon. German Life and Scenes : The Home of a Mediaeval Philanthropist; Hans Sachs at Home and Abroad ; Christmas in a German City ; Carnival Days in the Bavarian Capital; A Treasure House at Munich ; The Lady of Hiilshof (Annette von Drost-Hulshof, Poet) ; Johanna Ambrosius — the Peasant Poet; Pleasant Hours in German Homes ; The German Woman and Higher Education , Bits of Life along the Way. * * * The editor of the Saturday Review of Books in the New York Times has shown c >mnendable courage in dealing with a recent book. He argues that in two ways a bjok may tend to effect an ethical disintegration in the reader, S)Ti2 so familiarize htm with vice that, in accord with Pope's well-known lines, he insensibly loses his abhorrence, and is degraded instead of elevated by a story in which the author may have honestly intended to teach a lesson of ri^hteojsness. Others, and these the worst, obliterate the lines between good and evil, ignore the fact that sin is sin, and bridge the chasm between the regions of light and darkness. Such is the nature of Miss Atherton's Senator Nortft, There have been novels more salacious, more possessed with the single motif of enthralling pas- sion ; but the utter moral obliquity of Senator North is something before which the reader stands aghast. . . . Upon the whole, however, Senator Njrth merits strong condemnation. At best, with all the helps we can get, it is so hard to be good, so easy to be bad; we slip from the steep and toilsome ways of rectitude into by and forbidden paths with such fatal facility that to have the literature with which we solace our leisure so blurring our moral vision that right and wron* are iniistinguishably mingled is a calamity not to be lightly tossed aside. What saith the prophet ? " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." William L. Alden in his weekly letter from London to the New York Times ventures the opinion that Miss Corelli's main motive in writing The Master Christian was to burlesque the modern theological novel. Her method is the one so familiar to many humorists — the reductio ad absurdum. She introduces the reader to a large collection of cardinals, archbishops, and other clergy , and shows them to be, without exception, monsters of vice and iniquity. He is given to understand that a Roman Catholic clergyman is the incarnation of wickedness, and that from the Pope to the most obscure parish priest the pur- suit of selfish pleasure is his sole motive in life. Of course, this is intended as a burlesque of the reckless assertions of fanatic Protestants, and that it is ex- tremely funny in its intentional exaggeration every one will admit. Still, it is possible that here and there may be found some one who will accept it all as serious, and imagine that Miss Corelli really means to paint true portraits of the Roman clergy. Miss Corelli ought to remember that even among her own Digitized by Google

Page 309

288 The Columbian Reading Union. [Nov., 1900.] readers there may be one or two who are unable to appreciate humor, and for their benefit she might have added to her book the explanation that it was " writ sarcastic." The writer of fiction should have from reliable critics honest expressions of opinion. In the interest of Christian morality certain phases of life should not be brought forward into broad daylight. The late Very Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, C.S.P., gave at one time a theologian's estimate of fiction in these words : It is absurd to say that novels are intrinsically bad. simply as being works of fiction; or that it is a sin,/*r se, to read them. Though many of them be bad, and many more useless trash, and so unfit or unworthy to be read, this is an accident ; and the same may be said of some books in every other species of literature. It is certainly desirable to hinder the multiplication and use of this as well as of every other kind of noxious and useless reading. The best means of promoting this end is the production of good works of fiction — i.e., those which are at least innoxious, and afford a harmless amusement if not too eagerly devoured ; but, better still, while they recreate the mind and imagina- tion, answer a higher purpose, like that of art in generaNt-poetry, music, paint- ing, sculpture. In its higher forms the literature of fiction rises to the level of a fine art; for surely the romances of Walter Scott have as truly a claim to be placed in this category as the dramas of Shakspere. It is the scope and object of art to embody ideals of the imagination in beautiful forms, which give pleasure by being simply seen. The ulterior end of instruction and moral im- provement may be the principal motive of the artist ; and if so, he takes ad- vantage of the pleasure which allures and captivates the attention of those who are pleased by looking on his work to bring before their minds the true and the good under the aspect of the beautiful. This is the highest and the best end of art, and specifically of that kind of the literary art which depicts imaginary scenes, events, and persons ; panoramas of an ideal world, more or less a representation of the real world. Here, assuredly, is one province of the legitimate domain of fiction. Works of fiction of this kind — which are masterpieces, or which approach in a notable degree the ex- cellence of acknowledged masterpieces — are undoubtedly worthy of admiration and commendation. They give great pleasure of an innocent and even of an elevating kind. Besides, they exert a wide and powerful influence which is most salutary. They are vehicles of conveying the highest truths of religion, philoso- phy, and ethics ; and of instilling, even into those who are but little accessible by formal methods, moral sentiments and principles by which their characters are purified and ennobled, besides refining their tastes, and giving them by an easy and pleasant process a great deal of general knowledge. Examples of this kind of fiction are : / Promessi Sposi, Fabiolm, Callista, Dion and the Sibyls—* work too little known — and Ben Hur. There are many other provinces within the legitimate domain of fiction. It is not necessary to aim always at the highest ulterior end beyond the immediate object of pleasing in a direct manner. But nothing is legitimate which tends to a contrary end by undermining religion and virtue, defiling the imagination, cor- rupting the heart, and insinuating fatal errors or immoral principles. If it is right to hang anarchists, imprison thieves, and banish the demi-monde from decent society, impious and immoral literature ought to be put under the ban. M. c. m.

Page 310

DEALERS DO NOT SELL 15 out goods because" we do not sell to dealers. It is only our policy of selling direct to the sleeper (saving tne middleman's profits) that enables us to offer The Ostermoor Patent Elastic Felt Mattress, under a positive guarantee to refund your money instantly if you do not consider it the equal in cleanliness, durability and comfort of any $50 hair mattress ever made. We allow you to Sleep on it Thirty Nights before deciding. Perhaps you don't need a mattress now. Don't let that keep you from sending for our FREE book " The Test of Time." Each book costs us 25 cents, but we will get rich if we can interest enough people to send for it ; write to-day. a feet 6 inches wide, weight 25 pounds, • • $ 8.35 3 feet wide, weight 30 pounds, . • • 10.00 3 feet 6 inches wide, weight 35 pounds, • • ' 11.70 4 feet wide, weight 40 pounds, • . 13.39 4 feet 6 inches wide, weight 45 pounds, . • if. 00 All 6 feet J inches long. Express prepaid anywhere* send for 44 The Test of Time "—sure. OSTERMOOR & COMPANY, 114 Elizabeth Street. New York. Send for our Iron Bedstead Catalogue. Bound hand and foot to household drudgery, scrub- ^Ba^ bing and rubbing day in and day out, doing your t*v cleaning in the hard old-fashioned way— woman, why \a do you do it? Break, away and use c GOLD DUST Washing Powder This famous cleanser has proven the emancipation of thou- sands of oiher women— why not yours? Let Gold Dust da more of the work ; you do mote of the play. For greatest economy buy our large package. t THE N. K. FAIRBANK COMPANY, f Chicago, St Louis, New York, Boston, Philadelphia . xrfjWfc Digitized by Google

Page 311

m mass duuk. «w* * ov. The " ONEITA (Patented April as, 1893) Klastie Ribbed Union Suits Sbtwli No Buttons Down the Front Made Especially for Women on tht Garment* Send for niamtrated Booklet X are complete undergarments, covering the en- tire body. Per- fectly elastic, fitting like a glove. Convenient to put on, being entered at top and drawn on like trousers. With no other kind of underwear can ladies obtain such perfect fit for dresses, or wear comfortably so small a corset. The Oneita has done away with the annoyance of all buttons, bands, and double thick- nesses of cloth under the corsets. \ *. *. \ \ \ \ ONEITA KNITTING HILLS. Office: No. i Greene St., New York 0 t Safe, Pure, Sure Babbitt's W> € Soap Powder } 1 € © ? The best at the start and the best to-day — guaranteed by ? I 64 years of continuous Babbitt success — tested by the public J I and never found wanting. Injures nothing — does everything I ^ —-greatest satisfaction — absolute certainty — extreme economy. ^ J Made by B. T. Babbitt, New York J ©<v©<v©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©^©<^©<^© MANUAL o:*v PRAYER: bo you like a really good Prayer-Book?

Page 312

The Latest Word on the Temporal Power of the?*' Pope. Rev. Humphrey Moynihan, 1 Jf Yuletide in Mediaeval Times. N. Ryimafr. The Painter of the Virgin. Illustrated.) Mary F. Nixon-Roulet. The Missionary Movement in the Anglican Church. Rev. William L. Sullivan, C.S.P. By Grace of the Governor-Elect. Anne Elizabeth O'Hare. Amalfi, the Beautiful. Illustrated.* The Development, and not the Evolution of Dogma. Thomas L. Healy. 11 Blessed are the Poor." ( Poem. Illustrated.' Denis A. McCarthy. " The Regimentals." Edward F. Garesche. An Australian Bush Priest and hi&Jflission. ( Illustrated J Barry Aylmer. Why are Protestant Missionaries dj^iiked in the Far East? Francis PenmafllT. The Pitman's Rosary. THE OFPIC THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK. * P. O. Box «, Station N. AND BOOK COMPANY, 12 PaterwtUf Raw, LmUm, E. C f"™'n *» ▼«» Prim* Qmui - .^.«.i4tfri»..

Page 313

COOPER'S CLARIFIED JfGELATINE^ FOR Wine Jellies, Blanc Mange, Charlotte Russe. Our PULVERIZED GELATINE It the most convenient for family use, ae It requires much less time to dissolve. "c:urbu" 'iw-fngr^ Modern m PRICES "RIGHT," Machinery "IP-TO-DATE " and Guaranteed. LAUNDRY MACHINERY, For Asylums, Convents, Hospitals, and other Institutions. EX TRACTOR WILSON LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO., Columbia, Pa. Send for Catalogue M. Prices. Full Information, and Estimates on Application. It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those who advertise in The Catholic Wnrld Magazine. II ML ■Mm HOTEL EMPIRE. BROADWAY AND 63d ST., N. Y. CITY. EUROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. . . . ABIOLUTKLV FIREPROOF. . . . The Standard of Excellence at Moderate Cost. Within ten minutes' walk of all the Theatres and great Department stores, and easy of access from all Railroad terminals and Steamship landings. PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE EXCLUSIVE- NESS OF CLIENTELLE, PERFECTION IN CUI- SINK, and KKFICIENT SERVICE WILL FIND " THE EMPIRK " AN IDEAL HOTEL. Send postal for " The Empire Illustrated "and rate card. W. JOHNSON QUINN, Proprietor. When a Housewife SEES THE TRADE- HARK BELOW On Enameled Ware it is Safe to Bny; not till then. NO POISON can lurk in Agate Nickel Steel Ware {send for pam phhtfihowingwlnriybub without this 'mark there is no immunity from danger. A re- ^ cent analysis made of 17 different makes ^j! Bhowed in every instance one of these three poisons as a part of their coating viz.: ARSENIC, LEAD AND ANTIMONY. Each Cooking Utensil (we V make 5000 different kinds) the "L. & G. Agate Nickel Steel Ware" has, besides this Trade-Mark, burnt in the enamel, a label attached with Chemists' certilicate as a guaranty of ABSOLUTE SAFETY PamphM of jMfal interest tn ercm himacwijc% l^HEtJ to ufttf addrtm. g Lalance & Grosjean Mfg. Co., Boston. New York. Chicago. f. ,n«- jjie i\KS used on this publication are manufactured by SIC; Jf 'lit 2*4l!/ XT LX, ai A N CO., New York.

Page 314

Digitized by Google

Page 315

Page 316

THE CATHOLIC WORLD Vol. LXXII. DECEMBER, 1900. No. 429. THE LATEST WORD ON THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. BY REV. HUMPHREY MOYNIHAN, D.D. THE assassination of King Humbert and the events which followed it have once more brought before the eyes of the world the question of the Tem- poral Power of the Pope. Although this was in- evitable, yet accident rather than design caused the Roman Question to leap into prominence dur- ing the terrible days of August. It was the voice of contention, which should have been hushed in the presence of death, that forced the Vatican to reassert its position lest it should be placed in a false light upon an issue of momentous importance to the Church. Catholic journals of Italy, it will be remembered, had been amongst the first to denounce the deed of Gaetano Bresci as a crime against civilization. Catholic leaders, such as Signor Santucci and Don Albertario, had been foremost in branding the murder of Humbert as an outrage upon the supreme authority incarnated in every society. Catholic priests had chanted the Miserere in the funeral procession of the king, and bishops had appeared in cope and mitre at the obsequies in the Pantheon. The Church in Italy shared the sorrow of the nation, and the sympathy of a Catholic people finds expression in its sanctuaries. This spontaneous outburst of condolence was misconstrued as a concession of the Vatican ; the gentle- The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York, 1900. VOL. LXXII.— 19 Digitized by Google

Page 317

290 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, ness due to the grief of the living and the memory of the dead was misinterpreted as a surrender of the Pope. While the " Dies Irae " was echoing through the land, a cry was raised that Leo had weakened and was about to surrender the principle for which he had stood with unflinching fortitude for two-and-twenty years. In other countries, also, there were not wanting those who said that at last the Pope was bearing his captivity with complacency, and that a new era would be- gin with a new reign. The time for silence was past. On August 18 there appeared in the Osservatore Romano a Com- municato which explicitly defined the attitude of the Holy See: Ecclesiastical solemnity was accorded the funeral services of the king as a protest "against the execrable crime" of which he had been a victim, and as a tribute to "the unquestionable tokens of religious feeling " which he had evinced, especially during the months which preceded his tragic death. This Communicato was at once understood ; indeed, there was no possibility of misunderstanding its intent : it signified that there had been no yielding of principle, and that there would be no truce so long as the rights of the Papacy were withheld. Thus, at the dramatic moment when the gaze of the nations was fixed on Rome, did the Pope effectually protest once more against the spoliation of the Holy See, and give notice to the world that the Roman Question was not to be buried away in the grave of King Humbert. THE CHURCH MUST BE FREE. And, in fact, the Roman Question will not be a dead issue until the Temporal Power is restored to the Papacy, for the simple reason that the Pope cannot sacrifice his freedom in the exercise of his spiritual jurisdiction. The Church is essen- tially a sovereign and complete society, possessing its own organization and laws, and having to do with the moral and spiritual interests of mankind. At its head is one who is the Universal Teacher of Christendom. The spiritual ruler of many nations cannot be the vassal or dependent of a government; the man who guides the destinies of a mighty spiritual empire, standing for justice and righteousness amongst the nations and rulers of nations, must be independent of political control. Independence is the very breath of life of a moral power. "Let the very enemies of the Temporal Power of the Apos- tolic See," wrote Pius IX., " say with what confidence and respect they would receive the exhortations, advice, orders, Digitized by Google

Page 318

1900.] The Temporal Power of the Pope. 291 and decrees of the Sovereign Pontiff if they beheld him sub- ject to the will of a prince or government." The Pope must be above suspicion. His authority must not be neutralized by mistrust as to his motives or uncertainty as to his freedom of action. If Leo XIII. were but the first subject of the new King of Italy, he would ere long be regarded as the instru- ment of a government, and his decrees would be scanned for evidences of Quirinal diplomacy. Other nations would not turn to him with that unquestioning confidence which is due to the Father of the Faithful. Sooner or later the Roman Pontiff would be no better than the Archbishop of Canterbury, who exercises spiritual jurisdiction only under the shadow of a sceptre, and the Church Catholic would shrink to the limits and the servitude of a national institution. The Popes have always understood that they were not as other kings. When, for example, seven hundred years ago Nicholas III. published a constitution in which a foreign prince or potentate was for- bidden to rule in Rome, it was on the ground that the Pon- tiff should be free in his administration of the Church. When, in more recent times, by the orders of Napoleon I., the Papal colors were hauled down in Rome, Pius VII. at once launched against the French Emperor a decree of excommunication, while other princes were silently acquiescing in the sentence by which the master of the world deprived them of their in- heritance. PROTESTANT TESTIMONIES. In the Roman Pontiff sovereignty and independence are inseparable. This is freely acknowledged even by eminent Protestant historians, who admit that, on the one hand, secu- lar governments have an inborn tendency to control the Church, and that, on the other hand, the saddest pages of the annals of the Church were written when the Papacy was under the influence of a dynasty. Gregorovius, rising from his study of the mind of the Church, testifies : " The Metropolis of Christendom, representing a universal principle, should have liberty, and the Supreme Pontiff who has his seat there should not be the subject of any king." Ranke, with the history of the Church before him, re-echoes words spoken at the Council of Basle : " I was once of opinion that it would be good to separate the spiritual wholly from the temporal power; but I have learned that the Pope without the patrimony of Peter would be nothing more than the slave of kings or princes." Digitized by Google

Page 319

292 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, And the verdict of history is ratified by the practical wisdom of statesmanship. The men who shaped the destinies of our Republic disfranchised and set apart as the seat of government a "District," in order that the rulers and legislators of the country might be free from the control or dictation of any particular state ; similarly, the prudence and piety of the past reserved as the centre of the Catholic religion a neutral spot where, above the bias of all surroundings and independent of all secular influence, the Papacy might rule the universal com- monwealth of Christendom. Hence the unceasing protest made by the present Pontiff against the spoliation of the Holy See. It is by virtue of that protest that Leo XIII. is independent. Silence, as recent events abundantly prove, would be equiva- lent to submission ; it would be regarded as a surrender of a sacred principle which is in the keeping of the Pope, but not at his disposal. It is only as a prisoner of the Vatican that Leo retains the independence essential to his high office ; to be independent now a Pope must be either a sovereign or a captive. THE LAW OF GUARANTEES INSUFFICIENT. It has been said, indeed, that the dignity and independence of the Pope are sufficiently provided for by the Law of Guar- antees, which secures the personal inviolability of the Pontiff and assigns him a yearly pension out of the revenues of Italy; but surely no appeal to experience is required to show that rights which are sacred on paper may in practice be easily trodden under foot, and that liberty which rests upon an act of parlia- ment is in reality no liberty at all. A Law of Guarantees is only a domestic ordinance which can be modified or abolished by the assembly that enacts it — a mere statute of a parliament that can undo to-morrow what it does to-day. Upon this plain fact Leo XIII. has insisted more than once: "The condition that is affirmed to have been guaranteed Us is not that which is due to Us, nor that which We require; it is not an effective but an apparent and ephemeral independence, because subject to the discretion of others. This manner of independence may be withdrawn by him who bestowed it ; those who yesterday sanctioned it may annul it to-morrow. And have we not in these recent days seen the abrogation of what are called the Pontifical Guarantees demanded in one quarter and fore- shadowed by way of menace in another?" Too well does the Holy See know the value of Laws of Guarantees, for Rome Digitized by Google

Page 320

1900.] The Temporal Power of the Pope. 293 was wrested from the Popes in defiance of the most solemn treaties. The Sardinian Code of 1865 treated as a crime every act of hostility to the Pope as a Prince of Italy; the Statute of March 4, 1848, reprobated in its first article every act detri- mental to the Church; the Convention of September 14, 1864, signed between Italy and France, pledged the honor of Italy not only to respect but to enforce respect for the Pontifical frontier and the dominions of the Papacy. A proclamation of Victor Emmanuel on December 15, 1866, declared that " The government of Italy will respect the Pontifical territory accord- ing to the Convention of September 14, 1864." And yet, the men who framed these conventions and statutes and proclama- tions did, without provocation or excuse, or even the formality of declaring war, take the city of the Popes by force of arms, and, with impudence equalled only by ignorance of the lessons of history, proclaim it Roma Intangibile — "A conquest not to be touched." THE LAW HAS BEEN DISREGARDED. The Law of Guarantees is nothing more than a sop thrown to the conscience of Christendom ; if further proof of this be needed, it may be found in that utter contempt for the spirit of the Guarantees which the government has steadily manifested. A penal code has been enacted which the English press charac- terized as a " challenge to the Italian clergy to choose between God and Caesar." In the very heart of Rome a statue has been reared to an apostate monk by a ribald and riotous minority, and pilgrims from the uttermost bounds of the earth daily pause in mingled wonder and horror before this monu- ment of needless contumely to the Vicar of Christ. Funds be- queathed by the piety of generations to the Church, and by her administered in that marvellous system of charity which is one of the glories of Italy, have been withdrawn from eccle- siastical control, and this at the bidding of a man who had preached an open propaganda of infidelity against Christianity in the towns and villages of Italy. A funeral procession which in the stillness of the night was escorting to their last resting place the remains of the venerable predecessor of Leo was set upon by gangs of ruffians who, taking advantage of the reign of license and violence tolerated in Rome, fought to throw the dead body of the Pontiff into the Tiber. And how far the Italian government goes in its persecution of the Pope may be inferred from the fact that a mayor of Rome has Digitized by Google

Page 321

294 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, been dismissed by the ministry for a simple expression of good will towards the Sovereign Pontiff, and that the Holy See, which possesses more moral force than all the rulers of Europe combined, has been exqluded by the machinations of the Quirinal from .the greatest peace congress of the age. These are but the most flagrant instances of the ceaseless warfare waged against the Pope by those who point to the Law of Guarantees as a security of the Pontiff's independence. Truly the modern Magna Charta of the Papacy guarantees nothing. Even if Leo were willing to barter the Patrimony of Peter for Italian lire he would not be safe against the infringement of his most elementary rights. The very existence of the Law of Guarantees is a presumption that the Pope is a subject. The Pope, if any man, must be his own master, and his own master he cannot be if he becomes the pensioner of a secular govern- ment, with rights safeguarded only by an act of parliament. SPOLIATION A VIOLATION OF INHERENT RIGHTS. The unique position which the Pope holds in the world proclaims the spoliation of the Holy See to be a violation of the rights of the Vicar of Christ; a glance at the past shows that spoliation to be a crime against history. Few dynasties there are that have not begun in violence or perfidy ; the Papacy, the most majestic as well as the most ancient of all dynasties, is founded not on fraud or force, but on the homage of a grateful people. " The Temporal Dominion of the Popes," writes Gibbon, " is now confirmed by the reverence of one thousand years, and their noblest title is the choice of a people whom they had redeemed from slavery." None, save perhaps those who are profoundly ignorant of history or careless of the arguments that would buttress usurpation, now deny that for eleven hundred years and more the Popes ruled Rome through the choice of the people they had saved. The days when the Papacy acquired its title-deeds to Rome were the stormiest that Italy and the world have ever seen. Europe rocked beneath the tramp of hordes of barbarians ; the fairest provinces of civilization were given over to havoc and pillage; those who cowered in walled cities looked out on flaming homes and vineyards, and listened to the cries of their country- men as they were put to the sword or swept away as slaves. It was a time when, as Dean Church says, it seemed as if the whole world and human society were hopelessly wrecked with- out prospect or hope of escape. It was then, when animalism Digitized by Google

Page 322

1900.] The Temporal Power of the Pope. 295 and brute force were let loose upon the Garden of Europe, that Italy, left to the mercy of every invader, looked to the Popes of Rome for safety, and the Popes saved Italy, and with it the cause of civilization. Then, and in days to come, the Papacy was the one stable institution which by virtue of the dominating power of religion could exercise a controlling in- fluence over the warring elements of the age, and establish a new order of things upon the ruins of the old. Hence it is that the work of Pepin and Charlemagne — as Dr. Creighton and other Protestant historians acknowledge — did but give definite- ness to the Temporal Power which the course of events had in previous centuries gradually forced upon the Papacy. The wisdom, the devotion, the administrative genius of the Roman Pontiff, and the services which he rendered to mankind — these were the causes which, under Providence working through history, led the Pope to be regarded as the head in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs. And the work which the Papacy did in the darkest ages that Europe has known, it continued to do whenever the cause of civilization was at stake. For many centuries the Papacy was the heart and brain of Europe, and it was from St. Peter's there went forth the call to arms whenever Europe was to be saved from barbarism. "The Pope," wrote Herder, 44 might give his blessing to all emperors, kings, princes, and lords of Christendom, and say, 4 Without me you would not be what you are.' The Popes have saved antiquity, and Rome is worthy of remaining a sanctuary in which to shelter the treasures of the past." POPE HAS MADE ROME. If the Papacy saved Italy, it also made Rome what it is. Were it not for the Roman Pontiffs, Rome would have shared the fate of Memphis and Babylon : it would be a nameless and shapeless heap of ruins in a wilderness swept by pesti- lence. 44 It is not necessary," writes Leo XIII., 44 to recall the immense benefit and the glory with which the Popes have covered the city of their choice — a glory and benefaction which are written in indestructible letters upon the monuments and the history of all the ages. Rome belongs to the Popes by titles such and so many that no prince, whoever he be, can show the like for any city in his kingdom." The story of civilization is the story of Rome, and the story of Rome is the story of the Popes. And yet, although Rome is not Rome without the Pope, the Pope resides there only on the suffer- Digitized by Google

Page 323

296 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, ance of a government that is the transitory product of a revo- lution. While Rome belongs to the Pope by every title of justice and gratitude, it has fallen into the hands of its present occu- pants by an act of treachery that is a blot on the history of Italy and a scandal to the world. The deed of the 20th of September, 1870, was a violation not only of the rights of nations, but also of a Convention to the observance of which the honor of Italy had been pledged. That deed, unjust and dishonorable in its inception, has never been legiti- mized. True, in the reign of terror which followed the storm- ing of Rome, almost before the roar of the cannon had died away, a plebiscitum of the people of Rome was held in order to justify usurpation ; but the fact that only forty votes were cast for the Pope, while forty thousand were cast for the in- vaders, is sufficient proof, if any proof were needed, that the popular vote of the Romans was a shameless farce. Only a few months afterwards an address of loyalty presented to Pius IX. by a society of the city bore the signatures of over twenty-seven thousand Roman citizens. On the first anniver- sary of the so-called plebiscitum an address was again pre- sented to the Holy Father by the young men of Rome, who declared: "Our hearts burned with indignation when we wit- nessed the impudence of your enemies, who dared to lie on parchment and marble, representing as a vote of the Roman people that ridiculous plebiscite which was nothing but the vote of a horde of immigrants, strangers, public criminals, and the few cowards who allowed themselves to be drawn by threats and promises." It will hardly be believed that the triumph of political iniquity thus stigmatized stands to the present day solemnly recorded on marble, and thrust amongst the ancient monuments of the Eternal City, so that all who pass from shrine to shrine may read the self-stultifying words extorted by a lingering regard for the decencies of political morality. This inscription is the only title-deed of the Pied- montese to Rome, and as such it is a petrified falsehood, re- minding all who see it of that shaft of infamy in London which " Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies." The real plebiscitum is that of the millions throughout Italy and through all Christendom who for thirty years have persistently con- demned the spoilers of the Holy See. That plebiscitum will one day restore Rome to its lawful owner. Digitized by Google

Page 324

1900.] The Temporal Power of the Pope. 297 temporal power an international question. That plebiscitum also reminds us that the question of the Temporal Power is an international question, for it deals with the rights, not of an Italian subject but of the Vicegerent of Christ; it concerns the lot not of a prince of the peninsula but of a sovereign who counts millions of subjects in every part of the world. Wherever there is a Catholic there is the Roman Question, for no Catholic can be indifferent to the freedom and dignity of the Head of the Church. 44 If I were a Catholic/' said Bismarck on a memorable occasion in the German Imperial Parliament, 44 1 do not suppose that I should regard the Papacy as a foreign institution, and from my stand- point, which I must retain as a representative of the govern- ment, I concede that the Papacy is not simply a foreign but a universal institution, and because it is a universal institution it is a German institution and for German Catholics." In these words of the shrewdest statesman of the century is con- tained the reason of the interest which peoples and govern- ments manifest in the Roman Question. The Papacy is not a merely national institution ; it is at home wherever Catholics are found. It is of vital importance to Catholics that the Pope should retain his international position, and it is to the advantage of governments that one in whom there resides so vast moral and social influence should be unshackled in the exercise of his universal and beneficent pastorate. There is not a statesman in Europe who does not wish to see the Roman Question solved, not only because of the religious im- portance which it possesses for Catholic subjects in all lands, and because of the world-wide power for good which is vested in the Sovereign Pontiff, but also because every government would fain see removed from the domain of international poli- tics a question which is a source of febrile restlessness among Catholic peoples and of danger among many nations. IT IS OF SUPREME INTEREST FOR ITALY. But while the question of the Temporal Power has interest for all the world, it has supreme interest for Italy. Italian statesmen now know that the Pope will never accept the Law of Guarantees, and that a pittance from the Quirinal treasury will not atone for an outrage upon the most sacred rights of the Papacy. The government beholds itself beset on every side by difficulties which it had not foreseen, and of which it Digitized by Google

Page 325

298 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, can see no end. In Rome itself there is the anomaly of a dual sovereignty, and in Rome less than in any other city in Europe is there room for two royal courts. The Pope cannot be a sovereign by courtesy only, even if he were willing to be a mock king in the city where Popes have reigned for more than a thousand years. But more serious than this anomaly is the deplorable condition of the country at large by reason of the abstention of the vast body of Italians from the urns. The masses of the Italian people are Catholic to the core ; they love their Pope not less than their country ; and they stand aloof from national politics as a moral and political protest against an order of things which they cannot remedy by legal means and which they will not perpetuate. The henchmen of the party in power and some thousands of Republicans and Socialists are, practically, the only people who go to the polls ; the bulk of the population of the country remains extraneous to the institutions of the nation. Italy presents the strange spectacle of a land where there are elections without electors, for the nominees of the government are chosen by a miserable minority of those who are entitled to vote. The consequences are disastrous to the people and the rulers. The millions who make up the bone and sinew of the nation are not represented in parliament, and by the abstention of those who could use the right of suffrage with discernment the government is de- prived of the conservative forces of religion and morality, with which no government can afford to dispense. The real Italy — the best blood of the country — will have nothing to do with the domination of the Piedmontese, and is forced to witness the slow demoralization of national life; while the House of Savoy, placed in a position hostile to the politico-religious convictions of the mass of its subjects, finds itself alienated from its natural and most powerful allies and weakened for the conflict with the forces to which Humbert has fallen a victim. The normal condition of the country is a state of crisis. It is not strange, therefore, that on every side, not only among those who have at heart the interests of the Holy See, but also among those who were loudest in pro- claiming Rome " a conquest not to be touched," there has grown up a conviction that the present agony of the nation cannot last indefinitely and that peace with the Papacy is the supreme need of the hour. They who deemed the Roman Question ended, when in reality it had only begun, now see that even from the point of view of expediency it was a disas. Digitized by Google

Page 326

1900.] The Temporal Power of the Pope. 299 trous blunder to transform the Capital of Christendom into the chief town of a struggling kingdom. They also realize that Italy will never be happy until the present baneful and un- natural conflict is over, and the elements of order and stability be once more enlisted in the political welfare of the nation. THE ROMAN QUESTION IS A LIVING ISSUE. In the meantime the Roman Question is a living question. Indeed, it is more acute to-day than it has been at any time during the past thirty years. The question of justice stands where it stood on the morning when Cadorna's guns were bat- tering the walls of Rome, and further, a clearer perception of the issues involved has been gained. Men now understand the full significance and the grandeur of Leo's protest. They understand that the world has changed since the days of the Apostles, and that the needs and consequently the rights of the Church, become a world-wide polity, must not be gauged by the needs and the rights of the Church of the Catacombs. When the Church, as its Divine Founder had ordained, en- circled in its vast embrace the peoples of the earth, there arose the supreme necessity of safeguarding through all the compli-. cations of international strife and the shifting conditions of men and things — through all the vicissitudes of time — the inde- pendence of the Papacy upon which the well-being of the Church depends. In the past, a civil principality has been the means by which this independence has been realized ; in the future, Temporal Power will also be the normal actuation of the freedom essential to the Holy See. All this is clearly understood, and this is the work of Leo XIII. If the senti- ment of Christendom is to-day more solidly arrayed than ever against the usurpation of the Piedmontese, if there is abroad a stronger conviction than before that Temporal Power is not an extraneous adjunct of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope, it is because Leo XIII. kept before the eyes of the world the rights of the Holy See until he made all enlightened men champions of the inalienable union of the Papacy and the Eternal City. Already, the still, solemn, persistent condemna- tion which the awakened conscience of Christendom has passed upon the deed of the 20th of September has amply ratified Leo's crusade for the rights of the Papacy, and the whole world feels that justice must be done the Vicar of Christ. The Prisoner of the Vatican may not see the fruits of his work — it is the undisputed privilege of a Roman Pontiff to be a martyr Digitized by Google

Page 327

300 The Temporal Power of the Pope. [Dec, to principle — but he looks into the future with confidence, knowing that Rome will be restored to Christendom. The spoliation of the Holy See is only an incident in the history of the Papacy. Nine times have men taken Rome from the Popes, and nine times have they given it back. Once more will the Patrimony of Peter be given back — not, perhaps, so extensive as it was in days gone by, for it is only indepen- dence that is sought, not territorial aggrandizement — but cer- tain it is that immemorial right and the eternal patience of Rome will triumph over the iniquities of " accomplished facts," and Leo's dream will be fulfilled : " Rome will again become what Providence and the course of ages made it, not dwarfed to the condition of a Capital of one Kingdom, nor divided be- tween two different and sovereign powers in a dualism con- trary to its whole history, but the worthy capital of the Catho- lic world, great with all the majesty of Religion and of the Supreme Priesthood, a teacher and an example to the nations of morality and civilization." The St. Paul Seminary. Digitized by Google

Page 328

1900.] Yule tide in Medieval Times. 301 YULETIDE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES. BY N. RYLMAN. HRISTM AS may still be termed the greatest Church Festival of the year, but I think that it was kept more beautifully and solemnly in pre- Reformation times; because Christendom was en- tirely Catholic, and the Catholic world brought faith, love, and charity to the feet of The Child and His Mother, even as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthassar brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Those who have seen the beautiful picture called " The Star of Bethlehem " will remember the majestic angel with the great gold star, which has led the Magi to the Manger ! Well, the Church in the same way led Europe to the Crib, and unbelief was, comparatively speaking, unknown. In the midst of that green Shakspere-land, in the heart of that England which dwellers in the New World call Old, is an ancient city which in the Middle Ages was a centre of Catho- lic life, was distinguished for its zeal in religion. Through its quaint, brown streets rode Henry of Windsor and Margaret of Anjou to hear Mass in the magnificent church, built by two princely brothers, merchants of the town. And through it in stately, long processions, with white-robed choristers chanting and thurifer-bearers sending up clouds of incense to the clear blue sky, went White Friars and Black, Brown Friars and Gray. In it they kept fast and feast, and worked and prayed throughout life's little day. In this same quaint old city Noeltide was celebrated with great pomp. The bells of the many churches began to ring right early in the Gothic steeples, and old men and maidens, young men and matrons, wended their way in the gray December morning to first Mass. The principal church was dedicated to St. Michael. It had three altars, and several religious guilds. The children, who were taught and fed by various charities, knelt with the sisters in charge of them, in long rows, as they do now in Continental churches. Digitized by Google

Page 329

302 YULET1DE IN MEDIAL VA L TIMES. [Dec. > The singing at High Mass was exceeding sweet, and when it was over my Lord Bishop and the Worshipful Mayor en- tertained the poor at dinner in the noble Guild Hall, opposite the cathedral. We can all of us picture the scene. The wintry sunshine would fall through stained-glass windows on the rush-strewn floor and carved oak roof; on the dais hung with tapestry representing King Henry, Queen Margaret, and Cardinal Beaufort at Mass on Palm Sunday ; on the purple- robed father in Christ ; the rosy-cheeked hautboys in the minstrels' gallery, and the hundreds of God's poor ; flat-caps, hinds, the halt, the maimed, the blind up and down amongst them would pass and repass ; kind gentlewomen, in picturesque russet and brown and green, the wives and daughters of mem- bers of the Mercers' Company, who on this day were truly the handmaidens of the Lord. The server would place the boar's head on the high table, chanting : "The boar's head in hand bear I, Dressed with sprigs of rosemary." Then would follow the beef (an oxen roasted whole in the marketplace), and our old friend, the plum-pudding; and the entire company would keep Christmas cheerily, before they again turned into the snow. At eventide the Waits would play. The burghers would wake in the night and hear the harp and the viol and the long drawn — 44 Christus Natus, Christus Natus, Christus Natus — ho-di-e." The suppression of the monastic buildings threw a cloud of sadness over the festive season. Many poor souls, who had been fed and housed by the charitable religious, had literally no lodging but on the cold ground, and the monks and nuns themselves must have been like sanctuary birds rudely driven from their nests. Most touching is the story of Father Austin Ringwood, a monk of Glastonbury. Austin Ringwood, a scion of an old English family, had spent many quiet years in the beautiful abbey, whose gar- den was his especial care. When it was dissolved he could not leave it ; in the words of the Psalmist he said : 44 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cun Digitized by Google

Page 330

1900.] Yule tide in Medieval Times. 303 ning." So he tarried near it — in disguise ; lived in a hut on a coombe near, and was styled " The Old Gardener " by the country folk round about, because he used to potter about in the deserted garden. Can you not fancy that you see him pruning the holly- trees and nailing up the ivy at Noeltide, thinking the while of the father abbot and the brothers who used to chant in choir. Time passed on, and one day a priest from a great distance came to the aged monk, and gave him the last Sacraments, before he went on his journey to that Celestial City whose Builder and Maker is God. Then, but not until then, was it known who he really was. Here is a little story of mediaeval Europe for the children, which impressed me when I read it, ever so long ago. Once on a time, when little girls wore queer pointed caps, and little boys had not half as much as they have nowadays to learn, a little Savoyard, harp on back, found himself out- side the closed gates of the city of Nancy one Christmas eve. It was dark, and he was cold and hungry ; but, though he shouted loudly, he met with no response. So he moved away, and in moving fell down a round hole into a pit. Here he lay for some time, half stunned. And when he came to himself he heard a loud snoring, and made out what seemed to be a big dog lying near. He was so lonely that he felt pleased to have doggie's company, and moved nearer. Then he saw that it was a bear ! He had fallen into the bear-pit. Filled with fear, the orphan child prayed silently ; all that Christmas night his prayers ascended to heaven ; and we may believe that Jesus, who was once a child, and Mary His Mother, who loves little children, were sorry for and protected him, for Bruin (who had had a good feed) slept soundly ; and when morning came the watchmen heard his cries, and drew the poor minstrel out of that horrible pit. And he heard Mass in Nancy Cathedral, and told his story to the bishop, and they all made much of him ; and after all he had a happy and beautiful Christmas Day. One word more. That which made the mediaeval Noeltide so bright and beautiful a season can also make it the same for us wanderers. We can visit Jesus and His Mother. We Digitized by Google

Page 331

304 Yule tide in Medieval Times. [Dec. can go to Mass, and when we hear the solemn " Agnus Dei M can adore the Lamb of God, who came as a very small, very snow-white Lambkin, on Christmas morning. For the presence of Jesus maketh Christmas! Agnus Dei ! thy fleece is Whiter than the snow ; Agnus Dei! no crimson Blood-drops on it show. Agnus Dei ! thy Mother, Tender, kind, and sweet, Will in greenest pastures Lead thy little feet. Agnus Dei ! we love thee On thy Mother's knee. Sing we Adoremus, Sing we Venite. Gentle little Shepherd, Now thy sheep-fold bless ; Love us as a mother, Holy Shepherdess. Digitized by Google

Page 332

Murillo's Immaculate Conception, in the Louvre. THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN. BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET. HE Spaniard, in some quaint, fanciful fashion, ever lovingly names the great ones of his native land, showing by a sort of familiar, affeo tionate nomenclature his pride and tenderness for them. Cervantes is named " The Prince of Jesters," Lope de Vega they dub " King of Dramatists," and Murillo, whom every true Spaniard loves as his own soul, is called " El Pintor del Virgen " — Painter of the Virgin— a beau- tiful name and well deserved, for all his life Murillo loved to bring the weight of his genius to bear upon the portrayals of the Blessed Virgin. vol lxxit.— 20 Digitized by Google

Page 333

306 The Painter of the Virgin. [Dec, Many other subjects he painted, and especially did he enjoy bringing in the accessories of that nature which he studied and loved. "He alone The sunshine and the shadow and the dew Had shared alike with leaf and flower and stem ; Their life had been his lesson, and from them A dream of immortality he drew, As in their fate foreshadowing his own." His St. Anthonys are famous; his beggars are marvellous pieces of genre; his children and ninos are enchanting; but much as he loved them all — and he lent the divine fire of his genius to nothing save con amove — his whole soul went into the painting of his Madonnas. Classic as was his taste, yet he never permitted himself to paint a mythological subject. He did not leave us "Adonais painted by a running brook, And Cytherea all in sedges hid." Patriotic as was his soul, he did not lend his brush to the portrayal of Spain's greatness, though the splendid conquests of Ferdinand and Isabella in the Moorish wars and the roman- tic episodes of the discovery of the New World offered him an endless variety of subjects. Pre eminently a spiritual man, Bartolomg Murillo was a re- ligious painter par excellence, and his devotion to the sweet Mother of God shows itself in his many paintings of her, for during his life he painted nearly every scene in her career. As a child he pictured her as the very personification of artless innocence. A charming painting is in the museum at Valladolid, where the lovely little maid of about five years is led by St. Joachim. She bears a lily branch, this lily among thorns ; her little skirts are modestly held, and she is the very picture of a dainty little princess, reminding one of the Spanish peasants' idea that the Blessed Virgin was of pure Castilian birth. Her expression is one of artless innocence, and there is about her a grace of dignity and a charming air of good breeding, though not so much thoughtfulness as in the picture where St. Ann is represented as teaching her to read. This charming scene hangs upon the walls of the Madrid Museum of the Prado, and is one of his best works. St. Ann, a womanly, dignified figure, is seated in the shadow of a Digitized by Google

Page 334

igoo.] The Painter of the Virgin. 30; "The lovely little figure of the Lily Maid of Judex." pillar at one side of the picture, in a dense gloom which throws the other side of the picture into a correspondingly strong relief. This is a favorite method of Murillo's when he wishes to give emphasis to one figure above another. In this case the figure of the Blessed Virgin is clearly outlined against a light which seems to fall upon her in a refulgent shower direct from the clouds above, whence lovely cherubs descend with a crown of roses. The accessories of the picture, the soft Spanish exterior, the dignified form of the saintly mother— all are charming yet subservient to the lovely little figure of the Lily Maid of Judea. She is such a little princess in her trail- ing robes, yet so meekly sweet, so gently thoughtful. The wistful little face, so attuned to heavenly wisdom, is framed in Digitized by Google

Page 335

308 The Painter of the Virgin. [Dec, floating dark hair ; the tiny finger points to her place in the Sacred Book, from which all Jewish maids were taught to read, while the deep, dark eyes seem to. see strange visions, as the mother explains some hidden prophecy of Scripture. Perhaps some inkling of her great destiny stirred in that child- ish heart, for she was " wise beyond her years and full of knowledge." The thoughtful childhood grew to pensive youth, for in Murillo's wonderful painting of the Annunciation we see the Jewish maiden portrayed in all her perfect beauty, her childish innocence merged into true maidenliness, as she kneels in meek submission at the message of the angel. Still is she of the dark Spanish type (there are those who say that Murillo's wife, the stately, lovely Sevilliana, posed for these dark-haired Madonnas) and she seems to have been surprised at the home- ly task of mending the family linen, for it lies beside her upon the floor, the angel having called her " To rise from earthly •TO RISE FROM EARTHLY DREAMS, TO HYMN ETERNITY.' Digitized by Google

Page 336

1900.] The Painter of the Virgin. 309 " For Mary, the sinlessly born." dreams, to hymn Eternity." She was such a child, our poor little Lady, meeting the great mystery alone, yet not quite alone — for Murillo has given her hosts of angel forms to com- fort her — and the perfect submission of her sweet face shows that the good God was with her as well, and that his grace was sufficient for her. But lovingly as the Maestro painted the varied scenes in the life of the Blessed Virgin, there was one scene which was dearer to him than anything else — the Immaculate Conception. In the year of the artist's birth the Holy Father Paul V. issued his famous bull forbidding attacks on this, the favorite dogma of the Church in Spain. All the country flew into an ecstasy of delight, and even " Earth wore the surplice at morn, As pure as the vale's stainless lily For Mary, the sinlessly born." Digitized by Google

Page 337

The Painter of the Virgin. [Dec, Henceforth Spanish art was enriched by the portraying of the precious belief, upon canvases bathed in almost heavenly light, by brushes sanctified by prayer. Into this atmosphere of religious fervor Murillo was born and here he was bred. " His spirit gave A fragrance to all nature and a tone To inexpressive silence," and it is not surprising that a painter who formed an art school the pupils of which met with the salutation " Praised be the most Holy Sacrament of the pure Conception of Our Lady," should have painted pictures of this wonderful belief in a truly wonderful manner. The Maestro's numerous paintings of the Conception have many points of similarity, yet each one is distinctive. The Blessed Virgin is depicted as young, very beautiful, with an expression of perfect purity and innocence. Generally the face is of the rich Spanish type of Andalusia, oval, brows arched and wide apart : '* A forehead fair and saintly, Which two blue eyes do undershine. Like meek prayers before a shrine." She has brown hair, parted and floating about the face, regu- lar features, and wears cloudy draperies of soft blue and white. Frequently she stands upon a crescent (symbolizing the conquest of Spanish Christianity over the Moors), and her figure is given full length. Thus it is in the Seville Concep- tion, and in the well-known painting in the Dresden Gallery; but a particularly beautiful picture on this subject hangs in the Museum of the Prado in Madrid. Here the half figure only is shown ; the crescent encircles it, and above are charm- ing cherubs, hovering lovingly about the fair face of the Mother of God. This Virgin differs from many in having splendid masses of dark instead of light brown hair. Pacheco, when familiar of the Inquisition, laid down the law that the Blessed Virgin should be painted as " light hatred, modestly attired, and in no case should her feet be uncov- ered"; but Pacheco was no more when Murillo painted his wonderful Conceptions, and the Sevillian artist was wont to set at defiance hard and-fast rules, painting according to his own sweet will. But so pure was his nature, and so fervently Digitized by Google

Page 338

igoo.] The Painter of the Virgin. 311 44 The Spanish Type which Moorish Blood had touched." did he dip his brush in prayer, that one finds always a pecu- liar spirituality about his religious paintings, however at vari- ance they may seem with the preconceived notions and con- ventionalities of his predecessors. The most famous Conception — that in the Louvre — repre- sents the Blessed Virgin as slightly older than the sweetly wistful maiden surrounded by cherubs, with her gentle, pathetic face. Magnificent golden brown hair streams upon her shoul- ders, her hands are folded upon her breast, her splendid dra- peries float about her, her eyes are cast upward, and an expression of sadness and inexpressible resignation rests upon her features. Murillo was unlike Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, and many other religious painters, in not adhering to one type for his pictures of the Blessed Virgin. His Virgin of the Conception is a spiritual t>pe, his Virgin of the Napkin more earthy, that of La Hague a thoughtful, Digitized by Google

Page 339

312 The Painter of the Virgin. IDcc, brown-haired, intellectual creature. He particularly fancied the Spanish type which Moorish blood had touched, and painted many lovely Madonnas, dark-haired, oval-faced, placid, sweet, with full lips, straight noses, arched brows, and a certain life about them which seems to bespeak the loving, earthly mother, as well as the Virgin Queen. Such an one is in the " Holy Family," a charming picture painted in Murillo's best style, with a marvellous chiar-oscuro. God the Father, surrounded by cherubs, blesses the group from the clouds above, and the Dove of the Spirit is hovering over the head of our Lord. The Blessed Virgin holds her Son lovingly, upon her face an expression of motherly pride The Holy Family. Digitized by Google

Page 340

1900.] The Painter of the Virgin. 3i3 44 Resigned Sadness of the lovely Face.' and exaltation. At her feet are St. Eliza- beth and St. John the Baptist with a lamb, the boy saint holding up his staff for the Baby our Lord to play with. On the faces of the three there is eager interest, worship, and deep devotion. As all eyes are turned toward Christ, so all the light and color of the pic- ture . is centred upon him. He is the darling- est baby ever painted, but oh ! how much more. His little round- ed limbs, his chubby hands, his smiling face — all exquisitely mould- ed— are charmingly natural. The thoughtfulness of the face, the depth of the eyes that see more than mere human vision, the resignation of the hands which grasp the cross — all this tells of more than man : it is the mystery of the God-Man made a child for us, while the Blessed Virgin is one of Murillo's sweet- est creations. Painting generally the more glorious scenes of our Lady's life, Murillo did not forget the more sorrowful ones. He has a Mater Dolorosa which is pitiful in the resigned sadness of the lovely face. "The star that in his splendor hid her own, At Christ's Nativity, Abides — a widowed satellite — alone On tearful Calvary." This Madonna is of the more regular of Murillo's concep- tions; indeed, at times it seems as if he could not have painted it, so Italian, is the pure outline, yet that it is an original Murillo there is no doubt, and it is rarely beautiful in rich, subdued coloring. In the same gallery with his finest Conception is the As- Digitized by Google

Page 341

314 The Painter of the Virgin. [Dec, sumption of the Virgin, one of Murillo's greatest works. Floating aloft on a bank of clouds, entrancing baby forms hover about her, a flying bit of drapery, floating over the half moon, conceals her feet and makes her seem as if being wafted heavenward. Her hands are folded across her breast, her eyes raised to heaven, the attitude and pose similar to that in the Conception ; indeed, the picture may readily be mistaken for a Conception, save that the face is more mature than that of the Jewish maiden, the portrayal of whose great mystery won for El Maestro his title " El Pintor del Con- cepcion." Such are some of the famous Madonnas of the greatest Spanish artist, a noble and beautiful soul who, dying, left a rich legacy to posterity in the marvellous works of art which, and whom all who love our Lady should refer to lovingly as "The Painter of the Virgin." " Finger marks Along the ways of time, may lead Us all to higher things/' TRUTH. ARTHUR UPSON. Digitized by Google

Page 342

1900.] The Anglican Missionary Movement. 315 THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN THE ANGLI- CAN CHURCH.* BY REV. WILLIAM L. SULLIVAN, C.S.P. FATHER RAGEY'S work in its method and spirit is a noble, and in the grave suggestiveness of the lesson it enforces a remarkable production. It is an exhaustive exposition, based always on r first-hand information, of the foreign-mission movement in the Church of England, written with a double purpose — one explicitly and frequently held up to view, the other only implied, or delicately insinuated. The first is to in- spire an apostolate of Catholic intercession for all our mission interests, and above all for the conversion of England to her ancient Catholic allegiance. The second is to arouse Catholics to the summoning of all their forces, to give them matter for some apprehensiveness, and to sober them with a little salu- tary confusion for past and present apathy, by holding up to their inspection the extraordinary missionary activity of the Anglican Establishment — without doubt one of the most pro- foundly significant phenomena of contemporary religious his- tory. Toward both these ends Father Ragey constructs his work, and sustains it from beginning to end in a spirit of vehement love for souls. In the light of that supreme priestly purpose he completely loses sight of the prejudices of race or the prepossessions of polemics, and gazes steadfastly at the highest interests of God's glory and the church's welfare. He does away with national feeling. In the kingdom of Christ he sees a wider citizenship than French or Italian or English or American. There we are in presence of God and souls, and there our sympathies and labors must be confined by no national boundaries or ancient antipathies, but be limited solely by the resources of pure, simple, apostolic zeal, mighty In its powers of achievement, infinite in its possibilities of prayer. ' WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH- SPEAKING PEOPLES. Here is a fact which as members of this or that nation we * Les Missions Anglicanes. Par le P. Ragey, Mariste. Paris : Librairie Bloud et Barral. 19cm. Digitized by Google

Page 343

3i6 The Missionary Movement in [Dec, may grumble at and take ill, but which as Christians we ought to accept as the disposition of God's providence, and endeavor to turn to his greater glory ; and this fact is the unprecedented progress of the English speaking peoples, and their immense if not predominant importance in determining the future re- ligious as well as political condition of many tribes and races who can learn from no other source the lessons of a dawning civilization. England with one- fifth of humankind beneath her sceptre, holding in her hands the destiny of India, Australia, and, after her recent wars in the Soudan and in South Africa, the vast stretch of continent between Cairo and the Cape ; the United States, become since our war with Spain of deci- sive influence both among the powers of the world and with several millions of a subject race, — at this spectacle of bound- less power the priestly heart, wherever it beats, feels only one sentiment : 44 O God, turn this mighty kingdom to Thy glory by making it Thine own ! " In this supernatural spirit Father Ragey's work is steeped. He loves another people than his own — greater, as he confesses, than his own ; but with a love that is part of his love for God. It would be only a half- truth to say of him : 44 Here is a Frenchman who loves Eng- land." It would be better expressed : 44 Behold a priest who loves souls as his Master loved them." Still nobler than Father Ragey's immunity from national, is his freedom from polemical feeling. His purpose is not to search out the failures of Anglican missions; to taunt English Churchmen with the fruitless expenditure of vast sums in foreign proselytizing and with the wasted labors of hundreds of their missionaries. Such a style of writing has its place, it is not to be denied, though there are few who are great- minded enough to indulge it with conspicuous success. But our author's purpose is quite another and a more exalted one ; more warm and winning too, and with a spiritual suggestive- ness that brings us in touch with divine things and leads us close to the spirit of prayer. He would show us the genuine fervor of great numbers of Anglicans for the coming of Christ's Kingdom, as they feebly conceive it ; their earnest zeal for the triumph of Christianity over heathenism ; the fine spirit of many of their missionaries, and the magnificent generosity of the laity who support them and lavish colossal treasures to enhance the success of their undertakings. It is with solemn impressiveness that he bids us see how these children of spiritual exile, strayed into devious ways and lost therein, are husband- Digitized by Google

Page 344

igoo.] the Anglican Church. 3i7 ing the little spark which is all they possess of the great hearth fire of Truth that burns splendid and life-giving in the ancient Mother's household, fanning it with solicitous care that it may not die out, that it may even become a mighty pillar of fire that will touch the sky, the guide of many millions out of the wilderness of infidelity, the lux mundi of new peoples and a new age. Let us admire them. Let us love them and pray for them — noble souls and our brothers by im- memorial ties. Let us reserve to another time the asperities of controversy. True, if we descended to them or were forced to deal with them, we might enjoy the fierce pride of victory. But now we will rather feel the pathetic affection hidden in the divine words : " Other sheep I have " ; not other wolves, other scorpions, but other sheep, who in great numbers are following the Shepherd even in his carrying of the cross. It is a higher vantage point surely, and gives a nobler and diviner view of the spiritual world than we could get in the hot wrestling of polemics. There is no danger that in our charity for the erring, which is a duty, we shall at all indulge their error, which would be a sin. The more we know of their zeal and their devotion to Christ, the more shall our hearts be wounded with the thought of what they would achieve if they but possessed the truth: the more ardently shall we pray God to forgive that ancient sacrilege which visits with so sad a curse the children of its perpetrators, and to re- store to unhappy England the grace and privilege of her bar- tered birthright. This is the spirit of prudence, the spirit of charity, the spirit of truth. We shall work best and pray best for Souls when we know best their native nobility, love of truth, and spiritual culture. The nearer we see them approach by inborn aptitude, or by the graces they have received, to the divine fulness of Truth which God's predilection has gratuitously given us, surely the more instant shall we be in imploring the Almighty Father: " These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best."* The great convert makers of the church have always felt this sentiment. It is the spirit of the great Gregory, pope and saint, who sent Augustine and the Benedictines to England and made it Christian and Catholic. When told that the handsome, * Browning's " Saul." Digitized by Google

Page 345

3i8 The Missionary Movement in [Dec, fair-haired slaves in the Roman market were Angles, " Nay," said he, "were they but Christian, it is not Angles they would be, but Angels." And we, thirteen, centuries after Gregory, may say with truth : " Were their children Catholic, they would be to day not disseminators of heresy, but the apostles and con- verters of the world." So in the zeal burned heart of Isaac Hecker, love of the great natural gifts of the American people was as coals that fed his vast desire to see God possess his best, to see Heaven stoop down and glorify what soared above the earth so high ; and the same spirit is displayed in a great son of England and eminent prince of the church, the present Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, when he writes to the author we are now reviewing : 14 It is impossible to know these men and women belonging to the rank of the simple faithful, and a great number {une foule) of their clergymen, without being struck with proofs of their fervor, good faith, zeal, spirit of sacrifice, piety, and love of our Lord. If it pleases God that we should work for the conversion of souls that are dis figured and debased by every vice and wickedness, assuredly it must be supremely gratifying to him that we pray and labor for those who practise so many and such splendid virtues ; men and women who often heap confusion on our head by their fervor and their zeal. What mighty services might they not render to the cause of God, what holiness might they not attain, what exalted throne in heaven might they not win if they but pDSsessed the Sacramentum unitatis which is a key that opens the treasury of sacramental grace ; which is the first condition of our incorporation with Christ the Lord."* Surely it is an inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the Univer- sal Church of Christ has ever been moved with special longing for the conversion of this people, and is to-day, in obedience to our Holy Father's express exhortation, organizing legions of prayer for the same sacred end. THE NATIONAL ELEMENT IN ANGLICAN MISSIONS. Before we approach the details of Father Ragey's work we ought to consider an aspect of the Anglican foreign-mission move- ment which to Anglican eyes gives a new spiritual nobility to their enterprise, but to us ought to be a matter of grave concern, and a vigorous spur to action when our hands would idle and our supplication faint. This aspect consists in the hand-in-hand progress of British Empire and Anglican endeavor, the in- * Letter to P. Ragey, appendix. Digitized by Google

Page 346

1900.] the Anglican Church. 3i9 teraction and mutual dependence of the conqueror or colonial ruler and the missionary ; the practical identity of interest between England the constitutional state and England the religious establishment. To understand the sense of power which this consideration gives to Churchmen in pushing for- ward their missionary undertakings, we must bear in mind that Englishmen have a feeling of destiny that they are to civilize and evangelize by far the greater part of the inferior races of the world. Whatever the great place in history filled by Britain in the past, her sons to day regard her as only at the threshold of an era of achievement which shall crown her future with a splendor never before conceived by states or statesmen. They see her the tutor of infant peoples, millions strong, teaching them by the patient method of daily contact, of jealous care, of valiant protection, of wise laws, how great she is, and how fortunate they are in resting beneath her hand of power; raising their view to a world- expanse that they may see upon the background of civilized humanity the dominating outline of her own imperial figure ; holding out to them the hope of an ever greater share in her vast policies, her unlimited power, and her royal emoluments; inculcating civilization, but a British civilization; the genius of politics, but of British politics; stability on the basis of laws and constitutions, but always British laws and the British Constitution. Then some day, when these lessons have been well learned, when they have passed from facts of mind to determinations of purpose and impulses of sentiment, the multitudes of India and Africa will sweep out on the plain of human affairs in perfect order and superb equipment, civilized, trustworthy, British, and — here is our present purpose — Christian. For England is too relig- ious a country, and even were she not, she is too old in the business of government to omit so vital a factor in the pacifi cation, reconciliation, and incorporation of subject peoples, as religion, and especially the Christian religion. So the children of her millennium are to be Christian, and accordingly every step forward made to-day by Anglican missionaries is regarded by British statesmen as an advance toward the great accomplish- ment of destiny; being such, they are rejoiced at it and are eager to do all they can to help in the work. THE SPELL OF A GREAT VOCATION. In their turn English Churchmen feel the spell of this great vocation, and, in a powerful blending of patriotism and relig- Digitized by Google

Page 347

320 The Missionary Movement in [Dec, ious zeal, they are rushing forward in hundreds and are pour- ing out wealth in millions, that their share in this remarkable programme may nowise fall short. At a recent missionary conference in England the young clergy of the Establishment were reminded that they must regard themselves not so much as ministers of England but as ministers of the Empire, and that they must extend their activity and zeal to the farthest limits of British possessions. Bishop Whitehead of Madras has de- clared that the breaking up of the native Indian religions, with their 200,000,000 adherents, has already begun, and that it will be a happening so momentous as to challenge comparison with the dissolution of the Roman Empire. And the work of recon- struction must, he says, be undertaken by England and the Christian forces that go out from England. The oldest son of Lord Salisbury has given it as the very justification of England's recent wars, with all their harrowing consequences of ruin and bloodshed, that it is "solely because we are convinced that, thanks to the genius of our people and the purity of our religion, we are able to confer on our subject peoples benefits which no other nation can confer in equal degree. It is solely because we know that the preaching of the Church of Christ is part of the programme of the British government that we are in a position to justify the Empire of which we are so proud." And in a striking phrase of Lord Curzon, the present Viceroy of India, the whole design we have been outlining is neatly expressed, if we extend to the whole Empire what he says of a part of it : " The spectacle presented by our rule in India is that of British power on the background of a Christian ideal." Impressive words all these; and making a fair allowance for excited fancy and political effect, we would best consider them as bespeaking an urgent summons to our missionary spirit, our zeal, our generosity, our supplication. DETAILS OF THE ANGLICAN PROPAGANDA. There are three principal societies which carry on the work of Anglican missions : The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (S. P. C. K.), founded in 1696; The. So- ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S. P. G.), established by royal charter in 1701 — this is a strongly High Church organization ; The Church Missionary Society (C. M. S.), of Low Church tendencies, begun in 1799. We omit the British and Foreign Bible Society, which, though it substantially aids Anglican missions, is not distinctively and Digitized by Google

Page 348

1900.] the Anglican Church. 321 exclusively Anglican, but extends its benefits to other sects as well. The three societies which we shall inspect it will be best, for the sake of brevity, to designate by their initials. The S. P. G. requires of each member an annual subscrip- tion of one guinea ; ten guineas down purchase a life member- ship. The income of this society for 1898 was $661,775. It has charge of: 787 missionaries; 2,900 lay catechists ; 3,200 students in higher schools; 38,000 children in lower schools. United to the S. P. G. as an auxiliary is The Oxford Mis- sionary Society of Graduates, composed, as the name indicates, of gentlemen who have been graduated from Oxford. The special service which this society seeks to aid is the conver- sion of the native women of India. The C. M. S. was founded one hundred years ago by six- teen clergymen and nine laymen, who met in London to de- vise means for sending missionaries to the heathen. In the first year of its existence it raised $4,555. Its revenue for 1897-1898 was $1,657,980. At present it supports: 520 missions ; 1,136 missionaries; 6,154 native missionaries, or missionary assistants. During the year 1 897-1 898 its agents administered 16,103 baptisms. Its schools and seminaries educate 88,094 pupils. It has five missionary colleges in England, and besides, a Mis- sionaries' Children's Home, which is a feeder for its higher seminaries. It enjoys the support of the following affiliated societies : The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society; The Missionary Leaves Association ; The Ladies' Church Missionary Union ; The Young Ladies' Church Missionary Study Bands; The Gleaners' Union ; The Sowers — a children's association. The first of these auxiliary branches procured for the general fund in" 1896 $40,300 in money, and $13,380 in gifts other than money. These three great bodies are finely organized in every de- partment ; they have strict regulations for members, for offi- cials, and for missionaries. Every year they publish an ex- haustive report, accounting for every receipt and expenditure, vol. lxxii.— 21 Digitized by Google

Page 349

322 The Missionary Movement in [Dec, and containing mission statistics, edifying incidents, and every other matter of missionary interest. The president of the S. P. G. is always the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the C. M. S. the chief officer must be a member of Parliament; the incumbent at present is the Right Honorable Sir John H. Kennaway. This society counts as patrons several mem- bers of the royal family, and as vice-patrons many distinguished personages of the realm. THE PRESS AS A MISSIONARY AGENT. From such vast resources and wise management as these societies may rely upon, we may surmise the extent to which they sustain, consolidate, and augment their work by the power of the printed word. Let us draw on Father Ragey's statistics once more. For the year ending March 31, 1897, the S. P. C. K. dis- tributed : 145,205 Bibles : 22,975 New Testaments; 324 426 prayer-books ; 12,537,091 tracts. The S. P. G. conducts : The Cowley Evangelist ; St. Mary's Quarterly Mission Paper ; The Star in the East. The C. M. S. publications are : The Intelligencer, . . . 6,600 copies a month. The Gleaner, .... 83.400 The Awake, 44.250 " 44 The Children's World, . . 600,500 Mercy and Truth, . . . 6000 " " The Quarterly Paper, . . 20.000 copies every quarter. The Quarterly Token, . . . 225,000 " " " in English, 5,500 in Welsh, and 300 in Chinese. Stupendous as all these figures are, they still fall short of adequately expressing the missionary spirit which, like a fire, is kindling the Establishment from end to end. No device is forgotten which would be likely to arouse fresh enthusiasm and inspire greater generosity. Lecturers in the cause travel the country over; magic-lantern exhibitions are given; fairs and charity sales are held ; almost every imaginable means is brought to service in keeping alive in all classes and condi- tions of men the conviction that the noblest cause which can Digitized by Google

Page 350

1900.] the Anglican Church. 323 enlist their sympathy, and the divinest work to which they can give their help, is that their religion should follow fast in the footsteps of their empire in the conquest of half the world. Even the poorest are given an opportunity to share in the work, and the returns of a penny a-week collection started for this special purpose by the C. M. S. prove abundantly that they, too, are capable of enthusiasm and generosity. Finally, to throw into the soil of the future the seeds which have made the present so full of harvest, missionary agents have visited the great schools of England, and in Eton, Rugby, Liverpool, Malvern, and Sherborne have preached to the future scholars and statesmen of the kingdom zeal for Lord Curzon's "spectacle of British power on the background of a Christian ideal." SPIRIT AND MOTIVES OF THE ANGLICAN REVIVAL. We should fall far short of a just and adequate judgment of the movement which we are trying to understand if we failed to say a word under this head. Even the statistics we have seen, much as they disclose, leave us with little more than the ground plans of the great structure of English Church mis- sions. We must enter if we would know the spirit that per- vades there. This spirit, to a very impressive degree, is the spirit of wide zeal and devout reliance on intercessory prayer. The former of these may be illustrated from the report of the Lambeth Conference of 194 Anglican bishops in 1899. From that report we make these extracts : "We come now to the subject of foreign missions, the work which at present holds first place among all the tasks which we have to achieve." " The Jews seem to merit an attention greater than they have hitherto received. The difficulties of converting the Jews are very great, but the greatest are those which come from the indifference of Christians when there is question of leading this race of men to our Saviour." Here it will be in order to mention as organized Anglican efforts in this direction, "The London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews," founded in 1809, and now sup- porting in England, Palestine, and Persia 184 missionaries ; " The Parochial Missions to the Jews at Home and Abroad," and " The East London Missions to the Jews." The Lanrbeth report continues with regard to a religion which counts as adherents one-seventh of the population of the earth — Mahomet- Digitized by Google

Page 351

324 The Missionary Movement in [Dec, anism : " One-fourth of this number are citizens of the British Empire. . . . They have therefore a special reason for counting on the charity of their more favored fellow-citizens. • • . An essential thing is that the missionaries who under- take their conversion should have made a profound and patient study of Mahometanism and of the Arabic language, and that they should show absolute justice in treating of Mahometan- ism and of the character of Mahomet." This last certainly would be refreshingly new. Of the spirit of prayer in the Anglican mission revival let one striking instance suffice. The . younger ministers of the Established Church have formed a "Junior Clergy Association " which now numbers 3,000 members, one of whose ends is to pray and to form bands of prayer for the success of foreign missions. This association has composed special litanies and invocations for that purpose, which they have had approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury and recite at their official sessions. WHAT ARE WE TO THINK OF THE MOVEMENT? To this natural question the answer of Father Ragey seems the obvious one. We should confront this missionary fervor of the Anglicans with as widespread and as efficiently directed a fervor among the children of the Church ; and we should be- siege the entrenched mercies of God that He win this great people to the fulness of His Truth. It is invidious to make com- parisons. One comparison we could indeed make that would thrill us with triumph. We could point to the consecrated sons and daughters of Christ who are the living proof that the ancient church is still to-day, as she has ever been, the church of martyrs. Peerless souls! never equalled in apostolic success ; never to be approached in the heroism of their sacrifice ; to whom the missionary life is not a career, but a martyrdom and a longing after martyrdom ; whose exile is not refreshed with domestic ministrations ; who may not and who would not look forward to an old age back in the home they have left once and for ever, where honors await them and every comfort will soothe them in their age ; who have no human support when the spirit faints from toil or is broken with ingratitude ; who can reckon on only a slender dribble of means for the works which their hands, before their strength be gone, would upraise for God and Souls ; who carry alone the forlorn hopes of zeal; who are free from the harassing competition of the Digitized by Google

Page 352

1900.] the Anglican Church. 325 sects when the leper's sores are to be cleansed, the outcasts of the human race spiritually attended, critical peril to be met and certain death for Christ to be encountered. Thanks be to God for the church's missionaries to-day ! No ! with these there is no comparison. A single one of them in his direst poverty outweighs the treasuries of opulent associations and puts to confusion the resources of empires. But whether there may not be the suggestion of a lesson for the Catholic laity in the missionary spirit of the Anglican body ; whether there may not be hints to the fulfilment of a possibly forgotten duty in the spectacle of 3,000 young Anglican ministers bound together in a society of missionary prayer ; these are questions which this article chooses not formally to answer. It contains matter, however, whereon to base an answer for those sufficient- ly concerned. One consideration alone we would urge as a line of missionary effort likely to stimulate our people to a display of eminent and enthusiastic zeal. Would it trespass on the venerable premises of our seminaries to impress on our coming priests their responsibility — not a slight one, God knows — toward our brethren who are separated from us by the gulf of error; to begin among those who will be the leaders of God's people an apostolate of prayer for the conversion of America which shall spread from them to the faithful of the whole country ? Would it not be a thing approved of God to preach now and then on zeal for converts ? Could directors propose a diviner K object for the prayers of holy souls individually, or for the in- tercession of their organized confraternities, than God's glory in the winning of souls to Truth ? Would it not be well if the whole church in the United States were begging God for the mighty grace of our country's conversion ; if priests and laity, Catholic societies and sodalities and reading circles; the Catholic rich and the Catholic poor, were bound fast together in one inspiring union of intercession, in one grand association of active zeal to bring in converts to the Church of Christ? If Anglicans are so thrilled with the prospect of converting pagan tribes, may not we be penetrated with the divine desire of bringing the land we love to the faith we worship ? May we be solemnly impressed with the zeal displayed by error; may we feel an efficacious reproach at the spectacle, if there is need for reproach ; may a restlessness for souls possess us, priests and laymen ; and may we make at least as many efforts and sacrifices for the gathering of the harvest of God as others do for the increase of the empire of error ! Digitized by Google

Page 353

326 By Grace of the Governor-Elect. [Dec, BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. BY ANNE ELIZABETH O'HARE. ; LD Judge Dale's shrewd eyes measured the young man before him. "I 'm an old man, Mr. Barrett," he said slow- ly. " I 've been dabbling in politics ever since I was a stripling with many enthusiasms and few clients. Sometimes I 've been in pretty deep — deep enough to taste the bottoms — and I 've learned that to be a successful poli- tician a man must be one of two things : either he must be a gambler who is not afraid to stake his last chance on the turn of the die, or he must be a man who seems to be an absolute party-tool, silent, watchful, cautious. It 's all a matter of policy. One is the popular hero ; the other is your safe man. But one or the other, and winning or losing, he must wear an invincible front. As in every other game of great odds, the best player is the one who can lose splendidly. If you 're brave enough to take the first deep plunge, Mr. Barrett, and cool enough to stop at nothing after, you 're likely to come out on top. But the man who once flinches is lost. Ah, it 's hazardous play- ing!"— the old man's eyes glowed reminiscently. "Sometimes the fire and fever of it are worth the stake; oftener they're not It depends on the man." The judge's glance travelled around the room as he spoke, finally resting on a solitary figure sitting at one of the less frequented tables. " Now, there s James Farnham," he went on in the same oracular tone. " He played for pretty big game, but he staked too much on it. He 's one of those men who pin their life- hopes to the result of an election. They take things too serious- ly. For my part, I 'm glad Farnham was defeated." " Why, I thought you were one of his warmest supporters," said the young man, lifting his eye brows in surprise. " So I was," answered the judge composedly. " I worked for him as hard as ever I worked for anybody. But I would n't do it again. He has n't the calibre of a true gamester. His disappointment is too evident. He's one of your emo- tional politicians!" The speaker smiled with the contemptuous Digitized by Google

Page 354

By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 1*7 wisdom of a man who has pretty often rubbed against the under side of things. "He does seem to be hit pretty hard," agreed the other, pushing back his chair. " He 's not the same man since." " He has no spirit/' said the older man, a gleam of disdain in his keen eyes. " He plays too much for the stake, which is the least part of the game. If I had his money, I 'd snap my fingers at one defeat and play it out to a desperate finish. If you 're not a very dare-devil of a fellow, Mr. Barrett," he added, blinking pleasantly up at his companion, " stick to your practice, and don't let the fire burn your fingers." " I fear your advice is too late, judge," the young man answered, smiling, as he drew on his gloves. " Good night, and a merry Christmas to you." Then he turned to greet a tall man who was walking list- lessly towards them. " Merry Christmas ! " he repeated cordial- ly. "So you are deserting the club, too, even as we benedicts desert it! It doesn't look very lively," as he glanced through the empty rooms, "and even a bachelor likes to sit by his ain fireside to watch the Christmas in." The other smiled perfunctorily. "One place is about as good as another," he said. " Thank you, thank you ! Same to you ! " he added as Barrett repeated his merry greetings at the door and went off into the darkness with buoyant step, shout- ing another " Merry Christmas ! " to an acquaintance he met at the corner. James Farnham stood looking after the hurrying figure for several minutes. The light from the swinging lamp above fell full on his face. It was a good face, clear-cut, strong-browed, well featured. A bit too mobile about the mouth, perhaps, and with no lustre in the eyes. A disappointed face, telling of power quenched before the spending time. It bore the marks of recent fires, not deep enough to be long stamped, and not many enough to be the scarring of years. The indifference in his eyes gave place to something like resentment as he heard the joy-giving voice echoing down the street. A merry Christmas ! What merriment left in the life of a man with felled ambitions and dead hopes ? What merri- ment in the richly hung solitude of the rooms he called home ? What merriment in always thinking over the same thoughts, in waking up each morning to the same weariness? He would face it again tomorrow, and to-morrow would be Christmas! Only a year ago it had meant something to him. He remembered Digitized by Google

Page 355

328 By Grace of the Governor-Elect. [Dec. how he and five of his bachelor friends had eaten their turkey and plum-pudding together, and afterwards, over their cigars, they had gone back to other Christmases and told snatches of life history between the smoke-puffs. For him the retrospect had been a smiling one. Then he had been used to taking flights, secure and confident in his own strength. Within that year he had soared beyond his heights, and he had fallen woe- fully, his wings crushed and broken. He was weighed down with a physical sense of their helpless heaviness, and he felt that the weight would never be lifted. It was this weariness into which each new day ushered him. He tried to shake it off, clinching his hands at his own impotence. Then he turned slowly and went back into the club. James Farnham took things too seriously, as old Judge Dale had said. Not one man in a thousand would have suf* fered a political defeat with such poignant keenness. Woman- ish weakness, the old campaigners called it. But Farnham was a young man, to whom life was still more a strife than a spectacle. And his politics, while not above reproach, were mainly based upon fair principles. He was too young to be governor and too clean-handed to be successful, said the wise- acres. He had gone into the field, not much more than ten years before, full of ambition and with almost limitless money. From the first he had thrown his young power and his wealth into politics. There had been no half-measures. His heart as well as his brain had been in his career, and he had shown rare singleness of purpose for so young a man. His ambition had crowded all other interests out of his life. Pleasure, love, friendship — these things he had never known, nor, indeed, had ever felt the want of them, so full was his life of the ex- citement of the game he was playing. He had held two or three State offices; he had done some vigorous work in the legislature. At the Republican State Convention a ringing speech, the magnetism of his personality, the thought of the money behind him, and, with a suddenness that startled the assembly, he was nominated for governor. The nomination blinded him with its unexpectedness and it carried his ambition to dangerous heights. He had put all his strength into the campaign that followed. He had been eager, resolute, unflinchingly confident to the last. With the stake tempting and glittering in front of him, he had drawn prema- turely on his last reserves of power — and he had lost. The election returns showed an overwhelmingly Democratic victory. Digitized by Google

Page 356

190b.] By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 329 The blow quenched the fire out of him with startling swift- ness. It was as if there had been swept away, by one wither- ing stroke, his love, his faith, the light and hope of living. It was death to his ambition, the well-spring that fed his life. He did not rally as another man would have done ; he did not gird himself for another fight, as perhaps a brave and right- spirited man should have done. He had been beaten, he who had never known the taste of defeat — ignominiously and com- pletely beaten ! That was all. The future was nothing. There was no future ; only a sleepless past that taunted while it benumbed him. Surely, James Farnham took things too seri- ously. The club was deserted. He glanced at a newspaper, stared at the clock, got up and went out again into the night. He heard the hard snow crunch beneath his feet and felt the sharp flurries beating against his face. Instinctively, he pulled his coat collar about his ears, and turned into a street which led to the brightly-lighted shopping district. He wanted to lose himself in the crowd of hurrying men and women that poured past him. He was swept onward with the rest, and finally took refuge near the wide and gaudy window of a great toy shop. A couple of news-boys chattered wistfully at his elbow, and behind him a high-pitched little voice was exclaiming over a red wooden doll cradle in noisy ecstasy, while two eagerly compelling hands tugged at the skirts of a wan-faced woman in a faded shawl. He watched them idly as they went into the shop and presently came out again, the red cradle, out- thrusting a surreptitious, flaming rocker under the thin shawl, the woman anxiously counting over the pitiful stock of pennies that remained in her shrunken hand. Then he saw another mother with a little flock of three, ill-clad and shivering, but with shining delight in their pinched faces. " I choose that ! " cried one. " O Tommy, le's p'rtend it 's our very own ! " " It 's all the Chris'mas they have," whispered the mother, seeing his eyes upon them. A little lad and lass passed hand-in-hand in front of him. Their eyes were wide with happiness. " Now it mus' be a secret," decreed the maid, " 'cos 't 'd be no fun at all ef you wuz to know w'at I 'm goin' to git you, an' I wuz to know w'at you 're goin' to git me. But I '11 let ye feel the outside ! O Ted, it '11 be sump'n grand ! " And she fairly danced with excitement and jingled her coins merrily. Digitized by Google

Page 357

330 By Grace of the Governor-Elect. [Dec, Next a whistling father, cheerily staggering along under the bristling burden of a great fir-tree. And a pair of lovers laughing and blushing as they bought a sprig of mistletoe from the wheedling old woman at the corner. And the children — always the children ! — the fever glowing in their hungry eyes, tingling in the restless little fingers, dancing in the ill-shod little feet. Thus the old pity and pathos and beauty of the Christmastide has new birth eternally in the ready hearts of the poor. But the man standing in the shadow remained unmoved. The Christmas had no meaning for him, and neither had the little tragedies playing themselves out before him. He closed his eyes with an impatient impulse to shut out the waifs who were so uncomfortably happy over nothing. As he did so some one pushed violently against him and he heard a low sobbing at his feet. Stooping down quickly he saw that the sound came from a child that some careless passer-by had pushed aside roughly and thrown down on the slippery flagging. " Are you hurt, child ? M he asked, raising up the crying little bundle of rags and looking around for some one to whom she might belong. " No-o," sobbed the child, edging away distrustfully as she heard his voice, but looking about her so forlornly that Farnham was touched in spite of himself. "Wait a minute! Are you lost? Is no one with your" The little creature stopped at the new note of kindness in his vpice. " No, I 'm not lost," she said, catching her breath between the words. " I live — way down there — on Bank Street." She pointed indefinitely over her shoulder, but Farnham knew the street in a dirty, ill-smelling region down by the river. " But it's cold and I'm tired — and so hungry!" The thought of any one's suffering from so simple and primitive a thing as hunger jarred freshly on Farnham 's sensi- bilities, wearied with subtler emotions. He looked down at the child curiously. 41 I think I had better take you home," he said. "You ought not to be out alone in the cold." " Oh, I don't want to go home!" she cried, shrinking away. •'It's just as cold. An' there ain't no lights or pretty things; nothin' Chris'massy at all! An' I don't mind bein' out — I'm used to it." *' But it 's getting late, child, and you can't stay here all night. Come! Why don't you want to go?" as the child still stood shivering and unwilling. Digitized by Google

Page 358

1900.] By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 331 " Oh, father 's cursin', an' mother an* the rest of 'em 's cryin*. Ye see, we ain't had no fire for a week, an' las' night father said they wuz no more bread nor nothin' — an' he swore awful." Farnham felt something stir inside of him. "Poor child!" he said gently. "But come, suppose we get some bread and carry it home to surprise the others ! " Taking the little cold hand in his, he went out from the shadow of the doorway. The crowds on the street were thin- ning and the cold blasts were blowing sharper. After they had made their purchases — and the number of them made the child's eyes shine — they trudged along the darker streets, where the wayfarers were few and the scattered lights cast fitful shadows over the grimy snow. An occasional wagon, heavily laden, and swinging a murky lantern in its front, crunched past them in the dark, and now and then the sound of loud voices and the shrill laughter of children floated out from the ill-looking buildings they passed. The air, still and numbing, seemed to grow colder every minute, and Farnham, once more indifferent, began to regret the strange freak of fancy that had drawn him on this uncomfortable pilgrimage. The child's hand clutched his fingers and the piping voice was borne up to him vaguely in ceaseless chatter, which paid no heed to his preoccupied silence. " 'Deed, it wuzn't always like this," she was saying when he listened. " Las* Chris'mas we had plenty o' fire an' lots o' other things — even turkey — an' pink popcorn on strings! Mother didn't cry then an' father didn't curse, cos he wuz workin'. He ain't had nothin' to do since 'fore 'lection. What d'ye s'pose that has to do with it? It must have lots, cos ye ought to hear him when he talks about it ! " And the little hand in his shrank with something more than cold. Farnham made a movement of impatience. " Child," he said almost roughly, "aren't we nearly there?" She looked up, crestfallen. " Here we are now," she said timidly, as they approached a tumbledown old tenement, from the windows of which dim streaks of light came forth as if to emphasize the darkness. "Won't ye come up with me? I'm 'fraid. Maybe father's still swearin'." He nodded his head in ungracious consent and groped his way after her up two flights of uncertain stairs. On the third landing she stopped and stood listening in the dark passage- way. Digitized by Google

Page 359

332 By Grace of the Governor Elect. [Dec, " Everything 's quiet," she whispered. " I guess it 's all right now. Come on." Unwillingly he followed the child, shivering as he entered the bare, half-light ed room. The air seemed chiller than out- side, and a smoky lamp on a table in the corner threw murky patches of pitiless illumination on the empty stove, the poor bits of furniture, and on a couple of children and a hopeless- looking woman in a thin shawl, who came forward to meet him. The child, pointing to the bundles he laid upon the table, made some explanations in an audible whisper while his eyes took in the squalor of the room. " Thank ye, sir, for bringin' Molly home," said the woman finally in a voice of strained indifference that jarred on Farnham's nerves. " I 'd hardly noticed that she was n't here — there 's so many of 'em and I 've been wonderin' how the life was to be kept in 'em all. I don't know how to thank ye for this, sir, or what we 'd 'a' done without it. My husband would n't let me go out and beg some bread, though it 's been breakin' my heart to see the young ones famishin' before my eyes. I'm afraid he won't want us to be takin' this" — she lowered her voice and glanced apprehensively toward the next room — " though it 's killin' him, too, to see the misery we 're in. And it might ha' been so different." The words trailed off into a sob and the washed-out eyes brimmed with ready tears. Farnham stood before her in uncomfortable silence. He had faced many trying moments in his years of public life, but he had never before felt so hopelessly at a loss for something to say. Before he was able to frame any reply the door of the inner room opened and a man entered. A frightened hush fell upon the little group of children, and only the woman's low, inconsequent sobbing broke in upon the stillness. He looked defiantly at the stranger as his eyes rested on the bundles that covered the table. 14 What 's this ? " he demanded. 44 Not charity, Mary ; surely not charity ? " 44 I — I did not seek it, John," she faltered. 44 The gentle- man met Molly on the street, and brought her home — with these. There's no use holdin' out any longer, anyhow. The children must have bread. What in Heaven's name are we to do? I won't, let pride step in the way while they're cryin' out for a mouthful o' food — I won't, John ! " The mother- feeling conquered her fear of him, and with the last words she wiped her eyes and set her lips defiantly. Digitized by Google

Page 360

1900.] By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 333 The man turned wearily to Farnham, who still stood by in helpless discomfiture. 44 Sir," he began. Then he stopped suddenly and his face grew stern and resentful. " Mr. James Farnham ! " was all he said, and Farnham started slightly as the woman shrank back a step or two and he felt the wide-eyed gaze of the children upon his face. Even here he could not get away from him- self. Then he spoke for the first time since he had entered the room. " I am James Farnham," he said coldly and questioningly. " I suppose you have seen my name and my face placarded about the streets as the late candidate — the defeated candidate for governor." " Seen it ? " echoed the man, with a bitter laugh in his voice. " Seen it ? Man, I put all my strength into that cam- paign for you. I was different then and I worked day and night to get you in. You see the result!" Farnham looked at him curiously. He remembered him now as a fellow whose rough eloquence had been the deter- mining power in his ward. All the old details came up before him again — the things he had spent weeks striving vainly to forget. He remembered Martin's speaking of this very man, John Driscoll. It had been just a few days before election, when everything had been bright and promising, and he had been so glowingly confident of the result. The memory sick- ened him, but he only said with a shadow of a smile : " There seems to have been a disappointed pair of us." Driscoll's face was suddenly alive with feeling, and great fires of long-smouldering anger blazed out in his eyes. 44 Disappointed ! " he exclaimed. " Good God, man ! what does it mean to you ? What is disappointment to starvation ? Is a man disappointed when he loses his own life and all that he lives for? Look at these children crying for bread and shivering for lack of a few sticks of wood, and then go sit by your fire and nurse your disappointment?" " I do not understand," put in Farnham wearily. "What has all this to do with me ? " " Do men of your class ever understand ? " said the other passionately. 44 What do you know of hunger and cold ? Do your ears ever ring with the hopeless wailing of the children you have brought into an overcrowded world ? Your pride is sore and your ambition baffled. You are disappointed. Great heavens ! . . . Stay ! You shall listen to me ! " as Farnham Digitized by Google

Page 361

334 By Grace of the Governor-Elect. [Dec, turned impatiently towards the door. Then he continued more quietly : "Six months ago I was a foreman at the steel works. I was earning enough to keep us all comfortable, and the chil- dren were well clothed and well fed. I had gained some sort of influence with the men, perhaps because the books I read gave me a readier tongue to speak their wrongs. Anyway, I could sway them pretty much as I pleased, and I did when- ever I had the chance. This ward is one of the strongest, as of course you knew, and when the campaign opened one of your agents, that man Martin, came to me and asked me to work for you. Before that I had done many foolhardy things, but I had had the grace to keep out of politics. But he talked me into it; the fever of the thing got into my blood, and I promised. I told him I 'd lose my work. The boss was a Democratic backer and he 'd already tried to buy us up for Chandler, but I 'd made the men hold out for a higher price. Martin lied to me. He showed me figures which could not be disputed and swore to their genuineness. According to his showing there was n't the faintest possibility of defeating you, and it would have been simple folly to work against you. He persuaded me to leave my work and gave me money enough to get me through the campaign. If I carried the ward, I was to have the stewardship of the State Penitentiary, and I was satisfied and confident. I was discharged of course, and I gave myself soul and body to your interests. I could be bought, but I still had spirit enough to earn my wage! The men followed me like sheep and I made a clean sweep of the district. I reveled in the power of it ; I got into the whirl and fever of it deeper than ever you got, though you were the figure-head and I only the fire-feeder. The election came. . . . I dropped down from the heights, a ruined man, with my own weapons turned against me. Who wants an over- thrown demagogue ? I had played so recklessly and had dragged so many of them down with me, poor devils ! that the men lost faith in me. There was nothing for me, nothing on God's earth ! I had no money left, no hope of earning any. God knows I tried. I have walked the streets all day and far into the night, begging to be allowed to shovel snow, break stones, light fires — anything. It was hopeless. I have sworn and cursed until the children run away when I come near. There 's only beggary before us, and death is easier than that. You need n't start, Mr. Farnham ! There 's many like me if you look for them." Digitized by Google

Page 362

1900.] By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 335 He paced the narrow floor, his mouth working painfully. " Good God ! is it any wonder I feel bitter against you and all your fellows ; against all you men who lie and twist and tempt a man, and then leave him to die and his children to starve? I should n't have been tempted, I suppose, but you politicians are very devils ! " He wheeled around suddenly and his eyes blazed into the face of his listener. " Mr. Farnham, who lost more by this election, you or I ? That 's what it all amounts to. That 's what I Ve been wanting to shout into your ears all these weeks, as I heard of you coddling your pride and nursing your failure. You 've lost a few friends, a little honor. I 've lost everything in life, and lost it for those who depend upon me. You, de- feated candidate though you are, lost not a tithe as much as the meanest day-laborer who worked for you. Go think on that," he ended with a laugh that made the children start, "and a merry Christmas to you!" But James Farnham did not move. The man's voice had pierced his stupor at last. He was all at once surcharged with living pain — he who had lived for days in benumbed lethargy. He felt it pulsing in his brain and in his heart and tingling in his finger-tips. 14 You or I ? You or I ? " The words danced before him in letters of fire. He reached for the door to steady himself, while the children looked into his face won- deringly. Even the man was silenced by the expression in it. Finally he pulled himself together with a start, the hot blood still racing through his veins. "Come!" he said, grasping Driscoll by the arm. "Come, before it is too late ! No man shall say that through me he has suffered such despair as I have suffered. Come ! " With fierce energy he led the way down the ricketty stairs and into the nearly deserted street. At the next corner he pushed the man into a cab. The direction he gave the driver roused Driscoll from his bewil- derment. " Where are you going ? " he demanded. " What are you going to do? Mr. Farnham, are you crazy?" " I 'm just saved from a spell of madness," answered the other recklessly. " I am a man among men once more ! I feel a resurrection of old power that was dead ! " Driscoll looked at him curiously, but with a light of com- prehension in his eyes. And they were both silent as the cab rolled over the frozen ground. Digitized by Google

Page 363

336 By Grace of the Governor-Elect. [Dec, It drew up at last before a brilliantly lighted house. " Stay here until I return/' commanded Farnham as they stopped, and with the same feverish energy he ran up the walk and pressed the bell. Through the undrawn curtains he saw a tall Christmas-tree, angel-crowned and blazing with lights, and around it a group of laughing, eager children. In the midst of them, with something in his face that Farnham had never seen before, stood Robert Chandler, the man who had defeated him. Only then did the strangeness of his errand dawn upon him, and he trembled a little as he gave the servant his card and was ushered into the darkened library. As the door closed after him he heard the echo of merry voices and above them all the ringing laugh of the Governor-elect. He had to wait only a few minutes before the door opened and Chandler entered. The light had died out of his face, and he was again the shrewd, self-possessed politician that Farnham knew. His face was perfectly calm, but there was a puzzled look in his eyes. " Mr. Farnham?" There was a world of significant questioning in the words. These two had been very bitter rivals, and the election was too lately over to take away the sting in the heart of either. It was the first time they had met since before the final struggle. As they looked at each other there came to the victor the remembrance of all the bitter things this man's agents had charged him with — things that even his splendid triumph had not sweetened because of the ugly truth at the core of them. And to Farnham recurred the stories of the measures his opponent had taken to beat him, measures at which the most hardened politicians had lifted their eyebrows and shaken their heads. It was Farnham who broke the uncomfortable silence. ' Mr. Chandler," he said constrainedly, " you must pardon my intrusion at such a time. I hope you will pardon, too, the nature of the errand that brings me here to disturb your Christmas festivities. I come on strange business. I doubt if a man in my position ever approached a man in yours with a request such as I am about to make you." He stopped, non- plussed. He had not thought how hard it would be. He had not reckoned on the immobile face before him, on the keen glance of the cold eyes that looked into his. With a visible effort he pulled himself together and went on. Digitized by Google

Page 364

1900.] By Grace of the Governor-Elect. 337 "I am not going to appeal to your justice, Mr. Chandler; I am going to strain your generosity. I am going to ask you to do something the like of which, perhaps, no politician was ever asked to do before. 1 may as well say in the beginning that you will gain nothing by it save, indeed, a poor man's blessing and my gratitude." Then he told Driscoll's story with something of the emo- tional eloquence that marked its recital to himself. He mar- shalled out all his powers, and used all the magnetism that was half the secret of his rapid progress in public favor. When he had finished he pleaded that the new governor would use his influence to give the man the position he had been promised by the opposing party. His appeal was almost des- perate in its earnestness; but at the close he found Chandler's keen eyes upon him and a quizzical smile about the corners of his mouth. " It is indeed a strange request that you are making, Mr. Farnham," he said slowly, with no change of expression ; " I think you hardly realize how strange. You ask me to extend my favor to a man — a man of some power among his fellows, I understand you to say — as the reward of trying his best to defeat me. You ask me to put a fire-brand into my own camp. A very strange request indeed — all the stranger because it comes from you/' " But he did not work for me or for my party," interrupted Farnham hastily. " Surely you are politician enough to know that a man who is bought must work for his pay. He would have worked just as hard for you had you bid as high for his services. He will work as hard now if you make it worth his while. It is a humiliating thing for me to say to you, Mr. Chandler, but the man himself did not hesitate to make his attitude unmistakable." " It matters very little what was his object," replied the other. " It is enough that he used his weapons against my cause. I have heard of the fellow, and I have reason to know that he alienated many votes. Besides, Mr. Farnham, even were I disposed to overlook the harm he has done me and the ex- traordinary nature of this whole transaction, what would my own men say to it ? Do you suppose they had no thought of spoil ? Do you suppose I am not besieged by them, day after day ? What excuse could I offer this army of office-seekers were I to give to the enemy the political plums they have so dearly bought?" VOL. LXXII.— 22 Digitized by Google

Page 365

338 By Grace oe the Governor-Elect. LDec-> Farnham looked up quickly. There was a note of weariness in the voice of the Governor-elect that made him forget for a minute the old strife between them. " I told you I should strain your generosity to its utmost," he said gently. " Mr. Chandler, I came to beg of your charity as one man of another, not in our relations as victor and van- quished in a heated political campaign. Let us shut out poli- tics for once — God knows they 've caused enough misery ! Let us forget the too bitter things that have been said and done between us. I appeal to you in a need to which you alone can apply the remedy. If you had seen the man and felt his despair — and only this one thing will give him back his hope and faith — you would not even wonder at my asking. I will not speak of what it will mean to me, save that your granting my request will leave me always your debtor. You will be free to command me at any time and in any crisis. ... I have some power still, Mr. Chandler." He looked straight into Chandler's eyes as he spoke. Each knew what was in the other's thought. There had been whis- pers of a foul ballot, whispers that were growing louder as the inauguration day approached, and that vaguely portended trou- ble to the man who was to take up the reins of government. The weariness that had been briefly in the voice of the Gov- ernor-elect looked out of his eyes as he weighed the good-will of his opponent, and the silencing of scandalous tongues against his inability to explain his action to those who had a right to question him. Farnham, in the brief space that he looked in- to the face of the man before him, came to thank God that he was not to be the Governor. While they were standing thus the door behind them opened softly. A wee bit of a girl with laughing eyes and tangled hair peeped through the narrow opening. 11 A merry, merry Christmas, papa ! " she cried. " Rob has just let old Christmas in ! A merry Christmas to us all ! " And she ran laughingly away. The two men turned and looked at each other. The light that Farnham had seen from the doorway was again in Chand- ler's face. He put out his hand — "A merry Christmas to us all!" he repeated. "Mr. Farn- ham, you have your answer. God forbid that we should cherish strife or close our hearts to any one's need to-night." Farnham wrung the hand in his long and silently. "You are a good man, Mr. Chandler," he said with a little Digitized by Google

Page 366

1930.] Bv Grace of the Governor-Elect. 339 catch in his voice. 14 You have been the bearer of good tidings to more than one man to-night. You have saved more than one from despair. You will make a better Governor than ever I should have made, and I pray God to bless your govern- ing." Before the other could answer the front door closed behind him, and he rushed out to the waiting cab. 14 A Christmas gift for you, Driscoll ! " he cried. 44 A Christ- mas gift ! Come, man, you shall make a Christmas yet for the mother and the little ones. Tell them that, by the grace of the Governor-elect, you are still to have your stewardship ! Tell them that there will be no more hunger, no more cold, rto more curses ! And tell them, my friend, that all is not lost by Farnham's defeat ! " The man bowed his head upon his hands and sobbed like a child. 44 God in heaven bless you, sir ! . . . This is more than I can bear. . . He was out of the carriage like a flash. 41 May you hear the laughter of little children in your dreams ! " he turned to say huskily, and then rushed homeward through the darkness. When Farnham reached his own. rooms at last the little clock on the mantel was chiming twelve. He sank wearily into a chair and closed his eyes. But his lips were smiling and there was on his face a look of unwonted peace. 44 . . . Glory, glory, glory to God ! . . The far-off voices of the Christmas waits floated out upon the night. He threw open the window. The street was silent and a single star gleamed out in the darkness. 44 And peace on earth — and peace on earth, Made glorious by the Saviour's birth, By the Saviour's birth ! 44 Amen ! " he said softly as the voices echoed and died away in the distance. 44 Amen ! M Digitized by Google

Page 367

The enchanting Panorama from the Cloisters of the Capuchin Monastery. AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL. O the artist and the tourist, to the antiquarian and the poet, Amalfi has long been one of the brightest spots on this terrestrial globe. The appalling landslide that took place here some time ago has given the quaint old village a new interest, and during the present season it has become a veritable Mecca for American visitors to the sunny land. Casteliamare rises on the northerly slope of the southern horn of the Bay of Naples, and Amalfi is right on the other side of that horn or promontory. No town in all Italy is more strikingly tranquil, more pictur- esque, or more romantic than this delightful spot, which glows white and iridescent in the warm sunshine and in the limpid, elastic air of the sunny land. Analfi was the Athens of the Middle Ages. It is believed to have been founded by emigrants from Melfi, the Greek city lying some seventy or eighty miles inland. We find mention Digitized by Google

Page 368

IQOO.] Amalfi, the Beautiful. 341 of Amalfi in the sixth century ; in the seventh it was governed by doges, and in the ninth Sicardo, Prince of Salerno, came there for the pious purpose of collecting the relics of various saints, and, being opposed in his intent by the no less religious inhabitants of the city, plundered and pillaged the town and carried off a vast number of prisoners. These prisoners after- wards got free, burned Salerno, the rival of their native city, and inaugurated thenceforward a wonderful period of prosperity for Amalfi. The city now assumed a species of independence. The Emperor of Constantinople fixed there a tribunal for the set- tlement of all disputes regarding naval matters, and the Tabula Amalfitana, or Code of Amalfi, soon became recognized as the guiding laws for all Europe, and Amalfi was regarded as the foremost naval power in the world. Amalfi in the time of Robert Guiscard had fifty thousand inhibitants. Its merchants traded all over the known world, and established colonies at Byzantium, in Asia Minor, and in Africa. They also instituted the order of the Hospitallers of St. John, who became afterwards known as the Knights of Malta, and these merchants were the foremost traders in the world, for only after their decline did Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Pisa rise to greatness. It was consequently inevitable that at the time of the Crusades the city swarmed with armed men, and that from its port multitudes of knights, with the cross as a device, set out in the interests of the good cause and to satisfy personal love of gain and adventure. Amalfi at this period was a proud and haughty city, and took every occasion of defying the Norman sovereigns of Na- ples. King Roger finally made war upon the city and, after two years of more or less constant attack and circumvallation, obliged it to capitulate in 1131, after which he placed it under a species of suzerainty while still allowing it perfect freedom as to its internal government. A few years later Amalfi had a quarrel with Pisa. The Pisans took the offensive and, in spite of the efforts of King Roger to protect Amalfi, the enemy raided the city and carried off its greatest treasure, the celebrated manuscripts of the Pan- dects of Justinian, now one of the principal treasures of the Laurentian Library in Florence, the Florentines having taken it from the Pisans in the fifteenth century. The Pisans re- turned again in 11 37, two years after their first attack, and obliged Amalfi to sue for peace. The little republic had thence- Digitized by Google

Page 369

342 Amalfi, the Beautiful. [Dec, The Famous Ambo at Revello. forward lost its power and its primacy, and became subject to the Dukes of Anjou. In 1343 the lower part of the town, which had been gradu- ally undermined by the sea for at least a couple of centuries, collapsed and almost the whole of its buildings, with arsenals and harbor, were thenceforward covered with water. Amalfi from this on was merely an antiquarian relic of its former greatness. It retained, however, the glorious boast of having been the first of the dominating naval powers of Christian Eu- rope, and of having given birth to Flavio Gioja, the man who in 1302, by the discovery for the Caucasian race of the mari- ner's compass, led the way to the discovery of America and helped powerfully to spread civilization and practically to revo- lutionize the world. Digitized by Google

Page 370

1900.] Amalfi, the Beautiful. 343 The Bell Tower of the Cathedral dates from 1276. Amalfi at the present day shelters some seven thousand souls, and is a relatively lively little place, macaroni, paper, and soap being its chief products. The manufacturing of these articles forms an interesting study, and shows how machinery can be employed to reduce manual labor without necessarily involving unpicturesque tall chimneys, black lowering clouds of smoke, or inartistic sights, noises, or odors. A ravine behind the city is called u The Valley of Mills." It is a cool and shady retreat, and a delightful place for an afternoon walk. It is the subject of the following interesting and brilliant description by Dean Alford : " The valley is full of mills, each going with its deafening clack, and its great splash of water; each variously contrived so as to borrow the Digitized by Google

Page 371

344 Amalfi, the Beautiful. [Dec, descending motive power, and to pass it on, and thus present- ing a series of arches, and aqueducts, and bridges, and stone stairs, and piled up roofs, such as I should think can nowhere else be found. Add to all this diversity of form the colors of stone, and wet wood, and brick, and clinging vegetation, and chemical matter employed in the mills ; insert here and there a cottage door with a family group, — the old man on his staff, the old woman spinning, the half-naked children, the curious mummy-like chrysalis of an infant in its swathing clothes; break the series now and then with a pergola, or trellised canopy of lemon-trees, bright green in the leaf, violet purple in the ycfung shoot, hanging their pale gold fruit almost thicker than the leaves, and then let all the scene be dappled with the dark, cool shadows of the south, cut clear into the white mass of sunshine, — let it all be towered over by fantastic rocks of every shape and tint, leaving only a broad stripe above for the blue heaven to look down through, and you have but the vain struggle of words with the unparalleled strangeness and overpowering beauty of the glen of the tnolini at Amalfi." In the chief piazza of the town is the Cathedral of St. Andrew, a beautiful and interesting structure in Lombard- Norman style of the eleventh century. The bell tower dates from 1276. The bronze doors were executed by Byzantine masters in the year 1066, and were the gift of two members of the noble Pantaleone family of Amalfi, who at this period were famous for the founding of hospitals at Jerusalem, Antioch, and various parts of Italy. The interior of the church is filled with artistic monuments which are attractive and interesting to the historian. High up above the cathedral is located the Capuchin Mon- astery founded in 1212 by Cardinal Capuano, and originally inhabited by Cistercian monks. The building lies in the hollow of a cliff which rises abruptly to the height of two hundred and fifty feet from the sea. From its cloisters an enchanting panorama is before the spectator. Amalfi has been the subject of a descriptive poem by Long- fellow, whose verses, embodying the chief features of this wonderful little town, are well worthy of being transcribed : " Sweet the memory is to me Of a land beyond the sea, Where the waves and mountains meet : Digitized by Google

Page 372

1900.] Amalfi, the Beautiful. 345 Where, amid her mulberry. trees, Sits Amalfi in the heat, Bathing ever her white feet In the tideless summer seas. " In the middle of the town, From its fountains in the hills, Tumbling through the narrow gorge, The Cannetto rushes down,; Turns the great wheels of the mills, Lifts the hammer of the forge. 'Tis a stairway, not a street, That ascends the deep ravine, Where the torrent leaps between Rocky walls that almost meet. "Toiling up from stair to stair Peasant girls their burdens bear; Sunburnt daughters of the soil, Stately figures tall and straight. Digitized by Google

Page 373

346 Amalfi, the Beautiful. [Dec, What inexorable fate Dooms them to this life of toil ? " Lord of vineyards and of lands, Far above the convent stands. On its terraced walk aloof Leans a monk with folded hands, Placid, satisfied, serene, Looking down upon the scene Over wall and red-tiled roof; Wondering unto what good end All this toil and traffic tend, And why all men cannot be Free from care and free from pain, And the sordid love of gain, And as indolent as he. " Where are now the freighted barks From the marts of east and west ? Where the knights in iron sarks Journeying to the Holy Land, Glove of steel upon the hand, Cross of crimson on the breast ? " Where the pomp of camp and court ? Where the pilgrims with their prayers? Where the merchants with their wares, And their gallant brigantines, Sailing safely into port, Chased by corsair Algerines? " Vanished like a fleet of cloud, Like a passing trumpet-blast, Are those splendors of the past And the commerce and the crowd. Fathoms deep beneath the seas Lie the ancient wharves and quays, Swallowed by the engulfing waves ; Silent streets and vacant halls, Ruined roofs and towers and walls: Hidden from all mortal eyes Deep the sunken city lies : Even cities have their graves. Digitized by Google

Page 374

i9oa] Amalfi, the Beautiful. 347 " This is an enchanted land ! Round the headlands far away Sweeps the blue Salernian bay With its sickle of white sand : Further still and furthermost On the dim discovered coast Paestum with its ruins lies, And its roses all in bloom Seem to tinge the fatal skies Of that lovely land of doom. " On his terrace, high in air, Nothing doth the good monk care For such worldly themes as these. From the garden just below Little puffs of perfume blow, And a sound is in his ears Of the murmur of the bees In the shining chestnut-trees. Digitized by Google

Page 375

348 Amalfi, the Beautiful. [Dec,* " Nothing else he heeds or hears. All the landscape seems to swoon In the happy afternoon ; Slowly o'er his senses creep The encroaching waves of sleep, And he sinks as sank the town, Unresisting fathoms down, Into caverns cool and deep. " Walled about with drifts of snow, Hearing the fierce north wind blow, Seeing all the landscape white, And the river cased in ice, Comes this memory of delight, Comes this vision unto me Of a long-lost Paradise In the land beyond the sea." Digitized by Google

Page 376

igoo.] The Development of Dogma. 349 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. BY THOMAS L. HEALY. EN fail to realize that all the 4 signs of the times ' point to the vastest moral, religious, theological revolution that has yet transpired in history."* Such a statement, set down by a man claiming authority to speak whereof he knows, will arrest the attention of all who would read the " signs of the times." Chronicled in history are some wonderfully radical and epoch- making movements, and if her record is now to be broken it is something worth inquiring into. What are the grounds for such a prophetic utterance? what are the signs which forecast this phenomenal movement ? where can they be seen ? what is to be its nature, its extent, its results ? Explain ; please ex- plain. Such impatient questionings may well be urged, and eagerly be awaited the answers, on a matter of such tremen- dous import as this movement promises to be. Seemingly this prophecy loses some of its evil-boding tone when we realize that not the commercial, not the political, but the reli- gious world is to witness this radical and epochal movement. And yet this narrowing of the sphere to be influenced makes the matter only the more important ; for while all might not be equally interested in the state of the commercial and politi- cal worlds, we all are equally interested in the condition of the religious world, and fain would we know the reason why men make such alarming predictions. A CRISIS IMMINENT. These alarmists — it may be said at the outset — are confined entirely to Protestantism. It is among the Protestant clergy and laity that all this hue and cry is raised. Nevertheless, it has a bearing on the status of Catholic theology and religion, and hence a review of the matter is not irrelevant ; it is even important — why, we shall see later on. We have but to take the word of Protestant leaders themselves to believe * Evolution of Trinitarianism. By Levi Leonard Paine, Professor of Ecclesiastical His- tory, Bangor Theological Seminary. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 377

3So The Development, and not [Dec, that a crisis is imminent; imminent, that is, as far as they are concerned, for they are not entitled to judge for the Catholic portion of Christendom. Of this more anon. Prot- estant writers tell us that uniformity of belief does not exist even among their teachers. Confession is openly made that "the mode of selecting ministers, while it tests a man's rhetoric and elocution, and whether he has taking ways with the young people, gives little or no means of ascertaining whether he has a reasoned, organic body of truth to communi- cate or not."* And as for the people, another writer has said: "Ask men and women why they have ceased to attend* church, and they will tell you that they have ceased to believe much that is preached, and that their religious needs are not ministered to."f More startling still are declarations like the following: "The current creed is a chaos of contradictions";^: and again: "There is no accepted body of doctrine, clean-cut, well reasoned, consistently and comprehensively thought out, which you can count on hearing when you enter a Christian Church." § Little wonder then is it, that men facing such a condition of affairs are fretful for the future ; little wonder that we find two schools of writers, one school clamoring for a Recon- struction, a second predicting a Revolution. All this, of course, within the domains of Protestantism. THE RECONSTRUCTIONIST AND THE REVOLUTIONIST. The " Reconstruction " sentiment has been championed by William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College. Mr. Hyde views with saddened heart the old orthodoxy trembling to its fall, and thinks that the work of destruction has gone far enough ; that " it is time to weld together the truths we have saved from the wreck of ancient systems, and the truths that have been brought to us on the flood of scientific and historical studies, into a definite, coherent, reasoned, and reasonable body of doc- trine."! His self imposed task is, then, the adjustment of Chris- tianity to modern scientific and philosophic conceptions. This re- minds one of Mr. Lecky's claim that a proof of the flexibility of Protestantism is its power to assimilate with modern Rational- ism, but Mr. Hyde's effort in this direction was so unsuccess- ful that one of his critics, after examining his system, was * God's Education of Man, By William De Witt Hyde. Boston, 1899 t Evolution 0/ Trinitarianism, chap. vi. %Goa*s Education of Man, Introduction. § Ibid. I Ibid. Digitized by Google

Page 378

i goo.] the Evolution of Dogma. 35i forced to exclaim : " Rationalism I know, and Christianity I know ; but what art thou ? " * The idea of reconstruction is eschewed by a class of Protestants themselves. Professor Paine, who is a " Revolutionist/' says that " theologians of this class are utterly blind to the fact that historical criticism has al- ready destroyed the metaphysical foundations themselves " which in the plan were to form the basis of the new system. It is into the claims of this latter writer that we would especially examine, since he voices the principles of a school which is coming into greater and greater favor every day, a school which teaches that all theological phenomena are resolvi- ble in the crucible of evolution ; that to understand the condi- tion of the theological world, to understand theology at all, one must know the workings of the law of " historical evolu- tion," with its three cooperative laws: 1. The law of develop- ment; 2. The law of cycles and cyclic changes; 3. The law of reaction and revolution. Dogma, they tell us, like all other phenomena of nature, has to suffer the same laws to control its history as have controlled the history of all nature, animate and inanimate. We have now to propose and answer a few pertinent questions anent Professor Paine's exposition of the theory of evolution as applied to the history of dogma. Does his theory include the history of Catholic theology ? Is it justifiable in fact, and does it recommend itself to reason ? A POLICY OF IGNORING. I. Does it include Catholic theology? The Catholic reader is struck by the vexing way in which Protestant writers and speculators, like Mr. Hyde and Mr. Paine, ignore the Catholic Church. Professing to be scientific and professing to employ scientific methods, they exclude the Catholic Church from all consideration in solving the problems of the Christian world,' although that church numbers more Christians in her fold than all the other churches of Christendom combined ! This is what no infidel scholar— even the most hostile to the Catholic Church — ever dared to do. No historian, no scholar of repute, has yet treated her as these men are treating her. Her power and influence have ever been recognized. Fault may have been found with her, she may hive been persecuted, and men may have tried to ridicule her, but not till now has she been ignored. Christianity is now spoken of and written about as if * Catholic University Bulletin , April, 1903; article " The Reconstruction of Christianity," by James J. Fox, S.T.D. Digitized by Google

Page 379

352 The Development, and not [Dec, it were the exclusive property of Protestantism. The Catholic Church, as old as Christianity itself, has in some mysterious way lost its right to recognition. What makes this unbearable is, that conditions of Protestant churches are described, with the result that problems arise and are discussed as to the past, present, and future of "Christianity," as if that word were synonymous and coextensive with Protestant- ism. To illustrate, we will repeat a quotation made awhile ago from Mr. Hyde. This gentleman says: "The current creed of Christendom is a chaos of contradictions." If Mr. Hyde means by Christendom Protestantism, he is right ; his statement is absDlutely untrue if he would apply it to Catholicism. But he does not seem to be thinking of Catholicism ; the Christian world as he seems to conceive it does not comprise the Catho- lic Church. When Mr. Paine speaks of " men and women not going to church because they do not believe much of that which is preached nowadays and their religious needs are not ministered to," his remark evidently applies to Protestants, with whom church-going is often a matter of easy dispensation, but cannot be true of men and women who throng their churches Sunday after Sunday, as is the case among Catholics. New theologies, new creeds, reconstruction, and revolution may be distressing problems in non-Catholic circles, but is any man justified in deducing from this that the whole Christian world is on the eve of a tremendous upheaval, revolution, or other similarly frightful calamity? There may be "voices in the wilderness " of Protestantism lamenting and crying out for peace, for unity, ay, for faith itself; but dare any man say that the Catholic Church is the seat of innumerable sects, that she is experiencing a disintegration of doctrine, that she is crying out with a pitiful voice to save what is left of the 4< wreck of ancient systems," that her members are deserting a sinking ship ? Impossible ! Catholicity is Christianity, was the only Christianity for 1600 years, and no historian has yet re- corded her passage into oblivion. Then we have reason to insist that when any problem affecting Christianity is under discussion the Catholic Church must not be left out of consideration. This concession Protestant writers ought to make if it were only for the sake of method. But no, they will ignore Christianity. They even speak and write about the early church and early Fathers as if Protestantism, and Protestantism alone, were inseparably one in spirit and faith with the first ages of Christianity. We quote Cardinal Newman's quiet rebuke of this conduct : " Did Digitized by Google

Page 380

1900.] the Evolution of Dogma. 353 St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to life it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. These Fathers . . . would find themselves more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers, or with the members of any other creed." * It is really wearying to consider longer what we are tempted to call rapa- cious vandalism ; for materially it almost amounts to that : an unjustifiable appropriation by Protestantism of what was pos- sessed for centuries before its birth by the Catholic Church. Surely Protestant writers ought to see this, for they are not blind. Then what? We do not know. Abstracting from the injustice done to Catholicism in ignor- ing it as a factor in the solution of the problems of Christian- ity, we come to apply ourselves to the right and wrong of the theory of historical evolution in itself. THEORY OF HISTORICAL EVOLUTION. 2. As the theory of 44 historical evolution " is based on an an- alogy— at least Mr. Paine compares the phenomena of the history of dogma to the phenomena of nature — our first point to decide is whether the comparison is to enjoy the luxury of its kind — i.e., latitude of interpretation — in which case we submit that the theory is a harmless projection ; or if, as seems more likely, Mr. Paine would have us interpret him strictly—/. e.t as saying that dogma has experienced evolutionary charges just as truly as the material world about us, and in the same degree — then we would oppose our judgment to his. We deny that the history of dogma has really passed through the three stages of evolution which he enumerates, viz , development, cyclic change, and reaction and revolution. We confine the argument to pre- Reformation Christianity, afc it matters little to us whether or not 44 cyclic changes" have occurred in Prot- estant theology since the Reformation, and we challenge Mr. Paine to produce facts which will support his theory of 44 cyclic change " in early Christian doctrine. His statement of the case is this: 44 The law of development began to work at once in the history of the dogma of Christ. A new cycle began with the introduction of Greek philosophy, continu- ing to the Nicene-Athanasian period (a. d. 325-373). . . • ♦Cardinal Newman: Development of Christian Doctrine \ Part L, chap. ii. sec. 3. VOL. LXXIL— 23 Digitized by Google

Page 381

354 The Development, and not [Dec, Another new cycle began with Augustine,"* and so on down to the present day. As for 44 reactions and revolutions," he refers to the " Reformation in the time of Luther and his compeers " as an instance where "a complete rent was made in the old order of faith and thought." From a careful study and a strict interpretation of Professor Paine's exposition we gather that he would have us to believe that the transition between the teaching of our Lord and that of St. Athanasius (the first cyclic change in dogma) really compares with the transition be- tween the azoic and the protozoic epochs (the first cyclic change in nature); that, mutatis mutandis^ there is as much difference — for change brings difference — between the teaching of our Lord and the Apostles and genuine Christian doctrine of to-day, as there is between the azoic, physical, inorganic world, and intellectual, conscience-endowed, religious man! DEVELOPMENTS, AND NOT SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES. Our first question is one of fact: Have 44 cyclic changes" taken place in Christian doctrine? The evolutionary theorist says yes, and undertakes to prove his position — but fails. To assert that because men bring to bear the learning and termi- nology of their day upon current dogma, and because the result is a more finely wrought-out system, a more scientific explanation, but still an explanation — a drawing out into ex- plicit terms of what was implicit before ; in fine, a develop- ment— I repeat, to assert because of this that a real cyclic change has taken place is beyond reason. Professor Harnack, speaking of the introduction of Greek philosophy into Chris- tianity— Mr. Paines first 44 cyclic change " — describes it as 44 an interpretation of the Gospel in the language of Greek philosophy " ; f this, we say, is only a development and not a substantial change. St. Athanasius might interpret the funda- mental doctrines of God and of the Incarnation in the light of his philosophical leanings, likewise St. Augustine, and the same for all the Fathers who have contributed to the voluminous records we still possess of these early theological disputations. The results may have differed to a greater or less degree, but it is not clear that each succeeding phase of the discussions was so markedly and essentially different from preceding ones as to warrant the application of the term 44 cyclic change." We * Evolution of Trinitarian ism, chap. vi. + Outlines of the History of Do^ma. By Adolph Harnack. English translation by E. K. Mitchell, p. 82, edition 1893. Digitized by Google

Page 382

1900.] the Evolution of Dogma. 355 say that all the facts which history has given us demonstrate simply this: that there was a process of development, not an evolution. DEVELOPMENT, BUT NOT EVOLUTION. Nor is this a quibbling of words. The notion of develop- ment, as we shall see, is far different from the notion of evo- lution as explained by the evolutionary theorist. We might admit an evolution of dogma, if evolution meant nothing more than development ; but this is not the idea of the latter- day scientific theologian. He wants an evolution which has its development ; but more than this, its cycles and its cata- clysms. He can find them if he twists and distorts facts, and will see the law of evolution everywhere and always at work. The evolutionist soundly rebukes the theologian for trying to make theology the be-all of God's world, while he himself, unheedful of his own diatribes against the theologian, tries to persuade men that the factotum of the universe is evolution, and shows very plainly that he has not got hold of the law of evolution half as much as the law of evolution has hold of him. We are not surprised, then, at finding Mr. Paine, who preludes his work with a declaration of fair research and inquiry, but is none the less truly biassed by his prejudice in favor of evolution, disposing of facts and arguments in the most arbitrary fashion, making startling presumptions, and de- ducing more startling conclusions. If one begins with a pre- sumption, and that presumption be fair and reasonable, then facts will naturally close round it and fall in with it, if we will but let them; if the presumption be not fair, then facts will close round it and fall in with it, if we but make them. That the presumption on which the evolution theory is based is unfair, and that its advocates make facts agree with it, we gravely suspect; and as a reliable test of a theory, when the agreement of facts is at least under suspicion, is in the rea- sonableness of the presumption, we will now apply this test to the " historical. evolution 99 theory. 3. Before proceeding to this, however, we ought to explain that, irrespective of the intrinsic worth of the theory, it has not been advanced without good cause. It is not an idle invention of an idle hour. It is an attempt, and not the first in its line, to solve a problem of no mean proportions which encounters the student of historical Christianity. The facts of the situation as they confront theorists are represented Digitized by Google

Page 383

356 The Development, and not [Dec, by them as follows : Christianity was evidently intended by its Founder to be a universal religion, and as such it must have a determined body of doctrine, yet " it is absolutely impossible to fix on any historical point at which the growth of doctrine ceased and the sum of faith was once for all established 99 ; even more, " no single doctrine can be named which starts complete from the first and gains absolutely nothing afterwards from in- vestigations of faith and attacks of heresy."* Even granting that the Bible did contain the sum total of belief, it must be further conceded that, owing to intrinsic difficulties arising from its indefmiteness and from its condensed and fragmentary char- acter, an interpretation — and interpretation means development — would be a logical necessity. All Christendom recognizes that the Bible as a font of belief is in an undeveloped state, and has gone on this presumption. But for the first three cen- turies the canon of the Scriptures had not been definitely set- tled, and the rule of faith was Apostolic teaching preserved and handed down by tradition and in fragmentary writings or epistles. When, twel/e years after the Ascension, the Apos- tles went forth into the world to teach Christianity they must have had some uniformity at least in the fundamental, saving doctrines they were to communicate to mankind. The details we cannot know — but this much is certain, that their teachings were very elementary and their system, if any such they had, must have been the crudest, for they were unlettered men : yet in reality they meted out to mankind the highest kind of theology, a theology which was equal to the greatest minds of subsequent centuries. Their simple and straightforward way of preaching " Christ and Him Crucified/' " Christ Risen from the Dead," " Sin," " Grace," was never meant to satisfy the philosophical minds of future converts to Christianity, who must needs exhaust the Apostolic teaching ; and so we find Justin, and Origen, and Tertullian, and Athanasius, and Augus- tine applying themselves to the elaboration of a scheme of Christian theology that could compare with prevalent schools of philosophy. All this they accomplished by discussing, ana- lyzing, comparing, deducing, formulating. This same condition is verified to a greater or less degree in every epoch of his- torical Christianity. These are the facts which have supplied matter for hypo- theses as to how they came about, and what they mean. The theory of historical evolution is a recent and " scientific 99 at- * Det<elopment of Christian Doctrine. Digitized by Google

Page 384

igoo.] the Evolution of Dogma. 357 tempt to answer the questions here indicated. The very first theory which Cardinal Newman mentions in his book on Development is so closely akin to the one we are considering that we quote his notice of it: "One [theory] is to the effect that Christianity has ever changed from the first, and has ever accommodated itself to the circumstances of times and seasons." The idea of " accommodation 99 may not strike one at first as being very significant, but on reflecting that the change referred to is understood as a substantial change and the resultant of accommodation, we realize that we have here the nucleus of a genuine evolutionary theory. It is all-of a-kind with the out-and- out, full-fledged historical evolution theory of latter-day scientists. Cardinal Newman summarily disposes of the accommodation theory, and we will try to show that the more recent product of this " age of ours " cannot meet the difficulty any better than did its precursor. NEWMAN'S THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. This may be done indirectly and by contrast with Cardi- nal Newman's own Theory of Development. The statement of the Development theory is this:* "The increase and expan- sion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the process, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has any wide or elevated dominion ; from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas ; the highest and most wonderful truths communicated to the world once for all by inspired men cannot be comprehended all at once by its recipients, but as being received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which are human have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucida- tion." It is only the application to the body of Christian doctrine of a law which seems to control the existence of all great ideas or principles, and even intellectual systems or schools. Thus, for instance, the teaching of the Apostles could have been reduced to a few essential ideas and principles. We see them offered to a world sadly in need of a saving religion, and immediately the same phenomena follow which at- tend the projection of any popular idea : promulgation, agita- tion, confusion, misconception, modification, expansion, com- bination, varied relations, interrogation, criticism, defence, * Divelopment of Christian Doctrine^ Introduction, n. 21. Digitized by Google

Page 385

35» The Development, and not [Dec, collection, comparison, sifting, sorting, selection, rejection ; all these phases of action have had a multiform part or in fluence in the growth and development of Christian doctrine. But this entire growth with its complex result is one with the seed whence it sprang, around which all doctrines centre, towards which they all converge ; to wit, the sum of Apostolic teaching. It is not necessary — it is even impossible — to define the exact limits of the so-called Apostolic teaching, and the demand of Newman's critics for a " seminal idea " was unjust, for origi- nally, in its very inception, Christianity was a complex idea, and no single aspect is deep enough to exhaust its contents. "For convenience," however, Cardinal Newman conditionally adopts the Incarnation as " the central aspect of Christianity out of which the three main aspects of its teaching take their rise — the Sacramental, the Hierarchical, and the Ascetical. But one aspect of Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or obscure another, and Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once." To quibble and juggle words over a technical triviality in the face of momentous facts is unreason- able. When we find a body of doctrine referable back from age to 'age, with distinct and incontestable connection, each age echoing the preceding, the whole forming a perfect, sys- temic unit, the various doctrines being members of a family as it were, suggestive, correlative, confirmatory, so that to accept a part is to accept the whole from stern logical necessity, without preference or mitigation — then we may be sure of a development. But it must be understood that the power of development is intrinsic — " an expansive power which uses argument indeed and reflection, and even may have a certain relation to or dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, with a reflex influence upon it," — but nevertheless a power of maturation, so to speak, inherent in the germinal seed. ADVANTAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. Add to what has been already said that this develop- ing power leads to unity, directness, consistency ; that it gives us an explanation of phenomena which can be accepted with- out a violent wrenching of our fixed religious views, which is not repulsive to our finer religious sentiments, from which even public opinion does not recoil in horror and amazement, which does not rob Christianity of it? very life blood — namely, its supernatural character — which does not destroy Divine Free- Digitized by Google

Page 386

1900.] the Evolution of Dogma. 359 dom and yet has due regard for the ordinary laws of nature, and it possesses just so many advantages over the "evolutionary" hypothesis. We have said that the evolution theory does not apply in fact to pre-Reformation Christianity. Cyclic changes, reactions, and revolutions may have been doing their work in Protestant theology since the Reformation, but the solid front presented by early Christian doctrine in the battle against paganism and heathenism, and by Catholic theology against infidelity to-day, exhibits nothing save the reasonable, necessary if you will, development " which strengthens not weakens, con- serves not destroys." We repudiate the theory of " cyclic change." Scientific (?) theologians may have it if they choose, and be- lieve in it; but what can it -give them? Certainly not the consistent, essential unity which comes from true development, and which Catholic theology alone enjoys, but rather divisions and dissensions of the most discouraging character, risings of sects on sects, establishments and re-establishments of churches, discord, even despair. Worse still : under such an illusory method of reasoning Christianity is easily reducible to a cold, heartless, spiritless moral code at best, with no more to recommend itself to the spiritual needs of man's soul than the ancient schools of philosophy, with no more claim to the supernatural than the most ordinary speculative science. Then if men will cling to such a theory, all that we can say is : Very well ; adopt your theory, and what have you ? Results bewildering and disheartening. Believe, if you will, that the primal body of Christian doctrine has been subject for nine- teen centuries to cyclic change, reaction and revolution, that the unrecognizable entanglement of theology in Protestantism is the legitimate outcome of the evolution of historical Chris- tianity. And to our reader we say : Is it any wonder that these men are dissatisfied ? any wonder that they are lost in a labyrinthal scheme which can show nor beginning nor end, and whence they would gladly be liberated ? Is this Christianity ? Has Christ's work come to this ? Note. — Read the two articles by Father Tyrrell, S .1 , in The Mouth for August and Sep- tember, 1900. Father Tyrrell says that the principles of the Development Theory, though laid down • 4 in the interests of a much narrower and now almost obsolete controversy, yet are available largely for that far wider one into which it has resojved itself." This will be realized by any one who will read W. H. Mallock's book, Doctrine and Doctrinal D s* uption (London, 1900), which, as Wilfrid Ward points out, is an application of the principles of the Development Theory to explain the logical basis of Christian belief held by a Roman Catholic {London Tablety June 30, 1900). Digitized by Google

Page 387

360 44 Blessed are the Poor:' [Dec, " Blessed af^e the E?ooi^." BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY. OME simple shepherds in the night Saw Heaven open ; and the light That issues from the Eternal Throne Around them in the darkness shone. And downward floating came a throng Of angels with a wondrous song — A song that echoed through the spheres, A song that echoes through the years, A song that shook the listening sky With "Glory unto God on high!" A choral promise from above Of God's eternal peace and love. And so revealed to simple men Was God's own Truth. And so again The lowly-hearted, such as they, Behold the Lord from day to day. Before the kingly folk and wise Who saw His beacon in the skies, And sought Him in Jerusalem, He chose the hinds of Bethlehem ; And they were first to kneel before Their infant Saviour, and adore — The first in simple wise to trace His Mother's likeness in His face; The first, perhaps, to understand The trembling of St. Joseph's hand ; To pierce the meaning of his awe At all he was, and all he saw ; The first to hail with reverent word The coming of the Promised Lord ; The first within that stable dim To welcome and to worship Him ! Digitized by Google

Page 388

1900.] "Blessed are the Poor:9 361 To day God's love is just as sure: The simple-hearted folk and poor Are His, as when a babe He lay Long years ago, long leagues away, In far Judea, and He chose The shepherds (out of all of those Who waited for His coming long) To hear the angels* wondrous song, To marvel at the Light of men That ne'er would sink in night again ; To be, though lowly, first on earth To<hail the Saviour at His birth. Digitized by Google

Page 389

362 " The Regimentals. [Dec, "THE REGIMENTALS." BY EDWARD F. GARESCH6. ISTRESS MARGERY HONE sat by her kitchen fire, though it was a warm, spring-time morning — the spring-time of 1777. The great pot bub- bled on its hook, the pine logs flamed and spluttered merrily beneath it, and a plump gray cat, curled comfortably on the hearth, watched its mistress with a half-frightened glance as she bent, eyes gleaming, cheeks all flushed from the fire, above her warlike task. For Dame Mar- gery was moulding bullets ! Never before had sleek Grimalkin seen the iron mould in any hands save Master Timothy's; nor often then but in early autumn, when he, sturdy hunter as he was, was wont to make ready a store of bullets for the winter season. Yet here was Dame Margery pouring the hot lead, and clipping the rough spheres round with her own slender fingers, while gay Master Timothy — where, where was he? . . . Up from the blossoming orchard came a faint rustle of sound that stirred the quick ear of the cat to instant alertness. A soft footstep tiptoed among the trees, paused at the hedge as though the comer listened and peered out, then lightly crossed the lawn and ceased before the kitchen door. A moment after an uncouth form stood framed at the sunlit threshold. From his garb the new comer seemed to be a travelling pedlar, even more road-worn, more ragged and travel-stained, than the generality of his kind. His feet, wrapped in dusty cloths, fell noiselessly upon the boards. A rope-bound pack hung from his shoulders, and an ancient felt was slouched upon his brow. From beneath its angular brim his dark eyes gleamed, with a look that seemed of hunger, at the cool white walls, with their rows of shining platters ; at the hearth, clean swept and homely, and at fair Dame Margery, busy still with melting-pot and mould. As he looked at her a film of tears came into the wanderer's eyes ; he stretched his hands toward her, and in a half-whispered tone, as though he feared that the very walls might hear, he cried, " Dear Margaret ! " Digitized by Google

Page 390

iqoo.] 44 The Regimentals. 363 The woman started, so that the mould fell clattering on the hearth, and seeing the tattered intruder, lifted her ladle threateningly. 44 How dare you, sorry ruffian!" said she, " creep in and startle honest people so ? Out with you, or — 99 44 Sh.h ! 99 said the pedlar, 44 quiet, sweet ; 'tis I ! 99 A sudden light of recognition flashed into her eyes, and leaving lead and all, she threw herself into the vagrant's arms. 44 Timothy!" sobbed she on his dusty shoulder; 44 Timothy, Timothy !— dear, tattered Timothy ! 99 44 1 have little time, dear wife, for greeting," said the other, speaking softly and rapidly ; 44 this is a perilous time for thy husband." 44 But will you not rest awhile, Timothy, and be shorn of those tangled locks, and freed of this dust and mire, and clad in Christian garments ; nay, I have even made thee — " 44 Shorn ! cleaned ! " he interrupted ; 44 that would indeed mean ruin. My life depends on this disguise, and delay is like to bring upon me a company of scarlet-coated villains. I should not have ventured here save that from weariness and hunger I had been like to lose the strength to flee. I am a spy ; nay, more, a hunted spy ! " As he had spoken of hunger and weariness Dame Margery flew to a cupboard near, whence she drew foaming milk and snowy bread. Her husband ravenously gulped them down, and said between mouthfuls: 44 Since I wrote you, dear, by trusty goodman Gray, we have had enough of work and worry for all our lives. What with famine and cold, in the makeshift huts at Valley Forge, and the wounds of past fighting, many of us were half dis- abled, and day after day brought worse shifts and harder toil. And didst thou hear that General Washington sought to stamp out the plague of small-pox among us by giving it to the whole army, one detachment after another? It was even so, and woe to the cause if Sir William Howe had marched upon us! Then, at last, spring came, and the darkness lifted a lit- tle ; our ills healed, and our hearts lightened, and the whole army wished only for action. 44 Not many days ago the general came unannounced into my tent, looking grave and mournful. * Lad/ quoth he, 4 1 have need of you.' 4 Only tell me, sir/ I cried, springing to my feet, 4 how I can serve you!' 4 Listen, then/ said he; 4 Sir William Howe hath been recalled to England ; Sir Henry Clinton taketh the command of the English forces. Since Digitized by Google

Page 391

364 44 The Regimentals:' [Dec, the spring is opened, it is very like that they will attempt some move against us, and I would have more information of their force, condition, plans, if possible. You must get it for me, Timothy.' 4 As a spy, general ? 9 4 As a spy,' said he ; and having given me instructions, gravely went forth again. 41 The next morning, from a farm house ten miles from camp, I, clad in worn homespun as a farmer's lout, and acting the fool like one of feeble wits, set forth for the enemy's lines at Philadelphia. Ah! Margaret, I can never tell you how the task sickened my soul. There was a plenty ol work to be had among the British troops, and even a half-mad simpleton, such as they thought me, was welcomed and well paid. So I worked there at menial tasks until yester morn I was sent to carry some refuse from out Sir Clinton's quarters. While I was busied with the task, I chanced to be left alone — only for a moment ; but during that moment I seized his portfolio, and rapidly glancing over the papers which it contained, chose the bulkiest and hid them under my coat. Then, carrying forth the rubbish, I thought to steal from their lines and be quit of the whole cursed errand. But I had not gone far when, just as I had started to run, to be off more speedily, I doubled round a corner, and had near run into an English soldier ! 4 Hey, friend ragamuffin ! ' said he, 4 whither away so fast ? ' and he held out his arm to stop me. I sprang to dash past him ; but he seized my flapping coat, and holding on, I was swung half round in a circle, and alas ! one of the general's papers came tumbling out from under my coat. However, you may guess that I did not stay to gather it up again, but, the corner of my garment coming off in the soldier's hand, I leapt past him, and ran away at my utmost speed. The soldier started after me, but he being a beef fed loon, and wasting overmuch breath in calling * Stop ! ' I soon distanced him so that he was fain to turn backward and raise the alarm at his quarters, I suppose, while I came for the nonce safely off. Then, skirting the town in the woods, I came straight here. You see, they know not who I am, and I feared to speak to any one, lest they might betray me. Are any of the servants near ? " 44 Nay," answered his wife, 44 all are abroad ; but an' they were here they would never know you — poor dear! what a sorry spectacle." 44 'Tis a good disguise," said Timothy, glancing uncomforta- Digitized by Google

Page 392

1900.] " The Regimentals." 365 bly at his dusty extremities, "and, with speed, may save me. I had it of a Yankee pedlar — an unsavory rogue whom I met on the way hither — for mine own suit and some silver ; he was making his way back, he said, to Boston Town. What may be in the pack I know not. Listen ! some one comes, and a-running ! " Up the garden path came the patter of flying footsteps. A moment, and a young negro, swift and agile, bounded up to the door, and, half-falling within it, gasped with what breath his haste had left him : " Missus ! troops — English troops — are comin'; de woods are full of scarlet coatses ! " Margaret turned imperiously to her husband. " Here, fellow ! " said she quickly, 44 take thy food and sit on the ground without. Thy rags do not beseem a decent kitchen. Go, boy, and tell the officer who commands these troops that Dame Margaret Hone invites his worship to enter and drink a glass of wine with her ; be quick, do you hear me ? 99 The boy opened his eyes in wide surprise ; then, grinning and murmur- ing 44 Yes 'm," left as hastily as he had come. Margery turned to her astonished spouse. "An apt lad," said she, 44 but thy secret is too desperate for any but we two to hold. Play thy part, and I will mine, Timothy, and God's aid be with both of us ! 99 Half dazed, as a man who wakes from sleep, Timothy seized upon the platter of bread and milk, and shambled out upon the lawn. Scarce was he settled there when, with a rattling of hoofs and the flashing of scarlet coats against the forest green, a detadiment of English cavalry trotted from the woods and drew rein, at their leader's sharp command, under the wide oak that graced the door-yard. The captain of the troop, a fair-haired Saxon, in whose bearing vanity and a dashing courage were strangely mingled, glanced keenly over the house and spied poor Timothy, fumbling with a nervous hand at the bread and milk. 44 Ha, Gregory ! " said he loudly, addressing one of his troop, 44 thy eye on that vagabond. If he moves to depart, seize him ; he may have somewhat to tell us." And casting his reins to another, he leapt from his horse and stalked, preceded by the negro lad, toward the porch-surrounded door. Scarce had he set foot upon the steps when forth came Dame Margery, all in pretty confusion. 44 Welcome, Sir Captain ! " said she, curtseying low on the door-sill. " What chance hath brought so fine a gentleman to Digitized by Google

Page 393

366 " The Regimentals.*' [Dec, our humble house P " The other towed and blushed and stroked his golden mustachios. " Truly, fair madam," said he with a grand air, " it grieves me to disturb your sweet, simplicity and rustic peace with these rough soldiers. But even had the negro here not brought your kind command, I should still have had to try your for- bearance." "Will you not come within?" said Margery, pointing the way to the wide, deep hall ; " and you shall tell your errand there over a glass of true madeira. My husband is from home." The soldier laughed. " With all the able-bodied men about, I warrant you ! But fear not, madam!" seeing the lady's glance of quick alarm; "the English make not war on women. And though they did, good mistress, i' faith, no gallant officer would tarry in the concluding of a truce with so fair an enemy as you ! " Captain Dangerford uttered this speech with so gallant an air that honest Timothy squirmed with rage on his greensward seat. Dame Margery curtseyed deeply in acknowledgment, and led the way within. There, having placed her guest in the high arm-chair, she sat herself upon a settle opposite, and hastened to press her advantage. "You have not told me, in these fine words, sir, what errand brought you here ? " The soldier started, and assumed once more an air of im- portant gravity. "Ahem!" quoth he, and, fumbling in his uniform, produced a folded sheet, struck it open with a majestic sweep, cleared his throat again, frowned and read out : " The Honorable Captain Dangerford, in command of his Majesty's Third Squadron of Mounted Troops, being at present stationed — "and so forth, hum! "Honored Sir," etc., etc., ahem ! — " whereas a Thieving Ruffian, strongly suspected of being a Spy for the rebel General Washington, hath this day absconded from our camp, having first, it appeareth, purloined, secured, and sought by stealth to carry away divers most valuable papers, plans, and letters from the quarters of our General Officer commanding : Now, therefore, we do hereby command you, sir, to use all diligence in scouring your neigh- borhood for the recreant traitor : and being found, or any re- sembling him, hang the damned rascal to a tree ! " " That," said the worthy captain, striking the sheet with his stretched finger tips, " is a very queer direction. The general is too hasty, too hasty by half ! Hang any one who resembles Digitized by Google

Page 394

igoo.] 44 The Regimentals" 367 a man I never saw ! Ha ! ha ! — and but listen to the description he hath added to it himself ; you may see where his secretary's smooth hand ceases, and his own crabbed characters begin, thus : " The said rascal is described as of a dark complexion — but, hang him, that may be dirt ! — and low of stature, but looks the taller from being very thin. His mind is said to be simple — though, curse him, he got off slyly enough, — in short, if you let him by, beware of it! for that a Rebel Foole should brave me so is not to be borne. And I have, moreover" — here the secretary recommenceth — "the honor to be your honor's most dutiful Sir Henrv Clinton, 44 General Officer Commanding*" The worthy captain here wiped his brow and sank back with an air of elegant exhaustion. "Why, troth, sir!" said Dame Margaret, much reassured, 44 this is a letter curious enough ; but why you came here to find your dark, light, tall, short, cunning simpleton I am at a loss to know ! And pray be quick, sir, for your troopers' horses are even how biting the buds from my tall hollyhocks ! " 44 Tush ! tush ! fair mistress ; 'tis a time of war ! " said Dan- gerford, by no means pleased at being asked to take so speedy a leave; 44 and since your house, with all due deference to you, madam, is a rebel's domicile — ahem ! — it is but meet that we should search it through. Ho there, Geoffrey ! " 44 And so, sir ! " said the lady, rising angrily, 44 your great, rude fellows must hale my linen forth, and rifle my cupboard drawers, to suit your angry general's fancy ! My compliments to your English manners, sir ! " 44 No, no ! " said the other, striding to the door, 44 none of your stores shall suffer any disturbance. But stay, " continued he ; 44 whom have ye there, my man ? " 44 Even the pedlar," said the sergeant, saluting — 41 he whom you bade us watch ; forward, loon ! " And he hauled in the re- luctant Timothy urgently by his ragged garments. 44 Ah, yes ! " said Dangerford ; 44 stand him there, good Geoffrey, and I '11 question the knave. Now, fellow — " 44 Pray, sir," said Margaret, in too tremulous a tone, 44 wilt not put off this questioning until you shall have tasted a glass of wine ? It will be here in an instant." 44 No, no, madam ! " returned the officer ; 44 you have bidden me hasten from your dwelling, and have called his Majesty's soldiers 4 rude fellows,' forsooth ! You have strained my for- Digitized by Google

Page 395

368 The Regimentals:' [Dec, bearance too far, too far, indeed, I assure you ! " The doughty captain was, in fact, sorely piqued by those unlucky words, and now proceeded to spend his anger on the unlucky Timothy, whom his burly guardian held as in a vise. " Come, fellow/' said he, "we'll see now what you can tell us. Pah! what a dirty ruffian. What 's your name ? " Timothy swallowed his wrath by a violent effort, and, keep- ing as abject a mien as he could, made shift to stammer out: " Tobias Snaffleson, your worship." •'And where d'ye come from, hey?M " From Boston Town, sir, in Massachusetts Colony." " So ho ? — a hotbed of damned traitors ! And what have you in your pack ? " Poor Timothy's heart stopped beating. He did not know ! Since the old scamp from whom he had secured it had borne it aside while they were exchanging garments, " to take," as he had said, "some private matters from it," honest Timothy had had neither time nor inclination to explore its greasy recesses. Seeing his confusion, the worthy captain grew instantly suspicious. " Why, what ails the man ? " quoth he ; " speak out, or we will freshen thy memory for thee ! 99 " My wares," faltered Timothy, "are scarcely worth your honor's notice. Pins and laces and beads ; needles and scissors and thread, and such like fripperies, to catch the country folks' fancy, sir." " Methinks, Sir Pedlar," said Dangerford, looking at him keenly, "you seem overanxious to pass these fripperies by; let us see them. Open thy pack ! " The poor fellow commenced with trembling fingers to fum- ble at the cords that bound his burden, and having succeeded in untying them, caught a corner of the cloth and rolled its bulky contents forth on the floor ; when, to the intense sur- prise of all the beholders, there tumbled out nothing but a mass of withered leaves, together with sundry sticks and twigs that rattled on the floor! The captain stared, speechless, from the pack to Timothy. " Heigho ! " said he at length ; " be not bashful ! Take off thy hat, my man ! Geoffrey, methinks we have the villain now ! " The sergeant promptly dashed the tri-cornered felt from Timothy's head. Stepping back and gazing at him with a Digitized by Google

Page 396

1900.] The Regimentals" 369 quizzical air, the worthy captain continued, in the tone of one who speaks remembered words: "Let me see — 'of medium height ' — yes ; * eyes, blue ' — aha ! 4 hair ' — what color did he say was the rascal's hair, Geoffrey ? M " Brown," returned that worthy solemnly. ' " Brown ! " repeated the captain with emphasis ; " i his poll unshorn'; 'a vacant gaze.' Ha! no vacant look hath he. The knave is angry, Geoffrey ! but looks may change ; ' his forehead, high 9 — was 't not so ? * nose, long ; chin, square and stubborn/ Enough ; if this be not the man 't is his very image and double. Nay," turning to Margaret, " the thing's so clear, madam, that I forbear from further searching; your stores, you see, may still be safe from my 'rude fellows'! Geoffrey, bind the knave, and take him on thy pommel; see to 't he escapes not. And you, fair rebel — Heaven give you a more loyal temper ere this war be over! " "But, sir!" cried Margaret, in almost tearful tones, "how convict you this poor wanderer from so empty and rambling a description as your general's letter gave you? For shame, sir! Do you treat him thus because he is poor and but mean- ly clad ? " Nay, mistress," said Dangerford, wheeling around to make a formal bow, " I deemed it prudent not to disclose to you quite all of my information. You may now know, since you are so deeply interested in the prisoner " — this with a search- ing look — " that General Clinton, though his letter was indeqd uncouth and vague, had yet the forethought to despatch it by a messenger who knew the fellow well, having often seen him at work in the camp. Now he, needless to say, was able to afford us a more precise account than the worthy general's ; and faith," continued he, rubbing his palms together with a self-satisfied air, " we have the fellow now ! Think you that any but a rogue would carry dry leaves in a pack and call them pins and laces?" The luckless Timothy meanwhile stood gloomy and silent, burning with helpless anger ; partly indeed at the worthy cap- tain, but most of all against the crafty vagabond who had so sadly tricked him by changing the varied contents of his pack for withered leaves. Now, binding his wrists, they led him out to where the ser- geant's powerful horse stood pawing, and flung him over the pommel, tying his legs so tightly that he was secured without hope — or fear — of falling. Then, with a quick command, the vol. lxxii.— 24 Digitized by Google

Page 397

370 The Regimentals?' captain sprang upon his horse, his men swung into their sad- dles, and bowing low, in token of farewell, the doughty cap- tain led his clattering band back through the arching woods. Poor Margaret! She saw the scarlet coats go nodding away, across the lawn and under the trees. She watched with wide and tearless eyes as they vanished one by one in the leafy depths. Then of a sudden the whole sunlit scene wavered and whirled around like a wheel before her, and falling, she knew no more. It was the hour of dawn. The gray light, faint at first, in the eastern sky widened and spread like the benediction of the advancing morn. Out of the nocturnal stillness rose, one by one, joyful sounds, hailing the awakening day. The deep woods trembled in the rising wind. The birds awoke, the insect chorus shrilled, and the whole world seemed quivering with delight in the soft, cool pleasure of the morning. But to Margaret's sleepless grief the daybreak only brought increase of woe. Crouched in a window-seat, she looked for- lornly forth, on blooming earth and pearly sky, turning over and over in her weary thoughts that perhaps — perhaps — he was already dead! — when of a sudden, from the woods, a flee- ing form appeared, dashing over the dew-lit meadows ! She started up, her face transfigured with hope, and watched the runner draw nearer and nearer, until she could see his form and catch the flapping of his tattered coat. It was — Timothy ! Scarce was she fully sure that it was he when, to her dis- may, there emerged at a slower pace from the same quarter whence her husband fled a squad of soldiers, following quickly after him. He passed the gate, he crossed the lawn, and leap- ing up the steps with unsteady speed, thundered upon the door. Margaret sprang forth, and, half-dragging him within, swung the heavy portal to and shot the bars. " You are pursued ! " cried she, in answer to his questioning look. " Friends," said he brokenly, when he had recovered enough to speak. " I ran ahead to warn you. Listen ! At dawn they would have hanged me ; but their bonds were never close enough for me, who was taught by an Indian how to tie and loosen. Fools ! they tied me with stiff cords. I worked them loose — my wrists ! 99 Margaret turned back his ragged sleeves. "Heavens!" cried she, for the man's wrists were literally flayed, laid bare and raw by the chafing of the hempen cords. Digitized by Google

Page 398

1900.J The Regimentals:' 371 44 The tent in which they threw me," continued he, 44 was nearest the woods. The dull fools that took me never thought to search these rags for weapons, and I had a knife under my shirt. But a scream would have betrayed me ; so, at about the middle of the night, I crept to the edge of the tent, and as the fellow that watched me walked sleepily by, I leapt forth behind him and struck him with all my might where the neck joins the head. He fell, senseless as a log, and I dashed into the woods. I ran, ran, ran, on through the darkness, not caring whither, until — thank gracious Heaven ! — I saw a camp- fire, and creeping forward then, came on the brave fellows who follow. They are a scouting party of our army, and when we have eaten here — 99 He broke off as a tremendous rapping sounded on the door. 44 Enter, comrades! " he cried, shooting back the bolts. The door swung wide, and there trooped into the hall eleven soldiers of the Army of the Colonies. But the appearance of these heroes of Freedom was unheroic in the extreme. Their rusty muskets were of several kinds, their garments were sadly soiled and tattered and torn, and their unkempt hair and straggling beards looked ragged too. The officer in command of the squad, who now stood bow- ing bashfully to Dame Margery, looked such a villanous and burly ruffian that she could scarce be pleasant to him. But in truth beneath the soiled cloth which bound his forehead was much keen wit and sterling honesty ; and she had only to look into the giant's eyes, as he towered above her, to feel an instant confidence in him. He was, in fact, a trusty fellow, and he had a singular history. Born in a village of Prussia, and drafted at an early age to serve in Frederick's armies, he had fought during all of the Seven Years' War, and being finally discharged after he had attained a sergeantcy, looked about him for a peaceful refuge, being heartily sick of war and soldiering. The tales that men told of the great American Continent enchanted him, and with the savings of his military service he embarked for New York, and travelled into the wilds of Pennsylvania, promising himself that there he would end his days in peace. Scarce had the poor fellow been three years in the new settlements, and married and built him a comfortable dwelling, when, after rumors and threats, and bandings together, the Colonies and England engaged in bitter war ! And Frederick Faal took his great musket from its hooks on the wall, and Digitized by Google

Page 399

372 " The Regimentals:' [Dec, looking mournfully back at his cozy homestead, nestled in the green hollow of the woods, went forth with his neighbors to fight. His descendants of to-day call the good man " Our ancestor, Major Fall/' and his full-length picture, in Continental uniform, adorns the hall of a museum ; but that was painted in brighter days ! Now, in common with the rest of his band, and indeed with px>r Timothy himself, the good lieutenant had every outward appearance of a vagabond, or worse. Dame Margery needed no request to set food before them ; their hungry looks were eloquent. But Timothy was not mindful to neglect any due precaution. "You had best set a guard, sir," said he to the lieutenant. "Take thy bowl and thy bread, William Knox, and you, Rob Dillingslea, and you, Henry Hull, and go without and watch the woods all around us," said Faal to his men, and the three whom he named went forth to obey. The rest had scarcely fallen to, and were consuming the food before them by huge and hungry mouthfuls, when one of the ragged guard came bounding up the steps again, bawling as he ran : " Rob Dillingslea and William Knox, come within ; seek shelter! The British are coming from the woods in front ! " The other two lost no time in complying, and being once safe within, slammed to the door and rattled the bolts into place with great celerity. The rest of the company, starting from their meal, hastened to look from the windows. Out of the line of the woods they could see the scarlet- coated troopers come galloping, one by one. Then, forming in more orderly lines, they made what speed they might over the fields towards them. Since much of the land was but newly cleared, it bristled with stumps of trees, and the eluding of these obstacles disturbed and impeded their advance. Meanwhile there was a hurried counsel of war at the window. " Faal!" said Timothy, "hast any ammunition?" " Powder for but three rounds," returned he, " and scarce a bullet a man ; lead is hard to come by." " Margaret ! " quoth Timothy, " there must be some lead about ; wilt search for it ? We must even hew it apart with our knives, and ram it well down on the wads. Here is no time for moulding." " A poor shift," said Faal, shaking his head, " but mayhap ft will serve in close quarters, in lack of a better. How think you — shall we declare ourselves?" Digitized by Google

Page 400

1900.] " The Regimentals." 373 " Never ! " cried Timothy ; " the front of this house hath eight windows in it ; we twelve can make it seem well garrisoned. One volley, all together, when they come in range, will stop them for a space. Well-a day! look you there now." For Margaret had come in dragging a linen bag, seemingly very heavy, which bumped and rattled over the boards as she pulled it towards them. " Bullets ! " said she exultingly ; "and there are many more in the cupboard there. Do yoi\ not re- member : I was moulding the last when you came upon me yesterday ? Nor is that all I did for you, Timothy ; for I made, besides, during this winter — " 41 Yes, dear," cried Timothy, interrupting. " Now, let every man take a handful of these in his pockets, and, quick, to your posts. A man at every window above, two at each here below. Aim every man at a trooper, and, when ye hear my order, fire all together ! " The men hurriedly dispersed as they were bid, Faal and Timothy remaining at the casement. " Look you, captain," said Faal, " have you no better gar- ments than these rags? My word for it, if the stiff-necked English catch you in such tatters as those, they will haul you up to a limb, or shoot you out of hand, ere they recognize your captaincy ! " "Why, man!" said Timothy, his face suddenly eager, "is their hope of anything else — rags or no ? 99 " Hope!" quoth Faal. "Why, look you, when a spy hath fled and gotten free and joined his own again, being thereafter captured, armed and uniformed, with his command, he may not be punished, but must be treated as a prisoner of war." " Art sure ? " " Sure ? Ay, or I was ten years a soldier for naught ; 't is a known rule of war. But in that disguise, sir, and angered as they are against you, faith you will have short shrift, an* we cannot hold out against them." " Oh, confusion ! " cried Timothy ; " if I but had my regi- mentals I " His wife, who had been standing near drinking in every word with eagerness, now started as though she had been stung. " Your regimentals ? " cried she ; " why you can have them, Timothy ! " Then she stared at him with slowly widen- ing eyes, as though a wonderful idea was dawning in her mind. "Slaven and shorn," murmured she, " cleansed and combed and newly clad — " Digitized by Google

Page 401

374 The Regimentals" [Dec. "O God! she's mad!" cried Timothy; " this is the last blow — fear hath turned her wits! Come, come, dear wife; let me lead you up to a quieter place/' " I am not mad ! " cried Margaret, stamping her foot. " Come you this instant up with me/ Master Faal, hold yonder cap- tain at parley for but a short quarter of an hour, and I will show you a way out of this danger that you never dreamed of. Timothy — come ! " In the meantime Captain Dingerford, having led his troops as near to the mansion as he thought prudent, halted them and called the sergeant to him. " Hark you, Geoffrey," said he, "there is little doubt that the ruffians whose smoking camp- fire we came upon have joined our rascal, and that they all have sought shelter here. Yon footprints in the clay were made by a dozen men or more. Do you therefore take this white scarf and go forward and summon them to surrender, promis- ing quarter to all save the villain whom we are pursuing." Trie sergeant took the scirf aid, waving it above his head, rode slowly towards the house. They saw him pause at hailing distance and heard a shouting as he parleyed with those with- in. Then, turning about, he cantered back to his company. " They say, sir," said he, saluting, " that they are a detachment of Colonial troops under commxnd of Captain Timothy Hone, of their general's stiff, and thit you had best not molest them, else you may look for a desperate resistance ! " u We are twenty here," said Dangerford, " and must out- number the fellows two to one. Give me the scarf!" And the captain himself galloped forward towards the house. "You within!" cried he, when he had come within call, "dare ye re- fjse entrance to his Mijesty's troops? Open and come forth, or — an* I have to force admittance here — none shall ever enter after me!" " By what right, Sir Captain," replied the deep voice of Faal. "do you seek entrance here?" "Right?" roared the captain, growing angry; "you frog- throated villain! do you speak to me of right? Know that I suspect that you have among you there a fugitive spy, his life forfeit by the laws of war. Give him up, and mayhap I will deal gently with the rest of you ; but resist me and, curse you, I '11 set a guard around you here until I can have a gun brought up to batter the house to bits above your heads!" "Is he not ready yet?" said Faal in a low voice, turning from the windov. "Bid him hasten; this captain grows impa- Digitized by Google

Page 402

1900.] " The Regimentals." 375 tient. Sir," raising his voice again, "attend a moment, and our leader will be forth to speak with you." "Let him be quick, then," said Dangerford, twirling his mustachios scornfully ; " the giving up of a traitor to justice is no thing to hold a conference about." "We have none but honest men here, sir," said Faal; " but here comes the captain himself — you may treat with him." There was a rattle of bolts, the heavy door swung groaning inward, and brushing his snowy ruffles, as though he had but just risen from breakfast, Captain Hone, in all the glory of his new made regimentals — buff and blue— stepped forth onto the veranda ! " My eyes ! " thought Dangerford, as hfc looked at him. "They say at the mess that these officers of Washington's troops are as ragged as their men, but this gallant's clothes look as though he had just stepped from a milliner's window ! " " Sir ! " quoth Timothy, looking him steadily in the eye, " it is scarcely meet that we should come to fighting ; our forces are too small for battle, and too equal for capture. What do you seek?" "I have already told your men," replied Dangerford, never recognizing in this trim officer the draggled and unshaven wretch of whom he was in search; "I seek a fellow who, hav-- ing been captured and condemned as a spy, got off again by knocking down a sentinel, and fled away. And I strongly sus- pect, sir, that you have him with you here ! " Timothy started in well-assumed surprise. "On my honor as an officer, sir," said he, " I assure you that there is none in the house there who has ever been a spy within your lines. An' you doubt it, I will give you leave to search as you will — only provided that you do no other injury here." "Yju allow me what I might take without your leave," said Dangerford haughtily. "Would you attack a house with cavalry, sir?" said Timo- th/, slightly smiling; "and believe me, we will not wait tanely here while you send "for reinforcements." Dangerford knit his brows, and appeared to consider. Then, " Very well ! " said he, " I accept your proposal. Order your soldiers forth ! " "Stay, though!" said Timothy. "You swear, upon your h)nor, that neither you, nor your men, shall do injury to any person fcor thing within, save only him whom you seek; and Digitized by Google

Page 403

376 " The Regimentals:1 [Dec. that failing to find him there, you and they will depart as you came, leaving all in peace?" "Yes! yes! yes!" said Dangerford, testily. "Order them forth ! " He waved his arm to his own detachment, to sum- mon them to approach, and Timothy turned towards the door again. "Lieutenant Faal!" cried he, "bring forth the troops'! " Faal solemnly led forth his tattered crew and halted them in a row. The soldier of King George gazed at them open-mouthed. "What! are these ragged fellows all?" quoth he. "Nay," said Timothy; "Margaret, come forth with thy servants ! " She came, her household trooping after. "This, sir," said Timothy, politely saluting, "is all of the garrison ! 99 And the captain, gnawing his mustachios, silently led his fellows in to search. They ransacked the house from cellar to roof-tree, until they were thoroughly assured that not a soul was left within it. Then, coming up to the little band, Dangerford scanned every man's features with a keen and suspicious eye. His look rested last of all on Timothy with a half-disdainful glance, which suddenly became fixed and scowling. He raised his hand and half turned to his men. " Remember your oath, sir ! " hissed Timothy, under his breath, and the captain started and ground his teeth. " Curse you ! M he growled in an undertone; "you've played me, I see, for a fool. Are you really a captain at all?" Timothy bowed suavely. "An* we ever meet again, then, Sir Captain," said Dangerford sneeringly, "mayhap I will even the score between us for this cursed crafty trick of yours!" And leaping to horse again, he dug his beast with the spurs and led the troops away. In the hall of a noble house that stands where Timothy's stood of old there hangs, framed in glass, a suit of colonial regimentals tattered and torn and stained with wear and age. They are the same, her children's children say, that fair Dame Margery made in the drear winter of '76, that changed the wretched and hunted spy into Captain Timothy Hone of the Colonial Army of the Revolution. Digitized by Google

Page 404

St. Mary of the Angels—Port Lincoln. AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. BEING A PAGE FROM MY DIARY. BY BARRY AYLMER. Y small passenger steamer from Adelaide to Port Lincoln, one of the finest and most beautiful bays of the world, is a trip of some nine or ten hours in fair weather, and all round the coast of South Australia one gets many glorious days of breeze and sunshfne. The approach to Port Lincoln is lovely. You pass grand headlands, magnificent reefs, and numer- ous bays. You see the grand Stamford's Hill, now generally called Monument Hill. Perched on its summit is the Flinders Monument, a heavy obelisk coated with white marble. It is in honor of a brave man, a great explorer, who, standing where the monument now stands, surveyed the glorious port and was " the first who ever burst into that silent bay." It is Digitized by Google

Page 405

378 An Australian Bush Priest and his Mission. [Dec, even the more interesting because one of the noblest women of our age, Lady Franklin, put it up. Sir John Franklin — hats off to the great Sir John ! — had been lieutenant to Flinders, and therefore Lady Franklin came over from Hobart and scrambled up the rough hill side to lay the foundation stone of the monument in honor of her husband's friend and comrade. Swinging round the end of the pretty Boston Island you have Boston Bay to your right and Port Lincoln proper to your left, forming a harbor and port said to be unrivalled in the world and capable of holding all navies, England's included, riding at anchor. Port Lincoln is a sleeping beauty waiting for the enchanted prince. Some day he must come. On the hill at the back of the township stands a building which at first sight may easily be taken for a fort, but is really a tiny church with a tinier presbytery attached. It is "St. Mary of the Angels," and the flag flying from a tall pole is to show that the priest is at home, and consequently that there will be Mass to morrow morning. The flag is big and floats out bravely, showing a white cross on a red ground. As the little steamer comes along-side the landing place the priest, my dear old friend, seated in his buggy, and holding in hand a pair of staunch bush horses, waves to me, and "hump- ing my swag," as we say in the colonies, I land at once and in two minutes am seated beside him. The little horses need no word. They are off at once through the township and up the steep, rough hill, and in just so many minutes we are safely at the door of the little presbytery. " What do I think of my present mission?" said the hospi- table priest as we sat together in the veranda after a genial dinner — a leg of mutton, some baked potatoes, bread and a bottle of wine. He paused to fill his pipe out of my fresh supply of 14 Navy Cut" and to fill my tumbler with sound colonial red wine. It was an evening in December, and a wild, hot wind had been blowing during the day. Bat a change was coming up from the west. "What do I think of it?" he continued, looking across the paddock to his little church, and then down on the little township that nestled round the lovely biy. "Well, I think I hive the biggest, ths most arduous, and the poorest mission Digitized by Google

Page 406

1900.] An Australian Bush Priest and his Mission. 379 A Bush Settler's Homestead in the first stages of development. in South Australia — perhaps in Australia; it is from somewhere between Port Aigusta to somewhere between Fowler's Bay and Eucla. I kno v it isn't infinite, but it's next door to it ; that is, it s indefinite. I've been exploring it for the last five years. My instructions were few and simple : 4 Go as far as you can penetrate, and do as much as you can ; and God be with you ! ' " Port Lincoln here is my official residence ; my actual residence is a spider buggy, and in a few weeks from now I shall be knocking about somewhere on Eyre's Peninsula. You see, as they say in the bush, I always had a wish to ' have a slant * at this work over here, and many a time looked out over Spencer's Gulf with something like longing ; but when I reached fifty, I sighed and was resigned to settle down easy. However, the call came, and came in such a way that it was no hardihood or presumption to take it up. It came as a call of duty, and, well — I was all there. " When kind friends said 'You are mad,' I said nothing, Digitized by Google

Page 407

33o A v Australian Bush Priest and his Mission. [Dec, but smiled a bit, for I had heard that remark before ; and when I was told 1 You won't stand it a year/ again I said nothing. But the old Danish viking blood was up. I thought, 4 You '11 see.' " With the call came the cross. A fortnight before I left my dear old mission I had the first attack of asthma, and it came to stay. I knew that I could have caved in ; at least there was time to do so, and yet I could n't. It would have looked like < funk ! ' "Have you any idea what asthma combined with bron- chitis means? It is awful when it is there; worse in anticipa- tion, when you feel it coming and know that for days and nights you have to struggle for dear life to get only a breath of air. But as this lovely view and beautiful atmosphere do not affect the complaint in anyway, I have the less hesitation in moving out from my home and taking to the bush and its ways for something like nine months, at longer or shorter in- tervals through the year. "Starting, I have, if not the world, at least the west coast, before me — quite enough, as you will see by a glance at the map. The hills there behind us are soon crossed, and the pretty islands and reefs are soon left to sleep in the sunshine. Oat over the picturesque hills I drive my buggy and pair of horses, and then, over a plateau desolate enough, the gloomy Marble Ranges loom up and the deep blue Coffin's Bay twin- kles in the distance. Very soon we round the gloomy and curious range, which looks as if it were all cut out with a gigintic knife, and pass hill after hill of granite and quartz. Past the beauty-spDt Warrow, with its fine sheep-run, the coun- try becomes gradually more and more desolate. Our course is onward past the remnants of the once big Lake Hamilton, be- tween and over lakes and swamps and sand-hills. There is with us for ever the roar, but seldom the sight, of the ocean as it beats against the iron-bound coast or thunders over the sandy beach. Ugly and miserable is the country, weary are the miles — a hundred and six of them. Then, just as we begin to feel as if we are buried for ever and ever amongst the sandhills, and the fate of us, priest, buggy, horses and all, as well as the miserable little township of Eiliston, is sealed, there is Waterloo Bay. How the breakers rush against the fantastic cliffs! how they beat against the tall and ragged rocks, standing like brave sentinels across the entrance ! — but the fort is taken, for over the bar of solid rock, right across Digitized by Google

Page 408

1900.] An Australian Bush Priest and his Mission. 381 Further Improvement.— The Farmer has got his head above water. the bay, rush the mighty waves. The thunder is deafening, the sight is dazzling; it is a scene of terrific beauty, but — there is no trade. For miles through the agricultural Colton district the country is not beautiful, but pleasant ; but it doesn't last long. Venus Bay is dreary, Never was priceless jewel seen in so hideous setting. A magnificent sheet of water of great extent is surrounded with country so dismally ugly as to defy description. Then a large circle round the frowning Mount Hall of murderous fame. All the country is very rough and the limestone seems to be simply stacked. Twill take the starch out of your backbone, and you had better look to the springs of your buggy whilst crossing it. A little further on and the country begins to look better, and here and there you find lovely flats like a cricketing oval, only prettier and more perfect. There are plenty of wells of generally not bad water. So you drive on to Streaky Bay, two hundred miles, and thus far in comparative civilization. " I go once a year between two and three hundred miles Digitized by Google

Page 409

382 AN A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec, further up the coast, away past Fowler's Bay. So far it is not so very rough — from a bushman's point of view — yet it is not smooth either. Bat beyond Streaky Bay the fun begins. General description : No stone, no sheaoak ; very few wells, but of enormous depth and salt, not salty, water; scrub mallee, titree, myall, sandalwood, and of course gumtrees; immense flats which in good seasons are magnificent. There are also a large number of splendid tanks which may have water in them, but also may not. For instance, in the year 1898 they were nearly every one dried up. "Oh! the dreary and lonely lives of people in such a coun- try. Once I came just at dark to an old hut which I thought would be uninhabited, but I found a young fellow there. " 1 Can I camp with you to-night ? ' "'Certainly; I am so glad you came. I am living here by myself, and my nearest neighbor is twenty miles away.' " He was a Port Adelaide boy, with no idea of making himself comfortable even with such poor comforts as may be contrived in such a place. "Once I had a sick-call to a place beyond Fowler's. Imag- ine a sick-call a distance of over four hundred miles through the country I have tried to give you a glimpse of. But it had to be attended to. Judge for yourself : "'Come at once; two children in family dead, wife and re- maining children dangerously ill ; no doctor, bring drugs.' "So ran the wire, and, thanks be to God! I didn't let grass grow under my feet or those of my horses. Off I started, and drove and drove under a blazing hot sun till I reached a miserable tin shanty, divided into two compartments by bran bags. There I found a big family in one end, a red-hot stove for cooking in the other. They carted water many miles in an iron tank, just hot enough to be enriched with a wonderful variety of tropical animal and vegetable life. Result dysentery. " One instance more of what life in the far west of South Australia means. " On such journeys as I am telling of I always take a young fellow with me for the last two hundred miles. It would not for many reasons be safe to go alone, chiefly on account of the danger of a sudden attack of the terrible asthma. We came one day to an old ruined hut near a couple of tanks. We intended to, and did camp there. There was a boy draw- ing water for some horses running in the bush, but he was not home when we arrived. The water in the biggest tank was Digitized by Google

Page 410

1900.] An A ustralian Bush Priest and his Mission. 383 Where Mass was said — showing the Priest's Buggy. yellow and thick ; so I told my mate to water the horses out of the other tank and bring a bucketful to the hut, where I would have the fire ready for the billy. We hobbled the horses and put on the billy ; but my mate said : 4 1 did n't take the water from the tank you said ; there was a dead rabbit in the first bucket I drew, so I took the water from the big tank.' " 4 All right ; it would n't matter when it was boiled.' " When it was quite dark we heard the ring of hoofs in the distance. It was the boy and another young fellow com- ing home, so we put the billy on and had tea ready for them when they arrived. After tea my mate told about the rabbit in the bucket. "'And what tank did you draw the water for tea from?' " 4 From the big one.' •"Oh, thank you! A week ago I pulled two dead dingoes, a dead snake, and several crows out of that tank.' 44 Well, anyhow he could n't laugh at us ; he had had h's tea too. Digitized by Google

Page 411

384 An A ustraljan Bush Priest and his Mission. [Dec, " But such is life, and such frequently is the water in the bush. " The last trip, I went, after my return from Fowler's, across from Elliston to Franklin Harbor, rather more than a hun- dred miles, sixty of which are through desert. From the har- bor to this is another hundred miles, most of it rough coun- try, and some thirty miles of white sand. I left Port Lincoln August 8 and returned November 8 — just three months, during which I travelled about fifteen hundred miles. " But don't run away with the idea that I am to be pitied. Indeed I am nothing of the kind, for I love my work. In the first place, it is n't all hardship. Sometimes you can have a bit of fun in the bush. Again and again you fall in with some nice fellows, and all the people are wonderfully kind and hos- pitable; and then you learn, and quicker than your new chum thinks or city dweller can believe, to love the bush. I am never happier than when I am knocking about in it. Then think of the glorious work. Think of what it means to bring light to the poor people who sit in the darkness and solitude. Think of what it means to make the humblest place, perhaps a bag tent, a tumble down hut, or a tin shanty, the very tem- ple of God! There may be, very likely there is, only one or two poor fellows assisting at Mass ; but ' Where two or three are gathered in My Name — !' "Picture the scene. A tent or a shanty one remove from a wurlie, but for the time made bright with a pretty travelling altar, everything complete : gilt crucifix and candlesticks, snowy linen, a few wild flowers or ferns gathered from close at hand, and neat silken vestments. " Oh, the wonderful stillness of the bush ! " The congregation may consist of a family ; the children have never seen anything 'so grand' before; they stare and wonder at everything, and are delighted. Yet I have given them some idea of what it all means, and they are devout as little angels. " Or there may be one or two rough fellows who have not seen a priest for twenty years or more, and were perhaps a little shy of him at first. But we got over that last night when we had shared some homely fare, sat pitching and smok- ing at the campfire, and camped and slept on the same rough 4 shakedown ' — for choice titree is better than mallee — so this morning we made our confession. In a few minutes we almost feel the gracious presence of Him whose delight is to be Digitized by Google

Page 412

i9oa] An Australian Bush Priest and his Mission. 385 Interior of St. Mary of the Angels. among the children of men, and surely if there be degrees in His delight it must be in favor of such as they. Holy Com- munion, Mass is over, and then to breakfast — a meal very like last night's supper : we have ' damper/ and 4 salt-horse,' or 'tinned dog,' and 'billy- tea/ Flavoring and seasoning all is the sense of mutual sympathy, faith, and trust spread everywhere amongst us, and resting deep in the hearts of both young and old. At last comes the 'Good-by, father, and God bless you/ and a day's journey, sometimes two, to a similar place and similar scenes. " Of course this is in the roughest parts of the mission ; in the more settled districts it is somewhat different. But if you have any 4 frills ' you had better leave them at home, for they don't agree with the complexion of the Australian bush. '• Is not this work beautiful ? and don't you understand that on occasions such as I have described I feel as much, nay, more devotion than ever I did in the grandest temple and the holiest place in the Eternal City ? vol. lxxii.— 25 Digitized by Google

Page 413

386 An A ustralian Bush Priest and his Mission. [Dec, 14 My people are few, and very far between. My expenses are not slight, and my income — well, there is no need of my taking the vow of poverty. Yet I never want for anything. I have so far paid twenty shillings in the pound. I am proud of my generous people. " Do I ever feel lonely ? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I should like to have somebody I could talk to about — well about many things, even as we are talking now. Yet, once a year, you know, I have to go to Adelaide to make my retreat; and when I have to go, I feel as if I would rather stay where I am. Of course I am glad that at least once a year I can receive the Sacrament of Penance ; but apart from that, I have no inclination to return to civilization." The oil lamp had given its last flicker, and the beautiful moonlight was playing on the waters of Port Lincoln Bay as, with a warm hand-shake and a hearty " Good-night M and a " God bless you," I turned from the veranda into my little room to make the notes from which I have transcribed my friend's narrative of the mission and work of a priest in the Australian bush. COUNT THAT DAY LOST— rHIS is the smart of life, the ceaseless round Of duties done that yield nor sign nor sound. Whether the act repays the ache it cost — Whether the ended day was lived or lost. ARTHUR UPSON. Digitized by Google

Page 414

igoo.] Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. 387 WHY ARE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES DISLIKED IN THE FAR EAST ? BY FRANCIS PENMAN {Tokyo, /apart). HY are Protestant missionaries so generally dis- liked in the Far East ? This is a question that has often been asked, but seldom answered satisfactorily. One is told that the irreligious European trader is averse to all religious work, because it has a tendency sometimes to cause disturbances among the natives who dislike it, and thus disturb trade. But that can be no explanation ; for, while the Protestant mission- ary is certainly disliked, the Catholic missionary is often re- garded with affection and esteem. The explanation must be deeper than this. One reason, I think, is that the Protestant missionary often engages in trade, and thus competes rather unfairly with the European trader. I say " rather unfairly," for the missionary is helped by funds from pious people at home — including sometimes, maybe, friends and relatives of his business competitors in the Orient — who often imagine that he passes all his life in efforts to reclaim the noble savage from primeval wilds, suffering no end of discomfort in the process, while as a matter of fact few merchants can afford to take such long and frequent vacations as the missionary. I can give concrete examples of what I mean. THE BANGKOK COLONY. In the city of Bangkok there is a large American colony composed almost entirely of missionaries, ex-missionaries (now prospering in business), and sons and relations of missionaries. The members of that colony take frequent trips to the States, where they get pathetic articles written about the extreme dis- comfort they have to put up with in order to preach the Gospel to a doomed people and an unbelieving generation ; but they manage at the same time to live well and make "plenty of money." Discontented with the salaries paid by the Board of Missions, some of them run firms with which they are not generally supposed to be connected, and I must Digitized by Google

Page 415

388 Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. [Dec, say that their keen business instinct is seldom at fault. It must be confessed that as a rule they lead good, wholesome, busy lives ; their homes are always comfortable ; their 1 food plain and substantial ; their children clean, healthy, well brought up ; and all their surroundings reminiscent of a quiet, fat "living" in an English village, or a parsonage in a pros- perous American suburban district. This is all very well, but one does not see where the self-sacrifice of which they talk so much comes in ; and instead of finding traces of apostolic poverty, one sees only a keenness in money- getting which might put the veriest worldling to the blush. There was one Ameri- can missionary in Bangkok whose haste to get rich outran his discretion, for he utilized the mission press in order to flood the market with printed copies of those extremely porno- graphic romances in the vernacular which are so common in Siam, and which had up till that time been circulated in MSS. only. This is an exceptional case, however ; but I may remark in this connection that an orphanage press under American control can easily, by virtue of the help it receives from home, undersell any of the independent printing firms, and does under- sell them. This state of things causes the average business man, and especially the business man who is personally worsted by clerical competition, to dislike the missionaries, to suspect them of hypocrisy; and I think it is natural that such should be the case. A CEYLON INCIDENT. Many other causes combine to strengthen this impression. I shall try to give the reader an idea of them. While visiting a tea plantation once in Ceylon I found that the attitude of the superintendent towards the Protestant missionaries was even more than usually unfavorable, and I asked him for an explanation. " I '11 tell you/' said he. " I 've five hundred coolies under me — Tamil coolies, not one of them Christian. A missionary drives over here once a week or so from and asks me for permission to speak to them on Christianity. I willingly give permission, and tell the kangany to muster the men. The men are accordingly mustered, the missionary gets up, talks to them for half an hour on ' the great truths of religion,' and when he has done I ask him to stay to tiffin. After tiffin he enters in his book * Preached to five hundred Tamils on such-and-such an estate on such-and-such a date,' adding a lot about the way Digitized by Google

Page 416

1900.] Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. 389 the Spirit seemed to move them, though as a matter of fact only a few of the men paid any attention to him, and they laughed at him. The worst of it is, that these reports appear in missionary papers at home, dressed up in such a manner as to make one believe that the whole country is on the eve of becoming Christian. Not only has this method of evangeliza- tion the disadvantage of gaining no converts, but it has a ten- dency to make European Christians in these parts believe that all religion is such clap-trap." I may add that in the same part of the East the European and native (Protestant) clergymen come together in conference in a certain district at least once a year, on which occasions the Europeans invariably refuse to associate with their colored Aryan brothers. From personal experience I know that the opposite is the case among the Catholic clergy. In South India, too, as in Siam, the American missionaries are noted for the success with which they conduct their business enter- prises. In one place they have a very flourishing weaving concern, where they are able to turn out excellent cloth of its kind at perfectly ridiculous prices, while the tiles they make are famous all over the Far East. IN THE KOREAN PENINSULA. In Korea the missionaries have also gone in for trade, and for politics as well, with a thoroughness that has actually made their name a byword in China and Japan. When, on the oc- casion of the outbreak of the present disturbances in China, a " large and respectable body " of Koreans jointly memorialized their Emperor for permission to " exterminate the Christians " in their respective districts, some able Japanese newspaper men proceeded to investigate the state of things in the penin- sula. The results of those investigations are interesting. The special correspondent of the Nichi Niche, an excellently edited Japanese daily, and a ministerial organ to boot, with a large circulation, said that — "Of all Christian countries, France and the United States have sent the largest number of missionaries to Korea. Some of the American missionaries devote themselves exclusively to the propagation of their religion ; but others — and they are by no means small in number — have mixed themselves up in Korean politics and commerce, and are acting in combination with a section of the Korean gentry in SoeuL On the other hand, the French missionaries in the peninsula are making the Digitized by Google

Page 417

390 Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. [Dec, spiritual enlightenment of the Koreans the sole object of their activity and never allow themselves to be involved in political eddies. Owing to this whole-hearted devotion to their profes- sion they possess a far larger number of followers than their American confreres" Commenting on this, the Japan Times, a semi-official paper printed in English, delivers itself in almost a menacing man- ner, as follows : "As to what these correspondents say about American missionaries, their propensities for business and for politics, and so on, we do not know how much truth there is in it. We know, however, that a few years ago the government at Washington deemed it advisable to instruct its minister at Soeul to address a remarkably vigorous and outspoken warn- ing to the American missionaries, with the object of preventing them from meddling with Korean politics. They may have mended their ways since, or they may have again displayed their weakness for meddling in other people's affairs. If we can trust the correspondents of the two foremost papers in Tokyo, it appears that the latter is unfortunately the case, and that some of them, at least, are once more making trouble- some busybodies of themselves." A JAPANESE CAMP-MEETING. So much for Korea. I shall now deal with the missionary in Japan; and shall first present the reader with a paragraph on this subject from the non-Christian but perfectly courteous and impartial /apart Times, of August 3 : " Hiyeizan in Yamashiro," says that paper, " is one of the favorite summer resorts of foreigners in Japan. Every year the Doshi-sha" — a Protestant institution — "gets permission of the local forestry authorities to use a patch of the government land north of the mountain above mentioned for the accommo- dation of the foreign missionaries in the Kansai district. There, under tents, they spend their summer holidays — from the middle of July to the middle of September — in a religious fashion. It is calculated that 47 British and Americans, and 33 Japanese, made their sojourn on the mountain last summer." This agreeable two months' vacation, passed " in a religious fashion," is carried out in other parts of the country at the same time, but the Japanese organ I have just quoted treats the matter quite seriously. The Christian European organs in the local press are not so shy, however. Under the pro- Digitized by Google

Page 418

1900.] Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. 391 nounced heading of " An Annual Humbug/' the Eastern World, a Yokohama paper, speaks strongly on the subject. 44 The chosen of the Lord," it says, 44 have again left the sinful settlements and the sweltering plains to take their two months' annual holiday at Karuizawa, to praise the Lord who annually helps them to get there, whilst the children of wrath have to slave at their desks eight, nine, yea, on mail-days — and there is a superabundance of those unholy days — even thirteen and fourteen hours. Now, if this annual humbug in- tended for consumption at home, where Karuizawa is believed to be a dreadful wilderness, was only kept quiet, no one would say a word about it, for judicious humbug has always been a most powerful factor in the world's progress. 44 But no, nothing will serve but there must be reports of it in a newspaper, so that there be something to show that looks like work." There is no need to dwell further on this point, however, as it has been fully treated of in Mr. Ransome's Japan in Transition. Mr. Ran some speaks very strongly, it may be re- marked, against the Protestant missionaries, but of the Catho- lic missionaries he has nothing but good to say, and in this he merely voices the opinion of the most thoughtful European and American residents in the Far East. The present crisis in China has aroused much discussion in connection with the wisdom or want of wisdom of mission- aries, even Lord Salisbury taking part in it. On this matter I was speaking the other day with one of the keenest Japan- ese in Tokyo— a man who has, like most of his education, no religion, but whose opinions on all subjects connected with Japan or China are worth having. 44 It 's a very remarkable fact," he said to me, 44 that we never heard of these anti- missionary disturbances till the Protestant missionaries came on the scene. The Catholics were in China three hundred years ago, and for centuries we find that they were treated with respect by the common people ; no sooner, however, do the Protestants arrive on the scene than the trouble begins. I believe that the cause is this : The Catholic missionaries be- came Chinamen almost ; they lived among the people for good, and troubled themselves about nothing save the teaching of their religion. The Protestant missionary, on the contrary, brought his wife and children with him, and all his home prejudices and customs, and this the Chinese resented." Digitized by Google

Page 419

392 Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. [Dec, AN INCIDENT THAT ILLUSTRATES. A concrete example of the difference between Catholic and non Catholic missions is furnished by an incident that lately occurred at Ichang, on the Yangtsze. I quote from the Chi- nese Gazette : "The captains of the Japanese steamer Taiyuen Maru and British steamship Changwo, passing the back entrance to the Customs Godown at Ichang, saw a poor Chinese junk- tracker in terrible agony, with one of his feet hanging a bruised and crushed mass of flesh, in an indescribable state of filth and live maggots. " Wishing to relieve this terrible state of affairs, they sought the aid of the customs harbor master and medical officer, im- ploring them for the sake of humanity to have the man placed on a stretcher and sent to the hospital. " The man was duly sent to the Scottish Mission Hospital — a note having been sent first by the harbor master to ask if the doctor in charge would receive the man, permission having been given in writing. But after the doctor in charge had ex- amined the man's leg and partially dressed the wound, he (the doctor) called on the harbor master at his residence and re- quested that the man be immediately removed, as fever had set in and the leg required immediate amputation, and, in the doctor's own words, was the ' most awful case he had ever seen, a mass of corruption and maggots'; and more than this, he had been strongly advised by his mission not to take this case in, as in the case of the man dying, which was very prob- able in three or four days, it might cause a rumpus (sic) and be a trouble to the good of the mission. In fact, this was not the class of patient the hospital was for. "The man was removed from the hospital and placed on the beach to die by degrees. Again, money was paid to the priests of a temple (heathen) close by, and again he was re* moved to at any rate die in peace on some straw out of the sun. That night the French Sisters, unasked, had the man brought into the convent, put him into a separate room, washed his body and skilfully dressed the awful wounds, a labor of love for a poor Chinaman and done by women. " In short, the man was recovering under the gentle care of the sisters when last hear of; and the whole foreign popu lation of Ichang, those on steamers trading to the port as well as those residing in it, those of the Catholic religion as well as those of the Protestant religion, and those of no religion at all, Digitized by Google

Page 420

1900.] Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. 393 were so touched by the kindly act that they collected on the spot a subscription for the convent, and presented it along with a fine testimonial bearing the appropriate citation : ' Inas- much as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.' " The Gazette winds up this report by remarking that " the Scottish Mission at Ichang consists of three magnificent houses in well laid-out grounds, which cost £1,000 each on an average. Each of the houses only contains one missionary and his family, and the pay of each missionary is £200 to £300 a year, with extras. ... In fact, these missionaries are better off than men in the Civil Service in China, and live on the fat of the land." AN UNFORTUNATE TELEGRAM. I may remark, in conclusion, that the appeal published by the New York World just when the difficulties in the Chinese capital had become acute, from a missionary correspondent in Peking (" Arouse the Christian world immediately to our peril ! Should this arrive too late, avenge us ! "), called forth, in spite of the real danger in which the missionaries were for a time placed, nothing but jeers from the European press in the Far East. The fapan Herald says that the expressions I have just quoted "are indeed astonishing expressions to come from per- sons who pretend to have consecrated themselves to the religion of love and self-sacrifice. . . . Would Livingstone, Xavier, or Ignatius Loyola have appended their signatures to such an unfortunately-worded petition ? Hardly. There is nothirig in it whatever to differentiate its authors from the ruck of ordinary humanity. A parcel of concession-hunters might with equal probability, and with greater propriety, have given it forth to the world. We do not mean to assert that all non- conformist missionaries are like the foregoing. We sincerely trust not ; but it does seem impossible to avoid the conclusion that the majority are not consistently inspired by the loftiest motives, and that, if compelled to live on the salaries allotted to the French Catholic priests, to wear the latter's distinctive dress, and if condemned like them to celibacy, there would soon be perceptible a distinct falling-off in the number of those domesticated gentlemen who are at present so eager to 1 Christianize and civilize ' the unhappy heathen. We are not among those who can see any extraordinary sacrifice involved in mere residence abroad, and when it is remembered that in nine cases out of ten the kind of American nonconformist Digitized by Google

Page 421

394 Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. [Dec, missionary who comes to this country, or who visits China, could not expect to do half as well from a pecuniary stand- point if he stayed in America, the extent of his self-abnegation approaches perilously near the vanishing point." The Kobe Chronicle, commenting on the same appeal, says : "That is the spirit in which missionary propaganda has been carried on in China for the last thirty years, and it is not sur- prising that it should have gradually aroused the hatred of the people and be responsible in large measure for the explosion which threatens to wreck the Empire." EVIL OF POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS. The remark may hardly arise out of the subject in hand, but the writer cannot forbear remarking at this stage that in his opinion one of the greatest influences at work to prevent the spread of Catholicity in Asia in modern times has been the in- stitution of extra-territoriality and the invariably selfish and politic but often indiscreet manner in which European rulers backed up Catholic missionaries or avenged their deaths. As one reads the history of missionary endeavor for the last thirty or forty years, he is struck again and again by the fact that the native authorities who happened to have Christian clergymen in their districts were always apparently thinking of the consul or the admiral who was behind these missionaries, and of the Christian armies and gunboats that were behind the admiral and consul. Things could scarcely, of course, have been other- wise; no Christian nation could allow its subjects to be massacred without avenging them, and I would not have it remain quiescent in the case of missionaries. I merely state what I consider to be a fact which accounts for much. THE HARD-HEADED NEWSPAPER WORLD IN THE FAR EAST. I quote largely in the above paper, it will be noticed, from the Far Eastern press; but I do so with an object. The Far Eastern press represents the views of the foreign residents in the Far East much more faithfully, I think, than the English press represents the views of Englishmen, or the American press the views of Americans, and that for several reasons, one of which is that the editor of a Japan or China daily is sometimes personally acquainted with all his local subscribers, and in continual " touch " with all of them. Now, no community in any part of the world is, I think, so little liable to be affected by sentiment as a Far Eastern "foreign" community. It may be because they live among Digitized by Google

Page 422

1900.] Protestant Missionaries in the Far East. 395 an inferior race that this takes place, or it may be be- cause they are removed from home ties and home influences, that many of them know nothing of the softening and uplift- ing influence of wife and child, and that most of them are exposed to temptations they would not be exposed to at home; anyhow the matter is one that I cannot go into at present; but the fact remains that they become more logical, cold blooded, keen, cynical, and less liable to be swayed by sentiment than any class of people at home. A prominent Far Eastern lawyer once told me that the sentimental appeals that would carry an English jury off its twenty-four feet would simply be smiled at in an Oriental court-house or consular court, and I am sure that the famous court-house scene in Pickwick, or anything remotely like it, could never have oc- curred in a foreign court-house "east of Suez." This frame of mind, not bad in itself, is accompanied in many cases by a hardening of the moral fibre and a serious degeneration in many other ways, but it is pre-eminently a frame of mind in which old mists and prejudices are cleared away and early bigotries and superstitions are dissipated — faith often, unfortunately, going as well — so that many a man is thus enabled to see clearly on subjects where, at home, he was blind. The only Orangeman from the North of Ireland that I have ever known to be converted, was converted in India ; had he remained at home I think he would never have seen the light ; and in all parts of the Far East foreigners are continually being received into the true fold. In Japan, with- in the space of about a year, Professor Chamberlain, one of the greatest living authorities on things Japanese ; Dr. Von Koeber, of the Imperial University, and the Baroness D'Ane- than, wife of Baron D'Anethan, dean of the diplomatic body in Tokyo, and sister of Rider Haggard the novelist, have all been received into the church. This keen, logical, matter-of-fact community which I have attempted to describe, and the press which so accurately repre- sents it, is not then in favor of the Protestant missionaries, and is as a rule in favor of Catholic missionaries, despite the fact that the press and community are themselves mainly Prot- estant, and that, if certain well-known theories were true, it would be Catholicism, "the gorgeous superstition of Rome," to use the words of Macaulay, that would be laughed at by such a community, and Protestantism, which owes nothing, we are told, to mere sentiment or imagination, that would be lauded. Digitized by Google

Page 423

396 The Pitman's Rosary. [Dec, THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. BY C. S. HOWE. RE a coomes," said one of a group of pitmen who had gathered at the shaft in readiness for the cage to take them down the yawning depths of the coal mine. " 'E doant 'urry 'isself, do'e?" " 'E '11 make a deal more haste afore the day 's hout," said another man, who by his size and aggressive manner seemed to be the leader of the gang. " If 'e doant win this 'ere bet for me my name ain't Dan'l Pollard. Lor' 'ow 'e '11 run when fe 'ears the bang go. Wish I moight see 'im, I do ; no chance for me ; 'e '11 be at the cage-side afore / git hout of the sidin'. " Moind 'ow you 'andle that there stuff, Dan; 't ain't quite so 'armless as flour an' water." " Yew need n't go doon unless ye loike," rejoined the bully with a scowl. " What are ye afeared on, eh ? Daunger / Where's the daunger? Git along out wi' ye, Jim Bates; there's toime to take care on yerself; we're not doon there yet." " What 's up now ? " asked a tall, gaunt-figured young miner, who had come up in time to overhear the last words. "Nothin' at all," replied Dan, scowling even heavier than before, " only Jim 's rather narvous this mornin'. And what 's the matter wi' yewt that you 've kep' us all waitin' ? Been a mumblin' over them beads o' your'n? Countin' yer prayers! 'Ow many on 'em must ye say to the minute, hay? Yah f Git in ; make haste do, ye hidjot ! " Dan, who had illustrated his speech with a number of hide- ous adjectives, as was his wont even in commonest conversa- tion, spat viciously, as though to show his sickening contempt for the subject of his gross banter; and the deep shaft of the pit echoed the coarse laughter which the men, backing up the rough sally, indulged in at Denis Brierly's expense. The noise drowned his attempted retort, though he, like most others, could scarcely distinguish between offence or fun in Dan's speech at any time, and the bully's habitual coarse bravado Digitized by Google

Page 424

1900.] The Pitman's Rosary. 397 was generally taken in the better sense, as colliers understand it; their humorous instinct being sometimes as grim as their dark and dangerous calling. Two words only, and these had not been used, no pitman could have allowed to pass unchal- lenged. These two words were " sneak " and " coward." Not that these opprobrious words had not reached Denis's ears in the course of the last few weeks. His mates had a grudge against him. For several Sundays had he been missing from the coarse orgies with which their wont was to celebrate the first day of the week. Some one had seen him going to and fro the distant village of Easington. Some one else had spied an odd-looking set of dark brown beads, connected to- gether by a steel chain with a cross at the end of it, dangling from his pocket; and at last the truth crept out — Denis Brier- ly had turned Car-tho-lic ! At least, that is what his pitmates said. In reality he had always been a child of the church, having been baptized into it in his infancy by his Irish mother's care. Some rudiments of the Faith he had also gleaned from her teaching, though it was but little she could do for him, as she died before he was eight years old. His English father . dying shortly afterwards, Denis had grown up as best he might — following his ancestral calling, first as pit-boy, and then pitman, as a matter of course, for of choice he had scarcely any. To all appearance he was almost as much of a heathen — except in name — as most of those around him ; but his faith, though dormant, was not lost, and wanted but occasion to call it forth. A chance meeting with an Irish priest, to whom the lad, when ques- tioned, did not deny his birthright, brought about his recon- cilement to the church of his baptism, as also a striking refor- mation in his character. It was the latter his comrades objected to, but they held the cause responsible ; and to taunt him out of that they spared him no ignominious epithet that their bru- talized speech could devise. He had formerly been somewhat of a favorite; he was now the butt of the gang. Once at the bottom of the shaft he set off to his place of work, which he was glad to know was rather apart from a set who were bent on provocation. He had fought one or two of them already, and was willing to fight the lot, could he but win ultimate peace by doing so ; but of that there seemed no chance whatever. Some thoughts he had had of enlisting for a soldier, or of trying to get work in another colliery, but he was averse to do anything that looked like " running away." Digitized by Google

Page 425

398 The Pitman's Rosary. [Dec, Strong in him was the racial instinct to stand up to any man, for any good fighting cause; and when — in all his life — had he a better one than now? In his heart he did not believe they thought him what they called him, and time or chance would prove the falsehood of their speech. The chances for a col- lier to prove his courage are, alas ! all too frequent, and Denis knew his own might come at any hour on any day. Little, however, did he think how very near it was at hand ! An hour or two had passed when Denis, who was trying to drown his unpleasant thoughts in hard work, heard a noise so distinctly different from ordinary sounds that he left off ply- ing his pick to listen. He was about to resume his monoton- ous task when another sound caught his ears — the quick tramp of hurrying feet going in one direction at the very top of their speed. Flinging down his tools he rushed to join the flight, the meaning of which he guessed too well ; nor was there any need to ask the first man he met as he turned out of his siding into the main gallery ; a single rapid exchange of glances telling him that silence, next to speed, was the best policy. Denis plied his long limbs well, for life — especially now that it was threatened — was sweet to him in spite of troubles. Some of the colliers who ran by his side were as grimly silent as himself, but as he neared the shaft, where by reason of his superior swiftness he was one of the first arrivals, he over- heard a smothered guffaw. This was but the prelude to a perfect howl of derision which, commencing from one or two who were standing by the cage, was taken up by others who were coming along. He stopped and looked round at each grinning face in amazement. His own nickname reached him as, coupled with much filthy jargon, it was flung from side to side. What did it all mean at such a moment? Was this a tragedy or a farce? Before he could put this question into words the answer to it was thundered into his ears by a terrible sound that, this time, left no doubt as to its meaning as it roared through the long, winding galleries and cavernous depths of the mine. The broad grins vanished from the dark faces of the miners as, terror-struck, they rushed pell-mell towards the cage to escape, if so they might, the deadly Fire Blast which, having broken loose, was bearing down upon them with lightning-like speed. In less time than telling takes, the lift was full of desperate men, every inch of foothold taken up ; the chains of the lower- Digitized by Google

Page 426

1900.] The Pitman's Rosary. 399 ing gear, everything, in fact, that hands and feet struggling for dear life could press into service. In the frantic crush for place it had not been noticed that Denis had taken no part in it, but had stood quietly outside while the rest were crowding in. The last to come running up was big Dan Pollard, whose heavy build had told against him and kept him in the rear. It is scant justice to the collier to say that not to save his own life will he carelessly leave a mate to perish, but whether the signal had been given too soon, or the urgent need had been apprehended from above, it happened that when the two men who were still outside the cage faced each other, it was already on the upward move! To reach it by a vigorous leap would have been no diffi- cult matter for Denis's long, muscular limbs, the less so that many eager hands were outstretched to help. With Dan, how- ever, it was very different. In trying to make the jump he would have failed had not Denis seized him just beneath the knees and by main force shoved him within reach of the pit- men's iron grip. This, and a desperate but useless attempt to save himself by springing after the upgoing lift, was all the work of a few moments. In another, the Blast had swept by on its death-dealing path where no loiterer may hope to escape its fury. That so many should have emerged alive from such a veritable death-trap was considered almost a miracle, for when the roll-call was made of those who had been known to have gone down the mine that morning all answered to their names but one ! u There 's somethun' fallen down/' said one of the men who were lifting the charred remains of their late comrade into the lift. " It's the pore chap's prayin' beads," added another. " Pick 'em up, Dan, will yer ? " Dan Pollard, at whose feet the rosary had fallen, stooped and picked up the object of his late contempt with a respect- ful care that, for him, was almost reverential. 44 'E thought a lot on it," he said in a husky voice as he turned the rosary over in his great, grimy hands. 44 P'raps there 's more in it arter all than we knows on." 44 Maybe there 's sum-un who 'd loike it for a keepsake ; sum-un who knows what 's for." 44 Maybe there is; /dunno. If there ain't no one as warnts it, though, I 've a moind to keep it myself." Digitized by Google

Page 427

400 The Pitman's Rosary. [Dec, " Why, what use on 'arth is it to yew ? 99 Dan made no reply, and the cage slowly moved upwards with its mournful load. He was very miserable, as well he might be, for no one knew better than himself, though others were in the secret, that he was guilty of the catas- trophe that had brought about poor Denis Brierly's untimely death. There had been divergence of opinion between him and some of the men as to whether Denis's religion had tainted his courage or not, the result of which had been a foolish plot to test it, upon which both sides had freely betted. Dangerous, even more than foolish, was the plan that Dan invented in the hope to win his wager. Even the miners — the most reckless of men— owned to thinking it hazardous ; but Dan, as he usually did, had his own way. The false alarm — followed by the stam- pede of each and all, notwithstanding that most of them thought there was no actual danger — all too surely took place, but the noise made to bring about a seeming explosion had most proba- bly brought down the real one, and Denis, instead of having been the first to secure his own personal safety — as Dan had sworn he would— was lying dead at his feet, his victim in a double sense. He was alive now only by reason that Denis died. Dan envied the disfigured corpse. He knew it to be a hero's. Fearless himself, he worshipped courage. " I only wish it wor me hinstead o' 'im a lyin' there," he muttered ; and his mates, though they scarcely heard what he said, understood what he meant. He was striding home alone after the funeral, his thoughts full of the impressive sight, but also exceedingly bitter. Inde- cision added to his misery. He wanted to make such repara- tion as he could by openly owning his share in the fatal mis- chief that had brought about the tragedy, but to do this would inculpate his companions, to which they would not consent, and he could not betray them. Could he take the whole blame upon himself he would do it gladly, but this did not seem pos- sible when there were so many in the same boat ; they must swim or sink together. A placard on a wall caught his sight. It was quite fresh, having been " posted 99 while he was away at the distant ceme- tery, or he must have seen it before. He stopped and stared, then read it slowly from beginning to end. It meant much to him. Digitized by Google

Page 428

1900.] The Pitman's Rosary. 401 It was an order from the War Office calling out the First Class Army Reserves for active service in the field. Dan Pollard was a Reserve ! "The wound is not dangerous. A narrow shave, though. But for this it must have been mortal." It was after the disastrous fight at Colenso, where the Catholic chaplain came up just as the surgeon had taken a brown rosary from the breast pocket of a big linesman who was lying prone upon the ground. He had, however, recovered consciousness, and his eyes followed the rosary as it passed from the doctor's into the priest's hands. "Your rosary has been the means of saving your life, my lad," said the priest kindly. "The bullet which struck you was diverted from its course by this good little string of beads." "Saved me loife, d'ye say? I knowed a pore chap as lost 'is along o' that — an' me. It ought to a bin all t 'other way, but them 's a wonderful set o' beads." " I should like to hear all about them," said the father as he replaced the rosary, " but you are in no danger now and I must go to the dying." " No, there 's nought much amiss wi' me. I '11 coome along an' 'elp lift some on 'em." But Dan, in trying to raise himself, fell back heavily. He was faint from loss of blood. He managed, however, to call out as the priest was moving away : " I'd loike to tell ye alj about it afore my turn coomes, if ye '11 remember." 44 You may be sufe I won't forget." Dan's " turn " came on the blood-stained road to Lady- smith, but not before the story of the rosary and much more liad been told ! "VOL. LXXII.— 26 Digitized by Google

Page 429

The services rendered by Dr. Martineau in de- fence and proof of those truths which are the necessary basis of all religious belief make any biography and account of his life and works not merely interesting but important. His Stttdy of Religion is one of the greatest works of the century. Its vin- dication of * the objective validity of the argument for the existence of God as against the mechanical and empirical philosophers of England on the one hand, and the Idealists of Germany and their followers in both countries on the other, is, notwithstanding some points deserving criticism, of inestimable value, as also is the criticism of Utilitarianism. The very weakness of his own position as that of one seeking to solve all problems by unaided reason, without the guidance of any divinely appointed external authority in either church or Bible, rendered it incumbent upon him to solve philosophical objections to the fundamental bases of all religion on purely philosophical grounds. Whatever Dr. Martineau did was done with thoroughness. To those who are acquainted with his writings this is saying very little. Although he is outside the church, and outside of all the bodies which make any claim to be orthodox — nay, although he is outside of the orthodox of his own body — his reverence for God, his devout worship and love of him, his loyalty to the voice of conscience, cannot but excite our admiration. His intellectual powers, the beauty of his style, the eloquence to which he often rises, are not in- ferior to those higher qualities. The fact that between six and seven hundred scholars and thinkers of every nation united to present an address to him on his eighty-third birth- day is a testimony to the effect his writings have produced upon those who are accounted the leaders of thought. This address was to thank him for the help which he had given to those who %i combine love of truth with the Christian life," and for his great services in the Philosophy of Religion. Even Digitized by Google

Page 430

1900.] Talk about New Books. 403 those who were unable to sign this address, as they were not friends of religion but opponents, joined in the expression of their sympathy. The example of Dr. Martineau's life of thought is a fresh demonstration of the necessity of there being a living authority to defend, maintain, safeguard the truth. Certainly very few men are endowed with intellectual powers equal to his, or with a more tender conscience, to which, so far as human judgment goes, a complete obedience was paid. The expressions which he gives to his reverence and love for God are not to be rivalled in literature, nor is there any reason to think that these expressions are mere rhetoric, but rather there is every reason to think that they are but feeble expressions of his interior life — a life carried into every day practice. But for want of an authority to guide him, divinely appointed and constituted, such as the Catholic Church affords, while his philosophical career was upwards and drawing ever nearer to the truth, his theological career carried him further and further away. He started, so far as we can learn from this volume, as an Arian, and before his life was over our Lord, although recognized by him as his teacher, exemplar, guide, brother, friend, was rejected as his Lord and Saviour ; he would not even allow these appellations to appear in prayers The Holy Scripture he never seems, even at first, to have ac- cepted as the word of God infallibly inspired ; but his course here, too, seems to have been downward, so that he came to look upon even the Gospels as merely human documents, con- taining many and important errors. On the other hand, he believed in miracles, at least those of Christ; his characteriza- tion of sin, its intrinsic malice and evil, were in marked con- trast to the Liberal views now so common. Nor is he a Universalist ; he does not believe that saint and sinner will begin again on equal terms in another life. Future punish- ment he teaches, a punishment of which death will reveal even greater and greater potentialities. Mr. Hutton, of the Spectator^ his friend, testifies that Dr. Martineau inspired him with a fear of hell, a thing which the Calvinists had failed to do. But his rejection, or perhaps we should say his ignorance, of a divine authority, left him, powerful, earnest, highly gifted though he was, liable to changes indefinitely varied. And if the minds on the summit, such as his, are so placed, what about the multitude which has to labor and toil, and which has but little intellectual power or opportunity to use it? Dr. Martineau Digitized by Google

Page 431

404 Talk about New Books. [Dec, holds that they must look for guidance to the dite> and learn of them the way to serve God : in such a contradiction is he involved; for he also teaches as fundamental that all external authority, that of the church and that of the Bible, is impos- sible. Much more might be said about Dr. Martineau and his works. A study of them by those competent to undertake it will have at least these two good effects : one of finding weapons against the unbelieving scientific thought represented by Huxley, Tyndall, and to a certain extent by Spencer, and the subjective philosophy generally; the other the getting a clearer understanding of the exact stand-point and aims of that body of religious thinkers which is represented by the Higher Critics. With all his merits there are so many painful things in his works that the perusal of them fills us with deep grati- tude for the guidance which the church affords, and shows yet once more the moral necessity of a guide. Mr. Jackson has done his part well.* It is not, of course, the final or complete biography which will doubtless sooner or later be published ; there is none of the correspondence which is now looked upon as essential for the revelation of a man's life. It is, in fact, rather a study and an account of his works than a biography ; but this is given with great lucidity and a clear comprehension. Great respect, too, is shown towards the views which he, in common with Dr. Martineau, rejects. " The fortunes of the House of Egremont had their first great bloom through the agency of a platter of beans ; and through a platter of beans more than a hundred years later the elder branch was ousted from one of the greatest estates in Eng- land, became wanderers and gentlemen adventurers throughout Europe, fought in quarrels not their own, served sovereigns of foreign countries, knew the dazzling heights of glory, and fell into the mire of penury and disrepute." With this spirited sentence Miss Molly Elliot Seawell opens her new book, The House of Egremont ; \ for in this novel the reader is not plunged into a mire of dialogue and left to wade his way out as best he can. Miss Seawell has the happy knack of acquainting us with the dramatis personce of her story, so that from cover to cover the fortunes and fate of the Egremonts prove absorbingly interesting. * fames Martineau: a Biography and a Study. By A. W. Jackson, A.M. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. f The House of Egremont. By Molly Elliot Seawell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Digitized by Google

Page 432

1900.] Talk about New Books. 405 We first meet the hero — Roger Egremont — during his neg- lected childhood ; later, when, with the independence char- acteristic of the Egremonts, he threw the platter of beans in the face of William of Orange, he is imprisoned in Newgate. Released from prison he escapes to France, where he joins the suite of the exiled James II. of England. Here, at St. Ger- maine, we are introduced to a number of fascinating characters which stand out with life-like distinctness. Old Madame de Beaumanoir, with her keen wit and sharp originality, is her- self enough to extort laughter from the most blast. Michelle is a heroine who excites our admiration and our sympathy. The Duke of Berwick, natural son of James II., is one of the finest characters in the book. Louis XIV. hovers like a shadow — but a very splendid one — in the background. We catch but a stray glimpse of him now and then. Of the English characters the most interesting is Bess Lukens — she of frank, honest nature and compelling beauty. There is Richard Egremont, lovingly called " Dicky," the young Jesuit who dies on the scaffold for his king and his religion. Along with a rare, sweet individuality, Dicky Egremont has the stuff out of which martyrs are made. In the delineation of James II. Miss Seawell shows her usual independence of thought. The man who has come down to us in popular history as a villain of the deepest dye is shown as he really was — honest, narrow, brave, incapable as a ruler, but himself a victim of the fiercest bigotry shown in his gen- eration. To the young student of history this delineation will present an interesting line of thought and may result in profitable re- search, for, of course, Miss Seawell has back of her authorities, in the shape of modern and critical histories, upon which she bases her view of James II. Those who have formed their opinions from the old-fashioned school histories will find it hard to swallow the draught Miss Seawell offers them. Some one has said there is always something above the common in the book that challenges the intelligence and compels the mind to take up the gauntlet. This is surely true of The House of Egremont^ and the discussion which must follow its appearance cannot but be of the keenest interest. The real villain of the book is Hugo Stein, illegitimate son of John Egremont and half brother to Roger. He obtains, by crooked means, complete possession of the grand and lordly estate of Egremont, and proves himself a scoundrel in every Digitized by Google

Page 433

406 Talk about New Books. [Dec, respect. Meanwhile Roger makes himself exceedingly popular in France. He has many adventures, but he remains through all his vicissitudes a brave soldier and a true gentleman. He is a thoroughly human man — which means that Thackeray's re- proach upon the heroes of novels is not always just. For it was the creator of Colonel Newcome who complained : " Since Fielding drew Tom Jones, no novelist has dared to draw a man." Miss Seawell's clear, incisive style is already well known, and in the present instance is especially vivid. There is not a dull page in The House of Egremont. Ismay Oliver was the original name of the subject of the book called Our Mother* Among the reasons that caused her story to be written are these : that it might be a source of comfort and encouragement to converts, and that it might furnish a few lights to those whose religious vocation brought upon them numerous trials and repeated rejections. The daughter of an Anglican minister, Miss Oliver's first change of religion was a conversion to Methodism. Later she was led into the Catholic Church. A long series of painful struggles finally resulted in the founding of the English branch of the Apostolic Sisters, whose " rule is based on that of St. Augustine. The end peculiar to this congregation is to help forward the conversion of England by means of the Catholic education of the middle class on modern lines, and by the propagation of devotion to the Holy Souls. This devotion forms an easy stepping-stone to the faith for non Catholics." In the Middle West there used to be a tradition that in order to get the whole truth from a man of certain parts of Kentucky it was well to demand his oath ; not that honor was lacking in those sections of the State, but, owing to the per- fervid imaginations of the warm-blooded people, their exag- gerated accounts of things were just as liable to overshoot the exact point of verity as their famous Winchesters were sure to pierce a mark at its very dot. That this old fiction-making propensity yet survives, though happily manifesting itself in more edifying manner, this year's literary record amply testi- fies; James Lane Allen's Reign of Law is one witness, the novels of Robert Burns Wilson and John Fox add others, while John Uri Lloyd, a Kentuckian merely by adoption, has * Our Mother. By Frances I. Kershaw. New York : Benziger Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 434

1900.] Talk about New Books. 407 been proving through his story, Stringtown-on-thePike* that the fabricating spirit is infectious and that he has been inocu- lated with it. But paradoxical as it may seem, this story-teller has told the truth — as must appear to the Kentuckians who will recognize in the novel many incidents their own family annals contain. This virtue of verisimilitude to history, though it recommends the book to those who know whereof Mr. Lloyd Speaks, must prove a fault in the eyes of others who will deem it too provincial to be of broad interest. One must quarrel with the author also for not making more of the chief thread of his plot, which he has so tangled and intertwined with others that only at the story's end does it unravel itself smooth and evident. By the same sin falls Mr. Lloyd in his charac- terization, where he subordinates elements capable of interest- ing development to others practically insignificant. For instance, Cupe, rare old relic of slavery days, is the most ubiquitous dramatis persona, and whereas, with his fanciful superstitions and their eerie materializations, and in his character of fidelity and that dignity the Southern aristocracy reflected on its ser- vants, he is diverting, the story would assuredly hold longer and keener interest had the author sapiently cast him more in shadow by throwing brighter light on Sarrimy Drew, Susie the " honey gearl," and the Red Headed Boy. As evidence of the book's excellent " local atmosphere/' it fairly bristles with those highly romantic but woefully barbaric feuds of which the present political conflicts in the dark and sanguinary ground offer horrifying survivals all too numerous. It wHl interest many to know that the final scene of Stringtown-on-the-Pike is laid in that venerable convent of " Nazareth," in Kentucky, whose picturesque beauty has so frequently passed into poetry and romance. The book is ap- propriately illustrated by Corinne Caldwell Trimble's sketch of Susie, and Mrs. Lloyd's Kentucky photographic scenes. In the deluge of petty publications that is upon us Dr. Mabie's volume, Essays on Books and Culture^ reprinted by Dodd, Mead & Co., is a strong anchor to fasten faith and taste to those immortal standards of great literature and genuine culture firmly set by the genius of Shakspere, Dante, Goethe, and the Scriptural writers. Other books, the scholarly essayist maintains, will afford valuable information; others still, aesthetic * Stringtown-on-thc~Pike. By John Uri Lloyd. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. t Essays on Books and Culture. By Hamilton Wright Mabie. New York : Dodd, Mead &Co. Digitized by Google

Page 435

408 Talk about New Books. [Dec, pleasure ; but the master-spirits alone can bestow that precious triple gift of artistic gratification, intellectual enlightenment, spiritual enrichment which true culture embodies and gloriously combines. To those who desire such a gift the present volume is addressed — to those who, with a student's perplexities or a bibliophile's ardors, know not to which of the multitudinous and newly-springing fountains they must turn for the waters of life. To the fountain-heads, pleads Dr. Mabie in every essay; for they alone have the full, authentic interpretation of human life, the supreme record of the races' most searching thought, their deepest feeling, broadest experience, and most strenuous activity. So stimulating is the little book's eloquence about books, so full of promise for expansion of grasp on the scheme of things, for emancipation from trammels of environment and its fatal sequence provincialism, one lays the essays aside well- nigh persuaded that from faithful reading of the great books genius itself may evolve. This optimistic persuasion comes upon one from Dr. Mabie's own vital personality which ani- mates his essays. He brings to the study of literature a critic's far-reaching insight, a lover's sympathetic appreciation, but, best of all, a spiritual vein like that he eulogizes in others : "a vein of Idealism which grows out of a vision of things in their large relations — out of a view of men ample enough to discern not only what they are at this stage of development, but what they may become when the development is com- pleted." This gift of idealism makes Dr. Mabie's outlook not only ample but finely sensitive to the subtle and sublime signi- ficance of the Scriptures and the Divina Commedia, which makes them truly peerless literature — and, like all noble art and genuine culture, is religion's handmaid. Marion Harland has so long been a name known and loved in many a household that a book so signed readily finds a public awaiting it with welcomes. A doubly keen interest has hung upon the appearance of Marion Harland's recent volume, Dr. Dale* which bears, besides, as its collaborator the name of her son, Albert Payson Terhune, who, however, scarcely needs his mother's chaperonage to introduce him into literary circles, where he is already known by his books, Syria from the Saddle^ Columbia Stories, and his many clever magazine contributions. Dr. Dale bears the mark of a masculine touch in the virile * Dr. Dale. By Marion Harland and Albert Payson Terhune. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 436

1900.] Talk about New Books. 409 characterization of the book's heroes, Dr. Dale, John Bell, and Ralph Folger, while the heroines, Myrtle Bell and Ruth Folger, seem creations of the graceful pen that wrote Where Ghosts Walk and the Literary Hearthstones. Myrtle Bell might have been a companion of Marion Harland's own girlhood; she bears about her a fragrance which, unfortunately, seems to be fading from latter-day belles and heroines — the fragrance of grace, womanly sweetness and charm, that make the lines pre- luding her appearance ring doubly true : " With breath of thyme and bees that hum Across the years you seem to come." The story is told in an excellent, straightforward manner, wherein the respective grace and strength of the collaborators' style are well blent. The plot is laid in a town of oil-wells — a town pulsing with the interesting life which usually abides in such places, where humanity in the rough congregates and in- evitably gives examples of picturesque character and dramatic incident. Welsh, Sandy McAlpin, the Meagleys, and Mrs. Bowersox illustrate such character. The breaking of the dam, the reopening of the great oil-well, Dale's trial scene and his attempted confession, supply the incidents. Both characters and incidents are developed in an artistic manner which clamps the attention till their very ultimate evolution. The setting of the story in the Pennsylvania oil-regions is revealed by the provincialism of the typical character and by happy touches of local color. The authors have resisted the temptation that wrecks much recent American literature — the temptation to employ dialect and local atmosphere for their own sake rather than as backgrounds for the human actors whose story is to be told. We have again a contribution to our store of religious books for children, and note with pleasure that it comes from the same quarter whence several very acceptable volumes have issued already. Mother Mary Salome's book * is written in the bright, straightforward, interesting fashion that will attract both children and those whose duty it is to impart religious instruction to the litle ones. It is a publication at once handsome, instructive, and devotional. Readers familiar with the details of Ruskin's life will recog- * The Life of our Lord, Written for Little Ones. By Mother Mary Salome, of the Bar Convent, York. New York : Benziger Bros. Digitized by Google

Page 437

Talk about New Books. [Dec, nize a familiar name in Francesca Alexander. In her latest publication,* too, they will see further justification of the high opinion entertained of her by that master of English prose. It consists mainly of a collection of rhymed legends gathered by the author from the lips of the old country people in the neighborhood of Florence, a house well known as the resort of a literary circle of high distinction. Other parts of the book are made up of stories drawn from the literature of the country, and turned into rhyme by Miss Alexander's graceful pen. They are all, it may be said, simple and beautiful, and most of them religious in the best sense of the word. The struggle of the rising author, the fate of the success- ful one at the hands of those modern Philistines the pub- Ushers, are themes for ceaseless jeremiads; but there is another side to the story as lugubrious as that popularly known — the violence done the much-abused publishers by those whose work they present to the public. If a typographical error mars a page of the author's precious thought wrath and vengeance forthwith possess him, and (though faulty editing is not to be condoned) he recks not of the trouble and difficulty for which his own carelessly prepared manuscripts may be responsible. The pamphlet,f compiled by Mr. William Stone Booth, of the Macmillan Company, contains some concise suggestions the fol- lowing of which will save both publisher and author much agony, effort, time, and expense. Its chapters deal with the preparation of manuscripts, the securing of copyrights, and new rules for spelling, punctuation, and style. A book on The Things beyond the Tomb % is a striking illus- tration of the well known tendency among Anglicans towards Catholic thinking and feeling on religious subjects. We can hardly avoid a slight feeling of annoyance at the use and prominence of the word " Catholic " in the sub-title, but with that exception we may easily sympathize with the book and hope that it will be the means of drawing many people further away from purely Protestant doctrine concerning heaven, purga- tory, and hell. It is almost pitiful to see an earnest, honest man placed in the author's position. He is in possession of * The Hid Jen Servants. By Francesca Alexander. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. \ Notes for the Guidance of Authors. Compiled by William Stone Booth. New York : The Macmillan Company. % The Things beyond the Tomb. In a Catholic Light. By Rev. T. H. Passmore, M.A. New York : Longmans, Green & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 438

1900.] Talk about New Books. 411 what he knows to be a broader, more nearly Catholic view of the " Four Last Things," and yet he finds himself obliged to set forth his convictions hesitatingly, sometimes almost apolo- getically, having the consciousness that he must incur the opposition of many members of his own church. He urges prayer for the dead, but he is obliged to preface his exhorta- tion with a long proof that the practice is permissible and praiseworthy, and he finds himself at some pains to explain why explicit prayers for the dead are not to be found in the 44 Book of Common Prayer." He feels that he " ought not to have to waste paper in defending so simple and obvious a thing" as this, the principal advantage of the communion of saints, and yet he is obliged to waste words upon it, where a Catholic — or, as the author would insist, a Roman Catholic writer — would feel himself perfectly secure in pre- suming on the faith and sympathy of his readers. So too concerning purgatory. It is sad to see one who loves the Catholic teaching calming his conscience by whittling away from it the idea of the " Treasury of Merits," and by dis- tinguishing so cautiously between " Catholic doctrine " and " the popular teaching of the subject " among Roman Catholics, and finally proposing little more than a tentative, somewhat minim- ized explanation of the doctrine so well known and loved among us. Still, as we have admitted, this little treatise may do not a little good among those for whom it was written. Catholics do not need it and would hardly care to read it, un'ess for the purpose of seeing how much Catholic phrase- ology and Catholic ideas are in vogue among those who would so like to be possessed of Catholic certainty and security in matters of dogma. Father Sheehan's book of poems* will prove a boon to the lover of beautiful language expressing sublime thoughts. An astonishing wealth of words is at the command of this singer, and his harp rings out in chords sure to awaken real emotion in the listener. Further than this, he draws his theme from the real fountain of mystic truth, and the spirit of deep re- ligious faith is throbbing his soul visibly as he sings. It is evident that true poetic inspiration has been accorded him, and moreover he voices his message in phrases of rare beauty. The lines that treat of faith in the invisible love existing be- tween God and man should speak to the inmost heart of the * Cithara Mea ; Poems. By Rev. P. A. Sheehan. Boston : Marlier & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 439

412 Talk about New Books. [Dec, best of our generation, and the reading of death's lessons is at once comforting and sublime. The one blemish prominent in this sweet garland of verse is the painfully unpleasant one of irregular — that is, unmetrical — lines. Possibly most of these are within the limits of legitimate license, but they form a serious defect in a work otherwise so enticingly beautiful. It was at the request of the Executive Committee of the Catholic Association that the Abb£ Laumonier's Guide du PUerin h Rome has been translated into English.* The gene- ral praise accorded the original will be echoed, no doubt, in the case of this clever adaptation. The volume is neat, porta- ble, and thorough. Its use will enable the visitor to thread the labyrinthine Roman streets with the smallest possible ex- penditure of questions. From the popular Polish novelist comes a beautiful little prose poem,f charmingly edited and published. The transla- tion, done by Jeremiah Curtin, is of the style we have learned to look for from his gifted pen. The volume cannot be said to possess any striking merit in so far as thought is con- cerned, but it certainly does appeal, and appeal most success- fully, to the artistic sense. In more respects than one Robert Orange % is a rather re- markable story — something like what George Eliot might have written had she absorbed the religious belief which inspired this author. If there is a serious fault in the book, it lies in the obscurity that clouds certain of the incidents and some of the sentences. This aside, the volume is a piece of work that ranks well in serious contemporary fiction. The style is good, the language careful, the sentiment always high and al- ways true. The plot, well conceived and executed, develops several scenes where the writer puts to good use her ability for dealing with intense dramatic situations and without being violent. Frequently the story is laid aside and the author, quite in George Eliot's style, pursues her course of philosophizing through several pages. These parts of the book deserve a * The Pilgrim's Guide to Rome. Translated from the work of M. l'Abbe Laumonier. Adapted for the use of English-speaking Pilgrims by Charles J.Munich. New York, Cin- cinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros. f The Judgment of Peter and Paul on Olympus. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. \ Robert Orange. By John Oliver Hobbes. New York : Frederick A. Stokes Company. Digitized by Google

Page 440

1900.] Talk about New Books. 4i3 great deal more attention than the average reader will devote to them. They give us the result of much sane and sym- pathetic study of great moral issues that disturb thinking souls, possessed at once of deep sentiment and deep piety. "The two things which affect a career most profoundly are religion, or the lack of it, and marriage or not marrying." These words, perhaps, give the key to the author's point of view. She is led to express herself on asceticism in its re- lationship to human affection and strong passion, in a strain quite unusual. One feels refreshed at seeing a writer not merely wholesome, but truly a Catholic, treating in so in- teresting a way of fashionable society, and its amusements and occupations. Of romance, too, there is no lack, for court- ship, matrimony, divorce, and intrigue make up the movement of the story; yet one can say that all are considered sensibly and healthily, as well as openly — a verdict not won or even desired by every writer of novels nowadays. The two or three misprints in the volume will no doubt be remedied in the next edition. Baby Goose : His Adventures? is the title of a very beauti- ful and clever book for little children, and suggests all the charm of the Christmas gift book. It is in large album shape, and every one of the ninety-six pages is a picture in itself, with the text of the story put in fancifully in hand lettering. Over twelve different colors and a number of extra tints have been used through the book with most attractive results. The stories are delightfully amusing and quaint. The work of children's book making becomes more painstaking every year, and shows the art of the illustrator and lithographer to more advantage, perhaps, than the serious literature of their elders. Were A Woman oj Yesterday \ more skilfully handled and its details more artistically finished, we might safely have called it a great book. As it is, we cannot but consider it to some extent remarkable. One of its author's prominent charac- teristics is a wonderfully active sympathy that takes hold of and develops half a dozen different types with the very per- fection of friendly appreciation. First we are sure she is a " strictly blue " Puritan, and then we find her an evident dis- ciple of compromise and a reformer of pure Calvinism. Later we become convinced by turns that she is cleverly defending * Baby Goose: His Adventures. By Fannie E. Ostraoder. Illustrated by R. W. Hirchert. Chicago : Laird & Lee. f A Woman of Yesterday. By Caroline Mason. New York : Doubleday, Page & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 441

414 Talk about New Books. [Dec, the less intense religious spiiit of the milder sects, the wide liberty of modern humanism, the dreams of the socialist, and the ascetical renunciation of the Catholic saint. It is through realms as different as these that the lot of the heroine leads us, and never can we detect in the writer anything contrary to the fair and dispassionate portrayal of influences with which she is dealing at the moment. Anna Mallison is an earnest young woman whose first " religious conviction " comes rather late, but gives her the sense of a missionary vocation to the heathen. Keith Burgess is another novice missionary. He finds that God has evidently predestined his own marriage with Anna, and the union takes place. It results in both of them being forced to exchange their missionary voyage for a comfortable home and social en- joyments. The more liberal theological views that gradually possess them find a strange culmination in the acceptance of a socialistic programme and their entrance into a little com- munity started by John Gregory, social reformer. In Burgess's death and the relationship of Anna and John Gregory we find the background for a strong piece of character-sketching, and the author rises to the occasion excellently well. 14 Renunciation " is the theme of the book. How does re- nunciation bear upon Calvinism, and Calvinism upon it? What is its claim upon the world of wealth and fashion whose mem- bers live in luxury while their brethren starve? Does not personal strength and heroic endeavor sometimes mask a hid- den selfishness that puts virtue in terrible jeopardy ? These questions the author suggests, and then allows the reader to consider the instances recorded and form a judgment for him- self. If he has perception, that judgment will read something like this : " Renounce and be perfect." The book will scarcely be a popular one. It will inspire only those who understand its subtle lesson, that high minded purity of motive is a thing hard to secure, and obtainable only when humility is a condition and divine grace a means of striving. For such as can understand this measureless truth, reading the volume will provide a spur to high endeavor. Among the latest biographies is that of Theodore Parker, by John White Chadwick.* While it cannot be said to be timely in view of any revival of Parker or his religious opinions, it may prove to be of interest to those conversant * Theodore Parker, Preacher and Re/ormer By John White Chadwick. New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 442

1900.] Talk about New Books. 4i5 with the various phases of Unitarian development; growth, and disintegration. The author does not pretend to treat exhaust- ively of his subject, but hopes 44 to make Pai ker a reality for a generation of readers bom since he died, to many of whom he is little known or mis known." The result is an interesting book, written in really beautiful style, and one that we think answers the purpose of the author. There is, doubtless, much to admire in the character of Theodore Parker. His amiability, sincerity, hatred of sham, and untiring zeal and courage in the face of obstacles cannot but impress one. His theology, however, contains little to commend itself to the earnest truth-seeker. His father before him had denied the Trinity, Atonement, Eternal Hell, and the ""more striking miracles of either Testament," and perhaps it is not to be wondered at that this belief, or lack of belief, should influence the son. But Theodore Parker Went even further: his spirit of rigid inquiry carried him on until the orthodox and traditional theology was almost entirely re- pudiated. The author notes how Parker's boyish remonstrance against water on his face upon the occasion of his baptism has been regarded as a prophetic intimation of his mature distaste for all conventional forms." To call Baptism and other rites 41 conventional forms M is too mild ; they are more, and the distaste for them in reality strikes deeply into the ground- work of religion. This 41 mature distaste " was another instance of the rationalizing spirit — a spirit which, if carried into the domains of morality, would work destruction as deplorable as that worked in religion. . How much he knew of Catholicism we are not told. He read St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Tertullian, and disliked them. He likewise read Averroes, but that he knew anything of St. Thomas is not mentioned. The book will be of interest to the Catholic as exemplify- ing how far a man can wander from truth while trusting to the powers of unaided reason. Digitized by Google

Page 443

4i6 Talk about New Books. [Dec, I. — AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS * These two dignified volumes are evidently the fruit of much painstaking research. The twilight history of America has fre- quently been written on the theory plan ; that is, some enterprising mind has created an hypothesis from a few facts, and has set out to search for other facts to confirm his preconceived theory. In many instances, where facts did not fit the hypothesis, they are conveniently lost sight of, or an interpretation is given to them which twists them from their real sense. The history of the Aztecs, or of the Mound-builders, or of the Cave-dwellers, or even of the Norsemen and other pre-Columbian discoverers, has been treated for the most part in this unscientific way. De Roo seems to have worked on another plan. While having a fund of historical knowledge that forms the best equipment for a historian, he has sought out avenues of infor- mation which have hitherto been closed to the antiquarian. Within comparatively recent years have the Vatican Archives been thrown open to scholars. De Roo has been delving among these old documents, and has secured information which throws a flood of light on the history of America before Columbus. The publication of these documents in the Appendix will constitute a very important contribution to the science of American History. It is this fact that gives value to these volumes. We shall return to this matter later and avail ourselves of some of the valuable information presented. 2.— SPIRITUAL LIFE AND PRAYER.f In several respects this is a very noteworthy book. Its dominating note and special excellence consists in the deriva- tion of the teaching concerning the spiritual life from sources which are open to all, and which form also the sources of Catholic dogma and practice. There are in the church, with her full approval, different schools of spirituality, each with its own principles, methods, and controlling ideas. God has raised up these teachers, and the religious orders and communities which are often their outcome, to supply the needs of the church as those needs have arisen. * History of America be/ore Columbus, according to Documents and approved Authors, By P. De Roo, Member of the Archa?ological Club of the Land Van Waes and of the United States Catholic Historical Society ; Honorary Member of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. Vol. I. : American Aborigines ; Vol. II. : European Immigrants. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Company. t The Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition. Translated from the French by the Benedictines of Stanbrook. London and Leamington : Art and Book Company. Digitized by Google

Page 444

1900.] Talk about New Books. 4*7 The spirit of this volume — its atmosphere, so to speak — is, on the contrary, as wide as the church . itself. Its teaching seems to well forth spontaneously from Holy Scripture, from the highest and holiest expression of the church's mind — her Liturgies ; and from the most authentic and most ancient ex- positors of the spiritual life — those who have received the approbation of the church from the beginning. It is a teach- ing which ante-dates the rise of Protestantism, and which con- sequently is not moulded by fear of it. " It contains nothing new: the author's ambition is to be wholly traditional and ancient." Nor does it keep back anything which is the super- natural birthright of Christians. In contradistinction to some writers, permeated with the idea that all who are not in the cloister are sunk in sin, and stand in need of nothing else ex- cept the fear of punishment, and that all popular teaching is to be moulded on this hypothesis, the author brings out and emphasizes the teaching of Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Fathers, to the effect that the supreme or transforming union of the soul with God is possible even in this life, the experimental perception of him is granted to those who have been faithful to the impulses of grace, and that this is a goal practically to be aimed at, not merely by a few chosen souls, but by all Christians in virtue of their baptism. " No state seems to have been more fully recognized by the Fathers than that of the perfect union which is achieved in the highest contemplation ; and in reading their writings we cannot help remarking the simplicity with which they treat it. They acknowledge its sublimity, describe its marks, encourage the leading to it, seem to think it frequent, and simply look upon it as the full development of the Christian life. By their vast faith and depth of doctrine they seem to have kept the people of their day free from those personal pretensions and that ignorant presumption which have since engendered so many errors and obliged spiritual writers, when treating of those matters, to speak with great reserve. While we are in our present condition of wayfarers, there are certainly snares on all sides, and the spiritual life has its perils ; but by dint of showing only the snares, the ambushes, and the pitfalls, souls are kept at a distance who would have risen very high, and would have rendered great glory to God, while perhaps the opposite reflection is lost sight of, namely, that pusillanim- ity has its dangers, as well as presumption " (pp. 306-7). The above extract gives a fair idea of the spirit in which vol. lxxii.— 27 Digitized by Google

Page 445

4i8 Talk about New Books. [Dec. the work is written. Sentimentality and mere emotional feel- ing have no place in it. It lays down exact, simple, and clear principles, and lays them down so clearly and simply that the willing reader is enabled to discern and apply them to con- duct— so far, that is, as this can be done by a book. While it enlarges and ennobles the possibilities placed before every man even here, it gives a higher aim and a wider field, and greater inducements to lead the spiritual life. Another characteristic is what we may call its magisterial character, based upon the study and experience of life as well as of books. It is not written by a novice or an enthusiast, but by one who has seen life fully and seen it whole. For instance, in speaking of those who reach the highest possible heights attainable in this life, the author reminds the reader of the revealed doctrine, that even the just man sins seven times a day, applies even to them. Again, after point- ing out the familiar truths that sorrow and suffering must ever exist, and that those seeking after holiness are even drawn to them, being desirous of filling up that " which is wanting/* the author adds a caution as to the place which suffering should hold, especially needful in these days when pessimism is so largely affected : " It is useless and even dangerous, as all illusions are, to seek suffering for suffering's sake. This is a tendency much to be regretted in our sickly age. Never has suffering been more extolled and sought after; yet valor is by no means a characteristic of our times. Under, this fair exterior much cowardice and hysteria lie hidden. Duty doing is made to give way to suffering, whereas every kind of suffering is not either necessarily holy or conducive to holiness. Suffering has but a relative and borrowed goodness ; it is a means, not an end. . . . Merit does not lie in suffering, although suffering is often an occasion of merit. Suffering must be united with love, otherwise its place is in those dark regions where the spirit of evil dwells. Our principal aim in this world must be to seek the sovereign Good." We have said enough to direct the attention of those in- terested in the literature of the spiritual life to this work as one of special value and importance. While it gives sufficient and reliable guidance, so that no one loyally listening to its teaching can go astray, it yet leaves ample room for the co- operation of each individual with God's special designs in regard to himself. Digitized by Google

Page 446

The decision of the elections places in the hands of the Republican party the settlement of many delicate questions concerning the rights and prerogatives of the church in our new possessions. The natural sense of justice of the Administration is to be depended on unless certain powerful influences deflect it from the right path. The overwhelming majorities attained by the Republicans will make these 11 influences " more than ordinarily brazen in their demands. The Treaty of Paris does protect the church in its rights, but the terms of treaties have been loosely interpreted and their clauses have been allowed to fall into desuetude. For months before the election non-Catholic religious jour- nals openly advocated the expulsion of the Friars from the Philippines and the sequestration of their lands. Now that the election is settled for four years they will begin again. It is only a step from the advocacy of a purpose to its accomplish- ment when the power is in one's hands. The following inci- dent is reported by the New York papers ; it may be only a flash of sentiment, but it indicates a state of mind that is ominous : " At the session of the General Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Cranston, of Portland, Ore., who returned from Manila only a short time ago, spoke upon the advisability of including the Philippine archipelago in the district of Eastern Asia. It was noticed that he pro- nounced Philippines with a long • i ' in the last syllable. Dr. James M. Buckley, of this city, took exception to this. u 1 The usual pronunciation,' he said, • is Philip-peen, I be- lieve ; not Philip pyne.' "'Oh, yes,' Bishop Cranston replied, laughingly, 'that's the way the Romanists pronounce it, I know. But we want to re- move every vestige of Rome from the islands, and we might as well change the pronunciation of the name. I, for one, shall call it Philippyne.' " The effort to remove every vestige of Rome from the Philip- pines will not be awaited with silent inactivity. Digitized by Google

Page 447

420 Editorial Notes. [Dec, The settlement of the vexed question of church pro- perty in Cuba is due. Already has it been delayed too long. For the last few months silence in regard to this question was golden. It is now time to lay the whole question before the public. There is in dispute property amounting to many mil- lions. As to its title of ownership, the Commission of impartial judges appointed by the Governor-General has reported that it belongs to the church. The revenues from this property, amounting now to over $600,000, have been held up by the American government. It was on these revenues that the clergy and many of the charitable institutions depended for the necessities of life. Of course we cannot expect the American government to subsidize the church, as the former Spanish government did, but when the orphans and the needy are cry- ing for the necessities of life it is not too much to expect a speedy settlement. The article published in this issue on the Temporal Power of the Pope is inspired from the Vatican, and it not only represents the latest sentiments of the Holy Father on the question of his independence and temporal sovereignty, but affirms the fact that the Roman Question is an international one of living interest. It claims the attention of the statesmen of English-speaking peoples. The Catholic Church is a factor in every government that must be reckoned with. It cannot be crowded to the wall or buried out of sight. It has in its superior organization and its magnificent dogmatic system, as well as in its remedies for the great social problems, a power that Christian states need to perpetuate their wholesome activities. To exercise this power aright the church must be free and unhampered. The Ameri- can people may well consider the Roman Question a living issue. It never will be settled until it is settled on the lines laid down by the Holy Father. Digitized by Google

Page 448

1900,] The Columbian Reading Union. 421 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. THE Catholic Church always fosters the true and noble in literature and warns the faithful against those pernicious books which tend to destroy morality. Men and women, as well as children, are often impressed with what they see in print. The books they read are as oracles to them ; the characters* that figure in the printed page are heroes and heroines, friends and models ; while the author himself becomes an authority whose opinions are never ques- tioned, and whose statements, of whatever kind, are accepted as substantiated truth. In the way of painting and architecture our faith has made its impression here and there, but in the way of literature it has made its impression every- where. Through this art has God's grace come richly to many souls. Litera- ture in itself and in its use is the art of arts. No art can reach us so widely and speak with such variety as this. Hence the wisdom of putting the right sort of literature into the hands of young people when they begin to read, and the importance of providing them with what is pure and elevating, while gratifying their taste for reading. A bad book is one of the worst things in the world, and the reading of such books has been the means of the disgrace and ruin of multitudes of young people. Parents and teachers cannot exercise too great a care over their chil- dren and pupils in this respect, and thereby preserve them from contamination by these vile and insidious productions. Mary Agnes Tincker wrote these words in praise of good books : The world has no such society as the cultivated mind can fill its house with, and there are no receptions so splendid as those of the imagination. Bores never come, tattlers and enemies never are admitted, late hours never weary, and the wine never inebriates. And better yet, those who are invited are always present and ready to stay. How the possessors of such a society laugh at the societies of the outer world. The Irish Bishops have issued an important pastoral letter to their people, in which they teach many significant lessons for the welfare of their country. A special warning is given against the spread of irreligious and immoral litera- ture. It is stated that a "sad change seems to have come over public opinion on this point. No subject now is too sacred to be made the matter of popular discussion in magazines and newspapers — the mysteries of faith, the solemn truths on which man rests his eternal hopes, are tossed about with as little reverence or reserve as if they were some topics of the most trivial im- portance, and we fear that sometimes these things leave their poison in the minds of Catholics who read them. • Lead us not into temptation ' holds in this as in all other occasions of sin, and the Catholic who, out of mere wanton- ness or curiosity, reads such writings, loves the danger, and it is no wonder if he should perish therein. The ordinary man of the world — without any special training in such subjects, without any opportunity or intention of following up the questions in discussion to the end — is no match for writers who are often *

Page 449

422 7 be Columbian Reading Union. [Dec, specialists of great ability and knowledge, but who by some perversity use their powers against God's holy faith; and, at the very least, it is inexcusable rashness for such a man to expose himself to the danger of being unsettled in his belief by the impressions which they make upon him. 11 Avoid such writings, then, dearly beloved brethren ; thank God for the gift of faith, and guard and cherish it as your most sacred possession. " Worse, perhaps, and more fatal to many souls is the immoral literature which is poured, almost in floods, over the country. We believe that one should go back to the old pagan times to find anything equal to it in corruption, and it would be a wrong to the great classical writers of antiquity to compare them with a certain important school of English fiction in these days. And what is more deplorable is, that many Catholics who deem themselves loyal members of the church allow themselves the utmost liberty in reading such things. Let a book only be extensively spoken of ; then, no matter how impure and how suggestive of evil it may be, no matter how gross and indecent may be the phases of human life with which it deals, if only it is fashionable, numbers of people seem to think that they are free to read it. Even women— Catholic women — take this license, and will sit hour by hour over a book which no earthly consideration would induce them to read aloud in the presence of any one — man or woman — for whom they had a particle of respect. Surely such reading must All the imagination with images of evil that in the end will cor- rupt their very souls. " In this matter we Catholics have a high standard of morals, and we should never regulate our conduct by any other. For all Catholics, but es- pecially for women, there is ever set before their eyes, by our Holy Church, an image that should raise them above foulness of this kind, and make it, in any form, repulsive to them. Mary Immaculate, the Virgin Mother, is their ideal and their pattern, and we can hardly conceive any one— least of all a woman in whose heart that spotless image is enshrined — finding pleasure in the literature to which we refer. " And all that we have said of these works of Action, which are written for the leisured classes, holds, with still greater force, with regard to the grosser and more vulgar forms in which the same topics are presented to the people at large. We believe that immense quantities of these vile publications, to- gether with most indecent and lascivous pictures, which are shown by certain traders in their shops, are brought into this country from England. It should be the duty of parish priests, by combined and persistent action, to put a stop to this unholy trade, and to denounce in the clearest and plainest terms the utter sinfulness of all participation in it. " A positive remedy for this crying evil is to find for the people a literature which will beat the same time healthy and interesting, and it is for this purpose, mainly, that the Catholic Truth Society has been established. We commend it to the patronage and support of our clergy and people. It has given an earnest already of what it can do, but with the full strength of Catholic Ireland to sus- tain it, it would be impossible to measure the services which it may yet render to letters and religion among us." * * * A library association has been formed in Ottawa, Canada, by the graduates of the Rideau Street Convent, and in connection with it an address to these ladies was made by Dr. McCabe, principal of the Normal School, recently, in Digitized by Google

Page 450

1900.] The Columbian Reading Union. 423 the music hall of the convent. In the course of his address Dr. McCabe paid the convent the high compliment of saying that the literary course taught there was equal to any taught in the universities. He also said that he hoped that some of the lectures on the winter programme would be delivered by literary members of the association. The object of the library association is to keep the former pupils in touch with the literary work of the convent, and also to assist them in keeping up to the mark their own knowledge and apprecia- tion of good literature. The association will have a library in the convent to which each member will be expected to contribute one volume a year. There will be monthly meetings and a series of lectures, the first of which will be de- livered by Professor Horrigan. Mrs. J. Macdonald was elected president of the association; Miss Agnes Davis, secretary; and Mrs. St. Laurent and Mrs. Stanton, librarians. The Mother-general of the Grey Nuns was among those present to hear Principal McCabe's interesting introductory address. * * * The Jesuit Relations and allied documents, published by the Burrows Brothers Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, will shortly be completed. It is a work of great importance in all public libraries, and of inestimable value to all inter- ested in the mission work of the Catholic Church^n America among the native tribes. It is gratifying to know that only a few sets of this monumental his- tory remain for sale. Wealthy Catholics should need no urging to subscribe for such a worthy object. * * * The Atlantic Monthly for November contained an article showing consider- able knowledge of child-life, on the subject of Reading for Boys and Girls. It was written by Everett T. Tomlinson, who admits that he was at one time the principal of a large high-school in which both boys and girls were pupils. He notes the fact, which each one can verify by past experience, that "memory, unlike all other good things, seems to be at its best soon after it is born, al- though for some reason, which no one but the theologian is able to explain, the evil is retained somewhat more easily than the good. Fancy is at work pre- paring the way for the imagination, the emotional life is stronger than the will, and the moral faculties are vivid, though undisciplined and misleading. The youthful mind is not analytic, is receptive rather than perceptive, and seeks the reasonable more than the process of reasoning." The writer also calls atten- tion to a modern phenomenon, that girls read many books written specially for boys dealing with outdoor sports and incidents associated with athletic sports. They like books that narrate the experience of school life, and appeal to their love of action. * * * We are much pleased to learn from Miss Emma Collingwood that the Catholic Woman's Literary Club of Meadville, Pa., was organized in 1897 by the Rev. James J. Dunn, pastor of St. Bridget's Church. The membership was limited to forty, and no difficulty has been found in keeping that number on the roll. The meetings are held alternate Tuesdays from September to June at the homes of the members, an arrangement found to work exceedingly well, pre- venting any expense for hall, light, or fire, and bringing in a social feature that has proved a strong factor in the success of the club. No refreshments are served at these meetings, as a rule was made to that effect. The study for the Digitized by Google

Page 451

424 Ihe Columbian Reading Union. [Dec, 1900.] past two years was Church History ; Wedewer's Outlines of Church History was selected for a class-book, and Darras's History for preparation of essays A paper was also given each evening on some subject chosen from the American Catholic Quarterly Review. The third year Bible History was taken up, begin- ning with the Old Testament from the Creation to the time of King David. In addition to two essays on subjects connected with the Bible History a paper was given on My Favorite Author, which proved so interesting that it will be continued next year. The programme for the term September, 1900, to June, 1901, is as follows: Roll-call, answered by quotations from the Gospel according to St. Mark. Reading of Reeves's Bible History. Reading of paper on some character or event connected with chapters read in Bible History. Discussion of paper. Reading of a portion of Murray's Popular History of the Catholic Church in the United States. Paper on My Favorite Author, or A Famous Woman. The Question Box. Current events in the Catholic world. Business session closed with singing of a hymn. If the evening is not too far advanced, a short social session is held. The first difficulty met with in the work was the unwillingness of the mem- bers to take part in the discussions ; this difficulty has been overcome as the members grew accustomed to the work. The second difficulty has been and still is the procuring of books suitable for the work. For instance, in taking up Bible History it may be said with truth that there are no Catholic books on the Bible suitable for the laity; they are prepared either for the clergy and are too learned, or for the use of schools, and are couched in too childish language, and the details that older people would prefer to read about are passed over en- tirely. To get this knowledge out of the Bible itself is very difficult, and would require more time and study than the average club-member can give. Socially, the club has been a perfect success, and in the three years past the harmony of the meetings has never been disturbed by the slightest unpleas- antness. The closing of the third year's work was celebrated by a banquet, at which the members and invited guests numbered over seventy. Toasts were given and responded to by the Rev. Fathers Dunn, Wiersbruski, and Dugan; by Miss Emma Colling wood, president of the club ; Mrs. F, Prenatt, vice-president ; the toast-mistress, Miss Margaret Meade, introducing each toast with a few very happy and appropriate remarks. A fine musical programme was given by several members of the club, and the evening closed by the guests expressing kindly wishes for the continued prosperity of the Catholic Woman's Literary Club of Meadville. M. C. M. Digitized by Google

Page 452

>>•/># 'danvwhere. r>end tor " The Test of Time " — sure. OSTERMOOR & COMPANY. 114 Elizabeth Street. New York. Send for our Iron Bedstead Catalogue. A BEAUTIFUI. FLOOR May be obtained by tbe use of Suprernis Floor Finish. Supretnis preserves the beauty of a new floor, and makes an old floor look like new. It stands tbe hardest tisane and is easily cleaned. Write for our booklet, "The Treatment of Floors." Shipoleuin has no equal for the interior finish of hospitals, bath rooms, and the finest residences, because of its remarkable resis- tance to the attacks of soap, water, and moisture. Send for de- scriptive matter and price lists. - - - CHICAGO VARNISH COMPANY, - - - Dearborn and Klrwie, 22 Vescy Street (near Astor House), Pearl and High Streets, Chicago. New York. Boston. J «5*lf55J^a Snow While Uwanta £12: Mattress $7.00 If wanted in two pieces, like cut, $7.50. Freight prepaid to rill points north f 4 rsn^^L 1 the -out h line of Tennessee and east of the Missouri river and of a line drawn 4 ffk PUf directly south from Kansas City. I'art of the freight paid to more di-tant. point*. 4 Absolute Perfection. As soft as a SIO hair mat t re-« and to he |u ei erred, he 4 cans*' it trover parks is cleaner, more sanitary and never attract* moths, (i ua rante. d to hi-t a lifetime w it hour niak ^ intf over, They may he returned after thirty days' trial at our expense, if imt po.-it 1 vely the hest mat (res.- that ^ nriouey enn buy, and your money will he in-taut ly and cheerfully refunded. J FkOn FACTORY IO CI >l OH The I wanta nattress can he had only . \\ hat is Cotton Down? It is the snow-white selected cotton fre-h fin-n the held-, m o» j^i 4 nnl Jmles, made into Col ton |)own hy • >" i 1 1 ^' put through our patented proce-- until it i- a Inmsl as thill'\ as featle-!- 4 Seme call it "felt M when 1 1 in- t teat ed and it is undoubtedly tin' he-t mat t r«--s materia I known to t he 1 1 ade. I n order 1 in*C «ive the w idth of your lied, measuring from the inside of the side rail.-. All mat 1 roses are Gleet ;j inches Umtr. j Send for Booklet of Testimonials. 1 PORT WrAYINt FURNITURE COMPAMY, Fort Wa>no, Ind. Digitized by Google

Page 453

ME MANUAL OF PRAYERS Catholic Book Exchange, 120 W. 60th St., sells It oheap. TRUE ART .• THE BEST TEACHER. The Catholic Book Exchange has acquired the American copy- rights on the now famous picture of Christ Blessing the Opening of the Twentieth Century and has imported an immense num- ber of copies. The copies are in colors done by the best European artists. They are on cardboard 8xii. THE PICTURE WILL BE A GREAT SELLER. We want to establish agencies for the sale of these pictures all over the country . Apply for terms . C4THOUC BOOK EXCHANGE, iao West 6otU St., Mew York. EVERYTHING FOR THE CHURCH. ffirttetic flftemorlal jflflinfrows. Marble Altars and Stations. Designs executed here or in Italy. Gold and Silver Altar Furniture. Jewelled Tabernacles. Pulpits, Lecturns, Altar Rails, etc., in MARBLE, BRASS, or WOOD. Decorations. © © Artistic designs, best workman- ship, reasonable prices. THE COX SONS AND BUCKLEY CO., 70 Fifth Ave., New York. Four Pounds of Soap a because of the uality- Quantity Quickness of the work it does. Ho mttinf -Harmless - Millions use it

Page 454

The {Message or Lieo Xiii. to the Tuuentieth Century. Leo XIII.'s Message to the Twentieth Century. The Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII. Rev. A. P. Doyle, C.S.P. Saint Paul the Apostle and our Modern Life. Rev. Joseph McSorley, C.S P. Sweetheart Abbey. Illustrated.) Agnes c. Storer The Tides. William Seton, LL.D. The Buried Casket. Ethel Nast. The Two Ways. (Poem.* Illustrated.) Dogma and Dogmatism. E. F. G. The Story of Whittier's Countess. Illustrated Mary E. Desmond. Christ the true Civilizer. A Winter Night. Poem.' K. F. Mullany. James Buckham. The Catholic Women's Association, i Illustrated .1 Louise Girod. Sorrow's Epiphany. Poem.) Mary Blake Morse. The Mother Of John. Minnie Sarsfield Gilmore A New Year. Poem. Illustrated. ) Charles Hanson Towne. Price, 25 Cents ; S3 per Tear. THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK P. O. Box a, &laticn^^0^ ART AND BOOK CCWPANY, 22 Paternoster Row, Londcn, £. C,

Page 455

PETER COOPER'S CLARIFIED ^GELATINE)f FOR Wine Jellies, Blanc Mange, Charlotte Ru§se. PURE and WHOLESOME. Beinq PULVFRIZEO it DISSOLVES in a ffw Minutes. For bale by Grocers, and at 13 Burling Slip. New York City. 'Calnmbia" Modern W ASH KK. PRICKS "RKJIIT,'' Macliiiicry "I P-TO DATK' unci Guaranteed. LAUNDRY MACHINERY, For Asylums, Convents, Hospitals, and other Institutions. WILSON LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO., Columbia, Pa. Srnd for Prices. Full Information, and Catalogue M. Estimates on Application. MANGLE. It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those v\ho advertise in The Catholic World Magazine. ''1' \\ '■' KfiS ' *» vil it H ** V1 1 [ HOTEL EMRIRE, BROADWAY AND 63d ST., N. Y. CITY. El'ROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. ABSOLUTKLV FIREPROOF. The Standard of Excellence at Moderate Cost. Within ten minutes' walk, of all the Theatres and great Department stores, and easy of access from all Railroad terminals and Steamship landings. PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE EXCLUSIVE- NESS OP CLIENTELLE. PERFECTION IN cri- sis}-;, and efficient service will find ' THE EMPIRE '» AN IDEAL HOTEL. Send postal for ' ' The Empire Illustrated " and rate card. W. JOHNSON QUINN, Proprietor. When a Housewife i SEHS THE TRADE- HARK BELOW On Enameled Ware it is Safe to Bny; not till then. NO POISON can lurk in Agate Kickel Steel Ware (srnd for jmm-yfg* phld 8hawngwhy),h\it ^ without this mark there is no immunity from danger. A re- ^§ cent analysis made X of 17 different makes showed in every instance one of these three poisons as a part of their coating viz.: ARSENIC, LEAD AND ANTIMONY. Each Cooking Utensil (we >%>J make 5000 different kinds) of f the "L. & G. Agate Nickel Steel Ware" has, besides this Trade-Mark, burnt in the enamel, a label attached with Chemists' certificate as a guaranty of ABSOLUTE SAFETY i Pamphlet vf vital intcrrnt to event . , lumxcivifc* FliEE to any address, Lalance & Grosjean Mfg. Co., Boston. New York. Chicago. fS^S The INKS used on this piiblieation\$t\mA\manufactiirtd by _ SIGWlMU I I ^AN£n.. K

Page 456

Digitized by Google

Page 457

Page 458

^ THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Vol. LXXII. JANUARY, 1901. No. 430. Xco IIII/0 flDessage to tbe Swentietfo Century: Cbe greatest misfortune is never to bave known 3esus Cbrist. CDrist is tbe rountaln bead or all good* mankind ean no more be saved witbout Pis power tban it can be re- deemed without Pis mercp. Wbcn 3csus CDrist is absent buman reason fails, being be- reft of its cbief protection and ligbt : and tbe vcrp end is lost sigbt of for wbicb. under God's providence, buman so- cietp bas been built up. Co reject Dogma is simplp to denp Cbristianitp. It is evident tbat tbep ivbose intellects reject tbe poke of Cbrist are obstinatelp striving against 6od. Paving shaken off God's autboritp, tbep are bp no means freer, for tbep will fall beneatb some buman swap. 6od alone is life. Jill otber beings partake of life, but are not life. Cbrist, from all eternitp and bp Pis verp na- ture, is "tbe tire," just as Pe is "tbe Crutb," because Pe is 6od of 6od. ir anp one abide not in me, be sbaii be cast fortb as a brancb, and spall wither, and tbep sball gatber bim up and cast blm into tbe fire, and be burnetb (Uobn xv. 6). Once remove all impediments and allow tbe spirit of Cbrist to revive and grow in a nation, and tbat nation sball be beaied. Cbe world bas beard enougb or tbe so-called " rigbts of man." £et it bear sometbing or tbe rigbts or God. Cbe common welfare urgentip demands a return to Pirn trom wbom we sbould never bave gone astrap ; to Pim wbo is tbe Wap, tbe Crutb, and tbe £ite,-and tbls on tbe part not onlp or individuals but or societp as a wboie. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York, 1900. VOL. LXXII.— 28 Digitized by Google

Page 459

426 The Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII. [Jan., THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII. BY REV. A. P. DOYLE, C.S.P. E have placed as the opening chapter of The Catholic World Magazine the ringing words of the great Leo announcing Jesus Christ as the master of hearts and the healer of the nations, and bidding all men to look to Him for salvation. The great master mind of the Vatican sees with more than prophetic eye the years that are to come. Whatever of diffi- culties there may be, retarding the triumph of the truth, what- ever mists of the morn may gather about the pathway of progress, still there is one figure that looms up compelling our attention, away from whom we shall stray only to our hurt, and back to whom we must always turn for wisdom, solace, and guidance. He is Jesus Christ, the Day Star from on high. This is Leo's message to the Twentieth Century. The great saint in Rome has been in touch with the hidden things of God for the greater part of the century agone. There are con- centrated in his person the experiences of men and things during this age, the most wonderful the world has known. He is the wise man, the seer, and the prophet, and with his hand drawing aside the veil of eternity he looks back to speak to the world. It is related that the great orator of the Cheyennes on a famous occasion, describing the black robe in his own poetic language, said : " In the land of the Cheyennes there is a mountain higher than all the mountains around him. All the Cheyennes know that mountain ; even our forefathers knew him. When children we ran around wheresoever we wanted. We were never afraid to lose our way so long as we could see that mountain, which would show us home again. When grown up we followed the buffalo and the elk ; we cared not where we pursued the running deer so long as the mountain was in sight, for we knew he was ever a safe guide, and never failed in his duty. When men we fought the Sioux, the Crows, and the Pale Faces. We went after >the enemy though the way ran high up and low down. Our hearts trembled not on account of the road, for as long as we could see the moun- tain we felt sure of finding our home again. When far away our hearts leaped for joy on seeing him, because he told us our home came nearer. During the winter the snow covered Digitized by Google

Page 460

1901.] The Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII. 427 all the earth with a mantle of white. We could no longer tell him from other mountains except by his height, which told us he was the mountain. Sometimes dark clouds gathered above. They hid his head from our sight and out from them flew fiery dart?, boring holes in his sides. The thunder shook him from head to foot, but the storm passed away, and the mountain stood for ever." In a larger and deeper sense this mountain is Jesus Christ filling the earth with his massive grandeur. His figure towers above all other personages of history. His feet are planted on the eternal bases. Around about his head have been gathered the storms and contentions of the ages, but he changes never. He is yesterday, to-day, the same for ever. His teaching is as un- changeable as the granite rocks, and yet his heart is as tender as a mother's. No matter how far men have wandered away in pur- suit of the truth, no matter how devious have been their paths in vice, yet one look at this towering figure has brought them back to their home. On the eternal bosom of the mountain nations have fed their children and peoples have builded their roof-tree.s and out from the divine heart "that had compassion on the multitudes" they have drawn the sustenance to feed their hun- gry souls and to satisfy the craving of their higher nature. To the heathen who sit in darkness and the shadow of death as well as to the cultured pagan among the civilized nations Leo says that " the greatest misfortune is never to have known Jesus Christ." To the religious teachers of the world who preach their own little selves and not the words of Christ he says : " Mankind can no more be saved without his power than it can be redeemed without his mercy " ; to the philosopher and the agnostic scientists who think to solve the deep problems of earth as well as the high things of heaven by their own un- aided reason : " When Jesus Christ is absent human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light." To the men of Israel who would have no creeds and want no religion with exact dogmatic teaching, he affirms that " To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity." To the states- men who banish far from the schools all knowledge of God, and who would rule their rebellious people by a rod of iron and keep in subjection the proletariat by the policeman's club, he says: "Once remove all impediments and allow the spirit of Christ to revive and grow in a nation, and that nation shall be healed." To the socialists who clamor for the destruction of thrones and the disestablishment of social organization, he says: "The world has heard enough of the so called 'rights of man.' Let it hear something of the rights of God. To the man who seeks to cultivate the higher life he repeats the words of Christ : " If any one abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burnetii." And to all men he says : " The com- mon welfare urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray ; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life ; and this on the part not only of indivi- duals but of society as a whole." Digitized by Google

Page 461

423 Sr. Paul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P. 44 Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ."—/. Cor. tv. ib. F indeed every human soul is an image of the Infinite God, it is true also that in some re- spects no image is quite like any of the others. From Mary Immaculate down to the last and least in God's great calendar each individual presents a new reflection of the Infinite Holiness shining in upon him, and saint differs from saint in sanctity as star from star in glory. A gracious dispensation it is too ; for thus among the endlessly varied types of holiness each epoch, each class, each person may discover a model possessed of peculiar attractions. Nor does the cultivation of a special devotion to this or that saint in any way imply a departure from the spirit of A Kempis, or a sin against the teaching of the church. Rather we may say, that a particular affection for some one saint is a first instinct with fervent Catholics. Experience, moreover, proves the legitimacy of this impulse, since we all find valuable aids to progress in the fostering of a special love toward those particular men and women whose characteristics or histories possess peculiar personal charm for us. SAINT PAUL A TYPE FOR THE PRESENT DAY. Among the saints most fascinating to the age and country in which we live, a certain pre-eminence must be accorded to the man whose conversion is commemorated by the church on the twenty-fifth day of the month of January. Often enough during the nineteenth century — nor will it be otherwise in the twentieth — Saint Paul has been depicted as an attractive ideal of sanctity, as an embodiment of the characteristics which appeal most powerfully to the noblest instincts of the modern mind. In other words, we are brought to believe that if our civilization is to be crowned with the glory of holiness, it must be done by souls formed on the type of him whom Saint Augustine named "the great Apostle" — men of high ideals, Digitized by Google

Page 462

190 1.] St. Paul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 429 void of selfishness, submissive to authority, filled with the spirit of prayer, consumed with zeal for God's glory, counting all else as loss beside the excellent knowledge of Christ, and yet withal impulsive, energetic, practical, intolerant of defeat, determined, tireless, broad-minded, independent, free-spirited, progressive. Not a few thinkers, deeply concerned with the development of religious life in our generation, affirm that the type of manhood representing what is best among us will be led to attain the summit of divine love only when the lessons taught by Saint Paul have been faithfully learned! We, then, who are eager for the building up of Christ's Kingdom must carefully study this remarkable saint, and realize what is im- plied in the great sanctity of a man whose characteristics were refined, developed, and consecrated by grace, but whose pow- erful personality seemed least subdued when by his own testi- mony he was living no longer his own life, but the life of the Christ within him. PAUI/S MODERNITY. This special affection which our contemporaries cherish for Saint Paul is based in great measure upon their strong sense of fellow-feeling with him. True, an outline of the early Roman Empire constructed with a view to demonstrating its re- semblance to our own society might reveal as many difficul- ties as proofs for the thesis. But putting aside the question of a close analogy of this sort, we can affirm at least that the historic Paul of the first century strikingly resembles the ideal Christian of the twentieth. Exchange Hellenistic Greek for English, and his dress for ours ; forget that we worship in magnificent temples and with a splendid ritual, whereas Paul adored Christ in the humble upper chambers of Troas and Ephesus, that we are born in the presence of a mighty organ- ization which he helped to create, that we inherit a perfected liturgy and ceremonial whereof only the simple beginnings were known to him, that larger worlds than his age dreamed of now reverence the religion at whose cradle he watched ; disregard this surface-contrast, and it becomes evident that as the faith he preached is one with that which we profess, so are the traits predominant in him one with those which we consider to be the essential requirements of a true Christian character. Thus strong is the kinship between the oldest church and the youngest, thus tightly welded the chain binding the ancient Asiatics and the races that crowd upon this new continent, Digitized by Google

Page 463

430 Sr. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., thus similar the ideal of Paul and of America. For what our energetic people need, and what they thoroughly appreciate when obtained, is a teacher who counsels them to consecrate, without destroying, liberty and activity, and who shows them by personal example how in a busy, hurrying life to remain mindful that in the inner sanctuary of their souls dwells the living God, whose temple, not made by hands, their bodies are. PROBLEMS OF PRACTICAL LIVING. As in theology, so too in real life, the workings of grace give rise to most intricate problems. When to pray, and when to act? what share of our success to attribute to divine in- fluence, and what to our own eternal vigilance? when to trust Providence, and when to exert our best personal energy? which human inclinations to suppress, and which to foster and supernaturalize ? — these are questions continually torment- ing the earnest seeker after holiness. In choosing a vocation should we follow our natural attrait as a God-given sign, or ignore it from dread of lurking selfishness? Should we some- times stand out against the counsel of others, or always hum- bly yield? Should we maintain principle rigidly, or become adaptable, be strong or gentle, determined or winning? Should we renounce or tenderly care for father and mother, sisters and brothers, invite criticism or disregard it, secure ourselves from the danger of excessive affection within an im- penetrable reserve or strive to charm all men by sweetness ? Such problems constantly confront every one undertaking to lead an intelligently devout life. The ability to solve them is an uncommon gift; yet without a theory of action, both true and practicable, no man can become what God destines him to be. The matter, moreover, possesses a special interest for those whose minds are vigorous and inquisitive, whose natural powers are strongly developed, whose intellectual hon- esty is of a high degree, and who will not rest content with evasive statements or accept an inconsistent theory. A PERFECTLY HARMONIOUS PERSONALITY. Men of this stamp turn quite naturally to Saint Paul. The great doctor of grace, he likewise exhibits a perfectly harmon- ious personality. From him we learn a spiritual doctrine un- speakably sublime, and yet in thorough accord with human nature. His life is an object-lesson of equal perfection. If one wishes to plan a campaign against the enemies inner and Digitized by Google

Page 464

1901.] Sr. Paul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 431 outer, swarming the passage from the lowest to the highest point of spiritual ascent, then he may well seek guidance from the man who, beginning as a blasphemer and a ravager of the church, became later the bondsman of Christ, an Apostle, an ecstatic; who was blessed with visions and revelations, momen- tarily snatched up into Paradise while yet alive, and finally crowned with the shining halo of martyrdom. What an arduous life and what a marvellous growth ! The humble weaver of black goat'shair is transformed into a leader of the most glorious march of conquest recorded in history. Drilled only in the science of a decaying Pharisaism, he flashes over the world the unquenchable light of a teaching never equalled for depth or sublimity ; and though once scorned or ignored by the schools clustered on the banks of the swift-flowing Cydnus, he is now addressed as Mister by the mightiest intel- lects of the human race. If he was obscured by a host more eminent than himself during life, yet he has been sought out by the most famous scholars of Christendom, hastening eagerly to drink at the exhaustless fountains of divine wisdom discover- able in his writings — writings, some one has said, penned not with ink but rather with the spirit of the living God. The conquered subjects of Alexander and Napoleon were few com- pared to the numbers that have trooped after the banner raised by Paul. The organization of imperial Rome seems weak be- side the institution he set out to spread among the nations. Homer's immortality and Plato's cannot be called enduring if contrasted with his. An effect so mighty argues no ordinary cause. But, some one says, in all this how slight was Paul's influence, and how great the action oi God! Here, indeed, a vital point is touched upon. How little was due to Paul? how much to God? What was effected by divine grace, and what depended on the man's cooperation? These questions, to be sure, never will find an answer. But seeing the course of his labors and their results, we do perceive one thing to be certain : that Saint Paul had fathomed the mystery puzzling us, that he had learned when to act and when to let God act, that he knew how to discern the time of speech and the time of silence, the moment of battle and the day of rest. This, then, at least we may be sure of, that he can throw light upon dark places in our path. So we look to him to learn the way of waging warfare victoriously. He will teach us how to fight, yet not as those that beat the air. Digitized by Google

Page 465

432 Sr. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., THE REVELATION OF HIS INNER LIFE. Few men have given to the world so frank and complete a self-revelation as the great Apostle. The Acts narrate his achievements, the Epistles reveal his inner life. Truly his confessions contrast strikingly with the morbid egoism of those degenerate minds whose nicely.prepared confidences are so often and so obtrusively thrust upon us. These self-disclosures are unaffected. They come warm from the heart. Hence, Paul's sayings are sometimes hard to be understood ; but, on the other hand, they repay study far better than the lines of the deepest poets. As we read, the many-sided genius of the man gradually discovers itself, and once we have found out his meaning the writer meets us face to face, and we listen to what may be called a familiar monologue on that most absorb- ing of all topics, human relationship with God. Then, too, as he is opening up great spiritual vistas for us we catch a glimpse now and again of secret depths in his soul, some word or phrase throwing strong sudden light upon his own character and revealing the wonderful workings of divine grace within the fiery spirit of this most ardent of the saints. What do we discover to be the hidden root of his glorious growth? Can we give concrete expression to our estimate of him? can we analyze his peculiar excellence? Often men have said that the love of Jesus Christ was the root-idea of Paul's theology and the inspiration of his sanctity. But how did it come about that he loved the Saviour thus fervently? Is it possible for us to delve deep enough to see why Christ's love took so strong a hold upon his inmost being and con- trolled his life so absolutely? If we can do this, no doubt the result will teach us lessons of strange power, will reveal in their simplicity the essential principles of spiritual perfection, will help to settle many of the problems clamoring to us for solution. MASTER OF THE TRUE RELATION OF GRACE AND NATURE. Be it said, then, that the very bone and marrow of Saint Paul's spiritual being was his clear perception of, and perfect conformity to, the movement of God within his soul. His specialty, if we may so call it, was the true relation of grace and nature, the harmonious working of the divine operations in the supernatural and the human order, the concurrence of the Infinite Will and the finite will, the interaction of Almighty Digitized by Google

Page 466

1901.] St. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 433 God and Saul of Tarsus. To him Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, perfection realized, divinity manifested. The humanity of Jesus bridged over the chasm between heaven and earth, between God and not-God. Therefore every fibre of Paul's being reached forth to grasp the Word Incarnate, clung fast to Christ, grew into Him, "dissolved" as far as might be into oneness with Him, so that Paul became God's by becoming Christ's, and realized himself to be the temple of God's spirit through his strong sense of Christ's abiding presence in his soul. Jesus Christ became all to him, because for him the Incarnation was more than a notion ; it was a great, palpable, throbbing reality, stamping itself upon his mind, searing into his heart, never absent from him after once it had seized and conquered him in that supreme moment of his life when the terrible splendor of God darkened the blaze of the Syrian noon day and struck him blinded to the ground. The memory of that brief instant could not be effaced, its lesson could never be forgotten. Paul then learned who the Lord was, and all his future had to be set true in the light of the newly- realized fact of God's Infinity. To this task, then, he set himself; and he accomplished it. GOD AND SELF. There are, writes Newman, but two luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator. The words vividly express the fundamental truth of religion. Saint Paul can be read aright only when we understand that realization of this great axiom was the supreme motivepower of his life. In this we possess the key alike to his conduct and his doctrine, and mindful of it, we find that the study of his words and actions throws a wonderful light on the first principles of that sacred thing, religion. Creation, human nature, man's destiny, the law of perfec- tion, every fact and every maxim of the spiritual life are to be explained in the light of this fundamental dogma: God and I exist. Absolutely speaking, no other fact is essential for the fulfilment of human destiny, no other truth necessary to be known. " God and I alone in the world," said the old mystic, thus expressing the sum of spiritual science and laying down the supreme law of life. God and I were alone at that first instant when my soul sprang forth from the spontaneously fruitful bosom of Divinity. God and I are ever alone in those secret depths of my being wherein no creature can enter, and Digitized by Google

Page 467

434 St. vl the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., especially alone at that last moment when the darkness of death is encompassing me. Through all eternity God and I shall dwell together, as if alone, contemplating each other with endearing eyes, both radiant with love, He effecting and I re- ceiving, He giving and I returning, God holding me and I possessing God. These truths teach us life's meaning. God and Self, the two necessary conditions of eternal felicity, intimate the rule of a perfect earthly existence. To interpret every fact in life we need consider only Him, in whom we live and move and have our being. Beside Him what does man possess upon earth, or desire in eternity? In heaven all activity will be centred upon God, out of our vision of Him will spring our very love for our dear ones, our very knowledge of fragmentary truths. It should not be otherwise upon earth. Here, too, whatever is not directed to God is naught ; every act that does not begin with, depend upon, and end in Him is less than nothing; every creature loved outside of Him a false god. True, Pantheism is an error. Creatures are essentially distinct from God. But to the man who would be perfect, they must all become as noth- ing. In God and for God he must know, love, act. What God wills he must will. Such is the norm of perfect life. GRASP OF THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. A lower depth than this we cannot attain even in the soul of Sxint Paul. Here we touch upon the principle which is the first and last of his spiritual doctrine. Study of him convinces us that his sanctity sprang from his knowing perfectly the rights of God and man, and giving to each his own. Saint Paul's teaching and conduct alike emphasize the necessity of pleasing God by means of a complete and absolute self-sur- render, which is possible to man only in regard to God and which alone is capable of satisfying the Creator's claims upon his creatures. Devotion of this sort is the quintessence of religion; it is vital, personal, perfect worship. It is the religion of the heart, the adoration in spirit and truth dear to G:>d, and the one thing so needful that without it not even Almighty Power can perfect a human soul. To declare this spirit characteristic of Saint Paul of course does not imply it to be his peculiar possession. Some share in it is an indispensable condition of all real religion. It is as widespread, therefore, as religion itself, being the common prin- ciple identifying the true children of God's Kingdom wherever Digitized by Google

Page 468

1901.] St. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 435 and under whatever circumstances they rtiay be found. But Saint Paul's grasp of the principle and its consequences is something extraordinary and proper to himself. And his teach- ing upon it is unequivocal and final. No one can read the Epis- tles without being struck by their writer's strong sense of Divine dominion and human stewardship. No one can come from meditating upon them and still retain the illusion that there is a substitute for personal devotion and absolute self- surrender. The disciple of St. Paul learns very quickly that his life is not his own, that to God's free gift he owes all, that he has been bought, redeemed, freed, made alive, sanctified by his Master. Subtract these truths from St. Paul's teaching, and you substitute nerveless platitudes for the sublimest doctrine human lips have ever uttered. Retain them, and you have it in perfection. It is these which explain his habitual temper of mind and his tone of speech, these which show us why, for- getting the things behind and ever stretching forward to God, he counted all else as loss, and regarded it as filth, prizing creatures only in and for his love of their Maker. FREE WILL OF MAN. Now, what is peculiar about earthly life is human capacity for voluntary deviation from the norm. Man is only a crea- ture to be sure, but still his activity differs in kind from that of sunlight and ocean-tide and planet-orbit. His highest privi- lege, the one which characterizes him as man, is individual freedom. By means of this he becomes an independent agent, a centre of activity, and in a sense is liberated from God's control. In giving man free will the Creator, as it were, rules off a cer- tain sphere and makes the individual master thereof, constitut- ing him God of that little world, and releasing him from the sway of every external power, even the Divine. In that do- main the individual is supreme. Though unable to escape from God's sight, he can rebel, he can thwart God's wishes, he can frustrate God's plans, he can accomplish what God does not will and check what he does will. Man becomes perfect, there- fore, by remaining faithful to the office of delegate, and never trying to assume independence ; by contenting himself with repeating God's command, thus restoring to God the dominion over the region entrusted to the human will. When man acts in', this way, then, and only then, can he say with meaning: God and I alone in the world. There is no acceptable sub- mission short of self-annihilation. The perfect human song Digitized by Google

Page 469

436 St. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., must be a harmony wherein the creature takes and holds the note struck by the Divine Singer, since intercourse between God and man implies a relation of the All to one who is more than nothing only in virtue of existence communicated by the All. It is evident, then, that the bond of perfection must be the unifying principle, love. Thus only can the law be fulfilled. Love which is blind to all except the beloved and which utterly annihilates selfhood is, therefore, the one needful gift, greater than prophecy, tongues, miracles, martyrdom, hope, or faith. A LIVING MODEL OF HIS TEACHING. Such is the conclusion deduced by Saint Paul from the great truths of man's divine origin and destiny. He voices his teaching in words of unmistakable import. Further, he gives us a living example of perfect conformity to the principles he proclaims. Clearly, love is the ruling motive of his career. It begins to be so at that critical instant when the sight of the Lord's uncovered glory sends the fierce spoiler cowering to the earth. It ceases to be so only at that last moment when a Roman sword, gleaming in the sunlight of an Italian June, leaves the martyr's headless body prone upon the Ostian Way. Quid vis me facere? is his constant thought. It is the supreme question. The answer to it, in so far as known, forms Paul's single rule of life. Always it is God's to choose and Paul's to obey. The Lord wills; Paul acts — acts with a readiness that makes his deeds seem spontaneous and a cheerfulness that argues the choice to be his own. So indeed it is his own choice, for love with its wonderful transforming power has made his will one with the will of God, has fired heart and brain with unquenchable fervor, has mastered intellect, and will, and instinct, and brought every human power into sweet captivity. Reducing all duties to the pleasant one of loving seems like laying out a royal road to perfection. But the direction to love is an easy one to follow, just as De Sales's maxim, Ask nothing, refuse nothing, is a simple rule of mortification. Delusion occurs when a thing is seen as through a glass darkly. To fulfil the law by loving is easy only when we have learned to love easily. This will be the case in Heaven, where God is seen face to face, where Truth is clear as noon- day light, and Goodness is revealed in all its loveliness. But Digitized by Google

Page 470

1901.] Sr. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 437 the very significance of life as a time of trial implies that we are now wandering about a world of half-truths, blind to the meaning of God, and constantly mistaking shadows and images for realities. Often our God-given freedom avails only for our own hurt. We lose our life in attempting to save it. And yet naturally we incline toward trying to save it. To annihi- late self on faith is no welcome task. A life-long struggle often precedes its ultimate accomplishment. Constant repetitions of misfortunes due to selfishness barely suffice to convince us that God is all and we are nothing. Through these devious ways the teaching of Saint Paul will guide us, and if we hear a cry of anguish from the midst of his prolonged torments, The evil that I will not that I do ! who shall deliver me from this body of death? we catch also the echo of his paean of victory fore- telling the final triumph: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. SURGING OF THE LOVE OF GOD WITHIN HIM. Readily we perceive that the victory of grace in Saint Paul's soul could not have been easily won. Only the power of a mighty and extraordinary love subdues and controls natures like his. This is why his affection for Christ really did play the all-important rdle in his spiritual development. His love for Jesus Christ can be described by no word short of passionate ; it was an absorbing devotion, possibly without equal in the history of Christian saints. As a friend, as a brother, as a spouse, Christ had inflamed his soul with love. For Christ's sake he would readily become a fool, an out- cast, an anathema. In Christ and Him crucified is found the sum and substance of Saint Paul's writing as of his preach- ing, the same yesterday, and to-day, and always. For through Christ, God's image took complete possession of him and made the fulfilment of the Divine Will the sole desirable good in life, Christ winning Pauls love solely because He was the revelation in human form of the God never seen by eye or conceived by thought of man. To Paul Jesus was no mere ideal of humanity, no simple type of human perfection. In him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead corporally. The mighty tide of love that swept through Paul's soul at the thought of his Beloved, surging high at the very mention of Christ's name, was, then, incomparably greater than any affection one human being could have inspired in another; it was a love of transcendent depth and purity ; it was unique because its Digitized by Google

Page 471

438 Sr. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan., object was Divine, because the Beloved was one with the In- finite Being whose uncovered face was to transform Paul into His own ineffable image. As far as was possible for man this saint had realized the significance of the Incarnation, and had found in the Word made Flesh a magic influence to raise his own soul out of the depths and set it beyond the reach of temptations to infidelity. It was the vision of Jesus, then, that fixed him fast in that essential and unchangeable rela- tionship which he knew must obtain between God and a per- fect man. REASONS FOR THE MODERN CULT OF SAINT PAUL. Such a lesson does Saint Paul teach us. We have noted already that it possesses a powerful influence over our age. Reasons are easily discoverable. The very simplicity and di- rectness of Paul's spiritual scheme recommend it strongly to a generation like ours. He never is betrayed into exaggeration of accidentals at the cost of essentials, he insists on no partial views, he does not attempt to substitute temporal for eternal interests. This is the type of religious teacher that is most willingly listened to nowadays. It is not because our contem- poraries lack generosity that they take to Saint Paul as a model. No one would ever dream of expecting a compromise from him. Men go to him because they really want the meat and kernel of spiritual truth, because they seek its essence rather than its accompaniments, its soul and not its trappings. Men go to him because if there is a higher and purer spiritual doctrine than that of Saint Paul it has not yet been revealed. THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE SAINT. Further power over our age is gained by Saint Paul in consequence of the perfect fulness and symmetry of his man- hood. A people whose spiritual ideal is an integral one will think of a saint's nature as well as of his graces, and will trust a little to their own human instincts in choosing a model of sanctity. What saint, then, in a day like ours, will elicit sympathy more quickly than this great Apostle, who, as Chrysostom tells us, "though he was Paul, was also a man"? Men feel instinctively that their loving God perfectly can- not imply their ceasing to be what God made them ; and they find in Paul a comforting instance of splendid sanctity built upon a well-developed nature ; of a man obedient to God not as an unreasoning infant might be, but by means of an indi- Digitized by Google

Page 472

igoi.] 57-. Paul the Apostle and our Modern Life. 439 vidual intelligence and a strong will, in full play, giving glory in the highest to God our Lord. His ideal encourages creative vigilance and personal initiative ; it leaves intact the freedom wherewith we have been made free, and approves of the liberty of the children of God ; it bids us respect not the person of men, and submit only to the powers ordained of God. Yet — and Paul is the guarantee — our submission need be no less perfect for being united to a sense of the sacredness of individuality, and shaped according to the dictates of personal conscience. Minimizers of either truth or service will find no sanction of their ungenerous spirit in the life or the teaching of Saint Paul. Another reason of his charm is that he preaches to every one the possibility of approaching closer to God. Innocent and penitent, they that are afar off and they that are nigh, all hear from him of high privileges reserved for them, gifts of intimate friendship with Jesus Christ, and great graces in prayer accorded even to sinners, 14 of whom I am the chief." Here is a preacher who brings God nearer to men by awaken- ing within them a desire for, and a belief in, the possibility of that ineffable relationship which the Creator delights to bestow upon the children of men. You are Christ's and Christ is God's, Paul declares to us ; his yoke is sweet, his service reasonable, his love broad as heaven. So is the soul taught to keep its gaze fastened upon Jesus "the Author and perfecter of our faith,1' that it may continue steadfast to the end, by hope persevering, and by that love which is the greatest of gifts and the more excellent way finally entering into union with God Himself. THE APOSTLE OF INTERNAL RELIGION. , That men are responsive to Saint Paul's doctrine is but another evidence of the human soul's " innate Christianity." It argues the inevitable final triumph of the Church founded to propagate that doctrine, and hindered from spreading chiefly through the failure of some minds to appreciate the true mean- ing of Catholicism, which to be loved needs only to be seen in naked sublimity. For most religious characters outside the body of the church, the stone of stumbling is a dire miscon- ception of Catholic teaching upon the principles of vital re- ligion— as if the church could have any other aim than to lead souls closer and closer to God ! But men stare and hesitate when told the truth, and they are ready to contradict Newman Digitized by Google

Page 473

440 St. Pa ul the Apostle and our Modern Life. [Jan. when he declares that "the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial ; no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin her- self, to come between the soul and its Creator." Yet the Catholic knows this to be not only a fact, but an absolute necessity. What if the church is an external institution ? She declares herself to have been established as a means for furthering the reign of God in human souls. By her own profession she is the road to a goal, the means to an end. If she insists on the necessity of Sacraments, it is because these are God's ordinary channels for the communication of grace to men. In fact, though an external and visible society, the church ranks her invisible element, internal religion, as all-essential; interior life is declared to surpass in value and necessity both defined dog- mas and prescribed customs. Paul's ideal is hers; oblation of self to God is the perfect worship. Newman does not exaggerate one whit in saying that Catholicism, as understood by its own ad- herents, as interpreted by officially-approved teachers, like Saint Alphonsus and Saint Ignatius, "interposes no cloud between the creature and the Object of his faith and love. ... It is face to face, 'solus cum solo9 in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eyes we go in death ; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude." The church's worship of St. Paul might in itself then suffice to clear her of the suspicion of formalism. On her altars the very Apostle and Doctor of internal religion is venerated with a peculiarly high honor. She points him out that her children may imitate him ; she turns triumphantly to her accusers and asks: Is not this a man given up heart and soul to interior worship, a propagandist with neither selfishness nor narrowness, a preacher intent on the love of God and the pure Gospel of Christ ? Who else ever insisted so strongly on the vanity of mere externalism, or spoke more fervently on the beauty of the Kingdom of God within the human soul, or taught more explicitly the doctrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit, or demon- strated better by word and deed that the saint's ideal is to serve God with a simple, unswerving fidelity incapable of being improved upon were a man and his Maker in very truth alone in the world? Digitized by Google

Page 474

" a queenlier heart never throbbed more true, 'Mong Galloway's rocks and rills, and a queenlier foot never dashed the dew From the heath of the Galloway hills." SWEETHEART ABBEY. BY AGNES C. STORER. • HE German tourist in planning his summer's holiday speaks of taking an ausflug — that is, literally, a flight out from every day surround, ings into a new region where every influence shall tend to re-create, not merely the outer man but his inner self as well. VOL. LXXII.— 29 Digitized by Google

Page 475

442 Sweetheart Abbey. [Jan., On such a flight the reader is invited away to bonnie Scotland, a land far removed by its entire contrast to the physical and mental atmosphere of our own country. Instead of planning the orthodox "grand tour," made posthaste through a dozen counties, embracing so many ascents and descents, coaching and steamer trips, as render wearisome their mere perusal, let us content ourselves with exploring the un- familiar bit of Galloway, in south-western Scotland, set down on the maps as Kirkcudbright,* taking, moreover, as objective point an abbey ruin whose very name is unknown to the majority of American travellers. Although so strangely unnoticed by mercurial guides and railroad folders, Sweetheart Abbey, near the historic town of Dumfries, repays examination in as bountiful measure as does any one of its famed elder sisters, Holy rood, Dry burgh, or fair Melrose itself. Certainly, no other Scotch abbey dominates a locality so rich in historic and legendary associations of the highest interest, is surrounded by more enchanting scenery, or is reached by a route so characteristically Scottish in all its features. The main road leading from Dumfries to New Abbey, the wee village claiming Sweetheart, eight miles away to the south, lies for some distance between luxuriant hawthorn hedges, but changes its character with the ascent of Whinny Hill, a stiff eminence of about two hundred feet, and becomes from thence on of a decidedly " up-hill and down dale " description. As the view opens more extensively, all the exquisite accompani- ments of the scene stamp themselves indelibly upon the traveller's memory, while the very air, full of scent and sun- shine and delicious country sounds, seems tremulous with ex- pectation. With the ascent gained, the scale of loveliness reaches its culmination. In the near foreground waving corn-fields form a charming setting for busy gleaners at work ; far below, steeped in golden haze, meadows and pasture-lands stretch far away into the distance, their velvety, undulating stretches dotted here and there by tiny hamlets and solitary homes, while be- fore us rises Criffel, most beautiful of Scottish hills, a miracle of loveliness, mantled with heather, its summit wrapped in silvery mist. Glimpses of the distant Solway winding south- * Kirkcudbright's name is associated with that of the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert, and in local parlance is pronounced Kircoobrie." Digitized by Google

Page 476

190 1.] Sweetheart Abbey. 443 Main Street of New Abbey. ward to the sea, with yet more distant views of the English hills, complete the entrancing vision : "Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will ; ' Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; And all that mighty heart is lying still/'* All too soon New Abbey's immediate approach is reached — Shambellie Avenue — its giant limes and beeches meeting far overhead with the effect of cathedral arches, and forming so " noble a brotherhood of venerable trees 99 as one seldom sees. Here at last, through this veil of green, a glimpse is vouch- safed us of the hidden treasure we have come so far to seek — the ruins of Dulce Cor, Sweetheart Abbey. Shambellie Avenue passed, with quickened steps we cross the little stream, or burn, known as the " Abbey plow," and in a moment are in New Abbey village — its first house, which is also the village post-office, hawthorn-hedged and literally rose embowered. A * Sonnet written on Westminster Bridge, Wordsworth. Digitized by Google

Page 477

4*4 Sweetheart Abbey. [Jan., few steps further we enter the village square, bordered by three or four rambling inns, more picturesque than comforta- ble, and a shop or two of the most primitive description. Here in the village gathering-place bare-legged lads and lassies are merrily drawing water Ivpm a 14 spoot," while a group of their elders regard the strangers with friendly curiosity, and offer a hearty " Gude day." The square opens into the long and winding village street — the only one. First comes a double line of graystone and whitewashed cottages, the majority of the latter thatch roofed, with roses, crimson and white, climb- ing over every one, and blue smoke-wreaths issuing from their low chimneys. Then an abrupt turn brings us to the ruined abbey, rising midway as if breathing its benediction over all. A step on and the village manse is passed ; then stretches of corn fields and green meadows to the right ; a church or two ; the Catholic chapel and its adjoining rectory, with such a garden as only loving, never-ceasing care can create ; the village school, one or two houses more straggling off uncertainly, and that is all — behold New Abbey ! Sweetheart Abbey, the village's cherished treasure, is sometimes called " an abbey without a history " ; but, although many details of its long career are lost, enough is known to awaken deep interest in this youngest and loveliest of Scottish Ruins of Dulce Cor — Sweetheart Abbey. Digitized by Google

Page 478

I90i.] SWEE THE ART ABBE Y. 445 Founded in Memory of her Husband, John Baliol. abbeys. Dulce Cor was founded in 1284* by Devorgilla, Countess of Galloway, a descendant of King David of Scotland, in memory of her husband, John Baliol. Wyntoun, the famous prior of Lochleven, says of this devoted woman : " A better ladye than she was nane In all the yle of Mare Bretane," and another writer declares that — * Ross. Digitized by Google

Page 479

446 Sweetheart Abbey. [Jan., "A queenlier heart never throbbed more true, 'Mong Galloway's rocks and rills, And a queenlier foot never dashed the dew From the heath of the Galloway hills." Certainly Devorgilla's personal holiness and beneficent, far- reaching charity entitle her to a position in Scotland's annals beside that of the nation's apostolic queen, St. Margaret of blessed memory. Both, in their different and exalted stations, so consecrated wealth and opportunities that literally at their bidding the desert places were transformed into the garden of the Lord; therefore " their righteousness endureth for ever, and their horn shall be exalted with honor." Among Devor- gilla's public gifts were the erection of a massive bridge over the river Nith, at Dumfries, still used by foot passengers, and numerous foundations, religious and educational in character. Of these by far the most important — the Cistercian Monastery of Sweetheart, near Dumfries, and Baliol College, at Oxford — were raised in memory of their foundress' husband, John Baliol.* The former was also known as the " New Abbey," in contradistinction to an- earlier foundation, Dundrennan, or the " Old Abbey." Here in Sweetheart's shrine, in the most ex- quisite and lasting memorial human love could frame, Devor- gilla caused her husband's sweet heart to be interred before the high altar, and here at last, after many years of patient wait- ing, Death crowned this perfect union before God, and the dust of husband and wife commingled. "In the Abbey of Sweetheart low lies Devorgill, But her memory comes through the Past's door, Like Spring's young flowers to the sunlit sod — The Ladye who gave all her days to the poor, And her prayer-hallowed nights unto God."f As to the abbey ruins — beautiful in their desolation, the scars wrought by time, and yet more merciless man, hidden by the mantling ivy — their exceeding loveliness is beyond expres- sion, symbolizing as it does, to all who will but read their message, man's faith in the unfailing promises of God, and his adoration of the " Eternal Beauty, ever ancient and ever new."t * The arms of Devorgilia and John Baliol are together impaled upon the college shield, t Ross. \ St. Augustine. Digitized by Google

Page 480

igoi.] Sweetheart Abbey. 447 Little is known of the abbey's record previous to the six- teenth century, for when the so-called Reformation suppressed this quiet abode of holiness and learning its archives were de- stroyed. Side-lights, however, of great value are cast upon its history during and immediately subsequent to that time of deso- lation. They come to us through papers still preserved by several staunch old families among the Catholic nobility and gentry of Abbey Ruins beautiful in their desolation. the neighborhood. One of the most cherished possessions of the present Lord Herries is the deed of gift whereby the little island in Loch Kindar, part of the abbey's property,* is trans- ferred by Gilbert Brown, Sweetheart's last abbot,. to the then Lord Herries, in recognition of that nobleman's brave refusal to obey the Privy Council's demand that he destroy the abbey. The quaint old document reads strangely to our modern ears, and is as follows : "Dated at the Abbey of Sweetheart, 27th August, 1577, of the 1 yle of Loch Kindelocht, with all the fowlis that sail abyde * In the days of the abbey's prosperity its lands were very extensive. Some authorities estimate that the monastery buildings were capable of accommodating over five hundred monks, but this is doubtless an exaggeration. Digitized by Google

Page 481

448 SWEE THEAR T ABBE Y. [Jan., and big thair ' and the fishing of the said Lochf reserving the kirk and kirk yard to the parish to which it appertanis." When the abbey was 44 annexed," in 1587. Abbot Brown was, with many others, charged by act of Parliament to leave the country on pain of death. In spite, however, of the decrees of Presbytery, Synod, General Assembly, and Privy Council, he lingered on near Dumfries till 1605, shielded by so many ad- herents that the enraged authorities looked upon the country thereabouts as "a peculiar nest of Papists." He then went to Paris, and appears to have died there, in 161 2, in great desti- tution. The Maxwell-Withams, of Kirkconnell, another devoted old Catholic family, have in their possession two letters of mourn- ful interest. One is from King James I. of England to the Anglican bishop of Edinburgh, ordering him to proceed to New Abbey to there destroy all statues and images, to carry off all the church vestments and other furniture, all books, papers, and other documents, and have them burned by the public hangman at the Market Cross of Dumfries. The bishop's re- ply details the due fulfilment of his commission, but fails to specify whether the holocaust took place at the Market Cross, as decreed. Tradition has it that the site of this barbarous deed was on Corbelly Hill, Maxwelltown, where a beautiful Benedic- tine Convent now stands in reparation for the sacrilege. The Maxwell-Withams also possess records of the disposition of the abbey and its lands by the crown, the greater portion being bestowed on Sir R. Spottiswood, of Spottiswood, a valiant knight, who had gained favor by destroying many churches and monasteries.* Since then the abbey lands have been divided and sub-divided, and the abbey itself has passed through many hands, treated generally with absolute neglect, and even serving at times as a quarry for the building of farm-houses and stone walls. The present owner, one rejoices to know, re- gards his exquisite possession with veneration, and has restored portions of the ruins with skill and judgment. From the investigation of such historical records as are ob- tainable we may pass to the consideration of the abbey ruins themselves. Thus we shall find that the ruined conventual church, cruciform in structure, which alone remains of the original abbey buildings, consists of a six-bayed nave, a tran- * These extracts from the Henries and Maxwell-Witham records are taken verbatim from the admirable Historical Guide to Sweetheart Abbey, by \V. G. Primrose, Esq., of Primrose Lodge, New Abbey, published by Messrs. J. Maxwell & Son, Dumfries. Digitized by Google

Page 482

I90i.] Sweetheart Abbey. 449 sept, an aisleless choir, and a central saddle-back tower. Its predominating architectural forms — Early English combined with Second-Pointed or Decorated — are characterized by ex- treme grace and solemn dignity ; the warm coloring of the red sandstone of which the building is constructed, the richness of the windowtraceries, and the noble proportions of the great saddle-back tower, being perhaps the ruins' most impressive features. Should, however, days and weeks be spent in endeavoring to trace the abbey's history and in studying its technicalities of architecture, still but a slight acquaintance can thus be gained with Sweetheart's mere exterior. To learn its spirit, its inner life, we must live within the abbey's very shadow, and patiently wait for the revelations these crumbling walls will surely grant ta us. Standing among its silent ruins, with the daisy-sprinkled sward under foot and heaven's blue show- ing through the roofless arches overhead, whether viewed in the delicious freshness of early morning, by the magic of twi- light, or when flooded J>y moonlight — whatever the hour, with unspeakable power imagination calls before one visions of the past. We hear only the twittering of swallows overhead, or their drowsy call to sleep and silence ; or the night-wind stirs through the mantling ivy, and rustles the sentinel ash-trees ; but their half* heard melody fades away, and instead there rises on our souls the strains of Gregorian Chant, glorious beyond expression, and presently there passes before us a never-ending procession of the white-robed Cistercian brethren, who here for centuries lived and loved and labored. When one con- siders all that was gathered here as a rich oblation to God, the incalculable toil represented by the carvings adorning arch and capital, the treasures of art here collected, the ascending incense of contrition and adoration which here never ceased pleading before Almighty God for those forgetful of him ; when, above all, we recall the countless celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice which here were offered, small wonder does it seem that in Sweetheart's fane, ruined though it be, the most thoughtless heart is profoundly moved. And for reverent Catholics, indeed for all Christians within and without the Household of the Faith, merely to glance at this lovely vision is to hear its tender message, "Sursum corda," and to answer with overflowing hearts, " Habemus ad Dominum." If the consideration of Sweetheart's ruins leads one to con- templation, so too the thought of all once accomplished within Digitized by Google

Page 483

450 Sweetheart Abbey. [Jan., Countless Celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice here were Offered. its walls inspires one to action. What influence for good must have gone forth from the abbey's scriptorium alone! All visi- ble signs of the literary labors there consummated have van- ished. The world would say, They have left no trace. Rather are they written as deeply in human learning of the best and noblest as the lessons Sweetheart's spirit has taught from the beginning are engraven in human souls, not, indeed, for time alone but for all eternity : " 4 Mind not the things which are below ' ; mind thou thy soul and God." The settled peace the old ruins fairly radiate seems also to have descended upon the tiny homes clustering in its shadow, and upon every feature of the life here. Step for a moment from the abbey ruins into the surrounding even more silent world of death in life, the peaceful God's Acre. Amid its blessed stillness the tumult of the world and one's own sou) dies away, and our Father's gracious promises come upon one with deepened power and consolation. " Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini ! " Even Death ! We breathe the words solemnly, reverently, and turn away giving thanks for this last precious remembrance of Digitized by Google

Page 484

I90I.] Sweetheart Abbey. 45 i 44 The broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rip. pling tides, arid trees and flowers and grass, And the low hum of living breeze ; and in the midst God's beautiful, eternal right hand, Thee, holiest minister of Heaven — • • • • • Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death!"* Not long ago it was the present chronicler's great privilege to be present in St. Mary's Chapel — hardly a stone's throw from Dulce Cor — and there assist at the first High Mass cele- brated in New Abbey village since the monks were driven from Sweetheart over three centuries ago. A thought of that memorable occasion may fittingly serve as farewell to the old abbey. For months before the appointed day priest and people united in depriving themselves in every possible way, Children of the Abbey. that St. Mary's bare little chapel might be transformed into a beautiful dwelling place for our Emmanuel Lord. While the work was under way daily Mass was offered in private chapels of the outlying neighborhood, or in the study of the rectory, the literally " two or three gathered together in His Name 99 experiencing in so lowly a perpetuation of the Great Sacrifice emotions unspeakable. * Whitman's " Death's Valley." Digitized by Google

Page 485

4J2 Sweetheart Abbey. [Jan., The day at last arrived when the results of all this patient waiting and self-denial are to be revealed, finds not only every Catholic of high and low degree for many miles about gath- ered within the chapel gates, but also members of the Estab- lished Kirk. These latter, staunch disapprovers of "Papistry" on general principle though they be, yet seem as eager as any of St. Mary's people for a greeting from the happiest partici- pants in the day's celebration — New Abbey's two beloved priests, who, with several brethren in the priesthood, escort his Grace the Bishop of Dumfries within the rectory. Well may New Abbey s faithful Shepherds rejoice and their people rise up and call them blessed! One, silvery-haired, bowed by age and infirmities, for thirty years or more has fathered this scattered flock in storm and sunshine ; his labors have pre- pared the way for this day of gladness. To his companion has descended the burden of St. Mary's beloved pastorate, a burden as regretfully relinquished as it has been reverently, eagerly received. Once within the chapel doors a transforma- tion indeed awaits us. St. Mary's bare walls are delicately tinted, exquisite statues of the Sacred Heart and Mary Im- maculate stand on either side, the altar is ablaze with lights and half hidden by Ascension lilies, while from a fine copy of the Sistine Madonna over the tabernacle our Mother herself looks down in benediction. As the Holy Sacrifice proceeds lords and ladies, farmers and shepherds, and we strangers from across the sea, unite in intercession that Sweetheart's silent pleading may avail, not alone for this wee village, but that throughout the length and breadth of all Scotland the people may again be united, according to the Master's own bidding — one flock, one fold, and one Shepherd in Christ our Lord. Digitized by Google

Page 486

i90i.] The Tides. 453 THE TIDES. BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D. HEN of a summers day we visit the sea-side and there, lying on the beach, we watch the billows rolling nearer and nearer to us, how many of us ask ourselves, " What makes the rising tide approach so steadily ? " The little house of sand which we built a few minutes ago is already swallowed up by the waves. What force is it that is swaying the ocean to and fro, from ebb to flood and from flood again to ebb? And if perchance we know the answer, and tell some fisherman near by that it is the moon that is drawing the water nearer and nearer to us — the moon, which is 240,000 miles away — he may very likely give us a pitying look and wonder what asylum we have escaped from. Yet we have only told him what is the truth ; although we might have added, to be strictly correct, that the sun, 92,780,000 miles away, is also at work pulling at the water, and that the sun acts on the ocean ac- cording to the same laws as the moon. But as its action is much less intense (it is somewhat less than half that of our satellite) we shall not in this brief article on the tides consider the solar tide generating force. The force, then, which generates the tides is mainly the attraction of the moon. But how, it may be asked, can lunar attraction affect an ocean resting on the earth ? How can it bring about changes in the sea-level so that twice in twenty- four hours there is high and low water, the interval between high tides being on the average fifty minutes later on each successive day ? Well, let us first observe that every particle of the sea and land is not equally acted on by the moon. If this were not the case, if the force of attraction were equally exerted on every particle of land and sea, the whole mass would move harmoniously together no water would be dis- placed relative to the land. But the pull of our satellite is not quite equal on every particle of land and water. And here bear in mind that it is not the straight up or down pull, it is not the vertical attraction of the moon which is efficient in causing the sea to rise ; for the vertical part of the tide- Digitized by Google

Page 487

454 The Tides. [Jan,, generating force is too weak to overcome gravity ; gravity acts in a vertical direction; the water must stay in contact with the earth. The force of the moon's attraction is mani- fested when it is exerted, not vertically but horizontally. It is the force acting along the level; the horizontal force of the moon's pull; the force acting along the earth's surface in the direction of the point which faces full towards the moon, over which the moon is directly hanging, that disturbs the water. We need not, therefore, consider the straight up or down pull of our satellite. But in order that we may better understand how the moon's attraction does affect the ocean, we must re- member that our globe is a spherical mass of which three- quarters is surrounded by a liquid envelope, and that one-half of this mass is always successively turned towards the moon, and that the water on the side nearest to our satellite is more forcibly drawn towards it than the centre of the earth is. For not only is the water nearer to the attracting body, but being a liquid it is also free to move, and it may heap itself up under the force of the moon's attraction despite the rotation of the earth. There is, moreover, a high tide not only on the side of the globe which is turned towards the moon, but also on the side which is turned away from it. And this is not inconsistent with the moon's attraction when we reflect that the solid crust is pulled by the moon more forcibly than the water is pulled on the side turned away; and on this further side of the globe the heaping up of the sea, the high tide, is to be explained by the fact that the solid crust has, as it were, left the liquid behind it. What is called Spring tide (the exceptionally high water which occurs twice in 29^ days, at new and full moon) is when the tide-generating forces of the moon and of the sun come together; and the tides may be viewed as enormous waves. Here we quote from Professor Stanley Jevons' The Principles of Science, vol. ii. p. 98: 41 One wave is produced by the attraction of the moon and another by the attraction of the sun, and the question arises whether when these waves coincide as at the time of Spring tides, the joint wave will be simply the sum of the separate waves." There is also a very low tide known as Neap tide, and this is the lunar tide minus the solar tide. Now, surely when we reflect on what the tide really is — the never-ceasing movement of flood and ebb — we cannot but be impressed with its mighty power ; nor is it unreasonable to believe that the tides may in some future day do the Digitized by Google

Page 488

1901.] The Tides. 455 world's mechanical work when all the coal mines are ex- hausted. But having said this much about the moon's attraction, sup- pose our simple fisherman were to say : 44 Well, it 's still a puzzle to me. I can't pull a fish in without a line; wish I could. Yet here you 're telling me that the moon, 240,000 miles off, can pull the water towards it." Well, our answer might perhaps not make our friend much the wiser were we to say that with the march of science we are able to-day to show that the tides are a necessary consequence of the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon, and that this attraction follows from Newton's piinciple of gravitation. And just think what would happen without gravitation. With- out it every living creature on earth would go flying off into space. But what is gravity? To quote again from Jevons' The Principles of Science, vol. ii. p. 141 : " The force of gravity is in some respects an almost incomprehensible existence, but in other respects entirely conformable to experience. We can distinctly observe that the force is proportional to mass, and that it acts in entire independence of the other matter which may be present or intervening." Now, what can be more puzzling than an absolutely instan- taneous force which acts with perfect indifference to all interven- ing obstacles? To gravity all media are non-existent. There- fore we may confess that the fisherman knows as much about this mysterious force as we know. But now let us dwell on the effect which millions and millions of tons of water, disturbed by lunar attraction, may have upon the movement of our globe. High authorities tell us that the swaying of such a vast volume of water in oceans of the average depth of ours tends to retard the rotation of the earth. For when the waters, so to speak, rub against the bottom, the effect of this fluid friction is in fact to throw the protuberances, the mounds of water, the swelling of the sea, as we may term the tides, backward in a direction opposed to the earth's rotation. And, moreover, this tidal action on the earth reacting on our satellite, which is held to us by the attraction of gravity, causes her to move in a gradually increas- ing spiral orbit further and further away. On this subject Professor G. H. Darwin, son of the great naturalist, tells us in his very interesting work, The Tides, that from the earliest records of eclipses in Greek and Assyrian history, we may be sure that the retardation of the earth's rotation and the re- Digitized by Google

Page 489

456 The Tides. IJan., cession of the moon have been at any rate extremely slow. But he goes on to say:* "It does not, however, follow from this that the changes have always been equally slow; indeed, it may be shown that the efficiency of tidal friction in- creases with great rapidity as we bring the tide-generating satellite nearer to the planet." And another authority, speaking of tidal action on the earth reacting on the moon, says : f "The tidal deformation of the water exercises the same influ- ence on the moon as if she were attracted not precisely in a line towards the earth's centre, but in a line slanting very slightly, relative to her motion, in the direction forwards. The moon, then, continually experiences a force forward in her orbit by reaction from the waters of the sea. Now, it might be supposed for a moment that a force acting forward would quicken the moon's motion ; but, on the contrary, the action of the force is to retard her motion. It is a curious fact, easily explained, that a force continually acting forward with the moon's motion will tend, in the long run, to make the moon's motion slower, and increase her distance from the earth." And a few pages further on he adds : " The earth is filled with evidences that it has not been going on for ever in the present state, and that there is a progress of events towards a state infinitely different from the present." But it is in Professor G. H. Darwin's work, The Tides, that the tides and their far-reaching effects are the most fully treated. His theory traces the moon's history back to her birth when, after her probable formation from fragments which had become detached from our globe, she almost grazed the earth as she revolved, and he believes that at that remote epoch our earth must have raised on her semi-fluid satellite enormous tides of molten lava. Then, transporting us to the indefinite future, Professor Darwin briefly dwells on what we may conjecture to be the ultimate effects of lunar and solar tidal friction upon the earth, and by interaction upon the moon, should there still be oceans left on our globe. But without going further on this point let us say that the moon in this far-off future day will be moving with a shorter period ; she will be slowly coming nearer and nearer to us again ; and in the end our worn and weary satellite will fall back into the earth which gave her birth. Here we might close our remarks on the tides. Yet we * G. H. Darwin : The Tides, and kindred Phenomena in the Solar System^ p. 273. f Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Lectures and Addresses, p. 33. Digitized by Google

Page 490

190 1.] The Tides. 457 cannot refrain from adding a few more words to say that astronomers believe that tidal friction is an efficient cause of change in stars infinitely remote from our solar system. It seems scarcely credible when we consider the double stars, the binary systems of the universe, of which nearly one thou- sand have been discovered, that two globes should in so many instances have accidentally come so close one to the other out of boundless space. Nor can the double stars have always moved as they are moving to-day ; and Professor G. H. Dar- win says on this interesting subject:* "The only efficient in- teraction between a pair of celestial bodies, which is known hitherto, is a tidal one, and the friction of the oscillations in- troduces a cause of change in the system. Tidal friction tends to increase the eccentricity of the orbit in which two bodies revolve about one another, and its efficiency is much increased when the pair are not very unequal in mass and when each is perturbed by the tides due to the other. The fact that the orbits of the majority of the known pairs are very eccentric affords a reason for accepting the tidal explanation." When, therefore, we make our next visit to the sea-side let us reflect on what the tide really is; think what a mighty power it is ; and let us remember, too, that astronomers believe that tidal friction affects not only our planet and its moon, but that it has been an efficient cause of change in the double stars, the very nearest of which (so far as is known at present), Alpha Centauri, is so distant that its light, travelling at the rate of 186,300 miles a second, takes 4^ years to reach us. Make, then, no vain attempt to stop the waves from de- stroying your tiny house of sand on the beach. In the steadily approaching tide you are beholding only one of the numberless phenomena which God has given man a mind to study and to explain. *The Tides, p. 343. VOL. LXXII.— 30 Digitized by Google

Page 491

The Buried Casket. [Jan., THE BURIED CASKET. BY ETHEL NAST. TOOK a small package of papers from my satchel, and fumbled through them until I found a stained and yellow envelope. My wife eagerly followed my movements, and, as I extracted the enclosed slip of paper, she put her arm through mine and with bated breath we read the contents. The handwriting was cramped and unsteady, but plainly decipherable. It ran thus: "The casket is at Bethlehem, Palestine, in the Franciscan monastery ; in the right wall of the corridor leading into the Church of St. Catherine, three blocks of stone from the pave- ment and ten from the entrance to the church. The block behind which the casket lies has a dark streak running di- agonally across its surface." That was all. We had read these lines until we knew them by heart and could repeat them in any order, with full ex- planations on the shading and curve of every character; and yet we were rereading them with the eager interest of a month ago, when they had stamped themselves into our brains for the first time. A few moments later we were startled by a rap at the door, announcing the Brother who was to accompany us on our mission. I slipped the paper into my breast pocket, and after a few hurried preparations we followed him along the winding cor- ridors, through the monastery gate, and out into the narrow streets. We had reached Jerusalem late the preceding evening, and in the bustle and confusion of arrival had received only a vague impression of our surroundings. The crowded lanes seemed no less tortuous in the day-time, but their twilight mystery was dispelled ; and the sunbeams, lighting the gloom in the vaulted passages, made a slip on the miry pavement a less hazardous thing than it had seemed in the darkness. We noted these facts, and a few others, as we gave fleet- ing glances down the cross streets or up at the latticed case- Digitized by Google

Page 492

I90i.] The Buried Casket. 459 ments, but we were principally absorbed in covering as quickly as possible the ground that lay between us and the Jaffa Gate. We suddenly found ourselves in a square filled with a jostling crowd of men, women, and children. The blaze of light and color was a dazzling contrast to the white-walled passages through which we had come, and we stopped for a moment to watch the kaleidoscopic effects of the turbaned figures and veiled women grouped around the market stalls. We fell in with the line that was surging towards the Jaffa Gate and slowly worked our way outside the city walls. There we had no difficulty in finding a carriage, which we engaged to take us to Bethlehem. The road was fairly good, and disclosed an ever varying vista, as it wound along the hillsides and amid the valleys. I wis too absorbed to feel the impress of the historic landscape, and was only startled out of my lethargy as we passed the lonely tree on which Judas hanged himself, and the well where the Magi saw again the glimmer of the guiding star. At the extremity of a lonely plain, by the roadside, lay the Tomb of Rachel, and on the hill beyond, the village of Bethlehem, crowning the terraced slopes. We were soon rattling over the cobbles of a steep, nar- row street which emerged into the market place encircled by white-domed houses and the dark pile of the Latin monastery. We were here given comfortable quarters in the section reserved for pilgrims, and, on disposing of our belongings, I requested to see the superior. After a seemingly interminable delay I was summoned to a small ante room on the ground floor. Its only furnishings were a table and four plain deal chairs, and a crucifix that hung on the white-washed walls. I had not waited more than a moment when the door opened and a Franciscan monk ap- peared. I felt instinctively that he was the one I sought, and I rose to meet him. "Father John?" I questioned. He assented, and asked in English how he could serve me. I started at hearing my own tongue, having naturally ex- pected to be obliged to carry on the interview in French. " That simplifies matters, since you speak English," I ex- claimed, and started at once to explain my mission. " I have a very strange request to make," I said hesitatingly. He Digitized by Google

Page 493

460 The Buried Casket. [Jan., nodded, and we seated ourselves on either side of the table, "I have come to Palestine expressly for it," I continued, feel- ing for the envelope in my coat pocket. 44 There is a casket buried in the wall of one of the corridors of the monastery which I wish to recover/' When I had prepared this statement, I naturally had not expected it to be received with unquestioning credulity. I had intended backing it at once with convincing proofs that could leave no doubt of its truth. But when I had said these words all further utterance was checked and I remained silent and motionless, their fantastic clang ringing in my ears and my eyes riveted on the face before me. Father John had been sitting with his arms crossed before him and his gaze bent on the floor. As I spoke his eyes met mine in questioning scrutiny, then wandered to the wall behind me. There was no notable change in his courteous attention, but I felt as though he were only waiting for me to finish to bow me with regrets out of the room. 44 The circumstances by which I came by this information leave no doubt of its credibility," I said at last, drawing the paper from the envelope. 44 This paper was given me by my father in-law on his death-bed, when he was already in the throes of his last agony. He gave me to understand it was of vital importance, and, on my assurance that I would recover the casket, he died, gasping with his last breath, 41 Now I can go in peace." I handed the paper across the table. Father John took it, but at the first glance looked up quickly and said : 44 Your father-in-law's name was — " 44 Charles Warwick," I responded, gratified at the note of interest in his voice. The eyes that were looking into mine contracted as though in intense pain. The calm serenity of his features hardened into an expression of suffering. I made an involuntary move- ment to go to his assistance, but settled back in my chair as he said quietly, 44 1 will consider what is to be done in the matter." He then rose, and though I noticed that his tall form swayed and that he reached out to the table to steady himself, there was nothing for me to do but express my thanks and leave the room. I rejoined my wife, who was impatiently awaiting my re- turn, and with one of the Brothers, who was detailed to accompany us, we started for the Chapel of the Nativity. Digitized by Google

Page 494

I90i.] The Buried Casket. 461 After winding in and out of a labyrinth of passages we came to a spacious corridor. "Is that the entrance to the Church of St. Catherine?" I asked, indicating the portal at the farther end. "Yes," the brother answered, and proceeded towards it. I lingered behind and counted the blocks of stone until I came to the tenth. I could not suppress an exclamation of surprise, in spite of my assurance of finding what I sought. There was the dark streak running diagonally across its sur- face! I should have preferred remaining there the rest of the day, with my eyes fastened on that fateful block of stone; but, to avoid giving rise to suspicions, I followed my wife and the Brother, who had entered the church. There was little of interest to detain us there, so we pro- ceeded through a low door into the ancient basilica, built by the Emperor Constantine over the Grotto of. the Nativity, and descended at once into the crypt. There all was darkness but for the orbit of light that radi- ated from the place where our Lord was born. We sank on our knees around the star in the pavement that indicated the spot, and for the time being all else was forgotten but the Babe of Bethlehem on that first Christmas night. When we arose our eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, and we were able to discern our surroundings. The grotto was low, and deepened here and there into alcoves, in one of which was the altar where the Magi knelt, and a shrine where the manger lay. I was attracted to the figure of a monk kneeling in one of the furthermost recesses. There was something familiar in the spare, gaunt form ; but the cowl was drawn over his head, and from my position I could not see his features. His hands were slightly advanced, and clasped with such rigid force that they seemed to crush each other. I advanced to where the rays from the lamps shed a glim- mer of light on his upturned face. His eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking those emaciated features. Their look of suffering was gone, and in its stead shone the radiance of unutterable peace. I turned away noiselessly, almost fearfully, as though my carnal eyes had pried unlawfully upon the beatitude of the blessed. After dinner we waited about, hoping some word from Father John would come to put an end to our uncertainty ; Digitized by Google

Page 495

462 The Buried Casket. [Jan., but, as the hours dragged on without allaying our suspense, we took a stroll around the village and down into the valley where the shepherds were tending their flocks when the angels brought them the good tidings. There was something strangely quieting in the atmosphere of the sacred locality that soothed our feverish impatience and attuned our souls to far higher aspirations than the recovery of the fateful casket. We returned to the monastery in time for supper, and im- mediately afterwards Father John joined us in the refectory. I introduced him to my wife, and he stayed and chatted with us with genial good humor. He seemed to take especial plea- sure in my wife's account of our home and our personal inter- ests in general, and I began to fear he had forgotten all about our interview of the morning. As the chapel .bell sounded he rose and, turning to me, said : "I have made arrangements to have the stone removed; join me in the church at nine o'clock." Then to my wife he added : 44 You may await our return here." With a courteous inclina- tion he was gone. We passed the intervening time exhausting the field of speculation in regard to the casket, and at the stroke of nine I met Father John at the church door. He was accompanied by two Brothers, each of whom carried a number of tools. After securing ourselves from any possible intrusion, we proceeded at once to the stone indicated on the paper. The Brothers declined my proffered assistance, and immediately commenced boring and cutting. Father John supervised the work, giving a word of direction from time to time ; apart from that, nothing was said. The lantern cast a dim, uncertain light that barely outlined the forms of the saints in the niches and the faces gleaming out of the painted canvases. And the shadows of cowled figures bent and swayed to the accompaniment of the clinking of the iron on the stone. The hours dragged on to midnight, and, as the last stroke sounded, we brought our united efforts to dislodge the block. I thrust my hand into the aperture and an electric thrill tingled through my veins as it came in con- tact with a cold metallic object. A moment afterwards I drew forth a small iron casket, covered with dust and rust. My eyes met Father John's with a look of triumph, that immediately softened into gratitude as I noted his worn, hag- gard appearance. Digitized by Google

Page 496

I90i.] The Buried Casket. 463 " Go to the refectory," he said ; 44 I will join you there as soon as possible." I insisted upon remaining and helping repair the damage, but he was inflexible; so I sped, as though on wings, to re- join my wife. The room was empty and the candles burned low in their sockets. My curiosity would admit of no delay, so I turned the key that was in the lock and raised the lid. The first thing I saw was an envelope inscribed : 44 Receipts for payment of debt to Falkstone and Co." Under this lay a blank envelope and beneath a morocco jewel case. In fever- ish haste I opened it and held my breath in astonishment on beholding the contents. In the folds of tufted satin lay a necklace of pearls of unusual size and dazzling brilliancy. At- tached to the clasp was a card with the words: 44 1 destine this necklace and heirloom for the bride of my second and youngest son, Francis. (Signed) Marie Adele Warwick." I involuntarily opened the blank envelope in hopes of find- ing a clew to the mystery and drew forth several closely writ- ten sheets. This is what I read : 44 1, the undersigned, Charles Warwick, swear the following to be true. 44 My father was senior partner of the banking house of Warwick, Falkstone & Co. At his death I was cashier, and my younger brother, Francis, assistant cashier of the bank. We were the sole surviving members of the family. I had been married three years, and lived in unstinted luxury, hav- ing grown up in the belief that I would inherit a fortune. At my fathers death the estate was discovered to be burdened with debts and was divided among the creditors. My salary could not begin to meet the demands of my extravagant mode of life, so I resorted to speculation. In a succession of unfortunate deals I lost $50,000. To meet my obligations I took the money from the bank, expecting to repay it at once on the strength of having the inside on a sure deal. The deal fell through, and at the same time the examination of the accounts fell due, and I saw myself exposed to discovery and dishonor. 44 On the eve of the examination, after two weeks of terri- ble suspense, the horrors of my position reached a climax and I saw no escape but death. The pistol was already pressed against my temple ; the same instant it was snatched from my grasp, and I cowered on the floor in a paroxysm of despair at Digitized by Google

Page 497

464 The Buried Casket. [Jan,, the feet of my brother Francis. He was the soul of honor, and I know not how I had the courage to tell him of my shame ; but, when the whole wretched truth was out, I col- lapsed into a listless apathy, while he thought and planned what was to be done. " Of a sudden the stillness struck me as oppressive. I looked up and cried out with dread foreboding at what I saw. Francis was standing, bowed and trembling, with his hands clasping his temples as though in a frenzy. '"My God/ he groaned, * spare me this!' " The agony in his voice put the last screw to my torture. '"Have pity on me,' I cried; ' I alone am dishonored!' " The effect of my words was instantaneous ; he became calm at once. "'There isn't a moment to be lost,' he said hurriedly. ' Give me what money you have. Offer the pearl necklace in part payment, and swear to me that you will never rest until you repay every cent.' *• 'What do you mean?' I gasped. " I mean that I am the defaulter ; that I must fly to escape imprisonment. Plead with the directors to keep my dishonor secret, in memory of my father's name. Give them to under- stand that you will take the burden of my debt on your shoulders, and that you will repay every farthing.' •"Are you mad?' I cried. 'You shall not wreck your life for me.* " ' There is not question of you or me,' he said solemnly. ' Your wife and child must be spared. No one will suffer through my dishonor.' " So it was he carried his point and fled. His flight was taken as proof positive of his guilt. My utter mental and physical collapse, together with the memory of my father's long and honorable career, moved the directors to keep the crime secret. From that day I directed every effort to cancel the debt. " My suspense concerning my brother's fate made my life a torture. Two years from that fateful night I received the first news of his whereabouts. He was in the Holy Land and had become a Franciscan monk. Our constant correspondence from that time on gave me the needful strength to bear up under the weight of remorse that crushed me. In consequence of his express wishes I kept the secret of his fate inviolate. He desired to be dead to the world, and in time was so regarded. Digitized by Google

Page 498

The Buried Casket. 465 44 When the last payment of the debt was made I undertook the journey to Palestine to see him. He was then the superior at Bethlehem, and a model of sanctity and learning throughout the country. The moment I laid eyes on him the last load of remorse was lifted from me. I knew then that my crime had been expiated and his sacrifice crowned. "Five years have passed since then and I have returned to Bethlehem for the second time. The dread of carrying my secret with me to the grave continually haunts me. My brother will not consent to its being divulged, so, unknown to him, I have resolved to take the following means of guarding it and leaving its oblivion, or disclosure, to the designs of Providence. " They are repairing the wall of the corridor leading into the Church of St. Catherine. Yesterday I discovered a cavity where I could readily insert a casket without danger of discovery, as the wall will be finished to morrow. With this statement I will place the receipts for the payments of the debt ; and the pearl necklace, my brother's inheritance, which he will not accept and which I dare not touch. (Signed) " Charles Warwick." How many times I reread this statement I do not know, but I looked up with a start when Father John stood be- side me at last and took the paper from my nerveless grasp. I watched him with breathless interest as his glance sped from line to line, but watched in vain for the quiver of a muscle, or the slightest index of any emotion. When he finished he folded it and the next instant held it in the candle flame. I sprang forward, but dared not force the barrier of his out- stretched arm. A moment afterwards there was nothing left but a heap of blackened ashes. We both started as my wife came into the room, exclaim- ing in disappointment at having overslept herself. The mo- rocco case riveted her attention at once. 41 Jewels ! " she exclaimed. Then she read the card and the inscribed envelope. " Poor father ! " she said sadly. " It is a very sad family secret," she added, turning to Father John. " My father's younger brother was a defaulter and fled to escape imprison- ment. The dishonor nearly killed my father and wrecked his life." Digitized by Google

Page 499

466 The Buried Casket. fjan., I could have sunk through the floor in shame at these words, and stole a glance at Father John, thinking that now or never his eyes would flash with the pent up emotions of outraged honor; but whatever light was in them I could not see, for they were bent studiously on the floor. " You may judge how deeply it affected him," she con- tinued, while I was racking my brain to end the painful situa- tion. " He was haunted by it on his death bed ; and to think of his having buried these associations of his brother in this out of the way place! I would be afraid to wear the necklace," she added, pushing it away shudderingly. "There is no tell- ing what other crimes he may have committed, or what terri- ble death was his punishment." "Judgment is the Lord's, my child," came the mild re- sponse. " Accept the necklace. I will answer for it, that it will bring you no harm." He took it in his hands and han- dled it caressingly. " It was destined for his bride, father," I said with a chok- ing sensation in my throat. " It shall not be desecrated by being worn by any one." He held the necklace a moment longer, then handed it to my wife, saying, as a smile parted his lips, " Give it to the Church, the Bride of Christ, in expiation for your uncle's crimes." The next morning we stood at the monastery gate waiting for Father John to bid him farewell. All was in readiness for departure ; my wife guarded the morocco case, and the rest of our belongings were tucked away under the carriage seat. Our Arab driver cracked his whip and shouted lustily at the loiterers who had collected to see us off. Father John came at last, and after a few affectionate words of parting, blessed us. A moment later we were in our seats and looking for the last time upon that gaunt figure in the coarse brown habit, with tonsured head and sandalled feet. Then we were off, across the square and down the narrow street. As I turned for a parting glance the light had faded from the portal, and all I saw was a receding form disappear in the cloister. litized by G00gle

Page 500

1901.] The Two Ways. 467 CB€ CWO WJWS. CDc sin is sweet perhaps, but oD tbe pain Cbat wakens in tbe bcart wben all is done ! Simple tbe wap wbere €pII's footprints run. But bard, bow bard, to come back borne again. We learn so soon to follow in tbe train Of tbose wbo travel sinward ; eperp one! Can find tbe road to Jollp ; once begun. Bow easp is tbe patb-bow broad and plain ! But busb ! Co turn back wben tbe web grows strong- Co tree tbe beart entrapped in manp a snare! Row far it is back to tbe purer air. Simple tbe journep to tbe gates of Wrong, yet wben we would return, in deep despair. Cbe wap is steep, and dark, and perp long! Charles Hanson Towne. Digitized by Google

Page 501

468 Dogma and Dogmatism. [Jan., DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. BY E. F. G. \l now appears that the Congress of Priests which took place at Bourges on the tenth of October last was something more than a mere reunion ; it was an event in the history of French Catho- licism.* All the world over readers are eagerly devouring the reports of the speeches and resolutions which issued from that assemblage. The present writer would com- ment upon one pronouncement full of significance for those who are familiar with the great religious issues now absorbing the attention of the intelligent world both in Europe and America. We refer to the emphatic declaration on the part of this representative body that the Pope and the Bishops are to be recognized as official guides in the domain of religion, and in consequence that " no coterie, party, or organ " shall be allowed to control Catholic opinion.! We perceive at once the cause and the significance of this very positive declaration of independence in matters of opinion : it results from the prevalence of dogmatizing tendencies among Catholics of a certain class ; it indicates that the French clergy detect the danger and realize the necessity of providing against it. The conviction that this issue is an important one prevails in more places than in France alone. Thoughtful minds in Germany, England, and America have been roused by the warning that Catholicism's conquest of the world depends on its representatives making clear distinction between dogma and dogmatism, consecrating the one and repudiating the other. It is coming to be recognized that there is something almost repulsive to the intellectual temper outside the church in the no- tion of a dogmatic religion, and that it is precisely a distortion of this aspect of Catholicism which is repelling many minds more Catholic in their very dislike of dogmatism and their profound sense of the insufficiency of the human reason than some of those whose narrow and intolerant orthodoxy they resent. There is but one way to meet this difficulty fairly. We must be as frank in acknowledging faults on our own side as we are * Revue du Clergi Frangais^ Oct. 15, p. 440. f V Univers^ September 19, 1900. Digitized by Google

Page 502

1901.] Dogma and Dogmatism. 469 in pointing out those on the other ; and as generous in ad- mitting the merits and excellences of the modern spirit as we are energetic in protesting against its excesses. AUTHORIZED DOGMA AND UNAUTHORIZED DOGMATISM. While we are strong in upholding the claims of divinely revealed dogma and in condemning unqualified license of doubt and opinion, let us be no less firm in denouncing the spirit of self-confident, unauthorized dogmatism, and in commending what might perhaps paradoxically be termed a certain Chris- tian "agnosticism," a modesty and diffidence of judgment which becomes the advanced age in which we live, an age which has put away the crude mind of boyhood and has been taught by bitter experience to distrust itself. For such a moderate and prudent distrust is as favorable a disposition for faith as a dogmatizing spirit is an unfavorable one. And although much which passes to day for toleration and charity in regard to diversities of opinion iS only indifference to truth, or a conviction of the unattainableness of absolute and final truth in any matter, yet it would be unjust to our age, and hardly loyal to the overruling providence of God which per- mits evil in the interests of good, to deny the fact that many minds outside the church are learning the lesson which the failure of rationalism and science to supply for religion is teaching them. Private judgment and private dogmatism, which carried their forefathers out of the church, are working their own cure, and as the fever burns itself out it leaves the mind puri- fied of the poison of narrow self-sufficiency, and disposed to rest once more in simple faith. Doubtless, in numberless cases a fatal weakness has been induced and helpless scepticism is the result. Still, the tendency of the movement is as much to- wards faith as that of the dogmatizing spirit is away from faith. It is not wonderful, then, that those sincere and hum- bled minds outside the church who know her only as repre- sented by her professed adversaries or by her least representa- tive exponents, and who in consequence make no distinction between the authorized dogma of our religion and the unau- thorized dogmatism of certain of its professors, should feel that there is more faith in their own doubt than in the creed of many a Christian. Not, indeed, that there is; but that their diffidence is more akin to the spirit of faith than the self confidence of many who actually possess the faith, and forget that it is the gift of God. We do not say this of all Digitized by Google

Page 503

470 Dogma and Dogmatism. non-Catholics, or of the majority, but of many ; of those who think deeply and sincerely, and whose thought the majority misapprehend and pervert. THE FEW ARE LEADERS— THE MANY ARE LED. i Let us be clear on this point : that all great intellectual or 1 spiritual progress, real or apparent, is the work of the few. Those who think, and who lead thought, are necessarily the few. The great multitudes are led ; they either do not think or only think that they think. They follow altogether blindly, or at most try to understand something of the general gist of movements. They pick up phrases and catch words, which they interpret or misinterpret according to their particular variety and degree of stupidity. Nor, when we consider the evergrowing amount of information which has to be assimilated in order to satisfy the requirements of modern education, leav- ing the mind ever less leisure for thought, does it seem likely that this evil will be remedied, or rather that it will be aggravated as time goes on and thought becomes more and more the monopoly of a limited number? Yet, on many ques- tions concerning the conduct of life — and those the most pro- foundly difficult — the majority is by no means disposed to observe a neutrality corresponding to its ignorance and inca- pacity. It must be always a zealous partisan. In some sense properly so, for every man has a right to know the things that belong to his peace, and which concern the government of his life. Still, whether or not those who rightly take sides thereby acquire a right of leadership is another question. Wherever there is diversity of opinion on the great practi- cal problems of life among those who lead, naturally enough there will be a large following of those who are simply led, and whose comprehension of the real point at issue is the smallest possible ; but the overreadiness of such to push them- selves forward on all occasions as the representatives and ex- ponents of their cause will bring that cause into much discredit, and make mutual understanding and reconciliation impossible between conflicting parties. METHODS OF APOLOGETICS. Let us consider the question of Apologetical methods. Would it not be a great calamity were we to judge of the tone and temper of the Catholic religion by that of certain of her exponents ? We might as well have expected the Saracens Digitized by Google

Page 504

1901.] Dogma a ad Dogmatism. 47i to gather the Spirit of Christ and his Gospel from the average [ Crusader in the field of battle. The accredited doctors of v the church are few and far between. It might be said truly that Catholicity is as imperfectly realized in the majority of Catholics as Christianity in the majority of Christians. For both are ideals. Of course, as far as orthodoxy goes, all Catholics are equal; but orthodoxy is merely the frameworjc or skeleton of the Catholic mind, which skeleton may be clothed with an infinite variety of forms, attractive or repul- sive. We should expect, therefore, to find a large majority in whom the ideal is but very imperfectly realized. We have said that being the religion of the multitudes, Chris- tianity is necessarily a religion adapted to the needs of the majority; and that if the philosophical and cultured few receive it at all, they must throw in their lot with the many, and receive it as little children. But if dogmatism is always justifiable on the part of the Omniscient God, it is not always justifiable on the part of dim sighted and fallible man. Doubtless it is fitting that beginners in every department of knowledge should receive dogmatically from others what has been already verified by the experience and reflection of race ; and what they may verify for themselves hereafter, if so dis- posed. Yet outside this sphere of legitimate dogmatism the region of free thought stretches far and wide, and here no man has authority to deny to his neighbor that " libertas in dubiis " which he claims for himself. THE CROWD IS INTOLERANT. But the lower down we go in the scale of intelligence, cul- ture, and breadth of view, the more marked is the tendency to force one's opinion upon others, to exercise a tyrannical rule over their minds, and to hold them in subjection. It is use- less here to analyze this tendency or to show in detail how often it is the natural egoism of a soul too superficial and ignorant to know the meaning of even rational doubt and un- certainty, too vain and lustful of superiority to endure the supposition that another should possess any intellectual advan- tage. That one who has the truth should desire to impart it and to share his treasure with others is a high instinct of our social nature ; but unauthorized dogmatism is only a vile per- version of this instinct. Yet in the case of the large majority of imperfectly de- veloped minds this same dogmatism is more an infirmity than Digitized by Google

Page 505

472 Dogma and Dogmatism. [Jan., a fault. It is only a particular manifestation of those gregari. ous instincts of primitive society which teach men to distrust and fight against everything that is relatively strange and un- usual, to look upon foreigners as enemies, to accept their own language, notions, customs, traditions as the absolute norm from which all deviations are therefore reprehensible. It is a necessary phase of imperfection through which every mind has to pass on its way to juster and more objective conceptions, and in which the greater majority are perpetually detained to some degree or other. We may assume, then, that a right and fair-minded toler- ance is comparatively rare, more often affected than real ; and that in most minds the tendency to dogmatize exists in some degree. Consequently the crowd is always dogmatic and in- tolerant in respect of any opinion it may hold for the time being. THE INNATE PROTESTANTISM OF FALLEN MAN. So it is not wonderful that many should be found among the faithful of all ages who, quite unconsciously and under pre- text of orthodoxy, are prone to gratify this dogmatizing in- stinct by urging their feligious opinions on others, really be- cause they are their own, ostensibly because they are divinely authorized ; who are ever trying to bring even their own wholly unauthorized views under the aegis of ecclesiastical in- fallibility and to impose them upon others under pain of anathema; whose instinct is in favor of binding rather than loosing ; and that for the mere pleasure of binding. To this abuse a dogmatic religion necessarily lends itself ; just as the sacramental and jurisdictional powers of the priesthood will always offer a temptation to the domineering temper of selfish and small-minded ambition. Everything finite has its limitations, and the best form of government ever conceived or conceivable will lend itself to some particular kind of perversion. "Conservative" and " Liberal " are tendencies in human nature and in human so- ciety, which keep one another in check. But a conservative ministry offers special opportunities for conservative excesses and abuses. So too a dogmatic religion like Catholic Chris- tianity, which is moreover the religion of the masses, and in some ways democratic, cannot fail to be, in a large measure, misrepresented by its popular exponents. Indeed, the whole "idea" of Catholicism is too infinitely delicate and complex to Digitized by Google

Page 506

1901.] Dogma and Dogmatism. 473 be seized purely and integrally by any single human mind. And except in the case of intellects of Newman's calibre there exists only a painfully imperfect notion of its content. Yet the lust of private judgment and private dogmatizing, the innate protestantism and egoism of fallen man, is bound to exert it- self secretly under pretext of zeal for the public judgment and public dogma of the church ; nor is it difficult for a trained ear to detect a certain ring of native nonconformity in many a voice which assumes but to echo that of the universal Pastor. This we have a right to resent keenly, seeing it is our privilege as Catholic Christians to be delivered from all such individual tyranny and to submit our minds to none but divine authority in the affairs of our soul and of eternity. While every Protestant is practically at the mercy of a thousand unauthorized doctrine-mongers, we own but one pope ; and we submit ourselves to his infallibility not because his decree represents the gathered belief of nations and centuries, but because it is divinely guaranteed to us as the voice of Christ, to whose representative alone we bow down our intellect. DOGMATISM THE SPIRIT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. Nothing, therefore, could be more alien to the spirit of faith than the spirit of unauthorized dogmatism, which is in truth the spirit of private judgment, of heresy, and unfaith ; nothing could be further removed from the modesty, docility, and childlike " agnosticism " which are the requisite dispositions of the soul which is to be taught by God. A sense of one's entire insufficiency and absolute need of guidance in the affairs of eternity is the only condition on which the "gift of God" can be obtained. Theologians have speculated that, man after his fall was left to seek the knowledge of good and evil for himself, to be his own god and teacher until the lesson of his blindness had been brought home to him by bitter experience ; and that then Moses restored the primitive economy, God again became man's teacher in the affairs of eternity, and man by faith and obedience submitted to receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child. Somewhat analogous seems the Divine dispensation in regard to the modern revolt against faith ; as though a people were to be thus prepared for a re- turn to that faith in a form more suited to the age, a people who should at once know the world and the church, and inter- pret them one to another ; who having digged cisterns for themselves in vain, should return appreciatively to the well of vol. lxxii.— 31 Digitized by Google

Page 507

474 Dogma and Dogmatism. [Jan., living waters. Doubtless in some respects the church and the modern world have lived side by side, rather than as two rivers mingling their waters. Since the revolt of the sixteenth cen- tury dogmatic and general intellectual development have to a great extent proceeded independently ; perhaps, in some ways, like two hostile armies mustering for a death struggle. Is it too much to hope — nay, is there not much in God s method to warrant the hope — that each movement somehow is fostering in its bosom one of those elements whose combination will give us the perfect mind — Fides quarens intellectum and Intellectus qucerens fidem ; each of which is sterile and lifeless until the moment of their fruitful union has arrived? Of old the church trembled before the fierce barbarians who threatened infant Christendom with a destroying inundation. In the event, the flood lifted the ark and bore it over the face of Europe. For in the dark forests of the North God had prepared a people for himself, and a vigorous progeny for his church ; that she might cry " Quis me genuit hos ? " Is there nothing now to be hoped for from the hostile forces around us, from these intel- lectual Goths and Vandals of our day, from these new icono- clasts and destroyers of gathered treasures of worship and be- lief? True, if we take the spirit of the Church and this Modern * spirit as manifested in the majority of those who claim to be disciples of one or the other, and as represented by their popular and unaccredited exponents, we shall see nothing but the most hopeless and irreconcilable antagonism — Christ and Antichrist : but if we remember that discipleship implies an I imperfect and often perverted comprehension of the master's ' mind, and if we go to the very source of one light and the other, to the root-idea of each process, we shall, perhaps, see that the divergence of the extremes consists with a conver- gence of the same lines towards the centre ; and that while the faith is unfolding itself in the bosom of the church, the need of faith outside the church is making ready to meet it. Doubtless the very tenacity with which the church holds to every fragment of the sacred deposit of revealed truth makes her keenly suspicious of liberal and comprehensive interpreta- tions, and loth to admit them until they have proved their soundness by every conceivable test ; yet this is from no love of the narrower views as such, but only from an abhorrence of a false liberty purchased at the sacrifice of truth, and from a conviction that loyalty to law and dogma is the best safe- guard against the eventual servitude of license. Yet, as has been said, the church's tenacity to dogma occasionally offers a Digitized by Google

Page 508

1901.] Dogma and Dogmatism. 475 seeming countenance to the unauthorized dogmatism of indi- viduals who use her authority as a stick for beating their per- sonal opponents. If one cannot proclaim himself infallible, at least he can declare that his opinions are those of the infalli- ble church. If he himself cannot anathematize, he can say that the Council of Trent has already done so. A man who is saving life in an emergency has no time for courtesies and niceties of expression, and the church's attention since the sixteenth century has been mainly de- voted to resisting the excesses of false liberalism, and could not be bestowed on claims whjch, in a way, might be trusted' to look after themselves. She has often spoken with an abrupt decisiveness demanded by urgent peril, when in normal cir- cumstances she would have waited and suffered questions to answer themselves. And hence minds to which such severity is only too congenial under all circumstances indifferently, which are ever more willing to restrict than to enlarge; have been prone to push themselves forward as the only thoroughly loyal representa- tives of Catholicity, and in such a way as to imply that the opposite school were in the church on sufferance rather than by right. TWO TENDENCIES: CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE. The truth is, that wherever men are gathered into a society these two tendencies — conservative and progressive — will assert themselves ; and the life of the body depends on their being happily adjusted and checking one another's excesses. In the East the excess of the former has ended in petrifaction; in Anglicanism the excess of the latter has ended in chaos; in the Catholic Church neither has at any time obtained complete mastery ; but now one, now the other has been in the ascen- dant, and has for the time being been regarded as a badge of orthodoxy by those in whose hearts it met with response ; for according as any mind is naturally swayed by one tendency or the other, its conception of Catholicity will receive a certain subjective coloring. As, therefore, both tendencies have their function, although either unchecked by the other would be mischievous, so both the progressive and the conservative Catho- lic are true Catholics, and neither can boast any pre eminence over the other in point of orthodoxy. Granting, however, that the three centuries following the revolt of Luther were a season of binding rather than of loosing as far as the direct action of the church herself was conceived, yet we must not lose sight of the counter-influence necessarily exerted from without by the spirit of the age, Digitized by Google

Page 509

4/6 Dogma and Dogmatism. [Jan., checking the ill effects of the encouragement which every new definition and decision unwarrantably gives to the spirit of unauthorized dogmatism ; that is, to those who are eager to wrest the sword from the hands of authority and wield it in the defence of their own private opinions. The church, has no need to insist on the " claims of liberty " when the whole air is ringing with such cries. In these times liberty may be trusted to look after itself: it is dogma and law that are now in peril from the excesses of liberty. And liberty does look after itself and reasserts itself in virtue of its inherent elasticity if, perhaps, it has in any way been unduly cramped in the con- flict. Thus the very same tendency whose unrestrained excesses outside the church are working their own cure, and preparing a soil for the seed of faith, is also working under restraint within the church, preparing the faith for that soil, by purging away the alloy of unauthorized dogmatism which tends to gather round the divinely authorized dogma of the church \ and which is in truth the essential spirit of Protestantism and the parent of the Re- formation. May we not, then, recognize amid all the aimless confusion of modern speculation a certain steady stream or ten- dency which makes for faith on the part of the few who really think? Can we look back on the history of that revolt and not see that the finger of God was there, that He " . . . who dwells, not in light alone But in the darkness and the cloud/' suffered seeming loss for the sake of greater gain ? ANTAGONISMS NOT WITHOUT SOME BENEFITS. It is often and truly said that heresies have been largely instrumental in unfolding the contents of revelation and bring- ing into distinct and open recognition aspects of the truth pre- viously less observed and insisted on. Only when our minds are questioned are they cleared and made aware of their latent heresies ; and this is no less true of the collective than of the individual mind. Often, however, heresy brings into relief not only the truth it denies, but also some hitherto neglected truth which it asserts. Indeed, without some such founda- tion of good no heresy would have any substance wherewith to support error.* Often it happens that the spirit and tem- per of the day really need the accentuation of some aspect of Catholic truth hitherto of less importance. Impatient, * As goodness hath place in things, so hath truth in ideas. Now, it cannot be that aught is found wholly void of goodness ; so neither do we find any knowledge that is false in every part without any admixture of truth ; wherefore, saith Bede, there be no teaching so false but that here or there it mingleth truth with error."— Aquinas, II. II. q. 172, a. 6. Digitized by Google

Page 510

1901.] 4 Dogma and Dogmatism. 477 self-willed men take the matter into their own hands, push things to extremes, and either break off from Catholic unity themselves, or try to force that alternative on all who fail to agree with their opinions. But the church's judgment, when it comes, calmly separates the grain from the chaff, gathers the one into her garner and scatters the other with her anathema. Can it be denied that we have been, in many ways, so to say, brought to a better knowledge of our own mind ; that we have become more fully and intelligently self-conscious in con- sequence, of three centuries of conflict with insurgents; that the teachings to which these last have given prominence often serve to rouse the church's true children from inaction and elicit good that otherwise might have never come into being ? If criticism is pushed to extravagance ; if liberty is ill distin- guished from license ; if science intrudes into the domain of morals, yet these are but perversions of things good in them- selves; things which the age demands and which the church must supply if she is to be in touch with the age, and to act upon it. If, then, the very extravagances of heresy have roused the church to supply sanely what they furnish un- healthily ; if they have given a rude shock to the indolent optimism of numbers of Catholics who are content to sit stolidly in the bark of Peter — as so much ballast, securing steadiness, no doubt, but somewhat at the expense of progress — can we fail to see in the existence of such heresies an almost necessary condition of the church's development? God exults in bringing good out of evil, and through evil greater good than had the evil never been. Fevers work their own cures at times, and sin its own punishment and purifica- tion. Where we, rightly enough, attack error in its first be- ginnings, He suffers it to prevail and spread until its hurtful- ness is experimentally evident to the least discerning mind. His favorite argument is the rednctio ad absurdum — indirect and tardy perhaps, but of all the most efficacious. Let us learn from this to hope the influences seemingly most adverse may become those through which Catholicism will prevail. Who knows but that the declaration of the Bourges Congress is as a first note in our song of triumph ; that the remedy for the frightful dangers arising from liberty, independence, criticism, science, and history may be found in pushing on instead of in fall- ing back — in the more perfect cultivation of liberty, indepen- dence, criticism, science, and history? In a storm safety lies not in hugging the shore but in pushing out boldly into the deep. Digitized by Google

Page 511

478 The Story of Whittier' s '• Countess." [Jan., THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S "COUNTESS." BY MARY E. DESMOND. ANY of the best poems of John G. Whittier treat of the legends and romances of the early set- tlers of the Merrimack Valley. In the stories of the long ago that were told by the gray- haired villagers of his native place the poet found material which by his genius he wove into immortal verse, and thus preserved many incidents of bygone days that would soon have been forgotten. Many of these incidents deal with events in which love, pathos, and tragedy often found a place, and which his facile pen depicted with a master- hand. Among his narrative poems is the romantic and pathetic tale so graphically told in "The Countess." To many who have read this poem it may have seemed a fancy sketch, but such is not the case. The heroine of this tale in verse, who was the "Countess," was a native of East Haverhill, Massa- chusetts, the birthplace of Whittier, and her name was Mary In galls. East Haverhill, or, as it is usually called, Rocks Village, is situated about four miles from the centre of the business part of Haverhill, which is a city of about 37,000 inhabitants, and the chief industry of which is the manufacture of shoes. The settlement in Haverhill's suburbs, which is the scene of the poem, is about a mile and a half from the much-visited Whit- tier Birthplace. It is a very picturesque spot, consisting of a cluster of houses, nearly all of which are very ancient, and many fertile farms which slope gently toward the Merrimack River. No steam or electric cars disturb the stillness, and it is difficult to realize that only four miles up the river is a bustling, progressive city. Here the Rocks Bridge, an ancient covered wooden structure, built in 1828, spans the picturesque Merrimack, connecting Rocks Village with the pretty little town of West Newbury, which is directly opposite and which is one of the most fertile farming towns in eastern Massachu- setts. In the opening lines of "The Countess" Whittier thus describes this quiet scene : Digitized by Google

Page 512

1901J The Story of Whittier's "Countess" 479 GRAVE OF THE COUNTESS. 11 Haply yon white-haired Villager Of fourscore years can say What means this noble name of her Who sleeps with common clay." " Over the wooded northern ridge, Between the houses brown, To the dark tunnel of the bridge The street comes straggling down. Digitized by Google

Page 513

480 The Story of Whittier's "Countess" fJan*> "You catch a glimpse through birch and pine Of cottage, field, and porch, The tavern with its swinging sign, The sharp horn of the church. " The river's steel-blue crescent curves To meet, at ebb and flow, The single broken wharf that serves For sloop and gundelow. " With salt sea scents along its shores The heavy hay-boats crawl, The long attennae of their oars In lazy rise and fall/ " Along the gray abutment's waif The idle shad-net dries, The toll- man in his cobbler's stall Sits smoking with closed eyes. " You hear the pier's low undertone, Of waves that chaff and gnaw; You start — a skipper's horn is blown To raise the creaking draw. " At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds With slow and sluggard beat, The stage-coach on its dusty rounds Wakes up the staring street. " A place for idle eyes and ears, A cobwebbed nook of dreams, Left by the stream whose waves are years. The stranded village seems. " And there, like other moss and rust, The native dweller clings, And keeps in uninquiring trust The old, dull round of things. "The fisher drops his patient lines, The farmer sows his grain, Content to hear the murmuring pines Instead of railroad trains." Digitized by Google

Page 514

1901.] The Story of Whittier's " Countess.9' 481 Near the centre of the village stands an ancient farm- house where the heroine of the poem was born in 1786. The part in which the Ingalls family resided is now the rear of the house, the portion which fronts the street having been added in later years. The house is very quaint-looking, and the small-paned windows and large chimney in the rear portion attest its antiquity. Some of the rooms once occupied by the Ingalls family are now used by the family of Moses Little, the present occupant. At the time described in the poem Mary Ingalls was nine- teen years old. In a sketch written by Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill, many years ago, and which appeared in a little volume entitled Gleanings from the Merrimack Valley, she is de- scribed as being "of medium height, with long, golden curls, violet eyes, fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and so modest and amiable that others besides him who afterward became her liege lord looked upon her with interest and favor." Whittier describes her as " Of all the village band Its fairest and its best." In the latter part of the eighteenth century, at the time of the French rebellion, when Napoleon took the reins of govern- ment a second time, a company of exiles, about sixteen in number, fled from Guadeloupe and came to this country. They landed at Newburyport, Mass., in March, 1792. This city is situated at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Nine of the party settled in Newburyport, and old stones in one of its ancient cemeteries mark their resting place. At the close of the war five returned to their native land. Among those who remained were Count Francis de Vipart and his cousin, Joseph Rochemont de Poyen. After a time these two exiles wandered up the Merrimack River and landed at Rocks Vil- lage. Count de Vipart was a fine-looking man, of stately bear- ing and of a very genial and courteous nature. Of him Whit- tier wrote : " Yet, still in gay and careless ease, To harvest field and dance He brought the gentle courtesies, The nameless grace of France." His meeting and acquaintance with Mary Ingalls, the belle Digitized by Google

Page 515

482 The Story of Whittier's "Countess" [Jan., of the little settlement, soon ripened into love, and in less than a year they were wedded in the village church. " An exile from the Gascon land Found refuge here and rest ; And loved of all the village band Its fairest and its best. " He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, He worshipped through her eyes, And on the pride that doubts and scorns Stole in her faith's surprise." The difference in their stations in life naturally created a great sensation among the villagers. The count, however, in no way showed that he realized the difference in their social position, for " Each grew to each in sweet accord, Nor knew the gazing town If she looked upward to her lord, Or he to her looked down. " For her his rank aside he laid ; He took the hue and tone Of lowly life and toil, and made Her simple ways his own. "And she who taught him love not less From him she loved in turn Caught in her sweet unconsciousness What love is quick to learn." Mrs. de Vipart's mother was an invalid, and her daughter carefully and unceasingly tended her, ministering in every way to her comfort. Being naturally of a delicate constitution, in a short time Mary contracted consumption, and in less than a year after her happy marriage she answered the call of the dread destroyer. " Ah ! life is brief, though love be long, The altar and the bier ; The bridal hymn and burial song, Were both in one short year." Count de Vipart was very much grieved over the death of Digitized by Google

Page 516

i90t.] The Story of Whittier* s "Countess." 483 his beautiful bride, and soon after her decease he returned to his native land. After many years he again married, and at his death, several years later, he was interred in the family tomb at Bordeaux. Whittier thus contrasts their positions in death : " Her rest is quiet on the hill, Beneath the locust's bloom ! Far off her lover sleeps as still Within his scutcheoned tomb. " The Gascon lord and village maid In death still clasp their hands; The love which levels ratik and grade Unite their severed lands. "What matters whose the hill-side grave, Or whose the blazoned stone? For ever to her western wave Shall whisper blue Garonne ! "And while ancestral pride shall twine The Gascon's tomb with flowers, Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, With summer's bloom and showers ! " The countess was interred in Greenwood Cemetery, on East Broadway, East Haverhill, not far from the village where her short life was spent. The Quaker poet thus writes of her rest, ing place : "Go where, amid the tangled steep That slopes against the west, The hamlet's buried idlers sleep In still profounder rest. " Throw back the locust's flowery plume, The birch's pale-green scarf, And break the web of briar and bloom From name and epitaph. "A simple muster roll of Death, Of pomp and romance shorn, The dry old names that common breath Has cheapened and outworn. Digitized by Google

Page 517

484 The Story of Whittier's "Countess" fjan., •'Yet pause by one low mound, and part The wild vines o'er it laced, And read the words by rustic art Upon its headstone traced. " Haply yon white-haired villager Of fourscore years can say What means this noble name of her Who sleeps with common clay." The gray slate stone which marks the grave of this village belle is very near the road, not far from the main entrance to the cemetery, and it is covered with an iron network to prevent relic-seekers from destroying it. About one-third of the footstone has been broken off and carried away by ruthless curiosity collectors. On the network are the words " Grave of the Countess," and the simple headstone has the following in- scription : MARY, wife of FRANCIS VIPART, of Guadeloupe. Died January 5, 1807. JEt. 21. The romantic story of this village maid and her early death is most pathetic, and is a striking illustration of the truth of the old saying, " Love levels all ranks." 11 0 Love! so hallowing every soil That gives that sweet flower room, Wherever nursed, by ease or toil, The human heart takes bloom ! " Plant of lost Eden, from the sod Of sinful earth unriven, White blossoms of the trees of God Dropped down to us from heaven ! "This tangled waste of mound and stone Is holy for thy sake ; A sweetness which is all thine own Breathes out from fern and brake." The other exile who came to East Haverhill with Count Digitized by Google

Page 518

1901.] The Story of Whittier" s "Countess" 485 Vipart, Joseph Rochemont de Poyen, settled in Rocks Village. He married Sally Elliott, of that place, and many of their de- scendants are living in Haverhill to-day, and also in the neigh- boring town of Merrimac, where the Poyen block is one of the handsomest buildings in the " square " of that pretty little town. Matthew Franklin Whittier, a brother of the Quaker poet, married Abby Poyen, a daughter of the exile. She died in 1841 and was interred in Greenwood Cemetery, not far from the resting-place of the " Countess." Their son, Francis Louis Whittier, also rests there; but Matthew Whittier, who died in 1883, was interred in the Whittier lot in Union Cemetery at Amesbury, Mass. In Greenwood Cemetery also rests Lydia Ayer, the heroine of " My Playmate," of whom Whittier sung : "O playmate of the olden time, Our mossy seat is green ; Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean." Dr. Moses H. Elliott, the early lover of that woman of strange, varied character, Harriet Livermore, whom Whittier has immortalized in " SnowBound," also sleeps in this cemetery. The poet gives an admirable picture of this remarkable woman in the lines: "Another guest that wintry night Flashed back with lustrous eyes the light. Unmarked by time, and yet not young, The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely tpld A nature passionate and bold ; Strong, self-concentrated, spurning guide, Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will's majestic pride. She sat among us at the best A not unfeared, half-welcome guest. Rebuking with her cultured phrase Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace, Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash, Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash, And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light; Digitized by Google

Page 519

486 The Story of Whittier's "Countess" [Jan., The sharp heat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate ; A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense, She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee." Dr. Elliott's parents objected very strongly to his marriage with Miss Livermore on account of her ungovernable temper, and they urged him to accept a position as surgeon in the United States army, which he did. While attending yellow fever patients at a hospital at Pensacola, Florida, of which he had charge, he contracted the dread disease and died in a short time. His body was brought home to rest in his native place. A plain white stone marks his grave and the inscrip- tion reads : MOSES H. ELLIOTT. Died September 22, 1822. Aged 33 years. There are a number of ancient stones in Greenwood Ceme- tery, many of which have quaint epitaphs. The original site of the cemetery was donated to the town of Haverhill in 1785 by Ephraim Elliott, the father of Dr. Moses Elliott. Of recent years several acres have been added and many handsome monuments have been erected in the modern portion. It is situated on what is known as the Merrimack River Road, about three miles from the centre of Haverhill, overlooking a high bluff on the river bank. Several miles of the beautiful Merrimack River, winding in and out, can be seen from this spot. Here it may have been that Whittier stood when he penned these lines on the Merrimack : " Stream of my fathers ! sweetly still Thy sunset rays the valley fill ; Poured slantways down the long defile, Wave, wood, and flower beneath them smile." A short distance from Greenwood Cemetery, on the same road, stands a garrison house which is over two hundred years old, and the bricks of which it is built were brought from England by Joseph Peaslee. In the early days of Haverhill's Digitized by Google

Page 520

igoi.] The Story of Whittier's "Countess" 487 Old Garrison House, East Haverhill. settlement, when the Indians were troublesome, this house was used as a place of refuge from the red man's vengeance. Its unique appearance, with its outside plastered wall, through which the bricks are appearing as time causes the plaster to fall off, bear testimony to its antiquity; while its massive chimneys, which are crumbling with age, prove that it was one of the earliest houses built in Haverhill. Before it stands a willow-tree the branches of which spread far and wide. This tree, tradition states, grew from a willow cane which was planted by a lover of the long ago when visiting the lady of his choice, who resided in the garrison house. An excellent description of this historic old house appears in a book of poems entitled Wayside Flowers, the author of which is Mrs. Emma A. Kimball, of East Haverhill, who is the owner of the garrison house, and the poem which describes the old garrison is entitled " The Old House o'er the Way." There are many interesting reminiscences attached to this ancient landmark. One of Whittier's ancestors once resided here. Joseph Peaslee, who erected the house, had a daughter named Mary who was born in this quaint old building. May 24, Digitized by Google

Page 521

483 The Story of Whittier' s "Countess" [Jan., 1694, she married Joseph Whittier, the poet s great-grandfather, and they resided in the old homestead. Here also, in 1789, was born the Dr. Elliott above referred to, whose affection the proud Miss Livermore sought to win. The first Quaker meetings which took place - in the vicinity of Haverhill were held in this house, and also the quarterly conventions of that sect in the early days. Despite its antiquity the old house is still fairly well preserved, and the part of it which is inhabi- table is at present occupied by Byron Ramsey and family. Its situation is picturesque, grassy fields being seen on all sides; and almost opposite is a hill from which a fine view of the surrounding country can be seen. Haverhill has grown wonderfully during the last half-cen- tury, but its energy has not extended to its eastern suburb owing to the fact that many of the sons and daughters of East Haverhill have left their early homes and sought more busy scenes. The beauty of this suburb, however, still remains, and the historic and poetic memories which centre about it add much to its interest. As the birthplace of Whittier it will ever be interesting to those who admire the writings of the Quaker poet. Many of his poems deal with lofty themes, but he is seen at his best in his verses which appeal to the heart and deal with incidents which brought out his sympathe- tic nature, as in " The Countess." The skill with which he has woven the story of this village maid into verse displays his sympathy with his theme, and he has made Greenwood Ceme- tery at East Haverhill the Mecca for many visitors who admire the genius of the poet and learn with interest the romantic story of the love which knows no rank, but makes hovel, cottage, and palace alike an Eden here below. Digitized by Google

Page 522

igoi.] Christ the True Civjlizer. 489 1*1 CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. By KATHERINE F. MULLANY. pT has been well said that history is the most edu- \ cative of studies. It broadens the mind, en- \ larges the heart, and enlightens the understand- \ ing. Other studies develop the comprehension 6 in one particular line, cultivating some one particular faculty, but history comprises a knowledge of all things : religion, science, art, letters, philosophy, governments and peoples. It is the story of humanity in all its grandeur and in all its meanness. It is the tale of nations, of govern- ments, and of individuals; the relation of the rise and fall of commonwealths and of men. It is the drama of human life, in all its tragedy and comedy ; the long spectacle of human existence in its supreme glory and most abject poverty. On its pages we find written the records of deeds so mag- nanimously great and achievements so noble that one's heart expands with admiration over the lofty heights to which the human mind is capable of winging, when the human heart is inspired by noble ambitions ; but there, too, are the records of a wickedness and degradation so awful that one wonders if the human soul is not, at times, a rival of the very demons in iniquity. There is not an age or an epoch in history but has an educational value, in the thought-awakening power it exerts over the earnest student ; for in every age and nation human nature is still the same, unchanged and unchangeable, in its ever changing fluctuations. That "there is nothing new under the sun " is a truism we sometimes feel like questioning ; but that there is nothing new in human nature, from Adam down, the study of history makes known to us in a very interesting manner. The difference between times and nations is simply a minor matter of dress and manners ; human character is ever the same. The human heart, like a perfect musical instrument, is capable of sublimest harmonies, if touched by Divine . skill, and capable of almost diabolical discordance, under the manipu- lation of malign influences. So it is that, from the dawn of history until the present time, mankind has left a record of glorious deeds and noble achievements, to inspire the student with lofty ambitions ; but, side by side with them, ever, like VOL. LXXII.— 32 Digitized by Google

Page 523

4S° Christ the True Civilizer. [Jan., shadows against the sunlight, are the evil things it has done, and the degradation of which it is capable. It will be our province to examine into the causes which lifted man's thoughts unto lofty things and, on the other hand, dragged them down, and nations with them — for the strength of a nation lies in the strength of its people's virtues — into the wretched condition of civilization that characterized the begin- ning of King Arthur's reign : " When the land of Cameliard was waste, Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein, And none, or few, to chase the beast. So that wild dog and wolf and boar and bear Came in the night and day, and rooted in the fields And wallowed in the gardens of the king." It is related that wolves, if deprived of their own offspring, will steal children and — if they do not eat them — nurse them as their own — " And the children, housed in such foul dens, would growl at their meat, and mock their foster-mother on four feet, Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf like men, worse than the wolves." The poet, in describing this sad condition of civilization, does not exaggerate in saying that people were "worse than the wolves," for history is full of examples of men who were worse than wild beasts. It is a dark and pitiable picture of humanity, truly, to see it grovelling like a beast, deprived, as it was, of the refining influences that, but a few centuries agone, had bestowed on it the highest degree of culture the world has ever seen. There were centuries that were veritable epitomes of intel- lectual blackness. The invasion of the barbarous Northmen extinguished learning, as a fierce blast of wind extinguishes a lamp, leaving the world enveloped in the night of ignorance — a night through which but one torch remained alight; one star of hope remained unclouded; one Voice gave hope of return- ing day ; and that was the torch of Catholicity ; the star of divine faith ; the Vojce of the Church. " But for the church," says Hallam— and all other accepted historians echo the state- ment— "civilization would have been banished for ever from the face of the earth." Compared with those days of ignorance and barbarism, our own times seem a perfect glory of enlightenment and knowl- Digitized by Google

Page 524

I90i.] Christ the True Civilizer. 491 edge, the sum total of progressive civilization, and we are apt to wax proud over the achievements of modern times, and the superiority of our nineteenth century "smartness." In many respects, however, the civilization of Greece and Rome, even five centuries before the coming of our Lord, was in advance of our own. In departments of human knowledge summed up in the word culture " the ancient civilization overtopped ours, as mighty mountains surpass in height and grandeur the lesser hills ! It is a healthful lesson for our modern conceit and egotism to bear in mind that the human intellect has not advanced many steps in intellectual culture for over two thousand years ! That which we are but beginning to understand in the world of art and letters was known in completest perfection to that magnificent ancient world which lies for ever buried under the dust of nearly twenty centuries; a world of which but a few scattered ruins remain as silent witnesses to its sur- passing grandeur, and the curio collections in our art mu- seums are but the feeblest of testimonies to its supreme great- ness. Those were the days of such intellectual giants as Soc- rates, Plato, and Aristotle. Those were the times when Phidias and Apelles, the teachers and masters of Michael Angelo and Raphael, lived and wrought such wonders of art creation as have never been equalled, even by these masters of the mod- ern world. It is said by some that not in architecture, nor in art, nor in literary genius has our modern progressiveness reached the height attained in the days of Pericles — 450 years before Christ ! Nor in bodily development do we touch upon the ancients ; nor in material enjoyments. The ancient world of Greece and Rome surpassed our civilization, as our steam and electricity surpass the stage-coach and candle-light of fifty years ago. Here, indeed, is the one thing of which we vain moderns may boast as having no peers: that of mechanical science ; the possession of almost supernatural powers, in being able to harness the mysterious forces of nature for our greater convenience and comfort. In all else we are but imi- tators— and weak ones — of our brethren the ancients ; to whom was given the supreme victory of intellectual and physical achievements. It would seem as if God had permitted the creatures he had made and endowed so wondrously to arrive at the very pinnacle of human powers, in mental and bodily glories, and then exhaust them all in the search after happi- ness ; leaving them yet unsatisfied, before he stepped from his Digitized by Google

Page 525

492 Christ the True Civilizer. [Jan., throne in heaven to come down here and teach us, in his mercy, that in none of these things does happiness abide ; for they can never fill, great as they are, the infinite void in the human heart. What a world it was that He came to nearly two thousand years ago ! A world of wealth and palaces and pomp and pride; a world of material greatness and supremest human power; for, as in the days of Pericles the Greek, 450 years before Christ, intellectual splendor had reached its zenith, so, too, in imperial Rome, in the days of our Lord, had national greatness consummated its climax, by subjugating a world at the feet of Cae3ar Augustus. Despising the magnificence of kings' houses and the purple and fine linen of human pomp and pride, the Lord God chose a stable for his birthplace, the humblest of clothing for his garments, and a poor maiden of despised Nazareth for his mother. Scorning the vain glories of the human intellect, he never went to school, thus setting aside the dominion of the human mind over his own, as he had set aside the dominion of Satan in his body. It was not fitting that he, who came as the supreme Teacher of Mankind, should submit to the teach- ings of any earthly pedagogue. He was come to civilize civilization ! As supreme civilization cultivates pride, and pride cultivates materialism, and materialism cultivates sensualism, and sensual- ism death, in the individual ; so, too, in the fate of nations, supreme civilization, unless dominated by right religion, is but the dazzling precursor of their downfall. Civilization, in its pride, rejected Christ, preferring its own materialism and sen- sual pleasures to his code of morals ; and, drinking to intoxi- cation of their dangerous delights, over-indulgence debased the great Roman Empire, weakening its once magnificent powtr, and the end was — death ! Down from the Northern mountains, like an avalanche sweeping all before it in the unthinking valleys beneath; or like fierce eagles swooping upon the unprotected flocks of a faithless shepherd, rending and tearing without mercy, came the terrible barbarians, stamping into dust beneath their iron- shod feet the glories of human genius and the proud monu- ments of the mDst perfect civilization, humanly speaking, that the world has ever known. Where once Beauty reigned su- preme, and Order was her maid of honor, Chaos was evoked and Desolation robed the world! What cared these fierce Digitized by Google

Page 526

igoi.] Christ the True Civilizer. 493 warriors for sculpture, or painting, or the imposing majesty of architecture, or the rich adornments of elegant civilization ? They lived in rude dwellings, were clad in iron, and reverenced strength as a god ; and so, beneath their spurning wrath, the splendor of ancient days disappeared from the earth, as frost- work under the scorching sun-rays. Civilization, with all its refinements, was shattered into fragments, and buried beneath the soil, as a thing that is dead. It had done much for man- kind; but it was so beautiful that men worshipped it, and, in God's anger, it was destroyed. Civilization is a means, not an end. With all its refinements and beauty and elevating tendencies, it is powerless to satisfy the longings of the human soul or give peace to the restless human heart. Intended as an aid, it became the end of human existence and ambitions, and men made of it a god. Attila the Hun proclaimed himself the " Scourge of God M ; and without doubt he spoke a stern truth, unconsciously. For three hundred years the apostles of the Great Nazarene — who had preached and practised a new and holier civilization in insignificant Judea, and been crucified by the anger of the rich and proud — had been hidden in the cemeteries under Im- perial Rome, which had laughed them to scorn and persecuted them to death. Imperial Rome was now laid in the dust for ever, and on its splendid ruins was to be built up the Church of Christ and the new civilization, that would cultivate and make beautiful the hearts and souls of mankind, as well as the minds and bodies of the human race. We will take a glance at this old civilization, of which such great things are said, and will select Rome, the " Epitome of the Universe," as it has been called, for an object-lesson. They tell us that London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, and Berlin, the great centres of modern fashion and power, all together, would not surpass ancient Rome in her days of splendor. When we see a magnificent building in some of our great cities we gaze at it in silent admiration and delight ; but old Rome was a perfect forest of just such splen- did buildings, and of far more beautiful ones. The mimic glories of a World's Fair and a Paris Exposition are only shadow pictures of the marble splendors of Imperial Rome. A visit to the museums of art in New York or Boston give but a faint hint of the sculptured beauty and statue-adorned grandeurs of the old city by the Tiber, where works of art encrusted the buildings, and the genius of man exhausted it- Digitized by Google

Page 527

494 Christ the True Civilizer. J Jan., self in splendid architecture. The luxury of the interiors was the summit of splendor, in columns of precious marbles, in carvings and paintings and gilding ; in rich carpets and cushions of velvet ; in silken draperies, fabulously fine ; and furniture of ivory and gold. The streets were vistas of marble statues ; the gardens were triumphs of artistic skill in floriculture ; the roads and drives marvels of smoothness, along whose splendidly wide limits chariots of ivory, and rarest woods and metals, rolled in gorgeousness ; ladies seated within attired with a taste and richness that only pictures may describe, and drawn by such horses as our modern days know nothing about. The social pleasures of old Rome may be guessed at by their mammoth theatres, one of which would seat more people than any public building in the world to day. " Amphitheatres more extensive and costly than Cologne, Milan, and York minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight times as many people as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church ; circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand per- sons could witness the chariot races at a time." The Scaurus theatre seated 80,000 people ; that of Marcellus, 20,000 ; the Coliseum would seat 87,000 and give standing room to 22,000 more. The Circus Maximus — mentioned, I think, in Ben Hur — would hold 385,000 spectators. Temples and porticoes and triumphal arches of white mar- ble and bronze and brass, beautifully sculptured, were every- where to be seen ; the rivers being spanned by more gracefully arched bridges, statue-crowned, than adorns Paris the Magnifi- cent. The City of the Seven Hills contained a population of four millions, for whose comfort and enjoyment nine thousand and twenty-five public baths were provided ; those of Diocle- tian alone accommodating thirty-two hundred bathers at a time. Their feasts were something marvellous, each patrician noble striving to outdo his neighbor in costliness and gastronomical wonders. This was the splendid city of palaces and kings, and sur- feited civilization and brutal pleasures, at whose bronze gates came knocking the inspired Fishermen of Galilee, whose mission was to rebuke its sensualism and humble its pride by the preach- ing of Christian civilization, abhorrent because of its morality. Christian civilization won for its teachers and believers but persecution and death to afford amusement for the depraved hearts of pagan Rome ; a civilization whose seed was in the blood of martyrs, and whose roots found life in the graves of Digitized by Google

Page 528

1901.] Christ the True Civjlizer. 495 the Christians. Such was the magnificent city that was trampled under foot by the war-horses of the savage Northern tribes; a city of marvellous splendor, of which but a few magnificent monuments remain, standing in lonely grandeur, sadly eloquent memorials of the downfall of human greatness and of human pride ! No wonder that God, angry and sick at heart because of the miseries which over-civilization had brought upon the world, left the proud intellect of man as a fallow field, uncared for and untended, for six centuries, by plunging the world into darkness, that it might comprehend the returning Light more wisely ! What happened to Rome happened to the world at large, for Rome ruled the world. The Barbarians spread everywhere that the hope of conquest invited. So it was that " the land of Cameliard was waste, and men were worse than wolves." So it was that King Arthur came to tame the beast and lay the material and moral forest, and let in the sunlight: Arthur, who was the harbinger of a brighter day just dawning ; who would teach his people to " reverence their conscience as their King," and lift men's souls to better things by the ex- ample of his blameless life ; Arthur, who established a new code of morals in founding the chivalrous order of the famous Round Table : "A glorious company, the flower of men, To serve as model for the mighty world, And be the fair beginnings of a time " ; Arthur, who made them swear, laying their hands in his, 44 To reverence their conscience as their King ; To break the heathen and uphold the Christ ; To ride abroad redressing human wrongs ; To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it ; To lead sweet lives in purest chastity ; To love one maiden only, and to cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until he won her " ; For he held that 44 There is no power under heaven subtler Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But to teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man — a man ! 99 Digitized by Google

Page 529

496 A Winter Night. [Jan. fl ftJlNJPEl^ RIGHT. is nigf]t Will fierce Eolus ride his steeds ©n land and sea and up the scudding sky, <And human folk in rocking beds Will lie, <And Wood-folk where t\\e cotferts bend like reeds, While the Wild midnight hoofs go roaring by. I hear t\\e blind ships beating on the rocks; I see the quick-cjuenched rocket streaming down ©n the remorseless gale. Beyond the town I hear the engine panting in its stocks, /here snoW-mists spin across the ridge's croWn. Death aqd the storm are coursing haqd in hand To-night! 0od help all horseless folk and Weak, «All Wanderers, and ships tFjat harbor seek, All pilgrirqs on the sea or on the land ! Giod heartf]e pleadiqg prayers that white lips speak,! James Buckham. Digitized by Google

Page 530

— 1 Rev. Edwakd VV. McCaktv, the Founder. THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. BY LOUISE GIROD. X Prospect Place, in the Borough of Brooklyn, stands a large, commodious house, whose out- ward appearance is no more pretentious than that of its neighbors, but within whose walls a corporation known as The Catholic Women's Association has labored assiduously during the past six years To help young women to help themselves is its object. This is accomplished by aiding them in obtaining a knowledge of such branches of the useful arts as may be suited to their ability, and in which they may afterward obtain lucrative em- ployment and better their condition in life. In order to in- culcate a feeling of independence, a nominal fee is charged for all classes except those in sewing, elementary English, and arithmetic and penmanship, which are free. Digitized by Google

Page 531

498 The Catholic Women's Association. [Jan., The association was founded in May, 1894, by the Rev. Edward W. McCarty, rector of St. Augustine's Church, who is also its president. Though constantly busy with other in- numerable cares and occupations, he still gave much time and thought to evolving this scheme whereby he might assist young women to become self-reliant and self-supporting, which as- sumed tangible form at the time. He selected the building. No. 10 Prospect Place, as one suited to his requirements, reconstructed it from top to bottom, and furnished it with such equipment as is used in schools of similar character. The basement is fitted up as a cooking school, and contains all the latest apparatus for the successful conduct of classes in cookery. It also contains a small gymnasium, where instruction in physical culture is given. The first floor contains the re- ception-room, the reading-room, the library, and the general office. On the second floor are the dress-making, millinery, sewing, bonnaz machine, and English rooms. The third floor is devoted to the stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping rooms, etc. The accommodations of the present building have long been inadequate for the enlargement of the scope of the work, and a fund for the erection of a new and suitable building in the not far distant future is steadily assuming larger proportions. In order to provide every facility, for the proper conduct of such work as the association should undertake, Father Mc- Carty selected a corps of earnest women to aid him in carry- ing out his philanthropic enterprise. He is assisted by two vice-presidents, a recording secretary, a financial secretary, and a treasurer, who, in conjunction with the Board of Managers, meet on the second Wednesday of each month, except July and August, to settle all affairs of moment. The chairmen of the library, educational, entertainment, membership, house, em- ployment, finance, and lecture committees are members of this board, and at these meetings render an account of the work of their several committees during the previous month. The membership of these committees is made up from the general membership of the association. The memberships are honorary, life, contributing, active, and associate. Any person, upon the payment of one hun- dred dollars, may become a life member, and receives the privilege of placing a student in any one of the classes for a period of five years — not necessarily consecutive. The life members include some of the most representative Catho- Digitized by Google

Page 532

igoi.] The Catholic Women's Association. 499 ' j lies of the city. Any person, upon payment of twenty five dollars an- nually, is inscribed as a patron of the association, and receives the privi- lege of placing a student in any one of the classes for one year. Any per- son, upon the payment of five dollars annually, will be enrolled as a contributing member. Men, as well as wo- men, may be- come life and cont ri bu ting members, or pa* trons. The larger portion of the membership roll is composed of the active members, who pay an an- nual fee of two dollars, and have the privileges of the library and of the entertainments, and of course may enter classes. In order to conform to the rule of the associ- ation that all persons connected with it should be members, the students of the classes are allowed to become associate members upon the annual payment of one dollar, and receive the full privileges of the association. The members of the Library Committee are assiduous workers. The Association is a Centre for Intel- lectual Improvement. Digitized by Google

Page 533

5 The Catholic Women's Association. [Jan., They keep the library up to date and have in it the best works ready for circulation. A fine collection of four thousand care- fully selected books is at the disposal of the members. As elsewhere, a fondness for fiction seems to predominate. How- ever, an examining committee passes judgment on all books considered for the shelves, and selects none but those which will add to the mental and moral growth of the readers. All the latest standard works of fiction are secured. The Constitution, outlining the duties of this committee, says: "This committee shall remember that it is establishing and conducting a Catholic library. Consequently, any book, by whatsoever author written, that is inimical to Catholic faith, morals, or practice shall be blacklisted and kept from its shelves. It shall make it a specialty to secure works of merit by Catholic authors, and shall encourage its patrons to read them." The result is that, while general literature not poisoned with immorality or irreligion is constantly secured, there is a steadily increasing department of high-class Catholic books. The members of the committee occasionally hold book receptions, and at all times are ready to suggest desirable works to persons who would like to make donations of books but are uncertain what to send ; or, they do gladly receive contributions of money to buy what may be the most needed at the time. This branch of the work receives the constant and substantial support of all well-wishers of the association, as its power for good in the distribution of helpful as well as attractive literature, as may readily be understood, is un- paralleled. The reading room is supplied with all the standard magazines and periodicals, and through the courtesy of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the past three years a file of that paper is always at hand for perusal. The Educational Committee is responsible for all class work, and two members are in attendance each evening. The scholastic year is divided into three terms, beginning the first of October and ending the last of June, each term comprising a period of twelve weeks. Well-trained teachers preside over all classes, and follow the methods endorsed by the best educational authorities. Two exhibits are given each year, and these practically demonstrate the character and completeness of the work. Promptness, regularity of attendance, and in- terest are noticeable on the part of all students. Certificates Digitized by Google

Page 534

1901.] The Catholic Women's Association. 501 of the association are awarded at the end of each year to those who have completed one or other of the branches and have secured the percentage required by the association. In April last the reverend president called the graduates together and formed an alumnae association. Its object is to keep together all who have graduated from the classes ; to have them constantly in touch with the workings of the asso- ciation ; to assist them in getting positions ; to protect them while in positions from abuse or injustice so far as it is pos- sible, and to look after their general interests. It meets in a social, informal way on the first Wednesday evening of each month. The membership is steadily growing. The sewing courses comprise instruction in the various stitches used in hand-sewing, including patching and darning, upon small, uniform samplers ; machine-sewing, use and care of machines, cutting from pattern and making undergarments, dressingsacques, or shirt waists. Talks are given on cotton, silk, wool, emery, needle, pin, thimble, etc., as the work pro- gresses, and upon the position of the body and care of the eyes while sewing. This course, leading through the prepara- tory dress-making classes, furnishes material for the regular dress- making classes. A special feature of the sewing is the Children's Saturday Morning Classes, in which one hundred and twenty.five little women make diligent use of their needles, in following the two years' course which is carefully arranged for them by the young woman who has devoted herself to the welfare of this department from its inception. She • is assisted very ably by ten clever co-workers. At the exhibits each year the regula- tion samplers and little garments are presented, together with the masterpiece of the department, a beautifully dressed doll, which is entirely the work of the children. The dress-making courses comprise the principles of cut- ting skirts from measure, and of neatly finishing and hang, ing them. Draughting and fitting waists receive great attention, and, as the basis of success in fitting garments, considerable practice is given in taking accurate measurements. Talks are given on adapting the lines of the material to those of the figure, and in selecting trimmings suited to the material and to the character of the figure. The costumes are designed to carry out these principles. The work closes with a course of designing and making fancy costumes in harmonious shades of tissue-paper. Digitized by Google

Page 535

5o2 The Catholic Women's Association. [Jan., The millinery courses include the making and trimming of hats, bonnets, toques, and turbans, and the making of close and open frames. In the first course colored canton flannel is used to represent velvet, and sateen in harmonizing shades to represent ribbon. The principles thus learned are applied to hats of choice material. At intervals talks are given on the suitability of material, the combination of color, and the character of lines and form in relation to artistic millinery. Light, tasteful bows, rosettes, flowers, and general hat-trimming are also made in effective shades of tissue-paper. In the hand- ling of tissue-paper the students acquire a lightness and deft- ness of touch which is most beneficial in practical work. In the art embroidery class the principles and methods are taught in connection with the cultivation of judgment in the choice of design, color, and material, in articles for personal and home decoration. Stitches are worked upon samplers, and afterward applied to special pieces of embroidery, for which original drawings are made. The results obtained from these classes, both day and evening, have been artistic and beautiful. This is the only school in the greater city where in- struction m*y be obtained on the bpnnaz machine. Every facility is provided for gaining a working knowledge of this branch of the useful arts. The instruction comprises chain- stitching, braiding, cording, feather-stitching, etc. The bon- naz machine has been steadily improved upon for a num- ber of years, until an expert operator is now able to turn out an original design, which upon close inspection can scarcely be detected from hand embroidery. This style of trimming is used so extensively that there is always a demand for skilled operators, and the knowledge is easily acquired. Perseverance and constant practice in manipulating the hand- bar underneath the table are the principles to keep steadily in mind. Regular courses in cooking are given, both day and even- ing. Ample facilities are provided for obtaining a knowledge of all the fundamental rules of cooking, and in the preparation of such articles of food as would be necessary on a well-ap- pointed home table. In addition, a fancy course is given ; an invalid course, which comprises the preparation and serving of daintily prepared dishes, special emphasis being placed on the nutritive value and digestibility of foods, as affected by seem- ingly unimportant conditions in their preparation. Also, a chafing-dish course, in which each member solves her own pro- Digitized by Google

Page 536

1901.] The Catholic Women's Association. 503 blems, a chafing dish being provided for each individual. This method is preferable to the demonstration work given in other schools, and better results are obtained. A feature each year in the cooking department is a chafing-dish course for men. Super- intendents and prin- cipals of the schools, doctors, lawyers, and other gentlemen of prominence have by this means been in- structed in the mys- teries of cookery. They finish their courses fully equip- ped to cater to their stag parties in the city, and to their camping-out parties in the woods. Each year's work ends with a stag dinner of many courses. Each course is cooked by two members of the class. Their work thus far has equalled, if it has not surpassed, that done by the wo- men. It may not be significant, but usually most of the members are married men. A children's course, in an abridged form, is arranged for Saturday afternoons. Parallel with the technical work instruction in theory is given, the notes being recorded in note-books, which are^examined at the end of the course. Social Life is Cultivated here. Digitized by Google

Page 537

504 The Catholic Women's Association. [Jan., The class in elementary English is one of the most helpful features of the work. To train adults in the fundamental prin- ciples of the language is unique to this association. While it is true that some grown persons find study irksome and are unable to apply themselves to it, the majority, including some who cannot write their own names, are glad of the opportunity of acquiring the ability to read and write. These apply them- selves diligently to the tasks set before them. Beginning at the very foundation, they advance step by step, growing more and more interested during the gradual unfolding of their minds, until the close of the year. They are then able to read fairly well, write simple general and business letters, and make out bills. The results are very gratifying to teacher and pupils, who become quite proud of their accomplishments. A well equipped class-room is provided for their accommodation^ which is excluded from the inspection of visitors. Instruction in arithmetic and penmanship begins with a re- view of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and includes interest, percentage, profit and loss, partnerships, ex- change, discount, partial payments, etc., which are presented from a business stand-point. Penmanship is taught in a prac- tical manner, with a view of acquiring a good business hand. Written exercises in spelling, accompanied with exercises in oral definition, etc., are given in connection. In this class the students are prepared for the book keeping course. The fundamental principles of debit and credit are included in the book keeping course, with thorough drill in journalizing, posting, analysis of accounts, detecting errors in trial balances, short methods in interest, discount, multiplication, etc., rapid addition, and computations generally. A comprehensive under- standing of the system of double-entry books, required in dif- ferent kinds of wholesale and retail business, checks, drafts, notes, bills, invoices, receipts, etc., may be acquired in this class. Single entry is taught in its relation to double entry. Classes in Spanish, French, or German are formed when sufficient applications are received to form a class. The natu- ral method is employed, supplemented by all necessary gram- matical drills. Constant practice is given in conversation, read- ing, and writing. The stenography coarse is divided . into three grades. The elementary gives a thorough knowledge of the principles of phonography ; the intermediate embraces a thorough review and amplification of the previous grade, special attention being Digitized by Google

Page 538

1901.] The Catholic Women's Association. 505 given to word signs, together with systematic drills in con- tracted phrases, special forms, words of frequent use, out- lines peculiar to various lines of business, etc.; the ad- vanced includes systematic drills in writing from dicta- tion, businesscorrespondence, and general matter. The Pitman- Heffley system is used, but writ- ers of any sys- tem may enter the Tuesday and Friday evening speed classes. Instruction is given on the standard typewriting ma- chines, and covers graded exercises in words, com- mercial phrases, business correspondence, headings, titles, addresses, miscella- neous, mercantile and legal forms, testimony, specifica- tions, etc., special attention being paid to manifolding, mimeographing, letter press copying, and construction and care of machines. In both the stenography and typewriting classes short dictation exercises are given in spelling, composition, and punctuation. Ample accommodations and equipment for the fundamental vou lxxii.— 33 The Main Purpose is to help Young Wo- men TO HELP THEMSELVES. Digitized by Google

Page 539

So5 77/£ Catholic Women's Association. [Jan., principles of physical culture have been provided. General ex- ercises are given for the preservation of health, for energizing and strengthening the body, especially the vital organs, the movements being given in regular progression ; to correct bad habits of carriage, movement, and breathing ; to develop the heart, lungs, chest, neck, shoulders, etc.; to the strengthening and freeing of the muscles, resulting in conservation of nervous energy and grace of motion, and producing the healthful action of all functions of the body in the harmonious develop- ment of the whole. Students are expected to wear the regu- lation suit of the association, made of dark blue material, with white trimmings, made to escape the ground by nine inches. The Employment Bureau has not been developed to the desired extent, owing to lack of adequate space. Great care, however, has been exercised in making it as helpful as possi- ble, until the erection of the new building. It carefully inves- tigates references as to character, and endeavors to rectify any injustice which may be done to any one under its patronage. It has been largely successful in adjusting the wants of both mistress and maid. It is the intention to enlarge its scope to cover higher employment, in the way of finding positions, so far as is possible, for the graduates of the various courses given by the association. An exchange in charge of this Bureau was organized dur- ing the past year, and is open every Saturday afternoon, with members of the committee in attendance. It is designed to assist worthy women by selling for them such articles of their own manufacture as they may present for home or personal use or ornament. Biscuits, cakes, preserves, pastry, confectionery, and a variety of useful and fancy needlework form an attractive display when the exchange is open. Wednesday evenings are reserved exclusively for entertain- ments. The Entertainment Committee is untiring in invent- ing ingenious devices for the pleasure of its guests. It succeeds in brightening the lives of many young women, to whom these are " red-letter " nights, and their only diver- sion. On these occasions the house is decorated with flow- ers, ferns, and palms, which blend harmoniously with the colored lights, and form an artistic picture. Every second Wednesday is an "at home" night, when the girls are initiated in the mysteries of certain games which are both amusing and instructive, and also to impromptu singing, recitations, and instrumental music. At other times a set Digitized by Google

Page 540

I90i.] The Catholic Women's Association. 507 programme is provided in the form of a fine musicale, a reading, a lecture, or a progressive euchre, which is the most popular form of entertainment. Three fine prizes are awarded at each of these euchres, and are triumphantly carried off by the win- ners. Occasionally re- freshments are served. All the outside talent which has appeared be- fore the association has been cheerfully donat- ed. Once each year a progressive euchre is held at the Pouch Man- sion, for which tickets are sold to all members and friends throughout the diocese, and the ac- commodations of the house are usually taxed to the utmost. Over six hundred players generally take part in the games. The last was entitled "The New Century Euchre." Then, a large ,| sil- ver figure, representing the new century, was [awarded as the first of the one hundred prize* distributed. These festivities The Higher Branches are not neglected. Digitized by Google

Page 541

So8 The Catholic Women1 s Association. [Jan., are closed with a dance in the gallery, which is an entertain- ment in itself and much enjoyed. Once during the Lenten season a sacred concert is given. University Extension Centre. — During the past year the asso- ciation was incorporated under the University of the State of New York, and was made a University Extension Centre. The object of this new departure was to widen the influence of the association. It accommodated at once many teachers and others who applied for university courses. The initial work in this line was a course of thirty lectures on psychology, given last year under especially able management, which proved both beneficial and popular. About three hundred students were enrolled as members, the majority of whom were public- school teachers, some coming from the Borough of Manhattan. Their attendance marks and note-books were carefully exam- ined by the lecturer, and certificates granted to those who fulfilled the required conditions. All certificates issued by the association are recognized by the Board of Education of the City of New York. For the accommodation of all who may wish to benefit by them four courses of lectures are now in progress, and are con- ducted by lecturers of great skill in their respective lines. In the eastern section of Brooklyn there is a course in elementary psychology, and in the western section three courses : one in advanced psychology, one in literature, and one in Sacred Scripture. A full course in Sacred Scripture has never been offered before to the general public, and should be of great interest not only to the laity but to the clergy as well. The reverend president has received many grateful acknowl- edgments from those who have been benefited by this exten- sion work, which promises to grow rapidly in strength and usefulness. By entering this field of University Extension work the Catholic Women's Association has erected a platform from which the Catholic side of important subjects can be presented to the public. In lectures and in courses of lectures, given un- der non-Catholic auspices, the history, doctrines, and practices of the Church are being constantly misrepresented, and errors flagrant and hurtful are deliberately taught. Whether this hap- pens intentionally or not, the truth suffers and the people are misled. Generally the decision has gone against us by default. We have said nothing. The aim of this association is to handle Digitized by Google

Page 542

1901.] The Catholic Women's Association. 509 in its lecture courses practical subjects of vital importance, and thus to do its very best to spread the light. Although handi- capped by environ- ment in many re- spects, the work of the Catholic Women's As- sociation is steadily im- proving in character and extent. The num- ber of students regu. larly increases, and represents widely separated and remote districts of the city. There are at the pre- sent time attending its various classes ap- proximately six hun- dred and fifty pupils. While it is the only Catholic institution of its kind in the city, and was established mainly for the benefit of Catholic women and girls, it is non-sectarian in character, and numbers many Protestants on its membership rolls. Its spirit is truly Learning the Practical Arts. Digitized by Google

Page 543

Sorrow's Epiphany. [Jan., catholic in the broadest sense, and a feeling of universal brother, hood pervades all its actions. These helpful women extend the right hand of fellowship to both Catholic and Protestant with equal cordiality, in conformity with the maxims inculcated by the president, to whom this organization will stand as an object- lesson of his energetic and untiring zeal in promoting the wel- fare of his fellow man. Soi^ow's Gpiphany. {IN MEMORIA M. ) OLD for the King the Eastern monarchs gave, And Incense for the Priest; Myrrh for the Man to bear unto the grave When life and labor ceased. What can we give from hearts bereft of Her, To match our gifts with theirs? Oar love for Gold — our bitter tears for Myrrh, — For Frankincense, our prayers. Mary Blake Morse. litized by G00gle

Page 544

1901.] The Mother of John. 511 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. BY MARY SARSFIELD GILMORE. "Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. ... He shall be great before the Lord " (St. Luke i. ij). I. ^^^^BSTRT/' remarked John Graves, significantly, "is the flrJ^I H handmaid of religion." Wkm I (§§ His first visit to the studio of the woman B| IB| who, six years earlier, making her choice between ■^^^^BSb love and art, had deserted parents, lover, and the American home of her girlhood for the bohemian life of artistic Paris, was proving to him, in a spiritual sense at least, a startling disappointment. The studio itself was an ideal atelier — a spacious apparte* tnent illumined by a magnificent window commanding a view of the fairer part of Paris, including the distant Seine; and luxu- riously yet artistically appointed with rugs, tapestries, and divans de luxe, whose restful tints harmonized with the domes* tic suggestions of the Sfcvres chocolate-service arranged on a French gilt table, glittering on the hearth of an open fire. Castfe, reliefs, heads, figures, and torsos — replicas of famous works of art, as well as the original creations of modern mas- ters— were evident in profusion ; but no pictures were visible, save such as littered various easels, and jutted from bulging portfolios. Elizabeth Minton herself, however, made a living picture defying art's inanimate beauty to rival. She was a glowing brunette of splendid figure, with lustrous black eyes, vivid, sensitive lips, and an intense manner at once magnetic and charming, which Paris called •« dratnatique" At twenty- five the beautiful promise of her nineteenth year was fulfilled, not outgrown ; yet the faithful lover who still wished to make her his wife dared to look upon her, both as woman and art- ist, with reproachful eyes. Elizabeth's physical beauty had never been her hold upon him. It was the soul of the man that had claimed its mate : and now he was sadly asking him- self where Elizabeth's soul had fled ? Of her talent there could be no question ; of her application there was every proof; but her achievement seemed exclusively mundane in Digitized by Google

Page 545

512 The Mother of John. [Jan., suggestion, and what the American expressively called " too Paris-y 99 in type. In other words, the spiritual element was universally lacking in her paintings ; a morbid atmosphere of sensuous beauty unworthily usurping its place. John Graves, son of the people and "self-made" man of millions, was not an artist ; but the intuition of his soul told him that true art must be of God. Elizabeth's ideals had once been the same; and the great Leroi — her first French master — had striven to seal her to them ; but in an evil hour she had left him for the more popular Caveau, the romanticist of modern realism, the idealist of materialism, the refined sensualist of a school of art neither pure nor simple ; and her gamins and grisettes, her easled Venus and the beautiful, evil Circe, already half-boxed for Caveau's exhibit (known as the "foyer of the Salon9\ were the result. The inartistic but 'manly, moral specimen of Catholic and American manhood struggled vainly to conceal the shock that lack of spirituality in a woman inevitably gives the man who truly loves her. But the intuitive Elizabeth was not to be de- ceived by John Graves' silence. She flushed slowly, even as she shrugged her handsome shoulders in jaunty defiance of his orthodox ethics. Art the handmaid of religion, indeed 1 How Caveau would laugh, when she should tell him, — the fastidious, famous Caveau who, even while he complimented her upon the Madonna copied under Leroi, had made her weak faith falter, her human respect blush, as he subtly deplored that she, potentially a great artist of the realistic school, should be enslaved by the myths and superstitious traditions of effete priestcraft's book and bell ! " Art, the handmaid of religion ? " she derided, lightly- "Mais pas ainsi, cher ami! We have changed all that, — nous autres ! You — barbarian, Philistine, sauvage — do not understand ! You have not the artistic temperament. But to us of the brush and crayon art is religion ! Religious art, as you define it, is beautiful, yes ; could I be an artist, and not admire the ideal ? But it is old, my friend ; it has all been done to death : and we of the modern school seek the new, the living ! You would say that the pagan ideal is older, dead longer, than the Christian ? Cher mon ami, the resurrected is again new- born, and it is the human spirit of Circe that thrills the world to-day, rather than the diviner spirit of the Virgin and Mother. The spirit of the age is the realist's ideal. Therefore to us who march with the world my Circe is as pure, as holy, Digitized by Google

Page 546

1901.] The Mother of /ohn. 5i3 even as " religieuse" as the Madonnas you seek vainly ; inas- much as Circe is the truthful expression, reflection, symbol of the present age's ideal, which is not religion, but beauty : la beauU% the desire of man, the divinity of art ! " "My dear Elizabeth," retorted the practical American, •'do you not realize that you are talking utter nonsense, and worst of all, blasphemous nonsense ? Art is celestial only when it serves the Divine; serving the human, it is but a fallen Lucifer. You have great talent, even potential genius ; but the genius that grovels is a wingless lark, whose song grows hoarse and false, and finally silent, lacking the inspira- tion of its natal heavens. You used to be frank, even to a fault. Look me in the eyes now and tell me with the old honesty that your artistic ethics really satisfy your soul, exalt your life, make your heart happy, and I will leave you without a word ; but otherwise, I shall have serious things to say to you. Answer me, Elizabeth ! " The honest but wilful Elizabeth shifted her attitude in em- barrassed irritation, and looked impatiently toward the door ; wishing that Caveau, her autocrat, her idol, high-priest of art as Voltairean Paris worshipped it, would come to her relief. Nevertheless, she did not evade John Graves' stern question. " The 'satisfied soul/ " she said, " is an unfulfilled vision, my friend, the soul itself being — what? Infinite knowledge, assur- ance of immortality, are the desire of mortal humanity ; yet inevitable doubt and ignorance are its finite destiny. So much of your question is therefore answered negatively. 4 Is my ex- istence exalted by my artistic ethics ? ' Mon ami to be exaltte is not my tnttier! Non, then, I am not exalted by my art, but I fulfil myself in it ; which is the small dignity, the pale glory, the poor triumph of personal entity ! Is my heart happy ? Cher monsieur, you forget that I am artiste \ not woman. The girl you wooed and almost married had a heart, I suppose, and was both happy and unhappy. I am neither the one nor the other. Feminine negation is the marble from which the sexless artist is moulded. This is why the ideal life of woman, as you conceive it, is fatal to the artist. She must live human life in its fullest sense, yes ; but in dream, in sentiment, in the ex- perience of intuition only. The ideal is her birthright. If she sells it for the real, she is for ever art's Esau, staring forlorn- ly at the mess of pottage for which her heritage has been ex- changed." With a loud knock Caveau entered. Digitized by Google

Page 547

5*4 The Mother of John. [Jan, •t " Brava, mzdemoiselle" he cried, applauding his own sophisti- cal teachings, whose echo he had overheard as he approached the door. His tendresse for his beautiful and wealthy pupil and protegte was stimulated by the sight of the handsome, grave American, whom instinctively he knew to be a rival even more dangerous than the artist Leroi. Leroi had been van- quished ; the American would be even a prouder conquest. Caveau smiled in complacent anticipation. He was Parisien to his finger-tips, slender, sinuous, dark and dapper, superficially brilliant, a fin-de siMe fatalist, shrugging his shoulders at the inevitable, and laughing and feasting to-day, since to-morrow man dies! Elizabeth did not yet understand him; but John Graves, at first glance, comprehended the type of the good Leroi's unworthy successor, and rang the bell sharply for the attendance of Elizabeth's maid. Then he took abrupt leave, and turned his face towards Leroi's atelier. Even across the sea the reputation of Leroi, as man and artist, was established. That Elizabeth had made the mistake of her life in deserting him for Caveau, John Graves knew; yet it was characteristic of him that he did not doubt Elizabeth. He blamed the world- liness and irreligion of her frivolous mother, the indiscreet in- dulgence of her typically American father, who, lavishing all upon his only daughter, demanded no filial return ; blamed his own unselfish chivalry in freeing her when she had feigned to regret the initial bondage of affianced love — blamed most of all the godless, unscrupulous, evil Caveau! But blame for the culpable Elizabeth? Never! She was the woman he loved, and no suspicion was suffered to mar the ideal of his heart. A less noble man would have admitted, at least, that Elizabeth needed saving from herself. John Graves recognized only that he and Leroi, by the grace of God, must save her from Caveau ! Leroi was alone in his atelier, looking toward the spires of the Madeleine, when the resolute American knocked. He was a short, thick set, rugged-featured man with piercing yet intro- spective dark eyes, heavy black eyebrows, and a picturesque shock of wavy iron-gray hair. Both head and chin were mas* sive, his mouth and hand strong and fine. An immense can- vas, almost virginal in its freshness, was the central figure of the large, bare room. Its ascetic plainness was in striking contrast to the luxury of Elizabeth's studio. Moreover, her II.

Page 548

190 r.] The Mother of /oh at. SiS artistic negligi had been of lustreless amber silk girdled with garnets — chic% beautiful, artistic. Leroi wore a peasant's blouse spattered with paint — verily a " coat of many colors." At first sight he looked shabby, weary, old ; yet there was a pride and power about his shaggy leonine head, an exaltation of expres- sion about his seamed old face, that made him an impressive figure. As his eyes fell upon his unexpected visitor a sudden flash of enthusiasm transformed his ugliness to beauty. With brush still in hand, he sprang forward with all the impulsive agility of youth ; excitedly running his left hand through his hair till each gray curl stood out singly. "A type!" he ejaculated, audibly. " Head, shoulders, torso, all magnificent : a perfect human animal, a son of nature, a monarch primeval, yet with eyes and brow revealing soul and brain ! del, a miracle ! My model for whom I have prayed and vainly looked, for my 'Adam of the New Paradise/ Monsieur is from England — from America? Mais oui, from the America, of course : the Young World, cradle of Christian Anaks ! Permit me but a charcoal outline, as we talk. Merci, Monsieur. My Adam is mine ! And meantime, beau garfon, you seek Leroi for what ? " " For full and confidential information as to Miss Elizabeth Minton, an American formerly your pupil; now, I believe, a protegee of Caveau's," answered Graves, smiling indulgently at the erratic artist's enthusiasm. In truth, he was a handsome fellow, built strongly on splendid lines; big, lithe, powerful, yet characteristically reposeful ; fair rather than dark in coloring, with hair burned by many suns, and skin glowing with the freshness of the western winds. His features were strong, and sternly handsome ; his dark-lashed eyes chameleon in their gamut from hazel to brown, and his clear-cut face smooth-shaven. In the prime of his six-and thirty, years, the more youthful reserve that once had awed impulsive Elizabeth had matured to quiet dignity ; his natural sternness to the more tender gravity of earnest manhood, his pride of carriage to the unconscious assertion of mind over matter, of spirit scorning indulgence of mortal sense. But he had no vanity, and Leroi's outspoken admiration only amused him. He was unpleasantly surprised, however, when the old artist impetu- ously relinquished his scarcely outlined sketch, and faced him with indignant eyes. " Les demoiselles are sacred with Leroi," he stormed. "How dare you assume that I turn informer?" Digitized by Google

Page 549

5i6 The Mother of John. [Jan., " Because," explained Graves, calmly, " I have had the honor to be Miss Minton's affianced husband, and am at present the representative of her anxious parents. I respect your scruples. Monsieur Leroi, even as I shall respect your confidence. Is the bohemian life of artistic Paris conducive to Miss Minton's best welfare ? Is her present master, Caveau, a noble instructor, a chivalrous friend, a man of honor? Does her genius warrant the woman-price she is paying for it ? Only these questions I ask of you for the lady's own sake, monsieur." " Pardon, tnon fils" prayed Leroi, resuming his work. " Eh, bienl What will you — you mad Americans — when you send your young girls over here, lovely, innocent, ignorant ; cielf how ignorant of the French world, and sans la mbre, la tnon- daine ! The riches are in one sense a protection, out; but in another, the gravest danger. Mademoiselle is as innocent as she is beautiful; therefore, at present, her life harms her pas du tout, except that her soul has no place in it. As for her genius — genius wasted on woman is as the nectar of the gods poured into a leaky vessel. Genius of art is for man ; only the genius of love, as the wife and mother, for woman. I have known many a woman-genius, yes ; but mark me, either she betrayed it, or it broke her heart. La belle Elise has great talent, out; but Caveau has desecrated it. Genius soars up- ward always, reaching the divine as nearly as mortal can ; talent approximates genius only when it, too, strains heavenward. Caveau points talent downward. The earth, the flesh, the pas- sions— these are his ideals. Even genius does not survive them. The gift of la belle Elise is dead. Take her back to America, and marry her, monsieur. She is worthy you. Leroi has watched her. She is an angel walking the ways of men ; a lily blooming above the slime. Caveau has not yet dared to touch her hand, but he has bound her soul to earth, and stands between her and heaven. Monsieur has seen htr Salon- Circe' ? That is Caveau's work. Here is mine ! " He drew aside a curtain screening an easled picture. It was a copy of Carlo Dolce's 44 Madonna detta delle Stoffe," the Hand of whose Divine Infant points toward heaven. 44 This," announced Leroi, 44 is the chef d'ceuvre of la belle Elise — the work that incited Caveau to take her from me. Unknown to her, I bought it. If you marry, it shall be Leroi's gift to you deux / I myself sent her to Florence, to the Palazzo Pitti, to study the ideal of art in le petit //sus, show- Digitized by Google

Page 550

1901.] The Mother of John. 5i7 ing her that the Divine points upward, ever up ! But Caveau turned her brush down — down ! Mon Dieu, that a man could be so evil — an artist so blind, so sacrilegious ! Ciel, I cannot comprehend it, since art is but theology illustrated. Without the Divine, without religion, where were the great paintings, the immortal frescoes of the inspired masters? Regard the treasure-houses of art all over the world ; explore the churches and the galleries ; divest them of original and copied Giottos, Guidos, Angelicos, Da Vincis, Michael Angelos, Raphaels, Correggios, and all their supernal kind, and what were left but the husks of art? The monks and men who. sought their in- spiration at the morning-altar, and knelt as they worked, are the artists whose work survives. Note how even Rubens, when he humanized the spiritual, lost the divine touch. What is art to day, in the land of the heretic, the iconoclast ? Its school survives in Reynolds alone : and his triumphs ? Pah ! Human portraits and natural landscapes! Without inspiration, I tell you, Art is dead ; and inspiration is of the soul only. When la belle Elise painted this Madonna she aspired. Now she descends, and paints — Circes ! Monsieur, permit me to draw the curtain. It is the shroud of the artiste Elise; but the woman, by grace of God, is not yet dead. Marry her, monsieur. It will be her salvation." " She is not responsible," defended the loyal lover. " She is the daughter of a mixed marriage — of a godless father and a bad Catholic mother, who ended all religious training on the day of First Communion, and taught her young daughter by word and example that the world is the only god of beauty and youth. When she engaged herself to me — who have the blessing of being a Catholic, too, monsieur — I hoped it was the turning-point of her soul-life ; but she was young, and dreamed that art promised greater happiness than love; so I released her. It was my sin of weakness, not hers of unfaith, for she would have kept her plight had I insisted. If it is not too late to retrieve my mistake — " The mystic light of prophecy blazed in Leroi's eyes as he answered. "It is not too late," he asserted. " La belle Elise is more woman than artist. Leroi watched her eyes as she finished le petit Jtsus. Caveau has obscured her soul sight, but she will behold again virginity's maternal vision. Patience, mon filst and vocation will come to her. The way and means are le bon Dieus secret. Leroi's old eyes of faith see but the end ! " Digitized by Google

Page 551

5i« The Mother of John. [Jan., The men parted, friends for life. Neither suspected how speedily, or with what tidings, John Graves would return from his hotel to Leroi's studio. III. Caveau, meantime, had supervised the final packing of Elizabeth's Circe, and whispering to her to dismiss her maid, had turned upon her with a smile that was more satirical than congratulatory. " Last year," Jie said, " an honorable mention ! This year, a tnidaille — the Circe cannot miss it! But next year — what, mademoiselle? If the virtuous lover triumphs, a commonplace Madonna, skied and rejected, and 'the occupation of the artist gone ! " I do not understand," said Elizabeth, coldly. For the first time Caveau repelled her; impressing her as shallow, artificial, petty, ignoble, insincere. Contrasted with John Graves' recent presence, he stood revealed a morbid character, unwholesome, baleful, sinister. His smile had the menace of the basilisk, his eyes the greed of the vampire. She shrank intuitively from his personal approach. Hitherto he had been wise as the serpent, and kept his respectful distance. " Mademoiselle," he admitted, " I have a confession to make. I listened to the American's words. For the sake of the pupil, the master studies the influences swaying her. This is my ex- cuse. What I heard convinces me that between the barbarian American bourgeois and Caveau, Tartiste^ you must choose for ever. The American will make you the obscure, commonplace femme marie e ; I, the great, the famous, the idolized artist. Choose between us, mademoiselle. But in choosing art realize that you are not losing lamour, but gaining it. For the artist born, marriage is not love : it is fatal bondage only. You are too broad, too enlightened, to be the slave of religious creed. Be likewise brave and lofty enough to defy the cant of social gospels. Every law and obligation standing between the artist and perfect liberty, untrammelled freedom, imply the sacrifice of genius — and bourgeois marriage, mademoiselle, witli its despotic life long fetters, is inspiration's slow, sure, cruel death. But the spontaneous sentiment, la grande passion of the human heart, the artistic affinity, the ideal fealty, free yet faithful, is the life-flame of art and genius ! Mademoiselle understands ? " Even as he was speaking Elizabeth had risen haughtily. Digitized by Google

Page 552

1901.] The Mother of John^ 5 19 41 Alar for me, monsieur/' she replied, " that I should under- stand—so late!" Once more the little bell on the gilded table tinkled im- peratively. "Monsieur Caveau departs/' she said, gesturing the atten- dant to open the door. She was white to the lips, and her voice trembled; but the scorn of her eyes was eloquent. Caveau knew that he had staked all and lost. He bowed with mocking courtesy, ven- geance already raging in his words. " The Circe will be rejected/' he threatened. " The jury, the director himself, is in Caveau 's hands ! " She sank down trembling as the door closed upon him. She had idealized Caveau, and now that his unworthiness was revealed, his artistic tenets crumbled with him. The man and his art were equally depraved. Of a sudden she realized the baseness of the sophisms which she had thought art's pure philosophy. The Circes and sirens of this false prophet of realism, — how could she have preferred them to the Madonnas and the angels of the pure, good, spiritual Leroi? What mad- ness had confused her, that she had mistaken the clay for the porcelain, bartered the gold for the alloy? In her feverish ambition and youthful worldliness she had revolted against Leroi and his ideals, because they appealed to her soul only; but had Caveau's sensuous ethics satisfied her hungering woman-heart? Folly, pleasure, ambition, artistic absorption had hitherto blinded her to the subtle truth ; but now she recognized that not for one hour had her dreams been ful- filled, her desires satisfied. Looking back, she saw that she had been happier, infinitely happier with Leroi than with Caveau ; happier as the fiancte of John Graves than with either! What, then, had been her fundamental mistake? The suppression of her womanhood, which, in its pure and perfect development, included service both to God and man. She had failed both, for art ; and the bitter fruit of her disloyalties was upon her. Art and artist, in their turn, were failing her! As a knock sounded on her door, prefacing the readmit- tance of John Graves, followed by Leroi, who had not once entered her studio since she had deserted him for Caveau, she rose from her unhappy meditation in embarrassed surprise. Now that Caveau had betrayed himself, Elizabeth was vividly realizing that her choice between him and Leroi had been the choice of the farthing rushlight in preference to the star ! Her Digitized by Google

Page 553

520 The Mother of John. [Jan, ambition revealed itself as an unworthy, degraded thing, the failure of which had been far more honorable than success. It was in her heart to throar herself at Leroi's feet and plead with him to take her back, not only for his artistic but also for his ethical teaching, when the gravity of the men thrilled her heart with sudden terror. Why were their eyes so pitiful, their silent lips so pallid? Why had Leroi returned with John Graves? There was a mystery — a mystery of sorrow concern- ing her. Instinctively she knew that the unexpected had hap- pened, and ingenuously ascribed it to the revengeful Caveau. " You — you have something to tell me. What is it ? " she faltered. " If it relates to Monsieur Caveau, do me the honor to believe that I — that I have been mistaken in him ! In future he is a stranger to me. If Monsieur Leroi could but forgive me — " The men exchanged intelligent glances of mingled resent- ment and thmksgiving. That Caveau had betrayed himself, was an insult to Elizabeth ; but that Elizabeth was disillusion- ized, was a mercy well worth its cost. Leroi left his response to John Graves, who ignored the subject of Caveau. He took Elizabeth's hand in his, and held it as he answered. " I have news for you, Elizabeth," he said ; " bad news, which an hour ago I little thought to bring you. I went from here to this good Monsieur Leroi's, dear. He has nothing to forgive. He loves and honors you. When — grateful for his beautiful, true words of you — I left him, I returned to my hotel. A cablegram awaited me. It was from your father. Are you brave enough to read it, Elizabeth? Remember, dear, that one and all alike pass onward; that love is eternal; death, resurrection ; heaven, reunion. Remember that our communion of saints keep3 soul in touch with soul, even heart with heart, in spite of the grave dividing! Faith is the victor of death — the divine faith that is your sacred heritage ! Can you bear my news of sorrow, Elizabeth?" "Mother is dead!" she droned, dully. "Mother is dead!" Without a word he passed her the cablegram. " Break to Elizabeth that her mother is dying. Sail by first steamer. {Signed) Paul MlNTON." "A fast steamer sails to-m3rroar, Elizabeth," he continued, as she stared blankly at the message. " We may yet be in time, if you can leave Paris by the midnight express. Mon- sieur Leroi, I am sure, will be responsible for the safety of Digitized by Google

Page 554

1901.] The Mother of John. 521 your paintings. Will you trust all to him and, with your maid, leave Paris to-night?" "Dying!" she echoed; "dying?" She cast a glance about her at her glowing canvases. How they jarred against the thought of death— these beautiful, luring, sensuous figures boasting- no hint of soul or immortality, offering no human tribute to the Divine! Leroi, sympathetically comprehending, her eloquent shudder, went to the farthest easel. Against it was propped a huge old portfolio that he recognized. He emptied its contents, revealing the studies of Elizabeth's earlier student life — defective in drawing, false in color, lacking la toche for which, under Caveau, she was becoming famous ; but one and all vital with the spiritual inspiration pure from true art s source— the soul. Her angels had their celestial messages, her Virgins were beautiful with the beauty of purity inspiring emulation, her Infants exalted the human to the Divine! Leroi pointed to them, and then to her later work, with an appealing gesture rendering superfluous the words that swiftly followed it. " These only are yours," he said. " The others are Caveau's. Let me burn them with the Circe that Caveau will now reject, and suffer that I forward only the good, the true, the pure, the noble, to represent your innocent youth, your holy art, even Notre Dames good Paris! Le bon Dieu will bless the holocaust, ma filled "It is a good thought," approved John Graves. "The pupil surely may trust the master. The fittest will survive!" IV. Elizabeth never forgot the tempestuous voyage homeward. The storm at sea, with its war of wind and waves, was a placid calm contrasted with the passionate tumult of her own heart. A wrecked past, a stormy present, an unrevealed future, alike encompassed and threatened her bark of life. Whither was she drifting? She did not know. She knew only that her youth's fair fleet, her ships of art, were burning luridly behind her ! John Graves kept a reverent distance. Always within call, yet he asserted his presence only when her maid summoned him to Elizabeth's side, to answer some pathetic question. Had her mother missed her ? Did he think her presence might have prolonged the maternal life ? What was the sudden, fatal, mysterious disease? Why had she not been warned of the coming sorrow? Did he think she would be in time to stand vol. lxxii.— 34 Digitized by Google

Page 555

522 The Mother of John. [Jan., by the dying, rather than by the death-bed? Could not the captain, the crew, be bribed by unstinted gold to sail the steamer faster? — and so on and on and on, in illogical woman- way, infinitely touching to her lover's tender heart, aching in its impotence to comfort her. His love expressed itself but once — on the last night of the •voyage, when land was in sight and Elizabeth's suspense virtu- ally ended. Then he spoke to her frankly, manfully, earnestly ; telling her that his faith and love had never wavered, that his suit was the same as when she had done him the honor of accepting it, six years earlier ; that her change of mind had been her privilege, which he had never resented but only re- gretted with lonely pain of heart ; and that the artistic woman Elizabeth was even dearer and fairer to him than had been the dear, fair, ambitious, fickle girl. He reminded her that art had already dealt her its sting, revealed its disillusion ; that its Lerois were few and its Caveaux many, and that the artist as well as the woman must always find a husband's love and pro- tection sweet. He spoke of the real significance and issues of life, revealed by the shadowed light of the death-bed tapers ; mocking all ambitions, ideals, and service that were not based upon the supernal destiny of man. Then, without waiting for .her answer, he left her. Perhaps it was the best method he could have taken with defiant Elizabeth. The mystery of the skies and winds, the immensity and majesty and loneliness of mighty ocean, humble mortal pride more effectively than any eloquence of human words. With the awful solitude of the vast sea awing her, the calm stars arraigning her, she recog- nized her puny life as the atom of creation it was, its human means dignified alone and only by its service of Divine ends; or, if not by them, then, as Caveau would have told her, by nothing ! Which were the grander, nobler, more lofty and pro- gressive teachings: Caveau's, of negative materialism, or Leroi's and John Graves', of spiritual immortality, to which her soul, once vivified by sacramental grace, strived feebly to respond ? She shrank from the sole answer. The revelations of God were startling her. They seemed to have dawned upon her so sharply and suddenly. Elizabeth forgot that God had waited long ! Her father's messenger had come on the tug, her father himself awaited her on the pier. His good-looking, florid, complacent face looked strangely worn and haggard. By a miracle of maternal will her mother still lived, refusing to die Digitized by Google

Page 556

1901.] The Mother of John. 523 until she had seen Elizabeth. Reaching the sumptuous house, sombre now with its darkened windows and muffled bells, Elizabeth sped to her mother's bedside. The nurse, and a priest recognized by Elizabeth as the confessor of her youth, were in attendance. He had grown gray since the years in which he had warned her that her special temptations were worldly pride and ambition ; but age had beautified him, as years beautify only when they lead the soul toward heaven. His face had the lustrous pallor of the spiritual man who mortifies the flesh. Its expression was one of chastened sweet- ness, as if the storm-clouds of life were already revealing their silver lining. His gentle eyes, however, were sad and pitiful as they turned to the dying woman. In spite of the Last Sac- raments, her death bed was not a peaceful one. Too late re- morse tortured the unfaithful Catholic. She had been absolved from her own sins, indeed; but what of the potential sins of her daughter, for which she was mainly responsible ? After the first greetings, the nurse retired ; but, at a ges- ture from Mrs. Minton, the priest remained. He stood with his hand on the shoulder of the grieving husband. Paul Min- ton was a man without bigotry or malice, irreligious through ignorance, rather than by deliberate choice. The priest, know- ing the potency of death's great lesson, foresaw that his con- version was at hand. " Elizabeth ! " moaned the repentant mother. Her face, wan with pain, framed in hair gray only since her illness, her at- tenuated hands plucking at the silver coverlet, made a pathetic picture blinding Elizabeth's eyes with sudden tears. " Eliza- beth, I have much to say to you. I have prayed that I might live to say it. If you will not heed me, your soul and mine are lost together. I want to tell you that I have been a bad mother to you, a bad wife to your father: the worst of wives and mothers, since I, already a Catholic, was entrusted with your souls. Did I lead them toward the light of faith ? No ! Instead, I led them from it. Wealth and worldliness, earthly ambitions and social fashion — these were the idols I encouraged you to serve. * What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? ' I warn you, I who die to night, that it profits nothing, nothing ! I have lived not for God, not for husband, not for child, but for the world ; and now that my last hour comes, how am I the gainer? The world shared my feasts, but where is it for my death watch ? It revels while I, its slave and sycophant, suffer and die ! It is a terri- ble thing to die when life has been wasted, and the woman- Digitized by Google

Page 557

524 The Mother of John. [Jan., life wasted has less excuse than the man's! Elizabeth, daugh- ter, remember— the mission of Catholic womanhood — of wife- hood— motherhood — " A gurgling sob choked her last human utterance. As she fell back exhausted, the priest made the sign of the cross on her pallid forehead. The nurse, accompanied by the doctor, emerged from the inner room. *' There is no danger of the end at present," announced the doctor, after a brief examination ; " and in her present intense- ly nervous condition solitude will do more than opiates to restore her peace. Let all save the nurse take a few hours of rest, at least until my return, between midnight and dawn. In frankness, I must insist upon your absence, solely, of course, for my suffering patient's sake." "Rest!" scorned Elizabeth, sobbing bitterly as her father drew her from the room. The priest, after a whispered con- ference with the doctor, followed them. " If you will not try to rest just yet, my daughter," he sug- gested, "would it not be a holy thought to watch before the Blessed Sacrament, for the departing soul? To-night's beauti- ful services carry a special blessing with them ; and none of us will be on earth to assist at the birth-Mass of another century. Moreover, the walk to the church will refresh you." Elizabeth, who was still in the street-toilette in which she had arrived, assented mechanically ; her father following her with a curious sense of sudden helplessness, of submission to some power invisibly asserted, yet which he was impotent to resist. Reaching the crovded church, he hesitated in surprise that Elizabeth should care to enter ; but at a word from the priest, who parted from them at the door, an usher beckoned her toward a reserved pew, and he had no choice but to follow her. A strange awe stole into his heart as his roving eyes discovered John Graves, kneeling beside an alcoved confession- al. He admired the clear-brained, clean-lived, successful man of millions, and his first impression of incongruity at seeing him about to confess his sins to a fellow-man gradually softened to a mystified wonder, to a perplexity born of a supernatural glimmer of grace and light. What if John Graves were right? he pondered, as the ser- vice proceeded. What if the surpliced priest in the pulpit were indeed the apostolic exponent of Christ's divine truth? What if the White Mystery on the altar were truly the Bread of Life? What if, as the old century died and the new cen- tury began, the Miserere and Te Deutn of the choir voiced the Digitized by Google

Page 558

1901.] The Mother of John. 525 sentiments due from creature to Creator, from human man to God? His thoughts returned to the bed of death behind him — to the woman born and bred to spiritual convictions, but who had lacked the courage of them ; and whose last conscious words had been of bitter remorse — haunting words which must ring in his memory for ever, and seemed even now to challenge his soul to choose between unrest and peace. He chafed against the coercion of choice so suddenly overwhelming him ; and with a man's instinctive effort to rid himself of pain rose suddenly, and with a murmured, unheeded word to Elizabeth, left the church. Nevertheless, the grace of God followed and in due time vanquished him. Such was the good divinely wrought by a penitent sinner's death. Elizabeth sat staring fixedly before her, — deaf to the sonor- ous music, the splendid sermon ; blind to the altar-lights flash- ing before her introspective eyes. She was face to face with her guilty conscience, revealed to her at first by her disillu- sion regarding Caveau and his ethics, and now again, clearly and finally, by her mother's remorseful death-words. Her self- ish ambition, her mother's worldliness — were not both kindred mistaken ideals : false standards, profitless service, leading to identical ends? She could not evade death. Did she wish, then, to die as her mother was~ dying? Her soul shuddered its negative to the question. The logical alternative faced her. Its unfamiliarity no longer startled her; her week of revela- tion had accustomed her to the Divine Vision. When false gods crumble, the true God always beckons. Unconsciously Elizabeth responded when, as the services ended, she made her way to the chancel shrining the Christmas Crib. It was a beautiful Crib, an imported work of art, realisti- cally representing not only the Holy Family but also the Kings and Shepherds, the singing Angels, the Christmas Star. But, to the exclusion of all the rest, two figures held Eliza- beth's gaze ; the Virgin and Infant — the Mother and Child. Why did they alone allure her eyes? What was their message for her? Only the message of perfected womanhood, had Elizabeth known it; but her travailing soul still groped in semi- darkness; yet, little by little, it was infused with mystic peace. The Virgin, type of innocence and purity, yet crowned as woman by her holy maternity ; the new-born Christ-Child, in- carnation of immortality — at once the prophecy and fulfilment, the promise and destiny of the universal human world ; — what was their lesson for her, as artist and woman ? That art was well, yes, and a beautiful means to Divine ends; but not, as Digitized by Google

Page 559

526 The Mother of John. [Jan., she had maintained, in itself an end more vital than human duty, and love, and life. No! She had erred in holding it her exclusive service; erred in confounding the mocking "im- mortality" of mortal art with humanity's dream and desire for eternal life; erred, above all, in dreaming the art-life, even at its purest and highest, so potentially selfish in essence as to mike the individual personal achievement all ; the proxical, nothing! Was not womanhood's art by nature transmissive, whether maternally in the flesh, or prolific spiritually, project- ing its ideal thought, communicating its inspired word, diffus- ing its pure and beautiful deeds for the good of the world? — surely a mission to humanity present and future, infinitely wider than the self-centred life can ever fulfil! What was the artistic patois of the ateliers to the word of tenderness by which normal womanhood gives cheer to the child, sympathy to her sister woman, and strength to the youth and man to endure and resist the wounds and temptations of life? Poor Elizabeth began to realize how selfishly she had failed woman's general vocation. The revelation of her individual vocation was yet to come! She was startled from her reverie by the voice of the priest. He was telling her that midnight Mass would soon fol- low, and that when it was ended he would return to the bed of death. Reading aright th.e spiritual emotion of her face, his heart thanked God for it. " Before the altar, my daughter, let me wish you a ' Happy New Year,'" he whispered, "even though it seems to dawn in grief. Happiness of spirit, which is the only true happiness, inevitably comes through the cross. Your mother reaches heaven through the darkness of death. Beyond your own tears light is shining. It will guide you to the tribunal of peace. God bless you ! " Elizabeth bowed her head to hide her tears. The priestly benediction touched not only her soul but her heart; — her woman heart so long suppressed and flouted, now straining tovard the light he prophesied, light still invisible, yet sensi- bly discerned. Hints of prophecy— foreshadowings of the future when revealed vocation should be fulfilled and consummated — seemed to subjugate incredibly the art which until so recently she had served with all her life. Tne Eye3 of the Virgin-Mother revealed to her their WD n in secrets. Feminine genius was an attribute, a grace, a gift, indeed ; but not to be mistaken for the just usurper of woman's natural vocation. The single essential fundamental Digitized by Google

Page 560

I90i.] The Mother of John. 527 and crowning characteristic of ideal womanhood was— purity : the ttfunph of purity, — the holy maternity of sacramental marriage, or the spiritual motherhood of beautiful virginity, maternal-hearted to all the world ! Was the artist less be- cause she was also woman? Was art necessarily of the brush and chisel, the pen and instrument only ? No ! The highest genius was vision of soul, sentiment of heart, dream of intellect, high, pure, and spiritual ; transmitted from godly generation to generation by the ordinary vocation of active womanhood, as well as by artistic consecration ; and immortal only as help- ing heavenward the God-created, God-reflectipg, and therefore deathless human soul ! She gazed upon the Mother who bore the Light of the world — the Divine Artist, whose original creations the highest human art but faintly and lifelessly reflects. Then her thoughts reverted to another woman and mother, whose saintly name she unworthily bore — the Elizabeth who had borne not the Light, but the John who gave testimony to the Light ! After Mary's, was not Elizabeth's the greatest of woman vocations ? Yes, her awakened soul and heart acknowledged it ; but John and Elizabeth, like Christ and Mary, were of the beautiful past. Ah ! but were they ? The memory of the pure-faced priest who had recently wished her a Happy New Year sud- denly flashed before her. He who served the altar gave testi- mony to the Light! Generation after generation of such Johns were behind as before him, mothered in nature or in spirit by daughters of " the blessed among women/' alike the model of the virginal and maternal state ! While the Light abided, even unto the end of the world, the testimony of John would be needed. Then what grander ideal could womanhood hold, even art's Elizabeths, than the moulding in the Divine image, for the Divine service, of a man-child's immortal soul? "Are you ready, Elizabeth?" queried John Graves, as the midnight Mass ended. She lifted a face he scarcely recognized, so radiant was it with happy prophecy behind its mask of tears. Before the church door her maid and carriage awaited her; but emerging from the deserted vestibule into the light of the stars of the New Century, Elizabeth whispered her inspired answer. " Yes, I am ready, John," she confessed softly. " God bless you, dear ! " he responded reverently. By the intuition of love the holy, he understood. Digitized by Google

Page 561

528 A New Year. [Jan. p Hew yEAi^. Across the lonely tfalleys, wtyte With snoW, 55 They who are Waiting hear faint trumpets blow. Th en in the darkless, thro' the awful night, There corses ar\ angel, heralding the light. And some there be vj\\o dread to take her f]and, She who comes forth from out an alien land. But wtyte, © white, are all the long highways, *hr\d white for us may be the coming days. Charles Hanson Towne. Digitized by Google

Page 562

i. Aiken: The D ham ma of Gotama the Buddha; 2. Bou- gaud : Divinity of Christ; 3. Lechner : St. Benedict; 4. Brad- ford: Return to Christ; 5. Donnelly: Sister Mary Gonzaga Grace; 6. Ward: Eleanor; 7. Crawford: Rulers of the South; 0 8. Conway: Way of the World; 9. Henry: Princess of A ready ; 10. Finn: His First and Last Appearance ; 11. Eagan : Guy's Fortune; 12. Janss-n: History of the German People ; 13. Guggenberger : Gen- eral History of the Christian Era ; 14. Devos : Three Ages of Progress ; 15. Lee : Life and Work of Shaktspeare. Notable among new publications is a dissertation * pre- sented to the Catholic University of America by a candidate for the degree of Doctor in Sacred Theology. That it has been accepted by the University faculty as satisfactory, is a guarantee that the work displays scholarly research and original thought. Beyond his academic success the author is to be congratulated on having produced a useful and timely contri- bution to Christian apologetics. Modern unbelief, which has shown such persistent energy in scouring every field of human thought and action for wea- pons wherewith to injure the claims to a supernatural origin advanced by Christianity, has not neglected to look for evidences that might show the religion of Christ to be but a new com- bination of elements found in ancient Oriental religions. With this purpose some writers have addressed themselves to Bud- dhism, which seemed to invite the judicious investigator with a promise of rich results. Ransacking the vast accumulations of Buddhistic literature from China to Ceylon, and pressing into their service monuments of widely divided ages, neglecting the most elementary rules of literary and historical criticism, some of these inquirers have collected data which, when skilfully arranged, make a mosaic that bears a startling resemblance to Christianity. And since Buddhism is older than Christianity, we are asked to accept as an irresistible inference the state- ment that Christianity is largely indebted to Buddhism. * The Dhamma 0/ Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of fesus the Christ, By the Rev. Charles Francis Aiken, S.T.D. Boston : Marlier & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 563

530 Talk about New Books. [Jan., The most important and fundamental assertion in this charge against Christianity is that the Evangelists in relating the history and teachings of our Lord have, consciously or uncon- sciously, borrowed largely from Buddhistic doctrine and tradi- tion. Father Aiken's purpose is to demonstrate the untenable character of the grounds upon which the three chief advocates of this view, Von Bunsen, Seydel, and Arthur Lillie, have rested their arguments. The book is divided into three parts: Part I., The Ante- cedents of Buddhism — Brahmanism ; Part II., Buddhism: Part III., The alleged relations of Buddhism with Christianity. The last part, then, in which the author directly deals with his thesis, is the essential portion of the work. Indeed, it might withDut much injury be detached from the foregoing parts al- together ; and if this were done we should have in it all that is valuable in the book as a Christian apologetic. Of course it was imperative on Father Aiken to premise some account of Buddhism, which involved a reference to Brahmanism. But unless the exigencies of academic rules called for expansion of the dissertation to a certain number of pages, the introduction might have been greatly condensed. The work would have thereby possessed more symmetry ; for there seems to be a lack of proportion when over one hundred and fifty pages are given to the introduction, while the essential portion occupies only about one hundred and thirty. The third part begins with a survey of the works of Von Bunsen, Seydel, and Lillie; it proceeds to examine the resem- blances and alleged resemblances of the Buddhistic religion or philosophy to the Gsspels. Father Aiken classifies these alleged resemblances under three heads: Exaggerations of actual re- semblances ; Anachronisms ; Fictitious resemblances. It is in dealing with the second class that Father Aiken displays a thorough spirit of historical criticism, and draws most happily on the eminent authorities upon whom he relies, such as Oldenberg, Tourner, Hardy Fergusson, and many others. The value of the controversial portion is enhanced by the fact that the author has not advanced against his opponents any interpretations, theories, or conclusions of his own. He rests upon the authority of scholars and scientific experts of acknowledged standing. The reader, therefore, is not troubled with any unsatisfactory wrangling over Sanscrit texts, obscure points of archaeology, or interminable philological discussions. Instead of advancing views which, however just, would be only his own, Father Aiken usually focuses on the weak points of Digitized by Google

Page 564

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 53i an opponent's arguments the adverse testimony of several eminent scholars. Certainly it may be objected to this method that in disposing of a controverted point by an appeal to authorities, an author is exposed to the temptation of assum- ing that when authorities differ, the preponderant weight lies in the one wrose views best serve his own purpose. And it might be urged, too, that when some of the scholars whom he cites are found in opposition to htm, Father Aiken does not show to their authority the same deference which he pays to them when they are on his own side. Many readers will probably be disappointed in not finding in these pages any adequate setting forth of the immeasurable superiority of Christianity to Buddhism. In his preface, how- ever, Father Aiken apDlogizes for the absence of this feature. » He reminds us that all those Protestant writers who have vindicated the independent origin of Christianity against Bud- dhistic usurpation have dwelt too largely on the superiority of Christian teaching, and have not adequately treated the matter which he has taken up. Consequently Father Aiken, to use his own words, contents himself with a brief exposition of the inferiority of Buddhism to the religion of Christ. Notwith- standing this explanation, however, Catholics will regret that Father Aiken has not taken advantage of his opportunity to show the internal stamp of divinity in the religion of Christ, and to do so by identifying the religion of Christ, on both its intellectual and ethical side, with Catholicity. Considering the present trend of thought among non-Catholic Christians, there is but little to be gained by the Catholic apologist in represent- ing the religion of Christ in an outline which might be called the greatest common denominator of Catholicity and Protest- antism. We should have gladly seen a goodly number of the pages devoted to the exposition of Brahmanism reserved for an adequate presentation of Her who vera incessu patuit Dea. The reader will find that the work represents a very wide course of study over all the fields involved in the question at issue, together with genuine p^wer of discrimination of histori- cal values, as well as much deep thinking to bring the knowl- edge acquired to bear upon the problem in hand. And no impartial reader, having studied its arguments, can close Father Aiken's book without being satisfied that the author has suc- cessfully accomplished the task which he proposed to himself. A very extensive and carefully classified bibliography appended to the volume will be much appreciated by all who find an interest in the study of Buddhism. Digitized by Google

Page 565

532 Talk about New Books. [Jan., It is the constantly repeated testimony of those who are following the movement of religious thought that the sects are losing hold of all dogmas, even of the very central dogma of Christianity, the divinity of Jesus Christ. In some cases it meets with flat rejection, in others it is so modified and minim- ized as to be no longer recognizable as the primitive teach- ing that Christ is in truth and in a unique sense the Son of God. We welcome, therefore, the new and very acceptable exposition * of the argument in favor of the old and true dogma. It is the first English translation of part of the sec- ond volume of Monseigneur Bougaud's celebrated work, Le Christianisme et les Temps presents. Monseigneur Bougaud's method in this as in all his apologetical works is simply to throw into attractive and readable form the accurate teaching of pure Christianity, since he believes, with the wisest of our modern apologists, that there is nowadays "much more ignor- ance of truth than intelligent antagonism to it." In the pres- ent work he attempts to accommodate his argument to the minds of modern readers, making use of their acknowledg- ment of the sublime and spotless humanity of Christ to bring them to the confession of his divinity. The argument, in brief, is this: Jesus Christ, on the admission of all candid stu- dents of His character, was the noblest mind, the most loving heart, the most perfect soul that history has to show, "a Being more than human." That granted as the groundwork of argument, it is shown that if he be such, he must be a " true speaker," and his own testimony concerning himself must be accepted. His own testimony is then shown to be that he is God ; it is accepted, has been accepted and acted upon in all the Christian centuries ; it has provoked alike the most vehe- ment and self-sacrificing love, and, on the other hand, the most fanatical hatred of which the human heart is capable, and amid all the vicissitudes of religious thought it ever holds its own 30 persistently and so successfully that unless it be true, all Christianity and all Christian history is inexplicable. Of course the argument is the standard and venerable one of Catholic theology, but with the help of Monseigneur Bougaud's devotional and oratorical style it takes a new aspect and re- ceives a new force. Hence we would gladly see the book in the hands alike of those who know the truth and of those who seek it. The * The Divinity 0/ Christ : An Argununt. Translated from the French of Monseigneur £mile Bougaud by C. L. Currie. New York : William H. Young & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 566

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 533 thought of compiling and translating it was a happy one, and it has been excellently carried out by translator, by editor, and by publisher. The translation of Father Lechner's bDok* nearly a half century after the publication of the original is another sign of the recently revived interest in everything Benedictine. The translation made some time ago of the second book of St. Gregory's Dialogues really furnished English readers with al- most all the knowledge obtainable upon the patriarch of wes- tern monasticism. And the Abbot Tosti's much-praised work of a few years ago supplied a sufficiently scientific study of the epoch in question to meet all requirements. Still, the loving daughters of St. Benedict in England have done well to bring before us this simple and devotional account of their great father. It does not pretend to a critical character, and aims rather at exciting devotion than at settling historical questions. The translation is a free one, smooth and pleasant. Two or three appendices are added, including a chronological table which will be a great convenience to readers not thoroughly well acquainted with the course of history of the fifth and sixth centuries. Dr. Bradford's new volume \ makes no pretence of being a scientific work. We may regard it, perhaps, as a set of dis- courses based upon his general impression of current religious beliefs. He writes smoothly, indeed, and pleasantly, but any reader unacquainted with actual conditions will derive a false impression from the book, owing to its author's failure to make one or two very obvious distinctions. First, Dr. Bradford should have remarked that he excludes from consideration the doctrines and the members of the Catholic Church; for we presume he recognizes the fact that he really pays no attention to this portion of Christendom. If it is his intention to include Catholics in his phrase " the church," he has perpetrated blunders innumerable. Taking for granted, then, that the writer is speaking only of the non-Catholic world, we still insist on a further distinc- tion. If " return to Christ " means increase of affection and devotion towards our Blessed Saviour, such increase may safely be predicated of those earnest Protestants who have emanci- * The Life and Times of St. Benedict. Abridged and arranged by O. S. B. from the German of the Very Rev. Peter Lechner. New York : Renziger Bros. t The Return to Christ. By Amory H. Bradford. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co Digitized by Google

Page 567

534 Talk about New Books. Dan., pated themselves from the distorted notions of Calvin istic an- cestors. But to the religious leaders of Protestantism we can attribute no other effort toward a " return to Christ " than a curiously unfair cross-examination of all his highest claims. In what sense the Protestant " Church " is returning to Christ may be seen by any one who cares to read an article on the subject published in the American Ecclesiastical Review of Octo- ber, 1900, and reprinted in great part in the Literary Digest of November 10. Dr. Bradford is earnest and means well. But he cites Ritschl as an evidence of a " return to Christ 99 ! Let Dr. Bradford's readers turn to the latest encyclical of Leo XIII., and they will find in it a very different conception of what is meant by loyalty to Jesus. If it be as widely spread as it de- serves, the latter publication will succeed in accomplishing all the good results unattained and unattainable by books like that before us. Its interest lies chiefly in its striking manifes- tation of the deplorable weakness of latter-day Protestantism. Never was it more evident than it is to-day that there is but one Church of Jesus Christ. This first principle established, and it will not take long to decide which of the claimants is indeed genuine. The life of a Sister of Charity, whatever may be its cir- cumstances, scarcely needs any idealizing to make attractive reading. But when the life is that of such a devoted and saintly servant of God as the subject of this memoir,* and its circumstances include such heroic work as hospital service in the bloody times of the Civil War, and when, finally, the writer of such a life has the literary skill of Eleanor Donnelly, it must be invested with inevitable attractiveness. We venture to say that no one who takes up this work with such expecta- tions will be disappointed. The charitably inclined will be glad to know that the proceeds of the book are to be devoted to the interests of the orphans of St. Joseph's Asylum, the scene of the chief work of the saintly woman of whose life it tells. It has been generally allowed that Mrs. Ward's latest workf is her best. Here and there some one has censured a defect or two, but on the whole the book has met with a wtl- * L>fe of Sister Mary Gonzaga Grace \ of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: H. L. Kilner & Co. t Eleanor. By Mrs. Humphrey Ward. New York : Harper Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 568

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 535 come that must be very grateful to the author. One easily perceives that she has worked carefully upon it, and that, like most of her writings, it embodies ideas cherished very fondly by her. True, now and again she slips into a poor sentence, but these slight defects are more than counterbalanced by abundance of beautifully vivid description, by strongly dra- matic touches, and by passages full of pathos. The author knows her people and her scenery well, and her pages are deeply enough imbued with the flavor of Italian landscapes and southern skies to powerfully charm the many readers who retain remembrances of the places described. What there is of plot in the volume may be easily told. Edward Manisty in writing a book on modern Italy has en- gaged as a collaborator his widowed cousin, the charming and intellectual Eleanor. The latter is gradually winning her way to his heart when Lucy Forster, an American girl, intrudes into their quiet life, and finally brings Manisty to her own feet. The study of Eleanor during this time is the motif of the writer. Indifference, suspicion, resentment, and jealousy succeed one another in the older woman's soul as she perceives her young companion's victory. Then comes the outbreak of a violent nature hitherto self-restrained, then passionate plead- ing, miserable surrender to selfishness, and a final struggle that ends in complete renunciation. Though the pictures are mas- terful, the writer seems sometimes to secure them at the ex- pense of probability. Still, as a study in feminine psychology the book certainly deserves high praise. Less can be said for its presentation of historical and re- ligious issues. Catholic reviewers, however, who criticise Mrs. Ward with considerable bitterness for her portrayal of the re- lations of church and state in Italy are wrong. She has un- doubtedly done her best. If frequently she produces the im- pression of unfairness and hostility to Catholicism, that is by reason of her very natural tendency to judge things from the stand point of her own religious views. She misrepresents only because she misunderstands. Rationalistic and superficial in her theology, she cannot be in a position to appreciate facts as those do who are possessed of a faith that sees deep into the life of things. Thus, quite unconsciously no doubt, she neglects the most subtile and spiritual elements of the situa- tion she attempts to describe. This perhaps explains also the reason why Father Benecke is so decided a failure, and why the turning point of Eleanor's career is so unsatisfactorily Digitized by Google

Page 569

536 Talk about New Books. [Jan., represented. Mrs. Ward with all her cleverness, her learning, and her art, is unable to guess what would happen in the soul of a priest placed in a situation similar to Father Benecke's; she is equally unable to depict with any vividness how an Eleanor would react under sudden deep religious influences. As to Mrs. Ward's views of '* Modern Italy," we were pre- pared for sweeping statements; but really she must not ask her readers to believe that all the intelligent and progressive minds in Italy are in either open or secret sympathy with the government, that priestcraft is the one great obstacle to the construction of a " United Italy " worthy of place among the powers of Europe, and that, overlooking a few official blunders, one might summarily describe the incidents of recent Italian history as noble and romantic efforts of a patriotic race to throw off an oppressive yoke. Indeed, if the Catholic authorities really have so much to answer for as she inti- mates, it seems terribly and wantonly unfair to burden them further with the intolerable incubus of a champion like Man- is ty — narrow, fanatical, vacillating, and irreligious. Mrs. Ward may see in Catholicism only the perfection of a well-organized, close monopoly ; but there is more. She may summon lofty ideals out of the chaos of Italian Liberalism ; but will they come? In a word, if the author is well suited to describe the physical, literary, and social Italy of modern times, she is, by reason of her peculiar training, sympathies, and religious creed, quite incompetent to give us a serious verdict on the vital issues now dividing the Vatican and the Quirinal. Hence she must be chided for a certain amount of bad art. We say this rather regretfully, for in many places Mrs. Ward shows an attempt at honest appreciation of what is praiseworthy in Catholicism from a merely human point of view. An instance in point is her view of confession. But mean she never so well, she disappoints, nay, offends us. Among other things, on the strength of a very vague and unsatisfactory allusion to an opinion held by St. Thomas, she builds up a dark little bit of casuistry that certainly should have been considered utterly unworthy of a priest honest enough to have been crushed by "the Roman machine." So Father Benecke must be considered as unsatisfactory, at the least. Lucy Forster is better, although she will be found rather too " ideally M American and too " intensely" primitive to please the realists. Alice might be easily suppressed, and never missed. Manisty — though on one occasion " his steady, Digitized by Google

Page 570

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 537 ardent look thrilled the hot May air" — is so repulsively and brutally selfish that we would be tempted to call him impossi- ble were we not haunted by the recollection of having en- countered him several times in real life, — " one of those tem- peraments to which other lives minister without large return." So we must allow him to be well conceived and portrayed. Bat Eleanor, — ah! Eleanor, with all her faults, is a daughter of Eve drawn from life, with her clinging ways and her ready sympathy, her love of her dead boy, and her passionate long- ing to possess her chosen lover. We recognize her. Mrs. Ward has achieved a success. We will not forget this new heroine, or rather this new and vivid embodiment of an old, old, familiar and changeless reality — das ewige weiblich. Mr. Crawford has been accused of prolific writing. His latest volume makes us grateful that the charge is justified. For if Ave Roma regained for him what Casa Braccio lost, The Rulers of the South* places him even higher than before. Quite in the vein of the earlier work upon Rome, though on the whole scarcely of so intense an interest, this new produc- tion forces the verdict that its author has talent in what might be called the field of imaginative history. As to the pub- lisher's work, in this instance it is very fine. Out of the numerous and really beautiful illustrations, a few lack distinct- ness through imperfect focusing, but otherwise not a stricture can be passed : all is artistically perfect. The three maps of Sicily and Southern Italy and the chronological tables are especially convenient for readers untravelled, or forgetful of youthful lessons in geography and history. And an appendix on the Camorra of Naples and the Mafia of Sicily presents us with a most picturesque account of an organization concerning which the world outside Italy "knows little that is even ap- proximately true." Through twenty centuries the author guides us — the epochs of Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, and Spaniards. It is a tale at once historical and romantic, realistic and imaginative. Like all that has to do with the sunny land of Italy, this story casts over us the strong spell of beauty, tragedy, poetry, love, and religion. We are in a garden of fragrant blossoms, and the guide's hand is ever pointing us to new combinations of graceful form and rich color; for Mr. * The RuUrs of the South: Sicily, Calabria, Malta. By^Francis^Marion Crawford. New York : The Macmillan Company. VOL. LXXII.— 35 Digitized by Google

Page 571

538 Talk about New Books. Crawford, of course, makes it his aim to teach history not by dry scientific methods but by a constant succession of word- paintings. The impression left upon us is as vivid as it is delightful ; we realize that Sicily indeed has been the Helen of a European epos, the undying heroine of an unending ro- mance, wooed, won, and lost by many lovers who have met and fought and have conquered, or have been vanquished in the struggle for the possession of her beauty. Reading books like the volume before us is about as pleasant a way of learning history as can be invented for the general public. This characteristic, of course, limits the author to a method that is literary rather than scientific. " Out of the fathomless archives of southern history " he has selected the material suitable for his purpose, making no pretence of exhaustive and scholarly treatment of historical problems. He has succeeded in accomplishing his end, for while some readers will perceive not a few statements open to contradiction and amendment, all must realize the charm of Mr. Crawford's style and long to wander through the beautiful and memorable places he has described, treading in the footsteps of great Robert Guiscard, or the great Roger, Charles of Anjou, or the lovely Queen Blanche. Perhaps it may not be amiss to quote here from page 62 of volume the second, bidding our readers recall the fact that whatever else Mr. Crawford may be he has never been called " a bigoted M Catholic : " Half a lifetime spent among the peo- ple of the south has convinced me that, in spite of all that northern writers have said to the contrary, the Italian peasant never really confounds the image with the holy person, divine or human, whom it represents. ... A few questions asked in his own language, and in terms comprehensible to him, will suffice to convince any fair inquirer that he looks upon the matter very differently." As usual, we have found great pleasure in reading the latest work* of Katherine Conway. In fact, we are of the opinion that this newest product of her pen is her best, though we hope — and her success in this, her new departure, is one of the reasons for our hope — that it will not long remain her best. For we cannot be made to understand, after reading The Way of the World, why the author should not attempt, with equal or greater success, something more pretentious on * The Way of the Worla, and Other Ways. Katherine E. Conway. Boston : Pilot Publishing Co. Digitized by Google

Page 572

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 539 the same lines : a novel with a fully elaborated plot and a 1 more uniformly sustained dignity of treatment. But to the book in hand. It is a story, told with much vivacity, of a young artist almost " done to death by slanderous tongues/' the unconsciously guilty wielders of which were none other than her sisters in religion and society, fellow- members of a typical religious literary club of women. The author in the first pages pictures very skilfully — with much humor, and we imagine with but little caricature — the petty doings and say- ings, the tattle and prattle of the members of the club ; yet when she comes to the more serious, we may even call it the tragical element of her story, she shows herself as masterful with pathos as with wit, and succeeds throughout admirably in sustaining the interest of the reatler by a swift-running, nervous, attractive style. As we have hinted, there may be an occa- sional lapse from the dignity of treatment that the author must needs have maintained if she had conceived her task more seriously ; but as the tale stands it discourages criticism, for it is eminently pleasing, while it lacks not many evidences of ex- traordinary ability in story-telling and character-painting. A novel which awakens an interest in its very beginning is always refreshing — doubly so when this interest is sustained throughout. Such a book is the dainty volume which has just appeared under the title A Princess of Arcady* The author is of the ideal school, and the public is indebted to him for an ideally charming romance. In the opening chapter he intro- duces the reader to Hilda and Pierre, two children at play in their river-island home far removed from the contaminating influences of the world. We follow little Hilda through the many vicissitudes of her early life, her consignment to an asylum upon her mother's death, her adoption by Mr. Alexan- der, and her later life of study in the convent of Our Lady of Peace. By far the most pleasing feature of the book is Mr. Henry's great power of description, for he presents picture after picture of striking vividness. Mr. Mott, the old gardener, is as interesting a character-sketch as one could wish. Mr. Henry deserves some praise, too, for his omission of those lurid descriptions which lend so unwholesome a tone to much of our modern fiction. However, interesting as A Princess of Arcady is, there re- mains room for adverse criticism. Mr. Henry, like many modern authors, has followed the fad of introducing a touch * A Princess of Arcady. By Arthur Henry. New York : Doubleday, Page & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 573

540 Talk about New Books. [Jan., of Catholic thought and life, with the usual result of betraying an imperfect knowledge of both. For instance, the letter con- cerning little Hilda, written by Mr. Alexander to Sister Pelagia, mother superior of the convent of Our Lady of Peace — and, by the way, his former fiancie— is for the most part sentimen- tal gush, savoring of the old and hackneyed idea that the principal virtue of a convent is that it provides a balm for dis- appointed love. We doubt very much if such a character as the author has represented Mr. Alexander to be would, after thirty years of separation, address the lady in question, and superior of a convent, as 41 Dear Betty," even though she had been his betrothed ; nor would he be guilty of the following : " If thirty years ago you and I had known ourselves, or under- stood anything of life or the world, we would not have been separated by a misunderstanding which was significant only be- cause of the intensity of the love that caused it. . . . The church may be more to you than a home could have been. But I doubt it. As for me, I am lonely and my life empty." When Mr. Alexander meets Sister Pelagia at the convent, and fails to recognize in "the wrinkled, faded face before him " his " Betty," he exclaims, on being informed that this " Betty " is dead, " She is not dead. When I die you may say a Mass for her soul, and speak of her as you wish." We do not quite fol- low the author here, for certainly Mr. Henry, who is so impar- tial toward Catholics, and such an ardent admirer of Catholic influence in education, does not in this enlightened age enter- tain the idea that the power of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is bestowed upon women who enter religion. Those who have read Father Finn's books, from Tom Play- Jair to That Football Game, know his great power for writing boys' stories. His latest book* confirms and adds new laurels to his reputation, having been already recognized by reviewers as his best production. It differs considerably from his former books. While Phillip Lachance, a boy of ten " with a wonder- ful voice," always remains the central figure of the story, yet the unusual prominence of two much older characters — Isobel Lachance, Phillip's sister, and Professor Himmelstein, Phillip's instructor — makes the book a real departure from what we have been accustomed to in Father Finn's stories. However, the departure is an agreeable one, and successful. The charac- ter of Isobel is somewhat too suppressed — suggested rather than developed ; and though the quaint old Professor Him- * His First and Last Appearance. By F. J. Finn, S.J. New York : Benziger Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 574

1901.] Talk about New Books. S4i melstein is extremely interesting, his dialect is a rather variable quantity. The form of the book is attractive, the cover being really very good, although it must be said that some of the illustrations are at best second rate. A portrait of Father Finn faces the title-page, and will please the many readers who have come to look on him as a benefactor to the Catho- lic youth of this country. The story* of Guy Mortimer's adventures makes pleasant enough reading for persons of simple taste. True, some of the author's phrases recall those " poor but honest parents " and those " firm but gentle answers " with which we have been made thoroughly familiar. In other words, the volume presents at least a trace of the amateur's handiwork. On the whole, however, the story is sensible, interesting, and conceived in a spirit of simple piety that is edifying. The first two volumes of Janssen's History f were trans- lated into English four years ago ; we have now to welcome the appearance of the second pair of the series. The worth of the work as produced in the original is known to all. How it impressed the non-Catholic world may be learned from the testimony of the historical critics who, while undertaking to answer it, admitted that the scientific method of the author was of very high degree. Pastor, the worthy successor of Janssen, is the editor of the German edition, and his name has now become significant of science to the English reading public. The volumes before us deal with the earlier part of the German Reformation, including a thorough treatment of the terrible social revolution which came so near to overturning all the inherited civilization and political advantages. Both in substance and style the author's work is attractive, and the translator has been able to preserve no little of the charm. The book is not one fit only for advanced students but a most readable and instructive volume of the kind to interest all seeking authentic and moderately detailed information on the epoch in question. It is encouraging to notice that of late years English trans- lations of German works are multiplying. The French have long recognized the value of the writings produced by German scholars, and the greater part of German books appear in * Guy's Fortune. By M. B. Eagan. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder. t History of the German People at the close of the Middle Ages. By Johannes Janssen. Translated by A. M. Christie. Vols. III. and IV. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 575

542 Talk about New Books. [Jan., French translations. Until recently we have not been equally fortunate, but now it seems we are no longer to suffer so greatly from this lack. These translations, as they multiply, will do something to remedy the defect so painful to students, of ignorance of the German language ; still, it is to be hoped they will recognize that not all the valuable works can be translated, and that many translators have not the ability of the writer who has given us the present well-appreciated translation. Volume the third of Father Guggenberger's History was published a year ago; he now presents us with volume the first.* In a previous review we stated that this work was badly needed, there being a great lack of general histories written in such a way as to do justice to the Catholic point of view. The appearance of the present volume satisfies us that its author is of just the kind of men who can supply this lack. This history is intended for Catholic schools and reading circles. We know of none better adapted for such use. It will be of considerable value even to the student of general history on account of its abundant references, and the com- pleteness and brevity of its outline. The author has divided his whole work into three parts according with the triple character of the period treated. In the first volume he considers the period of growth and de- velopment of the church and the empires. In the second he treats of the periods of religious upheavals from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth. In the third volume he considers the social revolutions from the seventeenth century to the present time. What it is of great importance to know, namely, the tre- mendous influence of the church in producing and shaping the civilization of the western world, is clearly and splendidly brought out in the present volume. At the same time the reader is made fully cognizant of all the details in both pro- fane and ecclesiastical history, leading up to the triumph of the church. The tone of the work is commendably critical. The book, moreover, contains genealogical tables, summaries of events, and maps in abundance. Altogether the author's work may be regarded as perfectly adapted to his end, and one cannot * Gneral History of tin Christian Era. Vol. I. By A. Guggenberger, S.J. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 576

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 543 help expressing the fervent hope that this improvement in the line of history preludes something like a general attempt to elevate and perfect all classes of books used as texts in our schools and colleges. Rither less encouraging than the work just now mentioned Is another recent historical publication.* This volume purposes to outline the history of the church and to comment upon ecclesiastical work and influence. Results are not satisfactory. Though the writer tells us his book is not intended to be a mere " chronicle of events," we must say that at best it is cer- tainly no more than that, and at any rate it is far from being a kind of chronicle to elicit praise. The writer's style lacks clearness, his detailed accounts are too disconnected, the sub- ject-matter might very easily be arranged to better advantage. These faults apart, the book is remarkable only for a long list of errata, — far from long enough, however, to include all the errors contained in the volume. Among the new publications is a little volume \ adapted for the use of Shakespearean students. Besides giving a brief sketch of the life of the poet, and describing the principal events in his career, his character, influence, and out-standing genius, it introduces the reader to each work of the great author, and makes him acquainted with the sources, history, general character, artistic value, and literary merit of each composition. In a word, there is nothing of any interest about Shakespeare that is not here at least suggested or indicated. The bibliography is complete in its summary and just in its estimate of various editors and critics. The chapter on the •'Study of Shakespeare" leaves nothing to be desired in the way of a thorough and systematic examination of the author's works. Other things treated of are autographs, memorials of the poet, the history of Shakespearean drama, and the ex- traordinary spread of Shakespearean literature. In spite of great condensation of matter the writer's style is wanting in neither perspicuity or grace. Two recent books of verse.J Lyrics, by J. Houston Mifflin, and The Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets^ by Lloyd Mifflin, * The Three Ages of Progress. By Julius E. Devos. Milwaukee : M. H. Wiltzius. t Shakespeare's Life and Work. By Sidney Lee. New York : The Macmillan Company. \ Lyrics. By J. Houston Mifflin. Philadelphia. Henry T. Coates & Co. [The Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets. By Lloyd Mifflin. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 577

544 Talk about New Books. [Jan., persuade one that, maugr£ Shakspere, the Muses believe there's much in a name, so partially have they bestowed the gift of song upon the House of Mifflin. The former volume is a col- lection of juvenilia, "lays of boyhood," by the late J. Houston Mifflin. Their chief appeal will be to the gifted* poet-painter's friends ; nearly all the poems were written before Mr. Mifflin attained much knowledge or mastery of versification, and though the sentiments they lyrically record are pure and tender, the century's ear is attuned to such finesse of technique, rhyme is no longer sufficient charm. The fastidious reader now de- mands, in a new volume of verse, the delights of mellifluous syllables, happy rhythms, and these, preferably, in the mould of novel metre. The latter volume, The Fields of Dawn, gives more evidence of the Delphic afflatus. Mr. Lloyd Mifflin's sonnets are so skil- fully, though spontaneously, built that the use of a time- honored verse- form makes for his merit, not for his fault. In truth, the making of such a delightful sonnet-sequence as The Fields of Dawn is a poetic feat for which Mr. Mifflin deserves no mean sanction from those past masters in the art — Dante, Shakspere, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning, though hereby is im- plied no flippant comparison with the " House of Life," the Shakspere or Portuguese Sonnets, or that peerless, most ex- quisite " Vita Nuova." It is scarcely praise too impassioned to pronounce every sonnet in The Fields of Dawn a perfect pastoral, suggesting sometimes a sunlit landscape of Corot, and anon Millet's peaceful meadows so simply and beautifully humanized with the noble Brotherhood of Toil. The prime merit of Mr. Mifflin's inspiration is that it is genuine; either he follows Sydney's advice, 11 Look in your heart and write," or he notes the beauty immediately about him, going not abroad and afar for his themes but finding them in his own Pennsylvania — his " own couatrie," as he poetically proclaims in a sonnet, "The Homeland": " Why should I seek for beauty or for ease On alien shores afar removed from mine ? What is Ulyria, with her oil and wine, Far Andalusia and the Pyrenees, Or Vallombrosa when compared to these Our native beauties? Not the castled Rhine So fair as Susquehanna, yet we pine For restless travel o'er the illusive seas. Digitized by Google

Page 578

1901.] Talk about New Books. 545 Ah, rather pluck the rich Floridian rose By Tampa or by Pensacola's bay, And wander where the wild magnolia blows : Or by the balmy sea-coast lingering, stray Where Coronado offers soft repose And cliffs of Candelaria greet the day." The second volume of the series called " Dames and Daugh- ters of Colonial Days " is AnnekeJ* The author aims, as she tells us in the introduction, to re-create a faithful presentment of the ambitions, emotions, vicissitudes, struggles, and victories which might have come into the lives of noble-minded men and women living at the period of which she writes. The re- sult is a well-told story of adventure, in which buccaneers, naval battles, and the struggles of the early American colon- ists with the Indians figure largely. In its course the reader meets with the names of Rembrandt, Van de Velde, Van Rens. selaer, Father Jogues, and others as familiar. In keeping with this holiday season the volume is gotten out with a very pretty cover design, and is illustrated from the paintings of Rembrandt and other masters. Mr. Lang, " England's Merry Andrew," as he is called, surely deserves to be saluted as Facundissima Poeta, as he is one of the most productive literary workmen of to day. With essays, poems, translations to his credit, he is not content ; he must needs add to the infinite variety by editing several chil- dren's books which rank among the most fascinating publica- tions for juvenile readers. The Grey Fairy Book^ a worthy successor of the True Blue, Green and Yellow Fairy Books, is a collection of tales from Lithuanian, Greek, French, and Ger- man folk lore. Donkey-Skin, Dschernil and Dschesmila, The Goat faced Girl and the Little Grey Man, and others of that wonderful world of fairy and magic, dance through the new book's pages in most amazing and beguiling fashion. The happy fancy and fantastic illustrations of these old tales re- told will be a delight to little folks — and indeed to "grown- ups," who are already indebted to Mr. Lang for his enjoyable translation of that best of story tellers — Homer. Another book which makes an ingratiating appeal to readers * Anneke, a Little Dame of New Netherlands. By Elizabeth W. Champney. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. f The Grey Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With numerous Illustrations by H. J. Ford. New York, London, and Bombay : Longmans, Green & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 579

54.6 Talk about New Books. [Jan., of divers ages is Abbie Farwell Brown's Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts* In the legends of St. Bridget and the King's Wolf, St. Lauromar's Cow, St. Cuthbert's Peace, St. Francis and his Dumb Friends, and many others, Miss Brown illus- trates in simple, beguiling diction the words of St. Guthlac of Crowland : " Brother, hast thou never learned in Holy Writ that with him who has led his life after God s will the wild beasts and the birds are tame ? " Children as a rule are chary of reading lives of the saints, as well they may be when some dry-as-dust style recounts incidents incomprehensible for imma- ture minds. But Miss Brown has chosen examples which were even as little children, making these examples attractive but at the same time naively pointing other morals besides the Ancient Mariner's: " He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast." Such a book as this of Saints and Friendly Beasts will be more efficacious than Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in restraining that malicious propensity of youth which has made the Abused Cat and the Dog-with-the-Tin-Pail- tied to-His-Tail authentic stories of woe more ancient than the myth of suffering Prometheus. Miss Fanny Cory's illustrations are admirably adapted to the text. Among recent notable appearances in the publication world Doxey's edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayydm f is par- ticularly deserving of attention. The illustrations, one of which appears upon each page, descriptive of the three verses which it accompanies, are the work of Florence Lundborg, who has given to her drawings a quality of Oriental mysticism which is unusually suggestive. The preceding and appended pages of the book, which contain, respectively, Kearney's " Life of Edward Fitzgerald," with Fitzgerald's essay on Omar, and the notes, have specially designed caryatid pages. The paper and artistic binding leave nothing to be desired. Altogether it is a book to treasure. We have also received from the same publisher a number of poems by Howard Sutherland, contained in a dainty, brown rough paper- covered little volume entitled Jacinta. Doxey claims to have discovered Mr. Sutherland, but we, in all politeness, have the impression that Mr. Sutherland has " dis- * The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. By Abbie Farwell Brown. Ilhistrated by Fanny Y. Cory. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. i The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayydm. New York : Doxey Company. Jacinta. Same publishers. Digitized by Google

Page 580

190 1.] Talk about New Books. 547 covered" himself — not indeed as a great poet, but as one who has expressed simply and feelingly much quiet sentiment. This volume of Conferences,* given by the authoress to the members of the League of the Sacred Heart, will help all who are striving to lead a spiritual life. It is marked by practical, not merely sentimental piety — a piety drawn from the best sources and based on an intimate knowledge of Holy Scriptures. There is nothing exaggerated or misleading. For those who live in the world its utility is rendered greater by its b^ing adapted for use in meditation, each Conference being divided into suitable points for meditation. Verily of the making of books there is no end. Here comes one compiled by C. F. Carter on the wedding day in litera- ture and art.f In the preface the author says that in litera- ture the wedding day is a topic which artists and writers seem to be weary of, and now that he speaks of it, it is a subject that is seldom made interesting in literature, while, as a matter of fact, in life a glimpse at the preparation for a wedding is a most fascinating thing. The book is interesting simply be- cause it contains extracts from books that we all love, such as David Copperfield, Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre ; also for its illus- trations, reproductions of famous paintings. In collecting these marriage-day masterpieces, we wonder why the compiler over- looked the greatest of all — Raphael's " Marriage at Cana." OXFORD CONFERENCES OF FATHER MOSS.J In these Conferences Grace, the life of the soul, is treated in relation to the other parts of the spiritual life : Faith is shoArn to be its Gate (Conf. I.); Prayer its Voice (Conf. II.); Confession its Cleansing Work (Conf. III.); Communion its Nourishment (Conf. IV.); Holy Mass its Fountain (Conf. V.) ; Purgatory its Prison House (Conf. VI.); Hell its failure (Conf. VII.) ; Heaven its Triumph (Conf. VIII.) The eloquence which was a striking characteristic of the former series of Conferences, delivered in the Summer Term of 1899, is no less marked in the present course. A disciple of the Angelic Doctor, as we believe every Dominican professor is bound to be, he does not even notice the views of Suarez and De Lugo, but declares, and we think rightly : 44 It is impossible to believe and see *At the Feet of fesus. By Madame Cecilia. London: Burns & Oates, Limited; New York : Benziger Brothers. t The Wedding Day in Literature and Art. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. X Oxford Conferences : Hilary Term, tqoo. On the Life of Grace By Father Raphael M. Moss, O P. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited. New York : Ben- ziger Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 581

548 Talk about New Books. [Jan. at the same time." Following so closely the teaching of St. Thomas in the subject matter of his teaching, we might have wished that he had manifested more of his spirit in deal- ing with opponents. St. Thomas somewhere expresses regret that the adversaries of the truth do not put forth before the world more fully the grounds of their hostility. Had the saint lived in our days he would not have been able to make this complaint: and perhaps a better impression upon the minds of freethinkers and rationalists would have been produced than by calling their views, however deservedly, foolish sophisms adopted in obedience to strong passion or at the dictate of the latest fashionable writer. True though this may be, it will be taken as mere declamation by those who might have been helped by a calmer and a more sympathetic refutation of their mistakes. Nor can we think that either those who have the faith or those who are to be brought to it will be helped by the tone adopted by Father Moss in his treatment of the subject. True though it be that faith requires submission and surrender to God's word, yet it cannot be so difficult to make this sur- render as Father Moss represents ; it is hardly the sacrifice of the understanding and will which he calls it — at least this is not so striking a characteristic. If God has spoken, and if it can be shown with certainty, as theologians prove, that God has spoken ; if there is no conflict between faith and reason, as the Vatican Council defines, and if theologians can show, and do show, that in most cases not only is there no such conflict but a wonderful harmony and agreement, while in the cases in which mystery is left it is impossible for any one to show with certainty that there is any such conflict, then we think Father Moss goes too far when he insists so strongly as he does on faith being self-surrender carried to its uttermost limit, and as being so very hird to flesh and blood as to have its model in Abraham's willingness to offer his son. Moreover we know by sad experience that corruption of morals is only too often associated with firmness of faith to allow us to agree with Father Moss when he makes this corruption in so un- qualified a way an obstacle to faith. But although we are unable to agree with Father Moss on every point, we are able to commend these Conferences to the study of those interested in religious matters ; perhaps our very disagreement may be taken as showing that the treatment of those well worn subjects is one which promotes thought and excites interest. Digitized by Google

Page 582

Beginning with the present issue THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE proposes each month to make mention of current magazine articles likely to in- terest its readers. This first instalment is meant to cover the last quarter of the year just finished ; in future articles will be mentioned as soon as possible after publication. American Ecclesiastical Review (Dec): The Latin text of the Holy Father's latest Encyclical, De Jesu Christo Redentp- tore. Bishop McFaul writes on the remedy for Catholic grievances. The Editor comments on certain abuses connected with " St. Anthony's Bread." The first part of Luke Delmege, Father Sheehan's new novel, is con- eluded. the Ave Maria (Dec. 8): W. F. P. Stockley shows that the weight of authority is against Anglican belief in the essential character of episcopacy in the church. Catholic University Bulletin (Oct.): Doctor Shahan considers the History of Catholicism during the Nineteenth Century, con- fining himself to Europe. American Catholic Quarterly (Oct.) : Father McDermot, C.S.P., contributes a lengthy biographical sketch of the late Lord Russell. Mgr. Campbell contributes a study on the historic evidences relating to the Consecration of Virgins during the first Christian Centuries. Father Cuthbert, O.S.F., describes the influence of St. Francis of Assisi on the thirteenth century revival of personal love for our Divine Saviour. Bryan J. Clinch attacks the assertion that the spread of " Anglo-Saxonism " is preparing the way for Catholic progress. Father Clarke, S.J., considers Principal Fairbairn's recent charge that the Catholic Church is an obstacle to material progress. Father Clarke's article gains a rather pathetic interest from the fact that he died while this MS. was still in press. American Journal of Theology (Oct.): Julius Kaftan, the noted Protestant theologian, describes how Kant has furnished Protestantism with a new " theory of authority," fit to replace the " worn-out Catholic theory." International Journal of Ethics (Oct.) : Maurice Adams contrasts Tolstoi and Nietzsche, and finds in the latter a " deplora- ble tendency toward the Catholic ideal of asceticism." Digitized by Google

Page 583

55o Library Table. [Jan., The Month (Nov.): Father Thurston, S.J., continues his his- torical study of the Rosary as a devotion, and discredits the accounts of its strictly Dominican origin. (Father Lescher, O.P., writing to The Tablet (Nov. 10), seems to intimate that Father Thurston's arguments are being an- swered in The Rosary Magazine of England.) Father Tyrrell, S.J., contributes a most suggestive paper on popular Apologetics, and promises a sequel. The con- clusive proof of a wonderful miracle at Lourdes is pre- sented by C. Lattey. The Tablet (Nov. 3): An apologetic article is published review, ing an Anglican volume on Primitive Tradition and the See of Peter. (Nov. 17): Frederick Lucas, first editor of The Tablet, is defended apropos of certain passages in Purcell's Lije of Ambrose Philip ps de Lisle. (Nov. 24): An article on the Uses of Controversy, evoked apparently by Father Tyrrell's above-mentioned paper in The Month (Nov. 3). (Dec. 1) : English text of the Holy Father's new Encyc- lical ; a notice of the recent Anglican Conference, which found it impossible to agree on any common belief as to the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacra- ment. Dublin Review (Oct.) : X. Y. Z. answers the late Dr. Mar- tineau's critique of the Notes of the Church. Father Kent, O.S.C., writes in his usual powerful and instructive way on Ritschl and theological development. Australasian Catholic Record (Oct. — Catholic Congress Number) : A representative group of contributors: Cardinal Moran, Archbishops Redwood and Carr, Bishops Hedley and Delany, Father Hudson, C.S.C., and Father Elliott, C.S.P. Mr. Mulhall contributes valuable statistics on the growth of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Moran reviews the century's history, and incidentally remarks that "Ameri- canism " may be found in France more easily than in the United States. The Contemporary Review (Nov.) : " Fidelis," whose paper on Reforms within the Catholic Church made a great stir last summer, writes again on the same topic. The Nineteenth Century (Nov.) : L. C. Moraint treats of The Vulgarizing of Oberammergau and makes himself ridicu- Digitized by Google

Page 584

igoi.] Library Table. 551 lous by unpardonably stupid blunders concerning both Catholic doctrine and recent historical facts. Revile du Clergd Francais (Oct. 1) : M. l'Abb£ Gayraud gives a conservative presentation of the recent tendency toward a new method of apologetics. Father Vacandard de- fends his method of investigating theological questions in a historical way. Father Birots magnificent dis- course— worthy of Archbishop Ireland — is printed in full. (Oct. 15): Father Beurlier makes a psychological study of Quo Vadis in its recent French translation. Father Firmin writes on the religious development of the Jew- ish people and promises a continuation ; but : (Nov. 1) : Cardinal Richard prohibits further publication of Father Firmin's article. (Nov. 15): Archbishop Mignot writes on the necessity of apologists keeping abreast of the times. Father Delfour criticises M. Bourget's preface to a new edition of the latter's works. La Quinzaine (Nov. 1) : M. George Fonsegrive, the editor, nar- rates his flattering welcome at the Vatican recently and outlines the policy of his magazine, mentioning that the "Yves le Querdec" volumes are winning great favor in high quarters. A first instalment of the French transla- tion of My New Curate is given by Professor Bruneau (Dunwoodie, N. Y.) and M. Georges Ardant (Limoges, France). Revue Tkomiste (Nov.) : The relationship of the priesthood and the religious state is considered by Father Hugon, O.P., whose recent articles in defence of Religious Vows are now published as a brochure. Revue Bdnddictine (Oct.): Dom Baltus reviews Harnack's latest volume, The Essence of Christianity, and finds that its author " leaves in doubt his belief in a personal God." (Rev. W. Morgan in The Expository Times (Oct.) de- clares that "one rises from Harnack's book with a deeper sense of the high and enduring significance of Christ's Gospel"!!!) Etudes (Oct. 20): Father Dutouquet, S.J., writes on the Psy- chology of Inspiration, and favors a theory allowing " a maximum of initiative to the sacred writer and of liberty to the exegete." Father Brucker, S.J., criticises Father Bertrand's recent Bibliothe'que Sulpicienne very severely. Digitized by Google

Page 585

552 Library Table. fjan. (The same volume is reviewed favorably by Dom Baltus in the Revue Be'ne'dictine^ Oct.) Bulletin Critique (Nov. 5): Professor Loisy gives high praise, with some reserves, to Hasting's new Dictionary of the Bible (Anglican). Le Correspondant (Nov. 10) : M. Henri Joly reviews the new edition of Saint Teresa's Letters (edited by Father Gregoire de Saint-Josepha, discalced Carmelite), contain- ing sixty six entire and four hundred fragmentary letters, hitherto unpublished. Z,? Civilta Cattolica (Nov. 17): An article concerning the influ- ence of the Papacy on the moral condition of Italy ; it would make splendid collateral reading for those who are now absorbing the ideas of Marie Corelli and Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Zeitschrift fiir Katholische Theologie (Oct.) : Father Nisius writes on The Relation of Scripture to the Teaching-power of the Church. Father Fonck, S.J., welcomes the first volume of Studies on Anne Katherine Emmerich by Pro- fessor Grotemeyer, the Orientalist, as proving the accu- racy of descriptions given by the sainted stigmatica. Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Oct. 22): Father Cathrein, S.J.f treats of the higher education of women, approving of it on certain conditions. (Readers will find in The Forum (Dec.) an article by Anna Tolman Smith, show- ing that the movement in question is at present well under way in France.) Souvenirs of the Opening of the New Year : Christ Blessing the Opening of the Twentieth Century, similar to the Frontispiece, Give them away in the Sunday-school. Special terms for large quantities. Digitized by Google

Page 586

JESUS CHRIST OUR REDEEMER. ENCYCLICAL LETTER Of Our Holy Father By Divine Providence POPE LEO XIII. To Our Venerable Brethren, The Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other local ordinaries Having Peace and Communion with the Holy See, LEO XIII., POPE. Venerable Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Benediction. The outlook on the future is by no means free from anxiety ; on the con- trary, there are many serious reasons for alarm, on account of numerous and long-standing causes of evil, of both a public and a private nature. Neverthe- less the close of the century really seems in God's mercy to afford us some de- gree of consolation and hope. For no one will deny that renewed interest in spiritual matters and a revival of Christian faith and piety are influences of great moment for the common good. And there are sufficiently clear indica- tions at the present .day of a very general revival or augmentation of these virtues. For example, in the very midst of worldly allurements and in spite of so many obstacles to piety, what great crowds have flocked to Rome to visit the " Threshold of the Apostles " at the invitation of the Sovereign Pontiff ! Both Italians and foreigners are openly devoting themselves to religious exer- cises, and, relying upon the indulgences offered by the Church, are most earnest- ly seeking the means to secure their eternal salvation. Who could fail to be moved by the present evident increase of devotion towards the person of Our Saviour? The ardent zeal of so many thousands, united in heart and mind, *' from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof," in venerating the Name of Jesus Christ and proclaiming His praises, is worthy of the best days of Christianity. Would that the outburst of these flames of antique faith might be followed by a mighty conflagration ! Would that the splendid example of so many might kindle the enthusiasm of all ! For what so necessary for our times as a widespread renovation among the nations of Christian principles and old- fashioned virtues ? The great misfortune is that too many turn a deaf ear and will not listen to the teachings of this revival of piety. Yet, 41 did they but know the gift of God," did they but realize that the greatest of all misfortunes is to fall away from the World's Redeemer and to abandon Christian faith and practice, they would be only too eager to turn back, and so escape certain de- struction. The most important duty of the Church, and the one most peculiarly her own, is to defend and to propagate throughout the world the Kingdom of the Son of God, and to bring all men to salvation by communicating to them the divine bene- fits, so much so that her power and authority are chiefly exercised in this one work. Towards this end We are conscious of having devoted Our energies throughout Our difficult and anxious Pontificate even to the present day. And you too, Venerable Brethren, are wont constantly, yea daily, to give your chief thoughts and endeavors together with Ourselves to the self-same task. But at the pres- Digitized by Google

Page 587

554 The Pope's Encyclical Letter. [Jan., ent moment all of us ought to make still further efforts, more especially on the occasion of the Holy Year, to disseminate far and wide the better knowledge and love of Jesus Christ by teaching, persuading, exhorting, if perchance our voice can be heard; and this, not so much to those who are ever ready to listen willingly to Christian teachings, but to those most unfortunate men who, whilst professing the Christian name, live strangers to the iaith and love of Christ. For these we feel the profoundest pity: these above all would we urge to think seriously of their present life and what its consequences will be if they do not repent. The greatest of all misfortunes is never to have known Jesus Christ : yet such a state is free from the sin of obstinacy and ingratitude. But first to have knoarn Him, and afterwards to deny or forget Him, is a crime so foul and so in- sane that it seems impossible for any man to be guilty of it. For Christ is the fountain-head of all good. Mankind can no more be saved without His power, than it could be redeemed without His mercy. " Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved" (Acts iv. 12). What kind of life that is from which Jesus Christ, " the power of God and the wisdom of God," is excluded ; what kind of mDrality and what manner of death are its consequences, can be clearly learnt from the example of nations deprived of the light of Christianity. If we but recall St. Paul's description (Romans i. 24-32) of the mental blindness, the natural depravity, the monstrous superstitions and lusts of such peoples, our minds will be filled with horror and pity. What we here record is well enough known, but not sufficiently realized or thought about. Pride would not mis- lead, nor indifference enervate, so many minds, if the Divine mercies were more generally called to mind and if it were remembered from what an abyss Christ delivered mankind and to what a height He raised it. The human race, exiled and disinherited, had for ages been daily hurrying into ruin, involved in the terrible and numberless ills brought about by the sin of our first parents, nor was there any human hope of salvation, when Christ Our Lord came down as the Saviour from Heaven. At the very beginning of the world, God bad promised Him as the conqueror of " the Serpent," hence, succeeding ages had eagerly looked forward to His coming. The Prophets had long and clearly de- clared that all hope was in Him. The varying fortunes, the achievements, cus- toms, laws, ceremonies, and sacrifices of the Chosen People had distinctly and lucidly foreshadowed the truth, that the salvation of mankind was to be accom- plished in Him who should be the Priest, Victim, Liberator, Prince of Peace, Teacher of all Nations, Founder of an Eternal Kingdom. By all these titles, images and prophecies, differing in kind though like in meaning, He alone was designated who. " for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us," gave Him- self up for our salvation. And so, when the fulness of time came in God's Di- vine Providence, the only-begotten Son of God became man, and in behalf of mankind made most abundant satisfaction in His Blood to the outraged majesty of His Father, and by this infinite price He redeemed man for His own. You were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver . . . but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb, unspotted and undefiled " (I. Peter i 18- 19). Thus all men, though already subject to His Kingly power, inasmuch as He is the Creator and Preserver of all, were over and above made His property by a true and real purchase. " You are not your own: for you are bought with a great price " (II. Corinthians vi. 19-20;. Hence in Christ all things are made new. " The mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed to Him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times to re-establish all Digitized by

Page 588

1 9oi.] ^The Pope's Encyclical Letter. 555 things in Christ " (Ephesians i. 9-10). When Jesus Christ had blotted out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, fastening it to the cross, at once God's wrath was appeased, the primeval fetters of slavery were struck off from unhappy and erring man, God's favor was won back, grace restored, the gates of Heaven opened, the right to enter them revived, and the means afforded of doing so. Then man, as though awakening from a long-contir.ued and deadly lethargy, beheld at length the light of the truth, for long ages desired, yet sought in vain. First of all, he realized that he was born to much higher and more glorious things than the frail and inconstant objects of sense which had hitherto formed the end of his thoughts and cares. He learnt that the^mean- ing of hum in life, the supreme law, the end of all things was this: that we come from God and must return to Him. From this first principle the consciousness of human dignity was revived : men's hearts realized the universal brotherhood : as a consequence, human rights and duties were either perfected or even ne*ly created, whilst on all sides were evoked virtues undreamt of in pagan philo- sophy. Thus men's aims, life, habits, and customs received a new direction. As the knowledge of the Redeemer spread far and wide and His power, which destroyeth ignorance and former vices, penetrated into the very life-blood of the nations, such a change came about that the face of the world was entirely altered by the creation of a Christian civilization. The remembrance of these events. Venerable Brethren, is full of infinite joy, but it also teaches us the lesson that we must both feel and render with our whole hearts gratitude to our Divine Saviour. We are indeed now very far removed in time from the first beginnings of Redemption ; but what difference does this make when the benefits thereof are perennial and immortal? He who once hath restored human nature ruined by sin the same preserveth and will preserve it for ever. " He gave Himself a re- demption for all " (I. Timothy ii. 6). " In Christ all shall be made alive" (I. Corinthians xv. 22). "And of His Kingdom there shall be no end " (Luke i. 33). Hence by God's eternal decree the salvation of all men, both severally and collectively, depends upon Jesus Christ. Those who abandon Him become guilty of the very fact, in their blindness and folly, of their own ruin ; whilst at the same time they do all that in them lies to bring about a violent reaction of mankind in the direction of that mass of evils and miseries from which the Redeemer in His mercy had freed them. Those who go astray from the road wander far from the goal they aim at. Similarly, if the pure and true light of truth be rejected, men's minds must necessarily be darkened and their souls deceived by deplorably false ideas. What hope of salvation can they have who abandon the very principle and fountain of life ? Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John xiv. 6). If He be abandoned the three necessary conditions of salvation are re- moved. CHRIST THE WAY. It is surely unnecessary to prove, what experience constantly shows and what each individual feels in himself, even in the very midst of all temporal prosperity — that in God alone can the human will find absolute and perfect peace. God is the only end of man. All our life on earth is the truthful and exact image of a pilgrimage. Now Christ is the 11 Way," for we can never reach God, the supreme and ultimate good, by this toilsome and doubtful road of mortal life, except with Christ as our leadtr and guide. How so ? Firstly and chiefly by His grace; but this would remain " void " in man if the pre- cepts of His law were neglected. For, as was necessarily the case after Jesus Digitized by Google

Page 589

556 The Pope's Encyclical Letter. TJan-» Christ had won our salvation, He left behind Him His law for the protection and welfare of the human race, under the guidance of which men, converted from evil life, might safely tend towards God. Going, teach ye all nations . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you " (Matthew xxviii. 19-20). "Keep my commandments " (John xiv. 15). Hence it will be understood that in the Christian religion the first and most necessary condition is docility to the precepts of Jesus Christ, absolute loyalty of will towards Him as Lord and King. A serious duty, and one which oftentimes calls for strenuous labor, earnest endeavor, and perseverance ! For although by Our Redeemer's grace human nature hath been regenerated, still there remains in each individual a certain debility and tendency to evil. Various natural ap- petites attract man on one side and the other ; the allurements of the material world impel his soul to follow after what is pleasant rather than the law of Christ. Still we must strive our best and resist our natural inclinations with all ojr strength M unto the obedience of Christ." For unless they obey reason they become our masters, and carrying the whole man away from Christ, make him their slave. " Men of corrupt mind, who have made shipwreck of the faith, cannot help being slaves. . . . They are slaves to a three-fold concupis- cence: of will, of pride, or of outward show" (St. Augustine, De Vera Re- lifrione, 37). In this contest every man must be prepared to undergo hardships and troubles for Christ's sake. It is difficult to reject what so powerfully en- tices and delights. It is hard and painful to despise the supposed goods of the senses and of fortune for the will and precepts of Christ our Lord. But the Christian is absolutely obliged to be firm, and patient in suffering, if he wish to lead a Christian life. Have we forgotten of what Body and of what Head we are the members? 11 Having joy set before Him, He endured the Cross." and He bade us deny ourselves. The very dignity of human nature depends upon this disposition of mind. For, as even the ancient Pagan phil- osophy perceived, to be master of oneself and to make the lower part of the soul obey the superior part, is so far from being a weakness of will that it is really a noble power, in consonance with right reason and most worthy of a man. Moreover, to bear and to suffer is the ordinary condition of man. Man can no more create for himself a life free from suffering and filled with all happiness than he can abrogate the decrees of His Divine Maker, who has willed that the consequences of original sin should be perpetual. It is reasonable, there- fore, not to expect an end to troubles in this world, but rather to steel one's soul to bear troubles, by which we are taught to look forward with [certainty to supreme happiness. Christ has not promised eternal bliss in heaven to riches, nor to a life of ease, to honors or to power, but to long-suffering and to tears, to the love of justice and to cleanness of heart. From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love : a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor self-devotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ : but only on con- dition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's

Page 590

1901.] The Pope's Encyclical Letter. 557 law. By the lav of Christ we mean n#t only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction ; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed, what- soever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of man's salvation, on the other He mast solemnly commanded men to be s lbject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself : " He that heareth you, heareth Me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x. 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's " Way the Church also is his " Way"— Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His com- mission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salva- tion apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain. . As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from " The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. " And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him " (Daniel vii. 14). " I am appointed King by Him. ... I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession " (Psalm ii. 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at. CHRIST THE TRUTH. Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the " Way," so is it to abandon the " Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential " Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. M I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since there- in Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But uhat is unlawful and unnatu- ral is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse 10 ackncwlec'ge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almoit entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: " The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them " (John xvii. 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed Digitized by Google

Page 591

558 The Pope's Encyclical Letter. TJan-» contrary to reason — for that would be«n impossibility — but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are en- tirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to 4eny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently " unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obed:ence of Christ" (II. Corinthians x. 5). Such obedience Christ re- quires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ wiih his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accord- ance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He [does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which pro- ceeds from, the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them ; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty at- tained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall) make you free "(John viii. 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose some one whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their gui le. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science. It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering, not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves had devised, whose pre- cepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and re- quiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly understand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard t»f all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name. CHRIST THE LIFE. God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, Digitized by Google

Page 592

iqoi.] The Pope's Encyclical Letter. 559 because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace,'* whose happy consummation is " the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that " we being dead to sin, should live to justice " (I. Peter ii. 24)— that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nour- ished by Christian faith. " The just man liveth by faith " (Galatians iii. 1 1). Without faitn it is impossible to please God " (Hebrews xi. 6J. Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes cur moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies w hich engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life— and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer — still it is vain for any one without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. If any one abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth " (John xv. 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi. 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations aie in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase ? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and adminis- tration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish : and these are the two most powerful and most neces- sary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happi- ness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Everyman will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilum. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime. So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way ; but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved*the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to

Page 593

S6o The Pope's Encyclical Letter. [Jan., 1901.] revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be re- spected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realize tthat they must observe justice and charity, the latter self- restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance, there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray ; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, — and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be mate to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him — legislation, political institutions, education, marriage, and family life, capital and labor. Every one must see that the very growth of civilization which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity , as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue. It is rather ignorance than ill-will which keeps multitudes away from Jesus Christ. There are many who study humanity and the natural world ; few who study the Son of God. The first step, then, is to substitute knowledge for ignorance, so that He may no longer be despised or rejected because He is unknown. We conjure all Christians throughout the world to strive all they can to know their Redeemer as He really is. The more one contemplates Him with sincere and unprejudiced mind, the clearer does it become that there can be nothing more salutary than His law, more divine than His teaching. In this work, your influence, Venerable Brethren, and the zeal and earnestness of the entire clergy, can do wonders. You must look upon it as a chief part of your duty to engrave upon the minds of your people the true knowledge, the very likeness of Jesus Christ; to illustrate His charity, His mercies, His teaching, by your writings and your words, in schools, in universities, from the pulpit; wherever opportunity is offered you. The world has heard enough of the so- called " rights of man." Let it hear something of the rights of God. That the time is suitable is proved by the very general revival of religious feeling already referred to, and especially that devotion towards Our Saviour of which there are so many indications, and which, please God, we shall hand on to the Netf Century as a pledge of happier times to come. But as this consummation cannot be hoped for except by the aid of divine grace, let us strive in prayer, with united heart and voice, to incline Almighty God unto mercy, that He would not suffer those to perish whom He had redeemed by His Blood. May He look down in mercy upon this world, which has indeed sinned much, but which has also suffered much in expiation! And, embracing in His loving-kindness all races and classes of mankind, may He remember His own words: " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself" (John xii. 32). As a pledge of the Divine favors, and in token of Our fatherly affection, we lovingly impart to You, Venerable Brethren, and to your Clergy and People, the Apostolic Blessing. Given at St. Peter's in Rome, the first day of November, 19CO, in the 23d year of Our Pontificate. LEO XIII., Pope.

Page 594

GOLD DOLLARS FOR FIFTY GENTS '. tfcb i b is * a i |« Snow White R*!9Mracc C7 M dollars fur fifty c peu-e arel money u i|i i>e refunded. Out of many thousand- not one ever yet returned. Freight pr >p points c» r and e i-t of a line drawn >ouih of Kau.-M? City and north of ihe south ]iu>ide of side rniU. Send for Booklet of Testimonials, L_ fOKT WrA YIN t; rtKINITlKC GOMPrAiNV, Fort Wayno, Ind. THE H AN UAL OF PRAYERS. BALTIMORE COUNCIL PRAYER-BOOK. The intelligent laity are demand- ing- a prayer-book which will serve them in their devotions. THE MANUAL MEETS THIS DEMAND. Well Printed, Neatly Bound. Flexible Covers. C-Il t Kd^es, CATHOLIC BOOK EXCHANGE, 120 West 60th Street, New York, Digitized by Google

Page 595

FOR FRAMING. TRUE ART .• .• THE BEST TEACHER. The Catholic Book Exchange has acquired the American copy- rights on the now famous picture of Christ Blessing the Opening of the Twentieth Century and has imported an immense num- ber of copies. The copies are in colors done by the best European artists. They are on cardboard 8xii. THE PICTURE WILL BE A GREAT SELLER. We want to establish agencies for the sale of these pictures all over the country. Apply for terms. C4THOUC IIO OK EXCHANGE, 1 20 West 6otti at., New York. To the Rev. Clergy and Religious: Before placing your Candlemas Order, get prices and samples from smith & Nicnols, THE INDEPENDENT Candle Manufacturers, 145 and 147 Front Street, New York City. Hand-Made and Moulded BEESWAX CANDLES, IN ALL SIZC:S. Non-Drip Stearic Acid Candles, Sanctuary Oils, etc. rudent eople urchase earline ress ablic ronocince earline erfect earline Possesses feculiar xirifyin^ roperties*— it&FlAIlV is a so*fy powder - contains all the soap nec- essary and something else. Millions Hundreds have imitated Pearline to their own and tke peoples disgust. 0 * 0: p V 1 2 A CHOICE NEW YEAR'S GIFT. rHE MAMUAL- OF PR^lYERS-

Page 596

OABOUNED. SWAN. HON. JUDGE COBTBIGRT. * JtOSQX)LYJf> BAYAJID IJBE. ALOYSIV8 COLL. ;M* C VAH8ITTABT. EDWABD F QABBSCHi. Sweeter than all. (Poem.) The Catholic Church and the Future. ThsrStOfy^of a Rivalry. TheTirst Snow. (Poem.) The Port of Coffins. (Illustrated.) The Forbidding of the Marriage. A Song of the Sea. (Poem.) (Illustrated.) juliar e. johb stone. The Church as She is, and as We present Her. w. p. p. stockley. " The Painter of Heaven/9 (Illustrated.) maby f. nixon-boulet. French Canadian Life and ^Literature, thomas o'hag an, h a., Ph.D. Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching, bbv. wabdhunt johnson,c.s.p. From a Greek Island. (Illustrated.) clabe sobel stbong. Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation. bev. jambs j. fox, d.d. The Unification of the Ursulines. Price, 25 Cents \ tS per Tear. THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK: P. O. Box ft, Station N. , ART AND BOOK COMPANY, 22 Pitt rettter Rtw, Imi ts, C S. ' Digitized by

Page 597

PETER COOPER'S CLARIFIED ^GELATINE^ FOR Wine Jellies, Blanc Mange, Charlotte Rune. PURE and WHOLESOME. Being PULVERIZED It DISSOLVES In a few Minutes. For Sale by Qrocert. and at 13 Burling Slip. New York City. "Columbia" Modern LAUNDRY MACHINERY, For Asylums, Convents, Hospitals, and other Institutions. PRICES " RIGHT," Machinery "UP-TO-DATE " ' and Guaranteed. EXTRACTOR WILSON LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO., Columbia, Pa. Send for Catalogue M. Prices. Full Information, and Estimates on Application. It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those who advertise in The Catholic W*rld Magazine. HOTEL EMPIRE. BROADWAY AND 63d ST., N. Y. CITY. EUROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. . ABSOLUTKLY FIREPROOF. . . . The Standard of Excellence at Moderate Cost. Within ten minutes' walk of all the Theatres and great Department stores, and easy of access from all Railroad terminals and Steamship landings. PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE BXCLUSIVR- NESSOFCLIENTELLE. PERFECTION IN CUI- SINE, and EFFICIENT SERVICE WILL FIND "THE EMPIRE" AN IDEAL HOTEL. - Send postal for" The Empire Illustrated" and rate card. W. JOHNSON QUINN, Proprietor. When a Housewife SEES THE TRADE- nARK BELOW On Enameled Ware it is Safe to Buy; not till tnen. NO POISON can lurk in Agate Nickel Steel Ware (send for pam-* phld 8hcnuing why), but without this mark there is no immunity from danger. A re- ^ \ cent analysis made «B[j of 17 different makes jKi showed in every instance one of these ^%>i three poisons as a part v* of their coating viz.: i^>^'-:x^! ARSENIC, LEAD AND ANTIMONY. [ | Each Cooking Utensil (we E \ make 5000 different kinds) of the "L. & G. Agate Nickel Steel Ware" has, besides this Trade-Mark, burnt in the enamel, a label attached with Chemists' certificate i as a guaranty of ABSOLUTE SAFETY; : Pamphlet of vital interest to every •;, }i(yuxcwifc% FliEE to any addr&s*. ba- Lalance & Grosjean Mfg. Co., p Boston. New York. Chicago ' The INKS used on this publication are manufactured by SIGrau^HeQUI*L19IAN co«f York.

Page 598

\ Digitized by Google

Page 599

Consider it, ye Wanderers of To-day, The Christ's soft pity for the erring soul. Digitized by Google

Page 600

• ' TltE catholic World. Vol. LXXII. FEBRUARY, 1901. No. 431. uJji U*- -tte^g , (0\ AWX "^vt. &uU~* <h*£*t 's^y ***** <***k~w ^lCnwU*.a u» umAol i«vts AUvwe. CcrCfocrL , The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York, 1901 VOL. LXXII. — 37 Digitized by Google

Page 601

562 The Ca tholic Church and the Future. [Feb., * THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. BY HON. JUDGE CORTRIGHT. "HE present writer has had more than ordinary opportunities for studying the trend of the great intellectual movements of the day. He was born of old Puritan stock, in the early half of the century. He passed through many of the intellectual movements which characterized New England in the middle of the century, and after wandering in various pastures, hoping to find the truth, he came in his mature years to the door of the Catholic Church. When he was a young man ^there was nothing farther from his thoughts than to imagine that anything of good could come from the Nazareth of the Catholic Church. It was the church of a few wandering laborers in his town, and it never dawned on him that there was any intellectual life there that could satisfy the longings for truth that were then the very breath of a New-Englander's life. It was my privilege early in life to cut away from the narrowing trammels of the orthodox creeds. My mind was not tied to any definite form of religion, and consequently it was free to investigate any new system that had any dignified thinker for its exponent. One by one I took them up as they came. Some of them held me for a few years, but they readily palled on me. Finally my intellectual life came to a state of hopeless agnosticism. It was then the consideration of the Catholic system was forced on me by a peculiar congeries of circumstances. The Confessions of St. Augustine fell into my hands, and from the day that I entered the Catholic Church to this present hour I have found peace for my heart as well as rest for my mind. My overlook is, then, of a half a century, and I find in the public sentiment of the day some strongly marked phases, each of which well merits careful consideration as a potent factor in the present and the future of the race. They may be viewed conjointly in what may easily be a more or less veiled correla- tion. These phases of current thought are : the comparatively new attitude of non-Catholics towards Catholicism ; the spirit of unrest regarding the satisfactory solution of certain grave Digitized by Google

Page 602

igot.] The Catholic Church and the Future* 563 sociologic problems; the apparently unreserved acceptance and enjoyment of the purely material side of things, as the best that life can offer ; and, in its relation to this practical materialism, the seemingly contradictory and highly significant spirit of eager inquiry touching intelligent existence wholly outside the domain of matter. In the final analysis, and speaking with a reference to the correlation mentioned, the first of these four is not improbably a partial result of at least two of the latter three. Nevertheless, for certain reasons, it shall have precedence of attention in this article. A SPIRIT OF UNREST. Now, in the evolution of God's plan, in which humanity must play its part, this spirit of unrest and this spirit of in- quiry, as well as the new attitude of non-Catholics towards the church, seem destined, in the very nature of things, to have a direct, powerful, and favorable influence on the future of Catholicism, more especially in the United States, where the mental growth of the race seems to have attained its greatest all-round development; and where, among other results, the chief sociologic and other problems of the day consequently assume a greater importance than is accorded them else- where. As to the first of these tendencies, none but the deliberately or carelessly blind can fail to see the marked change among non Catholics in regard to the church. Where Catholicism, and all thereby implied, has been regarded with suspicion and hostility, there now obtains, throughout almost the entire non- Catholic community, a willingness to judge fairly such matters as the church's doctrine and practice, and also a feeling of respect and admiration for operative Catholicism. These latter sentiments have been evoked by the many unquestionable evi- dences that so far from being in opposition to human progress, as has been so often erroneously alleged, the church's influence makes wholly for advance along the lines approved by the soundest thinkers of the day. And these commendable feel- ings seem as strong among those who work for daily bread as among those whose wealth and consequent leisure enable them to travel and so perceive, abroad as at home, the innumerable proofs of the church's age long efforts to further the best in- terests of the race. Considered simply in its human aspect, what is the cause of this great change in non-Catholic sentiment other than the Digitized by Google

Page 603

564 The Catholic Church and the Future. [Feb., observation of operative Catholicism ? The cause is undoubt- edly to be largely ascribed also to that tendency towards inde- pendent thinking and investigation which has made such notice- able strides during the past generation. And such thinking and inquiry are themselves largely results of modern education and its methods. Of course, as intimated, the church, ever mindful of her divine mission, has done her part ; not only by display- ing, in the lives of her ever-increasing members, and in their works, the spectacle of gospel-teaching in practice, but also by supplying a vast fund of information, oral and other, regarding her doctrine and practices, in forms always easily available for the honest inquirer. CHANGED ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CHURCH. Is it, then, to be wondered at that, with an increased knowledge of Catholicism, the watchers on the heights and far- seeing thinkers are beginning to discover, even if a little late in the day, that the only satisfactory solution of such great questions as the maintenance of the marriage tie and the preser- vation of the family, the nucleus of the life of the nation, the proper relations between labor and capital, and the better dis- tribution of wealth, cannot be obtained except by a more or less practical recognition of doctrine that is essentially Catholic and, therefore, essentially identical with the teaching of the Gospel. Even if the growing spirit of independent inquiry, and of fairness towards the ancient church of their fathers, did not in themselves lead to the conclusion just mentioned, it would not be easy for the thinker to escape from it. During the last decade more than one non Catholic of note has borne testimony to the soundness of the church's views on the great questions of the time, with an accompanying expres- sion of regret that Protestantism had failed to hold the con- fidence of even its own adherents as a guide in such matters. The almost unanimous endorsement, by the most eminent economists of Europe and America, of the present illustrious Pontiff s encyclical on the proper relations between labor and capital was probably the most striking example of such testi- mony in recent years. If other proofs of the church's care for the material as well as for the spiritual interests of the "plain people," and, therefore, of the whole community, were lacking — and they were not — the Pope's proposition that the wage- earner everywhere should be enabled to maintain himself and Digitized by Google

Page 604

iqoi.] The Catholic Church and the Future. 565 his family in " frugal comfort/' and to make suitable provision for old age, sickness, and death, this showed the workers of the world that the Catholic Church is truly the church of the whole people, of whom the great majority are and ever will be wage earners and dependents on these latter. Again, when Catholicism inculcates resignation under the ills of unavoidable poverty, and enjoins submission to those exer- cising authority, except in cases where resistance is clearly sanctioned by the higher law with which all human legislation should fundamentally coincide, it has an enormous advantage over any other form of organized Christianity in dealing with such matters. The church can point to vast numbers of her children who, in all the walks of life, and in all ages and nations, have voluntarily chosen poverty and devotion to the needs of the poor for their lot, in order to more closely imitate their Divine Model ; and regarding submission to all lawful authority, she herself speaks with authority which is directly derived from the source of all law and order — God himself : Protestantism, on the other hand, can point to few if any voluntary renunciations of worldly wealth and com- forts; and, recognizing the so called fight of private judgment, potentially nullifies in advance any deliverance made on vexed questions of submission to the powers that be when, under certain conditions, opinions are divided touching the obedience due them. The latitudinarianism of belief which can exist con- jointly with the most orthodox Protestantism, heavily discounts the value of the latter's teaching on any subject. So that, as intimated, even non Catholics are beginning to realize that in a possible future social upheaval the conserver cf law and order will be the ancient and mighty Church of Rome. With her undisputed and beneficent sway over more than two hun- dred millions of devoted adherents, and her indirect power over those influenced by their example, she will again fill the role in which she has so often shone resplendent since the foundation of Christianity. Protestants themselves most loudly complain that Protestantism does discriminate against the poor man in dealing with him and his wealthy brother. And they point to the true and unostentatious democracy of Catholicism in this matter. PRINCIPLE BEFORE EXPEDIENCY. And it is Protestants who most loudly complain of the con- spicuous lack of high moral principle, and the subserviency of Digitized by Google

Page 605

566 The Catholic Church and the Future. [Feb., right to mere expediency, which to day obtain to a dangerous extent among non-Catholics holding high office. And, as a corollary to this, there is a rapidly-growing belief that a true Catholic holding some great public trust and called on to choose between right and mere expediency would almost cer- tainly act in the spirit of the Pope's memorable pronounce- ment, " Non possumus," when deciding against the divorce sought by the brutal Henry VIII. of England. Assuredly such office-holder would but rarely — if ever — become the tool of "corporate greed" or the " communism of pelf." When- ever necessary he would remember he was the servant of all the people, and not of a class or a clique. In fact, such an atti- tude would be an almost inevitable result of his true Catholicism. The church has neither respect for riches, nor contempt for poverty. Her aim is the saving of souls ; not, as some non- Catholics seem to think, the acquisition of world-wide power. The anstyer given by the Superior-General of the Jesuits to Cavour, when pressed by the latter to "disclose the secret of the order, and of its marvellous success," admirably expresses the true spirit of the entire teaching church : What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world, and to lose his soul ? To day the belief that this does express the true aim and spirit of Catholicism is rapidly making way among the great mass of the non Catholic community. And all indications point to its continuous growth. The twentieth century will see a far wider recognition of the church's priceless service to all humanity; her hold on the respect and confidence of even non Catholics will grow and deepen with the years when it is still more gen- erally recognized, as it will be, that it is her teaching alone which can furnish an enduring arid satisfactory solution of the great sociologic problems of the day. So much for the rela tion between Catholicism and the unrest regarding the future of the race which so strongly characterizes the spirit of the time. WHAT OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GRAVE? In the very nature of things, it may well be that the grow- ing eagerness of inquiry touching a possible disembodied ex- istence, which the writer proposes to consider before the materialism of the day, will also have a strong and favorable influence on the future of Catholicism. Of course this phase of investigation exists almost wholly among non-Catholics, and for very obvious reasons. The church, speaking with divine Digitized by Google

Page 606

1901.] The Catholic Church and the Future. 567 authority as the sole repository of the whole truth in revealed religion, has, once and for all, solved for her members every question regarding another state of existence where a solution was either necessary or advisable. And as the properly in- structed Catholic well knows, in accepting the church's dicta in such matters he uses his God-given reason in a manner not only eminently pleasing to the Giver, as thus fittingly recog- nizing God's authority exercised through his church, but also in a manner which can be proved to be eminently in accord with the claims of reason, even when the latter is considered wholly apart from its divine origin. But as every rule has its exceptions, so, occasionally, a Catholic of more or less intel- lectual prominence refuses to submit his reason to the church's authority; and, blinded by the pride of intellect, may even temporarily withdraw from her fold. However, the rarity of such defections, and their usual termination by a proper sub- mission, serve to emphasize the rule itself. But with the non-Catholic the case is very different. When pressed by the demands of his higher nature, and indifferent to or doubtful regarding ecclesiastical dicta, he ventures forth into the vast and, to him, shoreless ocean of inquiry outside material existence, he most truly resembles the ill-fated voya- ger without chart or compass, to whom he has been so often compared. His wanderings almost invariably terminate in one of three ways. Finding himself confronted on all sides by con- ditions which either obstinately refuse to accord with his theo- ries at all, or else accord with these latter only in part, while still baffling the earnest search for a satisfactory answer to his inquiries, he gradually drifts into a species of agnosticism, almost inevitably accompanied by a resolve to live for the pleasures of the present alone; he becomes a downright athe- ist, still with the same resolve ; or he gradually finds his way into the fold of the one true church. CATHOLICISM THE BEST SPIRITUALISM. What careful observer can fail to see that the present wide- spread popular interest in spiritualism, hypnotism, theosophy, and the ancient religious cults of the Orient, is a striking proof of the human soul's revolt against the mere materialism to which so many modern writers point as the proper goal for all human effort? And as good sometimes partially results from evil, so even spiritualism and theosophy, despite their errors and vagaries, have at least one good effect. They pre- Digitized by Google

Page 607

568 The Catholic Church and the Future. [Feb., pare the minds of their votaries for the acceptance of the great mysteries of Christianity. It should go without saying that the man who believes in the theory of an astral body, or in the power to transmit, by hypnotism or telepathy, human wish and thought, regardless of time and distance and other phy- sical limitations, must be potentially in a more or less re- ceptive mental condition touching such a great fundamental doctrine as the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or the com- munion of saints ; while the mere materialist rests content with the protean evolution of his all sufficing protoplasm. Now, for the very reason that Protestantism has no such doctrines as the Real Presence, the communion of saints, or prayers for the dead, it is far less in touch than is Catholicism with the large and growing number who, with or without an acceptance of revelation, pursue their investigations regarding disembodied existence. The church, which alone holds and teaches the whole of revealed truth touching the relations be- tween spirit and matter, is the only agency on earth capa- ble of properly directing and satisfying the deep inherent yearning of the soul for knowledge of some form of disem- bodied existence, either with or without reference to the ulti- mate destiny of loved ones removed by death. When the Prince of Wales and his consort pray at the tomb of their son, as they did on at least one occasion, and when many other Protestants concede there " may be something, after all," in the doctrines of purgatory, prayers for the dead, and the com- munion of saints, it is easy to see which of the two, Catholi- cism or Protestantism, is the more in touch with the very sig- nificant phase of current thought now considered. And it is easy to see that the very materialism of the pres- ent day will exercise, nay, is exercising, an influence not wholly unfavorable to Catholicism, paradoxical though this assertion may seem. It should be remembered that the materialism of the present is largely different from that of the past, which, necessarily, lacked many existing forceful suggestions of a Creator in the works of the creature man. So numerous and so great have been the achievements of the race in science and art, during the later decades of the century, and so vast the field thus opened to future research and triumph, that many of even the apparently most materialistic are beginning to per- ceive, dimly, perhaps, but, nevertheless, with an awakening from the lethargy of their cult, that behind the well-nigh infinitely varied phenomena of life, with all its comforts and conveniences Digitized by Google

Page 608

1901.] The Catholic Church and the Future. 569 of the day, and the wonderful strides towards the removal or lessening of purely physical obstacles, there would seem to be some marvellous if unknown Power or Good to which humaftity should gradually ascend. And this vague perception of a great truth, rather than mere idle casuistry, is largely responsible for the spirit of inquiry touching a possible disembodied existence. Hence the very enjoyment of the material side of life, when properly directed, has a certain spiritual value through its sug- gestion of the Unknown Good in another and possible order of existence. But it is only the Catholic Church, with her always clearly defined and consistent teaching regarding the use of material things, and with the general accord between precept and practice in relation to this subject observable among her members, that can make the materialism of the day really subservient to the uplifting of humanity. Unlike Protestantism, she does not, on the one hand, injudiciously re* pel the mere worldling by ultra Puritanical denunciations of even those pleasures of life commended by common sense ; nor, on the other hand, does she refrain from vigorously teaching, re- gardless of who may hear, that all men are strictly accountable to God for the use or abuse of the good things of life, and that, at best, the riches, honors, and pleasures of this world are but poor things to engage the eager pursuit of beings with immortal souls. So that to-day a large and increasing number of Protestants find themselves regarding the society salon, the theatre, the ball, the latest novel, and Sunday recreation, from the Catholic rather than from the Protestant stand-point. They find that, touching all such matters, the attitude of the church is eminently that of common sense ; and that while she teaches a rigid adherence to right principles, she is far less concerned with the letter of the law than with its spirit. Regarding the subject of Sunday recreation, especially, a large and growing number of non-Catholics are practically endorsing the Church's view that " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Thus, the very materialism of the day, which, again in the last analysis, is a misdirected enjoyment of the gifts of God, which lacks many of the coarser features of the materialism of the past, and which, for reasons already mentioned in this arti- cle, is, as it were, compelled to a quasi recognition of spiritual potentialities, this very phase of current thought will, in all probability, have its share in the growth of Catholicism and Catholic influence. Digitized by Google

Page 609

570 The Catholic Church and the Future. [Feb., It is not, then, surprising that many among the more thought- ful of other creeds look forward to a great increase of Catho- lic prestige, and to large accessions to the church, during the coming century. While, in the strictest sense, in the world but not of it, her profound and God-given insight into the needs and aspirations of humanity ; her Christ-like sympathy with the upward struggle of poor, fallen, blundering man ; her divinely-modelled pity for his errors ; and, above all, her great commission from above, as the guide and teacher of the nations : all these, necessarily, bring her very close, in one form or an- other, to the human heart. So that, in the very nature of things, the rapprochement between Catholicism and the spirit of the times will grow and deepen with the march of time ; not because of any vital and impossible concession from the church, but because, in the main, the progress of the race is onward and upward ; and because God is over all, marking the coming of the day of the final restitution of all things. Digitized by Google

Page 610

I9QI.1 The Story of a Rivalry. 57« THE STORY OF A RIVALRY. BY ROSCELYN BAYARD LEE. 'HE graduation exercises were over, prizes dis- tributed, degrees conferred, and Father Baxter, the prefect of studies, was lingering on a re- luctant good by to his two favorite boys. "Well, boys," he was saying, as he strode slowly down the corridor between them, holding an arm of each, " now that everything is over and no mischief can come of it, let me say that you are the two B. A.'s whom I am proudest to send out as representatives of the college, but sorriest to lose. Now, on parting, I am going to make a proposition to you — no, I '11 make no proposition ; I am your prefect still, and I impose a command. Phil., you rascal, you managed to capture the philosophy medal from Rob. here by the skin of your teeth ; but Rob. won the debater's medal and the essay prize ; so you are quits, and neither of you can exult over the other as a prostrate conquest. Now, it is nothing short of your friendly rivalry that has been the making of both of you; and this leads me to my command — my strictest if my last— and it is this : I want you in the life-work you are about entering upon to be rivals still." " O Father Baxter ! I won't be in it with Rob." "Shucks! Phil, there will be a bishop before I've won my first case. Give me an easier pacer, father. I 've been trying to keep up with him for three years, and I 'm played out." " None of your modesty now," put in their mentor with a smile. " I mean what I say. You are to be rivals still, do you hear? It will make men of you, and both of you need it. Rob., you will never plead in anything bigger than a coun- try court, unless you see your old competitor alongside flinging you a challenge. It 's a pace that kills, you say. Yes, kills in- dolence, but gives life to ambition, my boy. And as for you, Phil., you will fall into the rut of mere parochialism when you leave the seminary, if you can't look about you once in awhile and say: 'Confound that fellow Harris! I beat him for the philosophy medal, and there he is making himself famous at the bar, and my biggest achievement, so far, is running a church debt society.'" Digitized by Google

Page 611

572 The Story of a Rivalry % [Feb., " Oh ! but Father Baxter," interrupted Phil, with a laugh, " I 'm going to join a missionary community, you know ; and whatever else I do, I don't expect to turn the grindstone of church-debt societies." 41 That 's all right," replied the prefect with a queer smile ; 41 there are grindstones in missionary communities too. If it is n't of one kind, it will be of another. What you boys want is stimulus; and competition, when sweetened with friendship, is the best kind. Phil., you know you are a book-worm, and are in danger of never coming out into the world of reality if you only have enough to read. Rob., you rogue, you 're lazy ; and don't deny it. Give you a comfortable office and barely enough income to keep it so, and you will smoke away oppor- tunities at the end of a cigar in as devil may-care a manner as you had when you walked up to get your diploma a half-hour ago. Promise now, you are going to be rivals still?" "Sure!" from both. "Well, make it sure; and as purposes of amendment have to be definite, listen to my directions. Once a year you are to meet one another and compare notes, understand? Then send me a statement of results. I '11 make the decision, send- ing to the better man an 4 Io triumphe ' of felicitation, and to the other, if he has idled, a regular 4 In Catilinam 9 invective,. Good- by, boys, and God bless you ! And remember your promise." During Phil.'s theological and Rob.'s legal studies there was a running fire of correspondence, and the promised rivalry was never allowed to retire from sight. At Christmas-tide Phil, re- ceived his usual letter: Dearest Phil.: How in the world are jou? Jove! I hope you find less sawdust in your theology than I do in my law. Only for my love for debate, I don't know but I 'd pitch the stuff. But it 's great in our moot courts to spear the other fellow on the spit of scholastic logic, and then toast him over the fire of sarcasm. " Harris," said an old Prof, yesterday, "if you were as clever in torts as you are in retorts you'd make a lawyer." Not bad for a Drybones, was it? — even if it is n't fresh. But I 'm going to swallow the dose as a kid does castor-oil: because the spoon is jammed down my gullet there'll be a dickens of a row if I don't; and after all I know it will do me good. And then I 've got to plug to keep in sight of that " Excelsior " flag of yours. But I 'm after you, my boy. Poor Father Baxter! and he never lived to see what Digitized by Google

Page 612

igoi.] The Story of a Rivalry. 573 effect his last strange advice would bring about. I many times think of the old days, Phil., and long for them. Often of a night Kent's Commentaries or Pollock's History of English Law slips from my hand, my pipe goes out, and I am back again with you and the dear old boys in the days of yore. We had a great class, didn't we? I suppose you are grinding yourself gray at divinity. I hear fine reports of you. Going to be sent to the University, they say. Guns ! that 's a lap on me already, but I '11 never say die ; and if some day I kneel to kiss your ring, I '11 not rest till you mark your ballot for me for President. Lots of old-time affection. Your dear friend and classmate, Rob. My dear old Rob.: I have just returned to my room after a Latin disputation on the terrifically interesting question, just now, you will observe, agitated by all the newspapers: Utrum valeat scientia media ad explicandam futurorum contingentium cognitionem ? I was up ; blest if I 'm sure on which side I argued. But this I do know, that I longed for your skill in blarney. That spit of scholastic logic that one of your letters spoke of came mighty near being my own axis of rotation instead of the other fellow's. But, don't you know, I like questions like these. No use talking, I'm an unpractical, use- less dealer in dreamware ; a metaphysician who don't know how to fry an egg, but can forget my dinner in discussing the objective value of the categories of Kant. And there 's where you have got the upper hand with me in Father Baxter's competi- tion. Poor man ; the Lord give him a sweet rest ! You and I ought to like him of all the world. This business of progress, this rivalry of gross success to which he bound you and me, is one wherein a rippling tongue, a free hand, and a bold face are a million miles ahead of — ahem ! I 'm 'umble — the ethereal, the transcendental, the over-soul, you know, and all that sort of thing. Well, Rob., how are you anyway? You said law was not so interesting as it might be, I think. Confusion on you lawyers! haven't I reason to know it? We are studying con- tracts in "moral " ; lots of it is civil law merely, and not since I read the latest popular frenzy in the novel line have I been so kiln dried. But keep at it, old boy, for there 's a spectre at your hind wheel, and it's your old friend. Vote for you for President? Man alive, your shingle will be creaking for clients when I 'm the besought of every pulpit from here to El Paso. Good luck, dear, good old Rob., and God bless you ! Your dear classmate, Phil. Digitized by Google

Page 613

574 The Story of a Rivalry. [Feb., Phil, had been on the missions less than a year, and Rob/s shingle had " creaked for clients " more than twice as long, when one day the young missionary, home for the Christmas holidays, received the following letter : December 21, Dear Father Phil. : Hooray ! Can't stop now to tell you what it is, but something great has happened. I've struck it rich. Jove ! that Presidency may come true ,after all. I'll run down to see you and mother to-morrow and stay till Christmas Eve. But, my boy, strike your colors! You 're done for. Ex- cuse my ebullition and my egotism ; but it is only to my dear- est friend, and when he knows, he'll be more full of fireworks than I am. Good-by till to-morrow, ROB. Father Phil.'s wan face smiled tenderly, and his lips whispered, as he laid down the note : " Dear Rob., God bless him ! " "Well, Rob., I'm dying to know the grand news, and so is mother," said Father Phil, next day, after an effusive greeting to the mustached young barrister. " Phil, it 's great. Read that," and Rob. drew from his coat pocket an envelope with the official stamp of the State Depart- ment in the corner. In a minute his friend glanced up radiant with gladness. "Appointed first secretary to the legation at St. Petersburg ! And the consular service has always been your dream ! Rob., my best brother, I congratulate you. Mother, help me tell him how happy I am. In such a position at twenty- four! Why, Rob., your fortune is made. Hardly a man in years, you are already a man of state. I guess that finishes mt9judice Father Baxter. Think of it! You off in foreign courts, probably talking to the Czar of all the Russias, while I am giving missions to the Melungeons of Tennessee! Yes, Rob., surrender is the word; your pace is too swift for me. Mother, your best dinner as a celebration." "Where is Father Phil., Mrs. Desmond?" asked Rob. on the morning of Christmas Eve as he came down stairs with valise, hat, and cane. "I want to say good by ; my train leaves in an hour." " In his study with his morning mail," answered Mrs. Des- mond. "Walk in; you won't disturb him." Whistling gaily, Rob. opened the door of the little library, took one step across the threshold, and stood stock-still, his face expressing astonishment and interrogation. "Come in, Rob.," said the young priest in a soft voice. Digitized by Google

Page 614

1 90i.] The Story of a Rivalry. 575 u You have caught me crying, but no matter ; please pardon me, but I just had to give way. I never felt so in my life. This letter and card did it. Read them." With a strange sense of reverence Rob. opened the pages of the letter and read : Good Shepherd Convent, Christmas Reverend and dear Father Desmond : Last summer, you may remember, you gave us our retreat. Dear father, you were very kind to us, and showed us every sympathy. The good sisters in charge of us give us every tender care, but people outside seem to have no warmth of heart for us at all. Yet we need this perhaps more than others, and are hungry for it. You, kind father, showed that you cared for us, and your tender words we have never forgotten. So ever since July, when you left us, we have ail remem- bered you in prayer, and have been keeping count of the petitions and sacrifices offered to God for you, that he might bless you and your work and reward you for what you did for us. The enclosed card represents this spiritual banquet, and we send it as our Christmas gift, praying our Infant King to send you a happy festival and asking you sometimes to think prayerfully of Your dear friends and children, St. Mary Magdalen's Penitent Class of the Good Shepherd Convent in In silence Rob. glanced at the Christmas card, tastefully lettered in gold, and read : Spiritual Bouquet to dear Father Desmond, as a Christmas offering from his dear children of St. Mary Magdalen's Class. Masses heard, . . . 200 Memorares, . 5.000 Holy Communions, . . 50 Aspirations, . . 20,000 Visits to Blessed Sacrament, 1,000 Salve Reginas, . . 5,000 Pater Nosters . . . 5,000 Hours of Silence, . 200 Ave Marias, .... 5,000 Beads 1,000 " Phil.," said Rob., after a long pause, " that is simply divine ; let me kiss your hand, and never again consider a worm of the earth like me your competitor in anything." " No, Rob., I still say that, according to the standard that Father Baxter most likely had in mind, you have won. But, Rob. dear," and there was a light not of earth on the young priest's face as he raised his swimming eyes to his friend's, — " Rob. dear, I would n't swap." Digitized by Google

Page 615

The First Snow. ©he Fi^st Snow. BY ALOYSIUS COLL. LL night I heard the penitent wind Confess to autumn blast, And shriven, as a soul absolved, The world is pure at last. Nuns at a shrine of crystal carved, The pines are bending low, Their fingers clasped in silent prayer On beads of silver snow. Beads that are told by morning winds Like rosaries at Mass, And counted, one by one, and dropped To the white-surpliced grass, To hide from winter's touch austere Till May is come again With the warm impulse of the sun And kisses of the rain. Then shall this morning's frozen prayer Be melted to the plea Which makes the laughter in the brook, The singing in the sea. It shall inflate the honey drop Upon the lily tongue, And cool the thrush's throbbing throat When bursts the passion song. To marsh and meadow it shall bring The magic kiss of dew, The lilac and the marigold, The rose bud and the rue. So winter, with its breath of ice, And breast of frozen sea Brings back the summer and the sun, The love and song to me. Digitized by GoOglC

Page 616

The Women of Provence preserve the ancient Type of Beauty. THE PORT OF COFFINS. BY E. C. VANSITTART. " Presso ad Arli, ove il Rodano stagna, Piena di sepolture e la Campagna." (Ariosto : Orlando Furioso^ canto xxxix. 72.) I LONG tramp in Southern France is replete with interest. The high-roads, dusty enough, are gen- erally bordered by feathery tamarisk hedges, whose dull pink blossoms impart a curious tint to the landscape in the distance. In the heart of Provence, however, rarer objects break the tedium of the day as, with an autumn sun at his back, the traveller marks vol. lxxii.— 38 Digitized by Google

Page 617

578 The Port of Coffins. [Feb., the slow passage of the mile stones. On either hand stretch flat fields of stunted vines, now glorious sheets of ruby red, scarlet, or golden hue, with here and there a silvery olive to enhance the depth of color by contrast ; lavender reeds, and rushes, with a stray horn poppy and a thick-leaved suc- culent herb, with a distinct saline flavor, cover the unculti- vated patches, the whole crossed by sombre lines of cypress- trees, cut into gigantic hedges which serve to break the bitter blast of the mistral, whose gusts carry away the shepherds* huts, and have been known to delay — if not stop — the passage of railway trains. Habitations are rare, and only once and again a group of quince, pomegranate, fig, and almond trees mark the existence of a mas, as they are termed. In the height of summer the pools (for we are but a few inches above the blue Mediterranean, and on ground where its waters once flowed) dry up, and become glistening patches covered with a snowy efflorescent crust left by evaporation ; other bare tracts of gray stony desert intervene, over which roam the dun colored sheep of the region, cropping the stunted but highly flavored herbage which the September rains have coaxed into being. Yellow jasmine, sea narcissus, yellow asphodel, " sourde salicorne" and the sweet alyssum, rosemary, not to mention the whole fragrant family of thymes, are to be found, each in due season, and are known and loved by the solitary shepherds who, wrapped in tattered brown cloaks, lead their flocks to and from the distant mountain pastures to these lower feeding grounds. •'How dreary!" is the usual exclamation; but this wondrous region holds many surprises for those who care to seek them : here and there comes a canal or a branch of the mighty Rhone, or a hidden depression shows a valley with umbrella pines, myrtle, and oleander, fertilized by a purling stream with now and then a tuft of maidenhair fern. Eastern of aspect, its beauty is of p. peculiar type, and intermingles with the desolation caused by howling winds sweeping on unchecked by woods; yet the very silence of its reaches is full of expression, and its sunsets are wondrous. Such, then, is the setting in which, on the banks of the Rhone, lies the ancient city of Aries; from afar its rusty old belfries, towers, and weather-stained ramparts are discerned against the sky. Once a kingly city, it now slumbers peace- fully, dreaming of past glories; the narrow, winding streets, the beautiful ArUsiennes in their picturesque costumes, the Digitized by Google

Page 618

I90i.] The Port of Coffins. 579 magnificent Roman remains — all lend a peculiar charm to Aries. There was a time when emperors and kings sought to be crowned here; for awhile it even bore the name of Con- stantinopolis, when the Emperor Constantine destined it as his capital ; afterwards, when Byzantium was chosen in its stead, he made Aries the seat of the prefect of the Gallic Pretorium, with Spain and Great Britain under his jurisdiction. The grand old amphitheatre built by Augustus, the Greek theatre, and the church of St. Trophimus with its lovely cloisters and A Roman Coliseum at Arles. beautiful portal, above which Christ sits enthroned, surrounded by hosts of saints and angels, a perfect specimen of Gothic art — all claim attention ; but in none of these lay for us the supreme attraction of Aries: all its history, royal and imperial, pagan and Christian, is contained in the few acres of ground occupied by its cemetery, Les Alyscamps (a corruption of Elyscei Campi), for this necropolis is unique in the world ; within this privileged God's acre generations of Christians have rested after generations of pagans. It was Chateaubriand who said: •* I have never in all my wanderings met a place which attracted me more to die in than Aries"; but his words no doubt applied more to the City of the Dead than the City of the Living. Going down the Rue des Penitents Gris, we read ed the Public Gardens ; then, crossing the high-road into a lane along- Digitized by Google

Page 619

58o The Port of Coffins. [Feb., side the Canal of Craponne, we were suddenly plunged into solitude and silence. Before us stretched a long avenue bor- dered on either side by tall poplars, and lined with innumera- ble sarcophagi, grave-stones, and monuments; the brilliant sun- shine cast bands of checkered light and shade across this street of tombs ; no sound save the breeze rustling the leaves of the old trees overhead, or the song of a bird in the branches, broke the quiet of those whose mortal bodies sleep here after "life's fitful fever." Side by side they rest, Christians and pagans, in the same mother earth, under the same blue sky, and the sunlight smiles impartially on their graves ; all differ- ences are lost, for are not they one and all children of the same Father? Since the foundation of Aries, in pagan times, its dead have rested here, and in every age this cemetery has bsen reputed peculiarly sacred, and burial within its precincts was eagerly sought. Several avenues led to the heart of the necropolis, each lined with magnificent Roman tombs, heroic cenotaphs of the time of Augustus, and ornamental urns of the era of Con- stantine; indeed, the Gallo Roman canopies of heathen days still stand beside the .gigantic urn dedicated to the consuls who perished, martyrs to their patriotism, during the great plague of 1720. Previous to the Revolution of 1793 the prin- cipal features of the original plan were still preserved, and during the twelfth century we know that it contained no less than nineteen churches and chapels, many of the latter belong- ing to noble families of Provence, and that the monks of St. Victor were its guardians. Little by little, however, most of the monuments were removed to the museums of Rome, Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles; the Middle Ages had respected these dwellings of the dead and refrained from touching them, but nineteenth century progress and civilization did not hesitate to lay sacrilegious hands upon them, and to remove them from the spot to which they were so well suited. Finally, fifty years ago, the railway cut up a great portion of Les Alys- camps, taking away much of its peacefulness and beauty, so that what now remains is but a fragment of the past. The one remaining thoroughfare is the avenue of poplars already referred to, which leads to the Church of St. Honorat, and is, as a French writer puts it, like the "pagan prologue," for at the church it opens out " into a green lawn shaded by trees and littered with hundreds of sarcophagi — a spot in- finitely quiet, touching, and impressive." Tradition relates how Trophimus, one of the seventy-two Digitized by Google

Page 620

igoi.] The Port of Coffins. 581 11 The Avenue is like a Pagan Prolcguf." disciples of our Lord, alluded to by St. Paul in his Epistles (II. Timothy iv. 20 ; Acts xx. 4 ; xxi. 29), when they went preach- ing the Christian faith throughout the world, having visited Aries, induced the inhabitants of that famous city, by the force of his example and by his powerful preaching, to embrace the true faith and discard their hideous idolatry of false gods, to whom they even sacrificed young children. Having been con- secrated Bishop of Aries by St. Peter and St. Paul, one of his cares was to dedicate to the true God the pagan cemetery uhich faced the rising sun, and was situated on the banks of the Rhone. For this purpose, the legend goes on to relate, he called together the bishops of neighboring cities, and having Digitized by Google

Page 621

582 The Port of Coffins. [Feb., raised an altar of earth according to the text of the Old Testa- ment, they began the service amid a vast throng of people who had assembled, when Christ Himself appeared and blessed the cemetery ! According to a popular superstition, he still annu- ally visits the spot on the night of All Saints to celebrate the Mass, surrounded by the bishops who were present at the first consecration. On the place where the Lord appeared he left the marks of his knees, over which Trophimus placed the stone altar now enclosed in the little chapel of La Genouillade (built in 1529). He also built a church dedicated to "The still living Virgin " — Sacellum dedicatum Deiparce adhuc viventi (as is testified by a marble slab bearing this inscription which was sent from Aries to Rome), in which he was interred, by his own express desire; in the sixth century, the edifice having fallen into decay, it was replaced by the still existing building dedicated to St. Honorat. Of the numerous private chapels only two now survive, that surnamed Du Duel, and the chapel of the family of Porcellets. The former was erected in 1521 by the victor in a duel fought to the death, and dedicated to St. Accuse, patron saint of the victim. Attached to this building is the beautiful ruined arch of St. C£saire, one of the original gates of the cemetery. The present chapel of the Porcellets goes no further back than 1419, but the original building must have been dated several centuries earlier. The now empty interior is closed by a strange grating consisting of six iron pointed arches superposed upon each other, beyond which it attracts no attention. The illustrious family of the Porcellets, now extinct, had taken for its device the vainglorious m^tto: " Genus Deorum, deinde gens Porcella Mail* lana" (First the race of the gods, then the family of Porcella of Maillane). The first member of the family known to history was the Porcellus who lived towards the middle of the twelfth century, and was father of William Porcellus, who joined the Crusades in 119c, fought under the standard of Richard Cceur de Lion, and saved that monarch's life by an act of chivalrous devotion which rendered him the prisoner of Saladin. The William of the " Sicilian Vespers" was the third of that name, Lord of the Bourg of Aries and of other lands and cities, Baron of the Kingdom of Sicily, etc. Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louts, who appreciated his valor and wisdom, gave him the title of his Chevalier Familier. He it was who represented Charles as governor of Sicily when, on Easter day of the year 1282, the church bell gave the signal for the massacre known to his- tory as the "Sicilian Vespers," when eight thousand Frenchmen Digitized by Google

Page 622

igoi.] The Port of Coffins. S»3 were brutally murdered. "One man alone was spared," says a contemporary writer, " Provencal by birth, called Guillaume de Porcellet, who in the government of the place he commanded had always distinguished himself by his equity, his moderation, his gentleness and pity, and who — on this occasion — owed his life entirely to the extraordinary impression his virtues had produced upon the minds of the people." He was not only preserved from death, but sent back in a Sicilian ship laden with gifts. The Doorway of the Church of St. Trophimus, Companion of St. Paul. The church of St. Honorat is a curious structure, half Gothic, half Byzantine in style ; its belfry, an octagonal tower, with a double row of arches, has a domed roof of Eastern type. The open space around is covered with long grass and wild flowers strewn with grave-stones ; pines, birches, a fig tree, and a large plane tree overshadow them. There is a very ancient crypt and some private chapels, and the unfinished naze still contains a number of sarcophagi and Gothic tombs, though the greater part have been removed to the museum of Aries, leaving the interior desolate and abandoned. Even in the Middle Ages, despite the devout credulity of the " faithful," the torch of faith had need of being reanimated from time to time ; thus, we find Archbishop Morosio com- plaining that " this church, founded by the great St. Trophi- mus, enlarged and endowed by Charlemagne, was in danger of Digitized by Google

Page 623

584 The Port of Coffins. [Feb., falling into ruins, and could not be suitably restored without incurring great costs." In a pastoral letter, addressed to the whole Catholic world, he again recalls how here " rested the body of St. Honorat, the relics of the holy Bishops Hiliary, Aurelius, Concordius, Eonius, Virgilius, and Rotlandus; of the blessed martyrs Genius and Dorothea, virgin and martyr, not to speak of other holy bodies whose souls now enjoyed the fruition of the vision of God." He cited the antiquity of this cemetery " blessed by apostolic men, and by seven of the disciples of our Lord, Trophimus, with various other bishops, in whose presence Christ appeared in Person at this consecra- tion, as is testified by Marcella, servant of Martha, in the second book of the Acts of her life, written in Hebrew. Here too Mary Magdalen deposited several holy relics which she had brought from Jerusalem, and which worked divers miracles.'* Corpses interred here were held to be safe from all attacks of the devil, and burial in Les Alyscamps was so earnestly de- sired that Mar£chal Gervais de Tilbury, who wrote in the thirteenth century, relates how the dead were sent hither from Lyons, and many other distant cities, the ccffins being en- trusted to the river's current, the droit de tnortelage> or price for burial, being deposited in a sealed coffret affixed to the coffin. No sacrilegious hand touched the dead on their jour- ney to Les Alyscamps ; it was sufficient to launch them on the Rhone, on whose stream they floated down to Aries, with- out oars or rudder, with no other guidance but that of God ; however violent the wind might be, they never went beyond that quarter of the city called La Roquette ; here they halted before the cemetery, caught in an eddy, neither advancing nor receding till the monks of St. Victor, charged with the funeral rites, drew them to shore and gave them burial. When the boatmen on the Rhone saw one of these coffins floating on the water, they saluted it by uncovering their heads and mak- ing the sign of the cross, persuaded that the guardian angel of the departed guided it across the sand banks, with his protect* ing wings outstretched like sails. Many legends and superstitions gathered round Les Aljs- camps, clothing it in a poetic garb ; some of these are recorded in an ancient chronicle couched in quaint old French phrase- ology and written on parchment, now entirely worn out, but transcribed as far back as 1687 by the priors of the convent in which it was found. Thus, it tells how "Miracles took place daily, among which is to be related a remarkable one of a barrel which floated down the river without other guidance Digitized by Google

Page 624

1901.] The Port of Coffins. 585 Ancient Church of St. Honorat, Les Alyscamps. than that of God, and passing between the castles of Tarascon and Beaucaire, going along with the current of the stream, the servants of the castle of Beaucaire brought it to land ; having opened it, they found inside the body of a knight, and a large sum of money for his burial, whereupon they took out the money which was in the said barrel, and put back the knight inside. Then they tried to start the barrel again on its journey down the river, but all their efforts were vain ; they never could push it sufficiently far to make it reach the water; on the contrary, it rolled perpetually in front of the castle, without moving from the spot, which thing having attracted the attention of the Count of Tolose, lord of the said castle of Beaucaire, he caused the barrel to be seized and examined, and recognizing the abuse that had been committed, he ordered v the thieves to restore the money even to the uttermost maille. This having been done, the barrel once more floated down the river as before, and came to a halt at Aries, before the holy cemetery, where it was honorably buried." " In the said cemetery and church was buried St. Honorat, Archbishop of Aries and Abbot of the monastery of Les Llrins, which is an island in the Mediterranean. It is to be Digitized by Google

Page 625

586 The Port of Corf ins. [Feb., remarked that this saint having died at Aries, and being buried, as we have said, in this cemetery, the brethren of his order, envious of his holy body, went to Les Alyscamps with the design of carrying it away to their monastery. When they arrived at the said cemetery to execute their purpose, as they were about to take it up, all the bodies of the deceased lying there arose by the will of God, and cried out : " It is not right that you should take away our holy patron from us." Which vision and voices so amazed the monks that they left the said body in its grave. Some time after, being reassured, and having taken courage, they returned to possess themselves of the said holy corpse, and as they were in the act the bodies of all the dead arose, and called out more loudly than before : " It is not right that you should take away our holy patron from us " ; whereat they fled in terror, and never again ventured to return thither. It is not to be wondered that the voices of angels were often heard singing melodiously in this holy place, as was testified by the blessed Quirin, Bishop of Uzfes, in his life-time, and by several other well-known persons who affirmed they had heard them. Here too it was that, while the Emperor Constantine was contemplating the beautiful monu- ments, an angel appeared unto him, and pointing to a cross of fire in the air, said : " In hoc signo vinces." Special " indulgences and pardons " were granted to devo- tions performed at Les Alyscamps. Originally the necropolis covered an extent of about the third of a league, but "after the body of St. Trophimus was rempved to the town, in 1152, the glory of Alyscamps begin to wane, and its ancient sarcophagi were carried off to distant museums, even to those of Rome. In the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris stands a neglected sarcophagus, and two magnificent white marble basins presented in 1640 to the brother of Cardinal Richelieu, Archbishop of Lyons. Marseilles possesses more than one tomb from Aries. A heavy load of these monuments, despatched by the king to his ministers and governors of provinces, was wrecked under an arch of the Pont St. Esprit. This custom of presenting the tombs as gifts began under Louis XIV.; in the Chronological History of Aries we read, under the date of 1634: ' Melchior Mitte de Chevriferes, Marquis de Saint Cbau mont, lieutenant-general in the place of the king in Provence, made his entry into the city of Aries, where the consuls made him a present of a silver bassiti with two aiguteres, and thirteen ancient tombs." When, in 1848, the railway destroyed the greater portion of Digitized by Google

Page 626

igoi.] The Port of Co funs. 587 The Arch of St. Cesaire, one of the original Gates of the Pagan Cemetery. Les Alyscamps, the finest remaining monuments were removed to the museum at Aries, which occupies the now disused Gothic church of St. Anne. The " Christian Museum " at St. John Lateran in Rome holds nothing finer than these sculptured sarcophagi ; side by side they stand, pagan and Christian ; in many cases the Diis Manibus on the heathen tomb has been transformed into Deo Optimo Maximo, and the monogram of Christ, the vine, fish, ark, dove, and other symbols of the primitive church roughly cut out in the marble, thus proving that Christians used the empty pagan sarcophagi, by consecrat- ing them to the " one true God." On one of these there is a touching inscription in Latin to the " most beloved and innocent child," a certain little u Chrisogenea," daughter of Valerius and his wife, who died at the age of three years, " of rare sweetness, a source of nothing but joy to her loving parents," during the whole of her brief Digitized by Google

Page 627

588 The Port of Coffins. [Feb., lifetime. On the lid of the marble sarcophagus is carved: "Pax Sterna" and a palm branch. Close by, in a leaden coffin, may be seen the remains of a Roman maiden (removed hither from the Church of St. Honorat), with the gold orna- ments found in her tomb. She too was the joy of her parents, and died young, as the inscription on her sarcophagus tells us. Hours might be spent deciphering the inscriptions and studying the sculptures on these tombs. That of the priest Commodus is one of the finest : it is richly sculptured, with a representa- tion of Christ enthroned with the twelve Apostles. " The majority are early Christian, ornamented with reliefs in good design and execution, showing that Roman, art survived after the extinction of paganism. The subjects most commonly re- presented are : the creation of Adam and Eve, the passage of the Red Sea, Moses striking the rock, the history of Jonas, the sacrifice of Isaac. On one is seen an oil-press and olive- gathering.0 When Dante came to Provence the world wide fame of Les Alyscamps was at its height, its extent unimpaired, and he speaks of it in his Inferno (canto ix. verse 112) in immortal lines, comparing it to the sad cemetery of the city of " here- siarchs." Wandering there, in the solitude and silence, in the company of tombs, we might — as some one has said — be pass- ing through Dante's Purgatorio% and expect to meet one of those sweet spirits who " wept in singing " over poor Pia dei Polomei, " whom the Maremma unmade," or Matilda, " who went singing and gathering flowers by the side of the stream." No place speaks more forcibly of the shortness of human life, of change and decay, of the vanity of all earthly great- ness, than does this God's acre ; but its peacefulness, its quiet- ness, the holy memories which hallow it, make it one of those " blessed fields " in which rest so well weary mortal bodies awaiting the great Resurrection morning, when they shall arise renewed, when the corruptible shall put on incorruptibility, and the mortal immortality. There is no gloom or sadness about these Elysian Fields; the atmosphere of supreme restfulness that enfolds them holds in itself the promise of better things to come in the Great . Hereafter. The legend of the coffins floating down the river comes to us as a parable : God grant that so our frail barks, protected by outspread wings, may glide into that safe haven where outstretched hands of Divine Love and Forgiveness will draw us into the shelter of Paradise, and give us rest after life's moital journey ! Digitized by Google

Page 628

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. 589 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. BY EDWARD F. GARESCH&. T was a fine, moonlit night in June ; the air soft with summer, the depth of sky unbroken by a cloud. Under the quiet moon the pike road wound, broad and white, over meadows and wooded hills, leading away into the misty dis- tance towards Baltimore. Presently on the silence there broke a faint jingle and clatter, softened and far away, and the rhythm of horses' hoofs ringing on pebbly soil. Louder and louder it grew until the grinding of wheels mingled with the clatter of hoofs. A yellow ray from a lantern swept above the brow of the hill, and the stage from Philadelphia Town rattled over the crest and rumbled down the grade beyond. It was an ungainly vehicle, that needed its four stout grays to drag it over the sandy roads and rocky fords. It had a driving seat before, where old John the driver ruled his champing steeds and dozed on his way up the long hills. Behind this were two benches of wood, without cushions or backs, and thereon sat two travellers, enjoying as best they might, from behind the looped leather curtains, the hazy beauty of the scene without. One was a testy-looking old gentleman of sixty or so, with bright and beady eyes, a grim expression, and a most wonder- ful nose — being in fact a sort of bulb, of scarlet color — en- trenched behind which formidable barrier he seemed to look forth on the world with secure defiance. He was clad in a snuff colored suit, with a white waistcoat of broad expanse, and carried a heavy cane, with which he was accustomed to emphasize his remarks by striking it vigorously on the floor. His fellow-traveller was a man of fewer years, well knit and neatly clad, whose features bore a stamp of shrewd good humor and keen intelligence, which his clear eye confirmed. The two sat opposite one another on the broad wooden benches; the elder gentleman staring solemnly out of the window, his chin on the knob of his cane. The other's pene- trating glance now roved over the moonlit loveliness without, now rested on the stern face of his companion ; on which, by Digitized by Google

Page 629

5^0 The Forbidding of the Marriage. LFtb*> the light of the lantern above them, could be perceived a very forbidding sort of a scowl. At length a ruder bump than usual drove the cane upward with such force that the old gentleman's mouth was jolted sharply open, and he, as though the impetus had started some hidden spring within him, suddenly straightened himself, rapped his cane pretty briskly upon the floor, and called out, in a tone as sharp as the snapping of dry sticks: "Ahem! I say, master printer ! " Franklin started, and turned an inquiring gaze on the face of the speaker. The old man nodded his head slowly, squinting at him from spaikling eyes. " You '11 be wondering, I warrant," said he, "what brings old Jonathan Hardscull a posting hither so fast when he should be biding at home in the counting house on Chestnut Street. Eh, sir ? Speak out wi' 't ! " "It must truly be an urgent errand, Master Hardscull," said Franklin, " that calls you so far from home ; but what its nature is, it doth not concern me to wonder." " Natheless, you should know," said the other. " Thou *rt the wisest man of thy years in the Pennsylvania colony, and 'twould ease my mind not a little, friend, if thou 'dst uphold me in what I 'm venturing cn. Though, mind ye, 'tis not my way to change my mind for any other man's; an' we differ, there 's an end on 't." "So be it," said Franklin; "I do not ask your confidence, friend Hardscull." "Mayhap that's why I offer it, sir," said the other drjly. "You know my son William?" Franklin nodded. "A fine young man," said he, "albeit somewhat wild and headstrong yet." " Yet ! " echoed the other loudly ; " when will he mend, think ye ? Why, at his age I was first mate of a brig, with half the worry of the ship on my shoulders; 4 yet,' say 'st thou? Ay, and for too long a ' yet ' I fear me." "'Tis a fault excusable in youth," said Franklin. " I warrant you were a hot-headed fellow once yourself. What of the tale they tell of the French sloop that you and your men ran away with while the crew were off ashore ? " "Tut! tut!" said the other, smothering a smile. "But to say sooth, sir, though I can bear, as you say, some tinge of rashness in young bloods, the sprig hath carried it too far — too far! and he shall smart for it!" The last words were made emphatic by sundry raps with the cane, and it was in a Digitized by Google

Page 630

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. 591 voice hoarse with temper that the fiery old fellow continued : " Eh ! confound it, what wi' his wild pranks — ye mind the time he hung a jesting placard on the very lintel of the State House? — and his mad whims — he went once to sea for a year's voyage, and left naught but an ill writ note to tell me that he was gone ! — I was sore enough tried with him before. But t' other day comes my lad into the counting-room, swinging his riding whip, calm as a daisy, and says he : 1 Father, a word in private, please/ • Say what thou hast to say here, lad,' says I. ' Here 's no one but Henry the clerk, who 's been stone deaf these ten years.' But no, he would have it that some one might come in upon us ; so I went with him to the little office behind. Then says he, glib as a lesson learned, only getting very red from collar to hair. 'Father, I love, and mean to marry, Mistress Mary Cole, the attorney's daughter of Baltimore/ " Whiles ye might have counted a score, sir, I could not say a word. Then I came down on him. 'Ye blundering, blethering blockhead!' says I, 'how dare ye say such a thing to me ? Hast forgotten, sir, that for these twenty years thou 'st been affianced to Dame Margery Clifford?' 'That be- trothing is none of ours, sir,' says he, as ready as you please, 4 and we are both of us of a mind to override it. It would be a shameful and intolerable thing, sir, if cur fathers' fancy, con- ceived when we were but infants, should warp our whole lives where we would not'! Ha! ha! — heard ye ever such sounding speech from a stripling? " He held his purpose, though, confound him ! like a stub- born sprig, as he is. And I told him at last ' — this with a terrific fusillade from the cane — 'that if I had to travel all the way to Baltimore to stop the thing, I'd do it ! That he must and should marry Margery Clifford, or ne'er marry at all ! " With that my lad grows pale, sinks into a rcvery and bites his finger-nails for full a minute ; then says he, ' Well, father, it grieves me sore to go against your will. But I've fixed the day for our wedding.' 'So ho!' said I. 'And when will it be, sir?' 'On the sixteenth day of June, sir, next ap- proaching/ 'Now, I swear!' cried I, my anger getting upper- most, ' that it shall not be then ; no, nor on any other day while I live. And I warn you, sir, that if I do not hear from you before the thirteenth day of June that you have broken off this confounded folly, I '11 travel post-haste to Baltimore myself, and forbid the match at the altar. We '11 see then if good Master Cole '11 give you his daughter.' Digitized by Google

Page 631

592 The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., " Whereupon he makes me a low bow, and steps forth wi' 's head held high in the air, like a trooper of horses. From that time not a word passed between us until two days agone. Then my lad meets me at the door, all booted and spurred, and says he, with a mighty fine bow, but his voice a-trembling : " ' Father, this morn I ride for Baltimore ; my chest hath already gone by the coach. Do you still propose to thwart me, sir ? ' "'William,' quoth I, 'so sure as you set forth this day, I follow you to morrow ! ' " ''Tis a long ride, sir,' said he, glancing up at me. ' I travel by the coach, sir ! ' I answered. He hung his head and had almost wept. ' Father, father,' said he, 1 for the love of Heaven spare me the pain of thwarting you ! If you follow me, you follow to your own undoing. I am a man, sir, and what I will do, I will do ! ' " ' You are my son, sir,' said I, ' and must obey me. Go, and I swear I '11 follow you ! ' Then the boy stood erect, slapped his whip on his boot, and quoth he, as gallant as you please, looking at me the while with such eyes ! — faith ! it was as though I stared in a mirror — 'Come, then,' said he, 'and 'tis at odds between us ; and on your head, sir, be the blame of this unnatural strife!' And he swung into the saddle and was off towards the pike, leaving me staring after him, mouth agape, like a two weeks apprentice ! " The worthy gentleman came at last to a full stop ; and resting his chin on his hands again, gazed ruefully at the placid moon sailing over the tree-tops. At length he brought his eyes down to meet the clear glance of his fellow-traveller. " Well, sir," said he, "what d'ye think of it?" " Will you pardon me some questions ? " answered Franklin. "Ay, ask away." " To begin with, how know you that this ceremony of mar- riage is to occur, time and place and all, as your son said ? " " Never hath a lie crossed his lips ! " said Hardscull impa- tiently. " Headstrong though he be, the lad is true as day. A man — confound him ! — every inch of him." "Then why have you not writ to the worthy attorney, tell- ing him of your prohibition ? " "Writ! I did not dream that the lad would carry it through, till Wednesday morn after the post was gone; you know that they deliver naught of a Sunday. And as for send- ing, sir, why, it hath ever been a maxim with me rather to go Digitized by Google

Page 632

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. 593 than send. 1 Who sends, loses/ and you may put that in your calendar, sir ! " Franklin bowed. " One question more," said he. " How doth our young friend hope to gain his livelihood without your aid ? " " He hath his mother's property," Hardscull answered ; " which fhe lad hath well turned in trade since his majority. So he hath a competence to make him independent. Ho ! master driver, what inn is this?" 44 Tis Bush Tavern, your worship," quoth old John, twist- ing himself about in his seat. "Will your honors alight for a dram while the horses are changing? This is Bush Town, sirs, and Abingdon hill lies just beyond." As he spoke the coach rumbled onto a space of cobble- stones before the tavern, and John, throwing his reins to a hostler who hurried forth, trotted into the brightly. lit hall, to follow his own suggestion in the matter of 44 taking a dram." The inn to which they had come was a square, low, ram- bling building, coated with gleaming plaster, after the fashion of that day. You may see its counterpart still in some of those ancient houses, which still contrive to stand, in the ruined dig- nity of age, along the old roads of Mar>land. Before the door stood a mighty oak, which shot, clear of the roof, huge, knotty branches, each alone of girth for an ordinary tree. And of a sunny summer's afternoon, when the close, green turf was dap- pled with sunshine and shadow, when the bustle of barnyard and stable came forth on the breeze, and the flocks of white geese and fluffy chicks ran and cackled before the door, it looked as cheery and comfortable a resting-place as tired traveller need wish to see. Even now, with the cold moon weaving its mournful spell of light and shade upon it, through the oak leaves, there was a world of merry invitation in the glow and laughter that streamed from the small paned windows and echoed out at the doors. The two passengers, however, were in no mood to join the rustic groups at the tables, and chose instead to stroll back and forth on the close-cropped lawn. "Art sure," said Franklin, walking with bowed head, "that thy remonstrance will avail, to-morrow morn?" 44 Ay, sure," quoth Hardscull. " Look ye, sir : Master Cole, the attorney — I know him well — is a very punctilious man, and sensitive of the good esteem of other men. Now, do you think that such a one will suffer his only daughter to wed my son vol. lxxii.— 39 Digitized by Google

Page 633

i 594 The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., when I protest and forbid it — before the whole congregation ? Never, sir!" "True, true," murmured the other; "we are called — the coach starts." And they hurried forward to take their places again. A crack of the whip, a chirrup, and the fresh team sprang forward, and never eased their rapid trot, over sandy hill and through splashing brook, until they set hoof on the first long slope of Abingdon hill. Then old John the driver, casting one careful glance at the white stretch ahead, and one at the ears of the leaders, bobbing slowly as they shouldered up the grade, settled himself comfortably in his seat, and went to sleep — as he had done on almost any moonlit night for well- nigh all the term of his drivership. But his nap was not to last, as it usually did, until the first lurch of the coach over the hill-top awoke him. For he sud- denly sat straight again to hear the voice of one of his pas- sengers raised in angry tones. "Why, sir, what d'ye mean? Would you uphold a son in going against his father's will ? " " Remember, I pray you, Master Hardscull," returned a quiet voice, "your confidence in the matter was unsought by me, and you asked my honest thought of it. Well, sir, you have it. To my mind you have no right to lay this prohibi- tion upon your son." " No right, sir. And what, then, of his having been affianced to Mistress Clifford ? " " He hath rightly said, he is not bound by it." " Now, confound you both ! " began the testy gentleman in tones so warlike that old John deemed it politic to bring about a diversion, lest blows should follow and his coach gain an evil name. So, thrusting his head as far back towards the window as his stiff stock would allow, he bellowed forth, for lack of anything better to say : " Ho ! this is Abingdon Hill, sirs!" " Ha ! what ? " exclaimed the startled Master Hardscull, swallowing the rest of his wrathy speech, and well-nigh chok- ing on it. "Well, confusion seize you! what of that?" " Why, sir," says honest John, rubbing his head to stimu- late its slow action, " you must have heard of Abingdon Hill, your worship ; why " — with a sudden thought — " 't was here Black Richard made his last stand, and was ta'en ; come Michaelmas, 't will be a year agone." "Ha! Black Richard — a desperate rascal, eh?" Digitized by Google

Page 634

1901.] The Forbidding op the Marriage, 595 " Nay, there your honor 's V the right," quoth John, much reassured; "yet a bold, dashing lad — great shame that e'er he took to th' road, sir. He would 'a' made a soldier beyond ail ! " "And it was just here, you say, that the rogue was caught?" 41 Ay, sir, I mind the scene as though 't had been yester- eve. Poor Dick had been uncommon frequent o' late wi 's pis- tols, and robbed a justice as came this way o' a purseful o' bright pieces. So what does the worthy do, when he 'd got home again, but stir up a grand fume and flurry about the 44 Stoppage of Commerce and Impedyment of Traffick M by a bold highwayman known by the name o* Black Richard, o' these parts. 44 So one bright night, like this 'n, as my coach drew up at Bush Tavern, there came forth three as ugly-visaged villains as ever ye 'd wish to see. And when I asked 'em by what right they made so free o' my coach — for, bless you, they had climbed in without so much as saying 4 by your leave ' — 4 We 're consta- bles, old bii;d,' says they, 4 and we Ve come out to catch that fine rascal of yours, Black Dick of Abingdon Hill!' 'Ye have a large task, my men,' said I, 4 and I wish ye joy o' it ! ' But in my heart, sirs, I was grieved, for 't was just such a night as Dick would choose for one o' his pranks." 41 Ha ! faith, you talk as though you loved the man," cried Hardscull, interrupting. 44 Why, 4 loved ' is too strong a word, sir," returned John, 44 but there were few young fellows hereabouts that I felt kind- lier for nor Dick ; and as for robbin' me, if that 's what your honor's thinkin' of, why he would as soon 'a' stole from 's own father! Well, those three ill-favored villains were the only passengers that night, and, as I was saying, my heart beat louder as we came along here aways. So I broke out and sang the 4 Ballad o' Bold Dick Turpin,' to warn him, if might be. But 't was not to be ; for just as we had come within ten paces o' yon black bunch o' pine-trees I heard the click o' a quick hoof on the stones, and, like a shadow, from the dark forth shot Dick on his tall gray mate wi 's long black cloak around him, and his bright-barrelled pistols flashing straight before. Ah, me ! a gallant sight. 4 Stand ! ' quo' he, 4 and deliver! Up wi' your hands, sirs, every one o' ye I' Crack, crack, crack came the constables' pistols from either window — the ruffians had held them cocked beneath their cloaks all o' the way. Two o' the bullets missed him clean, Digitized by Google

Page 635

Sq6 The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., but t'other shattered his right arm at the shoulder! Quick as a thought he fired wi' 's left, and winged one o' the constables in the cheek, and, dropping the pistol, turned his horse to flee, but alack ! one o' the fellows inside had snatched another pis- tol from 's belt, and firing, broke the mare's off hind leg. Then they rushed out and dragged him down and bound him, an' threw him in the bottom o' the coach — beasts, they were, and not men ! And to hear his weepin' and wrath for the rest o' the journey was enow to make ye cry yourself. And full half o' 's sorrow was for his good gray mare, that lay in the road wi' a bullet through her heart. The farmers wondered, I warrant ye, as they passed that way i' the morning. And they hanged him ere ever his arm was healed — poor boy! — at Balti- more Town ! " " And was he," quoth Hardscull, with a tinge of anxious interest in his tone — " was he the only highwayman that ever haunted the roads hereabouts ? " Old John laughed loud and long. " Ho ! ho ! No, no, your honor; there'll never be lack o' them while there's as great a profit in the thing as now. But of all Black Richard was the prime. The rest are but unskilful louts, that are like to shoot a man unintended like, from sheer nervousness and want o' courage ! " " Ha ! pox take me for an improvident fool ! " groaned Hardscull. " A brace of good Spanish pistols lay ready on my counting table, and I forbore to strap them on, because, forsooth, that addlepate, my son's man John, bappeneth in, and noddeth his head at them sagely, and sayeth ' that the roads were so safe, and free o' rascals o' these days that 'twere folly to carry such gear as them.' Confusion seize the meddling knave ! And I '11 warrant me you have no fire-arms at all about you, friend Quaker, or you, John o' the box ? " " Nay, not I, sir," said Franklin. " I have scarce fired one thrice in all my life." 11 Nor I, sir," echoed John, rum- bling with laughter. " Such toys be only for gentlefolks, soldiers, and rascals. Poor and honest men like me have lit- tle use for them, save now and then to knock over a hare or a partridge ! " Master Hardscull hereupon relapsed into gloomy silence, and gave himself up to meditations of no rosy hue. So the old coach rattled along through the misty, moonlit night, for full half an hour of silence, broken only by the dis- tant owls and mournful whip-poor-wills. Then old John, find- Digitized by Google

Page 636

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. $97 ing himself in mortal danger of dropping off to sleep again, and encouraged besides by the reception that his last attempt had met with, bethought himself of another episode of the road, and introduced his account of it as follows: "Asking pardon o' your honors," said he, " we 're a-coming to Ha-Ha Creek ?" "Hey? Ha-Ha Creek?" quoth Master Hardscull, suddenly diverted from an anxious scrutiny of the shadows on the road before them. "Well, what horror was acted there?" 41 Ay, your honor may well call it a horror," said John, shaking his head solemnly; "and so your worship's heard o' the thing ! I might 'a' known — 'twas widely told." " I never heard it, man ! " said Hardscull sharply, " but your last tale prepared me for a worse one after; well, what of this Ha-Ha Creek, then — out with it ! " " 'T were a dismal thing," said John, as the coach began to lumber slowly down the long hill that led to the stream* " Not over twenty years ago — afore I began to drive here — there was a band of roving Indians — o' the Susquehannock tribe they wer£ — that still loitered around in these parts, steal- ing and marauding whenever they dared, folks say, over the whole countryside. One gloomy night — 'twere in a time o' fearful heavy rain, when the tiniest stream was roaring and swollen with water — and yon creek — you see how long and steep the banks are here — was flooded beyond all bounds. The driver of those days was a bold man, over given to desperate risks ; but as they neared yon slope, and saw how high the water was swirling, and how swift it looked, and flecked with drift and foam, he drew up on the brink, and asked his pas- sengers if they 'd consent to turn back with him and bide the morning. " But one old, crusty gentleman would insist on going on, and while they quarrelled with him, a fearful howling and shrieking came from the wood behind, and a flight of stone- tipped arrows, that rattled on the coach and wounded the team ! And the horses, mad wi' fear and pain, leapt forward and splashed far out into the stream. The coach floated for a breath's space, and then turned over on its side, and was swept down the swift current, the horses struggling and plung- ing, the heavy coach bobbing up and down like a cork in the grip of the racing swirl, and the poor folks within a screaming like mad, till the water stopped their cries. Ah, that was a terrible thing ! There were six souls in the coach that night, Digitized by Google

Page 637

598 The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., and only Bob, the driver, came safe out o' it by rolling off vs seat and steering down stream for shore, where he lay all night for fear o' the Indians. He never was a sane man after it, and oft dreamed it over again in's sleep." " These Susquehannocks," said Franklin, after an interval of silence, " are long since driven away, eh, my good man ? " "Well, sir," answered John, "all but a scamp or two i'. the wilder woods. There'll never be another such a happening as this o' Ha-Ha Creek, God be thanked ! " The coach rolled on down the bank, and the four splashed into the swirling borders of the stream. " 'Tis high enough now for all comfort," quoth old John, as the hubs sank under, and the water poured in on the feet of the travellers. An in- stant later and they were in the midst of the stream, the horses half swimming, the heavy wheels grating on the gravelly bed. Then, responding to their driver's high-pitched encour- agement, the four grays strained their broad haunches, and dragged the coach from the water with a rattle of hoofs and a scurry of stones. As they gained the gentler slope above there shot from behind a coppice of pine a muffled form, on a tall gray mare. A brace of shining barrels flashed in the moon, and a deep voice cried: "Stand and deliver! Up with your hands, sirs, every one of you ! " The horses shied aside and stopped. As though they had been automatons, moved all by a single spring, the three on the coach raised each his hands in the air — Master Hardscull taking even the precaution of thrusting his out of window! Old John, in particular, was deeply moved and trembled with horror. " O Lord, Lord ! " faltered he, " 'tis the ghost o' Black Richard come back again ! Lord 'a' mercy ! Lord 'a' mercy ! " But the actions of the apparition were far from ghostlike. " Range ye along the road, my masters ! " quoth he, still in the same deep and muffled tones ; " and take care that ye hold your hands well up in the air — my pistols are light o' the trigger ! " The three clambered awkwardly forth, and stood in a line in the pale moonlight, while the black-masked highwayman, leaping from his horse and slipping the bridle reins over his arm, rifled their pockets of wallet and purse. Old John the driver's deep receptacles yielded nothing of more value than a big-bellied flask, an ancient pipe, and some Virginia tobacco, which the robber silently returned. But the wallets of the travellers bulged with rich promise. Digitized by Google

Page 638

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. 599 Finally, when he had assured himself that they had not a weapon among them, he relaxed his keen glance somewhat, and with the warning " Stir, if ye dare to die ! " turned to the coach and four. Then there occurred a thing which, going be- yond all his experience, shocked old John to the very last ex- treme. For the robber, with a rapid hand, unyoked the horses from the coach and stripped them of their harness. Then turning their heads towards home, he struck them, one by one, with his heavy riding stick, so that they plunged out and gal- loped down towards the stream again. One after the other the frightened beasts swam and splashed through the water, and the noise of their rapid hoof- beats died slowly into the distance as they stretched away for the stable of the inn. Then the highwayman looked up, to meet the gaze of three angry pairs of eyes. 44 What means this ? " said Franklin, who stood nearest the robber; "you are not content with stripping us of our sub- stance, you abandon us upon the highway a score of miles from our goal." "Silence, sir!" thundered the robber, moving his pistols threateningly and glaring at them through the holes in his mask. 41 Tis wholesome enough beneath these summer skies ! " Then leaping suddenly on his horse, he struck its flanks with, his spurs and galloped swiftly away over the crest of the farther hill. N "Merciful Heaven!" cried Hardscull, tugging from his fob a huge silver timepiece which the highwayman had spared, and squinting at it by the moonlight. "Tis four of the clock, and at seven they will be wed ! O for a horse — a horse ! M "As well cry for the four of them ! " quoth old John, look- ing ruefully toward the spot where they had vanished. " Nay, nay, my masters, yon is the scurviest turn that ever was played on the road. You must either bide here, or wade the stream yonder, or walk into Baltimore Town ! " "How far? how far, my good man?!' quoth Hardscull eagerly. " Even as this gentleman hath said," returned John, " a matter of twenty miles or so— and long country miles they be. But ye may do it, sir, in five hours, an* ye be light enow o* foot ! " Hardscull groaned. " Then back for the horses," said he ; 44 and haste ! I will wait here. Five pounds to you, goodman, an' you drive us into Baltimore ere seven of the clock ! " Digitized by Google

Page 639

6oo The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., " Methinks you are now in no case to offer gratuities," said old John drily; "but bide here, and I'll make such speed as mine old enemy, the rheumatics, will allow me. But Tom, the hostler, must drive the rest o' this journey. To go along unwarmed after wading a stream o' night, goes ill wi' my years, sir — ill wi' my years." So mumbling, the old fellow set forth at a stiff- legged trot down the hill-side, while the two travellers clambered back into the coach with solemn faces. Franklin, like a philosopher, muffled himself in his great- coat, and composed himself to sleep away the hours. But Hardscull, consumed with impatience, now bemoaned the loss of his wallet, now fretted at the insolence of the robber and the futility of his journey. It was near the hour of five, and the spreading light of dawn already wavered in the east, when the noise of the return- ing team echoed down the road. A young fellow of twenty- five or so, clad in homespun jerkin and leather boots, bounced along on the back of one of the leaders, and pulling up by the coach, he set himself briskly to work at harnessing his horses again. " Where 's the driver, boy ? " said Hardscull, peering out of the window. " T bed, sir, at the tavern," answered the boy, grinning from ear to ear, "and swears he'll not stir till sundown, come what may. He was near borne away, sir, by the current o' Ha- Ha Creek. It took 'im down full fifty yard, sir, an' wet 'im dreadful ; 'e was as muddy and draggly a sight as you 'd ever see! And I be Tom, the 'ostler, sir, come to drive ye in- to Baltimore Town." So saying, having fastened the last strap, he climbed into John's broad seat and gathered up the reins. "Hark ye!" said Hardscull as the coach lurched forward, " bring me to the door of t)ie Episcopalian meeting-house ere seven of the clock, and you shall have ten pounds for it ! Do you hear?" Never in all its years of service had the old coach so rattled and swayed and bounded over the stones as in that mad drive through the dawn. Tom the hostler was shaken as in a hopper, and the travellers within rattled about like the proverbial peas. They said never a word, however, but held each as tightly as he might to either window frame, and watched the flying pan- orama of countryside unroll: fields and roads and streams ; white farm-houses and their clustering barns ; and broad meadows sparkling with dew, all in the soft, misty light of the early morn- Digitized by Google

Page 640

igoi.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. x 6oi ing. They clashed into the town with a clatter of hoofs that struck showers of sparks from the cobblestones. "To the meeting-house! to the meetinghouse!" roared Hardscull from the window, his voice harsh from excitement. They sped around corners at breakneck speed ; they scat- tered the cackling geese ; they frightened the vagrant curs, and startled the early citizens. But alas ! when they came at last in sight of the meeting house, Hardscull's watch, which he held before him, marked near the hour of eight. A stream of worshippers— decently clad citizens, in all their morning fresh- ness— were just issuing from the door, and Hardscull groaned as he saw them : " Too late ! too late ! " The sweating horses dug their hoofs into the street, and the coach stopped short at the door, when, even as Master Hardscull was leaping from the step, there came forth, behind a row of blushing youths and maidens, Master William him- self, smiling and content, with his rosy bride on his arm. His eye fell on his father and he flushed. Then, starting forward, " Father," said he, "you are too late! We are already wed. Do not carry your anger further! Welcome your new daughter, sir: Mistress Mary Hardscull!" From the violence of his passion the blood surged to Hardscull's face, and he made a gesture of angry refusal. Then his eye glanced from his son to the bride. Now, Mistress Mary, the attorney's daughter, was esteemed the fairest maiden in all the province of Maryland. And as Hardscull gazed on the beautiful and amiable face, her clear, bright color, and soft wide eyes, in which the coming tears were glimmering because of his hard-heartedness, his rooted resolution quite gave way. "You dog!" quoth he, bending his brows at William to conceal his new emotion, " I see now whence came all your cursed stubbornness! But fear not, my dear!" — this to the trembling Mary — "your tears have overcome me; wilt kiss thy husband's father ? " "And wilt thou, sir," quoth Mary, curtseying prettily and beaming into a smile, " since thou *rt too late for our wedding, at least, sir, honor us at the feast?" "Oh! ay, of course," said Hardscull very heartily. "And look ye, here's another guest for ye— good Master Franklin, who had near quarrelled with me on the road hither because I swore to part ye. "But, William, hearken to me awhile, till you hear What a Digitized by Google

Page 641

602 The Forbidding of the Marriage. [Feb., sorry thing — yes, faith, a most outrageous thing — chanced on our way. Do you pay the honest driver here a couple of pieces for the speed he made to stop your wedding — Ha ! ha ! ha ! — and I '11 tell you as we go — nay, do you walk between us, pretty daughter — how we were stopped and robbed, sir ; robbed upon the open highway! Heard you ever the like?" William and his bride listened to the graphic tale which followed with certain signs of an inclination to laugh at the most thrilling portions of it, which, fortunately, his worthy father did not perceive, but which were not lost to the ob- servant eye of Franklin, who followed behind them with sroil. ing Master Cole ; and by the time that they had reached the gate of the attorney's dwelling Master Hardscull had talked and laughed himself into a hearty humor that was a joy to see. At the wedding feast the guests all swore in unison that there was no pleasanter, jollier man than the groom's good father in all of his Majesty's colonies. Then, when the wine was on, he 'needs must tell all over again the tale of the lonely robber who betrayed them; when, with much clinking of glasses and drinking of toasts, they all exclaimed what a great pity it was that he had missed the wedding, but how very fortunate that he had come, at least, in time for the rejoicings! Whereat Franklin grew purple with laughter, and winked at William in a manner that had been like to cause that gay young man a convulsion. In fact, so long and heartily did he roar out that his father rather wondered at it, and said within himself, " Faith, I never knew before that the lad had so much sense of humor in him." At length, when the company had risen from the table, with their hearts warmed and tongues loosened by good cheer, and were making the very andirons clatter with noise and mirth, William led Franklin aside into a separate chamber. "Good sir," said he, "a thousand thanks for your friendship!" " Nay, never mention it, lad," said Franklin. " Only thank God, who softened thy father's heart. And hark ye, do not presume too far on his present humor; 'tis a reaction, mind you." "Nay, sir," said William, "but I must presume further on your friendship. Would your conscience • forbid you, sir, from compounding a felony ? " " Why, lad," said Franklin, looking at him with a keen and humorous eye, "an' even a highwayman repent and restore, I could find it in my heart to forgive him ! " Digitized by Google

Page 642

1901.] The Forbidding of the Marriage. 603 "You have guessed it, then!" cried William joyfully, fumbling in his pockets. "There is your wallet, sir ; my father's shall be forwarded to him from Virginia. Master Cole, who is learned in the law, knoweth all, and hath absolved me. He saith that my deed lacked the animo furandi — whatever that may mean — and his Majesty's mails go not by that coach. So that no trouble can arise. Be secret, sir, and I thank you ! " S6, on the morrow, old Master Hardscull, and William and Mary, journeyed back, all together, towards Philadelphia, in the same old coach, with Tom the hostler as coachman. And as they passed a certain dark coppice of pines, near Ha-Ha Creek, there was great descriptive eloquence on the part of Master Hardscull, and great appreciation thereof on the part of his companions, and great hilarity until the journey's end. So that old John the driver, who took command again at the tavern door, could scarce recognize in this gay old fellow his crabbed and surly passenger of the former night. And, in fact, the Hardscull mansion, on Chestnut Street, had never so echoed with laughter and joy in all of its staid existence as after bright Mistress Mary came there to rule. The clerics in the counting-house stared to see old Jonathan Hardscull actually smiling to himself, over his littered desk. As for William, who now had a desk there too, he laughed the whole day long. And when, one morning, there came in with the mail a bulky package from Virginia colony, which turned out to be nothing else tHan the wallet which the highwayman had taken, with all its contents intact, old Jonathan only looked queerly at his son, who happened just then to be writing away with wonderful industry, and said never a word. Only, at those anniversaries of their marriage which William and Mary never forgot to celebrate, and when good Dr. Frank- lin seldom failed to sit by old Jonathan, radiant » among his grandchildren, it was really wonderful what a roaring merri- ment would seize the whole assembled company, and go rippling around to the very humblest guest, did any one chance to mention, with a quizzical air, even the simple name of " High- wayman ! " Digitized by Google

Page 643

p Song op the Sea. BY JULIAN E. JOHNSTONE. FOR the roar of the sounding sea And its bounding, pounding thunder, As it rumbles and rolls, and fills all our souls With feelings of awe and of wonder: And O for the dash, and the flash, and the crash Of its waters awhirl in the bluster, When the billows are black in the thunder-storm's track Or are lit with the thunder-light's lustre ! For I'm far from the sea, and I long, long to be Once again on the back of the ocean, And to feel all its power when the thunder-clouds lower And to watch its tumultuous motion : To see the light shine on the leaden sea-line, And list to the sea's hollow singing, When the waters spit wrath in the thunder's black path, And the winds in the canvas are ringing! O better one hour of a life full of power, O better an hour on the ocean, Than a year in the calm and the shade of the palm That the winds scarcely stir into motion. For action is best, and this thing they call rest O it wearies me, stifles, and kills me : And I yearn for the sea, and the wild life and free, For its music inspirits and thrills me ! ' Digitized by Google

Page 644

Digitized by Google

Page 645

6o6 Tub Church as She is, [Feb.. THE CHURCH AS SHE IS, AND AS WE PRESENT HER. BY W. F. P. STOCKLEY. JOME articles have lately appeared in the Ave A/aria, written' by a priest who cares not for controversy, but who loves " To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse, By, good ensample, this is his bisynesse " ; and who utters forth his spirit in sympathy with the church's offices, in her adoration, in her gladness ; in her terrors, and sorrow, and turning to God in penitence: in her naivete, so to speak, and heartfelt poetry. Father O'Kennedy writes as if many of us English-speaking Catholics said the Divine Office, and even met to say it in common, as Abbot Gasquet says Englishmen of education and honorable standing were wont to do with the Little Office in the days' before Henry the Eighth ran riot in the Garden of the Lord. But may it not rather be said of us, that we have not so much as heard if there be any Office, For the priest indeed, yes, we have heard of the Breviary. But what is it? How many of our educated} college-bred Catholics know much of its contents? And as to the Little Office, which laymen might say in part, which would make such an inspired forth of morning and evening prayers — as the American bishops suggest by giv- ing " Offices " as their first form in their official Manual of Prayers for the Laity, that book which surely ought to banish unauthorized books with many fancy devotions — what propor- tion of our people, in "this most common- schooled, and least educated country in the world," knows or cares anything about this utterance, by which the soul can say under God's own guidance, " Seven times a day will I praise Thee, by Thine own psalms and hymns and spiritual songs : thus will I sing and make melody in my heart to the Lord"? For, do we think what we mean by the church, and all that it implies ? Or rather, do we turn to account the faith that is really in us? Perhaps some converts value all the more Digitized by Google

Page 646

1901.] and as We present Her. 607 the sense of the absolute, of the ultimate, which their submis- sion has given them, in the church — that is, in God with us. By no possibility, I think, can any non Catholic, whether be- lieving all the Catholic doctrines, or denying them more or less, have any idea whatever of what, to a Catholic, is the speaking of God to him thus, hie It nunc. There is no greater instance of how the same word may hide difference in ideas than in the word 41 church " thus variously used. No wonder, I often and often think — no wonder pious Protestants talk of putting the church instead of Christ ; no wonder philanthropic Ritualists storm at 11 High-Churchism " ; that is, as they mean, at giving shell for substance, stones for bread, historical dis- quisitions, antiquarian awe, reverence for mere edifices, theories about half understood men of ages past, the cut of our ances- tors' clothes and vestments, discussions on their commentaries on Holy Scripture or on creeds, bits of medievalism, bits of primitivism, and all this dreadful weary talk to living or dying souls to day, in need of a present Saviour. But if the church is our Blessed Saviour, so to speak ; if we go to Mass because he tells us; if we fall at his sacred feet in the confessional, and hear his merciful words melting our hearts; if we make the holy sign, and use holy ceremonies, and accept devotions, not because we like them, not because we ourselves fully understand them, or because we want to teach others, or bring back a " church " — oh, a plague on the " church " then, says every natural poor soul : in the name of life and death, and of the sanctity of every soul, cannot you leave me alone with God ? If you are the voice of God ; if whe'n with you I am in the Everlasting Arms, and if, then, / am, and Time ceases, or I tread beneath me the waves of Time, and see into the life of things ; if I see things as they really are : if the Mass is Calvary, the Cross of Christ the measure of the world ; if when there I have all things brought before me, the unfathomable mystery, the explanation as far as God has willed to give it, the limits assigned to our reason, the enlightening of reason by faith, the burdensome yet joy- ful exercise of underpinning (may one say?) of faith by reason, — if the church is this; if when I seek the knowledge of reli- gion I meet Almighty God, my Judge yet my Redeemer ; if I meet him, and not men's opinions about him, then indeed tht church is heaven upon earth, and man's great guide, where he studies and learns, where he humbles himself yet grows, if he will, in the knowledge of all understood relations, where he Digitized by Google

Page 647

6o8 The Church as She is, [Feb., can be sure that he knows God's will, and where conformity to her spirit will fit him to try the spirits whether they be of God. A Catholic, therefore, if he prays according to the mind of the church, knows that he is praying in the manner pleasing to God. The Holy Mass* the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, the Angelus, the practice of meditation, the daily read- ing of the Holy Scriptures, devotion to the Sacred Heart, and endless thoughts of Mary, the shield of the Incarnation — in these he knows he is walking humbly before his God, and fencing himself lest he turn into the easy path of the self- deluder, or even of the hypocrite. Now, if English- speaking Catholics knew more of the Psalms, especially those most often used by the church, and thus recom- mended by God ; if they early learnt by heart the Te Deum, the Benedicite omnia opera, the Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, the Jubilate Deo, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis ; not to say the hymns in the office, by which the Everlasting has willed his creatures to praise him for so many of our cen- turies in his new covenant in time ; if many of them were even led on further to the longer and more varied Divine Office, to follow the heavenly beauties of the church's feasts and fasts, joying with her joys and grieving with her sorrows, would they not be taking further steps marked out for them in the path the saints have trod? There is nothing surprises one of us ordinary Catholics more, as he goes on learning, than to find the use the church makes of the psalms, and of the like passages of Holy Scrip* i ture. For indeed we. do not follow the church; nor ari we guided so to do. I speak in general, and not without support. As, for instance, in a recent number of Le Propagateur, an ad- mirable little " Book Notes " published with episcopal approval, I think, in the diocese of Montreal, a priest-religious is quoted, from his new book on the use of psalms and prayers accord- ing to the church ; in which book he suggests that seminaries and clergy do not sufficiently guide us Catholics in the right ^ay. But indeed, as was said, what is very astonishing is to read Father O'Kennedy writing as if somehow many of us Catholics knew what he was writing about. Or to hear your parish priest speak in sympathy with the service for the day, and frequently to hear the introit alluded to, and the note it strikes ; to have attention called wo repetitions of the tone in Digitized by Google

Page 648

I90i.] and as We present Her. 609 gradual and communion ; and to listen to quotations from col- lect and post communion — as if these were in hand and in mind of the hearers — when you know that hardly one in the congregation has ever seen a missal in English, or has had the means of seeing one ; or has ever had explained to him the sequence of the church's services ; that is, except as some- thing which he has no means of grasping. Mayhap he will go on for months without hearing the gospel read in English at Mass ; he will never hear it, unless at the sung Mass; nor will he ever hear the epistles, whether hard to be understood or such as he who runs may read. That there is an introit, a gradual, or anything else of the sort in the service, his choir will never suggest to him ; and if he is in the choir, his books will too often have no t ran si a- tions, and he will sing with the mouth and without the under- standing; the psalms for Vespers he will not vary; why should he ? — though the church directs variation — for priests and people about him have resigned themselves to a sense that — shall I say ? — the church is mistaken in her manner of worship. Reverend fathers, and brethren, this was not the spirit that formed the church's chant in barbarous ages ; as the means at our disposal might not unfairly call the days of St. Ambrose or of St. Gregory. It was not this perfunctory manner that cared to form the offices of God, or that made the church the home of beauty, the consolation of the longing for what is perfect, the teacher of noble things by eye and by ear, the utilizer of God's natural good gifts in his supernatural wor- ship, and all else that the Catholic Church once was, and of what, alas ! our English-speaking churches to-day are too often but the sad caricature. It is not want of means ; it is want of will. "Give all thou canst, high Heaven rejects the love Of nicely calculated less or more." And now one is led to say this— apropos of the movement to day towards the church. We are not speaking of the won- derful piety which unlettered Catholic people show ; if others of us equal it ever, we shall do well. We are not speaking of the worship round the altar at the end of a week of work and trouble; let any exiled Protestant visit the nearest church — 41 after all, the only thing that can be called a church," as Thackeray said, when passing one such home of the Blessed vou lxxii.- 40 Digitized by Google

Page 649

610 The Church as She is, [Feb., Sacrament— let him rest his soul, as in the dusk of these Sat- urday evenings he is one with the other laden souls, by thou- sands meekly kneeling, as they are led by the lamp of the sanctuary, and prepare to open their souls, as that God of love commands, in his confessional. " Kind Shepherd, turn his weary steps to Thee." Oh ! let him not go, till to him also Thou hast lent Thine ear. We are not speaking of those things. But we are speaking of all these appeals by means of noble words of prayer and praise consecrated by the use of ages, and touching us by the historic sense, by the artistic, by the poetic; and raising our intelligence as well as our heart; strengthening, ennobling : drama it is, not melodrama ; rousing to acts, not sentiments ; nourishing with facts, not fancies, — in all this use of the natural in things supernatural the Catho- lic Church is a past mistress. And in this the children separated from her often know her mind better than do her own. That is what one is led to say. For the Holy Father is above all men anxious for the re- turn oi the wanderers, whose fathers robbed them and turned them into the desert of men's vagaries good and bad. And he has specially addressed himself to the Anglican Church. Now, it is a sadness to many Anglican converts — and it is very often a justification, so-called, to many who refuse to be converted — that in the eclecticism of the myriad-minded assem- blage in which they strayed were heard far more of the songs of Sion than they hear in the ordinary life of God's own world to which they have been led out of the confusion. The daily offices of the Anglican Pray er book, those debris of the offices of the church, contain Te Deum, Benedicite, Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, and the Psalter, and the Collects. These, together with the Epistles and Gospels of the Missal, are the daily, or at least the weekly, sounds in the ears of all who attend what here are called Protestant Epis- copal services. Add the hymns. Christmas has " Adeste Fideles M — well, we all know that ; and in Latin ; and even as Protestants, have not many sung the incomparable sounds of the original? But have we " O Filii " at Easter? I mean, do we ordinary Catholics associate these words of God with His Resurrecticn ? Or had we " Vexilla Regis" at Passiontide, while our separated brethren were singing in heart and in voice, at home and in Digitized by Google

Page 650

1901.] and as We present Her. 6ii church, 44 The Royal Banners forward go " ? Have we, in the old sense, all 44 Pange Lingua," or "Adoro Te devote"? and how many can repeat, with the understanding, " Before the ending of the day, Creator of the world, we pray " ? As a humble-minded Sister of Charity said — who for long was in an Anglican sisterhood : 44 Of course I know the church's hymns" (the hymns of God's own church)44 far better than the nuns here." Except whom? The converts. And why? Be- cause it was as Protestants they inherited as Catholics. Catholics are disinherited. Do not let us forget it, in as far as it is true. 44 1 like its intelligible services," said — concerning Anglicanism — one who did not heed God's invitation to please him rather than self. But when we are looking at men as they are, and at the religion that uses natural means for reaching their souls (and means so noble), the religion whose great priest said he made himself all things to all men, is it not to be thought of much and long that so little is done to make God's service in- telligible even down to its very smallest details? A good priest writes to Catholics of the holy words used for the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer. But the people prob- ably never heard before of the feast, nor of the wor,ds ; cer- tainly they never heard them ; and certainly they have no means offered them of seeing them again. The proper of the Mass is omitted by our Catholic choirs, so astounding in themselves, indeed, but more astounding still in the license accorded them, notwithstanding Rome's binding laws. The prayer books not containing the proper seem to have vogue, and to have little check put on their circulation, notwithstand- ing episcopal sanction of a liturgical book, and notwithstanding the many protests against new inventions in devotions, things that 44 breed like vermin," as one distinguished and devoted author-priest does not hesitate to say. To him, and to all like him, we appeal, and we say, name the anti-Catholic books, and the anti-Catholic devotions ; for such in a real sense they are ; if they hinder what the church wishes, and pander to those who should learn from the church, and not teach her. It is true the Protestant prayer-book may be patchwork, but it is often better to have the good colors in patches than Digitized by Google

Page 651

6l2 The Church as She is, [Feb., not at all ; better a window made up of broken pieces of ex- quisite old glass, than a new false-colored daub. The Anglican book speaks with the " stammering lips of ambiguous formularies." True. True it was formed when 11 faith splintered into opinions 99 at that awful catastrophe of the Reformation. Anglicanism in its stiffness and other Protestantism in its sentimentality were 4< the relics respectively of the outer and of the inner life of the Catholic Church "—all that is true ; and much more to the same effect. The author of those sayings knew well their truth ; it was Cardinal Manning. Yet was it not this large- hearted and sympathetic minded man of uncompromising Popery who urged us never to forget the real conditions of those whom the church is now calling home? Think of the services they love : they are your own ; they are the voices of the saints ; they are the Gloria of the angels, the Credo of the popes and councils, the Pater Noster of Jesus. How will they realize that the words are torn from their setting, that the offering is all gone from the Mass, that the great Sacrifice of the children of the New Law is gone itself : that service in which all could join, when young and old bowed with their innocence and their penitence, their hopes, their fears; the feeble dragged themselves to meet the Lord, the blind needed not bodily sight, nor the deaf their hearing ; none need read ; yet those who read have the great words of all the ages to guide them : oh ! who can exhaust the marvel that ever the Mass was formed among men ? But It is God, the Almighty. Yet these things are not known to those who, however, do hear His other words, though as it were confusedly, these words by which He has willed to add to the riches of His mercies in the Catholic Church. " Are these words ever used in the Catholic Church ? " said an excellent English middle-class convert 1 What words? He meant the Te Deum, the Psalms, and the rest. Oh, the pity of it ! And might he not have been in many an " English* speaking" Catholic church, and never hear the Church's Ves- pers, never hear the Psalms? And even in a New York church where are such Catholic, and therefore such noble, Vespers as fill the soul with knowl- edge of a great adoration, as if we were at Mass — even there no one that I saw had a book to follow the Psalms ; nor was any notice put up, I think, to guide the Catholic worshipper. Is it not worth while again to recall what trouble those take Digitized by Google

Page 652

1901.] and as We present Her. 613 who have the shreds of our services in guiding those who take part, and in making the services " intelligible " ? I hope this does not excite mere opposition. That is far from what would be seemly in this writer. I know that God's poor are with us, and nowhere else ; that not all the dreams of mortals have united our race as has God Himself in the Mass. I know that the less educated care little for the offices as used by Protestant Episcopalians, and that those among them who seek the poor say, Restore the Mass ; that is the only means of bringing them in. But still, we are Catholics; we are not here to teach the church. We find our true account and happiness in obeying her; and she has her office, her psalms, and hymns, and spiri- tual songs ; and let us return to her better way, with rejoicing of spirit. In England, the Catholics of the days when kings and foreign mercenaries beat down God's House fought and died for Matins and Mass. They loved the Divine Office. We might love it more. We can now read, all of us ; we have means of learning through books denied to those heroes. Yet in their age it was Saint Teresa that said : 44 1 would die for one of the ceremonies of the church." Think of it, we in our paid pews listening to boys gabbling, not the Confiteor — Con- fiteor Deo omnipotenti — but a few words thereof, at which we might hang our heads in shame, if not die. Then to hear words sung — such words! — juggled with, up and down, every way, omissions when and where our composers will. No offer- tory, but a fancy solo, that terrible forbidden fruit of lax Catholicism. As to hymns, cut out verses, for no one knows what is being sung. And as to Benediction, let those pray who can, and veil their faces, and try to adore ; for, as said a dispenser of the Holy Mysteries, 'tis then that, when angels adore round the altar, the devils would seem at times to take possession of the west gallery to mock at them. O that west gallery ! and the fans, and the comfits, and the salutations and gossip in My Father's House of Prayer, and the expense of spirit" in a waste of shame! Is the ignorance triumphant over the uncharitableness oftentimes really anything more than that? And at Mass; and at Benediction. O bishops and priests of the church to whom we humbly appeal ! we do not know half your difficulties ; we are not your judge. Yet we sometimes think — ah ! if only the practice in the church was nearer to her wish ; if seminaries Digitized by Google

Page 653

614 The Church as She is, and as We present Her. [Feb. fitted all the ministers of the altar to be the despots in the choir, so that your people might know what you mean when you speak to them of the glory of the Spouse of the Lamb, and that those children not of the fold, whose worship was forced on their fathers, but to them now has become dear, might find in their true home not only all that is needful for their salvation, but also all that happiness in religious worship, that instruction in times and seasons established for man, that knowledge of God's written word and of the words he placed in the mouths of his saints, by which men's souls and minds are so powerfully weaned from resting in time and sense, and in the folly of feeling them to be lasting. Thus, with the echoes of her services in our hearts, we shall, in God's own ways, interest ourselves in things that are holy, and shall hallow this poor world in which we live— so grand, yet so helpless in its vanity. Thus shall be said to us, in a sense supernatural, to which reverent poetry leads us — and oh ! how in our best moments we long that to us this may be said truly — "Thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies." MARTYRHOOD. HAST thou wherewith to sound a soundless sea? Then come into this human heart with me, And we will fathom his deep martyrhood Whose fate it is to be misunderstood. ARTHUR UPSON. Digitized by Google

Page 654

MURILLO. " THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN." BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET. N the quaint old church of La Magdalena — de- stroyed by Soult's soldiers in 1810 — Murillo was baptized, and the old record reads : " Bar- tolom6 Estevan Murillo. Born in 16 17. Baptized in La Magdalena on New Year's Day, 1618." The family was good but very poor, and his parents, with true Spanish piety, wished him to become a priest. They soon saw he had no vocation, for the little, dark haired lad covered all his school books with drawings, and made sketches on the white-washed walls of his tiny bed-chamber. His father decided Digitized by Google

Page 655

6i6 " The Painter of Heaven" [Feb.. that, if he was to follow his natural bent, he must be an artist, and accordingly placed him under the tutelage of Juan de Cas- tillo, his uncle. This great man had studied art in the fair city by the Arno, and brought from the Florentine school chaste designing and cold, pure coloring. From him Murillo learned purity of conception and dignity of arrangement, and his own genius supplied the warmth of coloring and glowing imagery which, with his fervid imagina- tion and deep religious feeling, made him the greatest painter of mediaeval Spain. There were in fair Seville, gleaming upon the Guadal- quiver's banks like a topaz in a silver setting, three schools of painting. One was presided over by Castillo, one by Herrera, and the third by Pacheco, the art critic of the Inquisition, who had been the teacher of Alonzo Cano and Velasquez. The pupils were taught grouping, coloring, and exactness by means of bodegones, small pictures of fame, fruit, and vegetables, which were often sold for signs to tavern-keepers in Andalusia ; and many of these were wrought by Murillo's brush. Students posed for each other — they were too poor to have models — and the teachers held their classes in their own homes. When Castillo moved to Cadiz in 1640, Murillo, left with- out master or patron, poor, his parents dead, turned to the Feria for his support. The Feria was a weekly market, held in the plaza in front of the Church of All Saints, and was visited by peasants, gyp- sies, monks, and dozens of impecunious artists. These poor fellows were forced to earn a few pesetas by any means in their power. Often they would paint a picture to order while the buyer waited and haggled over the price. These pictures " while you wait " were scarcely of the highest order, and in after years the sentence " una pintura de Feria," when applied to an artist, was used as a term of contempt. Should a Feria painter happen to have the wrong saint on hand, it was easy enough for the facile brush to turn a St. Christopher into St. Isidore, or a St. Anthony into the Holy Souls These votive paintings were sent to Mexico or South America by merchants, who sold them to the poorer churches of the New World, where devotion excelled either the artistic taste or the resources of the people. One excellent result of the Feria was that the artists learned a bold, off hand dex- terity which, when supplemented by good instructions, later Digitized by Google

Page 656

190 1.] " The Painter of Heaven" 617 developed into marked facility. Such was the case with the young Murillo, and in 1642, when his friend Moya returned from Flanders, fired by the accounts and the wonderful stories of the painters of the Van Dyke school, the Sevilian deter- mined to go abroad to study, and made enough at the Feria to pay his expenses as far as Madrid. There, befriended by the great Velasquez, Murillo had ac- Seville— Showing Cathedral and Golden Towir. cess to the galleries of the Buen Retiro and the Escorial, meeting Zurbaran, Perada, Cano, and many other famous artists. He remained in Madrid until 1645, spending his time in the closest study of the old masters, copying their works and draw- ing and modelling from life, so that the warmth of coloring should be coupled with correctness of design. He then returned to his beloved Seville, always a favorite place with Murillo, and it is no wonder that so fair a city should enthrall the beauty-loving mind of a great artist. Even in romantic Spain there was little to compare with Seville : city of churches and palaces, of a cathedral unequalled by any in the world for Gothic tracery, shadowy arch, and stately aisles. Richer than St. Mark's Campanile or Giotto's far-famed Digitized by Google

Page 657

6i8 The Painter of Hea ven" [Feb., tower beside the Arno was Seville's Giralda, the graceful Moorish clock tower whose Arabesques and Saracenic traceries smote the blue sky like filigrees of frost enchantment. More brilliant still gleamed the famous Golden Tower beside the rippling Guadalquiver, where the orange-laden gardens of the Alcazar breathe fragrance and freshness, and "There is a clue Of some strange meaning in the rose scent rare." " Quien no ha vista Sevilla No ha vista una maravilla,"* says the proud Sevilian, ever boastful of his city, and Murillo loved every stone in its walls, every nook and corner of " la Terra del Santissima." The Maestro 's first great work was upon the noble convent of the Franciscans, near the Casa de Ayuntamiento. He spent three years upon these pictures, portraying St. Francis, St. Diego of Alcala, St. Clara, and many others ; and this was the begin- ning of his fame. These pictures were painted in his first man- ner, the frio% or cold, and it is far from being as beautiful as his later or calido (warm) or the vaporoso (misty) style. Unlike that of many artists, Murillo's married life was peculiarly - happy. His wife was Dona Beatriz de Calvera y Sotomayor, a woman of title and wealth, and she presided over his home with grace and dignity, bearing him three children — Gabriel, Gaspar, and Francesca, who became a nun. Several of Murillo's most beautiful Madonnas are copied from the high bred features of his wife, and his sons often posed for the Baby our Lord and little St. John. About this time Murillo painted his famous St. Anthony, one of the most exquisite pictures ever produced by mortal man. The saint is kneeling with the Baby Christ clasped close to his breast, the darling fat baby hand patting his cheek, a cloud of little cherubs hovering about, one with the lilies, the saint's emblem of purity. The face of St. Anthony is one of mingled strength and sweetness, such as one occasionally sees now in a Spanish cathedral in fair Andalusia, where piety is not yet dead and faith is still a living force. The flowers in this picture remind us of one of the stories of Murillo's lilies. They were so naturally painted in one of * 14 Who has not visited Seville Has not visited a marvel." Digitized by Google

Page 658

1901.I ° The Painter of Heaven" 619 St. Anthony of Padua. his pictures of St. Anthony that some one said to a French- man that the birds flew in at the cathedral windows and pecked at them. " Vraiment I " said the scoffing Gaul. " Then the priest must be very badly painted, or the birds would be afraid." " Not so, sefior," said the Spaniard quickly. " How it may be in your country in truth I know not, but in Spain the birds and the monks get along very well together?" One of Murillo's critics said that his St. Anthony's flesh- tints were so perfect that they seemed to have been painted son sangre y leche (with blood and milk). The warmth of coloring in this canvas is marvellous, the outlines are perfect, the grouping most artistic ; but it is the Digitized by Google

Page 659

620 " The Painter of Hea ven." [Feb., religious spirit of the picture which is most wonderful, and this is shown in all of Murillo's work. He was one who " Strove, in toil and want and cold neglect, To show a heedless world, with brush and pen And chisel, fragments of their vision fair, And to interpret to their fellow men The deepest passions of the human heart; These now are blessed with clearer light, and know The full fruition of their earthly dreams, And loftier raptures of creative joy." It is not strange that an artist should paint spiritual pic- tures who never began a religious picture without fasting, prayer, and even scourging himself, lest he portray aught dis- pleasing to God or calculated to lower instead of elevate the morals. Murillo followed the advice of that old archbishop who wrote, in quaint black letter: Digitized by Google

Page 660

igoi.] " The Painter of Hea ven." 621 St. John of God (Munich Museum). Very different from his lovely and lovable St. Anthony, with its warm, clear colors, its cherubs, its flowers and light, is a picture scarcely less celebrated, the San Juan de Dios.* The " Father of the Poor," or, as the Spaniards call him, " The Good Samaritan of Granada," is robed in a dark cowl, standing in the pillared portico of a church. At his feet crouches a cripple, his pitiful face upraised in beseeching that the saint may lay his hands upon him and heal him. In the background two novices, with sweet, boyish faces, watch the scene, and the distance shows a motley crowd of maimed and ♦St. John of God. Digitized by Google

Page 661

622 " The Painter of Hea ven" [Feb., halt, gathered around a one time cripple, who, by means of the saint's intercession, is walking without crutches. The play of light and shade is marvellous, the contrast wonderful, the execution fine, the coloring superb, the acces- sories well carried out ; but it is the face of San Juan which first catches, then holds the attention. It is so strong, so pure, so noble that once seen it is always remembered. The han- dling of the painting somewhat recalls the style of II Spag- noletto, but its spirit and essence is Maestro Murillo's own. Similar in expressiveness, yet different in conception, is Murillo's " El Tinoso," removed from Seville by the vandal Soult, and now in the Madrid Gallery. Queenly St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a white tissue veil upon her head, bends to wash the sores of a leper. About her are groups of disgustingly diseased beggars, while the court ladies hover in the background, one sweetly sympathetic, another half wondering, half disgusted. This picture illustrated the contrasts of life which the Maestro loved to portray : health and sickness, brilliance and squalor, and the spirit of penitential charity so dear to the Spanish heart. Of this painting Caen Bermudcz said that the Queen Elizabeth was equal to Van Dyke's best work, the boy's face was worthy of Paul Veronese, and the old woman recalled Velasquez. The queenly chastity of St. Elizabeth is little like the brilliant and glowing beauty of Murillo's Magdalen. This famous picture, now in the Madrid Gallery, is especial- ly wonderful in its warmth of coloring and a certain tragic intensity. One very much wonders where Murillo found his model for this picture. This Magdalen is not at all of the usual type. She is more like the Italian Guido Reni or Titian, not Andalusian, scarcely Spanish. She is painted in the master's best manner, in the calido st>le, and is as marvellous in an artistic way, and also in expressing devotion, as any of his religious paintings. Murillo did not confine himself to the higher classes for his types. As a genre painter he was celebrated, and many of his best paintings, from a purely artistic point of view, are of low life. " Art is the child of nature ; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude," Digitized by Google

Page 662

190 r.] " The Painter of Heaven" 623 St. Elizabeth of Hungary (Academy of St. Ferdinand, Madrid). and Murillo was a child of the great mother. To his truly artistic soul all nature was abundantly supplied with beauty, and he saw as many possibilities in the lazzaroni upon the Guadalquiver's quays, and the flower girls, ruffians, gypsies, and ragamuffins, as in the high-born senora or the gay caballero. His children are among his best efforts, whether he painted beggars or cherubs. His beggar boys are especially famous, and none of the pictures of these is more charming than that of " Two Beggars." The happy little scoundrels — Spanish beggars are always happy — are lolling in the sun, a puppy beside them, a basket of oranges their food. One is about to swallow a bit of melon, Digitized by Google

Page 663

624 " The Painter of Heaven" [Feb., refuse from some great house, and the dog looks wistful, while the other boy smiles tranquilly, sure his turn will come next. Both faces wear the gay insouciance of the Andalusian; the kind of a lad who thanks you as prettily when you do not give him a copper, with " Perdone, por amor de Dios," as when you give him a peseta. The children are typical "amis des peuples"; careless, merry, dirty, if you will ; but, ri import ! they are happy, the sun shines, 41 God 's in hi§ Heaven, all 's well with the world." Very unlike these jocund, earthly little fellows are Murillo's portrayals of St. John the Baptist, one of the Maestro* s favorite subjects. The Beggars (Pinakoihek, Munich). Digitized by Google

Page 664

igoi.] " The Painter of Hea ven" 625 $t. John Baptist (Visnna Museum). In the St. John in the Madrid museum our Lord has dipped up water from the brook in a shell, and gives it to the boy saint, a sweet expression of solicitude on his dear little face.- St. John carries his cross and scroll, with the words " Behold the Lamb of God," and a lamb crouches at his bare feet, while sweet baby angels, with hands clasped in prayer, hover above the peaceful scene. This picture is one of Murillo's daintiest productions, so tender and so suggestive in its deli- vol. lxxiu— 41 Digitized by Google

Page 665

626 The Painter ojf Heaven" [Feb., cate religious imagery that one counts it as from one of those who " Shine so near to Truth's great heart. The brightest star Truth has in her dome Keeps them alive; and will, till time is done, Fill them with stronger light than fire or sun/' Different, yet altogether touching, is the solitary St. John of the Lamb. Alone in the wilderness, the forerunner of the Messias stands protecting with his baby arm the Lamb of God, carrying his own cross bravely. In his earnest eyes there lingers not a trace of self, and he seems to be " A soul alight with purest flame of love, A heart aglow with sweetest charity, A mind all filled — and this is rarity — With even balanced thoughts, his eyes above, Yet saw the earth in its dread verity." The custom still prevails in Seville for each family to buy a lamb for its Easter feast, and in the old market one may easily note to-day some such chubby little urchins as Maestro Murillo sketched ; the purity of his genius refining them into idealized loveliness. St. John with the Lamb is one of the most exquisitely faultless paintings in the world, but still lovelier are the Maestro's pictures of our Lord as a child. Of these one of the most remarkable represents our Lord as alone in the rocky wilderness, his little bare feet cut and bleeding from the rough paths, his little boyish figure, bathed in light, well defined against a dark Spanish background. The exquisite boy face, so spiritual and so tender, is raised, the eyes gazing heavenward as if seeing things strange to mortal ken. The sweet lips are slightly parted, brown curls frame the wistful countenance with its wise and rapt expression, and above the Child God the Dove, the Holy Spirit, hovers gently, while a nimbus of heavenly light radiates from the form. Of all Murillo s pictures of the Child our Lord this is the most replete with that spirituality which was the keynote of the painter's being, for he was one who "Reached fame's goal, And left us glory shining from his soul." Digitized by Google

Page 666

1901.] 11 The Painter of Heaven" 627 His was a wonderfully pure life, and his pictures are but the exponent of his rare soul. He died in 1682 from an injury received while painting his famous " Marriage of St. Catherine." He was buried in the Church of Santa Crux, beneath Cam- pana's picture of the "Descent from the Cross/' the picture be- fore which Murillo had been wont to sit for hours, gazing with tears in his great brown eyes, until he said to a friend, " I am waiting till those holy men have taken down our Lord." His will, a quaint old document, showed the real spirit of the man. After a deposition as to his sanity, he says : " Firstly, I offer and commit my soul to God our Lord, who created it and redeemed it with the infinite price of His blood, of whom I humbly supplicate to pardon it and bear it on to peace in glory." And then follow his bequests. "VIVE MORITVRVS" they carved upon his tomb, and few men have lived or died better than this Spanish painter. Nothing more worthy can be said of him than Viardot's words : " Murillo comes up in every respect to what our imagination could hope or conceive. His earthly daylight is perfectly natural and true, his heavenly day is full of radiance. If in scenes taken from human life he equals the greatest colorists, he is alone in the imaginary scenes of eternal life. It might be said of the two great Spanish paint- ers that Velasquez is the painter of earth, Murillo of Heaven." PAIN. LIPS to the shadow stream In silence leaning, We are too near the dream To read its meaning. ARTHUR UPSON. Digitized by Google

Page 667

628 French Canadian Life and Literature. [Fcb.f FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. BY THOMAS O'HAGAN, M.A., Ph.D. STRANGER visiting the Canadian Province of Quebec, or, as we shall designate it here, French Canada, realizes at once that he is among a people differentiated in life, language, institu- tions, and customs from the inhabitants of On- tario, Nova Scotia, and the New England States. He feels about him the atmosphere of French life and thought, and finds himself face to face with one of the most remarkable phenomena of modern times — the phenomenon of a people planted upon the banks of the St. Lawrence nearly three cen- turies ago maintaining in fullest integrity their homogeneity amid the disintegrating influences of altered political institu- tions and the resistless sweep of Anglo-Saxon speech and com- mercial domination. It is a phenomenon which contradicts the very philosophy and teachings of history, for were it to accord with the teachings of history then the English conquerors who replaced, in 1759, the Bourbon lilies with the ensign of Great Britain should have long since absorbed and assimilated the conquered race. But the French of Quebec have resisted all assimilation. Nay, more. They have not only continued to flourish — to increase and multiply within their own original borders— but they have spread from east to west, leaving, as a writer has recently said, the literal imprint of their footsteps on the geographical chart of America from New England to the base of the Rocky Mountains, and all over the Mississippi Valley. Nor has their progress stopped here. Not content with physical advancement, they have gone further, and founded a literary microcosm of their own — created a literature with a color, form, and flavor all its own, which must be considered in itself a greater marvel than even their material preserva- tion. As you move amongst the people of Quebec — come in con- tact now with descendants of the old seigneurs, now with de- scendants of the coureurs de 6ois9 now with the habitant^ you naturally ask yourself the question, Whence came these people? Digitized by Google

Page 668

1901.] French Canadian Life and Literature. 629 Of course every one knows they came from France, but from what part of France did they come and under what influence? How did they acquire their present characteristics as well as their present form of language, and why are not some of the different patois spoken in France heard in Quebec ? It is interesting to compare the beginnings of the three chief groups of French settlement in America : the Louisiani- ans, Acadians, and Canadians. The French colony of Louisiana was practically founded during the first half of the eighteenth century ; French Canada during the seventeenth century, and Acadia, which originally included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the State of Maine, between 1636 and 1670. As to the beginnings of French Canada, the first settle- ment was made at Quebec about 1608. Between 1535, the date of Jacques Carrier's arrival in Canada, and 1600 St. Malo navigators visited the lower St. Lawrence to barter with the Indians, but none of them remained as settlers. The first French settlers to remain in Canada hailed from Normandy. In fact, the province of Normandy in France contributed more to the early settlement of French Canada than any other portion of France. After the collapse of the Hundred Part- ners, about the year 1662, Paris and Rochelle came in for a certain share of interest, as they were creditors of the expir- ing company, and soon immigrants were arriving in French Canada from the neighboring country places of those two cities. The chief provinces in France to contribute to the early set- tlements in French Canada were Normandy, Perche, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Guienne, and Gascony. This, then, is the basis of early settlement in French Canada. Now, when we consider the language of the French Cana- dians we notice that it has one marked characteristic — uni- formity. There is no patois used by the educated French of Quebec. Obsolete words are used — words that belong to the seventeenth century— but these do not constitute a patois. In fact, they add to the picturesque power of the language, du- plicating the resources of the tongue, just as a Shaksperean or Miltonic word of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries adds to the picturesque power of the English language of to- day. There are many reasons why patois, or slang, did not en- graft itself on the language of French Canada. In the first place, nearly all the women who came from France to Canada were educated, and furthermore there were schools established Digitized by Google

Page 669

630 French Canadian Life and Literature. [Feb., in the colony for girls as early as 1639. When you add to this the influence of the clergy — an educated body — it can be readily understood why the language of the educated French Canadian is one of marked purity and grace. It is quite amusing to hear people of Ontario who cannot frame a sentence in French speak of the French language of Quebec as a patois. This is absolutely false. The French language spoken by the educated classes in Quebec differs but little from that spoken by persons of the same degree of edu- cation in France. Cultivated persons use good, and ignorant persons use bad French in Quebec as well as in France. Nor is it among French people alone that this discrepancy is ob- servable. Take, for instance, an educated New Englander or Southerner, and compare his language with that of a Tennes- see mountaineer or an Indiana Hoosier, and you will quickly realize how many-tongued the American people have become, and into what depths of degradation the language which Shak- spere and Milton and Emerson and Lowell spoke has sunk among uneducated classes in certain quarters of the American Republic. In this connection there was probably more than humor in the remark of Artemus Ward, that he spoke seven different languages: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa- chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware. A highly educated and very intelligent French Canadian lady, after a considerable residence in France, has assured me that she found the speech of the common people in Quebec better than that of the common people in France, and that of the best Canadian speakers equal to that of the best French. It should be noted that the language brought to Quebec by the higher class in French colonial days was largely that of the French court, and that brought by the lower classes largely that of Normandy, which was good. Again, the number of professional men — officers, priests, lawyers, notaries, and others — has always been extremely large in Quebec in proportion to the population, and the modes of speech of so many educated persons must have had some influence on the language of the rest. We are told, too, that as early as the seventeenth century there had been a good deal of literary culture centring around the city of Quebec, the capital and chief city of the new colony. Writers of the seventeenth century have expressed the opinion that French Canadians could understand and ap- preciate a dramatic play as well as the ilite of Paris. Nor is Digitized by Google

Page 670

1901.] French Canadian Life and Literature. 631 this any marvel, since we know that theatricals were common occurrences in Canada, and that the " Cid " of Corneille was played in Quebec in 1645, and the "Tartuffe" of Molifere in 1677. This was many years before the Puritan of New Eng- land or the Cavalier of Virginia countenanced or encouraged dramatic performances. In this respect French genius and French taste on the banks of the St. Lawrence differ little from French genius and French taste, on the banks of the Loire or the Seine. Of course it cannot be denied but that provincialisms, localisms, and corruptions have become grafted upon the French language of Quebec — especially among the uneducated classes. Mr. Ernest Gagnon, the author of that interesting volume Les Chansons Populaires, cites some strangely incorrect expressions which are in vogue among his countrymen. For instance, a French Canadian habitant desiring to say "Wait a moment and I will go with you," says Espirez un instant ma y aller quand et vous. In some of the parishes, too, of Quebec, where the Aca- dians expelled from Nova Scotia settled, there are many ex- pressions in vogue not found elsewhere, and the pronunciation is somewhat peculiar. The same thing is noticeable among the Acadians who have settled in Louisiana, in the Valley of the Teche. As English trade and commerce have pushed their way into Quebec, many English words have become incorporated in the French language. Take, for instance, the expression used by Americans, to switch a train — the English use the expression to shunt. Now, the French Canadians form a verb from this which gives the form shunter. Such an expression as II est malaisi h beater — He is hard to beat — may be heard in Qaebec. Nor would our French Canadian habitant recog- nize potatoes as pommes de terre ; he would call them patates. He would not say // fait froid aujourd'hui, but 77 fait frette aujourd* hui. Yet notwithstanding these corruptions and Anglicisms the French language, as spoken in Quebec, holds its original purity very well. It is far from the truth to say that the language spoken by the common people of Quebec is a patois. It may be rude and ungrammatical, as might be expected, but it is not by any means a patois. It may be more the French of two hundred years ago than that of to-day, but it is still French, and not bad French either. Digitized by Google

Page 671

632 French Canadian Life and Literature. [Feb., Let us now for a moment glance at the literary microcosm which the sons of Racine, Corneille, and Molifere, of Chateau- briand, Victor Hugo, and Lamartine, have in the splendor of their genius created upon the banks of the St. Lawrence. The first literary expression of French Canada was that of oratory. Though the French Canadians were guaranteed certain rights and privileges by the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Constitu- tional Act of 1791, the English governor and his executive frequently attempted to ignore those — to ignore the will of the people, and as a consequence the French were for many years made to feel that they were a subject class and that the yoke of Britain was upon their shoulders. Nay, more. The English governor did not even stop here. He attempted to make the Catholic Church a creature of the state, and it was only after many years of strife and struggle that the saintly and heroic Bishop PJessis won for himself and his successors that freedom of action in things spiritual which belongs inher- ently to the office of a bishop of the Catholic Church. Now, what is the soil of French Canadian literature? It blossoms from three centuries of daring deed, bold adventure, noble discovery, heroic martyrdom, generous suffering, and high emprise. No wonder there is manifest to-day in French Canadian literature the lineage of courage ; no wonder it is full-orbed and rounded in its expression, reflecting the gloxy and splendor of the past, and inlaid with the dreams and hopes of the future. What a mine of inspiration there is in the history of French Canada! Fit theme indeed for poet, novelist, histo- rian, and painter! Behold the background of its national his- toric canvas ! " There is the era of discovery and settlement, represented by Carder, Champlain, and Maisonneuve ; that of heroic resist- ance to the Iroquois through a hundred years of warfare, repre- sented by Dollard and Vercheres ; of daring adventure in the pathless woods, by Joliet and La Salle ; that of apostleship and martyrdom, by Br£beuf, Lallemant, and Jogues ; that of diplomacy and administration, by Talon, the great disciple of Colbert ; that of military glory, by Tracy and the lion-hearted Frontenac ; that of debauchery and corruption, by Bigot and Penan ; that of downfall and doom, by Montcalm and Levis." I think it was Dr. Johnson who laid down the principle that however much statesmen and soldiers may achieve for the re- nown of their native land, the chief glory of a country lies Digitized by Google

Page 672

1901.] French Canadian Life and Literature. 633 with its authors. Now, this is especially true of French Can- ada. We have already noticed that French Canadian literature began with oratory. The intellectual activities of the people found scope in debate, in discussion in behalf of the rights of the people, in legislative halls and throughout the country. Canada from 1791 to 1840, and indeed to 1867, was in a forma- tive condition. These many years, big with problems of legis- lation, gave birth to a galaxy of French Canadian orators whose mantles are being worthily worn by their successors in our own day. There were the Papineaus, the Taschereaus, the Vigers, who in turn were succeeded by the Chaveaus, the Lafontaines, and the Dorions, and later by the Chapleaus and the Lauriers. The late Hon. Mr. Chapleau was a veritable Mirabeau in ora- tory. His fine physique, noble bearing, well poised head, and rich, resonant voice made him the Demosthenes of our Cana- dian Parliament. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the present prime min- ister of Canada, belongs to the academic school of orators— to the school of Richard Lalor Sheil and Edward Everett, and is not unworthy in the splendor of his oratory of the fine spirit and grace of his masters. In the pulpit such names as the Colins, the Racines, the Paquets, the Bruchesis, and the Lafleches do honor to the very best traditions of the pulpit oratory of Old France. Perhaps there is no part of literature that presupposes more intellectual vigor in a young country than that of history and biography. French Canada is rich in both. Quebec may in- deed be proud of the work done in this department. Consi- dering the circumstances under which it was written and the resources at his command, Garneau's history of Canada is a remarkable performance. Then we have Ferland, who followed in the wake of Garneau and worked on a different plane. His is a work of invaluable importance. Owing to the author's premature death it was, unfortunately, left incomplete. The histories by Garneau and Ferland supplement each other very nicely, and the details which they have left untold or unde- veloped are supplied by the monumental work of Faillon — his UHistoire de la Colonie Francaise dans la Nouvelle France, and the still later admirable volumes of Benjamin Suite's UHistoire de Canadiens Francais. The chief of French Canadian biogra- phers is Abb6 Casgrain, whose life of the Venerable Mother of the Incarnation is one of the finest biographies ever written in Canada. Mention should also be made here of this author's Digitized by Google

Page 673

634 Fr&nch Canadian Life and Literature. [Feb., work, . Un PUerinage au Pays d Evangeline, which was crowned by the French Academy. It is due to the French Canadians to say that they have done more to preserve the historical records of Canada than all other Canadians together. Something has been done to this end in Nova Scotia, but very little in Ontario. As a re- sult of this Ontario has so far furnished but one first-rate Canadian historian — William Kingsford — while Quebec has pro- duced three historians of acknowledged character and repute. The truth is, there is more Canadian patriotism to-day in Que- bec than in any other province of the Dominion — if Canadian patriotism mean a true appreciation of Canada's past and pres- ent— the preservation of her historical records and monuments — not the paltry rhetoric and swaggering idiocy of those who drain their throats from morn to eventide with shouts for the " Old Flag " and its imperial piracies. It is this true Canadian patriotism that has made Quebec the wealthiest literary por- tion of the Dominion. The doyen of French Canadian literature, indeed of all Canadian literature, is unquestionably Sir James Le Moine, of Quebec. This venerable author, who for services rendered to Canadian letters was knighted by the Queen on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, is now in his seventy-fifth year, and is of Scotch and French extraction. He began his literary career in 1862 with the publication of a volume entitled Legendary Lore of the Lower St. Lawrence. Our gifted historian and antiquarian has published in all some thirty volumes. His beautiful manorial home Spencer Grange, situated at Sillery, near Quebec, has been for years a shrine to which literary pilgrims from the old and new world have directed their footsteps. There have been entertained in past years the historian Parkman, Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, George Augusta Sala, W. D. Howells, Goldwin Smith, Charles G. D. Roberts, Gilbert Parker, Professor Henry Drummond, and many others eminent in letters. Parkman owes much in his brilliant series of histories to the data which he found in secure keep- ing at Spencer Grange, and acknowledges this in the preface of one of his volumes, while the two most distinctly Canadian novels, The Golden Dog and The Seats of the Mighty, would never have been written had it not been for the facts supplied by this gifted, industrious, and painstaking Canadian historian and archaeologist. Ia the domain of French Canadian fiction the historical Digitized by Google

Page 674

1901.] French Canadian Life and Literature. 635 romance, as might be expected, predominates. In its literary expression French Canada resembles French Louisiana, in that it is strongest in the departments of history and poetry. The venerable De Gasp6 may be said to have led the van in the department of fiction with his Les Anciens Canadiens, which is a vivid epitome of life at the seigneuries and among the habi- tants in the early days of French Canada. An excellent trans- lation of this work has been made by the Canadian poet and novelist Charles G. D. Roberts. Then we have Bourassa's Jacques et Marie, a novel dealing with the destruction of Aca- dia, " Home of the Happy," and the banishment of its pious and faithful inhabitants. It is, however, when we enter the garden of French Cana- dian poesy that we are beset with an embarrassment of riches. Herein it is that French Canadian genius has truly flowered. What rich blossoming from Voltaire's Quelques arpents de neige ! Wolfe snatched the Bourbon lilies from the brow of New France when he climbed the heights of Abraham on that memorable September morning in 1759, but the genius planted beside the St. Lawrence and nurtured by the noble heart of a Champlain, a Frontenac, a Laval could not be quenched, neither by eclipse of empire nor the chilling sceptre of alien sway. In the academic groves of French Canadian song the first strong voice to lead the choral service was unquestionably Octave Cr6mazie. His muse is classical. No other Canadian poet has written such war songs. Take, for instance, his Le Vieux Sol» dat Canadien and Le Drapeau de Carillon. There is a fire and spirit in the lines which stir the heart like the blare of a trumpet. Of the living French Canadian poets of to-day the greatest is certainly Dr. Louis Frechette, who enjoys the distinctive title of the French Canadian laureate. Indeed, I am not sure but Dr. Frechette is the greatest poet Canada has yet pro- duced— a poet worthy of rank with Lowell, Whittier, and Longfellow in new world literature. Dr. Frechette is a demo- crat of the democrats. He is known to his countrymen as 44 Le rossignol de la democratic" In his young days — he is now about sixty — he was both journalist and politician. He began in life by studying law and was admitted to the bar in 1864, but as in the case of Shakspere, Chatterton, Walter Scott, Macaulay, Guizot, and Disraeli, what began in a flirta- tion with law ended in a marriage with literature. Frechette is a truly national poet. The source of his in- Digitized by Google

Page 675

636 French Canadian Life and Literature. [Feb., spiration, unlike that of Cr£mazie, is found, not in the Quebec of the past but in the Quebec of to day. It is of Montreal as it now is, and the glories of the Niagara and the St. Law- rence, that our poet sings. His greatest work is the tragedy of " Papineau," which was crowned by the French Academy in 1881. Another of his poems full of fine lines and lofty senti- ment is his " Discovery of the Mississippi." Dr. Frechette has translated into French Howells' Chance Acquaintance and Cable's Old Creole Days. In social life Dr. Frechette is a most charm- ing man, his gifts of heart and grace of manner delighting the many who come within the radiance of his friendship. Pamphile Le May is another of the inspired singers of French Canada. He is about the same age as Dr. Frechette, and has done literary work of a high order. His poetry differs from that of Cr£mazie and Frechette. It lacks the lightsome joyousness found in the work of the latter. There is in the poetry of Le May something of the spiritual music of Chopin and Liszt. His magnum opus is his translation of Longfellow's " Evangeline." This is a remarkably clever work. It is said that Longfellow himself considered many of Le May's French Alexandrines superior to his own hexameters. Le May has also translated into French Kirby's historical novel The Golden Dog. Perhaps the most national poet in French Canada is Benjamin Suite. His muse is lyrical and he confines himself almost solely to the songs of the people. Suite is a veritable Father Prout in the skill and cleverness with which he trans- lates English and Scotch songs into French. Cr£mazie has been characterized as the Hugo, Frechette as the Lamartine, and Suite as the Beranger of Canada. But what of French Canada of to day ? I have been speak- ing of its glorious and romantic past, and of the literature which has its root in that past. Is Quebec of to day in touch with modern life and thought and advancement ? Assuredly it is. The virtues which make a people great and the progress which subtracts not from the moral growth of a people — these abound in the hearts and homes of the French Canadian people of to-day. There is less crime in Quebec — I speak of crime which shakes society — in proportion to its inhabitants than in any other province of the Dominion. Again, where on this continent can you find a more temperate people than in the province of Quebec? They indeed have solved the tem- perance problem and need no prohibitory law, while the purity Digitized by Google

Page 676

1901. French Canadian Life and Literature. 637 of their social life knows not the breath of suspicion. All this is the fruit of their fidelity to the Catholic faith and its teach- ings. The late venerable Bishop Lafleche, of Three Rivers, told me some two years ago that he regarded French Cana- dians as better Catholics than their kinsmen in France, and Pope Pius IX. once told a French Canadian bishop that he considered French Canadian Catholics as his most faithful children in the church. Those who slander Quebec in the press and on the plat- form do not know its prelates, its priests, and its people. If they would visit its centres of life, its universities, colleges and convents, its sweet and pure country homes, its prayerful shrines, its altars of devotion — then would Truth henceforth reign where Falsehood has had its throne. Toronto, Canada. Digitized by Google

Page 677

638 Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching. [Feb., TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING * BY WARD HUNT JOHNSON, C.S.P. T seems almost a truism to say that in order to understand any writer thoroughly it is necessary to know something of the circumstances under which he lived and wrote, ajid yet this is a mat- ter which is constantly forgotten by students and critics. In no case is it more often overlooked than in studying the Scriptures, and especially St. Paul's Epistles. So entirely are his letters the product of circumstances, so abso- lutely is the understanding of their real meaning dependent on knowing something of those to whom they are addressed, that it is safe to say that, taken from such surroundings, the true signification of the epistles is not to be determined. This is one reason which makes especially valuable such a book as Abb6 Fouard's new volume, The Last Years of St. Paul. With great care, with masterly grasp of St. Paul's life, the author gives his readers a series of vivid pictures of the times and persons of the epistles, and so enables them to reach a clear understanding of these letters. Just because he does set de- tails forth so plainly we gain a knowledge of St. Paul's charac- ter, a knowledge of his friends and disciples, and a conse- quent light on his teachings which makes them wholly intelli- gible. But if St. Paul is only to be understood by reference to his surroundings, nevertheless his works have a permanent value because they deal with problems and questions which human philosophy ever asks. His works are fundamentally human in that they meet these problems, and so, even had the church not stamped them as inspired, they would still hold place among the great contributions of human thought to the settlement of human doubt. Thus it is that the epistles are modern. The thinking of the world repeats itself; to-day its questions are those of yesterday, though in a new phraseology and in novel terms. And so it happens that the very errors St. Paul met and overcame, the very questions to which he * The Last Years of St. Paul. By the Abbe Constant Fouard. Translated by George F. X. Griffith. New York and London : Longmans, Green & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 678

1901.] Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching. 639 gave an answer, are those which now are as rife in the world as then, and which demand response from the modern Chris- tian, even as they did from his predecessor of a thousand years ago. There were two parties— two sets of difficulties, rather — which St. Paul had to meet among his converts; and to them two groups of his controversial writings are directed. These two parties were the Gnostics and the Judaizers — the rational- ist, in modern terms, and the ultra-conservative. To the first he addresses the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians; to the last is written the Epistle to the Hebrews. A short but clear description is given by Abb6 Fouard of the Gnostics and their allies, the Essenes. The philosophy or religion of these men, so far as it had a form, was a curious mixture of the savage cults of Phrygia, turning now to a barbarous asceticism, now to a no less barbarous sensuality, and a de- generate following of the Jewish law. In Phrygia, between 224 B. c. and 187 B. c, Antiochus of Syria had settled two thousand Jewish families removed from Babylon, and these had engrafted their own conception of Mosaism upon people who had produced such an abomination as the worship of Cybele. New moons, Sabbaths, circumcision were mingled with unnatural lust, castration, religious prostitution, while over both was spread an asceticism which refused meat and wine, denied the possibility of marriage, and abhorred the sacrifice of blood. Then there were added the worship of angels, an excessive reverence toward Moses — an adoration of his very name — ter- rible initiations and secrets of esoteric wisdom known only to the elect. Fouard says (p. 49) very well that the problem of the existence of evil, the belief in evil as inherent in matter, was the cause of all this mad and fanatic religionism. Of course such men, if they accepted Christianity at all, could do so only in some perverted form. Since matter was evilr obviously a God of goodness could not have union with it through an incarnation directly; the only way such a mani- festation could be possible would be through a descending series of beings, emanations of the divine nature, each losing something of the fulness of deity, until a point was reached where a bridge could be made to the evil nature of the crea* ture. These, then, were the problems St. Paul had to answer in his epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians ; these were the difficulties : first, that matter was essentially evil ; second, and, Digitized by Google

Page 679

640 Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching. [Feb.. in consequence, no immediate union could exist between God and man. In answering he granted, tacitly, that matter was, as at present found, mingled with evil ; the whole creation groans and travails under it, being beneath a curse. But there is no evil in matter itself, for God is Creator ; all things were made by him and for him — for him, since from all eternity he pre- destinated men for himself as his sons, that they might be holy and blameless before him. Matter is not evil, nor is human nature in itself; but evil comes from the misdirection of human will : it is Sin. To do away with sin in man there was need of a re-creation, of gathering humanity again under a new head, and this new head is the crown and consumma- tion of God's natural creation ; it is the blending of the human and the divine. He willed to gather together in Christ all things, both those which are in heaven and those which are on earth — even in him. It is by this union that God makes possible the disappearance, the annihilation of evil — of sin. " Even when we were dead in sin hath he quickened us." This quickening can be effected only by one who possesses a divine life in himself. It is not wrought by some inter- mediary, some angel or aeon separated by infinite gradations from the source of life, but by one in whom dwells the pleni- tude, the fulness of divinity — who is none other than God Him- self. It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell. And yet this fulness must come into contact with the creature ; so it must dwell in a bodily shape (Col. ii. 9), made even of matter as is ours. Christ's divine life is poured into us ; we are made com- plete (Col. ii. 10) in him, for he is the Head through whom comes life. This process of assimilation must go on more and more until men reach a likeness to divinity; until they attain the measure of the perfect man, even to the fulness of Christ, who is himself the fulness of God. Such we take to be the general teaching of these two epistles, and such we take to be Abb£ Fouard's explanation, although perhaps in passages it is not quite as lucid as it might be. I said that St. Paul met and answered modern difficulties and doubts. Of course, nowadays there are no sects calling themselves Gnostics, there are no Essenes ; but there are rationalizers, free-thinkers under whatever name they may be — Digitized by Google

Page 680

1901.] Timeliness of St. Paul's Teacbiag. 641 men who believe they have a monopoly of all real knowledge and philosophy, and who, in consequence, despise us for our ignorance ; there exists a misguided asceticism outside the church, and there is, generally, among non- Catholics, a disbe- lief in the Incarnation which has its roots, ultimately, in a kind of dualism. To meet these errors the modern missionary can use no better weapons than the Epistles; he must, like St. Paul, emphasize the fact that the church possesses a gnosis most true and infallible; he must dwell on the Incarna- tion as bringing God actually into the race, leavening the human with the divine, and so affording a base for, and a pos- sibility of a supernatural ethic — infinitely above mere created virtue— in comparison with which, as St. Augustine says, the loftiest virtues of the philosophers are but as vices. If the object of these two epistles was to show that matter was not evil, since it was the creation of God, who also by an incarnation and by the infusion of his divine life had done away with the accidental evil of sin ; that it was one God who was both creator and redeemer of his creatures, the object of the Epistle to the Hebrews is likewise to display the unity of God in his moral dealings with man. The God of Sinai and of Calvary is the same, and the revelations of himself, conse- quently, have a unity, a necessary connection, for Christianity and the sacrifice of Christ is the reality and the consummation of the Law. The Jews, to whom the epistle was written, were amazed and confounded at the Gospel. How could it be — this contra- diction—the Law laid down for ever now to be set aside; the commandments there now to be superseded ? And Paul an- swers their question, settles their doubts, by showing the Law and its ceremonies to be a shadow, a type, which was fulfilled in Christ. It is the same God who is the author of both, and only in acknowledging that can difficulties be solved. Now, the amazement of the Jews at God's apparent con- tradiction is the same amazement which the gentile Gnostics felt as they looked upon the world. They beheld evil every- where: they saw it in the ferocity of natural law; they saw it, even more, in man himself. How was it possible to reconcile the contradiction, to believe that the God of nature was the God who became man ? > St. Paul answers them by showing that there is no real opposition between God and nature ; that the evil of sin is not something positive, but a lack of divine force, which is done away with when that divine life is infused; and that the vol. lxxii.— 42 Digitized by Google

Page 681

642 Timeliness of Sr. Paul's Teaching. [Feb., key to this difficulty, as to that of the Jews, is the unity of God : the Creator and Redeemer are one. That great truth solves all problems now. It is the gospel of the twentieth century as well as of the first. We, too, behold men amazed with doubt because they find an apparent contradiction in God's teaching ; they see a thousand sects, and each claims to have the truth. True, God is one and his truth must be one. To that one Truth, the Caurch, all adumbrations of it must be gathered, and must, in it, be swallowed up. The various sects of Chris- tians possess the parts, of which the whole is in the church. Let us recognize their use; let us see them not, of course, as sanctioned or established by God, but as used, in his provi- dence, to bring men to Christ — the pedagogues carrying the books they cannot rightly read and leading souls to the church, to that wise mother who can explain the books and teach little ones all there is to know. Abb£ Fouard's treatment of the questions as to what com- munity of people the Epistle to the Hebrews was really written, and by whom, is good. His view is the generally conservative one. In regard to authorship, he thinks that while the sub- ject-matter is St. Paul's, the form is due to Barnabas. That Barnabas was the author is the opinion of Tertullian ; but there is this objection: that Birnabas was from Cyprus and had no connection with Jerusalem, while the writer must have known well the ceremonial of the Temple and the general feeling of the priests of the holy city. Again, the style is quite unlike that of the epistle which we know to be of Barnabas. That St. Paul did not actually write the epistle is general- ly agreed. Here are found words not used in his other writ- ings, figures and technical terms; the style is much more Greek than in his acknowledged works, and there is an absence of the breaks — anacolutha — which so distinguish him else- where. Most Catholic commentators, as Abb£ Fouard says, agree with Estius, that while to St. Paul is due the thoughts, the ideas, the composition and " ornaments " are another's. In fact, the opinion of Origen, as given by Eusebius {Hist. Eccl.9 vi. 25), is still good today. "The style," he says, "is not the Apostle's ; for he acknowledges that he writes like a foreigner ; but the epistle is really Greek, as any one competent to judge would acknowledge. However, the thought is not inferior to the Apostle's, nor are the words — and in this, too, any one would agree who should diligently read his letters. I think while the thoughts are the Apostle's, the diction and composi- Digitized by Google

Page 682

igoi.] Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching. 643 tion are some one's else ; it is like the work of one who wrote from memory the Apostle's words, or meant to comment on his master. Nevertheless, if any church holds it as Paul's she is to be commended, for our ancestors were not reckless in attributing it to Paul. But who really wrote it down, God only knows. Of the writers whose remains have reached us some ascribe it to Clement, others to Luke." St. Jerome says (Ep. ad Dard.) he has received it as St. Paul's, but that it does not really make any difference who wrote it since it has been received by the church. Another much debated question is, To whom was the epistle sent ? The general tradition is that it was written to the Jews of Palestine. Such is St. Chrysostom's opinion, and this is adopted by the Abb6 Fouard. The latter gives no argument, but it would seem that a good case could be made out against the generality of modern scholars who contend that it was written to the Jews of Rome, from internal evidence. Ob- viously it was written to persons familiar with the Temple — to priests, and Acts vi. 7 speaks of " the great company of priests " gathered at Jerusalem. Again, of 32 quotations made from the Old Testament 16 are from the psalms, with which hymns the temple priests would be better acquainted than with any other writings in the world. Deductions from the Scrip- tures, in fact, mark this epistle more than any other. Then there are constant expressions and phrases current in Alexan- drian philosophy used — things which could only appeal to a body of scholars. There are many of these expressions paral- leled exactly in Philo, and, indeed, so strong is the Alexandrian feeling all through that some have seen an indication of Apol- los as the author. The great argument on the other side is that the Scriptures quoted are not the Hebrew version, but that of the Seventy, and the writer of this article confesses that to him, personally, this is a weighty reason against Jeru- salem as the destination of the epistle. However, these are matters which will never be absolutely settled. It will be evident from what has been said that all through the book Abb6 Fouard's point of view has been frankly tradi- tional, and, of course, entirely conservative. For this he has been censured in a lately published- critique in the New York Times, by John White Chadwick, as though the learned French- man were ignorant of the positions of modern rationalistic critics or indifferent to them. Indeed, the writer accuses " the -entire body of the Roman Catholic communion, clerical and Digitized by Google

Page 683

644 Timeliness of St. Paul's Teaching. [Ftb. lay," of " a fine indifference to those opinions." But we sus- pect that the Abb£ Fouard was neither ignorant nor indifferent. He is writing a popular book — to be read by every one ; he is not writing a controversial work, and it is only in the last that the opinions of the modern school of critics would have weight. As these men are entirely divided, as no two of them agree, it would be obviously impossible to write a life of St. Paul for the general public if attention were to be paid to their various and militant opinions. Under such circumstances reference must be had to tradition as giving a connected and consistent account of St. Paul's life and work. So far, however, from showing "a fine indifference," the notes to the Abb£ Fouard's book evidence a painstaking and careful scholarship, and a judicious appreciation of modern German erudition. Finally, to include us all, " the entire body of the Roman Catholic communion," in this sweeping accusation, seems a little hard and a trifle unjust. Too much praise can scarcely be given to the general make- up of Abb£ Fouard 's book; it is excellent. George Griffith, the editor and translator, is admirably fitted by his varied learn- ing to bring out such a book in English dress. He has done as well with this as with Abb6 Fouard s other works, and this is saying a good deal. There are, to be sure, certain manner- isms of language, certain translations of Scripture not so accu- rate as they might be, which one might wish altered, but, on the whole, the book, both in writing and translation, is a dis- tinct cause for joy to all who wish to see the scholarship of the church advance and the laity encouraged in their study of Holy Scripture. Digitized by Google

Page 684

The Calm Waters of the ^gean Sea. I FROM A GREEK ISLAND. BY CLARE SOREL STRONG. rT was just before the New Year — the lucky sea- son for bridals — and Vlacheraina was early afoot. The preparations for a village wedding were going forward. Of course, most of the in. habitants were not actively engaged in these preparations ; but it needs a score or two of peasants to help an- other score to do nothing, if they are to do it with real pleasure. It is a very busy idleness that precedes a Greek country festivity: much running about, much vociferating, much drill, ing of poultry, pigs, and children. The youngsters of Vlacher- aina, in their excitement, mirth, and intense curiosity about the comings and goings of their elders, were feeling as if the hours were almost too full of strange and agreeable sensations ; yet they were impatient for the time of the open-air ball, the climax in the proceedings for most of the boys and girls. The matrons were contemplating with pride their good spinning, washing, bleaching, and ironing, as displayed on the persons of their husbands and families. Photine, a buxom, smiling grandmother of thirty-two winters, sat in the bright sunshine, sheltered by her dwelling from the fresh breeze, fingering her rings, and her filigree crosses, pendants, and brooches— which, with the chains that bound the ornaments about her throat and ample shoulders, had cost her bridegroom, seventeen years before, two thousand five hundred Greek francs ; for she was the beauty of the parish, and therefore pretty sure of good Digitized by Google

Page 685

646 From a Greek Island. [Feb., wedding gifts. She had married, moreover, in a "good oil year" — a fact which, made generosity possible. Only once since had there been a yield to compare with the olives of that season. She still owned all her ornaments ; though, to be sure, after some bad harvests several of the best rings and medallions had had to be pawned that stock might be bought for the farm ! Well, her pretty things were all safe at home with her again, she reflected ; and her cousin, Soula, the bride of the day, would not have half as many ornaments, because Kosta, though rich and very much in love, was a close fisted fellow. Indeed, he had pleaded, when discussing the matter with Soula's father, that nearly all his money was lent at high interest, and that it would be great waste to call in any more of it to tie it up in goldsmith's work. He said, too, with a nervous smile : 41 The gold could not add to her beauty." The men of the village lounged by a wall, smoking, talking politics, and occasionally breaking into those merry hearted, childlike yet sonorous peals nowhere heard from adult throats except in the classic land. The names of kings, emperors, local deputies, ex deputies ; the dead statesman, Tricoupis ; and the premier, Delyannis, recurred often in their talk. Some threw the arguments about current political questions into true Socratic form. Some blundered egregiously as to facts and deductions. The sharper wits pricked a fallacy, and it burst like a bubble ; or they flashed a light upon some foolish state- ment, and out rolled the joyous laughter. The duller disputants stood abashed ; but not for long ! At last Kosta (short for Constantine) appeared. The vil- lage fiddler and drummer preceded the bridegroom ; and the loungers by the wall scattered to their various doors, to be ready to receive Kosta's invitation — already given and accepted, but re delivered on the marriage day as a matter of established etiquette. Then by degrees they fell into line, following Kosta and the musicians to the church. The procession took on its way the homes of nearly all the bride's and bridegroom's rela- tions ; that is to say, it stopped at three-fourths of the doors of the village. Only Soula's third-cousin, Yanni, and his family, were left out ; and this on account of the very great, and easily explicable, coldness between the Yanni faction and Kosta. The ill feeling arose out of a loan, and a bit of sharp practice of Kosta's. Yanni pledged his own olive-trees, and his half and quarter shares in other olive trees ; and when Kosta seized the trees for the debt, not only Yanni but also Digitized by Google

Page 686

1901.] From a Greek Island. 647 his brother in law, sisters, and other part-owners in the good gray-green oil givers, were furious, and made things extremely unpleasant for the lender — who, indeed, might well have given a week's grace, and might have been content then to get back his capital with its high interest. But when the trees were worth more, and when the law gave them to him, many said Kosta was not much to blame, though he did deal Yanni a shrewd blow. Kosta did not cut an imposing figure as a bride- groom — a little man, with a sickly, sensitive, ungenial face, and not in first youth. Had he worn a ready- made suit from a clothier's shop he would have seem- ed a miserable specimen of hu- manity ; but his bright tsarouksy the national shoes, red to their very- tall points, and tasselled, like a gondola's prow ; his long, thick, knitted stockings ; blue zouave trousers ending about the knee ; braided and silver-buttoned jacket ; snowy linen, and embroidered vest, gave him a certain picturesqueness; for gocd costume "levels up" in a merciful manner. The fine figures look their best in it ; and it lends dignity to puny forms. There were some young fellows, home for Christmas from Patras and Athens — well-set-up and comely youths— but they wore shoddy, city habiliments, thereby lacking the "fine Soula, the Bride of the Day. Digitized by Google

Page 687

648 From a Greek Island. [Feb., feathers " which would have made them " fine birds " in the crowd. They made up, however, for sartorial deficiencies by their airs of travelled men and dwellers in great towns, ask- ing their old companions: "What of last year's wine?" " Was there much oil to come ? " " How many children have you ? " and smiling a trifle superciliously as the families were told off variously, in the pious village phrase : " Two, from God, Diimitri"; "Five, from God, Giorgi "Three, from God" and so on. As the men went along, keeping time to the fiddle and drum music, petards were sent off at fairly regular intervals, for no village festival would be complete here without its quota of exploded gunpowder. The noise evidently greatly added to the general joy. Only Kosta, nervous by nature and overwrought by the importance of the occasion, winced and jerked at the report of each petard. Meantime, Soula's girl-friends carried her effects on their heads from her little home to the larger house of Kosta and his mother. There were her own spinnings, and her mother's, in the white bolias (head- cloths, worn on working days as a protection from the sun) ; woven mattresses, sheets ; hand loom, blue, woollen skirts, too, of a stuff called serza —which means serge— and a certain amount of bought wearing apparel, beside all her house-plenishing of good home manufacture. Soula had refused to be married until a large trousseau was ready; Greek Typfs. indeed, so large a trous- seau that she thought it would never be finished ; and she worked slower than Penelope. (But care was taken that she should undo none of her weaving, and none of her mother's. She had, at least once, made an attempt in that direction. But her father was a strong partisan of Kosta and greatly in favor of the match ; and he put an end to her ingeni- ous destructive manoeu- vres.) Digitized by Google

Page 688

Igor.] From a Greek Island. 649 The Citadel of Corfu. No music summoned the women to the wedding. The fair sex ranks low in Greece. A peasant, speaking to his social superior, adds a deprecatory " saving your presence " (Mesytn- bathio /) after naming three of his belongings : to wit, his don- key, his pig, and his wife! Such animals may not, without apology, be mentioned " in ears polite." So the village dames and damsels dropped into the church of Vlacheraina unes- corted ; all save the bride, who was led by a handkerchief held by the eldest of her first cousins, and surrounded by a bevy of girlfriends and relations — prominent among them Phrossyne, who was to be the bride's Koumbara, or sponsor. Photine, Phrossyne's mother, held the Koumbara's baby during the ceremony, for Koumbara and Koumbaro have an active part to play. The sponsors wave a crown of olive branches three times over the head of the bride, and three times over the head of the bridegroom. Afterwards, these wreaths, bound together, and wrapped in wool and gaily-colored silk ribbons — the leaves thickly gilt or silvered — are hung up in the home of the newly wedded couple, to be buried with the husband when death shall call him away. The wife may die first or last, but she does not take the wreaths with her to the grave. All this has its mystical significance. There is much ceremony connected with Greek nuptials, and that is well. The family life of the nation has, for centuries, been worthy of the solemnity with which the church has celebrated the formation of family ties. Digitized by Google

Page 689

650 From a Greek Island. [Feb., There is, of course, plenty of superstition as well as re- ligious observance connected with a Greek wedding. Photinfc said, partly in pride of her daughter, and partly in a mild con- tempt of all the world outside her own family : " No danger that the Koumbara of today shall touch the bridegroom's head with the stephani / Do you remember how Anastasia had to hold up her arm, and dance round on tiptoe, that she might not brush the heads of my Phrossyne and her hus- band?" For Phrossyne and her lord and master were a fine, well-grown young couple. Kosta, being short, was safe enough not to be grazed by so much as an olive-leaf. (It is accounted " unlucky " if the wreath should touch the head of either of the bridal pair.) Phrossyne feared that, just once, she ruffled Soula's frills and flowers, and she grew crimson in shame at her awkwardness ; but it was the recollection that the accident was an evil omen that deepened her blush almost to purple* The bride, however, did not feel the contact. Who, indeed, could feel anything through the great pile of hair padded with wool, and the quilled ribbon, and false flowers, with which Lehla, the hairdresser by prescription of all the brides of Vlacheraina, had adorned Soula's handsome head? There was a picturesque dark woman who stood apart from the rest — Euphemia by name, a distant cousin of Kosta's; and she watched the proceedings with a strange intentness. Was she saying her prayers and blessing the espousals, or muttering spells ? It is not often that angry black eyes flash over lips moving in benediction ! The touch of the olive garland on the crisp flowers of the bride was not lost on Euphemia. It sent the ghost of a cruel smile flying across her face. No one, except Soula, had fought so hard against this marriage as Euphemia. She was forty, two years a widow, and it had been the wish of her life to marry Kosta. It was not love she felt for him now, but unqualified hatred; and she had much trouble to conceal her feelings. To Kosta the hatred was palpable. But Euphemia exercised a sort of fasci- nation over the bride. That was how it often happened with Euphemia; she could half bewitch people if she chose, though she had failed to charm Kosta when they were lad and lass together, or at any later date. He was, in fact, afraid of her. Euphemia was one of the most richly. dressed women in the thronged church. The neighbors said that her finery came of the gratitude of her patients ; for she was something of a herbalist. Her jewelry, and the stiff silk petticoat, and the Digitized by Google

Page 690

1901.] From a Greek Island. 651 rest of her fine clothes, certainly never grew upon her two poor fields! The pope delivered no wedding discourse ; and, being a week day, there was no Mass ; so the ceremony was quickly over, and the brilliantly attired company wended its way to the house of the bride's parents, there to drink a little coffee and eat a kind of sweet biscuit, made especially for consump- tion at country weddings. Kosta had not crossed that thresh- Some of the Islanders. old since his engagement. Custom enjoins such abstention. He had sent his presents to Soula, instead of bringing them. That, too, is the local usage. To-day he might enter freely. " It is like a strange place to me," he said wistfully, in an undertone to his bride ; and by this he meant to reproach her gently, for it was all her fault that the engagement had been such a long one. Soula did not answer. She had suc- ceeded hitherto in maintaining the demure smile and down- cast eyes enjoined upon all good countrywomen on occasions of ceremony. Kosta went off with his father in law at this point in the day's proceedings. Etiquette forbids father or bridegroom to take part in the open-air ball. Their absence is a mark of their confidence in the bride. She is left to enjoy with her young companions, and the neighbors in general, her last day of liberty unrestrained by the presence of her law- giver t hat- has been, or her law-giver-that-is-to-be. Men in their position Digitized by Google

Page 691

From a Greek Island. [Feb., go b Dating, or ride off somewhere on their thin, shaggy ponies, or take a drive in the village rattle-trap chaise, while fiddles and feet keep time in the dust of the Phoros. Kosta said : "Let us walk round our fields together"; and the elder man agreeing, so it was done. As the women went toward the musicians, Euphemia rustled her thick silk against the bride's skirts, saying, with a nod towards the hill above them : " It's pleasant up there. Do you see where the great Rock is picking its way down through the stones with its shepherd, the Turk ? To- morrow, Soula, I shall be away, high up ! See, there J " The bride forgot etiquette ; raised her hazel eyes to Euphemia's, and a smile flashed along her even, pearly teeth. A brown trout-stream with the sun's rays coming and going in the water is the nearest thing in inanimate nature to Soula's eyes with the light of laughter playing there. What a contrast was the sullen fire that burnt in Euphemia's black orbs ! "You're the fairy-godmother, Euphemia; the witch, the woman of wonders!" laughed the bride. (This trip for the morrow had evidently been talked over already between these two.) Just at the moment her father was saying to Kosta: "My girl has lost her low spirits. She is in prime heart. You Ve brought her round very nicely lately." " Better and better may she be," sighed Kosta ; " but it is more my cousin, the widow, than I, who managed to cheer her, this winter. How she did it I do not know." To one other person Euphemia spoke apart. There was a wedding-guest who looked fitter for a funeral. Young Spirot the handsomest youth in Vlacheraina, or for miles around, was moody and silent. All the gossips knew he had been from his school days in love with Soula ; and had it not been that she cared for him with all her childish heart, she never could have fought so long against her parents' wishes and Kosta's suit. Euphemia said rapidly : " I tried your fortune for you, Spiro, last night, with the cards ; and last week, with a mutton- bpme. You '11 have to give me a good present when it comes true. And you '11 be well able to afford it, for you '11 wed a rich widow, and your wife will be the girl of your heart. Can you make out how that will be? Never mind! Soula knows all about it. Just do you look for the signs when she's dancing ! " Now, Spiro had no love for the herbalist; and her words, Digitized by Google

Page 692

1901.] From a Greek Island. 653 at first hearing, were as bewildering as a blow would have been — a heavy blow between the eyes ; but, as time went on, he became alert and watchful; he, who had played hitherto the rdle of " the skeleton at the feast." And sure enough, when Soula had thrown her handker- chief, corner to her "next.of- cousin kin," her " first German " (primo germano, as the Italian-speak- ing islanders phrase it), and when she had knotted Photine's, Phrossyne's, and Euphemia's to her own, or each other's, apron- strings — the danc- ing having begun — every time she passed by the pil- lar against which Spiro was leaning she shot him a glance of her smil- ing brown eyes. Photine caught one such glance, and signified ma- tronly disappro- val. Soula's mo- ther, too, with angry surprise, saw another sparkle, and the gleam of fine teeth ; and it is to be doubted if Euphemia lost one of those silent greetings. Certainly, Spiro missed none ; but he did not accept them light-heartedly, or without wonder- ment; and Euphemia was made positively anxious by them. "Don't be childish 1 Can't you keep your own secrets?" she whispered in the bride's ear. The measure that they trod at Vlacheraina is the very same that you may see sculptured on a frieze two thousand years old (and more) on the Greek mainland. The leader goes back- Prepared for the Weddino. Digitized by Google

Page 693

654 From a Greek Island. [Feb., wards, gliding with a chasste. Sometimes he springs in the air and cuts capers. All the time he draws after him the greater part of the company. They move in a circle, but slide back and forth, right and left of the main line of progression — three gliding steps to right, and back ; three gliding steps to left, and back ; chains rattling, silks billowing, veils swaying, ribbons fluttering, all going round and round, until the fiddle shrieks out of tune, and the dancers are short of breath. One could imagine that, like skaters, they were all bent upon cut- ting a figure with their feet. The Greek dancers draw a rough laurel-wreath in the dust, circling on the roadway, and chassee- ing back and forth on first one, then the other side of their ring. At SduU's wedding twenty matrons en galat in rows of four abreast, followed the leader, who faced them. Behind the be- jewelled, silk skirted village mothers, in their blue or red velvet, gold-embroidered pesselis, and towering plaits, ribbons, and veils, a bevy of girls and children in plain attire, with colored handkerchiefs tied down upon their smooth hair, held to each other by their apron-strings. Last of all came Soula's mother, in a dark dress and work a-day bolia; for the bride was wear- ing her mDther's finery. Moreover, sad-colored wear is more typical of a mother's feelings when mourning her daughter's departure from the parent nest. Before the dancing stopped other young men took their places behind the leader, and vied with him in agile leaps and varied gestures, while the women — bright as a summer parterre — swayed to and fro in each other's company, in the opposite part of the dancing-train. They were all very solemn (except for the bride's occasional glances towards Spiro), and all were gaz- ing upon the ground. The merry.making at a Greek country wedding, it must be admitted, is of a subdued order; yet the dance, so seemingly stately and quiet, is an exertion, even on a winter's afternoon when there is a touch of frost in the air. Perhaps the many skirts and bullion- embroidered jackets of the women, besides the excitement of the occasion, account for the warmth of the wearers. No explanation of the high tempera- ture of the men, who behave like " dancing fauns," is required ! A mouthful of thick, almost black wine is a necessity for the elders in the intervals of rest between the dances. When the short evening drew in the wedding guests re- paired to dinner at Kosta's house. Kosta was only part en- tertainer, his father-in-law sharing the expense with him. Still, Digitized by Google

Page 694

From a Greek Island. 655 The Pope of the Village. Kosta told his mother, as a guide for her marketing, that he " could afford not to spend money in useless display." As the richest man in the village he " was not forced to be extrava- gant." Wnat good would it do people, he asked, "to eat too much"? Thus it came about that his feast was spread rather spar- ingly, and there was less indigestion next day in Vlacheraina than is usual after wedding fare. Next day Euphemia was not of the party assembled again Digitized by Google

Page 695

656 From a Greek Island. [Feb., at table at Kosta's. She spent her time seeking herbs ; and, the morning after, handed Soula a packet that she had obtained from the Turkish shepherd. "You'll put a little into Kosta's food/' said Euphemia, "and not an atom of it into anybody else's. Say nothing at all about it. That 's how the transfor- mation will come about. And, child, if you don't mind what I tell you, doing just as I bid you, the charm won't work at all. So you 'd better attend to what I say." "Is it the same flower we put on the door-posts to make the butter rise in the churn?" asked Soula, peering into the packet. "It is a powder, not a flower; but it is a charm, as I told you, like any other." Soula knotted her parcel into a corner of her handkerchief and put it inside her dress ; for Euphemia had told her, long before, that " it would do no good unless she kept it to her- self"; and later, as occasion served, she administered a portion of the powder to Kosta. The villagers said he " must have eaten too much at his father-in-law's, for it would not be in his own house he ever would have a surfeit " ; and that 44 he looked ill ever since his wedding." To Soula, however, the charm seemed to work very slowly indeed. She bent over Euphemia's pitcher at the well, and Phrossyne heard her murmur the word "transformation," with other sounds that were not distinctly audible ; Phros- syng also saw Euphemia's answering frown, and the nudge that she gave Soula. Anything that is said in an undertone becomes at once very interesting to neighbors. A whispered communication that calls forth frown and nudge is sure to be worth retailing to the gossips. But the wiseacres failed to make anything out of "transformation." Besides, every one was afraid of Euphemia; and lucky it was for her that they were in dread of her, at this time. Perhaps a few had their suspicions ; but if so, they kept silent. The bride's too great zeal in overdosing Kosta's soup was, as it happened, the saving of him. He complained of the odd taste. His mother took a spoonful of it, and declared that there was something very wrong with it. Moreover, she was far from well that same evening, and connected her in- disposition with her mouthful of soup. She began to watch Soula, who was suspiciously anxious to see always to Kosta s food. Digitized by Google

Page 696

From a Grkrk Island. 657 A Home in the Country. The man was, in a few days, weaker, thinner, more ailing ; and he complained of a*swimming of the head. One day the old dame shrieked : " What are you doing, hussy?" as she saw her daughter-in-law shake something into Kosta's plate. "Well did I know that there was some evil thing about! What have you there, in that packet ?" As the mother seized and kept what remained of the Turk's powder, and tasted it several times to make sure of its effects, there was before long no doubt whatever of the harmful nature of the drug. Soula had given Euphemia 3. solemn promise that she would never divulge the name of the person from whom she had obtained the powder; and she kept her promise faithfully. She confided to Phrossyne that she " knew for a fact that some folk could effect 4 transformations.' Was not Ulysses bark turned into Pontikonissi ? Had not her own greatuncle been changed into a goat ? " She " knew that a leaf grew that would turn a man into somebody else ; it might be Kosta into Spiro." Her own mother had not the power to wring a word from her — only cries and moans. VOL. LXXII. — 43 Digitized by Google

Page 697

658 From a Greek Island. LFeb., Photine told her, severely, that she had been " playing with poisons." The village pope came and talked of "murder." Her mother-in-law, after raving and raging for half a day, in fear and fury, shut the girl up in the attic and put her upon a diet of bread and water. Euphemia declared to the water-drawers at the fountain that " the chit ought to be made to swallow the rest of her poisons herself." It was odd that even Euphemia's unusual vehemence did not make people in general think that she had had any share in the business. Her father and mother stood up for Soula, and [said that there was never any harm in their girl ; she would not even hurt a fly ; and there must be some explanation of the mat- ter. But, after the first day, they could not come near her ; for was she not in her mother-in-law's keeping, up in the roof, with the attic-ladder drawn away? Spiro took a situation offered him by one of the returning Vlacherainians in Athens. Kosta left home to spend a month with a 'relation who dealt in olive oil down in the city, four hours away. Soula fretted, pondered, and wept in her prison, having speech with no one, the pope excepted ; and, in course of time, it dawned upon her that " spells " and " charms " and " transformations " were tricky words. Might they not stand for something very wicked ? She began to feel a great pity for Kosta, a great wonder at her own credulity, and a kind of horror of Euphemia. In another country the police would have been called in. Not so in this island. Outside the city there have been no police worth talking of for a length of time. If anything goes wrong, the pope on Sunday, from the altar, reads out a list — say, all the articles taken off somebody's hedge, where they were laid otrt of the wash-tub to dry, or any hens stolen — and he adds : " If every bit of this washing (or every hen) is not returned during the week, I will excommunicate the thief next Sunday " ; and then, as sure as Sunday comes round, the goods have been given back! But the parish clergy cannot deal so easily with an attempt to kill. Besides, the pope had christened Soula, had seen her grow up, had married her only the other day, and could not believe her to be an intending murderess. He only " talked Digitized by Google

Page 698

I90i.] From a Greek Island. 659 big" when he said "murder," in the hope of frightening her into a better frame of mind. At last Kosta returned, and said to his mother: "Soula can't have meant to do me any real harm. Let me see her. Where 's the ladder ? " And when he found a pale, hollow- eyed girl crouching in the dark attic corner, his heart smote him. He too felt something of remorse. So the quarrel was made up pretty completely between the couple ; and elsewhere it was allowed to subside with that sort of half-reconciliation which takes place among villagers in this island. (Of course all the inhabitants had taken sides over the affair, and there was plenty of ill-feeling ) Whenever there was a fresh tiff about any matter the old feud would break out, and hard things would be said — specially by Kosta's mother. Kosta and Soula, however, seem to recollect always that each owes the other amends for the ; most terrible experiences in their lives. They go along in double harness with as little friction as most folk. But Soula has never recovered her high spirits. With them she lost half her beauty, too. Spiro, who would have cohnected Euphemia with the poi- son, has never come back to Vlacheraina. He tells people in Athens that he " never will go home to his island." Well, " never 's a long day," as they say here. Digitized by Google

Page 699

660 Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation. [Feb., DR. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION.* BY REV. JAMES J. FOX, D.D. HINDER the promising title of The Scientific W Evidences of Revealed Religion, the Rev. Charles W Woodruff Shields, professor of the Harmony of W Science and Revealed Religion in Princeton Uni- Ttr^^P^^S versity, has published his Paddock Lectures for 1900, along with some other papers of a cognate character. Deploring the attacks made, in the name of modern science, upon Revelation, and the feeble defence offered by many Prot- estants, he appeals to his co religionists to take heart of grace and unite against the common foe in a determined stand for the Word of God. The purpose of his book is to collect from the sciences of astronomy, geology, and anthropology evidence in support of Revelation. The logical basis of this scientific evidence is, he says, these three postulates : the ex- istence of God, the existence of a divine revelation in the Scrip- tures, and the integrity of the canonical Scriptures as contain- ing divine revelation, in distinction from all other sacred writings. With reference to the second postulate he writes: "The evidence of this revelation, as we have said, has been accumu- lating for ages, until now it amounts to the highest probability in many minds, and in some minds to moral certainty itself. It has been tested by the searching criticism of each succes- sive generation ; and it equals the best reasoned science in the kind, if not in the degree, of its certitude " (p. 8). Regarding the integrity of the canonical Scriptures he observes : " The genuineness of the Sacred Books would seem fairly presumable. While free discussions of the canonicity of each book may still be allowable, and of the highest importance among expert scholars and divines who are specially fitted and called to purge the Canon from spurious ingredients, yet if we admit them rashly and crudely into our popular lectures and treatises, we shall only be perpetually tearing up the foundations upon which we are trying to build. ... As a Christian thinker, you may believe that devout genius differs only in degree from divine inspiration; but the Imitation of Christ or Paradise Lost has not yet been exalted to the Canon. As a Biblical critic, you may doubt the inspiration of some of the Sacred Books, but the Song of Solomon or the Epistle of St. James has not * The Scientific Evidences of Revealed Religion. By Rev. Charles Woodruff Shields, D.D , LL.D. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Digitized by Google

Page 700

igoi.] Dr. Shields9 Defence of Revelation. 66i been ruled out of the Canon. Whatever may be your private opinion on such points, yet as a loyal churchman, to say the least, you will accept the.Canon as it stands, and find in it the written Word of God " (p. 9). ^\ In his main purpose of submitting evidence gathered from the field of science in proof of revealed truth, Dr. Shields con- cerns himself almost exclusively with the Bible account of creation and the origin and fall of man, so that the portion of Revelation which he undertakes to defend is but a small, though important, fraction of the whole. The testimony which he adduces is classified under these heads: The Evidence of Scientific Authorities; The Evidence of Scientific Facts ; The Evidence of Scientific Theories ; The Evidence of Scientific Marvels. Under the first head he cites many illustrious authors, who while distinguished in science were yet believers in Revelation. Some of these names might have been omitted without weakening the force of the argu- ment. A sceptical student of modern geology will only smile on finding the name of Charles Boyle brought forward as testimony to the harmony existing between Geology and Genesis. Much of the literary testimony cited can be called scientific only by a very violent stretching of the term. Babbage's attempt to offer for the existence of God an arithmetical proof derived from the calculating machine, or his theory of a divine Book of Remembrance of human 'action, existing in the waves of ether, cannot be taken as a serious contribution of science to the cause of Revelation. He cites many who have con- structed the teleological argument on the old grounds to which all modern sceptics so strongly object, and he makes no effort to restate it on the basis upon which the evolutionary theory lends its support. If the office of advocatus diaboli in favor of agnosticism were not an ungracious and uncongenial r6le, it would be easy to dispose of a great deal of this evidence as irrelevant or inconclusive. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Shields did not adhere to the old advice of beginning with definitions. If he had taken care to define his principal terms, science, revelation, inspiration, evidence, certitude, moral certi- tude, infallibility, he would have been safeguarded against much inconclusive and confused writing. Sometimes, too, we find statements which, when compared with others, cannot be palliated by* ascribing the apparent contradiction to an inac- curate or loose vocabulary. For example, he writes (p. 56) : " Take astronomy without the Bible, and there would remain a mere causeless and purposeless mass of worlds, sun, planet and Digitized by Google

Page 701

662 Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation. [Feb., satellites whirling blindly through the ages towards nothingness." Yet two pages further on we are reminded that, among others, William Derham demonstrated the being and attributes of God from a survey of the heavens. ' In penning the former state- ment Dr. Shields must have forgotten that St. Paul held the pagans inexcusable for having failed to rise from a contempla- tion of the things of the visible creation to a knowledge of the Creator's eternal power and divinity. Instead of limiting himself to dealing with the well ascer- tained facts of science, and showing that none of these clash with the Word of God, Dr. Shields takes up many prevalent scientific theories. Now, some of these theories are in direct opposition to each other. Yet the doctor tries to show that they are all perfectly compatible with Scripture. This proce- dure we consider a profound mistake. A defence of Revelation does not demand a proof that it is equally in harmony with different theories, some of which, since they are in flat con- tradiction with each other, must necessarily be false. The two anthropological views — one affirming, the other denjing the unity of the human race — cannot both be true ; necessarily one or the other is wrong. Yet Professor Shields undertakes to fit revelation indifferently to both. Again, he makes St. Paul a Transformist and a Catastrophist in geology. When a scientific theory passes, by further discovery, into the status of established fact, then, and only then, does it be- come incumbent on the apologist to deal with it. It is pre- cisely owing chiefly to the Jll-advised endeavors of Protestant exegetes to adapt their views of Biblical doctrine to whatever happens to be the fashionable theory of the day, that Prot- estant authors have been driven to lay down the false and discreditable principles concerning the fallibility of the Bible, against which Dr. Shields himself justly protests. Such adap- tations as Professor Shields makes in his exposition of the bearing of some anthropological theories upon the Bible narra- tive are made only by eviscerating Revelation of all positive, dogmatic content. In his attempt to reconcile the Biblical account of the origin and fall of man, and the primeval para dise, with the evolutionary theory, Revelation is attenuated down to the vanishing point. Such treatment reduces the Word of God to the level of those ingenious literary puzzles, consisting of lines, which may be read at pleasure either back- wards or forwards. It turns the Divine doctrine into a Del- phic oracle, which has no precise meaning of its own, but is sus- ceptible of whatever rendering suits the wishes of the reader. Digitized by Google

Page 702

• i90i.] Dr. Shields' Defeace of Revelation. 663 A still greater mistake is made by Dr. Shields in his presen- tation of what he calls the evidence of scientific marvels. Under this heading he would make a plea for the credibility of Biblical miracles, on the grounds that science has produced prodigies and discovered wonders of a similar nature. Why should we have any difficulty in believing that the axe of Elisha floated, when we see iron ships ploughing the seas. The miracle of the dial of Ahaz is surpassed by the revela- tions of the solar spectrum. The narrative of the star of the Nativity is credible, since modern astronomy has discovered not one but countless new stars. " If Balaam's ass spoke, other animals are now known to speak, and some linguists would agree thit all speech is a developed animal function." 4t The miracles of healing in the New and the Old Testaments are matched by the wonders of surgery, vaccination, and chloro- form." " If Jonas lived three days in the whale's belly, yet it would not be more incredible a priori than the life of the unborn infant," etc., etc. If the loyalty of Dr. Shields were not above suspicion, it would hardly be possible to read such arguments as these without concluding that the author's aim was, under the cover of thinly veiled satire, to deprive Christianity of its miraculous evidence altogether. The grand proof of the Divinity of Chris- tianity is its miracles. The value of a miracle as a testimony to the veracity of a doctrine consists in the fact that such an event, lying outside and above the operation of natural forces, becomes the sign manual of Divine Omnipotence and Truth, accrediting the person or doctrine in whose favor it is pro- duced. If, on the other hand, a miracle be made a merely natural event, then it offers us no assurance whatever of God's approbation. And to the complexion of merely natural events Dr. Shields would reduce the Bible miracles. A9 the author remarks, the fallibility of the Bible is largely (he might have said entirely) a notion of Protestant growth, and has become one of the extreme issues of the Reformation. He might with equal truth have asserted furthermore that it is a logical outgrowth from Protestant principles. His own hesi- tating, suicidal views on the certitude of Revelation and on the canonicity of the Scriptures are an eloquent confession of the powerlessness of these same Protestant principles to defend the Bible from the attacks of modern unbelief. If the existence of revelation may be esteemed as only highly probable, why, since that probability falls short of certainty, may not the other alternative turn out to be true? If the canonicity of books is Digitized by Google

Page 703

664 Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation. [Feb, to be determined by expert criticism, then we hold our Canon only provisionally Further historical and philological investi- gations may any day cause experts to reject some of those books now held to be canonical. Nor have we any assurance that every one in its turn may not be branded as spurious, till not one is left. Whether we are to believe or disbelieve that the Bible is the Word of God is to depend upon what is our estimate of the learning and critical acumen of such men as Strauss and Renan, on the one side, and of the Lightfoots and Butlers of the orthodox camp. We are asked to believe that though God has, in his goodness and mercy towards our race, vouchsafed, by the means of supernatural revelation, to come to the aid of our erring reason, and to tell us of the myste- ries which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, he has left the existence and the whereabouts of that all-important knowledge a puzzle to be fought over and determined by a handful of linguists and archaeologists. If, after all, inspiration may be but a higher kind of human genius, then the Bible may be no more the Word of God than is " Hamlet 99 or " Paradise Lost and we are but giving a pitiable exhibition of blind credulity in our endeavors to prove its infallibility. If it be my private opinion that the Song of Solomon or the Epistle of St. James is not of Divine authorship, why should I be called upon, in the name of loyalty to a church, to commit an act of base disloyalty to conscience, duplicity towards my neighbor, and disrespect towards the Supreme Truth by pretending to accept as Its infal- lible word what I hold to be but the product of a human mind ? Oae truth that Dr. Shields' book is well calculated to impress upon the logical and impartial reader is, that if God has spoken in a supernatural manner to man, His Wisdom must have in- stituted an accredited living voice to tell us in what books that revelation is contained, and what is the import of the doctrine which he calls us to accept with docile mind in steadfast faith. While Catholic readers will close the doctor's pages with the reflection " Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis Tempus eget," they must admire his earnest devotion to the cause of Divine Revelation, and his faith which stands as the shadow of a giant rock in a desert land. They will hope that his scholarly labors may help to open the eyes of many among his co religionists to the disastrous consequences of needlessly abandoning the cita- del of the Supernatural before the blatant hosts of modern scep- ticism falsely professing to speak with the authority of Science. Digitized by Google

Page 704

1901.] The Unification of the Ursulines. 665 THE UNIFICATION OF THE URSULINES. ngEssSw GREAT and long desired work was brought to a Ww H happy conclusion when on November 28, 1900, ■ fl I BR the Holy Father gave his formal approbation to |EM M B! the work of unifying the Ursuline communities |tr£3CXfl3ag»a Q£ the entire world. The new organization will be known as the " Canonically United Ursulines." The Ursulines as a religious foundation are three hundred and sixty-five years old. St. Angela Merici is their founder. They date from that period of religious activity immediately before the Council of Trent, when Italy particularly was stir- ring with evidences of awakened life. The peculiarities of their organization placed them largely under the authority of the bishops, and made the various houses self-governing. They assumed as their special vocation the education of young girls, and many of the communities added a fourth vow to that effect. They were the first to cross the Atlantic, and in the very year (1639) that John Harvard started the small school which ultimately became the great Harvard University, Mother Mary of the Incarnation was gathering about her at Quebec the daughters of the French settlers as well as the maidens of the Indian tribes Later on the Ursulines came to Massachu- setts, but the spoliation and burning of their convent at Charlestown is not the proudest chapter in the history of New England. There are now in this country twenty four com- munities with 998 nuns, teaching over 10.000 pupils. In the entire world there are over 11,000 Ursulines. Two thousand nuns wearing the Ursuline habit and following the rule were represented in the first chapter held in Rome last November, but since the formal approbation of the Holy See many more communities have identified themselves with the newly consoli- dated order. This great work of unification has not been brought about without meeting with many difficulties, but the whole matter has been handled with such- tact, as well as consideration for the immemorial customs of venerable institutes, that the most harmonious relations have resulted. When the Holy Father blessed the work he reserved to himself the privilege of rati- Digitized by Google

Page 705

666 The Unification of the Ursulines. [Feb., fying the choice of officers by the general chapter. The dele- gates chosen by the various houses met in Rome on November 15. There were nine nuns there from America. The chapter was opened by a discourse from Cardinal Satolli, who was selected for this honor by the Holy Father on account of his ecclesiastical relations with the Ursuline Community in Rome. He said to the assembled mothers that it is the desire of the Holy Father to unify, as far as opportunity offers, the various separated branches of the different religious orders. After passing some compliments to the Ursulines on account of the many illustrious members who have left a name for learning and sanctity, he said : " It is with full knowledge that I speak of your order, having closely observed it in America during- my apostolic mission to that country. I wish to salute here, in the person of their representatives, the houses I know so well there, one of which (Galveston) has recently experienced a most unforeseen and most terrible disaster. It is in America I first learned to know, to appreciate, and to love the Ursu- lines, as it is there also that I understood from daily example the immense strength for good even the least things acquire when vivified by the all-powerful principle of unity. " By such study and experience I was prepared to enter in- to the relations with your order which have been assigned me by the Holy Father. Named protector of the group of Rome, Blois, and Calvi, I penetrated into the interior of your spirit, and, to the glory of these three houses, I wish to say here that in the living mirror they afforded me of your abnegation, your devotedness to the church and to souls — in a word, of all virtues, the esteem which I had already conceived for your holy order has grown beyond all power of expression, and with this esteem has grown likewise my affection. " But while I contemplated in spirit, on account of the ex- amples I had constantly before me, the marvellous strength of supernatural life hidden away in your cloisters, I deplored that this power for good was scattered, without cohesion and with- out mutual understanding or agreement. Remembering what I had seen in America in the order of secular affairs, I said to myself : 4 What could not religious souls of this calibre effect if, thanks to unity of direction, they knew how to con- centrate their powers and harmonize their efforts ! ' " At this point the Pope spoke. With what joy did I make myself the interpreter of his wishes! I said, if you remember, that I hoped and almost felt certain the century would not Digitized by Google

Page 706

igoi.] The Unification o* the Ursulines. 667 die ere it had witnessed the unification of your glorious order. At the very moment it is approaching its decline you are here assembled to lay the foundation of this much desired union. It is a difficult undertaking, but in nowise above >our intelligence, your good will, and your spirit of abnegation ; especially is it not above divine grace. " It is God who wishes this work, and everywhere his finger is seen amid the many trials it has had to undergo ; these trials have only imprinted thereon the divine seal of the cross. It will be thus until the end ; that is to say, until the entire order has joined you in a perfect unity. It may be that neither you nor I shall witness this happy event, but you, Reverend Mothers, will have had the glory of giving this first impulse to God's work. Your names will be engraved in golden letters in the annals of your order ; and what is infinitely better, they will be inscribed in that Book wherein is written for all eternity the things done here below for the love of God and for his greater glory. " To the work then, Reverend Mothers, under the direction of two men of science and of tested prudence, viz., Monseigneur Albert Battandier, protonotary apostolic — one of the most eminent consultors of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and of Regulars — and of Rev. Father Joseph Lemius, general treasurer of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate as vice-president. Monseigneur Battandier, as president of the assembly, is fully and canonically empowered to direct the order and method of the sessions, and while from afar I watch over the progress of your labors I will beg our Lord, Reverend Mothers, through the intercession of bis holy Mother and your patron saints, espe- cially Sts. Ursula and Angela Merici, to bless you and shower upon you the light of his Holy Spirit." The chapter proceeded under the presidency of Monseigneur Albert Battandier. The largest liberty of thought and freedom of expression were permitted under the rules laid down for the guidance of the chapter, and when it came to the election the triply sealed envelopes containing the choice of each delegate were sent to Cardinal Gotti, to be laid before the Holy Father for papal sanction. The result of the election was read aloud: Rev. Mother St. Julien, of Blois, was elected Mother-General ; Mother Ignatius, of Frankforton-the-Main, First Assistant; Mother Angela, of the United States of America, Second Assistant ; Mother Stanislaus, of Aix-en-Provence, Secretary and Third Assistant; Mother Maria Pia, of Saluzzo in Italy, Digitized by Google

Page 707

668 The Unification of the Ursulines. [Feb., Fourth Assistant ; Mother St. Sacramento, of Bazas, General Treasurer. By the election the new generalate is fully established. Still, the details of creating provinces, erecting houses of study and novitiates, have been left to the future. The chapter, however, took care to fix the scheme of organization in the nineteen articles which have now the force of law. Many of the communities which were not represented at the chapter have since accepted the Constitution as approved in this first chapter. The Holy Father was so solicitous that all should be amalgamated that he himself designated the manner in which aggregations may be made. Previous to the unification there were eleven congregations in the order, differing more or less in the details of their man- ner of carrying out their vocation as a teaching order. Four of these congregations, viz.: Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and ' Lyons, were very numerous, and the two first were particularly illustrious by the importance of their houses, the number of their subjects, among whom were to be found women of the noblest rank and even of blood royal, and by their history and vicissitudes. Paris antedates Bordeaux in papal approba- tion by six years. When it became evident that the old Monastery of Via Vittoria in Rome was doomed, and when the work of spolia- tion had begun, a very eminent, French house, that of Cler- mont-Ferrand, generously offered to go to their assistance, with money and subjects ; but as the Roman sisters were of the congregation of Bordeaux, they appealed to those of Blois, who generously responded. Again the Paris branch, in the person of Clermont Ferrand, asked for co-operation in the good work ; but their generous offers were declined and Blois took the house under its protection. About two years ago Mother St. Julien, of Blois, congre- gation of Bordeaux, finding that her position with regard to the Italian houses was uncanonical, applied to the Sacred Con- gregation of Bishops and Regulars for necessary enlightenment and legislation. His Eminence Cardinal Satolli was appointed Cardinal Protector, and in an interview he had with the Pope His Holiness expressed a strong desire for the unification of the whole order. The cardinal designated Mother St. Julien to make known this wish of the Holy Father to all the Ursu- lines of the world. This she did without delay, by means of a circular setting forth the great advantages to arise therefrom, Digitized by Google

Page 708

igoi.] The Unification of the Ursulines. 669 and the rectifying of many uncanonical things that during the lapse of three centuries had crept into the very best and most conservative houses of the order ; a state of things not even suspected to exist in many cases. The response to this circular was of such a nature that eight months later an official letter was transmitted by the Sacred Con- gregation of Bishops and Regulars to all bishops having Ursulines in their respective dioceses, directing them to ascertain by secret ballot the desires of the Ursulines on the subject. In many houses there was complete unanimity of opinion ; in others, a large preponderance of those favoring it, and in all, practically, a desire for some kind of modification of existing things. The response to this appeal was of such a nature that the Holy Father commissioned his Eminence Cardinal Satolli to make known to all houses that had unanimously adhered, with appro bation of their bishops, that he would be much gratified by their sending their superiors or delegates to a general assem- bly to be held in Rome during the holy year. Again Mother St. Julien, who had spoken on the subject with the Holy Father several times, in private audiences, was commissioned by the cardinal to send out the invitations to the above-designated communities. As she could not transcend her instructions, many who would willingly have gone to Rome received no invitation, although they would have been welcomed as spectators, but not as partakers in the capitular assemblies. This was clearly shown by a cablegram sent by Cardinal Satolli, in the Pope's name, to the Ursuline convent of Springfield, 111., in which he stated that while other com- munities which had not adhered would be welcome, they, the Springfield nuns, were obliged to be represented as coming under the head of those indicated by the Pope's words. The Holy Father was greatly pleased with the result of the general chapter, and spoke in heartfelt praise of their obedience to his wish to the Ursulines who were honored with a private audi- ence in the hall of Clement VIII. in the Vatican, December 7, at 12:30 P. M. Several modifications were made in the schema at the sug- gestion of the American nuns. While perhaps the conditions of this country were less understood than those of. Europe, there was evident a strong desire for enlightenment and full understanding of its needs on the part of the presiding and directing ecclesiastics, and a great readiness to concede any point that would render the order more efficient in its work. Digitized by Google

Page 709

670 The Unification of the Uxsulines. [Feb. The work of parochial schools will not be interfered with. The cloister will not be enforced wherever it does not already exist or where it would hamper the higher duty of a teaching order. Practically it is done away with in the United States ; and while the spirit of cloister is encouraged, its exterior sym- bolism of grates, etc., is no longer desired in our country. The church does not wish the Ursulines to lose the vast moral support their dependence on bishops gave them, and therefore, while Rome takes to itself several privileges which formerly belonged to the bishops, it legislates that many things must still be done " intelligentia episcopi." Subjects cannot be transferred at the will of superiors alone ; houses remain inde- pendent in money matters, only a small tax on net profits being asked to support general and provincial officers. The lay-sister question under American conditions was satisfactorily arranged ; in a word, a great order, consisting of totally inde- pendent houses, of eleven different congregations, has been merged into one great homogeneous whole, as a generalate, while retaining many of their former customs and privileges, and this has been done with a unanimity, sweetness, and celerity which appear simply marvellous. The harmonious outcome of this great work is due largely to the tactful way in which the assembly was presided over. Equal to the sagacity of Monseigneur Battandier was the broad, sweet, and conciliating spirit of Father Lemius, tht treasurer general of the Oblates. The sermon that he preached at the outset produced such a profound impression on all present that its spirit seemed to pervade every gathering, and to animate the discussion of every question. It is to this sermon as much as to any other one thing that is due the happy result. We print the sermon in its entirety in the appendix of this issue of the magazine. Digitized by Google

Page 710

i. Rostand: L'Aiglon; 2. Huxley: Life of Thomas Hux- ley; "3. Thurston: The Holy Year ; 4. Stedman : An Ameri- ' can Anthology ; 5. Van Dyke and others: Counsel upon Read- ing ; 6. Conant : United Stales in the Orient; 7. Bro^n: 4 Andrew Jackson ; S. Burroughs: Light of Day; 9. Browning: ^Rv Pippa Passes; 10. Rossetti : Blessed Damozcl ; 1 1. Blackmore : Lorna Doone ; 12. Stevenson: Father Damien ; 13. Vincent: Hdtel de Ram- bouillet; 14. Puiseux-McEachen : Life of Christ; 15. Bossuet-Capes : Sertnon on the Mount; 16. Stoddard: A Troubled Heart; 17. Berthold : Lives of the Saints. 1. — Rostand's ' popularity is in no danger of being dimin- ished by his latest production, L'Aiglon!* The author fully sustains the reputation which he had previously won among American readers by his sympathetic account of the fortunes of Cyrano, and is not slightly helped to a new claim on the favor of his readers by the character of the subject which he here portrays so successfully. Many will find that the work combines the useful with the agreeable, opening as it does a page of history with which not a few are unacquainted. The Eaglet, the hero of the play, is the King of Rome, the son of Napoleon I. His life, on account of its associations, is an in- spiring theme for a Frenchman to treat. The inheritor of the name and memory and ambition of a great parent is brought out from the seclusion in which Metternich had imprisoned him, and made to share his lofty dreams, his petty intrigues, his ruinous indecision with an age which can view everything relating to Napoleon and his family in the just perspective of history. The story is provocative, above all, of sympathy. "Ceci n'est pas autre chose Que Thistoire d'un pauvre enfant." The father had ruled the destiny of Europe, his garden had * L'Aiglon, Drame en six actes, en vers. Par Edmond Rostand. New York : Bren- tanos.— L'Aiglon. By Edmond Rostand. Translated by Louis N. Parker New York: R. H. Russell. — The Romance of LAiglon. Authorized translation from the French of Carolus by J. Paul Wilson. New York : Brentanos. Digitized by Google

Page 711

672 Talk about New Books. [Feb., been the Continent, his word had made and unmade kings; and we see the son whom he had hoped to make the heir of equal power and fame reduced to the level of an Austrian dukedom, wasting his life away in a racking cough, a prisoner who knows no world beyond the park of Schoenbrunn, a bird in a gilded cage which the Austrian diplomat swings before the eyes of his European rivals as a menace to the peace of the world. He who should have been King of Rome and Emperor of the French is only the Duke of Reichstadt. All knowledge of the great events in which his father had played a part is jealously kept from him. Even the very mention of the name of Napoleon is forbidden within the duke's hearing. And yet, despite the vigilance of his guardians, the young man finds means to learn history truly, and nothing can be more interesting than the scene in which he confounds his preceptors by a graphic account of the campaign of 1806, and convinces them that there is an end to their lectures " ad usum Delphini." In his dreams Marengo, Wagram, Austerlitz are refought. He can picture every movement of the troops of the Empire, and even describe in detail the uniforms of every corps of the Grande Arm6e. Conspirators from France are put in com- munication with him. An old sergeant of the Guard is at- tached to him as body-servant ; flight is planned ; and all that remains is for the young emperor to appear on the Font Neuf and receive the acclamations of a longing people. But the tragedy truly deals with the "history of a poor child." The duke, at a crucial moment, betrays his lack of that iron will which had brought success to the Corsican lieu- tenant, and defeats the endeavors of his partisans by lingering to secure the safety of his cousin, who had remained to im- personate him and delay pursuit. The wings of the Eaglet are folded and he returns to Schoenbrunn to die. Rostand has been taken very severely to task for what is claimed to be a serious infraction of Catholic discipline in the last act of the play as staged. There the duke is given a glass of milk, and immediately afterwards is allowed to ap- proach the altar and receive the Blessed Sacrament, although his condition is such as to exclude the supposition that it is question of the Viaticum. This stricture applies to the play as produced by the French company, and also to the English translation, but is not justified by the original French text. This last speaks, it is true, of the drinking of milk, but not in Digitized by Google

Page 712

1901.] Talk about New Books. 673 such a way as to necessitate its being taken so as to break the fast. We do, however, find fault in the original with the appearance of the prelate, "the Host trembling in his fingers, " as he approaches to communicate the duke. Some things are too sacred to be made to cater to stage effect. LAiglon is a magnificent piece of work, easily, to our mind, outranking Cyrano de Bergerac. The English translation is exceptionally well done, and its superior character has con- tributed not a little to the success of the American company now presenting the play. But, as in all translations, an ele- gant rendering has been secured only at a sacrifice of some of the beauty and vigor of the original. In more than one place a striking expression fails of reproduction in English, and we regret the absence of those numerous stage directions which Rostand brings in as so many side lights, and which increase wonderfully the pleasure of a reading of the work. That the translation does not pretend to be strictly literal may be gathered from the fact that in the last act the breaking of the fast is made essential, entering into the dialogue. 2. — In the unprecedented deluge of books which has come forth from the press since the beginning of last autumn popu- lar opinion would seem to designate the biography4' of the late Professor Huxley, by his son, as the one commanding the widest and most enduring interest. As a more lengthy notice of this work will be given in the next issue of The Catholic World, it will suffice here to state that the author has suc- ceeded in producing what, in many respects, may be considered a model biography. And if we recall the character of many biographies that have been inflicted on the public, this is an achievement of no small difficulty, especially for a near relative of the subject. Contenting himself with providing an unobtru- sive thread of narrative on which to fasten a voluminous cor- respondence, Mr. Leonard Huxley has left the story of his father's life to be told by bis father's own letters. And very interesting reading these letters make, whether the sympathies of the reader are with or against the doughty champion of Agnosticism. 3. — The name of Father Thurston attached to a work is always its guarantee of more than ordinary merit. The guaran- * Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. By his son, Leonard Huxley. 2 vols. New York : D. Appleton & Co. VOL. LXXII.— 44 Digitized by Google

Page 713

674 Talk about New Books. [Feb., tee is fully justified in the case of the volume now before us. This is true even though the preface tells us that " the respon- sibility indicated by the attribution upon the title-page must be understood in some portions to represent revision rather than direct authorship." The sub-title, An Account of the His* tory and Ceremonial of the Roman Jubilee^ explains the aim and scope of the work. There are ten chapters, covering about four hundred pages, and to these are added four appendices. The first chapter, " The Beginning of the Jubilee," gives an account of the Jubilee of 1300, under Boniface VIII. , but shows that "the conception of a Jubilee was current before the time of Boniface," although no written document confirmatory of the popular tradition can be discovered. In the chapter on "The Holy Door" and in Appendix C, which belongs to this chapter, the writer makes two points: firstly, that the idea of the Holy Door is very probably taken from the penitential system of the Early Church; and secondly, that the ceremony of the Holy Door goes back to a period beyond the pontifi- cate of Alexander VI. Hitherto the commonly received opin- ion has been that the ceremony of the Porta Santa originated with Pope Alexander VI., or rather with Burchard, Alexander's master of ceremonies. Father Thurston justly maintains that the historical evidence in favor of the position which he has adopted " is overwhelming." The two following chapters give the history of the Jubilee in earlier and more recent times. The exercise of more literary skill in handling the details of these chapters, so as to avoid a certain monotonous repetition springing from the inevitable similarity of one Jubilee year with another, would make them even more interesting as well as instructive reading. Then follows a history and description of the basilicas which have to be visited in gaining the Jubilee Indulgence. Chapter vi. is devoted to a description of the ceremonies of the Jubilee, giving some of the mystical inter- pretations of these ceremonies, and is also the occasion for an account of the origin, use, making, and blessing of Agnus Deis. Roma La Santa, we think, is the most valuable chapter of the book—/. e.y from the practical point of view — though it would add more to the strength of the plan if it were placed last. Certainly it furnishes m33t comforting and consoling reading to the Catholic. We quote the following sentence: "The spiritual Rome, the Rome of St. Philip Neri, of St. Ignatius Loyola, of St. Camillus de* Lellis, of St. John Baptist de Rossi, t The Holy Year of Jubilee. By Rev. Herbert Thurston, SJ. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 714

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 675 and of countless hidden saints and holy religious, was that which was brought into prominence by the Jubilee, and which has lent help and encouragement to the struggling souls of the pilgrims who flocked thither at such seasons. History — that is to say, the type of history which is most in favor with review- ers and university examiners — tells us little of this spiritual city with its confraternities and hospices and religious houses, and yet there is no aspect of pontifical Rome which is better worth chronicling. Those who have admired and wondered at the changeless endurance of the Catholic Church in spite of all the forces arrayed against her, from within and without, have not always attended sufficiently to that hidden life of Christian charity and Christian austerity which is the secret of all her strength." An exposition of the Catholic doctrine of Indulgence, an obvious necessity in a work like the present, is then given, to- gether with a discussion on the use of the expression of " In- dnlgentia a poena et a culpa** with special reference to the writ- ings of Lea, Brieger, DieckhofT, Harnack, and others who have found in this misleading phrase a very effective shibboleth. *' Conditions of the Jubilee " and "Extended and Extraordi- nary Jubilees " conclude the work. The work is very recondite, representing evidently a prodi- gious amount of careful, conscientious, and original research. From the first page to the last it is marked by a thoroughly fair and critical historical spirit which will surprise some of its non-Catholic readers, and which ought to receive the warm- est welcome from Catholics. These are perhaps the most prominent and pleasing features of the book, but in addition the author gives a multitude of curious and useful bits of in- formation, and, again, never fails to make timely explanations in an unobtrusive way about misunderstood doctrines and opin- ions. The variety of subjects introduced and competently treated shows a degree of erudition seldom displayed in a single vol- ume, possessing at the same time perfect unity and consistency. This variety is no doubt the cause of the one apparent general defect hinted at in our comment on Chapters iii. and iv. In the compilation — which taken altogether is a remarkable suc- cess when we consider the magnitude of the work and the brief space of time in which it was accomplished — there remain a number of traces of haste and oversight. In justice to the author it must be said that none of these defects is very material, and probably would entirely escape the uncritical Digitized by Google

Page 715

676 Talk about New Books. [Feb., reader. In fine, we have no hesitation in declaring the present work one of the very best books of the year, both on account of timeliness and intrinsic worth. In form it displays a careful and successful attempt at book-making of a high order, and is filled with illustrations and reproductions which add considera- bly to its generally attractive character. 4. — Critics, poets, litterateurs, and the acknowledged spokes- men of all readers who appreciate a magnificent literary pro- duction, have already acknowledged with delight and gratitude the latest fruit* of the talent of Edmund Clarence Stedman. It is the completion of a monumental task, the last of a series of four volumes devoted to a critical review and illustration of British and American poetry. In literary taste, in scientific accuracy of editorial work, in completeness, in order, in con- venience, it seems to lack nothing. The book is, as its purpose demands, an anthology proper, " Not 99 (to use the editor's own words) " a treasury of imperishable American poems," or " a rigidly eclectic volume." We are glad to notice particularly Mr. Stedman's judicial fairness and catholicity of taste, and the evident thoroughness and carefulness which have made the work so satisfying, attractive, and useful. For the convenience of the user there are a table of contents, an alphabetically ar- ranged list of biographical notices of all writers from whose poems selections have been made, and an " Index of First Lines." All in all, the work is admirable. The volume is necessarily a thick one, but the publishers have made it none the less handsome and usable. 5. — There are persons who like to give advice, and also those who like to hear it. These facts account for the publica- tion f of the lectures given in Philadelphia during 1898-9. Of the six lectures that on History by H. Morse Stephens is by far the best. This man has something to say and says it* His description of the modern historian is clear and con- vincing. One might object to the stupid fling at St. Bede and the monastic historians, that they " twisted " facts to suit their theories; also one might remark that to hold up Gibbon as the model of an impartial historian who wrote "without * An American Anthology. Edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. f Counsel upon the Reading of Books. By H. Morse Stephens, Agnes Repplier, Arthur T. Hadley, Brander Mathews, Bliss Perry, Hamilton Wright Mabie ; with an Introduction, by Henry Van Dyke. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 716

190L] Talk about New Books. 677 laboring to prove a thesis or justify a theory," is prepos- terous. Miss Repplier's lecture is bright and clever. The rest are indifferent, except the one by Bliss Perry on Poetry, which is bid because it is unintelligible. 6. — Mr. Conant's new volume* consists of a collection of seven essays, which have appeared in various American peri- odicals during the last two years. There is, nevertheless, a unity about the book, since all the essays bear directly on the one general question indicated by the title. The first appear- ance of the arms and the flag of the United States in the Orient was due rather to accident than to any matured design, but the apparent determination to remain there is the outcome of a deliberate plan that looks to future commercial develop- ment. Mr. Conant's book sets forth the reasons that lie behind this determination. The author is an " expansionist." That is apparent on every page of his book; but he gives a clear and a forceful justification of the faith he professes. And he is candid. He eschews cant— for which his fellow-countrymen owe him thanks — and sees in our Oriental activity an economic necessity rather than a benevolent enterprise. He defends our course as a policy of " enlightened self interest," and wastes no time in high sounding phrases of altruistic sentiment. In a word, our whole Oriental policy has, or ought to have, to Mr. Conant's thinking, one aim, and that is to find outlets for our surplus capital and our finished products. " The United States have actually reached, or are approaching, the economic state where such outlets are required outside their own boundaries, in order to prevent business depression, idleness, and suffering at home." Mr. Conant does not attempt to discuss every aspect of the problem that is confronting us in the East. He •'is concerned chiefly with the economic aspects of the sub- ject, and not with the ethical or political aspects." He regards the main problem as one of " self-preservation," and he treats it accordingly. However much one may differ from his princi- ples or his conclusions, there can be no two opinions as to his ability to discuss the situation from the viewpoint he has chosen. He is a clear thinker and a forceful writer, and he has a firm and complete grasp of his subject. And he is honest. He does not say " the blessings of liberty " when he means 41 the advantage to commerce "; he does not pretend to be a * The United States in the Orient. By Charles A. Conant. New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 717

678 Talk about New Books. [Feb., missionary when he is only an "advance agent. " These essays have been a distinct contribution to the discussion of a prob- lem that is of vital importance to the welfare of the United States, no matter in what aspect it be considered. Many may believe that Mr. Conant seems to lack sympathy with some of the best aspirations of the modern spirit, that he is a little intoler- ant and severe towards those of another way of thinking, that he is too hard-headed, too saturated with the spirit of commer- cialism, and that he feels no concern for the " deluge M if only it come " apres nous 99 ; but no one can read his volume without agreeing that he understands the subject he discusses, and can furnish much food for reflection to those who differ from his views. The United States in the Orient is a book that deserves a careful reading. 7. — Ignorance concerning the history of the United States is so common among us that it no longer occasions surprise. Nor does there seem to be any hope that accurate information will be popularized to any considerable extent unless by means of such volumes as Mr. Brown's sketch of one of our very greatest public men.* Grouped about the striking figure of so interesting a man as Jackson, the main incidents of an epoch easily arrange themselves in an orderly, interesting, and mem- orable way. In connection with the Dickinson duel — the ugliest blot on Jackson's private life — it may be remarked that Colonel Collier, the most authentic and thorough biographer of the great President, has brought out a good many circumstances extenuating to some extent what was nevertheless an unpar- donable crime. The writer referred to, who published in the Nashville American a series of papers on the life of Jackson, was a close personal friend of the latter and intimately associ- ated with many prominent men of the same period. He is responsible for an account of the duel which leaves one rather inclined to be lenient toward the survivor, owing to various circumstances not related in Mr. Brown's narrative. On the whole the present volume is most reliable and thoroughly interesting. Written in an admirable style, moder- ately impartial, duly observant of proportion, it will prove to be an attractive work for those unable to devote much time to study and yet disinclined to remain utterly ignorant of their country's history. * Andrew Jackson. By William Garrott Brown. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 718

1901.] Talk about New Books. 679 8. — Mr. John Burroughs's new book* is described by its author as a set of " religious discussions and criticisms from the naturalist's point of view." Having premised his opinion that "reason does not enter into religious matters" he is safe- guarded from a certain amount of criticism ; still we must de- clare that in this particular work more attention to good logic is desirable. One is forced to consider the volume as varied in its ingredients as was the classical " cauldron.'* Mr. Burroughs touches upon almost every question that relates to God, to the soul, to immortality, to moral conduct, etc. He attempts to view everything in the light of science, which is his new " light of day." But in this instance science seems to mean simply the opinions held by Mr. Burroughs, and hence it includes much that certainly does not come under the head of strictly verifiable knowledge. The book is written well, as might be expected of the author of Wake Robin and Winter Sunshine — but we must never judge a man from the clothes he wears. And the great defect of this volume is that it does not contain consecutive and logical thought. Its state- ments are varied as the tints in the sunset sky, and often as elusive. It strikes us, too, that with regard to matters of reli- gion Mr. Burroughs has endeavored to make a complete Eng- lish dictionary for the future an impossibility. Concerning the personal side of salvation, of duty, and of happiness, the author is oftentimes in the position of the hum- ming-bird described on page 75, hanging with his feet to the tree of science and looking at things upside down. Mr. Bur- roughs twice misstates the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- tion (since he denies original sin he really ought to have less difficulty in admitting it than Newman himself, whom he criti- cises). Nor has he studied the Catholic doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ ; nor that concerning the fate of unbap- tired infants, nor that of the infallibility of the Pope. He declares that there must be historical evidence for miracles, just as if Catholic theologians did not state the very same. He does not seem to understand clearly what conscience is, nor the nature of faith. He is ignorant of the notion of order concerning the natural and the supernatural, and evi- dently has never read the treatise on superstition which may be found in every book of Catholic teaching. But enough of Mr. Burroughs's misstatements. Mr. Burroughs sees in the world nothing but a huge mass * The Light of Day. By John Burroughs. New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 719

68o Talk about New Books. [Feb, of matter controlled by infinite power and law. His highest concept of the universe might be compared to a brilliantly lighted and huge trolley-car flying down the eternal tracks of time, with no known terminus (p. 171)1 and with its passengers trying to cling on simply because they do not want to fall off and be crushed. The author of the Light of Day denies, ex- plicitly or implicitly, almost every truth that has ever been held sacred by man. Thus stripped of those old associations of the past in which he was wont to wrap himself, and ex- posed in his nakedness to the material world, a man may, to use Mr. Burroughs's original phrase, suffer from a " cosmic chill." (To pursue the figure, we might say that Mr. Burroughs has apparently passed from the state of cosmic chill to that of 41 cosmic 99 fever.) But nevertheless, despite it all, says our author finally, there is no need to despair or grow disconso- late. One truth more luminous and powerful than all others sustains man in grief, in joy, in temptation, and in the death of friends. " What a tremendous assurance is that simple assertion of the astronomer, that the earth is a star. How it satisfies one infinitely more than all preaching theories or speculation whatever. What does it not settle ? I will not doubt or fear any longer. This day I have a new faith. Let the preacher preach, let the theorists contend, let the old in- cessant warfare go on — the sky covers all, and the elements administer to all the same, and undisturbed the 4 divine ship sails the divine sea.' " 9.— For Browning worshippers, and lovers of fine book- making of whatever cult or of none, Pippa Passes* with the margins of its every page illustrated by Miss Armstrong, is a treasure. In its get up the little volume appeals strongly to hearts of bibliophilans, and promises consoling things to those depressed by the too brief activity of William Morris's Kelm- scott presses. As concerns the work itself, viewed as a piece of literature, it is too late, perhaps, to venture a review of it. Still, we cannot pass over the opportunity it affords of setting Browning before our eyes in the place which, we are confident, literary judgments, when by lapse of time they have become sufficiently stable, will assign him. Browning's fame will not rest upon many of the indisputably strong qualities for which we hear him oftenest praised ; just as, on the other hand, it will certainly survive the censures of the weaknesses and short- * Pippj Passes. By Robert Browning. Illustrated by Margaret Armstrong. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 720

igoi.] Talk about New Books. comings for which he is commonly reproached. He is a mighty master of dramatic power ; of sheer elemental strength in both conception and delineation ; an artist of intensity, of mascu- linity, whose poetical method in its rugged vigor and swift, suggestive flashings answers admirably to his temperament. He is an analyst of character and motive who fairly disports in the niceness of his dissection, in the keenness of his light- ning glance that penetrates 14 usque ad divisionem animae." He is a good second to Shakspere in the strange gift of portray- ing the abnormal, the horrid, the monstrous, especially as these are representative of religious and spiritual conditions. But great as these qualities of his genius undoubtedly are, we feel sure it is for another, a deeper and a nobler, that he will be, and would wish to be, for all time remembered and revered. Let us place him over against Shelley and Tennyson to illustrate our contention. The former of these two grappled with the aspira- tions of the human soul in tempestuous conflict. The hunger for immortality, the craving for faith, the instinct for the super- natural, Shelley violently did to death. An " unreconstructed " rebel against the highest in humanity, a red anarchist against the soul's peace and order, he shrieked down the 44 Sursum corda " of mankind's universal utterance, tried to upraise in his mar- vellous Prometheus an edifice of pure nature on the founda- tion-stone of defiance to God, and, with a blasphemy of which he would be proud, signed himself " Shelley A-th-e-o-s." Tenny- son, in verse of haunting sweetness, weaves the aspirations of the race into a wailing and melancholy question, into a doubt as fairly pictured as frost landscapes on a window-pane, but just as destitute of enduring reality. He is the supreme magi- cian of the music of words, one of the most sensitively artistic spirits that ever breathed itself into song, but as a seer, as a reader of the mysteries of origin and destiny over which the human heart broods with a ceaseless question, he fails, he is baffled, and, with the weird pathos of Arthur's passing upon the mere, he leaves us almost more hopeless than when we hailed him first. Atheist and agnostic have gone, and English poetry cries in a desert place for one who will read aright the hieroglyph of the soul, which it is the highest office no less of poetry than of metaphysics to translate into the common speech and script of men. And the great vates is Robert Browning. Not the artist that Shelley and Tennyson were, not one whose soul was a flute or a cithara to give out the spell of spontaneous Digitized by Google

Page 721

682 Talk about New Books. [Feb., music, he still is eminently glorious and great because lie flung into the cave of imprisoned spirits and groping aspirations the blazing brand of his genius and lit up the path to immortality and God. When all that is highest and deepest and sweetest in our humanity utters a mighty voice that calls unto the supernatural and divine, it is the first sin against reason, says Browning, not to grasp hold of the supernatural and divine, as that which completes us, feeds us, and leaves us not the veriest accident and folly, but a harmony in a world of har- mony that sings worship to an intelligent Creator. This makes Browning the precursor of an age of faith in poetry, and this, we can see no reason to doubt, will be, as it ought .to be, his best plea for immortality. To be sure he snaps his whip lash at Catholic devotion and doctrine now and then, and most of his spiritual Calibans wear cassocks and the mitre, but we can afford to overlook these things in the real service he has done to supernatural religion, which men now have come to see is one with the Catholic Church. This does not mean that Browning has done all ; that the deposit of poetic faith is closed with him. On the contrary, we look for one to take the step for which Browning has furnished the preparation ; one who will show not merely that the heart and soul demand the supernatural, but that they demand the Catho- lic Church. For such a one we must wait. His providential day is not yet arrived, but it is speeding on the way. Still to the great precursor, to the great seer, be honor given ever- lastingly. This view of Browning's work suggests a criticism of the poem under consideration. " Pippa Passes " does not show the poet in this his highest, and therefore best display of talent. It is a deep, strong — to what line of Browning's ought not this latter adjective to be applied? — though artificially constructed work, a product of high genius certainly, though not, as we have observed, the poet's highest. It is not to be mentioned in the same class with " Saul " — that soul-appealing song of kingly majesty and of the faith to which kings are subject. We regret that the publishers did not choose " Saul," or even "The Grammarian's Funeral," for their holiday Browning offer- ing. In these Browning reaches his highest power and fulfils his true vocation. Still, because " Pippa Passes " is a great work of Browning, we who love him are grateful for it, and will wait hopefully for other works, as beautifully embellished, which show the master in his grandest strength. Digitized by Google

Page 722

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 683 10. — Fourth* among The Flowers of Parnassus appears a handsome little edition of the poem so savagely and unreason- ably criticised by Max Nordau as an instance of Rossetti*s " parasitic battening on the body of Dante." Its publication recalls the utterly ridiculous way in which the critic mentioned undertook to demonstrate the illogical and inconsistent character of this specimen of " mystical " poetry. One cannot readily believe that the critique ever did or ever will influence the judgment of Rossetti's admirers. Despite Nordau's " arguments " they still will dream over the strangely attractive lines, closing their eyes and yet seeing — as is the fashion with inconsistent poetry- lovers, they at least will understand as far as is necessary how and why "The blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven." The illustrations in the volume before us make a pleasant enough accompaniment to the text, but are scarcely fit to re- place the imaginative visions that may be summoned readily by the kind of people who love to read " impressionist " poetry. Still, these drawings are not ungraceful, and the publication being neat, convenient in form, and artistic, is a welcome book. U. — The firm which published the first American edition of Lorna Doom has now presented us with a new illustrated edition of the same work.f It is prefaced by the verses with which Mr. Blackmore introduced the edition of 1890, and by some remarks on the Doone country from the pen of Mr. Clifton .Johnson, the gentleman who provides for this edition several very interesting landscape photographs. " The stranger," writes Mr. Johnson, " who visits Exmoor after having read Lorna Doone finds the aspect of the country not at all surprising, for it has just the sentiment conveyed by Mr. Blackmore's fine description." The illustrations in the present volume will, we fancy, do still more to prepare the traveller for his first vision of the sombre heather heights, the crags, and bogs, and water- slides familiar to the imagination of Mr. Blackmore's readers. The specimen of an Exmoor "goyal " given by the artist helps us to realize better than ever before John Ridd's description — " to wit, a long trough among wild hills, falling toward the * The Blessed Damozel. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; with illustrations by Percy Bulcock. London and New York : John Lane. t Lorna Doone: a Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. Blackmore. New York and London : Harper & Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 723

684 Talk about New Books. [Feb, plain country, rounded at the bottom, perhaps, and stiff, more than steep, at the sides of it." Dear Lorna, and great honest John ! — here they are with us again, and we almost wonder that they have changed so little with the passing years. Is it not indeed amazing that Mr. Blackmore, the one who created these good friends of ours, never could bring himself to believe that Lorna Doone was his best work? He would have preferred to be rendered famous by means of other writings which he considered far superior to this one. But his readers have judged otherwise, and it is by this work that his fame lives. And which of us is not ready at any moment for another visit to the big, brown barrens, and the bandit's lair, to be thrilled again with their chill sug- gestion of gloom and mystery and savage deeds, with "The flash of falchions in the moonlit glen, The caves of murder and the outlaws' den," to quote from the introductory verses, written by the author himself. And by the way, the reading of Mr. Blackmore's verses sets us wondering how many of his readers ever noticed that some lines in Lorna Doone were written in metre and will bear scanning. Here is one instance — lines that have run in our mind for years : "Then just as the foremost horseman passed, Scarce twenty yards below us, A puff of wind came up the glen, And the fog rolled off before it." 12. — It has been said by a well-known litterateur that if Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu, had possessed the slightest sense of propriety he would have expired immediately on the receipt of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous " Damien Letter." Not all the lovers of Stevenson are familiar with this brief but ter- ribly crushing philippic. Hence its republication * is a favor to the public. The letter displays a side of Stevenson's char- acter well known to his intimate friends, but often overlooked by those who consider him merely as a man of letters ; we mean his fearless, earnest, sincere loyalty, that recognized " duties which come before gratitude and offences which justly divide friends." Many an offence might well be pardoned the * Father Damien : An Open Lett r to the Reverend Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu. By Robert Louis Stevenson, and an Introduction by Edwin Osgood Grover. Boston: The Cornhill Booklet, Alfred Bartlett. Digitized by Google

Page 724

1901.] Talk about New Books. 685 man whose instinctive chivalry and deep hatred of Pharisaism are depicted so vividly in the lines before us. 13. — If one wishes, at small cost, to obtain a charming and reliable portrait of French society and literature in the seven- teenth century, then one should secure the series of little books now being prepared by Mr. Leon H. Vincent. The first of them has just appeared:* it is a sketch of the PrScieuses, their salons, and their foundress, Cathetine de Vivonne, Mar- quise de Rambouillet. Those who have not the opportunity of consulting the recognized authorities, such as Rcederer, Cousin, and Livet, will find in the present publication a pleas- ant introduction to the subject, quite capable of satisfying the most exacting taste. In fact, it will be a difficult, or rather an impossible, task to meet elsewhere with a woik comparable to Mr. Vincent's for brevity, fascinating interest, and clear instruc- tion. A good bibliography is appended, but we venture to suggest that the readers to whom Mr. Vincent addresses him- self would appreciate mention of English works on the subject in question. It is rather regrettable, for instance, that the author does not draw attention to the fact that Bruneti&re's Mauel is now obtainable in an English translation, and that other reliable sources may be consulted even by the reader unfamiliar with French. 14. — It is perhaps a little ungracious to ask that a book be more complete and of larger scope than its author has decided it shall be. But we cannot help regretting that this very lauda- ble little volume f is not more pretentious. It is primarily "intended for the instruction of the young," and secondarily as a manual and a guide for teachers of catechism and of sacred history ; in both of which purposes it succeeds excel- lently; but with a little enlargement of plan, a little more concession to the demands for attractiveness, a little less com- pendious and, if we may so say, less staccato style, the book might be infinitely more useful to the general public. As it is, however, it is very praiseworthy, and if the author has seen fit to limit his aim, perhaps it is not ours to object. There is no attempt at reflection on the incidents of the life of our Lord. They are given in chronological order, and most briefly * Hdtel de Rambouillet and the Pricieuses. By Leon H. Vincent. Boston : Houghton Mifflin & Co. f Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, By Rev. J. Puiseux. Translated from the French by R. A. McEachen, A.B. New York : D. H. McBride & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 725

686 Talk about New Books. [Feb., and succinctly, with just a modicum of criticism and explana- tion. We wish this little work well. It ought to do much good to children, prove of great value to teachers, and claim the attention of general readers. 15. — A There is a great difference " — we are quoting from the writer of the introduction to the American edition of Crasset's Meditations, — " There is a great difference between a book for meditation, a book of meditations, and a meditation-book." It seems to us that this excellently translated and neatly edited extract from Bossuet's famous Meditations sur FEvangile * would answe'r perfectly the demands of a " book for meditation." For, in the words of the writer alluded to, " it truly suggests thoughts worthy of spiritual reflection." It is well known that the eagle genius of Bossuet was fed on the Sacred Scriptures, and if we could put into the reflections he here gives us his own keenness of insight and his own broadness of view, we might begin to understand the secret of the grandeur of his eloquence. For it is in the quiet hours of meditation that elo- quence is born, and in deep, searching reflection on the sim- ple, exhaustless truths of Christ's teaching, that strength and power and virtue are nourished. And so these reflections will mean to each reader just as much of beauty and of spiritual strength as he is capable of extracting from them. They are as simple as the gospels themselves, but they partake of the profundity of divine truth. Of the whole series of reflections we might say what the author himself says of the words he has quoted from the gospel : " There is nothing here that needs to be explained. The words are clear enough, and we have only to reflect on them one after another." Indeed, to use the book rightly, we must use it according to the directions of its great author, given in his preface to the meditations, and pre- sented anew in this extract from them : " We shall look at each particular Truth that He reveals as a portion of that Truth which is Jesus Christ Himself ; that is to say, which is God Himself. . . . We must reflect on each particular Truth, fix our hearts on it, love it: because it unites us to God through Jesus Christ, who taught it to us, and who has Himself told us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Used in such manner, read slowly, thoughtfully, repeatedly, * The Sermon on the Mount. By Bossuet. Translated, with a short Introduction, by F. M. Capes, from the Meditations on the Gospels. New York, London, and Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 726

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 687 these meditations will prove of infinite assistance. We are glad to have this precious little work in its present attractive form, and our thanks are due to the translator and to the publishers. 16. — Notable among the names of American converts to Catholicity is that of Charles Warren Stoddard ; and the vol- ume* in which he relates his entrance into the church has long ranked among the most fascinating accounts of conver- sions. The handsome little edition of this book, recently brought out, will receive warm welcome from the many who interest themselves in beautifullytold spiritual autobiographies. Mr. Stoddard has attained considerable fame in the literary world. His work has won the strongest recommendation from critics of international reputation. His admirers are a vast army scattered through many countries and various walks of life. All this lends peculiar charm to the republication of this little tale of his earnest search for peace of heart and of the final attainment of his quest in the church. Those who have the privilege of knowing the author personally can testify to the accuracy with which his glowing words pottray his own amiable and lofty soul. They know, too, that he looks back upon the trials recounted in the present volume as the divinely chosen means of leading him to that life of deep spiritual peace and joy which he early realized to be the one thing worth seeking. 17. — One of our new publications is an attractive little volume f consisting of the lives of a few saints, selected at hap- hazard. It gives enough of the facts of each saint's life to in- terest and instruct the little reader, while at the same time it eschews those impossible details so common to children's books. The author finishes up each chapter with a short but valuable lesson based upon the saint's life just considered. An arrange- ment of the different lives according to some order, according either to historical or ecclesiastical chronology, would not be without advantage as a further element of instruction to the reader, but the little ones will not be likely to complain of this defect. The volume seems pretty nearly to supply a lack up- on which parents and instructors often comment. * A Troubled Heart \ and how it was Ccmforted at Last. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press. t Little Lives 0/ the Saints for Children. By Th. Berthold. New York : Benziger Bros. Digitized by Google

Page 727

Records of the American Catholic Historical Sociity (Dec.) : Father Hugh Henry, of Overbrook, writing on the blunders made by non Catholics in historical matters, produces a paper valuable to our controversialists. American Catholic Quarterly Review (Jan.): Doctor Kerby, of the Catholic University, presents a calm, fair, analytic study of economic problems from the laborer's point of view. Father Joyce, S.J., develops the Christian theory of moral obligation, pointing out the character of human conscience as understood by Catholic philosophy,— a timely subject. Father Poland, S J., studies the princi- ple of collectivism. Father McDermot, C.S.P., describes Cromwell's notion of u an Irish Policy." Messenger of the Sacred Heart (Jan.) : The history of the Re- ligious of the Sacred Heart in the United States makes a thoroughly enjoyable and edifying article. Father Campbell, S.J., reviews the biography of the late Pro- fessor Huxley, written by his son. Ave Maria (Jan. 12) : Doctor Shahan, of the Catholic Univer- sity, describes in his scholarly way the new light history has thrown on the calumniated Catholics of the Middle Ages. Literary Era (Jan.) : W. S. Walsh, writing of recent " Polemi- cal Fiction," says that Miss Corelli might have inscribed on the covers of The Master Christian " not merely No Popery, but also No Grammar, No Knowledge, No Morals." Educational Review (Jan.) : Professor Brander Mathews makes some very useful suggestions to those interested in the teaching of American Literature. (The paper is to pre- face the new edition of his Introduction to American Lit- erature.) American Historical Review: R. M. Johnston contributes a very interesting review of Welschinger's new and com- pletest edition of Mirabeau's Secret Mission to Berlin. The Cosmopolitan (Jan.): Professor Brander Mathews writes on literary "Americanisms." Professor Ely in an article not hopelessly pessimistic considers the question of Reforms in Taxation. Digitized by Google

Page 728

1901.] Library Table. 689 • ' The Century (Jan.) : Honorable Carroll D. Wright lets us know how much our national government costs us. The Fortnightly (Dec): The text of J. M. Barrie's Wedding- Guest is presented. Contemporary Review (Dec): Samuel Gardiner suggests amend- ments to some of Mr. Morley's recent strictures upon Cromwell. Professor Goldwin Smith wails over the fail- ure of religion — Rome having gone utterly to the bad. Mr. Massingham outlines the 41 philosophy of a saint " (viz., Tolstoi). Nineteenth Century (Dec) : The editor informs us that he has called on the writer of " The Vulgarizing of Oberammer- gau " for proof of his statements. Leslie Stephen writes on his old friend Mr. Huxley. (Jan.): The editor in a note explains that L. C. Moraint, having been asked to furnish proof of her amazing state- ment made in the November issue, has written him a letter which leaves him in doubt u as to whether the ori- ginal statement was a shocking piece of ignorance or of malice." Westminster Review (Dec) : T. E. Naughton rejoices to think that with Mr. Healy's retirement clericalism in Ireland " has experienced a downfall." The Tablet f Dec. 8) : The editor, writing on a recent discussion about the treatment priests receive in France, prints long extracts from the advance sheets of an article on the same subject written for the Irish Ecclesiastical Record hy the editor of the latter magazine, Dr. Hogan. (Dec 29) : The principles on which the church bases her respect for the contemplative life are indicated. (Jan. 5) : An English translation is given of the Holy Father's letter to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, ex- pressing the hope that the government will not proceed in the uniquitous attack upon religious congregations. The Month (Dec): Father Thurston continues his treatment of the Rosary and shows how far Alan de Rupe (f 1475) contributed to develop the devotion. Father Tyrrell, reviewing the recent biography of Coventry Patmore, writes appreciatively and instinctively of that poet's great theme — conjugal love. The editor warns M. Waldeck- Rousseau of the probable outcome of his presentjpolicy in his war on the religious orders. VOL. LXXII.— 45 Digitized by Google

Page 729

690 Library Table. [Feb., (Jan) : The editor reviews the Report of the Fulham Palace Conference on the Anglican doctrine of Holy Com- munion. It is full of interest to those who are studying " Anglican variations." Father John Rickaby presents a sketch of Professor Huxley's ethical and religious posi- tion from a philosophical point of view. Father Thurston continues his critical examination of the com- monly received story that the Rosary originated with Saint Dominic, and comments upon writers in the Irish Rosary and the English Rosary who have either criticised or answered his own statements. Cornhill Magazine (Dec.) : G. M. Smith tells of an interesting moment — namely, when Charlotte Bronte put the MS. of Jane Eyre into his hands, and left him to devour it regardless of meals, appointments, and similar mundane trifles. VUnivers (3 Dec): F. P. contributes a startling presentation of the existing politico-religious complications caused by the Waldeck- Rousseau " Association-Law." Its passage, the writer says, " will lead to a new Civil Constitution of the Clergy as inimical as that of the first Republic." Revue Gdne'rale (Nov.): Baron de Traunoz writes of the recent Catholic Congress at Bonn. Courrier de Bruxelles (27 Nov.): Here is given the text of M. Brunettere's now famous discourse at Lille. We quote a few lines : " / recall having read in 4 The Life of Father Hecker' that . . . one of the most powerful and deci- sive motives of his final conversio?i to Catholicism uas the satisfaction and the control, the control and the satisfaction which Catholicism alone seemed able to give to his popular and democratic instincts. . . . Like him, I have found in Catholicism alone the control and the satisfaction of the same instincts or of the same ideal" La Quinzaine (1 Jan.) : Mgr. Charmetant, the former companion of Cardinal Lavigerie, writes on the proposed Associa- tion-Law, showing that a French Kulturkampf would be disastrous to the nation and opposed to the policy now generally adopted by all other European governments. Francois Veuillot, well known by his articles in the Univers9 tells of the social apostolate carried on in the meanest quarters of Paris under the patronage of Our Lady of the Rosary. Jean Lionnet, a rising young Digitized by Google

Page 730

I90i.] Library Table. 691 writer, compares Ch&teaubriand's Martyrs with Sienkie- wicz's Quo Vadis. Revue de Paris (Nov., 2 No.) : M. Lemoine treats of the Hue- guenots, showing that Louis XIV. was not seconded by the French bishops in his policy concerning the Edict of Nantes. Etudes (5 Dec,) : H. Bremond reviews the spiritual letters of Father Didon, a publication very interesting as show- ing the latter's edifying state of mind upon learning that he was to be disciplined for holding " liberal " opinions. Another reviewer treats of certain hitherto unedited documents relating to the condition of Quietism at Bourgogne in 1698. (20 Dec): Father Pr£lot studies the idea of Religious Orders in view of the present agitation concerning the Association-Law. Revue du Clerge* Francais (1 Dec.) : Archbishop Mignot's fine paper on apologetical methods is concluded. Professor Ermoni reviews Vacant's new Theological Dictionary in a way not as critical as we could desire. Father Le- jeune condemns the rigoristic tendency of La Vie Spir- ituelle, a volume already criticised as quietistic in the Etude's of 20 Dec, 1897. (15 Dec): A long and very suggestive paper describing the recent Bourges Congress is contributed by Father Audier. Revue des Faculty Catholiques de f Ouest (Dec) : The Trappist monk who wrote in the October number on Bossuet's relations with De Ranc£, founder of La Trappe, con- tinues to treat the same subject. Father Chavannes contributes several chapters of a study upon De Maistre. Le Correspondant (25 Nov.): A. Kannengieser, the writer of Les Missions Catholiques: France et A llcmagne, treats very interestingly, though not over-sympathetically, the history of the Catholic faculties of the German universities. (10 Dec): The same article is continued and concluded. (25 Dec): The love-letters of Prince Bismarck form the subject of an article by M. Andre. Father du Lac's apologetic work "J£suitesM is printed here in part and will be continued in the next issue. Digitized by Google

Page 731

692 Editorial Note. [Feb., EDITORIAL NOTE. The Cuban property question still remains unsettled, and the United States government holds and will not pay what is variously estimated at from three to five millions of dollars. In the meantime the orphans and the destitute, to whom this money really belongs, are in need of proper facilities for their education, and in some instances for their preservation. The facts of the case are very simple. While the Spanish government was in control it paid annually to the church for the support of religious work a certain fixed sum. This pay- ment was not a gift that might be withheld but an obligation of justice, and arose out of a definite agreement. In a revolu- tion about fifty years ago the Cubans had sequestrated certain valuable pieces of property, and they disposed of these parcels for stated sums. When the revolution was settled the home government compromised with the church, inasmuch as the property could not be readily called back, by agreeing in lieu of it to pay the fixed sum every year to the bishops for reli- gious work. These payments went on during the Spanish ad- ministration, and were considered not a benefaction but a matter of justice. When the American government stepped in it inherited all the emoluments of the Spanish government and its obligations too. One of the latter was to pay the church for value received. It has not done so. It is contended that the United States has no right to support any religion. Very good ; if conditions are such that it can no longer pay the interest then let it give back the principal. The church has signified its willingness to accept any reasonable solution. It is contended that the title to the money is cloudy. The governor general of Cuba has appointed a commission of most eminent judges to investigate the title, and they have decided without a murmur of dissent that the claim of the church is valid. It is contended that in the present condition of uncertain tenure it is difficult to do anything. There is no question as to who is getting the revenues, there is no question any longer as to whom they belong. There is no question as to the frequent and im- portunate demands made by the church authorities on the ad- ministration for what is absolutely needed. But the adminis. tration indefinitely postpones the settlement of these claims. Digitized by Google

Page 732

190 1.] Sermon of Fa ther Lemius. 693 OPENING SERMON delivered by Rev. Father Lemius, General Procurator of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, at the Ursuline Assembly convened in Rome for the purpose of Unifying the Order% November 14, ipoo. Reverend Mothers : God, who in the government of the world embraces alike the great and the small, the general and the particular, nevertheless fol- lows with a more attentive regard and conducts with a more paternal hand those beings that are more dear to him and closest to his heart. First of all the church, after Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ the centre of his works ; next, in this church, souls who devote themselves to him without reserve, and among those souls such as make of this devotedness a profession and form associations for better practising it — that is, the Religious Orders ; and even among those orders, those who most promote his glory by the sub- limity of their vocation and the fecundity of their works. Yours is among the very first. Illustrious by the name of its foundress, a virgin renowned among those whom the church honors and who do honor to the church; illustrious by its antiquity of three centuries; further distinguished by the most fortunate alliance possible of the contemplative and active life, continuing by the former even in our agitated times the mode of life of the ancient solitaries, and appropriating to itself by the latter the ministry most dear to the church, that which has for its object childhood, especially among those classes of society called by their rank itself to exercise a dominating in- fluence in human events. This ministry of the education of childhood was in- augurated by the Ursulines ; others have followed them, but never have they surpassed or even equalled them. With what watchful care has Divine Providence surrounded this venerable order during its long course of existence. While institutions solid in appearance, resisting many a storm, have gone down before the pitiless despotism of time or have been swept away by furious tempests of persecution, yours has not only defied the iniquity of men and braved the injury of time, but has more- over drawn from opposition a new growth of strength ; in testimony whereof your four hundred houses stand to-day an admirable net-work spread over the whole earth. An essential property of Divine Providence is to bring all things into unity, and the words of my text illustrate this tendency because the most jealous care of the Holy Trinity is to place its mark (of unity) upon all its works. Not that eternal Wisdom does not know how, according to beings and times, to relax this unity, for it belongs essentially to Divine Providence also to harmonize things according to their nature and the surroundings in which they have been placed, but nevertheless its habitual tendency and constant effort are towards unity, and it is usual for this watchful Providence to take advantage of favorable changes in times and circumstances to erase lines of division and tighten the bonds of union. What marvellous changes have been wrought in the relations among men ! In proportion as these relations were beset with difficulties in former times, have they become easy in our own. We have subordinated to our use, I may say, the most powerful forces of nature ; we have bent them to our service, we " Let them be one as we are one (St. John xvii. 22).

Page 733

694 Sermon of Fa ther Lemius. [Feb., have taught them to transport from one place to another ourselves and our thoughts with a rapidity that is simply marvellous. These utilized forces have annihilated distance, and produced a nearness that would have seemed incredible in former times, and thus united, so to speak, the whole human race. Unity is in itself a force. Vis unit* fortior: it grows by little things. Concordia res parvce crescunt : and increases those that are already great by giving them greater development and strength of action. The wicked know this only too well, and to speak but of the inventions of hell, the secret of their power lies precisely in unity. Should the good, then, disdain such a force ? Is it right that their most commendable respect for the past, and for venerable traditions, should blind them to the advantages the new order of things offers for promoting God's honor and glory. If throughout centuries these same good people have lived isolated, is that a reason to remain in this isolation when ancient conditions have passed away, when all things tend to unity, drawing therefrom new strength and energy. You here present, you have not thought that the past traditions of your order were reasons for rejecting what Providence itself was offering you in the present. The Past: let us take it in its entirety^ not in certain places; does it not plead most eloquently for unity ? Allow me to sketch in a few words the philosophy of your history, and the profound thought of that wisdom which in the course of ages has brought about its successive phases. You did not corre into existence as members separated one from another on the face of the church, but as a compact body, solidly attached to one head, your mother St. Angela ; and after her, her successors took the title, written in your first consti- tutions, of " Mother General." It was like a first sketch of your holy institute; but God, who wished to make of it in all respects one of the most illustrious parts as well as one of the most active and fruitful forces of his church, resolved to raise it to the highest conceivable degree of perfection, and to unite in it highest contemplation with active ministry; in such a manner that the Ursuline Order became one of the most notable examples of that form of apostolic life which gives out to the world in works what it has drawn from heaven in prayer. Then it was in the designs of God to isolate you and he did so, for a time seem- ing to obliterate the tie that had bound you in his first design ; but this was only a temporary measure. Those who understand the admirable logic of Provi- dence and that spirit of wisdom which animates all its works, could foretell that when the isolated members had become sufficiently permeated with this double life of contemplation and action, when it had reached that point where action was but the corollary and, if I may use the expression, the overflow-pipe of contemplation, then the order was to return to its primitive unity at an hour clearly marked by a profound change in the conditions of human society, and in response to the voice of him who is here below the interpreter of the divine will. In this way the two first phases of your history should meet, and form by an admirable synthesis a new embodiment of the past. No, it was not in the designs of God to abandon the primitive form he had given your order, but during a period when, on account of the difficulties in the relations among men, that form was ill adapted to the perfection required in its varied elements, God suspended the mark of unity until the difficulty had ceased to exist. And as he conducts things to their end with as much sweetness as strength, he took care to infuse into the bosom of the order itself a vehement desire for union as so:>n as there seemed a possibility of its realization. Mary of its most illustrious members, and greatest among them the Venerable Mother

Page 734

190 1 .] Sermon of Fa ther Lemius. 695 of the Incarnation, contributed to increase, as she tried to realize this desire. You all here present must remember the grand movement of 1875, when one hundred houses affirmed the necessity of and the desire for this unification with- out one dissenting voice. Why, therefore, have those very houses, the origina- tors and most ardent directors of this movement, combated and opposed with all their might the unification about to be formed ? It is without doubt that God wishes every work of his hand to bear the seal of the Cross of his Son. Be that as it may, this first movement remained sterile and without immediate result. Nevertheless it gave the impetus and prepared the scattered elements of your holy order for a fusion which was in the designs of God, who awaited only the fit instrument — the man of his right hand. What man, Reverend Mothers, has more than Leo XIII. been the man of God and of his times? The man of God by a sanctity, a wisdom, and a goodness which appear more than human ; the. man of his times, by a clear view of the imperious needs of modern society and a profound knowledge of that century which has almost completely passed beneath his eyes; knowing besides that it is prudence to bend as much as possible to circumstances, and that the church, im- mutable in doctrine and morals, should nevertheless place itself in harmony, in its institutions and discipline, with the conditions of different periods of time. Leo XIII. has understood that the prime need of the present is unity. Already, in many instances, he has established and encouraged it among religious orders. How many stones dispersed over the face of the church has his hand gathered, and with them built those superb edifices which are the glory of the church and the edification of men. Now it is to the Ursulines he turns and says : Ut sint unum — Let them be one. That the Pope desires this unification is a fact that needs no demonstration. After the solemn affirmation of a prince of the church whom we know to be especially beloved by Leo XIII. ; after the official letter of the Sacred Congre- gation of Bishops and Regulars, in which were sketched the great lines upon which this unification would be based, a letter which was in itself the expres- sion of the Holy Father's wish, without even taking into account that this desire on the part of His Holiness was apparent in the wording of the final formula " De Mandato SSmi." — after all that, unless some personal interest exists, doubt is no longer possible. To-day, which brings you together in a convocation made in the name of Leo XIII., such a doubt would argue incura- ble blindness ; and to what lengths goes this desire of the Pope, before leaving Rome you will have, I hope, the opportunity of seeing and knowing for yourselves, without need of any go-between. It is not possible for a Pope to manifest publicly any desire which has not for its object the greater good of the church ; then it follows that every de- sire of a Pope is a counsel, and for souls tending to perfection every desire be- comes a command, because every desire, every counsel, every command of a Pope is a desire, a counsel, a command of Jesus Christ. It is not necessary for me to repeat to you that the Pope is indeed what St. Catherine of Sienna was wont to call him — Christ on earth ; Christ having hidden himself in the silence and solitude of the tabernacle in order to remain on earth, to multiply himself, and to bestow himself upon his creatures ; and seeing himself thus bereft of human appearance, has borrowed that of the Pope : the lips of the Pope with which to speak, the hand of the Pope to bless. In a word, Jesus in his full in- tegrity is for the Catholic soul, and still more for the religious, the Jesus of the Tabernacle, but completed, rendered visible, and given a voice through the Digitized by Google

Page 735

696 Sermon of Fa ther Lemius. [Feb Pope. If it is thus, Reverend Mothers, and we do not doubt it, and not an Ursuline in the world doubts it, how do we explain this reasoning: " The Pope indeed desires the union of the Ursulines — but a voluntary union ; let it then take place, but without our taking any part in it." Is it not apparent how we kill by such reasoning what is best and most delicate in obedience — the very flower of this virtue ? A superior of a house is not greater than the Pope ; therefore, if the above reasoning is at all valid, what would prevent a religious from saying in her turn, and with a better right : " My superior desires such a % thing, but she leaves me free ; therefore I will not do it." Woe to the house in which such reasoning prevails ! It is true that all desire by its very nature leaves freedom of action ; but let simple and generous obedience (and it is by these qualities obedience shows itself refined and delicate) transform the desire of a superior into a command, and a command binds. The Pope has at the same time given and taken away liberty — he has given it by his word, he has taken it away by his desire, at least from those who fully understand the spirit of their profession. The contradiction is only apparent, and in a word, what the Pope has done is only a characteristic of the heavenly prudence of the church, which takes into account human infirmity. All praise be to you, Reverend Mothers, for having responded with perfect simplicity of soul to this desire, this invitation of the Pope, and praised be your houses in you. My praises, as myself, are nothing; but I am authorized to ex- press the approbation of the Pope himself. Last Sunday — pardon me for mentioning myself — I had the happiness of being at his feet, and he said to me, with an august gesture that spoke louder than words : " Tell the Ursulines that I bless them and express to them my sat- isfaction that they are here! " This praise of the Pope does not end here. No, it does not limit itself to you, Reverend Mothers, who listen to me, nor to the houses represented through you ; it goes abroad over the whole face of the church to all those Ursulines whom fetters have restrained but who are here by the deepest wishes of their hearts. Their feet are bound, but their desires have not been strangled. Fear nothing ; this desire will grow until it bursts forth from its broken chains. After having commended your simplicity of obedience I must now praise your clear-sightedness. You have indeed understood the necessity of this union. Without speaking of the elevation of the educational plane in your houses— elevation which is possible only by uniting — I will refer to the exchange of subjects, which is so imperiously demanded in certain contingencies that it actually takes place and the necessity of which you all understand. But how does it take place ? First in a vague, uncertain manner, after long and at times painful applications and delays, during which vital interests are at stake. Secondly, and this is far more serious, outside of Canon Law and, to speak more accurately, contrary to Canon Law, as will be demonstrated to you in the course of the sessions with greater competency and authority than I myself can bring to such a task. Objectively, therefore, these changes take place illegally and illicitly. Two things are necessary in these exchanges: 1st, a regulating prin- ciple to facilitate and enlighten : to facilitate by a certainty of indication that avoids tiresome and useless bungling ; to enlighten by precise directions as to the rights of subjects, thus preventing precipitancy and regrets; secondly, a principle of authority to sanction them. This double principle can only exist in a union.

Page 736

1901.) Sermon of Fa ther Lemius. 697 There is still another thing to be considered. With the greatness ol heart which ennobles you, what should animate these sessions is not only simplicity of obedience and clearness of view, but moreover a profound sentiment of soli- darity, the true name of which is fraternal charity. You do not know — you who here represent flourishing houses, or at least houses that are self-sustaining, facing the future without misgiving or fear; no, you do not dream of the sharp pain, the bitter anguish hidden away in cer- tain Ursuline convents. I have said in the hearts of Ursulines, your sisters, daughters of the same mother, members of the same family. You have never known what it is to see, with agony of soul, the death of your house approach- ing with slow but certain step as an inevitable necessity. Not one's own death, that would be invoked with all the strength of grief ; no, but the death of one's house — of that house in which one was born to the religious life and where one had passed long years in a sweet intimacy with God and beloved sisters. The death of that house where, without stint or grudge, the best part of her energies have been spent ; of that house of which she loves every nook and cranny, be- cause they have been marked by some silent visitation of the heavenly Spouse; of that house, in a word, from which she hoped to take her flight to heaven. Alas! it is condemned by an inflexible law. Upon such a day, at such an hour, it must perish. What torture, what agony ! The hour strikes — a rude cart is at the door. Throw in, poor victims, with those hands trembling with emotion, whilst your eyes are dimmed with tears — throw in the tew objects that the rapacious cupidity which dignifies itself with the august name of Law has left you. Bid adieu to that house which, already violated by sacrilege, will hence- forth be devoted to profane use and may become the home of sin ; bid it adieu and silently follow that poor cart. Oh ! what would you wish in such an hour? Would you not prefer to ascend that cart yourselves and, as in another infa- mous epoch, make of it your ladder to God ? But where will they go? What matters it indeed whither they go, since they have left for ever their well-beloved home, the reof under which they had hoped to die ? There are other sacred wrecks scattered around ; they will in- crease their number, until sorrow, that sapper of life's foundation, will have killed them. At a later day it will be said of their home : " You remember that ancient monastery which had sheltered princesses and had been the honor of the church — it lived its life and now it is no more. A few living stones of the edifice dragged out a feeble existence in a corner of yonder strange house, where they awaited the summons of death. Death came and carried them off in its turn; it is finished — the tomb is sealed ! " What ! you exclaim, had they no sisters, no family, no friends, no kind heart to pity their lot ? They had. There exist in the world convents of the Ursulines who enjoy highest prosperity. Vocations abound, their boarding- schools are full to overflowing, everything is flourishing in the present, there are no fears for the future. Are they, then, dead? Yes they are dead — to the needs of their unfortunate sisters. Alas! blame not the hearts of men, blame rather the condition of things. It is the fatal law of isolation that on the same trunk some branches superabound in sap, whilst others dry up and die. Oh, no ; do not blame the hearts of the Ursulines. I know them ; they resemble the heart of Jesus their Spouse, who was moved and is still moved by the miseries of those whom he has called and made his brethren. The Ursulines! What have they not tried to do to stop this work of de- struction and of death? Almost immediately after the promulgation of the

Page 737

698 Sermon of Fa 7 her Lemius. [Feb infamous laws condemning your convents of Italy, the movement for unifica- tion began. An intense sentiment of fraternal pity was the soul of the movement. And that same sentiment is found again in the first steps taken towards that actual unification which has brought you together. Fraternal pity — I proclaim it aloud, for I have closely followed the whole history of this movement — has created the group of Rome, Blois, and Calvi. which in its turn has been, not the cause exactly, for that is to be found in the Pope's wish alone, but the occasion of all the rest. Decidedly God wills that in some re- spects we break with the old organization, how venerable soever it may be, which by its form has held the Ursulines in check and centred upon themselves, and that new ways be opened up for the overflowing of the kindly sentiments of their noble hearts. No, it is no longer allowable that in presence of the great changes that have so profoundly revolutionized human relations, and es- pecially in view of such great calamities, your holy order should persevere in an isolation which so closely resembles, for those who do not know you, a cold and unfeeling egoism. But what am I doing, Reverend Mothers ? I appear to be urging upon you the necessity of this union, when you have undertaken such long and perilous journeys only to be united. I am now at that by which I should have begun; that is, it now behooves me to point out to you the kind of union you are to labor for and the dispositions you should bring to this labor. You are too profoundly penetrated with respect for the present form of your order, so venerable by its origin, which is pontifical ; by its antiquity, which is of several centuries ; by its fruits, which are admirable, for me to tell you that it is precisely with this feeling of respect that you should be filled. Not one of you assuredly came here to do a work of destruction and to break with so glorious a past. It is true some have failed to come, fearing such a result. Why have they not better understood the guarantee against such a thing that exists in the very city of Rome to which you have been summoned — Rome, so jealous of tradition, and which engenders respect for the past by its very appearance. And more than that : why have they distrusted that prudence of the Holy See, fall of delicacy and of sweetness, to which it appertains in last resort to judge your deliberations, and to place its seal upon your new Constitutions. No more than the church do you wish, or could you destroy that which has been deter- mined in and transmitted to you from such ancient times. Your work is one of adaptation alone; the obtaining of certain advantages, the eliminating of cer- tain inconveniences; behold the just measure of the contemplated union — as this union is precisely in its requirements the exact measure of the modifications to be introduced into the actual organization. Must we cast aside our dependence upon bishops ? I do not think so. Each house has, I may sav, its individuality and its own features; let each one preserve them. Each subject has the right to live and die in the house of her choice ; let her keep it. Houses and subjects have special relations with diocesan authority, so that Ursulines have been called the daughters of their bishops. Let these relations remain unbroken; what is needed is simply to modify all these things in such a way as to render a real union possible — I say a real union, not one in name alone, but a union in deed and in truth which will exactly respond to the end proposed. Such is, if I mistake not, the principle, the rule, the fundamental maxim you ojght constantly to have before your eyes, to enlighten your discussions and recognize the lines, often exceedingly fine, where should end your very natural instinct of conservation and begin the work of re-formation. I have before me the Mite of vour order, in point of intelligence and of virtue. Helped by God, who wishes this union and who has so manifestly brought about its beginning, you will, I am convinced, easily perceive those lines of which I speak, where the past and the future meet. You must bring two dispositions to the work, both of which are absolutely necessary: a supernatural spirit and a spirit of sacrifice. It seems to me that your sessions should assume the character of medita- tions. We must not think, Reverend Mothers, that there are silent and solitary meditations only, where each one weighs in the bottom of his soul, and in virtue of supernatural principles, the reforms to be brought about in one's own life. There are meditations which mav be termed of the House, of the Order. Yes, true meditations, although made by several ; since deliberations of the needs of

Page 738

I90i.] Sermon of Father Lemius. 699 houses and of the order, as well as those of the individual, should be viewed from a supernatural stand-point. All meditation, strictly speaking, has a triple aspect; it demands, 1st, attention to the subject as matter of deliberation ; 2d, directing of the intention towards God as its end and aim; and, 3d, supplica- tion to God for light and help. Thus, while you follow attentively the debates and take part in them, you will have God before your eyes and God alone; that is, his glory through the personal sanctification of the Ursulines, and through the salvation of the children entrusted to their care. Therefore, perfect disen- gagement from earthly and human views; none of those self-seekings, often so subtle, regarding certain points to which one is attached, and which, if we know ourselves well, seem right and proper and just only because they minister to the human interests still dwelling in the bottom of our hearts. Had I before me saints ready for canonization 1 would hold the same language to them, in right of the authority of my priesthood, so deeply rooted is self-love within us, and so much is vigilance needed to preserve us from such self-seeking, even when we sincerely believe it thoroughly uprooted from our hearts. The intention thus purely directed to God, you will pray ardently, and even during the sessions, thus prolonging the Veni Sancte with which they will be begun. The work you are about to perform is essentially divine ; it can only be accomplished by God and by the divine principle with which he will animate you. Think you that he will abandon this order, so venerable, that came forth from his hand and from his heart,— that he will abandon it, I say, to the deci- sions of your minds, so small, so short-sighted, because so human ? You do not think it. No, you do not think he will permit other hands to touch a work he himself had formed, you know with what infinite love. What, then, are you, Reverend Mothers ? Only simple instruments holding yourselves in readi- ness for his interior illuminations and inspirations, which are the two means by which God moves the human soul. In these dispositions sacrifice will seem easy to you. Acts of abnegation will certainly be demanded of you, Reverend Mothers. To pretend to create a union without changing existing things is a simple con- tradiction. It is not to create an empty name that you have undertaken distant voyages, but to found a powerful and fruitful reality. And it is for this the Pope has called you. Yes ; but to touch the established order, to touch the ensemble of things that up to the present has constituted the life of an Ursuline, is to touch your very selves. Not only because this life is yours, but because it has pene- trated into you, into your habits and into your hearts, and has become, in a cer- tain manner, your very selves. What is asked of you is a work of self-renuncia- tion. Do you not see here the great symbolism of all religious life— Sacrifice and the Cross ? Doubtless you must study well. in order to understand them, the new paths by which Christ wishes to lead you ; but once they are recognized, you must follow them boldly, the cross in hand. "Perpetual standard" (the cross), said Leo XIII. in his last encyclical, " of all those who wish, not in words but in deeds and in reality, to follow Jesus I have onlv, Reverend Mothers, put in words what I know is in your souls, and each one of you, while I spoke, has but recognized her own sentiments in my words. May God be praised tor having inspired in you such generous abnegation at a time when we have so much to deplore : the cowardice of men bearing the name of Christians ! In God's name begin your work. Lay the foundations of that edifice of which you are the first stones ; an edifice which, with God's bless- ing, will increase in dimension and solidity : a temple from which shall ascend to God most harmonious praise ; a fortress from which shall be hurled with certainty and precision deadly weapons against the enemy of God. In all the houses of the order, what views soever they may entertain, some souls are praying ardently for you. The Pope blesses you, as he has commissioned me to tell you. Nothing is lacking, neither in yourselves, nor around you, nor above you, that can hinder you from accomplishing a work wise and prudent, as well as strong and fruitful. You will accomplish it ; and without speaking of the glory of this work, which counts for nothing in your eyes, you will gain a special glory in heaven ; it will be due to those souls who will owe their salvation to the work you are about to do. You will say to them eternally, in the words of St. Paul, " Vos enim estis gloria" (I. Thess. ii. 20) : You are my glory. Amen. Christ.

Page 739

NEW BOOKS. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston: An American Anthology, 1787-1900. Edited by Edmund Clarence Sted- man. $3.oo-$3.5o; $5.00 and $6.50. The Complete Poetical Works of Elisabeth Barrett Browning. Cambridge edition. Edited by Harriet Waters Preston. $2.00. Fact and Fable in Psychology. By Joseph Jastrow. $2 00. United States in the Orient. By Charles A. Conant. Counsel upon the Reading of Books ; with a preface by Henry Van Dyke. By H. Morse Stephens, Agnes Repplier, Arthur T. Hadley, Brander Mathews, Bliss Perry, and Hamilton Wright Mabie. $1.50. The Light of Day. By John Burroughs. $1.25. Andrew Jackson. By W. G. Brown. 75cts. HStelde Rambouillet. By Leon H. Vincent. $1.00. Theo- dore Parker, Preacher and Reformer. By Rev. John White Chadwick. $3.00. Small, Maynard & Co , Boston : Visiting the Sin. By Emma Rayner. The Ethics of Evolution. By James Thompson Bixby. $1.25. Alfred Bartlett (The Cornhill Booklet), Boston : Father Damien : An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Introduction by Edwin Osgood Grover. (Reprint.) G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York : Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative Psychology. By Jacques Loeb, M.D. (The Science Series.) Illustrated. $1.75. Harper & Brothers, New York and London : Lorna Doone : A Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. Blackmore; with a special introduction by the author. Illustrated from drawings by W. Small and from photographs by Clifton Johnson. American Book Company, New York : Spencerian Penmanship. Vertical edition. Benziger Brothers. New York: A Catholic Catechism for Parochial and Sunday- Schools. By Rev. James Groenings, S.J. Small edition. 10 cts. The Romance of a Vocation. By Aleydis Inglesant. $1.00. In Faith Abiding. By Jessie Reader. 55 cts. The Page of James the Fifth of Scotland. Translated from the French by S. A. C. $1.00. Eucharistic Conferences. By Pere Monsabre, O.P. Translated from the French by Comtesse Mary Jenison. $1.00. The Rose of Sleat. A Drama. By S. M. Lyne. 15 cts. A Debt of Grati- tude. A Play for Young People. By Mary T.Robertson. 15 cts. In the Beginning (Les Origines). By J. Guibert, S.S. Translated by G. S. Whitmarsh. $2.00. B. Herder, St. Louis, Mo.: The Holy Year of the Jubilee : An Account of the History and Ceremonial of the Roman Jubilee. By Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J. Net $3.25. The Influences of Catholicism on the Sciences and on the Arts. From the Span- ish of the Rev. Don Andr6s de Salas y Gilavert, D.D., bv Mariana Monteiro. Net $1.25. Life of the Very Rev. Felix de Andrei's, C.M. By the Right Rev. Joseph Rosati, CM.; with an introduction by the Most Rev. Jonn J. Kain, D.D., Archbishop of St. Louis, Mo. Net $1.2$. Longmans, Green & Co., New York: The Last Years of Saint Paul. By the Abbe* Constant Fouard. Trans- lated by George F. X. Griffith. $2.00. The Teaching of Mathematics in the Higher Schools of Prussia. By J. W. A. Young. 80 cts. The Ser- mon on the Mount. By Jacques B6nigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. Translated, with a short introduction, By F. M. Capes. $1.00. R. H. Russell, New York: UAiglon : A Play in Six Acts. By Edmond Rostand. Translated by Louis N. Parker. $1.00. Brentanos, New York : The Joy of Captain Ribot. By A. Palacio Vald6s. Translated by Minna Caroline Smith. §1.25. VAiglon. Par Edmond Rostand (French text). $1.50. The Romance of UAiglon (authorized translation from the French of Carolus), by J. Paul Wilson. 50 cts. Written in Red (a Story of Boston). By Charles Howard Montague and C. W. Deyar. $1.25. THE FAC- OASTORI A ,= ON // is worth a eood deal to us to say you saw his "ad" in this M ago vine. 49

Page 740

SOLD DOLLARS FOR FIFTY CENTS I Uwanta S.E Mattress $7.00 If wanted In two pieces, like cut, $7.50. Shipped direct from oar factory to f customer. At retail would be from $12 to $13. It's like buying gold dollars for fifty cents. Made from patented [ process fluffy Cotton Down— the best mattress material known to the trade. Worth two of the common cotton ► mattresses sold by dealers. It is as soft as a $40 hair mattress, is cleaner, more sanitary, never attracts moth and £ never packs. GUARANTEED TO LAST A LIFETIME. They may be returned after 30 DAYS* TRIAL at our ex- [ pense and money will be refunded. Out of many thousands not one ever yet returned. Freight prepaid to ► points east of the Missouri river and eaat of a line drawn south of Kansas City and north of the south line of Ten- r nessee. Part of freight paid to more distant points. Give width of bed between inside of side rails. I Send for Booklet of Testimonials. ► FORT WAYNE FURNITURE COMPANY, Fort Wayne, Ind. ► A BEAUTIFUL FLOOR May be obtained by the use of Supremis Floor Finish. Supremis preserves the beauty of a new floor, and makes an old floor look like new. It stands the hardest usage and is easily cleaned. Write for our booklet, "The Treatment of Floors." Shipoleum has no equal for the interior finish of hospitals, bath rooms, and the finest residences, because of its remarkable resis- tance to the attacks of soap, water, and moisture. Send for de- scriptive matter and price lists. - - - CHICAGO TARNISH COMPANY, ... Dearborn and Klnzle, 22 Vesty Street (near Attor House), Pearl and High Streets, Chicago. New York. Boston BAY STATE CANDLE CO., W. H. BOWDLEAR & CO., Selling Agents, 149 Pearl Street, Boston, Mass,, U. S. A. Beeswax Candles. ALL GRADES AND SIZES, PLAIN and SELF-FITTING. As we are Importers c f many Raw materials we are in a position to quote low prices f. o. t>. or delivered. Digitized by Google

Page 741

ME MANUAL OF PRAYERS Catholic Book Exchange, 120 W. 60th St., sells it cheap. TRUE ART/ .• THE BEST TEACHER. The Catholic Book Exchange has acquired the American copy- rights on the now famous picture of Christ Blessing the Opening of the Twentieth Century and has imported an immense num- ber of copies. The copies are in colors done by the best European artists. They are on cardboard 8xik THE PICTURE Willi BE A v GREAT SELLER. We want to' establish agencies for the sale of these pictures all over the country. Apply for terms. CATHOUC BOOK EXCHANGE, . . mo West 6otH St., Mew York. To the Rev. Clergy and Religious : Before placing your Candlemas Order, get prices and samples from Smith & Nichols, THE INDEPENDENT Candle Manufacturers, 145 and 147 Front Street, New York: City. Hand-Made and Moulded BEESWAX CANDLES, Non-Drip Stearic Acid Candles, Sanctuary Oils, etc. Pear line « * *>*py *powder — contains ail the soap necessary and some -tiling else. Millions use Pe&rline with satisfaction - Hundreds have imitated Pearhne to their own ana to the peoples' disgust. * Mass Boole- A Complete Prayer-Book Jor

Page 742

•KMARCM * t Religious Comi " Hail, Rabbi Critics. (Poem ) REV. WILLIAM P. CANT WELL Music as a Civilizing Agency. carina Campbell eaglesfield. At the Bier of the Crucified. (Illustrated.) ANNA 8PRAGUE MeDONALD. Hugo's Praise of Love. rev. Joseph Mcsobley, c.s.p. By Calvary. (Poem.) michael eable. A Modern Martyrdom. sara b. hopkins. The Heart of Brittany. (Illustrated.) A Study in Hagiology. bev. james m. gillis, c.s p. Mary to Christ on the Cross. (Poem.) nora byiman. Some Interesting Facts ab&ut the Catacombs. (Illustrated.) RIGHT REV. MOWSIGWOR CAMPBELL, D.D. day. (Poem The True Landing-Place of Columbus. (Illustrated.) b. MacBENNETT. Thomas Henry Huxley. be v. jambs j. box, d.d Price, 25 Cents ; 13 per T THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD. NEW YORK. P. O. Box «, Station M, ART AND BOOK COMPANY, 22 P.t.n^tw lUi^W 1 1,

Page 743

CLARIFIED ^GELATINE^ FOR Wine Jellies, Blanc Mange, Charlotte Em PURE and WHOLESOME. Being PULVERIZED It DISSOLVES In a few Mlnuttt, For Salt by Grocers, and at 13 Burling Slip. Now York City A BEAUTIFUL FLOOR May be obtained by the use of Supremis Floor Finish. Supremis preserves the beauty of a new floor, and makes an old floor look like new. It stands the hardest usage and is easily cleaned. Write for our booklet, 41 The Treatment of Floors. " Shipoleum has no equal for the interior finish of hospitals, bath rooms, and the finest residences, because of its remarkable resis- tance to the attacks of soap, water, and moisture. Send for de- scriptive matter and price lists. - - - CHICAGO VARNISH COMPANY) - - - Doarborn and Klnilo, Chicago. 22 Voooy Street (near Aotor House), Now York. Pearl and High Streets. Boston It will not cost you anything To confer on us the favor of men- tioning this Magazine when pur- chasing from those who advertise in The Cfi'holic W<*rld Ma$»zine. HOTEL EMPIRE, BROADWAY AND 63d ST., N. Y. CITY. EUROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. . . . ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF, . . . The Standard of Excellence at Moderate Cost. Within ten minutes' walk of all the Theatres and great Department Stores, and easy of access from all Railroad terminals and Steamship landings. PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE EXCLUSIVE- NESSOFCLIENTELLK. perfection IN CUI- SINE, and EFFICIKNT SERVICE WILL FIND "THK EMPIRK" an ideal hotel. Send postal for * ' The Empire Illustrated '» and rate card. W. JOHNSON QUINN, Proprietor. When a Housewife 1 SEES THE TRADE- HARK BELOW On Enameled Ware it la Safe to Bny; NO POISON can lurk in Agate Nickel Steel Ware (send for pam-* phlet showing why),b\iti without this mark there is no immunity from danger. A re- ^ cent analysis made % of 17 different makes showed In every instance one of these three poisons as a part of their coating viz.: ARSENIC, LEAD AND ANTIMONY. Each Cooking Utensil (we g make 5000 different kinds) of : the "L. & G. Agate Nickel Steel Ware" has, besides this Trade-Mark, burnt in the enamel, a label attached with Chemists' ecrtiheate as a guaranty of ABSOLUTE SAFETY [ Pamphlet of vital intercut to creru htnuewifc* FliEE to any address, g Lalance &, Grosjean Mfg. Co., Boston. New York. Chicago. ? . The INKS used on this publication are manufactured by I^^pCO., New York. SIG9IVND _ Digitized by '

Page 744

Digitized by Google

Page 745

"The common welfare urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray: to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, — and this on the part not only of individuals but of society AS A whole.1 ' — Leo XIII 's Message to the Twentieth Century. Digitized by Google

Page 746

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Vol. LXXII. MARCH, 1901. No. 432. RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AMD THEIR CRITICS. qMgg^ty ECENT political occurrences in France have ngg mDJEl developed a wide-spread interest in Catholic flU IBT^R Religious communities. Under cover of the W] |H» euphemism, Lot d Association, the French premier jMPPPPyEpfy has introduced into the Chamber of Deputies a project intended to deprive these communities of the right to exist. On the twentythird of December last the Holy Father addressed a letter to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris pro- testing against the stand taken by the French ministry. Never- theless, on the fifteenth of January the government commenced discussion of the billr confident that, despite the determined opposition of Clericals and Royalists, the measure would be carried by a unanimous vote of the Republicans. M. Waldeck-Rousseau has included this bill under his gov- ernmental " measures of defence." At worst his project may be said to be in favorable contrast with the violent measures adopted by statesmen of similar principles in former times. Confiscation is preferable to torture no doubt, and banishment to dungeons. Still, it is likely that the improvement is due less to the premier's personal choice than to the fact that milder methods are in favor with contemporary governments. It may be an equally effective if a less revolting measure to deprive Religious of civil rather than of physical existence. At any rate, to the former punishment the government would condemn them, and at present the world is watching the attempt curi- ously, though for the most part calmly. THE INDICTMENT AGAINST THEM. It is this state of affairs which seems to justify some con- sideration of the offence charged against the French Religious. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York, 1901. VOL LXXII.— 46 Digitized by Google

Page 747

702 Religious Communities and their Critics. [Mar., In effect the indictment comes to this : they live in common, practising poverty, chastity, and obedience, and they vow fidelity to this state of life. Thus, it is asserted, they offend against the common good of society by resigning rights which no man can lawfully alienate. The stand-point of their assail- ants apparently is that occupied by jEsop's Wolf, which, having exhausted his efforts to discover a casus belli against the Lamb, finally decided to devour the latter without specifying reasons. Should the French government succeed in expelling Religious from its territory, the ultimate motive for this action, as is plain to every one, will have been that deep-rooted instinct which leads men of a certain class to a deadly hate of institu- tions like those in question. For, from the stand-point of unprejudiced reason, why should a Religious community be considered harmful to the common good ? Accept — we will not say the moral standard that is based upon a study of human nature and its destiny, but — the norm of right living defended by the atheist himself. Let the supreme law be to secure the happiness of the individual or to further the progress of humanity. Still the Religious ideal deserves toleration, still the Religious community is to be ac- quitted of crime. For at least we must concede that the indi- vidual standard of happiness will vary indefinitely, despite endless disputation. May not men, then, who find peace and contentment in the practice of celibacy, poverty, and subjec- tion, lawfully claim the right to consult their own happiness by arranging their daily routine accordingly ? Nor is it rea- sonably to be feared by statesmen that there will ever be a deficit in the supply of human beings willing to propagate the race, to amass wealth, and to insist upon their own personal independence. Certainly a race of which a certain number venerates and practises chastity is, other things being equal, farther along the line of progress than a race lacking the influence of that lofty idealism. Surely, too, though here and there a community may contrive to become collectively rich, no man can deny that the present French communities have, as the Pope's let- ter asserts, acquired their property honestly and legally — a consideration which makes capital punishment seem rather an extreme measure. It may well be contended, too, to cite, as the Holy Father insists, that they hold their property in the interest of religion, charity, and the common good. Most of us will perceive readily enough that in the long run the Reli- Digitized by Google

Page 748

1901.] Religious Communities and their Critics. 703 gious communities tend to bring about that more equitable dis- tribution of utilities which is of the very essence of a state's health. Perhaps the practice of obedience is the count which will tell most heavily against Religious in a generation madly in love with individualism of every sort? Still, here again fair consideration of the question will give us little cause to pre- sume that religious communities tend to injure good citizen- ship. As we shall have occasion to note later on, the theory of religious obedience contains nothing derogatory to the spirit of true manliness, and certainly history does not indicate that much crime or weakness is traceable to its practice. THE MEASURE IS BOTH WANTON AND UNJUST. All this, be it observed, is the verdict that must be accepted if an honest and enlightened public policy is to prevail. If the Religious have done evil, let their critics give testimony of the evil. The present mode of procedure certainly warrants the Holy Father's comment, that " to strike at the religious congregations would be to forsake, and thus injure, those demo- cratic principles of liberty and equality which at present form the very foundation of constitutional right in France and guar- antee the individual and collective liberty of all citizens, so long as their actions and manner of living have an honest aim which encroaches on the rights and lawful interests of nobody." It is not hasty or unfair, then, to say that M. Waldeck-Rous- seau's 44 measure " is as wanton as it is unjust, and that it calls in doubt his sincere devotion to the best interests of his coun- try. His attitude is all the more reprehensible when one takes into account, as the Papal letter puts it, 44 the meritorious ser- vices, recognized time and again by men above any suspicion of favoritism, and time after time rewarded by public honors, which make these congregations the glory of the church at large and the particular and shining glory of France, which they have ever nobly served, and which they love, as has many a time been seen, with a patriotism that feared not to face death itself with joy." This much as to the justice of the French premier's stand upon the question of Religious communities. But his attitude reminds us that there are also critics of another class. It is rather curious that in the Protestant world many professing and practical Christians, students of the Gospel, lovers of real virtue, range themselves against the Catholic idea of com- munity life. Here indeed, as antecedently to all inquiry we Digitized by Google

Page 749

704 Religious Communities and their Critics. [Mar., might have suspected, opposition is to be traced mainly to the fact that persons outside the Catholic Church rarely if ever come to a thorough appreciation of her whole teaching on any one point. WHAT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES ARE. In dealing with this class of critics we may omit considera- tion of that extreme few who, influenced by a consciousness of their own personal depravity, declare that the life proposed to Religious is outside the range of human possibilities. The mass of those who set themselves against the Catholic ideal are more moderate in their views, and are influenced mainly by unintelligent prejudice, blind acceptance of traditional beliefs, and repugnance to study sympathetically any institution opposed to the common desire of self- exaltation and self grati- fication. Persons of this sort, it may be hoped, will abandon their former views when once acquainted with the real nature and justification of what they are criticising. Religious communities, then, are bodies of men or women who, in order to devote themselves more exclusively to the pursuit of their ideal of Christian perfection, abandon their homes and live together under a rule. Always this rule enjoins the observance of the three " evangelical counsels," poverty, or the renunciation of earthly goods ; chastity, or the consecra- tion of body and soul to a life of perfect continence ; and obedience, or the subjection of private will to the command of legitimate superiors. Ordinarily, besides this the " rule " pre- scribes a daily routine of exercises embracing both the worship of God and the service of one's neighbor at stated intervals and for definite lengths of time, leaving a margin to be employed as individual ability or inclination shall direct. We say " ordinarily," since there are some communities known as contemplatives in which the rule prescribes no other service of the neighbor than that of frequent and fervent intercessory prayer. Ordinarily, too, stability is secured by vows on the part of the members ; that is to say, by promises made to God binding the individual under pain of sin to adhere to his state of life and to prosecute his strivings after perfection. GOSPEL GUARANTEES. To what loyal Christian mind can this ideal be offensive ? Religious find in the Gospel itself a Divine guarantee for the worth of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Son of Man, Digitized by Google

Page 750

1901.] Religious Communities and their Critics. 705 who had not whereon to lay his head, who taught the value of renouncing all, who subjected himself to Mary and Joseph, who was born of a Virgin, died a virgin and praised virginity highly, both with his own lips and through his inspired apostle — He is the type in whom Religious discover God's unmistak- able approval of the state of life their rule prescribes. They find this type recognized and imitated in the Apostolic Church, consecrated by generations of saints, sanctioned by centuries of Christian teaching, rendered irresistibly winning by harmony with the noblest aspirations ever experienced by human souls. To obtain a definite and practicable means of imitating Christ's life is the ceaseless prayer of numerous hearts touched with the generous flame of Divine Love. For how many is it obtainable only by means of entrance into a Religious com- munity? How often does it happen that the young man or maiden, on fire with this inner sense of divine possibilities, can find contentment only in a shelter where the soul, " espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ " and freed from the trammels and clamor of other loves, can suppress carnal desires, can renounce possessions, can learn the lesson of the Cross in that "great- est of penances/' a life passed under a common rule. Surely, lovely chastity cannot but win the veneration of any mind honestly resolved to accept Christ's teaching as good for men. Indeed, it scarcely can fail by virtue of its own inherent charm to attract the souls of all who are capable of appreciating the real beauty of the supersensuous, of understanding the true poetry of love. Far beyond the wildest dreams of the young and romantic imagination are the sweet joys reserved for those who dedicate their lives to the cultivation of that hidden love born of the Creator's regard for his creature. As purity be- gets faith, so does renunciation of carnal delight prepare the soul for a spiritual relationship that cannot be described in words. To those who believe in the reality of the Incarnation, surely this higher life should appeal as a precious grace be- stowed upon chosen souls to set them peculiarly apart from things of earth and reserve them for the ineffable union of a love all spiritual and divine. Poverty, too, as an ideal can hardly offend any Christian who ponders the true meaning of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. He who has not learned that possessions weigh down the soaring spirit has not yet caught the significance of Christ's example, of his teaching to his Apostles, of his invitation to the rich young man. " Renounce all and thou shalt find all " Digitized by Google

Page 751

706 Religious Communities and their Critics. [Mar., is ever the law of progress in Divine Love. We must die to live : self-denial is the one path to the Heavenly Kingdom. And all those who have enjoyed the blessed privilege of actual renunciation — from Francis with his Lady Poverty down to the last and least member of the humblest of communities —can well understand why the Religious rule insists upon the practice of poverty as essential. THE IDEA OF OBEDIENCE. As to obedience, it may be true that this more readily than religious poverty and religious chastity becomes a rock of scandal to the opponents of community life. But how few of these thoroughly understand the ideal of obedience put forward as a model to which Religious should conform. Not infre- quently it is imagined that the subject substitutes the supe- rior's command for his own conscience and waives consid- erations of right or wrong when a thing is enjoined in the name of " holy obedience." The notion is monstrously false. Neither church law nor any community rule ever has sanctioned the idea that an individual ceases to be a responsible moral agent because under the jurisdiction of a superior. In abso- lutely every case it is understood that obedience is to be ren- dered salva conscientia — that is to say, a command never binds the subject when the latter's conscience pronounces the thing commanded to be contrary to the moral law. This graver charge apart, men have been led sometimes to contend that at least the practice of obedience is demoralizing and unmanly, that the habit of surrendering one's God-given freedom is likely to beget a servile character, and ultimately to produce a type little in conformity with proper and neces- sary independence. So men speak concerning obedience ; but we never find them maintaining that army discipline should be abolished as subversive of character. Perhaps a moment's re- flection will suffice to show that if all men were accustomed to the practice of something like religious obedience, it would be most advantageous to their own welfare and to the general good of society. As to the charge that the practice of obedi- ence may tend to damage individuality, dull personal percep- tion of moral issues, and substitute mechanism for spontaneity, in so far as it is justified, it proves merely that Religious still remain human beings and are subject to human infirmities. Obedience, it is true, when practised unintelligently, may vary in the inverse ratio with other virtues : still this is an evil in- Digitized by Google

Page 752

1901.] Religious Communities and their Critics. 707 evitable by the very nature of things and certainly not trace- able to the ideal taught by the approved masters of spiritual doctrine. The obedience of the Jesuit, for instance — proverbi- ally and correctly considered as the most extreme and absolute demanded in any Religious community — always supposes under- standing and agreement on the part of the subject. That lower species of unintelligent obedience — vulgarly stigmatized as 44 blind ' — is at most a practical necessity, never an ideal. It is required, moreover, not alone in communities but by the exigencies of every state of life, since it is quite patent that often subjects not understanding nor sympathizing with a supe- rior's commands must still in the interests of good order obey. Practically, this is all there is of 44 blind " obedience even in Religious communities, though there, indeed, a new and supernatural motive is substituted for that of practical need. But. at all events, the Religious ideal cannot be 4f blind obedience" in the sense described, for St. Ignatius, a final au- thority on the subject, has left on record his declaration that obedience is very imperfect unless the subject's personal judg- ment is in accord with that of his superior. Now, surely the practice of an obedience of this kind is well adapted to correct very common and unpleasant human weaknesses, and few men would be the worse for having voluntarily subjected them- selves to its salutary influence. REASONABLENESS OF VOWS. The foregoing indicates what might be called an unprejudiced 44 Gospel view 99 of those three virtues the practice of which constitutes the bone and sinew of Religious life. But as the vast majority of Religious bind themselves by vow to the prac- tice of the evangelical counsels, it is requisite to speak further concerning this feature which to some critics has given grave offence. For them the very name of vow is a stone of stum- bling, suggestive at once of middle ages, cloister dungeons, superstitious mummery, and blighted love. We may question, however, if the ground of their censure is in truth anything more than the imaginary connotation of a word. For a vow may recommend itself to their judgment easily enough when understood to be what it really is, an analogy in the super- natural order to a sworn contract in the natural. If a man in response to what he believes to be a divine invitation enters into a contract with God formally and solemnly as he would in the case of a human contract, has he done anything unbe- Digitized by Google

Page 753

708 Religious Communities and their Critics. [Mar., coming? Why should a soul not be espoused as firmly and irrevocably and publicly to the Divine Lover as to a human one ? And is it inconceivable that the soul thus wedded thereby gains a new title, so to speak, to the affection of Almighty God? Surely all this commends itself as perfectly intelligible and consistent to any one who has risen to that concept of Divine Love taught by Jesus Christ. Yet these truths are a logical justification for the Catholic notion of vows. A Reli- gious vow is a contract with God made by a man who thus binds himself solemnly to a perfect life — that is, to the pursuit of perfection. Ipso facto, therefore, a man with the three reli- gious vows is in a more perfect state, blessed with peculiar privileges and special graces. Such is the universal and tradi- tional Catholic teaching. Is it open to criticism ? Certainly not from the point of view of the Gospel. Any man who after prayer and counsel vows to God to practise those virtues which were characteristic of the God-Man's life, performs an act of extraordinary merit ; reason and the religious sense alike ap- prove Holy Church in setting the common life of such men apart and declaring it in name and privilege a superior state of life—/. what is technically known as " the state of per- fection/1 Does this mean that an individual is made perfect by virtue of an ecclesiastical formula ? Assuredly not ! A vow will not perfect — conceivably it will hurt — a soul that fails to put forth personal effort corresponding to its high vocation. The church does not teach that personal perfection of neces sity varies with the state, that the individual with vows is necessarily more perfect than the individual without. Personal perfection, it is needless to say, is personal. Aquinas speaks of imperfect persons inside and perfect persons outside "the state of perfection." The (personal) merit of obedience, says St. Catherine of Siena, is measured according to the love of him who obeys. It is idle, then, to attempt to press the charge that the Religious vows imply the church's sanction to a per- fection monopoly. The vows, as understood by Catholics, are very different from magical incantations or spiritual pass- words, they are the natural expression of a fervent love of God that sees in them its needed outlet and intends through them to make use of Divine grace in so effective a way as continually to advance toward perfection. We question if any fair-minded Protestant would assail the theoretical legitimacy of the Religious vows once their mean- ing is understood. At any rate an appeal to history should Digitized by Google

Page 754

1901.] Religious Communities and their Critics. 709 suffice to show that, like the practice of the evangelical coun- sels, the Religious vows themselves have been the badge of many of the most glorious figures that have dignified the human story. Benedict, Francis Xavier, Vincent de Paul are not the names of men who would have rendered greater ser- vice to humanity through the operation of a 44 Law on Asso- ciations." In truth, purity, sympathy, courage these men are models for all time, and it is but too modest a statement to assert that the spirit which is hostile to their chosen mode of life has yet to prove its own power to produce one single in- stance of symmetrically developed manhood superior to theirs. The Waldeck-Rousseau bill may or may not become a law. If rejected, it will occasion some slight though tardy respect for the judgment of France's statesmen. If enacted, it will begin another scene in the long series of persecutions against the Lord and against his anointed, — persecutions that assail now the Divine person, again his name, again his doctrine, his repre- sentatives, and his disciples. But the present writing will have served its purpose if it recalls and impresses upon any who otherwise might fail to perceive it the essentially impolitic, unethical, and unevangelical nature of present-day attacks upon men and women consecrated to God by vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Digitized by Google

Page 755

"Hail, Rabbi I" [Ma I. © traitor kiss ! more cruel thou art ThaH na,ls °f ipon> than 'ance mope keen: T^e crucifixion of j~|is heart, Its agony, albeit unseen. II. The Wounds that scowling hatred Wrought V^ith glory r\ovt are haloed bright — Thy Wound, like arrow's poison-fraught, Shall fester through eternal night III. Rabboni, I ha\?e called Thee friend And stood among Thy chosen few, And yet a traitor! In pity beqd <And n\y false heart With lo\te renew. WILLIAM P. CANTWELL. Digitized by Google

Page 756

«9°«0 Music as a Civilizing Agency. 711 MUSIC AS A CIVILIZING AGENCY. BY CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD. HO the musician it may seem a useless task to try to fix the actual value of music, for it is the element in which he lives and breathes, and appears to him as essential and fundamental as the atmosphere about him. But music as an art impinges upon the lives of thousands who are not musi- cians, and is of the deepest interest to them. Students of sociology, physicians, philanthropists, educators, and reformers find in music a problem which enters in greater or less degree into their chosen work, and as a problem they study its effects and try to fix its place in their particular vocation. The investigator in sociology discovers that music and civil- ization are inextricably interwoven. The philanthropist finds that the moral nature is wonderfully softened and uplifted by the divine mission of sound ; the educator proves from experi- ence its value in developing the senses and training the intel- lectual powers; and the physician, from time immemorial, has called upon music to aid him in alleviating diseased conditions. So we see that music has many values, and we may look at it, first, as a civilizing agency ; second, as having pathological and therapeutic value, and third, as intellectual. The intimate connection between music and civilization was recognized by the Greeks, who assigned to it really far higher powers than we do ; and this is a little singular, for music in its present development is distinctly a modern art, and we cannot help wondering at the marvellous power which their crude harmonies must have exerted upon them. If their cul- ture was as dependent upon music as Plato and Aristotle would have us infer, how much more should we expect from the superior development we have reached in the art ? This is an interesting question to consider. The modern ratio between music and civilization is by no means the same as it was with the Greeks, for they devoted at least three years to musical culture, while with us for long periods, centuries even, music has been used as a means of in- cidental recreation only, and never till quite lately with serious objects in view. , The study of sociology has gained immense impetus in the Digitized by Google

Page 757

7i2 Music as a Civilizing Agency. [Mar., past few years, and there are many who are quite willing to devote their lives to an investigation of the forces which go to make our civilization what it is. It does not follow that every epoch should surpass all preceding ones; we find that certain powerful agencies for culture have at one time been extensively used and at another entirely overlooked. Music has had this fluctuating value, and from the lofty pinnacle upon which the Greeks elevated it we find it sinking into dim obscurity for centuries, and only within the past half-century studied in re- lation to other forces. It is now generally conceded that music is an important factor- in culture, and no civilization can be carried very far upwards without presupposing a certain amount of culture. The development of the fine arts, which form the basis of cul- ture, must necessarily come after much preliminary work has been done, but when a nation has gone through the first stages of organization in practical and material growth it must look to art to give the final finishing touch. And the culture which is laid upon these enduring foundations will surely uplift and spiritualize a people. Now, what form of art, what ministry to the aesthetic sense, is so peculiarly the product of our own age as music ? It is easily available, universally loved, and within the compass of nearly ev$ry one. Ruskin most beautifully characterizes music as '*the nearest at hand, the most orderly, delicate, and per- fect of all pleasures ; the one most helpful to all ages, from the nurse's song to her infant to the music which so often haunts the death-bed of pure and innocent spirits." It is this wide range of influence which makes music so important a factor in culture. It humanizes every one it touches. Every system of government instinctively turns to music to assist it in strengthening its hold upon the people, but none stands in such need of music as a republic. Music unifies and harmonizes all the conflicting elements of a democratic society, and any culture which brings all classes together — for music knows no caste — must of necessity become a powerful force. We Americans need some such influence to harmonize the kaleidoscopic elements of our national life ; we need the gentle, humanizing effect of music to tone down our crudeness and angularity, and we need, above all else in our social life, more geniality, more of the "gospel of joy." The Puritan influence was so inimical to music that we have not yet recovered from its evil effects upon the national character. All art accomplishes this result, but music seems better adapted to the American Digitized by Google

Page 758

I90i.] Music as a Civilizing Agency. 7*3 character than any other form of art, and we have shown our affinity to this special form by the progress we have made in it. When we consider that we have only been a musical people for about fifty or sixty years, we may well feel pleased with the result. We owe to the Transcendental movement in Massa- chusetts the beginning of classical music in America, and it is significant that Emerson and Beethoven were studied and loved with equal ardor by those early enthusiasts for all that was noble, and free, and humanizing. Only a little later was the first Philharmonic Society established in New York, about 1848; then came the Oratorio Society in 1880, and in 1885 Dr. Damrosch established the Symphony Society. What strides we have made since we all know. We often speak of a Republic of Letters, but has no one ever thought of a Republic of Music ? What art or science can bring such varied elements into harmonious working order, or mould such heterogeneous factors into sympathetic unity as music? There is a constant danger lest a republic split up into sets or classes ; not the danger of anything permanent, like an hereditary class of nobility, but yet quite as deadening to the spirit of true democracy. Now, music takes no account of family or wealth, two danger-signals in our Republic, and by force of this bringing together all sorts and conditions of men and enlisting their deepest sympathies under the same banner it accomplishes a most important work in the progress of republican ideas. Professor Marshall, in a recent lecture on aesthetics before the students of Columbia College, said that " the function of art in the development of man was social consolidation." The aim of all sociological study is, of course, to organize social feeling. We know from experience that the education of the intellect alone is perilous, and the new science of criminology teaches that the principal cause of crime and anarchy is mere- ly perverted feeling. Music has become an efficient aid in the work undertaken by General Booth and the Salvation Army, and the power to arouse feelings of patriotism and altruism in the souls of the miserable submerged tenth through the hear- ing of patriotic and ennobling music is astonishing to one not acquainted with it. Music is being now used in all Reform Schools with the best effect, and I have the testimony of Mr. T. J. Charlton, superintendent of the Indiana Reform School for Boys, that " it is a very essential part of the work of re- formation." He says : " The experience of all workers among this class of boys is that it cheers the despondent and brings Digitized by Google

Page 759

714 Music as a Civilizing Agency. [Mar., sunshine into their lives." Another officer, who has had for years an average of fifty boys under his charge, says that "whenever he found that the boys were not as happy as they should be, he began by leading them in singing and kept it up till every one was feeling good." Mr. Charlton further says that it is a rule that the evenings shall be filled with song, and he considers that there is nothing that " takes hold of the soul like a song." What better testimony of the philanthropic value of music could be found? It is in the practical working of one's theories that proof should be sought, and a Reform School must be managed on the most practical of lines to suc- ceed at all. It is a most consoling reflection that the highest and most spiritual parts of us should be thought to have a practical value also. Society could not be sustained on the strength of intellectual combination alone ; the emotions must make the cohesive bond, and music is their natural organ of expression. Though the growth of the individual was never so free and un- trammelled, society was never so strongly welded together as in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the higher the social efficiency, the higher will be the development of the emotional nature. I would speak of a fact which none will surely deny, that our every day life, no matter what it may be, never calls forth the depths and profundities of our emotional natures. If we are deprived of art, we hunger for we know not what, till under the influence of the art to which we are most kin we expand, our souls glow, and we taste an ecstasy of emotion which lifts us entirely out of our usual plane of existence. It is good for human nature to realize its capacity to feel deeply, it engenders charity and broader understanding of others. It is an education in itself. In treating of the emotional value of music one must touch upon the objections of those who see harm resulting from the intensity of emotion aroused. Such intensity appears injurious to them, and they fail to recognize that it may become an im- portant factor in the development of character. Scientists have of late devoted much attention to a study of the value of training the emotions of the *very young, and they have observed that a certain atrophy results if the emotional life is stunted in youth. There must be a healthy outlet for the emotions in music, innocent dancing, and harmless spectacular exhibitions, else a perversion of these inborn tendencies results and crime follows in the wake. Must all emotion end in action of some kind? I think not; Digitized by Google

Page 760

I90i.] Music as a Civilizing Agency. 7i5 for there are many emotions which could not terminate active- ly, and they seem to me entirely legitimate. I hold that it is healthy to cultivate the emotions, and only those which ought to lead to the performance of some duty need to have action for an end. There is also a certain amount of self-knowledge which is arrived at through the listening to music, and it can be attained in no other way ; but it has nothing to do with the sickly sentimentalism of those who neglect the duties nearest to them. Civilization is not measured by the intellect only, and the moral and spiritual parts of man must be nurtured in order to progress. Wordsworth, who was not only a great poet but also a wise student of society, claimed that " no advance in civil- ization could be made till the moral nature was educated " ; and I note that England's greatest teacher, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, used this order in his theory of education : first, reli- gious and moral principles; second, gentlemanly conduct, and third, intellectual ability. Now, there is no stronger aid in de- veloping the religious and moral nature than music. I do not hold entirely with Ruskin in his assertion that " perseverance in rightness of human conduct renders after a certain number of generations human art possible, and sin, vicious living, and the following of pleasure all art impossible " ; but I feel deeply that right living or pure thinking blossoms into song, and that religion and morality sometimes find their highest expression in music. The emotional environment of a child is more important than the intellectual. This is also understood by philanthropists and social reformers, who seek to unite families and keep in- tact the home, and who strengthen their hold on the neglected classes through the avenue of emotion. Love and admiration have accomplished more than any text-book, and the intuitive groping after all that is beautiful, after music, pictures, uplifts more than any mental drill. What is true of society at large is true of the home. A community of intellectual tastes does not unify or hold to- gether the many elements of one household ; the coherence must be based upon the harmony of the emotional life, and love, which is the handmaid of the emotions, must be the tutelary genius. I know of no stronger agent in keeping the home life sweet and vigorous than music ; children and parents meet on a common ground, and as their voices blend and as the tones of their musical instruments mingle the bonds of mutual affec- tion and love are strengthened, differences of taste or dissimi- Digitized by Google

Page 761

716 Music as a Civilizing Agency. [Mar., larities of character are forgotten, and only the beautiful unity of the family remains. If music acted, as Mr. Haweis asserts, as a moral agent, the whole question of its influence could be put in a nut-shell ; but I do not consider music intrinsically moral or immoral any more than other art forms — painting, sculpture, or literature even. It lends itself to the expression of the moods of the musical creator, and is a medium, not a system of thought or an emotional habit. The value of music as a civilizing agent, broadly stated, is that it embodies ideas of pure beauty and appeals directly to the soul, and what cultivates and stimulates the spiritual part of man is more moral in its effects than any intellectual train- ing. If the thought of the creator is great, it will sink down into your soul in time and become your own method of conso- lation in grief and of exultation in joy. This is one of the most precious influences of music, and the more music is looked upon as a practical necessity of our lives, the more widely will it carry its beneficent message. Music is surely not made for the musician alone, it is not a mere ornament of culture, but should, and indeed if opportunity be given does, enter in- to the lives of all of us. Music is a universal language, "the Volapuk of spiritual being," as Oliver W. Holmes quaintly says, and every musician should feel it a duty and privilege to carry something of the sweetness and inspiration which he finds in his musical associations into the lives of those debarred from uniting with him. In England and on the Continent the philanthropic value of music is better understood. In Birmingham and Liverpool certain musical societies are in the habit of going once a week to the squalid parts of the city and giving concerts in the courts, and the practical good which they accomplish is so deeply impressed upon them that they have extended their sweet charity to other cities. But the highest ministry of music, higher than the recrea- tive or educational value, lies beyond the realm of sight and sound, and voices the longing of the human soul for the in- finite. It takes us out of the sordid and commonplace plane of every-day life into a world in which we dream and aspire; it lifts our souls towards God and becomes the medium of our highest religious reach. It makes us feel that in us too dwells a spark of divinity, and it gives us courage and hope and faith to carry this high aspiration into all the tasks of our daily lives. Digitized by Google

Page 762

igoi.] At the Bier of the Crucified. 717 AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED. BY ANNA SPRAGUE McDONALD. ADRE ANTONIO was walking along the smooth, white road which wound from his little sheep- fold of Branciano to Sorrento. This road was a narrow shelf hewn out of a high mountain : a tiny zone which divided all that was soft and rich and fragrant from all that was rough and harsh and stern. For above it rose groves of orange and of lemon-trees, now darkly outlined against a vivid sky. Below it was a sheer descent of horrent cliffs girt by the moody sea. This Branci- ano road was indeed lovely, with the beauty which Italy, the enchantress of the world, so lavishly reveals. But on this Holy Thursday evening Padre Antonio was wholly unmindful of the golden peace of the sea or the glory of the sky. Ah no! He was the watchful shepherd of Branciano and one of his cherished lambs had strayed. Assunta Wareham was the daughter of an English artist. As many have since done, her father married a peasant girl of Capri and made his home there. He did not live long ; so short a time, indeed, that Assunta did not remember him. Wareham was so poor that when he died his wife was not left even the little which would mean comfort to an Italian peasant. After a time the Signora Wareham married again. This second mar- riage was with one of her own class, 'Vanni Arelli, a fisherman of Branciano. When Assunta was fourteen her mother died, leaving sundry small Arellis to the care of their half-sister. That was two years ago. Until within six months Assunta had been apparently like all the other young girls of the ham- let, save perchance a shade more haughty and reserved. Yet this quiet exterior masked a strange and complex character; for Assunta was not the child either of one nation or of one class. From her peasant mother she inherited the fiery tem- perament of the South, but mingled with this were many char- acteristics transmitted from gentler forebears of another and different race. Her beauty too, which showed the same blend- ing of Italian and English traits, was of an altogether lovely type. VOL LXXII.— 47 Digitized by Google

Page 763

7i8 At the Bier of the Crucified. [Mar., That she was very fair Assunta did not dream. About her sixteenth -birthday, however, she was destined to be enlightened as to that and to many other things. For a young artist pass- ing on his way to Sorrento saw her, as among a group of Branciano girls she leaned against the gray old para- pet above the sea. He did not push on to Sorrento that evening because he found the inn at Branciano a most charming halting- place. 'Vanni's consent to allow Assunta to pose for the painter was quickly won. Was not the picture a Madonna? And— per Bacco! — the chink of lire was sweet music in a poor fisherman's ear. Assunta possessed one great gift be- side which even her picturesque beauty was as naught. It did not take the painter long to discover this. Then, day by day, he awakened dreams and ambitions in her heart such as only one from .the great world could. After a time, when Assunta closed her eyes at night she could not sleep; her tiny room, shared with several small Arellis, had become so grand a place. For, in the darkness, the rough chamber widened into a sumptuous hall where the seats were all of velvet and the walls heavy with rich gold. This glittering place was thronged with famous men and radiant women. But, though the central figure was only a slender girl, yet she kept that vast assembly en- The road was a nar- row shelf hewn out thralled, making all smile or weep as she of a high mountain." willed by the golden magic of her voice. How Assunta quivered with delight as she saw herself in the bright future her one great gift was to win! For had not " il signor pittore M said so ? Had he not told her there were many who would rejoice to train a voice like hers? Best of all, he himself would take care that some one of them should hear of her. Thus Assunta's pure and childlike heart, undream- Digitized by Google

Page 764

1901.] At the Bier of the Crucified. 719 was ing yet of love, nevertheless was filled with a passionate grati- tude and worship for the great and noble gentleman who was painting her as the Madonna. The affair might have turned out in various ways had not Branciano's shepherd been most zealous and watchful. Padre Antonio always looked rather askance at strangely garbed artists from far northern lands. But when one of his a model, his dis- like for painters in general be- came particu- \ lar. Assunta's " il signor pit- tore" was favor- ed with an ex- tra amount of suspicion. Be- cause, if there were a pet lamb in the fold of Branciano, that lamb certainly was Assunta. Padre Antonio more uneasy eve as he watched a yet marked chang girl. None other cared enough about her to observe that, little by little, she was becoming quite a different person. A radiant joy gleamed in her clear eyes and there was a brighter, through the steip cloisters. richer life in every movement. The old priest looked on silent- ly, prayerfully too, at the little drama of which he was the sole spectator. But the affair reached its climax one day when, ap- proaching the improvised studio, he heard Assunta singing. The painter had evidently taught her, for every now and again he spoke, correcting or praising. To the good priest's horror the child who had never sung anything more profane than a hymn was pouring forth, full passionately too, a love- song. How would all this end? the padre sadly wondered. Yet end it must, and soon. Digitized by Google

Page 765

720 At the Bier of the Crucified. [Mar., That evening the priest talked gravely and wisely to Assunta. She was angered beyond all bounds at the bare idea that this beautiful friendship should cease; a little wounded, too, that Padre Antonio did not understand it. Finding it quite useless to argue or to reason with Assunta, the priest betook himself to interview the painter. The latter was begin- ning to tire a little of Branciano. His picture was so far com- pleted that a model was no longer necessary. Then, too, he knew that a certain girl with a snug bank account and a not too pretty face was ill disposed to forgive any more follies on his part. This priest might prove dangerous were he given cause ' for anger, and ill news travels far. So perhaps it would be better to go away and to forget a little girl with a be- witchingly pretty face and no bank account. Thus, Padre Antonio found him surprisingly amenable. So when the good priest left the inn he was happy in the painter's assurance that he would soon leave Branciano. He kept his word. But unfortunately before he went away he wrote Assunta a touch- ing letter of farewell. He thought this the most comfortable method of leave-taking — it would prevent an awkwaid scene. In this note he gave rather undue prominence to Padre Antonio's share in his abrupt departure. So it was to this priest, whom she had always thought her friend, Assunta owed the shattering of her dream! Her dis- appointment concentrated into a bitter hatred of this padre who had snatched the golden future from her. God too, his Master, had been so hard, so cruel, to permit this great sorrow to encompass her. All the depths of her passionate, revenge- ful nature were aroused. Had she been wholly Italian her wrath might have been as short-lived as it was fierce. But she was not. To the fire of the South she added a grim tenacity of purpose and an obstinacy which, once excited, made a dangerous combination. So, when Assunta decided that she had spoken her last word to Padre Antonio, and had sung for the last time in the little church she would no longer enter, threats, commands, and entreaties were alike powerless to change her. Things went on in this way for some months, Padre Antonio gently striving to win the girl to calmer thoughts ; Assunta be- came ever more bitter and resentful. Many of the good dames of Branciano had long been jealous of Assunta's beauty, of her gentler birth, most of all of Padre Antonio's preference of her over their own far more attractive offspring. Now the Digitized by Google

Page 766

1901.] At the Bier of the Crucified. J21 "All the depths of her passionate, revengeful nature were aroused." girl's absence from church gave them a long looked for oppor- tunity to gossip. How much their sharp tongues, their avoid- ance, made the sensitive girl suffer, she alone could tell. Added to the neighbors' wasplike persecution was the greater trouble of losing her home. For, after Easter, her stepfather was to be married, and he had decided that Assunta must fend for herself when the second Signora Arelli was brought home. Padre Antonio was thinking of all these things as he walked along by the cliffs that Holy Thursday night. Rounding a portion of the road which followed the curves of a little inlet, he came suddenly upon Assunta. She was leaning over the Digitized by Google

Page 767

722 A 7 the Bier of the Crucified. [Mar., parapet, as she often did, gazing fixedly into the sea below. Roused by the sound of footsteps she turned, revealing a face which startled the priest, it was so miserable and so desperate. " Good evening, Assunta," said Padre Antonio. A fierce- ness crept into the girl's blue eyes and darkened them nearly to black. She neither answered nor seemed to hear. The priest continued gently: ' Tomorrow, my little one, at the burial of the Crucified, I hope, forgiving thy old padre what he did because he loved thee, thou wilt sing the 'Stabat'with the others. Ah, Assunta, for the love of the good God, who died this day, tell well His Mother's sorrow," The girl, angry enough at first, seemed lashed into a per- fect fury by the priest's pleading words. 41 Sing ! Neither for you nor for your procession," she answered. " Not for me, my child, but for the dear God," said the priest. 41 No, He too forsook me. Why should I use for Him the gift He has but mocked me with. I sing no more, neither for you nor for Him," she said decisively. The good padre was inexpressibly shocked and saddened, but felt helpless before the bitter fury of the girl. " My child," he said gravely, pray well that thy words may be forgiven thee. Are they not too harsh to reach His ear who, on this very night, in the olive garden, quaffed to the dregs for thee the chalice of all sin and bitterness ? Ah, Assunta, come back to Him!" Assunta was really touched by this last appeal and for a moment her better self almost triumphed. But the struggle was so brief that the waiting priest could not detect that there had been one. " No, is my answer, now and always," she said at last. Far into the night the padre kept adoring watch before the Tabernacle. There, too, he pleaded for his little song-bird, his poor strayed lamb, Assunta. Good Friday was bright and pleasant in Branciano. Throughout the little village a solemn stillness prevailed. The Mass of the Presanctified over, every inhabitant of the hamlet busted himself with the final preparations for the afternoon burial procession of the Crucified. Assunta alone was unoccupied. The scandalized neighbors soon ceased to question her, quailing before the flash of her English eyes. In fact, these eyes explained all Assunta's actions — for they were the outward sign of her heretical foreign Digitized by Google

Page 768

I90i.] At the Bier of the Crucified. 723 blood. Despite herself, it was with a strange feeling of pain that Assunta watched the others making ready. For she re- membered bygone years when, full of sorrow for the dear, dead Christ, sweeter than all the rest she had sung the " Sta- bat Mater." Looking at her companions she felt as an angel might who had fallen, when fell the .Son of the Morning ; who, through bitter pride had forfeited all right to heavenly things, yet whose doom it was to wander, an outcast, among the good and holy, ever seeing, never sharing in their j oy . Yet, in her pride and hatred As- sunta would not yield to gentler thoughts. She had chosen her path and she would keep to it — lead to what abyss it might. The church bell an- nounced that it was three o'clock, the hour at which, long years ago, the Re- deemer had rendered up His spirit. At this mo- ment the burial proces- sion set forth. The pious village folk bore an image of the Crucified from the little church to a chapel on the mountain side. There it was to lie en- tombed in memory of how the real body had rested in Arimathean Joseph's sepulchre. The cortege was to pass 'Vanni Arel- li's. All the household, except Assunta, had gone to follow in the proces- sion. She had determined to stand defiantly in the doorway while the villag- ers went by, knowing that nothing could more wound 0 . 41 She determined to stand at the door-way radre Antonio. while the villagers went by." Digitized by Google

Page 769

724 At the Bier of the Crucified. [Mar., At last, in the distance, Assunta heard Chopin's funeral march, wonderfully played, albeit the musicians were but sim- ple peasant lads. The band passed on. Then came the pro- cession proper, headed by the most prominent citizen of Bran- ciano. He wore the robe of the Misericordiae Brotherhood, which shrouds the wearer completely, leaving only the eyes uncovered. For centuries, in this sure disguise, prince and peasant alike have wrought noble deeds of mercy or repentance. The leader of Branciano's procession bore aloft the standard of the King — a golden crucifix. Surrounding this gleamed lighted tapers, carried by others of the Brethren. Then, three by three, came the remaining men of the village, all wearing the society's long, black robe. They went by slowly and rever- ently. Assunta watched them disdainfully. Not even the sight of the emblems carried had power to soften her angry heart. For, in each row of three, those on the outside carried can- dles, but in the centre, the post of honor, some emblem of the awful sufferings of the Crucified was borne. On rich cushions rested the pillar stained with His royal blood, the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear, even the cock which crew after the triple betrayal of the Lord. All these and many more went by ; yet still Assunta stood scornfully upright in the Arelli doorway. Now came Padre Antonio, his old and spiritual face rapt and solemn with this commemoration of the burial of the Most High. After him the acolytes, some with candles like the Brethren ; two with swinging censers of incense walked facing the bier. Under a magnificently embroidered canopy — the gift of some old-time prince — was borne the bier of the Crucified. Surrounded by burning tapers, strewn thickly with pallid lilies and fragrant roses, was a life-sized image of the dead Christ. It was start- lingly realistic with bloody wound-prints and thorn-crowned head. The face was turned towards Assunta. As she gazed upon that tortured figure something in her proud heart gave way. It seemed as if that pierced hand were raised in a bene- diction which dispelled all anger and all bitterness, leaving only her old-time faith and love. Sobbing, she fell on her knees as the bier with its sorrowful burden passed on. Back of the Crucified the village maidens bore a statue of His Mother, His first and greatest mourner. It made no dif- ference to Assunta that the Mater Dolorosa, displaying promi- nently a beautiful lace handkerchief, was stiff and ugly almost to grotesqueness. In her eyes, and in those of all the simple Digitized by Google

Page 770

1901.] At the Bier of the Crucified. 725 Branciano people, it was indeed the Blessed Mary, she who had so valorously stood at the foot of the cross. Now came the rest of the village girls and women, singing the " Stabat Mater." Richer and clearer rose the hymn as a new voice joined them. Far in front it reached the gray- haired shepherd, who humbly thanked the Crucified for the lost lamb which had come back. At a wide space in the road some carriages had halted to view what was, to most of the forestieri, a very unique sight. Some smiled, others with finer instinct divined beneath the quaintness of the procession something of its pathos, its spirit of great faith, its exquisitely reverential love. Presently a woman's harsh voice broke the courteous silence. "Ah! a miniature Seville," she exclaimed, shutting her lorgnette with a snap. To her it was only a curious spectacle, not half so well done as she had seen it in other lands. But hark! As the bier passed by there rose above the others a voice which hushed the most irreverent to silence, so heart- breaking was its pathos, so marvellously rich its tones : "Juxta Crucem tecum stare, Et me tibi s&ciare In planctu desidero." In the last carriage a woman leaned out, scanning the crowd of dark faced contadini, striving to discern whence came this wondrous voice. It did not take her long to discover Assunta. Arrange to stay here to-night," she ordered her astonished coachman. The procession was over. The sacred body had been left in its destined sepulchre, the mourning people had returned home. Padre Antonio was one of the happiest of men ; for since Assunta's heart was softened' toward the dear God all was well in his little parish. Some day, too, she would for- give him, and then there would be perfect peace within the fold. The door opened, and Ninetta, the housekeeper, ushered in Assunta. He had not time to greet her; she knelt too quickly at his feet. "Forgive me, padre mio," she whispered. The old priest laid his hand in blessing on the bent, dark head. " Forgive thee ? A thousand times yes, Assunta ! But, daughter, let us speak no more about the past ; let us look towards the brighter future." Yet even as he spoke he could see no brightness in store for this brilliant, lovely song bird. Digitized by Google

Page 771

726 At the Bier of the Crucified. [Mar., That night the good padre receiv- ed a very distin- guished visitor. The Contessa di Castelfiore b e- longed to a family so famous that even Branciano knew it well. It was she who had marked Assunta's singing of the " Stabat." The contessa was a musician of no mean talent her- self, yet liked best to be considered a patron of rising genius. Though eccentric in the extreme, she had deli- cately and tactfully aided many a strug- gling artist. Her faultless taste had discerned some rare qualities in As- the door of the ancient church, sunta's voice. So she spoke earnestly to the padre about the little peasant girl and her wonderful gift ; smoothing away difficulties here, persuading there, until the priest too became enthusiastic over the great plan. They arranged that, Assunta willing, she should be sent to a convent in Milan, there to have the best masters in Italy. She would be shielded among the white sisterhood until the time was ripe for her to go forth, a perfect artist, a perfect woman, to make the world a richer place with the rhusic of her voice. Every Good Friday a famous singer comes to Branciano. Her best of friends, the old, old Padre Antonio, still is there to greet her. She follows humbly, as of yore, the afternoon burial procession. This day is fraught for her with many memories, half sad, wholly tender. So it is the crowning privilege of her life that still her voice, the rarest in the world, may sing at the bier of the Crucified the plaint of Mary, His Mother. Digitized by Google

Page 772

igoi.] Hugo's Praise of Love. 727 HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P. ipBB§PBV5 I write these lines there lies on my table a vol- n ume which came from the printer's hands almost H£ H three hundred years ago. It is unwieldy in form pi |B and forbidding in appearance ; so truly forbid- JHSBSSSflli ding, in fact, that I confess I spent a considerable number of years under the same roof with it before summon- ing up courage to open its pages. The two covers of this old tome are leather-clad boards over half an inch thick, its frayed back discloses good-sized pieces of rope that secure its leaves, and on its edges are the remnants of two great brass clasps once used to shut out dust and book worms. On the fly leaf may be seen a few French and Latin lines in writing, browned by time, and traced doubtless by some hand long since withered into clay. Outside, the volume bears the legend : Hvgo De S. Victore Opera Tom I— II— III Now, except the name, none of the details above mentioned is peculiar to this volume. It has been described here not on account of any interest attaching to its individual appear- ance, but as a type of a class of books too little known by the modern reader. Hugh, or Hugo, of St. Victor, the man whose name this volume bears, was but one of many dis- tinguished theologians who flourished during the middle ages, and we have here chosen to make special mention of his works simply because a text of his is translated below. And the text itself has been selected not so much in order to insist upon any peculiar value attaching to |it, but rather that the reader may find in its style and sentiment an instance of what was very common among the spiritual writings of the scholars who pioneered the university movement in Europe. The glow of our author's fervent piety and the simple grace of his lan- guage are lost, of course, in the translation, but still it is hoped that the reader may be able to discern the real holiness Digitized by Google

Page 773

728 Hugo's Praise of Love. [Mar., and sweetness that poured out of the heart of this mediaeval monk, and may realize, too, that he is but a specimen of a countless number of men " who, ages ago, felt, and suffered, and renounced, in the cloister perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness." Hugh, who was a member of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine during the first half of the twelfth century, lectured in the school of the Abbey of St. Victor outside the walls of Paris. Among the works of his preserved to us there is one little treatise written in the form of a letter to a friend. It is the English translation of this which we present to the reader. Though the volume published under Hugh's name contains a great many works falsely attributed to him, the genuineness of the little treatise, De Laude Charitatis, is perfectly certain and questioned by none. So sweet is its sentiment and so touch- ing its language, that it has met with general admiration, win- ning words of praise even from Robert Vaughan and similar spirits, little inclined to sympathize with a representative of Catholic mysticism. Hence the booklet seems to deserve trans- lation into English for the sake of numerous and appreciative readers not in a position to use the original. At the least it may serve as a morsel to impart the savor common to a great mass of mystical literature still awaiting the adventurous spirit who will explore the ancient writings of the Ages of Faith. The original text of the treatise covers just two sides of the immense page on which it was printed. In this present form the size is increased, though in a lesser degree, no doubt, than the beauty is diminished. However, the trans- lator has done his best to reproduce the spirit of the original. He feels bound to confess that this endeavor has necessitated quite frequently a very free translation, and that verbal accu- racy has been foregone to a great, though it is to be hoped not to an unpardonable, extent. PROLOGUE. To Peter, the servant of Christ, from Hugh. Taste ye and see that the Lord is sweet? While I was considering, dearest brother, how to excite your love to a remembrance of me, suddenly it came into my *Ps. xxxiii. 9. Digitized by Google

Page 774

I90i.] Hugo's Praise of Love. 7*9 mind that as I was seeking from you only the gift of love, I ought to write to you of love itself. This, then, I have done, in the best fashion I could, using the choicest words at my command, so that in reading love's praises, you may learn both how ardently I cherish it in you, and how earnestly I seek it from you in return. Nor should your love be angry with me if, — it being most fervent and I myself but lukewarm, — I add my little breath of words; for this I do not so much that your love may grow more lively, but rather that in my endeavor you may recognize my wish. Read, then, and love : and what you read for love's sake, read with this intent that you may grow in love. Thus will r all be done through love. Love sends: love accepts. Love is given: and 'tis love which is paid back again. A LITTLE BOOK IN PRAISE OF LOVE. Love hath already so many to commend it, that if I begin to speak in its praise, this may seem to arise from presumption rather than devotion on my part. For, since the beginning of the world, what saint ever lived who failed to exhibit love in pleasing guise either by word or by deed ! Love made Abel a martyr * : love made Abraham leave his own country \ ; for by reason of love the former, though innocent, suffered death, and the latter, with readiness, forsook his native land, both of them through love exchanging earth for heaven. Love alone, since the beginning, ever persuadeth the servants of God to fly the seductions of this world, to tread pleasure under foot, to restrain fleshly concupiscence, to subdue desire, to despise honor, — in a word, to spurn all the allurements of this present existence, and to brave death for the sake of eternal life. Paul had felt this spell of love when he said: Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation f or distress ? or Jamine ? or nakedness ? Or danger ? or persecution f or the sword ? . . . For I am sure that neither death, nor life, Nor angels nor principalities nor powers: Nor things present, nor things to come. Nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, Shall be able to separate us Jrom the love of God Which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.% *Gen. iv. 8. t lb. xii. i. \ Rom. viii. 35. Digitized by Google

Page 775

730 Hugo's Praise of Love. [Mar., Hence, in the Canticle of Canticles, the Spouse reminds the Beloved of the power of love, saying: Put me as a seal upon thy hearty As a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death, Jealousy as hard as hell* Because death putteth an end to the living, and hell spareth not even the dead : but love is strong as death, since as death destroyeth the fleshly sense so love killeth the longing of fleshly lust: jealousy is hard as hell because it constraineth those who are inwardly drawn by desire of eternal goods not only to spurn pleasure outwardly, but even to bear hard and bitter things for the sake of seeing the object of their love. And now let us consider how many martyrs have passed through torments into the Kingdom of Heaven. Since then, for God's sake these spared not themselves, how ardently must love have burned within them. Let us consider what they gave up, what they sought after, and the way they took. What they gave up we perceive, what they sought after we believe rather than see, what way they took we have heard. They gave up earthly goods, they sought after things eternal, they took their way through torments. Let us search our hearts and discover if it would please us to give up all the goods of this world, to love neither glory, nor honor, nor riches, not to be pleased at good fortune, nor to delight in flattery, nor to be gladdened by happiness. Lord, thine eyes have seen my imperfect being.\ What a distance am I — I will not say from such perfection, but — from the very first beginnings of perfection ! To the friends of God it seemed little enough that for the love of things eternal they should despise and trample under foot lesser goods. Thrusting all aside, they let themselves be held back neither by threats nor torments. Love was drawing them, wherefore no desire withdrew them ; neither did hard- ship frighten them. So they hastened on, the world behind them, and before them God. Torments, however, were inter- posed that they might be tested as to the constancy with which they would despise the one, and the fidelity with which they would pursue the other. Truth was tested, love vindi- cated, iniquity confounded. Fearlessly they came to suffer; *Cant. viii. 6. t Ps. cxxxviii. 16. Digitized by Google

Page 776

igoi.] Hugo's Praise of Love. 73i and in the same measure that love had wounded the soul in- wardly the flesh despised its outer wounds. They approached : they passed away : and dying, they shewed with what desire they had hastened on while alive. O Love, how delicious wert thou to them ! how sweet to those whom thou didst constrain to bear such things for thy sake! With what cords hast thou drawn those who could not be lost to thee, though the world sought to allure them with pleasures and to frighten them with torments! Because of thy drawing they hastened on ; through thy help they kept their way ; and they reached their goal by reason of thy support. How unquenchably didst thou burn in their hearts since neither praise, reward, nor suffeting could abate thee ! These things like floods swept in upon thee— but many floods and much water could not drown love. O Love, what shall I say of thee? How shall I praise thee? If I had tasted thee, then I could value thee. If I knew thy worth, then might I put a price upon thee. But, perchance, thou art too great for my littleness, nor is thy price within my reach. Still, what I have I will give, — all that I have I will give. All the substance of my house will I exchange for thee. All within this house of my body, all within this house of my heart, I will give for thee, and when I have given all I will count it as nothing. All the delights of my flesh, all the pleasures of my heart, will I exchange for thee, gladly, that I may have thee alone, possess thee alone. Thou alone art dearer to me than all mine own, thou alone better for me, thou alone sweeter, thou alone more pleasant, delighting me more abundantly, satisfying me more fully, sav- ing me more surely, more happily preserving me. To others, also, I will speak of thee. Tell me, O Heart of Man, wouldst thou prefer to rejoice always in this world, or always to be with God? Whichever pleaseth thee best, that choose. Hearken then, that thou mayest either correct thy liking, or mayest choose at once. If this world is lovely what, thinkest thou, must be the beauty where- in the world's Creator dwelleth ? Love then, that thou mayest be able to choose ; love more fervently, that thou mayest be able to choose more happily ; love God that thou mayest be able to choose God. For 'tis by loving that thou dost choose. And the more strongly thou lovest anything the more quickly dost Digitized by Google

Page 777

732 Hugo's Praise of Love. [Mar., thou desire to come to it, and the greater thy haste to attain it. By love, therefore, thou dost hasten, and by love also thou dost attain. So likewise, the more fervently thou dost love, the more eagerly dost thou embrace. By love, too, thou dost enjoy. See then how love is all to thee ; it is the choice, it is the way, it is the attainment, it is the dwelling-place and the happiness thereof. Love God, then, choose God, take hold of, possess, and enjoy God. Now, then, sayest thou, I have made choice : which way must I take in order to reach the goal ? By the way of God, one reaches God. But, sayest thou, I cannot travel alone upon a strange way ; let me have companions lest I miss the road. With those who run in the way of God, do thou also run the way of God. Better companions on the road thou canst not well have than those who already have traversed it, and who, through long custom and constant care, fear neither going astray nor growing weary. Which then, sayest thou, is the way of God, and who are they that run therein? Straight are the ways of the Lord, and the upright walk in them. Uprightness, then, is the way, and it is the upright who run in the way. But lest it should trouble thee that at one time I say they walk and at another that they run, remember that to walk quickly is the same as to run. Thus it was with him who said : / have run the way of thy commandments* and again : Blessed are the unde filed in the way + Who walk in the law oj the Lord. For here to run means the same as to walk. Otherwise we should have the Psalmist declaring himself more blest than the Blessed, since he would be running whilst they were only walking. Thou hast then a way, thou hast companions, thou hast an inheritance awaiting thee in thy fatherland. Thou hast that wherein to travel, those with whom to travel, a goal, and, at last, a resting-place. That wherein to travel is uprightness: those with whom to travel are such as love and pursue virtue : thy goal and thy resting-place is .the Author of Virtue and the Fountain of Life. A straighter way than virtue there is * Ps. cxviii. 32. t lb. cxviii. x. Digitized by Google

Page 778

I90i.] Hugo's Praise of Love. 733 none ; nor is any company better than that of the upright ; and no rest is more tranquil than God. Go on then, safely, go on quickly, that thou mayest speedily attain and happily rest. To go quickly means to love ardently. See then, how all thy good dependeth on love. By love thou dost choose the way, by love hasten along, by love reach thy home country. Wouldst thou know how it is by love alone that thou dost choose the way? Saith the Lord : If any one love me He will keep my word* And of this same word of his, it is said elsewhere : Thy word is truth.\ And again, saith the Psalmist : / have chosen the way of truth ; Thy judgments I have not forgot ten.\ If then, the way of the Lord is truth, the way of truth is chosen by that love whereby the word of the Lord is kept. Love then, chooseth the way of virtue. Hearken to another testimony of the Psalmist taken from the very same passage quoted above : / have run the way of thy commandments When thou didst enlarge my heart % For what else is an enlarged heart but a heart serving with af- fection, a heart filled with love ? By love then, is the heart enlarged, and, the heart being enlarged, one runs the way of virtue. By love therefore, thou dost choose, by love run, by love attain and enjoy. Saith the Apostle John: God is Love: And he that a bidet h in Love Abidcth in God, And God in him. \ He therefore that hath love, hath God, possesseth God, abideth in God. 0 Good Love, whereby we delight in God, choose God, run in God, attain to God, possess God. What shall I say further of thee, O Love? 1 have called thee a guide in the way of God ; what if I call thee the very way of God itself ? As indeed, O Love, * John xiv. 23. f lb. xvii. 17. % Ps. cxviii. 30. § lb. cxviii. 32. 1 1 Ep. John iv. 16. VOL. LXXII.— 48 Digitized by Google

Page 779

734 Hugo's Praise of Love. [Mar., thou art the way. But not as other ways, art thou the way ; for saith the Apostle Paul : And I shew unto you a yet more excellent way* And he spoke of thee, 0 Love. For truly thou art a way ex- celling all ways, a transcendent way making good the crooked ways and showing the straight ways. Thou art the head of the straight ways, for all ways that are straight start out from thee and all lead back to thee. Thou are the plenitude of justice, the fulfilling of the law, the perfection of virtue, the acknowledgment of truth. Therefore art thou the way, O Love. And what kind of a way? One supremely excellent, supporting, guiding, and conducting. Whose way ? Man's way to God, and God's way to man. O blessed way ! alone fit for the business of our salvation. Thou leadest God to man ; thou guides^ man to God. He descended thee when he came to us, we ascend thee when we go to him. He cannot come to us, nor can we go to him but by thee. Thou art the go-between, reconciling enemies, uniting the divided, and in some measure equalizing those so very unequal, lowering God, raising us, drawing him into the depths, lifting us upon the heights, — in such manner, however, that his descent is not ignoble but rather gracious, and our elevation, though glorious, is not vain. Great strength, then, hast thou, O Love. Thou alone couldst draw God down from Heaven to earth. Oh, how strong is that power by means of which God could be bound and man, though in fetters, could break the bonds of iniquity ! I know not if in praise of thee I can tell anything greater than thy drawing of God from heaven and thy raising of man to heaven from earth. Great is thy might, since by thee God has been brought so low as this and man has been raised so high. I behold God, born of a woman, a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, weeping in a cradle, sucking the breast : again I see him seized, bound, scourged, crowned with thorns, spat upon, fastened with nails, lance-pierced, given to drink of vinegar and gall, bearing first insults and then torments, — and still if I seek the cause of this condescension and this patience I find naught but love alone. O Love, great is thy might ! If with God thou hast been thus powerful, how much greater influence wilt thou have upon man ! If for man's sake, God bore so much, what will man not bear for the sake of God ! But, perhaps, it is easier to *I. Cor. xii. 31. Digitized by Google

Page 780

igoij Hugo's Praise of Lovf. 735 conquer God than man, and thou canst less readily overcome man than God ! for as subjection to thee is more perfect, so is it more proper to God. This thou knewest full well when thou didst overcome him first in order the more easily to con- quer us. While we were still rebellious against thee thou didst compel him to leave his dwelling-place in the Father's majesty and in obedience to thee take upon himself our mortal weaknesses. Thou didst lead him bound in thy fetters, thou didst lead him wounded by thine arrows, so that man, seeing thee triumphant even over God, might be ashamed to resist thee longer. Thou hast wounded the Invulnerable, bound fast the Unconquerable, drawn down the Changeless One, made the Eternal mortal. All this thou hast done to melt our hard hearts and move our sluggish sympathies, that being aroused from our apathy we might be pierced the more readily by thy darts. Nor hast thou labored in vain, for thus have many been conquered by thee, already many have surrendered to thee, many now bear thy darts in their bosoms and wish to have them fastened even more deeply therein. Sweetly and deliciously have they been wounded, and they are neither grieved nor ashamed at having received thy blows. O Love, how great a victory is thine ! First thou didst wound but One, and then, by means of him, thou didst conquer all. I have praised thee as best I could, O Love, and now I wonder greatly if there still remains something even better to be said in thy praise. For I know not which is greater : to say thou art God or that thou hast overcome God. But which- ever is greater, that I will say of thee, willingly and fear- lessly. God is Love And he that abide th in Love A bidet h in God, And God in him* Listen, O Man ! and lest you should think that it is but a trifle to have love, hear this: that God is love. Is it a trifle to have God dwelling within thee? Well, to have love means that, for God is love. This privilege of being called God and of being God is proper to love alone and can belong to no other. For we never say God is humility, or God is patience, though we do say God is love : because while every virtue is * I. Ep. John iv. 16. Digitized by Google

Page 781

1 736 Hugo's Praise of Love. [Mar., a gift of God, it is peculiar to love to be not only God's gift but God himself. But love is the gift of God for this reason, that God gives his Holy Spirit to the faithful; and is God himself for this reason that this same Spirit is co-eternal and consubstantiil in divinity with him by whom it is given. God therefore, bestows other gifts even on the reprobate, but he keeps love, as his own self, to be a reward unto those whom he cherishes. Love, then, is a private fountain, where no stranger may drink: for, as was said, though other graces are bestowed sometimes even on those estranged from God by sinful lives, love can never be possessed by the wicked, he that pos- sesseth love being now no longer a stranger to God, but abiding in God and God in him. So close is love to God that where love is not, he himself refuseth to abide. He saith : Ij any one lovetk me, he will keep my word, And my Father will love him And we will come to him And will make our abode with him.* If then, love be thine, God cometh to thee and abideth with thee. If thou takest leave of love, he likewise taketh leave of thee, and stayeth not near thee. If love hath never been thine, God hath never come to thee, nor abided with thee. If thou hast given up thy first love, then hath God with- drawn from thee. If thou hast been steadfast in thy first love, then is God with thee and stayeth near thee. Love healeth every weakness of the soul. Love rooteth up all vices. Love produceth all virtues. Love illumeth the mind, purgeth the conscience, gladdeneth the soul, sheweth God. Pride doth not puff up the soul wherein love dwelleth, neither doth jealousy ravage it, nor anger lay it waste, nor melancholy tease it, nor greed blind it, nor gluttony inflame it, nor lust stain it ; but rather it is always pure, always chaste, always quiet, always joyous, always peaceful, always kindly, always modest, in adversity safe, in prosperity temperate, despising the world, clinging to God, making all goods its own by loving them, and gladly bestowing its own goods upon all, neither fearing want, nor solicitous about wealth. * John xiv. 23. Digitized by Google

Page 782

190 1.] Hugo's Praise of Love. 737 Since it belongs to God, love is ever pondering on the moment when it will reach God, when it will depart from this world, when it will escape from further scandal, when it will find true peace. The heart is always lifted up and the longing raised on high. Whether moving about or resting, whether busy or quiet, the heart, whatsoever it is doing, never with- draweth from God. When silent it thinketh upon God, when conversing it would speak only of God and the things that pertain to the love of God. In exhorting others to love it setteth itself on fire. To all it praiseth love, shewing not by words alone but by deeds too, how sweet is the love of God, how bitter and unclean the love of this world. It mocketh at the glory of this world, it chideth care, it sheweth the folly of trusting in things that pass away. Much it marveleth at the blindness of men who cherish these things, wondering that all have not learned long ago to despise what is perish- able and fleeting. It believeth that whatever is savory to it- self is sweet to all, that whatever it liketh is pleasant to all, that whatever it discerneth is plain to all. By such-like tokens doth love betray its presence, distinguishing those in whom it dwells, not only inwardly in the will, but outwardly also, in speech and carriage. And now that so much hath been told of love, still some- thing remaineth unspoken : for, in truth, we ought to say more than well can be said. What then, O Good Love ! O Dear Love ! what could I have said worthy of thy merit ? Verily, after those great praises given thee by the ancients, my littleness would in nowise have presumed to add anything were it not that enough can never be said of thee. Flow into us then, O sweet and delicious Love! Enlarge our hearts, expand our desires, distend the bosom of our minds, widen the dwelling place of our hearts to receive God, guest at once and householder. Let our one only Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus Christ, infuse and diffuse thee in our hearts through the Holy Ghost, so that together with the Father, he himself, the Son of God, may deign to come to us and make his abode with us; who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth God for ever and ever. Amen. Here Endeth The Little Book. Digitized by Google

Page 783

By (Salva^y. BY MICHAEL EARLE. HEN, Lord, thy whip traced shoulders took that load. Our saving wood, What joy was mine, in chancing on the road Where Simon stood, To read what boundless patience lit thy face, And speed unto thy side to share a place." "Ah, child, the cross owns no restricted path, Nor certain years ; For yesterday, marked by thy brother's wrath, And stung by jeers, Thy arm's reply went not, thy curse was stayed, And, lo, my burden felt thy love's sweet aid." " But love it were, O Lord, that veil to hold, Whose cool embrace So fair impressed within its gentle fold Thy tender face, And, like Veronica, again to greet Thy look bathed from the noontide's dust and heat." " E'en so, my child, thy hands were on that veil, When lone last night, Upon thy errant past, sin's misty trail, There shone a light ; Then in My name thy tears' resolve was said, To leave thy soul's dead past unto the dead." " Yet, Lord, one kiss upon thy nail-bound feet, One look of thine, Large freighted with forgiveness, spirit sweet With love divine ; And then one prayer, e'en though a thief's it be, 'This day above, O Lord, remember me.'" " Then patience, child ; thy head is near the cross, Thy kiss is made, When gain heart lifting, or despairing loss, When light or shade Upbuilds thy soul's perfection, calling Me, Before my Father, to remember thee." Digitized by Google

Page 784

A Modern Martyrdom. 739 A MODERN MARTYRDOM. BY SARA F. HOPKINS. T was a summer's day strayed into late October. The whistles of the two big mills in White- fields had blown the after-dinner recall but half an hour ago. The sunshine that flooded the little sitting room of the rectory was still of a midday potency to excuse the shirt sleeves of stout, massive Seth Miller, the mason and builder, and his constant mopping of his flushed face and bald head, as he sat in conference with the slender, pale young priest of the parish, Father Morris, as the Irish por- tion of his flock and Protestant Whitefields called him. The two were alone in the room, and Father Morris was struggling to compress into uniformity and symmetry a fat sheaf of bank bills he had just counted over twice under the eyes of his com- panion ; the second time because the latter had declined to enumerate them himself. "It is a good job done," Father Morris said, as he slipped elastic bands about the finally tidied bundle, and slid it across the table to the overheated giant; " and I hope it's done for the next fifty years. In that case Holy Souls' parish needn't grudge the twenty* one hundred dollars its new cemetery has cost, though I know the people find fault that it was planned on so large a scale, and we all know that it 's been a long pull and a hard pull to raise the money. I 'm thankful to give it to you at last in full, and I cannot say how grateful both my predecessor, Father Nugent, and I have felt for your patience in waiting for your payment. I hope you have n't been too patient, for you know you could have had a few hundreds on account almost any time you had wished for them." " Yes, yes, I knew that. Father Nugent told me that at the start; but from the first I'd kind of settled it in my mind that I 'd do without this money, if I could, and have it at the end in a lump. You see I knew 'twas safe to wait ; and I 've been earning other money straight along, because Father Nugent and you 've let me take my time over the job, and put my men and teams on it between spells of other jobs that had to be hustled. I guess the accommodatin' ain't been all Digitized by Google

Page 785

740 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar., on my side. And now I expect it would seem pretty mysteri- ous to anybody that just knows me in public, so to say, and that I must have earned a good deal of money in my time, and that I 'm a very plain man without expensive habits, to be told that this sum, that I 'm going to take straight to the bank, is the very first I could ever deposit calculatin' to have it stay, and not forecastin' any occasion to draw upon it either for my family or my business. Sixty-five 's rather old to be puttin' away the first nest-egg of savin's, but I don't know as I could do much better, set me back forty years. It cost a good deal to settle my father's estate and keep the old home- stead ; and I 've had eight children to rear and see 't they should have the schoolin' and some of the advantages I missed and have always hankered after. I can't give them fortunes; but they're good children, not a black sheep amongst them, and except my blind daughter they're all doin' well for them- selves." "You've given them better than fortunes," Father Morris answered heartily. 44 According to what I've been told, you 've trained your children to be a blessing in any community. As for your old homestead, it 's the show-place of the town for its trees and flowers." 44 I own I 've taken a heap of comfort tinkerin' at it," Mr. Miller said. 44 My wife declares sometimes that I d spend my last dollar for a new rose, or a shrub from Japan ; but she don't allow anybody else to say it. I heard her figurin' it out to one of the boys one day, that father never took a glass of spirits, nor smoked, nor had a vacation, nor took a trip any- where unless 'twas on business; that he wasn't much of a hand for politics, and that she was thankful he 'd got somethin' out- side of his work to take such interest in. Well ! well ! " rising slowly, 44 1 'm only hindering you, and I must be getting down to the bank. I hope your church folks '11 get reconciled to the size of their cemetery. 'T won't be any too big, give it time enough ! Good day, Father Morris." 44 Good afternoon,'' Father Morris answered, and then, his eye catching the packet of bills held uncovered in the con- tractor's hand, 44 Why, surely, Mr. Miller, you 're not going to carry your money like that? Wait a moment, and I '11 find a wrapper for it"; and, springing up, the priest turned toward his desk near the window. 44 No, no, never mind, father," Mr. Miller interposed hastily; " it's all right. There! I '11 fold it in this newspaper, and slip Digitized by Google

Page 786

iQOi.] A Modern Martyrdom. 74i it into my coat. At this time o' day I sha'n't meet anybody between here and the bank ; and if I do, nobody 'd guess Seth Miller 'd got his savin's of a life-time slung over his arm ! " And with another friendly "Good day " he was out of the room, and presently Father Morris saw him walking down the narrow board walk to the street, going circumspectly, with characteristic care not to bruise a flower or tendril from the borders of gay annuals that overflowed in masses upon the walk. It was but little more than a half-hour later when Father Morris was roused from work at his desk by the sound of heavy running along the quiet road, the violent bursting open of the rectory gate, and the crash of its closing, flung from the impatient hand of some one plunging reckless footed up the walk. The contractor back again ! and such a figure of mazed haste that the priest himself went hurriedly to the door to let him in. Miller did not speak, but strode forward into the sitting-room, glanced swiftly about it, then dropped, spent, upon a seat. The priest looked at him, and went into his dining- room, whence he quickly returned with a glass of water. "You are not built for racing in such heat as this, Mr. Miller," he said as the latter drank from the glass. "No," Miller said, briefly; then, after a minute, " that 's •better. I didn't run very far. My money, Father Morris — you have n't found it here ? When I got to the bank, and had un- folded my coat and opened the newspaper, the bundle of bills was gone! I hadn't met a creature between this and the bank, nor seen a living soul anywhere except old Dan Powers, asleep in his hammock, so I made sure that if I came straight back on my tracks I 'd find the bundle on the sidewalk, where it had worked out of the paper and coat with the motion as I walked, and dropped ; but not a sign of it ! I didn 't meet any- body as I came back, and old Dan is still asleep, so I hoped the packet had slipped out here, before I got out of the house, and that it would be the first thing my eyes would light on in this room, and it floored me when I saw that it wasn 't here, and that you knew nothing about it." "I sat down at my desk when you left," Father Morris said, "and only rose from it to let you in, and no one else has been in the room. You must have overlooked the package along the road somewhere. How could it really disappear in such a short time, when apparently you have been the only person stirring ? There are only four houses the whole distance, Digitized by Google

Page 787

742 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar, one of them empty now, and nobody 's at home at this hour except the mothers of the families, the babies, and old Dan, who but just hobbles about with a crutch, and he was asleep, you say. If you 've got your breath again, I '11 go back with you, and we'll search the ground thoroughly." Miller rose at once, and they passed out of the house, the priest throwing wide open the outer door so that every inch of the small hall could be scrutinized at a glance. "Let us begin just here at the steps," he said; *'you take one side of the walk and I '11 take the other, and we '11 hunt these flower-beds carefully." They reached the gate — nothing, and turned down the walk the contractor had gone, the one on the opposite side of the road from the four houses. The houses were well separated from each other by orchards and bits of garden ground. Not a depression, not a gully, not a tuft of grass, not a patch of weeds, not a bush at either hand of the uncared-for walk, that escaped keen inquiry; but no bundle of bank bills, a little fortune in country reckoning, was forthcom- ing. In the first two houses they came to, the solitary woman in each had been too busy to take any note of the road. The third was vacant, having been sold within the month for debt. It had belonged to Dennis Powers, old Dan's drinking, dis- reputable oldest son, and was built with the money of the young fellow's wife. The wife, happily for herself, died at the birth of her first child, a toddler now between two and three years. They found him asleep in the hammock at the next house, old Dan's. The grandfather too, old from disease and decrepitude rather than years, was there, smoking his pipe in a chair alongside. The old man had seen no one going by in the road, but "shure a procession might have wint, for he'd tuk more than his forty winks trying to read the paper in the ham- mick just after dinner." Searching every foot of the way, the two men reached the entrance of the bank building, and the earth might have opened and swallowed the bundle of notes for all trace they could find. They talked with sympathizing bank officials, old, warm friends of Miller's, and it was at the suggestion of one of these that the contractor called in the constable and, reinforced by him, the two retraced what was becoming for Miller, at any rate, a " main-travell'd road," seeking the lost packet over a preposterous width of area till the quest ended fruitlessly and in utter perplexity at the sitting room of the rec- tory. The constable examined this latter carefully, asking only Digitized by Google

Page 788

1901.] A Modern Martyrdom. 743 " Is everything here exactly as it was when Mr. Miller left the first time, Father Morris?" " Precisely/' returned Father Morris, " except that now my desk is open." "I was sorry you asked that question of Father Morris," Mr. Miller said to the constable as they walked back to the main street. "The money's gone through my fool trick of carrying it as I did, but Father Morris knows no more where it went than I do. He wanted to get me a proper envelope, but I would n't have it." " Well, I hope he 's all right, but you know there 's some folks will think this business might easily have an ugly look for him," the constable replied. " I suppose so, but they need n't advance any such theory to me," Miller said with some emphasis. " I 'm no detective, but if there's a better man in this town than that young fellow, I 'm as much out as I ever was in my life." The news of Seth Miller's loss was all over Whitefields be- fore sunset, and for many days was the subject of hot discussion wherever a knot of people gathered. To have lost even fifty dol- lars would have been an event in the country village, where everybody knew everybody else by sight, name, or repute, if not personally, and where serious crime and criminals were un- heard of ; but for a sum like that which vanished from Millers slack guardianship to disappear, leaving no faintest clue— White- fields was lost over the puzzle. And it was not strange that in a New England village, even in the earliest talks over the mystery, there should be some to suggest darkly that the Catho- lic priest could clear it up if he would ; for in the circum- stances, where could the package have dropped, to evade almost instantaneous search, save ' in his house? Had Father Nugent been the priest involved, his years of life and labor in Whitefields would have shielded him from suspicion in many minds, but who knew anything reassuring about his lately installed successor? From evil hint to open remark, 41 Guess the new priest up there knows pretty well where Miller's money is ! " was not long, and as weeks, months passed, and the problem was still unsolved, the sinister impression spread, deepened, and Father Morris was practically boycotted by Prot- estant Whitefields. He was omitted from every meeting, and function wherein his predecessor had been invited to take part ; not a social courtesy was extended him. Most of the people Digitized by Google

Page 789

744 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar., with whom he came in business contact made the contact brief, and treated him with cool or scant ceremony, the ruder sort, indeed, with rank incivility. One sweet drop there was in his bitter cup: Seth Miller could never be brought to admit a doubt of his innocence, and never let slip an occasion to show him respect, or do him a kindness. As for his parish- ioners, while they indignantly resented the Protestant belief in his guilt, and the obloquy with which he was treated, Father Morris was too recent a comer amongst them for ties of familiar affection to bind priest and people together, and he was so shy with youth, and the terrible cloud upon him, that their faith in and sympathy for him were necessarily mute. Late in the following spring old Dan Powers sickened in a grip epidemic. He weathered the first attack, but a relapse found him so weak that the doctor advised him to set his affairs in order. " Bring the priest," was his first injunction when the doctor had gone, " and bring him to wanst ! " — a pious haste as sur- prising as comforting to his wife and daughter, for old Dan had ever been of those readier to brag and fight for their re- ligion than to practise it, though he had never given any flagrant scandal. Father Morris returned with the envoy, and the family were banished from the room. Old Dan before he began the confession of his sins had something to say to Father Morris. His breath was short, and there were many pauses. There was evidently a matter of weighty nature on his mind, concerning which he wanted some advice. His strength was hardly sufficient to bear him through the ordeal. He began his story in a hesitating fashion, but it was not long before the weakness of the sickness overcame him. Father Morris waited. He looked at the sick man ; the blood seemed ready to burst through the wrinkled old face, writhing with some terrible emotion. At last, " No more today, father; I can't," old Dan said faintly, and when the priest would have urged him to finish his story, if possible, he turned himself silently and obstinately to the wall. u He was obliged to stop," Father Morris said to the anxious, waiting women he summoned. " Send for me again the moment he will let you, or if he takes a turn for the worse." Two days passed, and the messenger was sent again : Could Digitized by Google

Page 790

1901.] A Modern Martyrdom. 745 Father Morris come directly? The sick man had had a bad night, and was in a hurry for him. Father Morris went at once, but when the moment came to resume the interrupted conversation the haste seemed over, and there was a long silence. " Begin where you left off," the priest said gently. "It's no use, father," Dan burst out; "I can never tell you. I must have some other priest — any priest but you." " You are too sick to wait," Father Morris answered. " Put me, or any man, out of your thoughts." " Lord help me, I 'm a lost man entirely ! " the old man groaned; "it was me, father, that got Mr. Miller's money." Father Morris neither moved nor spoke. "It was this way, father. I was minding the baby — Dennis's little Hugh — the afternoon the money was lost. I fell asleep in the hammick, and when I woke up he'd slipped out of the yard into the road. He came back whin I called him, and with a parcel hugged up in his arm. I tuk it away from him, thinking 'twas some advertising book, and sent him in to his granny ; but whin I saw 't was bank notes, and a power of 'em, I fell back in the hammick wake and all in a cowld sweat. The notes were old, so I knew they were good, and I hid 'em under my waistcoat while I 'd considher what I 'd do with em. I mis- doubted something when you came with Mr. Miller, and whin we heard that night that he 'd lost money I knew I 'd got it, though I didn't get a chanst to count it till next day, for I didn't want the women to know anything about it." " And why did you not restore it to its owner at once ? " the priest asked. "You knew perfectly well that you were committing a mortal sin in keeping it, and that your soul would be damned if you died before giving it back." "Yes, father, but 'twas an awful temptation! Here was I past work, my old bones murdered wid earning this place, and trying to put by a bit for the time when we 'd need it — the woman and me ; everything going out, nothing coming in, and little Hugh to be r'ared, for his father 's no good. And no- body would ever think of that baby finding it, and him too young to know what it was, or to remimber two minutes that he 'd had it." " Do you mean to tell me that you 've used any of that money ? " demanded Father Morris sharply. " No, father, that I have n't. The bundle *s just the same as whin I got it ? " " And you are sorry that you ever concealed it ? " Digitized by Google

Page 791

746 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar., 44 That I am. I 've had no ind of trouble about it." "And you will return it at once to its owner?" " I can't, father ; don't ask me ! Think of the disgrace to my family wid my name and thief in everybody's mouth ! " "The money can be returned without your name, or any detail ; but back it must go, and by your own will, or there is no hope for you." 44 Oh, it 's hard, father, mortial hard ! I 'd give it up, but there's reasons I can't. I haven't told you all, and I'm too wake to talk any more. You '11 have to go away now, father, and I '11 sind for you as soon as my strength comes back a little." That any force of mind or body should ever animate again that exhausted figure seemed hopeless. 44 Pray that our Lord will give him a little more time," Father Morris enjoined the women, and slipping into the church on his way home he spent a long hour there in supplication for a soul in peril. He was roused a little after midnight that night by the third summons. 44 As quick as you can, father," the messenger said. 44 He 's calling for you, and he 's going fast." In his burning anxiety to annihilate the distance, not to be too late for that passing soul, Father Morris ran all the way. When he reached Powers's house, it was lighted up and filled with relatives and village friends. 41 'T is the third time the old man 's sent for his clergy," he overheard one man murmur to another in the group linger- ing just outside the door. '4 Sure he 's making a terrible pious end at last ! " The sick man had his eyes fixed on the door, all the life left in him seeming to be in their gaze. 44 Lock the door, father," he said, without waste of a word in greeting, 41 and hang something over the keyhole. Hang something over the window, too. Dennis is here, spying about. Dennis knows about the money," he went on, as Father Mor- ris sat down at the bedside. u He was here the day Hugh found it, and was looking out of the window when I tuk it from the child, though he never mistrusted anything till he heard Mr. Miller's money was in such a bundle. Since then he's threatened everything if I didn't share it with him; says he should have it all by rights because Hugh found it. But I could n't somehow break into Mr. Miller's money, and just in these few months Dennis has made me draw nine hundred Digitized by Google

Page 792

1901.] A Modern Martyrdom. 747 dollars from the fifteen hundred I had in the bank — all I had in the world except the place here — to keep him quiet. I know 't was my own fault he got the hould on me, and I 'm kilt wid remimberin' how I 've let him rob his ould mother and his sister. T was thinking how they 'd manage without money, and the child to provide for, and fear of Dennis, that kept me quiet, and hanging on to the package, and may the Lord forgive me my sins ! You '11 send the money back, father — I 've no one to trust wid it — and secret, for the sake of them that vs innocent. It 's in that cupboard, father, the third shelf from the top, under some papers. This is the key to the cup- board/' feebly drawing a bunch of keys from beneath the bed- covers. "Quick, now, father, and then I can make my confes- sion and be forgiven and die in peace/' Needless to exhort Father Morris to haste— a glance at his penitent was enough — and carefully separating the indicated key from the bunch, he speedily had it in the ward and the door open ; but his heart sank as he saw the crammed curiosity shop exposed. 44 The third shelf," right, and 44 under some papers"; 44 but what papers?" he moaned to himself as he felt here and there among old day books, almanacs, and bun- dies of yellowing bills and papers, and nowhere came upon the package sought, his heart bursting with the anguish of delay. Taut with the same anguish, the sick man rose to a sitting posture : 44 Take me over there, father," he pleaded ; 44 shure I weigh nothing now, and I '11 get it at once." Was there any other way ? 44 But I 'm afraid you can't bear it," Father Morris said, coming back to the bed. 44 1 '11 bear it," the old man said. 44 What does it matter now ? Lift me up ! " Cold with the horror of the thing, the young priest gathered the dead-weight of helplessness in his arms, bore it to the cup- board, and held it there through an age that old Dan himself fumbled in vain amongst the shelf's collection. 44 Ah!" he breathed at last, with feeble triumph, 44 1 remimber 't was in this I put it," drawing out an old bill-book ; 44 now take me back." Father Morris felt the collapse of the old man's last spurt of energy as he staggered with him to the bed, but life, under- standing, and vivid beseeching shone still in the eyes that looked at him from the pillow, and not till the priestly hand was lifted in blessing, and the full confession made and the absolution uttered to its last words, did their light fade, and the faint 44 Jesus, mercy! " escape with the last sobbing breaths. Digitized by Google

Page 793

748 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar., Whitefields was stirred with another great sensation when Mr. Miller's money, in its original package, was returned to him by express, with no hint of its experiences — just a type- written slip accompanying it, "From a repentant man." Old discussions of the mystery were waged anew, but any true elucidation of it was as remote as at first. Nor did the cloud of suspicion lift from Father Morris. Not much reference was made to him, but the mostly unexpressed opinion was New England's own for implacability : " 'T was a mercy, of course, that he repented of stealing the money ; but to steal it in the first place!!" And just as sternly as before he was ignored on all possible occasions. Once Father Morris appealed to his bishop to station him elsewhere, explaining the situation. 44 You think some other cross would be easier to carry ? " his chief asked. The young man reddened : 14 Perhaps that, a little," he said ; 44 but mightn't it be better for the parish in Whitefields that its priest should be one unsuspected of felony ? " 44 That I must determine with such wisdom as is given to me,M the bishop replied, and Father Morris reddened more deeply still. " There ! there ! 99 the bishop added, putting a kind hand on the priest's shoulder, 44 1 do not in the least believe you would really throw away such a chance for one of the little martyrdoms we're reduced to nowadays." The years wore on, ten, twelve of them, and still Father Morris was stationed in Whitefields, though with the coming of new industries antl work-people into the village and its near vicinage, his parish and labors were so grown that there were rumors of a curate to come to his aid. He had not ceased to feel his ostracism by his Protestant neighbors. He bore it, at all events, with cheerful serenity, and in his own parish he had accomplished that difficult feat of winning in great and equal degree the love and loyalty of all classes of parishioners. He had spent himself in their service without stint, and so self-denying was his life, so fervent his faith and zeal, that his people believed him far on the road toward saintliness. One persistent, malignant enemy indeed he had : Dennis Powers, who divined by what agency Mr. Miller's money had escaped his near grasp. Dennis could not, of course, let his real griev- ance be suspected, but he never lost an opportunity to relate to a new-comer the story of the money's loss and return, and the Protestant conviction as to its thief ; he opposed the sul- Digitized by Google

Page 794

I90i.] A Modern Martyrdom. 749 lenest of fronts to the priest's advances ; sneered at what he did and said ; led off the weaklings of the flock into turbulence or wickedness when he could, and was in all ways a leading worker of evil in the parish. He still made his mother's home his head-quarters, much against her will ; but in the intervals of his drunken bouts he worked more than he had been obliged to do in his father's life-time, helping for miles about in the rough, heavy labor that was his forte. So it did not surprise Father Morris when stopped, one day that he was driving seven or eight miles from Whitefields, by an excited Irishman with the news that a well that was being dug at a house near by in the fields had caved in, to find that the victim at the bottom was Dennis Powers. "He was begging for a priest a while ago, for there 's no chance for him, poor fellow ! But no priest could get near him now. We lowered Tim Doran down part way a while ago, and they could hear one another, but the sand 's shifted some since then and ye can't trust it." " Can I drive over there ? " Father Morris asked. " Yes, sir, turning in the bar way yonder." " Jump in, then, and take the reins." A dozen or so men were gathered around the well's mouth, paralyzed by the calamity. "Is he living still?" Father Morris asked as he sprang from the carriage. " He was, sir, when I came up, ten minutes ago, but the sand's closed down some since then," Tim Doran replied. " Is there any hope that he can be got out alive ? " " None, sir, that I see. The sand moves from such a wide space round that we'll have to rig up some boxing before we dare strike down a shovel. He knows he's got to die." "He was asking for a priest?" "Yes, sir, and he spoke of you, sir." " Can you lower me down to the point where you were ? " " Indeed, sir, you can't go. The sand shifts if you breathe, almost. You 'd be going to your death for certain." " It is my duty to go if I can, and I '11 be as careful as I can. Help me to get into the bucket. Keep your hand on the rope. Stop when I pull on it ; at the second pull, draw me up. Ready ! " They lowered him with anxious care, agony in their hearts. At last there came a pull; then they waited — waited so long that they knew Dennis must be living, and that the two were speaking to each other. Would they never stop? And yet vol. lxxii.— 49 Digitized by Google

Page 795

750 A Modern Martyrdom. [Mar. the pause was but five minutes before the second pull trembled along the rope. 41 Easy, easy ! " exhorted Tim, as the windlass began to turn ; but it had scarce made a revolution when " My God ! " he cried, as the whole earth about the well seemed to break at once and to be slipping away beneath them. "Jump for your lives, boys!" And it was by a miracle, almost, that the two at the windlass escaped being swept into the pit. How the alarm flew, how the whole aroused vicinity toiled at rescue, need not to be told, for it was all in vain. Father Morris had lived his life, and done his work. He and his long- time enemy, and final, costly penitent had a common funeral — the greatest funeral, the most sorrowful yet joyous, trium- phant funeral ever known in Whitefields. The bishop himself came to take part in the offices, and priests from near and far crowded the sanctuary. The three Protestant clergymen of Whitefields were in a front pew, and scarcely a prominent lay dignitary was missing from the seats reserved for them. Not even half the Catholics could get into the church, and they, with the Protestant villagers, thronged the cemetery, not too large for this time ! No one there will ever forget the emo- tion when the two hearses drove slowly in ; the bishop, the double line of priests, and the invited guests marching at the head of the long procession following after. The entire village joined to erect the monument to Father Maurice de Luyster, that is the pride and place of pilgrimage of Holy Souls' Cemetery. A beautiful figure of Charity crowns it. On one side of the pedestal one reads that the memorial is the tribute of Whitefields ; on the other are briefly recited the important facts of his life, and the story of his heroic death; and below : 44 Greater love hath no man than this." The boycott is broken, the martyrdom gloriously ended. Digitized by Google

Page 796

QUIMPER, WITH ITS MAGNIFICENT CATHEDRAL. THE HEART OF BRITTANY. HE faith of the days that are gone still lives in Brittany. Evidences of the supernatural char- acter that has impressed itself on the lives of the people are visible at every step. Religion seems to absorb a larger share of the people's thought and to command a greater portion of their worldly wealth here than anywhere else in France. Some one has said, Show me on what the people lavish their wealth, and I will tell you their characteristics. It is easy to affirm the distinc- tively religious character of the people from the wealth of the churches and the display of art and industry in religious mat- ters. Through the entire year large bodies of the people move in pilgrimages to their favorite shrine of St. Anne d'Auray. At every step arise new chapels and churches. At Saint- Brieuc several were built at once ; Lorient, a town peopled with soldiers and sailors, raised at its gate a church in the style of Louis XIV. ; Vitri gives to its church a new bell and a sculptured pulpit ; the little villages put up in their ceme- teries Calvaries with figures of the middle ages ; Dinan restores and enriches its beautiful church of St. Malo ; Quimper throws to the air two noble spires from the towers of its cathe- Digitized by Google

Page 797

752 The Heart of Brittany. [Mar., submission, Digitized by Google

Page 798

igoi.] The Heart of Brittany. 753 The City of Quimper i the See of a Bishop. and humility. The man is forgotten, the Christian only exists. More expressive even than the monuments are these daily acts of devotion that evidence the habitual state cf the scul. Walk on a market day through the square of some town of Finisterre. It seems to be a very bedlam of barter. Rows of little wagons are about one in every direction, and on these, in goodly array to tempt the purse of the buyer, are all sorts •f merchandise: velvet ribbons and buckles for the men's caps, woollen ornaments made into rosettes for the head-dresses of the women, variegated pins ornamented with glass pearls, pipe- holders of wood, little microscopic pipes and instruments to light them with, and other useful and ornamental wares. Under the tents of these movable shops throngs of men and women gather eager to buy what they desire. The head dresses of the women are most curious in their variety, and even here, where a religious atmosphere seems to prevail, the feminine love of the pretty and the artistic asserts itself. While the large handkerchief very often covers the head, still it runs to bright and variegated colors. The men, too, are not a little fastidious in their dress. They affect bright colors far more than their Anglo-Saxon cousins across the Channel. The pan- taloons fit tightly, resting on the hips so that the shirt may be f Digitized by Google

Page 799

754 The Heart of Brittany. [Mar., seen between them and the vest. Their caps are broad- brimmed and often covering the hair, that is worn long or tucked up behind. There seems to be about them a natural air of dignity. They pass on with measured step and they never rush, as though they were filled with a certain disdain for the things of this world. The bustle of business goes on, when suddenly from the high bell tower of the neighboring church comes the echoing peal of midday. Twelve times it slowly strikes, then all is hushed. The Angelus rings, every one -pauses in the bargain- driving, or in the passing of change, or in the clatter of voices. With sim- ultaneous move- ment the men doff their hats and drop to their knees. The Sign of the Cross is made, and one low murmur tells the Angelus. A stranger in such a crowd must kneel ; involuntar- ily he bends the knee with the rest. The midday pray- er is finished ; they rise again, life and motion commence, and a din is heard which seems, in contrast to the previous stillness, like the deafening roar of the sea. I happened to be one day at one of the beautiful churches in Quimper. It was Sunday at the hour of Vespers. The bell of the church tower had sounded without interruption, it seemed, from break of day, and crowds of men and women surrounded the church talking in groups gently and Two Rivers run through the Town. Digitized by Google

Page 800

i90i.] The Heart of Brittany. 755 The Promenade down to the Quays. noiselessly. The bell ceased ; the groups broke up and sepa- rated into two bands, on one side the men and on the other the women, all directing their steps to the church. The women en- tered first, and in a very short time the nave was filled. The young women of the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin were in white with some embroidery of gold and silver, with bright rib- bons on their arms and belts of the same encircling their grace- ful figures and falling in four bands at the back on the plaited petticoat. In the side aisles the matrons arranged themselves in -even more varied costumes : gaily colored head dresses of deep blue and yellow, blue ribbons with silver edges on the brown jackets. All knelt on the pavement in recollected silence, their heads inclined and their rosaries in their hands. As soon as the women were placed, another door opened at the side of the church and the men filed in. With grave and measured steps they walked in line. In comparison with the variegated and gay dress of the women, the men presented a sombre appearance ; yet the attention was not so much riveted by their uniform attire, their long brown vests, and their large puffed breeches, as it was by their long features, squared heads, and the quantity of straight hair covering their foreheads and Digitized by Google

Page 801

756 The Heart of Brittany. [Mar., falling down in some instances on their shoulders. They scarcely seemed men of our time and our country. Yet they were men of a firm faith and an intense devotion. One could not but be impressed with the fact that to these strong men the truths of faith were the most vivid realities. It has only been within the last thirty years that Quimper has been in touch with the modern world by the railroad. Formerly the only way of access to this portion of Finisterre was by diligence from Rennes. The lack of communication kept this province secluded and remote. The people also kept to themselves. There was no reaching out after the noveL They have their language, their customs, and their costumes, and they are wedded to them and want no invasion of the new. The Breton language is not a patois, as it is called by those ignorant of its lit- erature, its history, and one might say its antiquity. The Bretons say of it themselves that it was the language of Paradise. The clergy are assidu- ous in keeping it in vogue as much as possible, and they do all they can to resist the inroads of the outside world. The city of Quimper is the see of a bishop. It is beautifully situat- ed in a valley sur rounded by hills near by, and by mountains in the distance. Two rivers run through it, making it quaint and beau- tiful. Curiously The quaint Beauty of the Houses. Digitized by Google

Page 802

1901.] The Heart of Brittany. 757 named streets, such as Place aux Dues, the Rue des Gentilsh ommes, the Rue Royale, testify to the roy- alty of the Bretons. The Rue Royale has ancient resi- dences on either side, great gardens enclosed by high walls. The de- mesnes have been in the possession of the same fami- lies for many cen- turies. In this same street is an old house which was the prison of Mile, de St. Luc, one of the early founders of the " Retreat." She was confined there during the French Revolution with her parents before they^went to Rennes, where they were guillotined. She was a victim of her devotion to the Sacred Heart, and was incarce- rated and killed because she painted and distributed pictures of the Sacred Heart. The quays are the favorite promenades of the people, and in the summer military bands make the gathering "under the fine old trees pleasant with their stirring music. The cathedral has been restored recently ; the towers make a most striking landmark. What is remarkable about the in- terior is the leaning nave. Whether this divergence from the straight line was necessitated by some architectural difficulty it is hard to say, but the people have their own pious explana- tion. It is symbolic of the leaning head of Christ as he was dying on the Cross. The Leaning Nave of the Cathedral. Digitized by Google

Page 803

758 A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY * BY REV. JAMES M. GILLIS, C.S.P. OMPARATIVELY few saints, among the vast number whose names adorn the altars of the Uni- versal Church, are intimately known or rightly appreciated. Precisely whom or what to blame for this deplorable fact it were hard to say. One might explain, of course, that the world may hardly be expected to remember or to honor those men whose particu- lar glory it has been to despise the world, and whose every claim to renown is their success in having destroyed the idols of the world. "If you had been of the world," says Christ, " the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world . . . therefore the world hateth you." But " the world " of which the Saviour spoke, " the world," that favorite abomination of ascetical writers, the bugbear of the hermit in the desert and of the anchorite in his cell, that shifting agglomer- ation of forces that combines in triple alliance with the flesh and the devil, is rather a spirit and an influence than a con- crete reality. The " world " is manifestly not the people of the world : in behalf of the one Christ gave his love and his life ; for the other he refused to utter a prayer. This distinction must be made and remembered always. And so, when we say it is strange that the world has not recognized the saints and duly appreciated them, we mean to declare that it is surprising that the hearts of men and women, beating strong with love of human kind, have not known where to seek among their fellows for the surest answering throb of sympathy ; that human souls thrilling with admiration for the heroes of the race have not instinctively recognized the true paragons of humanity ; that the spirits of men groaning inces- santly for God, dominated ever by "the inveterate mysticism of the human heart," have not sought comfort in the teaching of those who have known God best and have discoursed most wondrously of him. * St. Francis of Sales. By A. de Margerie. With a preface by G. Tyrrell, S.J. New York : Beniiger Brothers. Digitized by Google

Page 804

1901.] A Study in Hagiology. 759 BIOGRAPHY ALWAYS ATTRACTIVE. In spheres other than the religious men have not been so blind. Biography has always been a favorite department of literature. Why? Because the dearest as well as "the proper study of mankind" is man. Men like best, in their reading as elsewhere, what touches them nearest ; and what touches them nearest is the lives of their fellow-men. War and politics we read of in the newspapers and talk of on the street-corners, but love, affection, human strivings, the vicissitudes of a soul in its struggle with itself and with the evil powers about it : in a word, human life — this is the sub- ject we take to our hearts ; these are the matters on which even the "heedless multitude " will read the substantial vol- ume rather than the penny sheet ; these are the topics too sacred for the market-place ; they are for discussion in the quiet of the home- circle, nay, often only in the deep sanctum of a man's own soul. There is the fact — a passionate love among men for all things human: "lama man; nothing hu- man is alien to me." Here, then, is the marvel : that, among a reading people, de- votedly attached to biography, the lives of the saints should be untouched. Why is there so inviolable a death-line between sacred and profane biography? Why is Napoleon studied and St. Augustine ignored ? How can Cromwell survive the withering scrutiny of history and live anew in popular literature, while St. Vincent de Paul, the friend of the poor, the founder of the Sisters of Charity, is left in comparative oblivion ? Why do we know more about Caesar's incursion into Gaul than about St. Francis Xavier's more marvellous conquest of the Indies ? How can a man of the stamp of Lord Byron be known and pitied, and perhaps loved, while a St. Philip Neri, of beautiful memory, is left unhonored by a world that ought to be proud of him ? Denominational dissension, of course, is one explanation of the obscurity that has overwhelmed the saints. If the world were Catholic, the Roman Martyrology might be its " Calen- dar of Great Men." And yet the disdain meted out to Catho- lic saints by non-Catholics cannot account for the ignorance and apathy of which we speak ; for Catholics themselves, often entirely beyond the reach or the influence of anti-Catholic prejudice, have little real knowledge or love of the saints. There is a multitude of intelligent Catholics to whom the saints Digitized by Google

Page 805

760 A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., are little more than names, factors in the making of a church calendar, handy at times of christenings, spoken of regularly enough from the pulpit, but just as regularly and systematically forgotten. The Catholic who can at will summon an incident or a saying from a saint's life to fit a necessity of his own, or encourage another in difficulty, is an exception. On the other hand, even the Positivists have been glad to take to them- selves as model men a number of Catholic saints, and Prot- estants of various sects, in their search for examples of human greatness, have discovered and exploited such peculiarly Catho- lic heroes as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa, and St. Ignatius A REAL GRIEVANCE. But the biographies themselves ! Are they not, perhaps, the cause of the unpopularity of the saints ? Have not honest Catholics, going with the best intentions to the pages of the lives of the saints, been frightened away by unlovely and unin- telligent treatment of the doings and sayings of the servants of God? Undoubtedly here is something of a real grievance. Here is a complaint worth examining ; and we may therefore be pardoned if we delay for some moments to consider the extent of the difficulty and its influence upon readers ; and to question the justice of its being urged either as an excuse or an explanation of the neglect that befalls the Lives of the Saints. It cannot be denied that the saints have suffered much at the hands of their biographers. A hundred faults common to most " Lives of the Saints " might be mentioned : faults of con- ception, faults of method, faults of style, perhaps most often the fault of " dryness." Ordinarily we have been given too many facts and not enough analysis of character, too much history and not enough psychology. The deeper meaning of a saint's life is to be found, not in the answer to the questions: What did he accomplish ? Was he a king, a prince, or a beg- gar ? a teacher, a prelate ? Was he a master of theology and the founder of a school ? Not these questions ; but : — What was his private life ? Was he lovable in the eyes of those who knew him ? Was he amiable in disposition ? How does he describe his spiritual life ? how is it helpful to those who are in the throes of discouragement and temptation ? Was he a penitent or an innocent ? A saint from childhood or a convert to God in maturity? What does he say of himself? What were his faults, and how did he conquer them ? What records are left of his personal habits ? This is the deliciously human inquisi- Digitized by Google

Page 806

I90i.] A Study in Hagiology. 761 tiveness that extracts the real practical value from a great life. It is interesting to know that St. Thomas Aquinas was a marvel of learning, the Aristotle of the church, but we simple strivers after virtue would rather know the story of how he came to his invio- lable chastity through triumph over wicked temptation ; we are glad to admire the intellect that could frame such a monument as the Summa Theologica, but none the less we long to look deeper into the great heart that beat with divine love to the rhythm of the sublime hymn "Adoro Te Devote." Again, we had rather, we imagine, be privileged to visit the little room in San Girolamo where the great St. Philip gathered his friends together, and listen with them to the words of sweetness and consolation that fell from his lips, than accompany him to his work among courts and cardinals and popes ; we stand amazed when we hear that one man, St. Francis of Sales, was the cause of the conversion of 72,000 rabid Calvinists, but we have a keener feeling of veneration for him when we hear that he, the saint of amiability, spent a lifetime in keeping constant guard over a testy temper. In a word, we want to know the inner soul of a saint, and it is in studying his heart and mind, rather than his famous deeds, that we gain the most intimate pleasure and profit for our own spirits. Furthermore, there are greater mistakes in biographies than the omission of these items of human interest. The whole spirit of the lives of the saints has sometimes been miscon- strued, their actions and doctrines poorly presented, the natural attractiveness and charm of their sanctity not seldom lost amid the indiscretions, the narrow-mindedness, the sectional or national prejudices of their biographers. BIOGRAPHERS POORLY EQUIPPED. But however lamentable the deficiencies may be, we ought neither to be surprised at them nor puzzled to explain them. The making of an ideal biographer of a saint is often more difficult than the making of a saint. " It is well," said St. Thomas Aquinas when he heard that his compeer St. Bona- venture was at work on the life of St. Francis of Assisi ; " it requires a saint to write the life of a saint." The meaning is plain : sympathy with his subject is conceded to be the first requisite of any biographer, and sympathy with a saint implies one's own sanctity; for a thorough understanding of the thoughts and emotions of a saint, an insight into the mysteri- ous philosophy of his actions, can be the product of nothing Digitized by Google

Page 807

762 A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., but an experimental knowledge of the strange things that occur and of the secret words that are spoken in the mystic con- verse of a pure soul with its God. Personal sanctity, then, at least in some degree, is a prime desideratum in a hagiographer. But holiness alone is no sufficient equipment : our ideal saint's biographer must be possessed of many another quality, scarcely less rare: learning, discretion, wisdom, judgment, breadth of view, literary ability — the list might be carried on without end. We recognize the actual need of some and the desirability of others of these qualifications, but we should smile at our own simplicity were we to expect to find them ail combined in the ordinary pious narrator of the lives of the friends of God. Not every Johnson may have his Boswell; no more, then, may every Francis have his Bonaventure, nor every Dominic his Lacordaire, nor yet may every Philip be immortalized by , a Capecelatro. We know the limitations of human talent, and still we complain when we find that not all the pages of the biographies of the saints glisten and glow with the wisdom and literary skill of a genius among authors; and we refuse to read what seems tedious in comparison with the brilliant and picturesque productions of the clever profane writers of our day. We forget the advice of k Kempis : " We ought to read devout and simple books as willingly as those that are high and profound. Let not the authority of the author be in thy way whether he be of great or little learning, but let love of simple truth lead thee to read." There might nevertheless be little harm done, our com- plaints and our sneers might go for nothing, were it not that the saints themselves become discredited and are forced to suffer in the repute of posterity, because of the faults and the failings, the simplicity and the unskilfulness of those who are trying piously to make their heroes known and loved. But, after all, the wise reader of the lives of the saints is the rev- erent reader. He is not hasty in passing judgment on what seems mysterious and unlovely in their doings. He remem- bers that a saint is a saint because he has received and util- ized extraordinary inspirations of the spirit of God : he is con- vinced that the actions of a saint are in reality Christ-like, and would appear so, if viewed at short range and in a clear light, however much they may be distorted and unbeautified in the complex process of transmission to the modern eye. Not ail the elements in the character of a saint are necessarily per- fect, nor all his doings necessarily wise and holy, yet the pre- Digitized by Google

Page 808

i90i.] A Study in Hagiology. 763 sumption is always in his favor, against the possible misinter- pretations of every chance biographer or reader. Of course there are saints whom we may never come to understand or love, and even in the lives of the saints we do admire, there may be individual deeds that do not gain our sympathy. Per- haps we read with a little shudder of how St. Francis Xavier on his way to India, making an expedition from which he could hardly expect to return, passed within visiting distance of his mother's house and yet would not go to bid her good- by; perhaps we are tempted to give up the mystics in de- spair when we read that at a meeting of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa, they both fell into an ecstasy; perhaps we cannot grasp the philosophy of the sanctity of a Benedict Joseph Labr£ or a Simeon Stylites, but nevertheless it remains true that if we are wise we shall suspend judgment. It may be that if we are not presumptuous now, the time will come when we can understand the value of rigor in Christian virtue and know what it means to rejoice in the things that are " foolishness " to the world. No, poor biographies cannot explain the prevailing aversion for the lives of the saints. What we say in way of criticism is only for the sake of honesty, and when all is said that may be said, we must contend that if there are some poor biogra- phies, there are more that are excellent, and not a few that are masterpieces ; and the truth and the pity is that they are all equally unknown. To present the comparatively few failures as an excuse for denying one's self the wealth of edification and spiritual delight that is to be found in Catholic hagiogra- phy is the most stupid of blunders. It is like refusing to read Shakspere and Scott and Tennyson because, in our rambles through literature, we have lucklessly stumbled across some member of the " dry-as-dust school " and have wearied ourselves in the reading of him. Let it be remembered, too, that there are almost incredible possibilities of acquiring spiritual good taste. Even the Sacred Scriptures were originally insipid to the fastidious intellect of Augustine, yet upon conversion he came to love them deeply, not alone because of their spiritual unction, but for the beauty and excellence of their literary composition — the very qualities he had denied to thlem. His experience is the experience of thousands. Who that has in later days learned to love and revere the Imitation of Christ cannot remem- ber the time before the coming of spiritual discernment, when its glorious aphorisms seemed plain and unmeaning and truistic? Digitized by Google

Page 809

764 A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., THE REAL CAUSE OF UNPOPULARITY. But to come to what we fear is the real cause of the un- popularity of sacred biography, it seems to us that there is rife an unreasonable suspicion that the true idea of what constitutes exalted virtue is not taught and exemplified in the lives of the saints. Minds that are timid keep these suspicions to them- selves; but it is coming to be customary for the more "eman- cipated " to speak with flippant freedom of the superiority of our " modern " and " reasonable M conception of virtue over the " antiquated " idea presumably lauded in the " semi-mythical " narrations of saints' lives. Expressed or unexpressed, the suspicion is to the effect that there are two widely differing conceptions of what makes human character admirable : the first is that of honorable men in the world ; the second is that of the courts of canonization at Rome. The first is the natural, acceptable criterion : it insists on manliness, integrity, sound sense, uprightness, and the like ; the second is a strained and fictitious criterion, inclined to be absurd, not appealing to ripe judgment, fanciful, even repulsive : it looks not to the beauty of interior virtue, but to external observances— fasts, mortifica- tions, scourgings, humiliations, and the like. The two con- ceptions it is assumed are mutually destructive: you cannot have striking natural nobility and attractiveness of character together with " sanctity." There can be no other basis for this lamentable delusion than a sheer ignorance of the actual deeds and of the true in- terior spirit of the men and women whose names the church has placed upon her Calendar. The fact must be that those who have this wildly erratic notion can never have done any systematic reading of the lives of the saints, for no one can study into those marvellous narratives without obtaining either a profound reverence or at least a respectful admiration for the natural nobility of the saints. And though many, even Catholics, would be astounded by a simple demonstration of the fact that whatever is good in the world's conception of honor and virtue — honesty, integrity, generosity, courage in adversity, independence of mind, earnestness, amiability, strength, the whole category of the " natural virtues " — is fundamentally im- plied in the character of a saint; and in theory, no one can be a saint without them. Nor, as a matter of fact, is there any saint in whose character they have not formed the foun- dation of the higher supernatural virtues. But how is such a Digitized by Google

Page 810

igoi.] A Study in Hagiology. 765 demonstration to be made ? How can it be made (if, as we main- tain, ignorance is the cause of the error against which it is direct- ed), except by the destruction of ignorance, through a mere ex- amination of facts, a simple process of reading ? What is wanted is that we should know the saints as they are ; nothing more. It is fortunate, then, that nowadays the psychology of the saints is coming to the front. Lives are being written for the express purpose of so mingling the narration of his- torical facts with the study of psychological phenomena as to convey a perfected, well-rounded, intimate knowledge of the personality of the saints. One recently published volume, a unit in an admirably conceived system, gives us an intelli- gently constructed and very readable account of the life and works of St. Francis of Sales. No better or more apt example could be given to confirm the contention we have been making, that the saints when truly known are found to be essentially lovable and admirable, and that the story of their lives is as interesting, even from a natural point of view, as the best of pro* fane biography. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. Perhaps we cannot do better for illustrating our thesis than to engage in a brief study of the natural character of St. Francis, though, while admitting in all honesty that his life is one of the best we could choose for the proof of our position, we are convinced that a thorough examination of any saint's life would establish the truth of what we say. Not to know St. Francis of Sales intimately is for any Christian a sad mistake. His is emphatically one of the most winning of human characters. He conquers hearts at first en- counter. To know an incident in his life, to read one of his letters, to dip for a half-hour into one of his delicious spiritual treatises, is to recognize his extraordinary qualities; to know him thoroughly, to read his works carefully is to provide one's self with a perpetual spring of encouragement and spiritual good cheer; to have been privileged beyond this, to have lived in his company, must have seemed like making* one's dwelling in the serene peace and quiet of the sanctuary. Those who are familiar with him, who have studied the many-sided beauty of his soul, will not consider this to be inconsiderate laudation. There is reason for speaking of the character of St. Francis in terms of sweeping praise, for he is par excellence the saint of universal spiritual development. He is prominent, indeed, in our eyes as a type of sanctity, and— according to present-day vol. lxxil— 50 Digitized by Google

Page 811

766 A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., ideals — a favorite type ; yet the truest characteristic of his sanc- tity is that it is without peculiar characteristics ; it is the har- monious combination of all Christ-like qualities. Test the mettle of his virtue at whatsoever point you will, it rings clear and sweet throughout. As his most recent biographer has well said : " In him there is no discord of unharmonious develop- ment. His was a character that kept unerring time and tune, and in which there was no exaggerated development of par- ticular virtues to the crowding out of others. His gentleness did not prejudice his strength, nor his patience and affability his zeal, nor his simplicity his prudence." True, his external demeanor seemed to disclose a preponderance of the qualities that suggest weakness rather than strength and vigor of char- acter. But the preponderance is only apparent. His surpassing mildness of disposition and peacefulness of deportment were not less the fruit of strong self-discipline than they were the perfection through grace of a naturally well-regulated character. In his own time his perpetual and almost preternatural amiability was suspected of being a weakness and blemish of character, and many would have had him sterner; many felt with St. Jane Frances of Chantal that he should, if only from policy, show occasionally a masculine burst of temper. But he himself knew " of what spirit he was." Like the saintly Father Faber, he was aware of the value of kindness in the Christian life, and humbly recognizing his own powers of attractiveness and thankfully accepting the gift from God, he determined of set purpose to make use of it for God's glory. He has confessed his predominant tendency to gentleness in words of the most ingenuous humility : " I do not think there is in all the world a soul more cordially, tenderly, and— to speak quite openly — more lovingly fond than I am, and I think I even superabound in love and in expressions of love." No one who knows St. Francis of Sales, no one who has delighted in the .encouraging gospel of love that is the groundwork of the Introduction to a Devout Life, or who has tasted the sweet savor of the Spiritual Conferences, will deny that the saint's judgment of himself is just, and no one would have him different. NATURAL CHARACTER. For we are sure that his gentleness was not weakness; we know him as the robust and zealous man of God, strong and stern with himself. Reading his encouraging lines, we think of him as pre-eminently the teacher of hope and confidence; yet we remember that he himself had struggled through dark Digitized by Google

Page 812

igoi.] A Study in Hagiology. 767 temptations of despair for the cheeriness he was to impart to others. Though he is full to overflowing with an almost womanly tenderness of affection, we know to a certainty that in him the masculine virtues were not wanting. We recall how he showed marvellous strength of will, spiritual and phy- sical courage, persistency of purpose, perfect steadfastness in pursuing a difficult course of action during his famous mission in the Chablais, and that thenceforth there was not for his contemporary critics, as there cannot be for us, the slightest suspicion of weakness or effeminacy in his character. This enterprise in the Chablais is an instructive incident in his life, illustrating the phase of his character we are consider, ing, the synthesis of the gentle and the strong elements ; to dwell a moment upon it may not be amiss. Perhaps it was not until this missionary campaign against the citadel of Cal- vinistic heresy that the severe test was made of the stamina and sterling qualities of St. Francis ; and the truth is, that not until he had achieved his success was his real strength made manifest. He was but a young man, a priest of a few years' standing, though already provost to the Bishop of Geneva ; yet he volunteered to undertake the extreme dangers and re- sponsibilities connected with an attempt to reclaim for Catholi- cism a district whence the old religion had been swept away with the slash of the sword, and in which Calvinism had en- trenched itself behind a bigotry as blind and savage as any the world has ever seen. Francis planned a campaign of earnest and energetic activity, yet his tactics were none other than kindness, charity, and honest persuasion. Like a confident and self-reliant general, he pursued his plans steadily, unmindful of the criticism of a host of advisers safely ensconced at home, and of the fierce warfare of insults, threats, persecutions, and actual physical violence that confronted him on the field. Al- ways patient, always self-contained, always kindly and unre- taliating, always superior alike to disdain, to neglect, and to violence, in the end he triumphed so signally as to leave only a handful of Calvinists where formerly there had been but a handful of Catholics. And this energetic missionary was the man who could sit down and write an exquisitely beautiful letter of consolation to a friend in affliction, who could compose a little volume on the spiritual life that has scarcely ever been equalled for gentleness of tone, for sweetness of doctrine, for literary finish ; who was capable of directing elect souls in the high paths of mystic union with God, who above all was tender and affec- tionate, who "superabounded in love and in expressions of love." Digitized by Google

Page 813

768 A Study in Hagiology.. [Mar., To us, then, the incident of the conversion of the Chablais is important not so much as a piece of history, but as a demonstra- tion of the solid groundwork of strength that underlay the proverbial suavity of the sainted missionary. And there is the summary of his character ; it is well balanced. If it is pleasing in one phase, it is none the less admirable in another ; if the exterior edifice of his virtue is graceful in outline and delight- ful to look upon, the interior is none the less thoroughly and staunchly constructed ; if the saint was gentle, it was because of no natural softness of character, but because of an abiding determination to practise mildness and meekness ; if he was patient, it was not that he enjoyed immunity from discourage- ment, or that he was insensible to stupidity and obstinacy, but because he had schooled himself to self-control under pain and insult ; if he was confident and persevering when confidence seemed folly and perseverance seemed obstinacy, it was be- cause he was no weakling, but a rock of courage ; and if, above all, he grouped his virtues into one beautifully formed company and made them do faithful service at the beck of divine inspiration, it was because over and above all his virtue grace was dominant, and, as he himself explained, though he relied much on himself, he yet the more " hoped in God against all human hope." A SAINT FOR THE MODERN WORLD. A man of that stamp is one to compel admiration in any age, but there are special reasons for recommending St. Francis of Sales to the modern world as a representative exponent of the Catholic idea of sanctity. He is a modern saint in time and in spirit. We venture this statement in the hope of not being misunderstood. Strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as " modern sanctity " ; but it can be true and is true that there are varying types of sanctity, appealing differently to the people; of varying times and countries. As the church grows old with the world, she ever shows her unflagging vitality by bringing forth opportune types, new models in the concrete of her unchanging abstract principles. Her thesaurus virtutum like her thesaurus satisfactionutn is unfailing and variously stocked. She is equally productive of the " Hebrais- tic " and the " Hellenistic," the sterner and the milder types of sanctity ; she is mother of both, but neither can claim to be her favorite child. The austere Baptist in the wilderness is hers, the gentle Evangelist in the crowded city is hers ; in her calendars the rigorous Peter of Alcantara and John of Digitized by Google

Page 814

1901.] A Study in Hagiology. 769 God are honored with the sweet-spirited Philip Neri and Vincent de Paul, and Jerome, who dearly enjoyed the clash of contro- versy, finds place beside the peace-loving Benedict; to her altars Loyola contributes the strenuous soldier, and Assisi the gentle poet ; for the man of the world she proposes the ex- ample of an Augustine, she recommends an Aloysius to the novice in his convent. Ever resourceful, she spends her riches lavishly but wisely in her business of the purchase of souls. Are the times savage and bloody, the world overrun with armies, Mars dominant in the Pantheon, she sends a Sebastian into the camps and supplies the ranks of valor with a " Thundering Legion 99 ; is the military spirit decadent, and the world aflame with the new fire of learning, she builds her universities, stocks them with her brilliant youth, and develops an Aquinas and a Bonaventure ; is the age on its knees before culture, adoring refinement, worshipping civilization (and this is our age), the church comes forth introducing a Francis of Sales, scholar, doctor, author, prince of Christian gentlemen. In all that the modern world holds good he was proficient. A youth of pleasing parts, endowed with all the polite attain- ments and all the gracious qualities that come with noble training ; a student of no mean abilities — the peer, in fact, of the best in the schools of Paris and Padua, wearing his academic laurels upon a modest brow ; a doctor of civil and of canon law at the age of twenty.four; a priest, of sublime sacerdotal purity ; an orator, if oratory be the power of moving the hearts and souls of men ; a writer of classic excellence, worthy to be named among the creators of modern French prose — and withal he was a marvellous worker, author of ninety distinct works, a tireless correspondent, credited with " an immense multitude of letters, of which one thousand remain," an ener- getic and successful missionary, a bishop, a judge, an ad- ministrator : he was, in brief, little short of a marvel of activity and of virtue. THE SAINTLY SIDE OF THE SAINT. But to enumerate in this wise the qualities that made Francis of Sales pleasing in the eyes of those who met him face to face, is to say almost nothing of him, for it gives little notion of the peculiar glory that is his as a saint, and it is as a saint that he will be always known and honored. We have limited ourselves to a consideration of his external qualities simply to show that the biography of a saint may, in mere historical interest, compete with the lives of the men of whom Digitized by Google

Page 815

77o A Study in Hagiology. [Mar., the world never tires. But to show this is not to demonstrate his sanctity, and, after all, it is sanctity we seek in the life of a saint, it is sanctity that gives him his place in our esteem and affection. And here is the secret of the deeper value of sacred biography. We go to the lives of the saints not for pleasure, or even for mere edification, but for comfort, consola- tion, encouragement, guidance in the affairs of our inner lives. Hardly do we arrive at the consciousness of our own spiritual nature, when we become convinced that the exterior of a man is but an insignificant part of his whole self. The unseen realities are the truest. The smiling countenance, the light- spoken word, the placid demeanor, our whole external contact with men and women — these are the unrealities of life, the clever stage-play that conceals and often belies the real life within us — the life of the soul. For we come to realize that the real battle-ground of life, whereon is fought the fight that is no sham, is interior, hidden behind the veil of commonplace daily actions. That conflict is ours and ours alone; not even our dearest friends may so much as know that we have a strug- gle, yet it rages fiercely ; we may turn from it for a moment and refresh our spirits with the distraction of social intercourse, but we know that we must return to the solitude and toil again alone. But we cannot remain entirely alone, we must not be utterly unguided. It would be cruel indeed could we find no story of struggle like ours, no word or hint of advice, no les- son in spiritual tactics, no account of victories won to assure us that victories are won and that we may win them. Happily, in this our necessity we have the biographies of the saints. Why not make use of them ? Why not develop a familiarity with at least one of the saints? — why not with St. Francis of Sales? Cardinal Newman, we think it was, who said that, with the exception of St. Joseph, he liked best to culti- vate those saints of whom most information can be had. Now, there is none whose whole life, interior and exterior, we can know better than that of St. Francis of Sales. His own writ- ings are abundant, and the works and essays concerning him are many. But whether our tastes and ideals shall incline us to him, or to St. Philip Neri, or to St. Vincent de Paul, or tp St. Francis of Assisi, or to St. Antony, or to whomsoever we will of the sainted men and women of the church, at all events we ought not to refuse our birthright by ignoring or rejecting those priceless documents of our inheritance — the biographies of the saints of God. Digitized by Google

Page 816

190 1.] Mary to Christ oat the Cross. 771 fflAI^Y JPO <9HI^ISHl ON THE (9ROSS. BY NORA RYLMAN. " There stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother." ON of my gladness, Nailed to the Tree ! Son, King, and Saviour, Look upon me! Lamb I have tended, Dying forlorn : Head I have pillowed, Circled with thorn ! Jesus, Son Jesus, Once, on my breast, ' Angels all gladly Sang Thee to rest ! / saw Thy scourging, Saw Thy lips pale: 'Neath Thy Cross, bearing, Saw Thy limbs fail ! Son I have loved so All through the years, Steep was the hill-side, Salt were my tears ! Through my heart, Jesus, Passes the sword, As the rude soldier Pierces his Lord ! White are the holy Lips I have kissed : Lo, the Three Crosses Loom through a mist ! Jesus, Son Jesus, Nailed to the Tree, Look on Thy Mother, Look upon me ! Where is there anguish Like unto mine ? Where is compassion Like unto Thine ? Digitized by Google

Page 817

An opened Tomb with All the symbolic Paintings on the Walls about. SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATA- COMBS. BY RIGHT REV. MONSIGNOR CAMPBELL, D.D. ANY ancient testimonies are extant to prove that the burial of every member of the church was always, both in times of persecution and in the time of peace, accompanied by religious acts, the prayers of the church, and the presence of the priest. It was always regarded as one of the most tender and precious duties of Christian affection, and we know with what reverential care the bodies of the martyrs, each relic and drop of their blood, were gathered from the arena where they fell, and how the faithful exposed their own lives to collect it. The poet Prudentius describes the eager crowd that pressed round the body of the martyr Vincent, to dip linen napkins in his blood, and carry them home as precious treasures. The body was accompanied by the relations, and by their brethren in the faith, to the chant of psalms and canticles, in procession with tapers and torches and great triumph," as we read of the burial of St. Cyprian in Carthage, although the persecution Note.— For a previous article see The Catholic World Magazine for November, 1900. Aliments cT Archiologie Chritienne. Par Horace Marucchi. Vols. 2 Notions Gene- rates. Vol. 11.: Les Catacombs Romaines. Desclee, Lefebvre & Cie, tditeurs, Paris. Digitized by Google

Page 818

i$oi.] Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. 773 raged ; the legislation and the Romans' respect for the dead repressing their hatred of the living, and preventing its violent manifestation. A similar pomp of triumph accompanied the remains of St. Agnes from the Forum to her parents' villa on the Nomentan Way. The " pious office of Deposition," or burial, was performed in one of the chambers of the cemetery. Before the body was laid in its niche the sacrifice " pro dormi- tione," for repose, as St. Cyprian calls it, or an earlier witness, Tertullian, " oblatio pro defunctis," the oblation for the de- parted, was offered ; the body meanwhile resting before the tomb it was to occupy. This is what St. Augustine tells us was done at the funeral of his mother, Monica, "when the sac- rifice of our Redemption was offered for her, with her body laid out before her grave, according to custom." The immense number of cubicula makes it probable that it was in them that the oblations for the dead were offered on the day of deposi- tion, on the third, the seventh, the thirtieth, and the anni- versary day. These private offices were distinct from the solemn synaxis, which was offered in the full assembly of the faithful, in a church, or, in times of danger, in the larger chambers of the catacombs. The body was then placed, without coffin of any sort, in the grave, laid face upwards, with the hands com- posed by the sides, wrapped in linen covered with a thin stratum of lime, other linen and more lime. Flowers and green leaves were scattered over it, the niche was closed, and aromatic liquids sprinkled on the marble. The most ancient representation of the Holy Eucharist. Christ is THE ICHTHVS, OR FISH, UNDER THE APPEARANCE OF BREAD. Digitized by Google

Page 819

774 Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. [Mar., EDICTS AGAINST ASSEMBLIES IN THE CATACOMBS. In the second half of the third century edicts were multi- plied against assemblies in the cemeteries. It was a cry of the rabble, and began in Carthage : " Areae Christianorum non sint" — Down with cemeteries of the Christians! It soon found an echo in Rome. Septimius Severus resisted the clamor for a time, then yielded. But it was in 257 that Valerian first con- fiscated them, and forbade them to be entered under penalty of death. Notwithstanding these prohibitions the Christians continued to penetrate into many parts of the subterranean galleries, abandoning to the enemy the edifices constructed above ground, demolishing the approaches and stairs, and blocking the ordinary communications ; substituting other secret entrances through caves and sand-pits, with strategical protec- tions that can still be traced in the catacombs. Assemblies held in such exceptional conditions required no special crypts to be excavated and adapted as subterranean churches. Any cave or recess was fit church for those of whom " the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Still, some of the larger cubicula present every feature of a small church, with its primitive arrangement : the episcopal chair, seats for the presbyters, the isolated altar, divisions to separate the men from the women, vestibules for the penitents and catechumens. It was in one of these chambers that Pope Sixtus II. was surprised in a crowd of worshippers and beheaded in his chair, which was long preserved with stains of his blood. Another time, on the Salarian Way, a number of the faithful had gathered to pray at the tomb of two recent martyrs, Chrysanthus and Daria, when they were discovered by the pagans through a lucernare ; the ways were blocked upon them, earth and stones were cast down, and men and women, priests and children were crushed and buried under the mass. The spot was rediscovered many years after, and St. Gregory of Tours describes how, when the stones and earth were removed, the skeletons were exposed in various attitudes just as death had found them ; vessels of silver and what was required for the service of the liturgy were scattered about : all was left undisturbed, and the piety of Pope Damasus enclosed the remains behind a grille, for the satisfaction of devout curiosity, and chronicled the event in one of his metri- cal epitaphs inscribed at the entrance. Digitized by Google

Page 820

1901.] Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. 775 A PERIOD OF PEACE. But persecution came to an end. The sanguinary struggle was followed by peace, and the Catacombs put on an air of triumph. Crowds from all parts of the world came to venerate the martyrs at their tombs. The crypts became too small for the concourse, and had to be enlarged. New stairs made an easier access. Basi- licas came to be erected over the graves of the princi- pal martyrs, without displacing their bod- ies, and so became embedded in the catacombs. Dama- sus had a great share in the transforma- tion. Many of the decorations, much of the masonry, near- ly all the festive in- scriptions, fragments of which remain, were his work or the work of his imme- diate successor, Siri- cius. It was in that time of enthusiasm, and revival of the cult of the martyrs, that St. Jerome, then a school boy, used to spend his holiday afternoons with classmates wandering through the mazes of the cemeteries, as he tells us himself. Shortly after, in the expression of the same writer, the Empire of Rome was decapitated, and when a single city was lost the whole world perished. Rome was taken by Alaric. It was laid in ruins. The Goths broke into the cemeteries, carrying away sacred relics, plundering treasures, destroying the mosaics, and breaking the marble epitaphs into fragments. The devastation was repeated when Vitiges, in the first decades The veneration of the Blessed Virgin is evident FROM NUMEROUS PICTURES IN THE CATACOMBS. Digitized by Google

Page 821

776 Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. [Mar., of the sixth century, led his hordes to the Eternal City. The Christians of Rome now began to inter around the basilicas which had been raised over the cemeteries, and even in the city itself ; and the catacombs in their plundered state were only visited by pilgrims. Attempts were made to repair the injuries ; but the Queen of the World was now in penury, and in the restorations conducted by Pope Vigilius no marbles were at hand to replace the inscriptions of Damasus and Siricius, and the Damasiari verses were inscribed again in rude imita- tive characters on the reverse of marble slabs that had fallen from profane monuments in the ruined city. In 568 John III. ordered celebrations to be resumed at the martyrs' tombs on their anniversaries, at the cost of the Lateran Palace, a pre- scription renewed in 735 by Gregory III. BODIES WERE REMOVED. The final storm was approaching : the Lombards under Astolphus laid siege to Rome in 756. Then, with reluctance, for it was against the traditional sentiment of the Roman Church to remove the bodies of the martyrs from the place of their original deposit, the popes decided to translate them to comparative security within the city walls. Paul I. was the pioneer in this work. Stephen I. and Adrian I. strove in vain to save the catacombs, and great operations were executed without effectually protecting them. Paschal L, Sergius II., and Leo IV. were compelled to imitate Paul. In this way the older city churches came to be filled with relics, and there is no difficulty in understanding the statement, at first sight ex- traordinary, which is read on an inscription in the Church of St. Praxede, that on the twentieth of July, 827, Paschal I. caused two thousand three hundred bodies taken from the catacombs to be placed in its crypts. After this the cemeteries were totally neglected. A few, in close proximity to the extramural basilicas, continued for a time to be visited ; but gradually most of these were also forgotten, and the only one of the forty-six cemeteries which form the vast Christian Necropolis that continued without interruption till the sixteenth century to receive the visits of the pious or the curious, was the ceme- tery " ad catacumbas," the catacomb which gives its own name to all the rest. VIALS ON THE TOMBS. Glass vessels of various kinds are sometimes found attached to the outside of loculi and arcosolii. These gave rise to a Digitized by Google

Page 822

1901.] Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. 777 strange hypothesis : that they contained consecrated wine, the remains of the oblation. The intolerable abuse condemned by certain local councils in Africa and Gaul, of giving the Euchar- ist to the dead, had no connection with these supposed eucharis- , tic vessels. Those councils ) speak of the Eucharist un- t. w_ der the species of bread, that ftolsrjkjf was placed in Graffiti on the Walls of the Catacombs relating the History of the Martyrs. the graves, is impossible that in Rome, where we know how scrupu- lously careful the faithful were to let not a drop of the con- secrated gift fall to the ground, such an irreverence could have been tolerated. If any of these vessels have been found containing sediment of wine, which is doubtful, it must have been a relic of those ignorant devotees of the fourth and fifth centuries, who thought to do honor to the martyrs by sprinkling wine upon their tombs. The vessels of glass or terra cotta found outside the tombs usually contained balsams, and served for the aspersions at the time of burial, and are seldom found in the portions of the cemeteries excavated during the per- secutions. Of three hundred vials found in the catacomb of St. Agnes, and the Ostian cemetery, almost all were collected in gal- leiies opened after the age of Constantine. But another set of vials was often enclosed in the loculus with the body ; these con- tained blood. The presence of these is considered a sure sign of martyrdom. St. Ambrose, searching for the bodies of Sts. Gervase and Protase, is decided by the discovery of the vial. In the Roman catacombs vessels have been found with bloojd still in a liquid state. One of these was kept in the Church of Digitized by Google

Page 823

778 Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. [Mar, St. Ignazio till last century. The liquid was ruddy and fresh. It, unfortunately, fell from the hand of a distinguished visitor* In 1872. in the cemetery of St. Saturninus in the Villa Poten- ztani, purchased for King Victor Emmanuel, the workmen dig- ging the foundations of a new building came upon the fifth level of the ciatacomb, and discovered in one of the loculi, which they barbarously destroyed, a glass vial about three in- ches in diameter, full of a red fluid, which was subjected to chemical analysts and proved to be blood. But the blood of the martyrs, collected in sponges or linen cloths, was usually taken home to be preserved ; precious heirlooms, as Prudentius calls them. INSCRIPTIONS ON THE GRAVES. Most of the loculi are nameless, the greater number of the epitaphs anterior to the peace were quite precarious in char- acter and hastily executed ; there was no idea of handing down a copious biography to be read after eighteen hundred years. They contain mostly a simple name, an aspiration, a salute, a farewell, In Peace. The day of deposition is often given, to mark the anniversary, which had. to be kept; but very few of the more ancient inscriptions give the year. It was impossible to be anything but brief, when martyrs were dying as graves were closing, and the fossors had not sealed their latest de- posit when the roads were covered with the bearers of another. Although the destruction of the church's records by Diocletian has deprived us of the careful registers of the regionary dea- cons, we know that at times the persecution was so fierce that the number of those who suffered passed reckoning, and they were buried in heaps in polyandra, or burned together. Sulpi- cius Severus says that no war ever waged was so deadly as this persecution, although no triumph ever equalled the tri- umph of the Christians, who after ten years' slaughter were still unconquered. In this great multitude there are few his- toric names, and the graves of most are undistinguished by any mark. Their register was the Book of Life, and the lost Dyptichs from which their names were read to the assembly. There was no distinction of rank in the catacombs. All mem- bers of the Christian flock, from the pontiff to the last cleric, the slave and the senator's lady, united in oneness of belief, and expecting the same resurrection, rested in one common cemetery. The only ambition was to be laid in death near to those who had received the palm of martyrdom. Nothing was Digitized by Google

Page 824

1901.] Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. 779 The beautiful Decorations on the Walls of the Chapels. allowed to stand in the way. Loculi were purchased "retro sanctos," " inter sanctos," " ad sanctos," behind or at the side of the martyrs, walls were broken down, mural paintings mutilated, crypts deformed, in their anxiety to secure the coveted place. Efforts seem to have been made to moderate this indiscreet fervor, and a deacon had inscribed on his own tomb an admoni- tion to strive rather to live after the model of the saints than to be laid near them in death ; and the great admirer of the martyrs, Pope Damasus, who carved his charming verses over so many of their shrines, with all his love for them, contents Digitized by Google

Page 825

7&0 Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. [Mar., himself with recording his longing, and his fear, in the follow- ing beautiful lines : " Hie, fateor, Damasus, volui mea condere membra, Sed cineres timui sanctos vexare piorum." THE FUNERAL AGAPE. Another observance connected with the funeral rites of the catacombs is the Agape, or feast of charity, that followed the strictly religious function. It is known that the Agape, insti- tuted in the time of the Apostles, was part of the Eucharistic rite, and had no relation to funeral services. St. Paul con- demned their abuse. The funeral agape was an expression and an exercise of Christian charity for the weal of the deceased. It consisted of a banquet given to widows and the poor, when distributions or doles were made to the clergy, the indigent, and the deserving. In certain respects they resembled the pa- rentalia of the pagans, but differed in this : that only relatives were asked to the parentalia, while poverty and the Christian faith were the qualifications for the agape, without regard to blood, and pagans, even if relations, were excluded. In the fourth and fifth centuries abuses crept in, and St. Ambrose at Milan was the first to forbid them, and soon they fell every- where into disuse. The spirit of the agape still lingers in some country places in Italy, and perhaps a trace of it is left in the doles of our own country. It may be asked, were the catacombs ever used as places of assembly for religious rites not associated with the burial of the dead ? We have the testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria that in time of persecution every sort of place, a field, a desert, a ship, a stable, a prison, served for religious meeting. And long before him Justin the apologist wrote to a prefect of Rome that Christians met in groups as they might, where and when they could with safety. And Tertullian tells us that the pagans well knew the days of their assemblies, and surprised them in their concealment. He, rigid Montanist as he was, re- proached Christians with bribing the inquisitive and the agents of police to be allowed to hold their services in peace. There is abundant testimony to show that when the Christians were denounced by informers, or betrayed by apostates, and sought to death, they did seek refuge sometimes in the darkness of the sepulchral crypts, not only to celebrate the divine myste- ries in the undisturbed silence of the night, but to put their Digitized by Google

Page 826

1901.] Interesting Facts about the Catacombs. 781 own lives in safety. This gave occasion to some of the Gentile calumnies against them, and to the opprobrium of being looked on as a people that loved to hide in the dark — "latibrosa et lucifugax natio." SEVEN CENTURIES OF ABANDONMENT. From the ninth to the sixteenth century the cemeteries, with the one exception, were entirely abandoned to the weather. The neglected entrances were soon choked up and forgotten. If some of the noblest entrances were still exposed, seven hundred years stripped them of all that the barbarians had left, and all knowledge of their purpose being lost, they came to be used as cellars. Visitors from distant lands must have now and then penetrated into some of the recesses, for their names, written in charcoal with the dates 1433, I4SI> 1473, 1483, were found in the cemetery of Callixtus. The mysterious Academy, headed by Pomponius Leto, has also left signs of its presence. A spark of interest was kindled in 1578 when accident laid bare a noble region of a cemetery on the Salarian Way, with mural paintings and epitaphs and sar- cophagi. Many went to see the place, then it was covered up and forgotten. Anto- nio Bosio was then an infant, three years old. A native of Malta, he was brought to Rome when a child, and placed with an uncle who was agent for the Knights. At seventeen years of age he made his first descent into the cata- combs. After laborious preliminary study of Latin, Greek, and the Oriental Fathers, de- crees of councils, his- tory, legends, the Schoolmen, and mar- tyrologies, he devoted thirty-six years to un- tiring explorations. He found his way into each of the ceme- teries, and his name, written by himself, may be read in their galleries. The fruit of his life's labor, his Roma Sotterranea, was vol. lxxii.— 51 A bronze Medal of Sts. Peter and Paul found in the Catacombs. Probably the most an- cient LIKENESS OF THE APOSTLES. Digitized by Google

Page 827

jll INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar., not published till after his death, at the expense of Prince Aldo- brandini. After such a revival it is singular that apathy should again follow. But it was not for long. In 1700 Fabretti was appointed to the office of Custodian o f the Catacombs, and after him Boldetti, whose excavations for thirty years re- suited in a mass of collections torn from their place without any indication of their origin, and deprived of nearly all historic value, so that his book is a mine of perplexing curiosities, and his work in the catacombs one of simple devastation and plunder. Others with more or less success followed, till a new direc- tion was given fifty years ago to the study by a return to Bosio's system of classification and topography, which in the master hand of De Rossi has shown that Christian archaeology is not a barren speculation, or food only for the devout, but is, like the archaeology of profane or classic antiquity, a scien- tific study. Reconstituting its principles, co-ordinating topog- raphy and epigraphy, sculpture and painting, he has created criteria and canons that enable us to confirm, to elucidate, to enrich, and even to create history by the help of marbles, bronzes, wood, ivory, or crystal ; in a word, of monuments irreffragable in their testimony, safe from the corruption to which a written text is exposed, or the doubtfulness of a dis- puted reading. Symbolic of Scriptural Scenes. Digitized by Google

Page 828

iqoi.] Good Fx id a r. 783 6ood mwy. Pes, it is rair as otDer daps are fair ! Wown clouds and purple skp. tbe wind's sort ipre. Bird*song and murmuring stream ; all tDings conspire Co sbed a stueet enchantment on tDe air. ilnd pet. mcsecms. a spirit or sadness broods Ooer tbe eartb.-tbe sDadorn or a rear. CMS burdened sprap dotb bear its burning tear, ilnd in mp beart an ancient grief intrudes. Percbance 'twas sucb a dap as tbis. wben Be for utter £o»e tolled up tbat Wap, to gain Releasement ror our souls from bonds or sin. yea. sucb a dap all wrapt in ardent reoelrp. Cill tbe great Beart or nature beaded witb pain, ilnd built itseir a tomb to sorrow in ! Digitized by Google

Page 829

784 The True LandincPlace of Columbus. [Mar., THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. BY F. MacBENNETT. 'HIGH of the Bahama Islands deserves the title of being the place of landing where Columbus first went ashore is a question which has been for many years diligently studied, but with results not at all satisfactory either to the investigators themselves or to the students of history. Great enthusiasm was stirred up for the four-hundredth anniversary of that mem- orable event, and a considerable amount of interesting and useful literature (with not a little silly stuff) was produced both here and abroad, with a view to penetrating the obscurity which three centuries of official neglect had allowed to gather around the history of Columbus. A strange fate seemed to have pursued him during life and to have raised clouds over his memory; and even the whereabouts of his remains is still uncertain. That the precise island on which he first set foot in the New World should, after the lapse of centuries, yet re- main unidentified was extraordinary ; and the eminent critic as well as accomplished historian, M. Henri Harrisse, styles it a " curious problem which will, for yet a long time, exercise the sagacity of critics and historians." THE LOG OF PONCE DE LEON. What seems strange is that in all but one of the investiga- tions so little heed was given to an entry in the log of Juan Ponce de Leon's famous voyage in search of the '4 Fountain of Youth," which resulted in the discovery of Florida on Easter Sunday, 1513. It is that "on March 14 they arrived at Gua- nahani, which is in 25° 40', where they refitted a vessel pre- paratory to traversing the Windward Gulf of the Lucay Islands. This island, Guanahani, was the first which the Admiral Chris- topher Columbus discovered, and where on his first voyage he went ashore, and which he called San Salvador." Com. Mac- kenzie, who traced the course of the great discoverer across the Atlantic Ocean for Washington Irving's Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, in referring to this statement, throws a slur on the accuracy of the latitudes given in the chronicles Digitized by Google

Page 830

1901.] The True Landing Place of Columbus. 785 Skatch-Map of the Bahama Ialanda of that time. This is no doubt well deserved in many instances ; but the inaccuracies are very often due to the carelessness of the chroniclers themselves, and perhaps to that of copyists as well. In this case Com. Mackenzie makes so high a latitude as 25° 40' N. find no land until it reaches the Berry Islands — thus passing right by Northern Eleuthera, where Bridge Point stands in 250 35' N., about five miles away. But a means is left to show that Juan Ponce de Leon must have been close to the latitude he mentions, 25° 40' N. The run to his second an- chorage at Caicos Island, 275 nautical miles from Aguada in Puerto Rico, his point of departure, was made in about four days — making a fair allowance for his stop at that uninviting spot " The Old Man's Island " (which was doubtless one of the Turk Islands) ; but the party needed some rest, and were fur- ther, no doubt, inquiring the whereabouts of the 44 Fountain of Youth." Juan Ponce de Leon thus made the small average of about 69 knots a day, or 2 7-8 knots an hour. This is easily Digitized by Google

Page 831

786 The True Landing-Place of Columbus. [Mar., accounted for by the pleasure seeking character of himself and his boon companions ; and the probability is that this low speed was subsequently increased to about 3^ knots, or 84 knots a day, — and Juan Ponce de Leon must now have become anxious to reach the " Fountain of Youth " as speedily as pos- sible, so that his next two anchorages before Guanahani were likely of short duration. From the 9th to the 14th (when he reached that island) are five days ; and, deducting a half day for the two anchorages, there remain four and a half days, in which he should have covered about 378 nautical miles. This would bring him to 250 34' 17" N. On starting he had headed N. W. by N. to clear the land, but must soon have changed to N. W. in order to touch at the Turk and Caicos Islands, steer- ing afterwards N. W. 5-8 W. to range the chain of islands along the eastern edge of the Great Bahama Bank. A steady N. W. by N. course would have carried him away from land. Doubling the north point of Eleuthera Island (for there is no safe place to refit on its eastern shore), he anchored off its western side, whence a straight course N. W., up the Provi- dence Channel, lay right open to him into the Florida Gulf. And, indeed, in that direction he says he resumed his voyage. The Bimini Islands, on which the " Fountain of Youth " was thought by this rich old politician to be located, are on the N.W. corner of the Great Bahama Bank, at the outlet of the Providence Channel into the Florida Gulf. But he was carried past them, whether through the connivance of his pilots and pleasure-bent courtiers, or through the action of the winds and currents, will never be found out. But the entry in his log that the island where Columbus first landed was in 25° 40' N. is sufficiently close to exactness to warrant the conclusion that Northern Eleuthera was the scene of the memorable event of October 12, 1492. This conclusion gains additional support from a plotting of the Great Discoverer's own log or journal. COLUMBUS'S LEAGUE. Before attempting this, however, the exact length of his league must be determined. The historian Oviedo, who was acquainted with Columbus and intimate with all of the naviga- tors who frequented the West Indies, gives several distances in the Spanish marine league of the period, which help with the aid of our modern charts to determine the length of the league referred to. He states that from Ferro Island, in the Canaries, Digitized by Google

Page 832

1901.] The True Landing Place cf Columbus. 787 to Cape Bojador, on the African coast, was accounted sixty- five leagues. With a fair allowance for offing, that is the dis- tance according to present charts. He puts the distance between Cape San Antonio (Cuba) and Cape Catoche (Yuca- tan) at forty leagues, which is correct ; and across the mouth of the Laguna de Terminos (Bay of Campeche) he makes ten leagues, which is exactly what the Admiralty charts make the distance. Hence this valuation of three nautical miles to the league is the one taken in the present reckoning. THE LOG OR JOURNAL. Starting, then, from Gomera, in 280 o; o" N. and 170 8; 20" W., on the morning of September 6, 1492, he learned from a caravel coming in from Ferro Island that three Portuguese caravels were hovering around there to intercept him. This he thought was due to resentment on the part of their king because he had given his services to the sovereigns of Castile. That day and night he was becalmed ; and next morning he found that he was yet between Gomera and Tenerife Islands. All day Friday (Sept. 7) and up to three hours of the night on Saturday he lay becalmed. At length, about 9 P. M., a breeze sprang up from N. E., and he shaped his course west- ward. He met a head sea which bothered him. That day and night he logged nine leagues, or twenty-seven knots. The next day, which was Sunday, he ran nineteen leagues; but made up his mind to report less than he made, in future, so that if the voyage should prove long his crews and company might not get alarmed and become dismayed. During the night the run was thirty leagues, or one hundred and forty- seven knots. This day he found fault with the helmsmen for falling off on the N. E. and even a half point beyond, concern- ing which he frequently scolded them. The record from now till the 13th is simply entries of the runs, except that on Tues- day they fell in with a big piece of mast, which they failed to secure. It had belonged to a vessel of about one hundred and twenty tons. On the 13th Columbus reported the currents against him ; and at nightfall he noticed that the compasses north wested, and in the morning still somewhat. The squadron was then in about 280 40' 59" W. by 280 o' o" N. Several birds were seen on the succeeding days; while from the 16 h on, the breezes were very mild and the mornings very pleasant ; and the Admiral states that all that was lacking were the nightingales, the weather being like that of April in Andalusia. Digitized by Google

Page 833

788 The True Landing-Place of Columbus. [Mar., On that day they also began to meet patches of grass, which made them suspeet that some island was near, but Columbus held that the mainland was further on. On the 17th the pilots found the compasses north-westing again a full point, and the crews began to fret and seemed worried, but did not say about what. Columbus knew this, and ordered the pilots to take another observation at daylight, and they found the com- passes all right. He explained that it appeared the North Star changed its position, and not the needles. He was at this time in 360 22' 41" W. by 280 o' o" N. The crews found the sea water less salty than since they had left the Canaries, and the temperature always more agreeable. All hands were more joyful, and each vessel did its best to be in the advance to first sight land. Columbus noted that all the signs came from the W., adding, " where I trust in that High God, in whose hand rest all 'victories, He will soon give us land." On the 1 8th Martin Alonzo Pinzon, of the Pinta t which was a great sailer, reported that he had seen a great multitude of birds going westward; and that he hoped that night to sight land, and for this purpose he kept so much ahead. The appearance of birds became frequent, and light rains were occasional; all of which were looked upon as indicating the nearness of land. But Columbus did not wish to lose time beating about to locate it ; yet he felt certain that north and south of him there were islands, but he was determined to follow on to the Indies, adding, "The weather is good, for, please God, at the end all will be plain." O.1 this date the Nina reparted 440 leagues from the Canary Islands; the Pinta, 420, and the vessel on which the Admiral sailed, 400. In the present reckoning the log of the Pinta is taken as the correct one, for the reasons to be given at October 1. Up to this date the little squadron had covered 420 leagues, or 1,260 knots, and its position was in 400 54' 17" W. by 28* o' o" N. On the 20th an albatross came from W. N. W. flying S. E., which they regarded as a sign that it was leaving land at W. N. W., for these birds sleep ashore and in the morning fly to sea in search of food, but do not go farther out than twenty leagues, they were told. On this day they went W. by N. 22}£ knots, which brought them to 410 19' 14" W. by 280 4' 22" N. On the 2ist they sav a while; showing that they were Digitized by Google

Page 834

ijoi.] The True Landing-Place of Columbus. 789 near land, the log states, for they always swim near to it. Course W., 39 k., to 420 4' 23" W. by 280 4' 22" N. On the 22d they had head winds; and Columbus states that this was very necessary for him to have, " for my people were getting very excited because they thought that there were no winds on these seas that would carry us back to Spain." No grass, but later it became very thick. Course W. N. W., 90k., to 43° 38' 31" W. by 280 38' 55" N. September 23 they saw a turtle and birds, and much grass. The company murmured at the smooth sea and calm weather, because it would never blow hard enough there to get back to Spain. Subsequently the sea rose without any wind, which as- tonished them. Columbus states that that high sea was neces- sary for him : " it had not been witnessed save in the days of the Jews when they came out of Egypt, against Moses, who was taking them out of captivity." Course N. W., 66k., to 440 31' 37" W. by 290 25' 46" N. On the 24th they made 43}£k. W. to 45 0 21' 28" W. by 290 25' 46" N. September 25 Columbus and Martin Alonzo Pinzon had a long talk about a chart which he had sent the captain three days before, on which it appears were marked out certain islands in that part of the ocean. Pinzon agreed that they were in that neighborhood ; but seeing that they had not come up with them, the cause must have been the currents, which were always carrying the vessels towards N. E.; and Columbus added that they had not gone as far as the pilots stated; and while on this subject he told the captain to send back the chart. When Columbus received it, he and his crew and pilots began to make measurements with a piece of twine. FALSE REPORTS OF LAND. At sundown Martin Alonzo Pinzon went up on the bow of his vessel, and with great glee calling the Admiral, asked his congratulations, as he saw land ; and when the Admiral heard him, he states that he fell on his knees to thank the Lord; and Pinzon shouted " Gloria in Excelsis Deo," in which he was joined by his people. Those of the Admiral's ship did the same ; and on the Nina they ran aloft and into the rigging, all swearing that there was the land ; and so it seemed to the Admiral, and about twenty-five leagues off. They all kept affirming so until night fell. Columbus reported the run as only 13 leagues, instead of the 21 actually made. He says he Digitized by Google

Page 835

;90 The True Landing-Place of Columbus. [Mar.,, did this so that the distance should not appear long. To this end he kept two records, a smaller one which was fictitious, and a correct one. The sea was so smooth that the sailors took a swim. Courses: W., 13^ k., to 450 36' 56" W. by 290 25' 46" N.; and S.W., 51k., to 460 18' 2" W. by 280 49' 32" N. September 26 they made W., 48 k., to 470 12' 45" W. by 280 49' 32" N. ; and S. W., 45 k., to 47° 4*' 52" W. by 28* 17' 37" N. Weather reported delightful and the sea smooth, and much grass. On the 30th a note is appended to the effect that the stars which are called " Pointers " (guardias) when night falls are close to the arm of the cross-staff to westward ; and when morning breaks, they are on the left beneath the arm and to the N. E. ; so that it appears that during the night they da not advance more than three lines, which are nine hours : and this every night. Las Casas adds that " this is what the Ad- miral states here." Likewise the needles go N. W. a pointy and at daybreak they are exactly with the Pole Star, for which reason it appears that the star moves like the other stars, and the needles always seek their true position. Columbus was an adept at manipulating compass cards. He was a man of wonderful resources, a keen observer of men and things, of great courage, ever ready to meet and master the most adverse surroundings. His knowledge of human nature was such that few men, if any man ever did, standing almost alone with a crew and company like his, in so perilous a situa- tion, came out, not merely alive but a great hero. It is re- corded that on one occasion when ordered to Tunis with a small force to attack a superior one, his men mutinied and wanted to go to Marseilles for reinforcements. Columbus apparently acquiesced ; but, by altering the compass cards, he so deceived them as to arrive off Tunis instead of Marseilles, and going into action proved victorious. As it is apparent that on this voyage he fixed the cards, and sailed wholly by compass and the Star, no variation is here reckoned. THE TWO RECORDS. On the 1st of October the pilot of the Santa Maria ex- pressed his fears that they had now gone from the Island of Ferro 578 leagues to the W. The shorter record which the Admiral showed the crew footed up 584 leagues; but the true reckoning which the Admiral made and kept for himself, states Las Casas, was 707. The log, however, foots up 6So}4 leagues Digitized by Google

Page 836

1901.] The True Landing-Place of Columbus. 791 thus far. This discrepancy may have been due to confusion originating in his efforts to quiet the crews and company with him. The journal or log, up to September 19. conforms with the record of the Nina, which was higher than that of the Pinta, Martin Alonzo Pinzon's vessel, and still higher than that of the flagship. Possibly the present large reckoning of the Admiral is due to a similar conformity all along from Sep* tember 19, and was finally corrected to the figures given in the journal since that date to accord with the log of the Pinta, whose captain and pilot were evidently considered by Columbus to be the ablest in the squadron. The interview here related with the pilot of the flagship shows that Colum- bus did not take that gentleman into his confidence on the subject of the distances run. As to the pilot of the Nina, there is no indication of his standing with his captain, Vicente Yaftez Pinzon. But the pilot of the Pinia, Francisco Martinez Pinzon, was the youngest brother of the captain, and without doubt had the assistance and supervision of that celebrated navigator. The entry of 60 leagues on September io, made in Roman numerals (as all such entries were), lends itself to the easy making of a mistake in copying or in footing up : XL and LX on the correct record, and XLVIII with XXVIII on the fictitious one. And, that some such error may be suspected arising from ill formed characters is suggested by what Las Casas states under date of October 8 where he says that " at times during the night it seems they made fifteen miles an hour if the letter [numeral] does not lie (si la letra no es tnentirosa)" Then, again, on September 10 (two days out) the entry thus reports the longest run of this first stretch to the W., making the daily average 36.6 leagues. The day before Columbus had been complaining of the bad work of his helms- men, and on the 13th that the currents had been against him. On the 17th and 18th he covered respectively 50 and 55 leagues, stating that on the former date the current favored him and on the latter he had a placid sea. These entries seem to warrant the suspicion that the record of 60 leagues on September 10 is an error for 40. The other long records of the voyage, those of the 4th, 5th, and 10th of October, were made in very smooth sea and delightful breezes, as the journal there states. For these reasons the reckoning of the Pinta is here taken to be the correct one. On October 2 the patches of sea-weed were coming from the Digitized by Google

Page 837

792 The True Landing-Place of Columbus. [Mar., E., contrary to their U3ual course. The sea and weather were so fair that the Admiral records his thanks to the Almighty. On the night of the 6th Martin Alonzo Pinzon said it would be well to steer W. S. W. ; but it seemed to the Admiral that Martin Alonzo in making this remark did not have in view the reaching of Cipango, for the Admiral felt that if they missed that they might not be able to reach the land ; it was better to go at once for the mainland and afterwards for the islands. There was now great rivalry to get ahead, the Nina being the lightest and generally leading. She fired a gun, as the Admiral had ordered to be done when land were sighted. The vessels were also to gather around him at sunrise and sunset every day, Columbus stating thit those hours were the most favorable for the vapors of the atmosphere to afford a more extended view. As by the afternoon they had not descried the land which the Nina had reported, and because of a great multitude of birds flying from N. to S. W., going ashore to roost, as he thought, or fleeing from the approach of winter, and because he knew that most of the islands pos- sessed by the Portuguese had been discovered by them through birds— for these reasons he consented to quit his course to W, and head W. S. W., determined to keep that course for two days. He began to sail in that direction before the sun had set an hour. From September 26 to the evening of October 7 the squadron had covered due W. 1,110 k., and was in 68° 48' 30" W. by 280 17' 37" N. Had Columbus still failed to heed the suggestion of Martin Alonzo Pinzon he would have fetched up off the Florida coast, if not carried N. E. by the Gulf Stream. Several years later that current carried off one of Juan Ponce de Leon's vessels, never more to be heard from. He had a better equipped and stronger squadron than Columbus, and crews not fatigued from a month's voyage. Had the Admiral succeeded in landing his small company anywhere on that part of the coast, the fierce tribes that inhabited it would have given him a far different reception from that accorded him by the gentle natives of the Bahamas. Juan Ponce de Leon lost his life in a'battle with them, and his survivors were glad to get back whence they had come. Had Columbus, with his small party and poor caravels, reached Florida, the world would most likely never have known his fate. The first run, at night October 7, on the new courset W. S. W., was 15 k., to 6g° 4' 13" W. by 280 11' 51" N. Digitized by Google

Page 838

1901.] The True Landing-Place of Columbus. 793 Monday, 8th, the journal states that it seems they ran 15 miles [about 11 % knots] an hour, but adds : " if the letter does not lie"; that is, the Roman numeral in the log. And they covered on that date 34^ k. W. S. W. to 690 40' 17" W. by 27° 58' 36" N. Next day they made 15 k. to S. W., which put them in 690 52' 13" W. by 270 47' 55" N., from which posi- tion they ran W. by N. 18 k. to 700 12' 8" W. by 270 51' 5" N., turning to W. S. W. for 61 ^ kM which brought them into 710 16' 6" W. by 270 27' 27" N. Wednesday, the 10th, at 7^ knots an hour and sometimes 9, at other times 5#, the day and night footed up 177 knots W. S. W., leaving them in 740 18' 26" W. by 260 19' 25" N. The crews and company could no longer stand the suspense, and complained of the long voyage ; but Columbus encouraged them, arousing hopes of profit, adding that they were com- plaining too much, for he had come out for the purpose of reaching the Indies and had to keep on until he should find them with the aid of our Lord. The confidence and firmness of the Admiral on this occasion were sublime. SIGHTING LAND. Thursday, the nth, the course still W. S. W., they covered 81 k. by sunset, when they were in 750 41' 32" W. by 250 48' 17" N., and where they met various indications of the near- ness of land, in the shape of cane-stalks; sticks, one of which appeared to have been wrought with iron tools ; birds came close to the vessels ; shore grass, and a piece of plank. After sunset Columbus resumed his original course due W. at about 9 knots an hour, and up to two hours past midnight made about 67% knots when the Pinta, the best sailer, sighted from the N. the Paps, two hills on Royal Island, at 2 A. M. Friday, October 12, 1492, about two leagues distant. Columbus said that at ten o'clock the night before he had seen a light, as if a candle were being raised and lowered, and in this he was confirmed by his immediate companions; but his position at that hour was too far from lard— the lowest kind at that — to have seen any light there, at a distance of over thirty nautical miles. Even a torch signal, common among the Indians of that archipelago, could hardly have been seen under the circumstances ; and the probability is that whatever light he saw was either a light of one of his own vessels, bobbing up and down, or of an Indian canoe. If he saw it on either hand, it must have been the latter; if ahead, the former. The Digitized by Google

Page 839

79 1- The True Landing-place of Columbus. [Mar.f journal throws no light on this point. When land was sighted he ordered the squadron to heave to and stand off and on until daylight, a period of some four hours. He was now in the GdUo de Barlovento spoken of by Juan Ponce de Leon in his entry of March 14, 1513, and which is known now as the Providence Channel. It sets to S W. with a drift varying from one and a half to four knots an hour as it sweeps around the elbow at the lower end of Egg Reef, where it forms a bight between Charles, George, Royal and the Egg Islands {in front of which this Egg Reef forms a very dangerous barrier), and Northern Eleuthera. He had been carried S. W. by this current from the night before; and below the elbow of Egg Reef it sets strongly on to the Bank. Now, standing on and off in it for four hours or more, under shortened sail, he found himself at daylight off the position marked on the map as his probable anchorage October 12, 1492. Columbus's straight run of 67 }4 k. W. should have carried htm to 760 59' 28" W. by 25° 48' 17" N. were it not for the S. W. set and heavy drift of the current on his light draught vessels, steadily bending his course south westward. Toward the close of the rainy season (latter part of Octo- ber, for the true date of his landfall was the 21st) Northern Eleuthera presented the water-logged aspect which Columbus describes, as a glance at the chart will show ; it is the most luxuriant and beautiful of the archipelago, and would natur- ally be one of the most populous; its form is triangular, of about ten geographical miles to a side, the eastern one stretch- ing S. E and S. some thirty-odd miles in a narrow strip like a pea. These peculiarities led to its subsequent designation as the "Triango" and the "Triangula," as well as to Las Casas' statement that Guanahani was pea-shaped. On Sunday Columbus started in a N. N. E. direction on the inside of the peninsula where he was anchored to have a look at that pea shaped portion which lay to the eastward of his present position, and to see the settlements along shore. The Indians hailed him to land, but the reefs close to the shore all along were too dangerous for that. After having become satisfied that this region was not the mainland, as Fernando Columbus states, he turned back to resume his westward journey. Before doing this he wished to lay out a fortress: he had noticed a strip of land like an island, though not one, but which in two days could be cut off so as to form one, and on which he found six habitations. This strip of Digitized by Google

Page 840

190 1.] The True Landing-Place of Columbus. 795 7T> C 'n No ptr««pttM« fide tW^-Blgf* 7- .• 3i 31 3i ■ 3 3/ 7?tf« p+rf- it very j/ioa/ w.'H» Where Columbus anchored, October 12, 1492. land was where he had landed, the present Current Island with Current Cut — the latter a very narrow pass between the little peninsular strip and Northern Eleuthera. He had also examined and sounded to some extent the great expanse which he saw beyond — the Bight of Eleuthera, whose entrance is the narrow Fleeming Channel — "large enough to hold all the vessels of Christendom." The chart will show the charac- ter of this " hondo " in which the water is " as still as in a well " (Es verdad que dentro de est a cinta hay algtinas bajas mas la mar no se mueve mas que dentro de un pozo). And the chart shows that in the Bight of Eleuthera there is a wide "hondo," or "pot," with soundings ranging from fifteen to thirty feet, and that there is no perceptible tide. From Cur- rent peninsula he could see many islands, and determined to seek those S. of him. Digitized by Google

Page 841

796 Thomas Henry Huxley. [Mar., THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. BY REV. JAMES J. FOX, D.D. ftff'Mfc WELL-KNOWN historian once expressed his re- WS^^M Bjl Sret t'iat mor^ of the correspondence of private in- 1K ml dividuals is not available for the study of the past. The future historian who will turn his attention gfSBSSSBBMSt to the doings of our generation will have no rea- son to make a similar lament. Every day the press sends forth a fresh batch of biographies and autobiographies crammed with the letters of celebrities or nobodies, reflecting the char- acteristics, customs, habits, aims, tastes, fashions, and foibles of contemporary life in every stage of society. Few of these vol- umes will prove to have a more permanent interest than the re- cently published Biography of Thomas Henry Huxley, in which is recorded the origin and progress of the most remarkable movement in modern thought. Born in 1825, near London, Huxley received but little edu- cation ; yet his own statement, that he was " kicked out into the world, without guide or training, or with worse than none," is somewhat exaggerated. In 1846 he entered the British navy as assistant surgeon. He spent four years abroad, engaged chiefly in scientific research in natural history and zoology. On his return to England he had already attracted notice in the scientific world, through some papers which he had con- tributed to the various journals. After a period of hesitation as to his future course he finally devoted himself to science. It was after the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species, in 1859, that Huxley stepped into prominence as the most ardent and aggressive champion of the Evolution theory. In i860 took place the famous Oxford meeting, in which the friends and foes of Darwinism met for the purpose of discuss- ing it. The most distinguished of the clerical party was William Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, a man of culture and great ability as a speaker. His scientific knowledge, however, was neither extensive nor accurate. Towards the end of his speech he addressed some flippant personalities to Huxley. The latter saw his opponent's blunder, and when his own turn to speak came retorted fiercely and effectively. Digitized by Google

Page 842

I90i.] Thomas Henry Huxley. 797 RECOGNIZED ADVOCATE OF EVOLUTION. The result was that Huxley became at once the recognised advocate and defender of Evolution. Henceforward his rdle was, to use his own words, to be " Darwin's bull-dog " and " gladiator-general " for science. His celebrity is principally due not to his scientific work, but to the voluminous con- troversial literature in which he undertook to promote the acceptance of the Evolution doctrine, and to discredit all philosophical and religious convictions which clashed with the new gospel. His scientific attainments, certainly, conferred upon him, in the eyes of the public, an authority which he would not otherwise have possessed. But it was usually upon ques- tions of Metaphysics, Ethics, and Religion that he crossed swords with his opponents in the polemical arena. He knew, and was honest enough to admit, that upon the most funda- mental questions over which he was in conflict with orthodoxy — the existence of God, free-will, the immortality of the soul — physical science has nothing whatever to say. One of his ex- plicit declarations on this subject is worth keeping in mind : " If the belief in a God is essential to morality, physical science offers no obstacle thereto ; if the belief in immortality is es- sential to morality, physical science has no more to say against the probability of that doctrine than the most ordinary ex- perience has, and it effectually closes the mouths of those who pretend to refute it by objections deduced from merely physi- cal data."* What an eloquent commentary this admission supplies on the perpetual cry of superficial popularizers that Science has demolished the foundations of religious belief ! Giving all due consideration to the scientific side of Huxley's intellect, there is in his life-record and in the character of his writings very solid grounds for maintaining that Huxley's natural bent was towards metaphysical speculation, at least as much as towards Natural Science. Even in his boyhood he perplexed himself over such problems as what would become of things, if their qualities were taken away. At an early age he became familiar with Sir William Hamilton's Logic. In 1861 his friend, Sir John Hooker, advised him to devote himself to pure science and let metaphysics and modes of thought alone. Had he followed this advice, it is safe to say that, though he would probably have attained a much higher rank in science than he reached, he never would have acquired the * Collected Essays, p. 144, ed. Appleton, 1894. VOL. LXXII.— 52 Digitized by Google

Page 843

798 Thomas Henry Huxley. [Mar., unhappy celebrity which came to him as the persistent foe, not alone of Christianity but even of natural religion. His most vigorous efforts were put forth, not in the realm of scien- tific knowledge but in iconoclastic polemics. It was to his abilities as a writer and a dialectician that he chiefly owed his prestige. AN ABLE POLEMICAL WRITER. Though admiration of his abilities must be mingled with condemnation of the immoral use which he made of his bril- liant gifts, one cannot read his works without recognizing his powers of exposition, his clear, terse, and vigorous style. These qualities, together with a quick eye for any tactical blunder of an opponent, made him a formidable foe, and enabled him, BeliaMike, to make "the worse appear the better reason." One of the best examples of the unerring sweep with which he fell upon a blunder and turned the tables upon an adversary, irre- spective of the merits of the real question at issue, is found in his criticism of Mivart's Genesis of Species. Mivart asserted that Catholic theologians had long ago advanced views of creation which anticipate the broad lines of the Evolution theory. In proof of his statement he offered apposite citations from St. Augustine and St. Thomas. But instead of resting his case here, he wished to have the authority of Suarez too behind him. Unfortunately for him, the passage which he brought forward from Suarez did not bear on the subject, though there was some semblance of relevancy in the phraseology. Huxley con- sulted Suarez, and at once perceived that Mivart had blundered. In an article published in the Contemporary he showed the true meaning of the passage. Besides, he produced from the work in which Suarez treats ex professo of creation other passages in which the learned Jesuit rejects the opinion of St. Augustine, and intimates that only respect for St. Augustine restrained St. Thomas from rejecting it too. Thus Huxley " refuted Mivart out of the mouth of his own prophet." The concise- ness and clearness with which Huxley pointed out the true gist of the passage cited by Mivart is no bad index of his acumen. HE WAS A TYPICAL AGNOSTIC. By all who reprobated Huxley's tenets he was esteemed an iconoclast. To this designation his biographer demurs. With- out discussing whether he can be justly accused of iconoclasm Digitized by Google

Page 844

I90i.] Thomas Henry Huxley. 799 with regard to the ranged conditions of civil society, there is no doubt but that the term iconoclast may be applied with full force to him as far as his position towards philosophy and religion is concerned. He endorsed the estimate of philosophy made by Kant: "The sole use of all philosophy of pure rea- son is after all merely negative, since it serves not as an organ- on for the enlargement of knowledge, but as a discipline for its delimitation, and instead of discovering truth has only the modest merit of preventing error." Towards the end of his life, when replying to the reproach that his work had been destructive, he acknowledges- the charge.* His vaunted Agnosticism is nothing but the thesis that on the great problems which in every age have occupied the human mind and the human heart nothing can be known. His naturally sceptical bias was strengthened by reading Man- sel and Hamilton. The former, as Huxley saw clearly, de- fended natural and supernatural religion after a fashion which resembled the proceedings of the man in Hogarth's picture, who is up a tree industriously sawing off the branch on which he is astride. The turn of mind which the reading of Mansel promoted Hume developed and fixed. Huxley's sympathies were ever with the leveller, never with the builder. " I be- lieve," he writes, "in Hamilton, Mansel, and Herbert Spencer so long as they are destructive, and I laugh at their beards as soon as they try to spin, their own cobwebs." + This bent of Huxley's mind was, no doubt, intensified by his training in \ natural science, which led him in all matters of inquiry to look for the same kind of demonstration as is to be found in scien- tific proof. When Mr. Lilly accused him of putting aside as unverifiable everything beyond the bounds of physical science, he easily refuted the charge. But, at the same time, he de- clared his belief that the methods of physical science are the only ones capable of reaching truth. Elsewhere he wrote with reference to the immortality of the soul : " 1 know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker con- victions. I dare not if I would." \ To assume this position towards metaphysical evidence, and the evidence drawn from our moral nature, is to reject it a priori. And the unreasona- ble demand that all demonstration must conform to that de- ducible from scientific observation and experiment in the physical world is largely responsible for Huxley's Agnosticism. * Life, vol. ii. p. 319. \ Ibid^ i. p. 262. \ Ib,^ p. 234* Digitized by Google

Page 845

8oo Thoma s Henr y Huxle y. [Mar.r II. HUXLEY AS A MAN. As Huxley's philosophical and religious opinions were so well known during his life-time, few will look through his Biography for further light on that subject. The reader's in- terest will be rather centred upon Huxley the man. And probably those who reprobate his doctrine will be on the look- out for anything that might indicate a contradiction between his innermost feelings pr convictions and his professed belief. If there can be detected any evidence to convict him of con- scious intellectual dishonesty, it is too microscopic to be worthy of notice. And fairness demands the recognition of his many good qualities of heart as well as of mind. The domestic life of his father and mother, Mr. Huxley tells us — and the corre- spondence bears out his assertion — was " a supreme example of sincerity and devotion." He was frank and honorable in all his dealings. Throughout his life, says his biographer, he dis- played " a proud spirit of independence, intolerant of patron- age, careless of worldly honors, indifferent to the accumulation of wealth." That a man whose conduct deserves this praise should have risen from humble beginnings to the position which Huxley attained in English public life affords strong proof that, apart from his religious, or rather irreligious, prin- ciples, he was possessed of sound moral qualities. Thirty years after he had attacked Wilberforce he appeared once more at Oxford to address an Oxford audience. On this occasion graduates and undergraduates, reverend and very reverend members of the Anglican Church, flocked to see and hear him who had become one of the best known men in England. Vast indeed was the contrast between the temper of the churchmen who had boiled with indignation on hearing " a certain Mr. Huxley " retort irreverently upon Samuel Wilberforce, and the respectful interest with which the crowd which filled the Shel- donian theatre followed the imperfectly audible words of the lecture on Evolution and Ethics. The change which had taken place in the estimate made of Huxley was due, no doubt, in a large measure to the great progress which Darwinism had meanwhile made. In 1883 Huxley had said that " Evolution was getting made into a bolus for the ecclesiastical swallow." Before 1893 the bolus had been swallowed by a great number of the Anglican clergy, though with a good deal of wry faces. But after due allow* Digitized by Google

Page 846

I90I.] Thomas Henry Huxley. 80 i ance is made for this factor in the change of sentiment towards - Huxley, a considerable residue remains to be credited to his own personal prestige. HIS RELATION TO RELIGIOUS BELIEF. When one remembers the life-long hostility of Huxley to- wards religion and its fundamental doctrines, it will seem, per- haps, to some that to acquiesce in his biographer's claim that the most pronounced characteristic of Huxley was an uncom- promising passion for truth, would be to admit a paradox. If a man sincerely desirous of truth remains untouched by the arguments for God's existence and immortality, what, it may be asked, becomes of the claims of sound philosophy to show the reasonableness of these dogmas? To answer this question we must discriminate between unconscious bias, or dominant prejudice, and conscious intellectual dishonesty and falsehood. We must further remember that the objective value of a demonstration is one thing ; its power of driving home convic- tion on an unwilling mind quite another. We have already alluded to the genesis of Huxley's scepticism. And if we take into account his original cast of mind, his prejudice against all but scientific evidence, his revolt against religion as he first came in contact with it, his arrogance towards authority — a trait which he cherished in himself, and which he admired when displayed in an offensive manner by his grandchild — we shall have no difficulty in understanding how he might fancy he was but insisting upon adequate proof when he refused his assent to the truths of religion. Like another sinner, " His honor rooted in dishonor stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." Nor is the admission of Huxley's honesty any disparagement of theistic and Christian grounds of belief. The evidence of the great fundamental truths is not of the same kind as that which compels our assent to the proposition that two and two make four. Neither is it such as we have for the law of the inverse squares, which may be verified as often as we please. Unlike these two latter kinds, it will not force itself on a mind which faces it in sceptical hostility. Cardinal Newman remarks: " Truth certainly, as such, rests upon grounds intrinsically and objectively and abstractedly demonstrative, but it does not fol- low from this that the arguments producible in its favor are unanswerable and irresistible ; . . . the fact of revelation is Digitized by Google

Page 847

802 Thomas Henry Huxley. [Mar., in itself demonstrably true, but it is not therefore true irre- sistibly; else how comes it to be resisted?"* If there ever was a reverent mind desirous of truth, pursu- ing it with humility and a deep sense of responsibility, New- man's was such a mind. Now let us hear himself declare what effect the theistic arguments drawn from the external universe produced on him. M The world," he says, " seems simply to give the lie to that great truth of which my whole being is so full. ... If I looked into a mirror and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which comes upon me / when I look into this living, busy world and see no reflection of its Creator. Were it not for this voice speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, a pantheist, or a polytheist when I look into the world." f It is not to be understood that this estimate is accepted and en- dorsed, because it is quoted. It is offered merely to show how faint an appeal these arguments for God's existence made to at least one mind free from all prejudice against the belief in God. And if they failed to reach Newman, we may well believe Huxley's statement that they did not convince him. HIS CONCEIT OF OPINION. In offering what may seem an extenuating plea for Huxley's unbelief, we are very far from implying that he was not re- sponsible for his abuse of the brilliant gifts which he had received. One cause of his failure to see the light lay not in the intellectual, but in the moral side of his nature. That fault was what the moralist calls pride of intellect. He showed no reverent desire to seek God. He would not believe unless he were allowed to dictate the sort of demonstration that was to be submitted to him, just as the Jews specified the special miracle which alone would convince them. It is true that he frequently referred to the modesty of his Agnosticism; but his professions of modesty were always a boast, not a humble con fession. No Grecian sophist ever vaunted his ability to prove anything more than did Huxley his to demonstrate that be- yond the things of time and sense we can know nothing. It is an elementary teaching of the Gospel that God resisteth the proud and giveth his grace to the humble. Though he continually lavished his scorn upon those who presumed to speak on matters of natural science without having a thorough scientific knowledge of their subject, yet he him- * Grammar of Assent^ p. 410, ed. Longmans, 1895. f Apologia^ p. 241, ed. Longmans, 1895. Digitized by Google

Page 848

igoi.] Thomas Henry Huxley. 803 self is never more dogmatic than when handling questions of Christian theology and early Christian development, subjects concerning which his information was but fragmentary and superficial. Throughout all his controversial writings the dogmatic tone,* the intolerance, the perpetual sneer, the per- vading insinuation that those who differed from him must be either fools or knaves, betray the arrogance which lay so poorly masked behind the professed modesty of his Agnosticism. Even when he makes a concession or assumes the tone of com- pliment, the deferential bow is accompanied with a satirical grin. In his correspondence, too, we hear a constant chuckle of self-satisfaction over his ability to give an adversary a drub- bing. This continual boastfulness is scarcely reconcilable with the statement that " his fight was as far as possible for the truth itself, for fact, not merely for controversial victory or personal triumph." + III. HIS INCONSISTENCIES. Notwithstanding Huxley's profession that in weighing evidence he tested all that asked for his assent by one unvary- ing standard, it is clear that he had one set of weights and measures for what suited his own tenets and another set for religious truth. As an illustration of this we need go no further than his belief in Evolution. A pivotal postulate of this theory when extended to the realm of sentient being is that life originated from non-life. Yet in his " Lay Sermon " on Spontaneous Generation he admits there is no evidence that spontaneous generation has ever taken place. The presence of an equal difficulty against the acceptance of a religious truth would have been for him a sufficient reason to con- temptuously reject it. Again, he felt how the simplest acts of conduct, such as asking a friend to reply to his letter, involve the absurdity of Determinism. Yet its absurdity did not cause him to give up Determinism. As he recognized that the uni- formity of nature is no warrant for assuming that the laws of nature are fixed by an inexorable necessity, he conceded that science can show no a priori objection to the possibility of miracles, and that consequently the question upon which the credibility of miracles depends is the validity of the testimony adduced in their favor. Then he rejected the miracle of our Lord's resurrection on the grounds that the proofs that death ♦For a characteristic attack pn an opponent 44 he was roundly lectured by the Sptctator in an article under the heading * Pope Huxley,' " Lt/t, vol. i. p. 350. \ Life, vol. ii. p. 429. Digitized by Google

Page 849

804 Thomas Henry Huxley. [Mar., had taken place are insufficient ; yet they are as unimpeachable as those we have for the death of Julius Caesar; and they have not been challenged even by Bauer or Renan. THE SANCTIONS OF THE MORAL LAW. The theory of moral sanction with which he professed to be satisfied is so palpably inadequate, that one finds difficulty in believing that it could be found satisfactory by his exacting mind. But he was reduced to the dilemma of either support- ing it, or of having to admit one of the strongest arguments of natural reason for the immortality of the soul and the ex- istence of a moral Governor of the Universe. Who can doubt but that his prejudice against the latter alternative was the weight which turned the balance in favor of the former ? There is no need for future rewards and punishments, he contended ; for virtue brings its own reward, and vice its own punishment here and now. The man who violates the moral law, he asserted, "descends into hell/' through the torture of self- reproach. Now, that guilt is attended with remorse is a truism. To a conscience that acknowledges in sin an offence against the love of a merciful Father, and an outrage offered to the Majesty of the Creator, the sense of guilt is a piercing sorrow. But sup- press these two conceptions, and what remains in self-reproach but a feeling of dissatisfaction with one's self for having failed to live up to one's higher possibilities. If the punishment which the experience of this feeling carries is sufficient to avenge the outraged moral order, then, judging from the leniency of the penalty, it is idle to speak of any immeasurable gulf between right and wrong, between the jast man and the profligate. But let us grant, for argument's sake, that vice may some- times be its own avenger. Let us admit, for instance, that Huxley descended into a very hell of self-reproach, and expi- ated under the lash of conscience those early excesses which he so frankly confessed. As he had, according to his own statements, drunk deeper than most men of Circe's cup, so, we shall suppose, the avenging Furies tortured him with a severity which few experience. His sufferings from the worm that dieth not may have exceeded those caused by the loss of his first child, whom he mourned so deeply. Yet his own experi- ence did not justify him in formulating as a dogma the opinion that the same sequence between vice and punishment always holds. Everybody knows that no such proportion between Digitized by Google

Page 850

igoi.] Thomas Henry Huxley. 805 guilt and remorse exists invariably. Instead of self reproach increasing, in the direct ratio of delinquency, it tends to dimin^ ish inversely with the number and gravity of moral offences. This is an experience which mankind has everywhere sum- med up in such phrases as a seared conscience and a har- dened heart. A good man will experience more self-reproach for one lapse from virtue than will the profligate for countless crimes. The first step of the profligate, too, may have been attended with feelings of compunction ; but let him only per- severe and he will come to a state when remorse has no meaning for him. These are facts to which the man of facts tightly shut his eyes. A DESPOILER OF MEN'S HEARTS. It is claimed for Huxley that one of his ruling motives was a constant desire to apply knowledge to the guidance of life, " to help the struggling world to ideas which should help them to think truly and to live rightly." I should,'* he wrote, " like to be remembered as one who did his best to help the people." His endeavor to help the people resolved itself, chiefly, into a persistent effort to destroy their belief in God and the immortality of the soul. Now, whatever might be his personal estimate of the basis on which these beliefs rested, he knew these beliefs to be an immense force for good among those who hold them. He knew that they are to the vast majority of those whom his words might reach the deepest source of consolation and strength against the countless shocks that flesh is heir to. He acknowledged that in throwing them off he had "stripped himself of the hopes and consolations of the mass of mankind.'1 A man whose dearest wish would be to help the people to live rightly, and whose action would be guided by prudence with an adequate sense of responsibility, would not attempt to deprive the people of these powerful helps to right living, and deep sources of solace for the ills of life, unless he was in a position to offer the faltering conscience and the desolate heart something better in their stead. Before destroying in others these bulwarks against vice and sorrow and sou I- weariness, he would feel that he must be very sure not merely that those beliefs are unverifiable by scientific proof, but that they must positively be false. This was not Huxley's case. I^e had nothing to offer for all he strove to take away. His only philosophy for the trials of life was what he describes as the " grin and-bear-it " philo- sophy. When he announced to his sister the tidings of their Digitized by Google

Page 851

8o6 Thomas Henry Huxley. [Mar. mother's death the only comfort he could suggest was, " I have no consolation to offer you, my dearest sister, for I know of none." He admitted that after all had been said on the subject by science, the Christian doctrine of God and immor- tality might be true. " I may be quite wrong," he wrote in i860, "and in that case I know I shall have to pay the penalty."* Again, when the tale of his years had almost touched the Psalm, ist's term, and his life's work was behind him, he let us see in his Irenicon that the Agnosticism with which he endeavored to inoculate other consciences had not proved an effective ano- dyne for his own — he had not " done his day's work always with a light heart, with no sense of responsibility, no terror of that which may appear when the factitious veil of Isis — the thick web of fiction man has woven round nature — is stripped off."f Had he loved the people wisely he would not have felt called upon to deprive them of the chief safeguards of their morality, and the chief source of their consolation. The appearance of this biography has brought forth a great deal of indiscriminate eulogy on the subject of it ; and much more for the views with which his name is identified. As one peruses the articles, reviews, and short notices which have re- cently appeared in all kinds of newspapers and periodicals, one has evidence — if evidence were wanted— of the blind, uncritical fashion with which Evolution in its extreme form is popularly accepted, not as a theory but as a fact. Huxley once said that Evolution was in danger of becoming a superstition. His forecast has been more than verified : it has reached its apotheo- sis. Its advocates bring forward as an unanswerable argument in its favor the truth that its application has proved to be a source of vast progress in physical sciences. Two other truths are overlooked. One is that a theory may be legitimate within certain boundaries, yet false when extended to a class of phe- nomena lying entirely without those limits. The other we allow Huxley himself to state : " Any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the ' anticipation of nature ' — that is, by the invention of hypotheses which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with ; and not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long-run." X * Life% vol. i. p. 238. f Ibid,y vol. ii. 320. vol. ii. p. 521. Digitized by Google

Page 852

i. Hewlett: Richard Yea~and-Nay ; 2. Weale: Metnlinc; 3. Gilder: Autobiography of a Tom-Boy; 4. O'Connor-Repplier : v Motifs; 5. Montague-Dyer: Written in Red; 6. Harland: Car- dinaVs Snuff- Box ; 7. Valdes-Smith : Captain Ribot ; 8. Spof- V ford : Book for All Readers ; 9. McCarthy : Round of Rimes ; 10. Latimer: Last Days of Nineteenth Century; 11. George: Henry George; 12. Collis-Ingersoll : Abraham Lincoln; 13. Dunlop : Daniel O'Connell; 14. Banfield : John Wesley; 15. Thrasher: Tuskegee; 16. Maher: Psychology; 17. Jastrow: Psychology. 1, — Richard Yeaand-Nay* is, without doubt, an altogether extraordinary work — extraordinary in the strict sense of the term, for it is surely and easily out of the order of the innu- merable ephemeral novels that are being constantly flooded forth over the reading world. Nowadays, when the common test of the value of a novel seems to be the number of copies that are gobbled up by a fiction-gluttonous public, and when the ambition of publishers seems to be nothing but to turn out enough books to "make a belt around the world," or to "cram the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral many times over " (as we have seen it expressed), it is a distinct pleasure to come across one at least that is worth reading, careful reading, and even per- haps re-reading. It is our opinion that this romance from the pen of Maurice Hewlett is such a one. Everybody knows that it has been patronized and lavishly praised by a literary critic so discriminating as Frederic Harrison. It is much to say we do not find his praise of what he calls Mr. Hewlett's " great feat" extravagant. To summarize the excellences of Richard Yea- and-Nay we may put them thus : unlike many recent books having the same ambition, it succeeds in being an " historical romance " worthy of the name, for it has overcome the con- fessedly great difficulty of investing historical facts with a con- sistently sustained dignity of imagination and idealization ; it * The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay. By Maurice Hewlett. New York : The Macmillan Company. Digitized by Google

Page 853

8o8 Talk about Ne w Books. [Mar., is a vigorous and impressive delineation of the character of its hero, Richard Coeur de Lion, the bi-natured Yea-and- Nay " ; it is written in a strikingly unique and powerful style, picturesque, compact, pregnant, boldly figurative ; and it is, in the main, an artistic production, well schemed and suc- cessfully executed. Such praise would seem to be all-inclusive had we not to qualify it by admitting the exceptions to these general good qualities. Take the style, for instance, perhaps the most important of the factors that make the work remark- able. It is, as we say, unique, but this virtue sometimes lapses into a fault, for there is not a little evidence of conscious straining for the unordinary in expression ; again it is, as we say, powerful, but sometimes it becomes almost too ruggedly so; it abounds in bold figures, but the boldness sometimes be- comes alarming and makes one wonder at the writer's temerity in the use of words, even if one is not ready to condemn him. Or take the work from the point of view of conception and creative skill : it is for the greater part artistic because true, but we doubt very much whether the conception of Jehane's sacrifice of herself into the hands of the "old man of the mountain " be not both inartistic and untrue ; in fact, we are inclined to believe that it violates all pretence to verisimili- tude. But for some reason or other, as Richard himself to his chronicler and confessor Milo, so Mr. Hewlett to his reader seems attractive even in his faults, for they are bold and kingly faults. Indeed, as one closes the book he easily for- gets its faults, and remains with the conviction that the author is a writer of a new power. Will he be read as wide- ly as the favorites who (if we may believe their publishers) number their readers by the tens and even hundreds of thou- sands? We are inclined to think, with Mr. Harrison, that the 11 easy-going millions" will not take to Richard Yea-and- Nay ; but that matters little — it remains true that it is almost, if not quite, a masterpiece. We think it even desirable that the book be unattractive to those, at least, who have not the mind and the discretion to understand and to judge how far they are to accept as accurate some of Mr. Hewlett's de- scriptions of conditions and facts arising from the strange mingling of piety and savagery in the Christian people of the time of the third Crusade. 2. — Among the most interesting of the Messrs. Bell's art publications is their series of Hand-books of the Great Masters Digitized by Google

Page 854

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 809 in Painting and Sculpture, about a dozen of which have been issued already under the editorship of G. C. Williamson. The latest volume* of the series is that devoted to Hans Memlinc. It has been prepared by W. H. James Weale, a gentleman who both previously and subsequently to his con- nection with the National Art Library at South Kensington has spent a great deal of time in making researches in the art archives of Belgium and Holland. He is to be congratulated on the appearance of the present book. It is a brief critical study of the life and work of an artist excelled perhaps only by the Van Eycks out of all the Early Netherland school. As a matter of fact only during the latter half of the century just closed has anything like a careful study of that school been attempted, and there is still room for considerable critical work both in clearing up its history and in identifying the works of its different members. The bibliography and catalogue in the present volume indicate the careful and helpful way in which the writer has gone about his work. There is a hand- some photogravure frontispiece and forty illustrations, some of which are not any too satisfactory. 3. — Here undoubtedly is a " one-sitting " book.f The Auto- biography of a Tom Boy suggests something naughty, but — to whisper the truth — we confess having enjoyed it immensely. And we fear greatly that there is enough human perversity in our boys and girls — and indeed in their elders, who ought to be more sedate and sensible — to make them chuckle over this story of the escapades of a typical tom boy. Miss Gilder's quick, hurried, snappy style carries one along buoyantly, and Florence Scovel Shinn's pencil has done not a little in the way of exposing the innate wickedness of the wild little heroine. 4. — Introduced by an essay from Miss Repplier's pen and handsomely bound in stamped leather, Motifs % will find many readers favorably disposed toward it at the start. But the contents of the booklet rather disappoint one. In the midst of some clever epigrams appear others that are almost com- monplace ; in style, too, the author offends occasionally by sentences that are artificial. Too frequent inversion is a dan- * Hans Memlinc. By W. H. James Weale. New York : The Macmillan Company, t The Autobiography of a Tom-Boy. By Jeannette L. Gilder. New York : Doubleday, Page & Co. \ Motifs. By E. Scott O'Connor; with Introduction by Agnes Repplier. New York: The Century Company. Digitized by Google

Page 855

8io Talk about New Books. [Mar., ger against which Miss O'Connor must guard. Let us hasten to say that there is in her pages much fine sentiment well ex- pressed, her best inspiration evidently being drawn from the conception of human love as an influence necessarily enno- bling the participants. 5. — A lurid title* and opening scene showing a name written by a dying man with his own blood give promise of a delightfully blood-curdling story after the style of Old Sleuth. But alas ! there are no desperate gangs of criminals with strange oaths, underground passages, and miraculous transformations and escapes. These people are dully respectable, and the de- tectives are misled by false clues very much after the manner of ordinary human beings. Of course the prize-winner is a newspaper reporter, and from his vaunted superiority over a supine police force, as well as from the composition, one might infer the book to be written by reporters. Aside from one fanciful flight, "the man whose name was on his mind's lips entered," the style is very direct and clear. We are grateful for being spared elaborate scenery descriptions and character painting — everybody is appropriately tagged at the outset. From time to time the reader feels that the correct clue has been found, and the interest is sustained until the denouement appears in the form of a confession. One instinctively reverts to " The Mystery of Marie Roget," and wonders why the bright young reporter did not profit by M. Dupin's example and read the other New York papers for clues. We judge, however, that he was the only man of the metropolitan press at work on this case. 6. — The latest issue of literary statistics shows that The CardinaFs Snuff-Box,\ in many quarters of the country, holds a place among the most popular novels of the day. We think it deserves its popularity. It is a bright, sprightly, clean tale in which the reader's interest is held from beginning to end by means of the author's rare knack of weaving every-day trifles into a gracefully told tale of simple affection. If the title suggests to the reader visions of some deep-woven plot of statecraft, or ecclesiastical intrigue, he will be disappointed. There is no Mazarin or De Retz ; the snuff box is no heredi- tary talisman ; it does not play any part resembling that of * Written in Red, or the Conspiracy in the North Case. By Charles Howard Montague and C. W. Dyer. New York : Brentanos, Cassell Publishing Company. f The CardinaFs Snuff-Box. By Henry Harland. London and New York : John Lane. Digitized by Google

Page 856

igoi.] Talk about New Books. 8ii the Diamond Necklace. The story is well under way when the snuff-box is bought as a present for the cardinal by his niece, the heroine ; and its place in the machinery of the plot is to give an excuse to the hero to present himself to her at a time when, by playing at cross-purposes, they are almost on the point of separating without discovering their mutual affection. There are many delicious touches of humor, especially in inci. dents where the good old Italian housekeeper is sadly per- plexed by the behavior and language of her mad cap English master. Glimpses of Italian scenery are introduced without any apparent stcaining after effect, such as is frequently obvi- ous in some other novels in vogue at present. 7. — English readers are rarely afforded an opportunity of enjoying any of the masterpieces of fiction which appear in the language of Cervantes. The translation of A. Palacio Vald6s* La Alegria del Capitan Ribot* will convince them that Spanish literature to-day is not unworthy of that which has preceded it. The motive of the author, he declared, was to offer "a protest from the depths against the eternal adultery of the French novel." The heroine, Christina Marti, is a splendid delineation of noble, graceful, delicate womanhood. Her wifely loyalty, unsullied even by a momentary hesitation in thought, spurns contemptuously the blandishments and the threats of the polished profligate, her husband's friend. When she finds that the good-natured, honest, but very human Cap- tain Ribot, who is the naive narrator of the tale, is smitten by her attractions, she, like a true 'woman, with kindly prudence appeals successfully to what is best in him. He becomes the worthy friend of her and her husband ; and his joys are the joys of virtue and self-sacrifice. One of the charms of the book is the glimpses it gives of modern Spanish life, in which blend so closely Southern gaiety and Spanish dignity. The charms of Valencian skies and landscape are around us as we read ; and everywhere is apparent that delicacy of touch with which nature, perhaps by way of compensation, has so gener- ously endowed the Latin races and doled out in but step- motherly fashion to that formidable personage the Anglo- Saxon. 8, — To every one interested in the writing or collecting of books, but especially to librarians, public or private, Mr. Spof- * The Joy of Captain Ribot, By A. Palacio Valdes. Translated by Minna Caroline Smith. New York : Brentanos. Digitized by Google

Page 857

8l2 Talk about New Books. [Mar., ford's new volume* will prove exceedingly interesting. The author is known to the world through his connection with the Congressional Library, and as one reads the conviction grows that here is a man who perfectly understands his subject, who knows exactly what he is writing about. Therewith springs up an ever increasing admiration for the enormous mass of infor- mation which Mr. Spofford possesses— information gained at first hand and covering, apparently, every conceivable point in his chosen field. We know of no work that even rivals the present one. Bookbinding, bookbuying, book-listing, book- shelving, book-choosing, book reading, libraries, librarians, library regulations, library reports — on these and a multitude of other subjects we find the opinion of an expert clearly stated. The book is, indeed, one " for all readers." 9, — In A Round of Rimes \ the author has gathered together a number of fugitive short poems, most of which have already appeared in various magazines. The first gleanings of an author in the field of poetry usually contain much that is of but little interest except to his immediate circle. In this little volume, however, there are two or three pieces which, breath- ing of the Celtic muse, are worthy of a pennant place in Dr. Brooks's New Anthology. When Mr. McCarthy abandons Irish themes for general and well worn topics his inspiration is less fresh, and a certain deficiency of technique becomes more ap- parent. There is, however, in almost all of his work a promise of better things to come. 10. — Few writers of the present day, or indeed of any day, who have devoted themselves to the Muse of History have dis- played such powers of production as Mrs. Elizabeth W. Lati- mer. And only a special favorite of Clio could successfully cover the vast field over which Mrs. Latimer ranges. So great is the complexity of modern life, so numerous the interests, and so rapid the development of events, that most students find all their energies exhausted in grappling with the chroni- cles of one country. Many find ample scope for their abilities in the investigation of a particular phase, or a very limited period of a single nation. Mrs. Latimer, however, intrepidly undertakes the task of presenting the history of several Euro- pean nations in the nineteenth century. Spain, Italy, Europe * A Book for all Readers, By Ainsworth Rand Spofford. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. \A Round of Rimes. By Denis A. McCarthy. Boston Review Company. Digitized by Google

Page 858

1901.] Talk about New Books. 813 in Africa, Russia and Turkey, England, and France have each been treated in a separate volume from her prolific pen. Her latest book* is a sequel of these others. It is divided into six parts: I.France; II. Russia and Turkey; III. England; IV. Europe in Africa ; V. Italy and Austro-Hungary ; VI. Spain — the Spanish-American War. In a preface the author offers an apology for having omitted Germany from her nineteenth cen- tury studies. In treating the history of Italy she has dealt so extensively with German affairs up to 1888 that there hardly remained enough material for a separate volume upon them. And Germany since 1888 has, she says, been treated when she was writing upon France and Italy. She excuses herself for omitting many other subjects which the title of her book would seem to promise. Though the Boer War has been followed up as far as the capture of Pretoria, our own war in the Philip- pines is not recounted. But Mrs. Latimer thinks that Spain having yielded up her sovereignty over these islands the sub- sequent proceedings need interest her no more. If German and Filipino are disposed to resent their exclusion from Mrs. Latimer's book, perhaps they will find solace in the apophthegm, " Happy the country that has no history." Readers who may be inclined to complain of the absence of any critical estimate of the events recorded, and of any attempt to get at the bot- tom facts, must remember that work of this kind cannot be done on the morrow of the occurrence. A great deal of what is essential to a true estimate of our contemporary history will not be made public for at least another generation. Mrs. Latimer has availed herself of the only data at her disposal — daily newspapers, various magazines, and occasional books of travel and adventure. From these sources she has produced a very readable volume, which will help to entertain that large class who desire to enjoy a panorama of recent his- tory with the minimum expenditure of intellectual effort. Of course the nature of the sources from which Mrs. Latimer has drawn will impose the necessity for extreme caution on the part of any future historian who may be tempted to draw upon Mrs. Latimer's accumulations. The most interesting feature of the book is her apprecia- tion of men and events. They are usually made from a de- cidedly personal point of view. But if Mrs. Latimer has her prejudices she is not a rabid partisan ; and she displays her * The Last Days of the Nineteenth Century. By Elizabeth Wormsley Latimer. Chi- cago : A. C. McClurg & Co. VOL. LXXII.— 53 Digitized by Google

Page 859

814 Talk about New Books. [Mar., leanings with a naivet/ which disarms criticism. It is a pleas- ure to find, too, that when the occasion arises, she is willing to acknowledge that a former opinion of hers needs correction. In the present volume she has, we think, provided herself with an opportunity of displaying this charming trait in a subse- quent work. 11. — In one sense the Life of Henry George* \s an excellent specimen of biographical work. It is written by a member of the household, who saw and knew Henry George in his private as well as in his public life, who loved and understood him, and who is, therefore, peculiarly well equipped to reveal to the outside world the real life and inner nature of the man him- self. The author has made the best of his opportunities, and the reader, after finishing the volume, feels that he knows Henry George in a way that few readers of biographies can know the man of whom they read. But the book has the defects of its qualities. The author is both a son and a disciple. He believes in George, as George believed in himself. He accepts him as a prophet, and makes an act of faith in his entire gospel — even in the obiter dicta. The note of finality that runs through the work jars on the reader who may admire, and perhaps reverence, the character of Henry George, but who is not quite prepared to subscribe to the infallibility of his teaching. It must be remembered, however, that few men have exerted so strong or so widespread an influence as Henry George. He may almost be said to have established a cult ; and the tone of this book is one that will awaken a thoroughly sympathetic response in the hearts of thousands. And even to those who dissent most radically from the economic teachings of Henry George, this narrative of his life will appeal strongly, if they will only distinguish between the man and his message. The biography brings out strongly the qualities that made him loved, admired, believed in. It portrays vividly a character that represents one of the noblest types of American manhood, and the reading of it is an inspira- tion. The rugged honesty of his character, the purity of his motives, the lofty sense of duty, put the stamp of nobility on Henry George ; and the magnificent tribute of respect that his fellow citizens of every class and condition paid to his memory at the time of his death was an inspiring reminder that we * The Life of Henry George. By his Son, Henry George, Jr. New York : Doubleday & McClure Company. Digitized by Google

Page 860

190 1.] Talk about New Books. 8iS still reverence idealism wherever it is found. The lives of such men well deserve to be written ; they deserve, still more, to be read. It should be remarked that in his presentation of the relationship of the Anti- Poverty Society principles to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the writer has failed to state the case accurately. His words indicate — what is not true — that the Catholic authorities finally sanctioned the doctrine that private ownership in land is against natural justice. The error is due, we trust, to the fact that the author, being unfamiliar with theological language, missed the meaning of certain very necessary distinctions. The same excuse cannot be given for his attributing of motives to every one who sided with the ecclesias- tical authorities in certain unfortunate incidents connected with the Anti Poverty crusade. In this instance the author's language is intemperate and ill-justified. 12. — It is not particularly clear even after one has read this book * what Abraham Lincoln's religion really was beyond the fact that it seems to have been of a fluctuant Protestant form. The pamphlet gives some pleasant anecdotes of Mr. Lincoln which illustrate his natural kindness and goodness, and in so far is worth reading. It is interesting, too, to notice how the President's personality is still vividly remembered after all these years by those with whom he came in contact. 13. — The latest biography of Daniel O'Connellf is a terrible book for those who would feel kindly towards England. Let us hope that its chronicle of fraud and violence on the one side, and of death and exile on the other, may not hinder a fair-minded estimate of better conditions between England and Ireland in our day — if we are to have them. The writer's purpose is not a personal biography, and hence he sketches the public life of the Liberator almost exclusively, yet with occasional scenes and incidents of a personal nature. The work is all well done, and — though the author is not Irish — appreciatively, even sympathetically. But the reader of no more than ordinary historical knowledge will find some in- formation too easily taken for granted by the writer. No subject people have ever been favored by Providence with a nobler political leader than the Irish race in the person * The Religion of Abraham Lincoln, A Correspondence between General Charles Collis and Colonel R. G. Ingersoll. New York : G. W. Dillingham Company. f Daniel O'Connell and the Revival of National Life in Ireland, By Robert Dunlop, M.A. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Digitized by Google

Page 861

8i6 Talk about New Books. [Mar. of O'Connell. The dreary annals of oppression are relieved by bis heroic figure. Rage and disgust and thirst for vengeance are tempered by the feeling of laudable pride in the Irishman's heart, as he follows this history of the greatest of popular tribunes, both in purity of motives and splendor of success. Mr. Dunlop does not go too far in saying that O'Connell created modern political Ireland. And in achieving this mira- cle he did no man injustice, least of all any Englishman. His life was for hope, courage, concord among the Irish, met for the most part by the English government's scorn, deceit, and blood shedding. " Do you think," he once said to his coun- try's enemies, " that such measures will put an end to the agi- tation for the repeal of the Union ? The present generation may perish ; coercion may destroy the existing population ; but the indignant soul of Ireland cannot be annihilated." The truth of this prophecy is seen by a glance at the present political relations of Ireland to England. The sovereignty of an Irish Catholic among all the heroes of peaceful politics is evidenced by this book. The limitations of brute force in repressing national sentiment are plainly shown. Also the wisdom of holding back a warlike but unarmed race from a mad rush on batteries and bayonets, and directing their energies into the patient arena of the hustings. The book is clear in style, and earnest in sentiment ; the author both interesting and impartial. 14. — One* of the series of tiny volumes known as the West- minster Biographies is devoted to John Wesley. In its way it is quite a model of biographical writing. The author displays a not very common ability to present clearly, concisely, and in pleasing language the salient facts of his hero's life. The tone of the book is perfectly unaffected, free from exaggeration, and dispassionate. It leaves us with a vivid picture of the man who did so much to elevate and spiritualize the English middle- classes that we can forget all his weaknesses in admiration for his earnest and unselfish devotion to his religious ideals. Un- conventional, democratic, courageous, he wins our respect and even our admiration. Yet the biographer has not tried to con- ceal the fact that at times his hero was violent, somewhat headstrong, changeable, and rather uncertain in doctrine. The little work will be of special interest to those who are pleased * John Wesley. By Frank Banfield. Boston : Small, Maynard & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 862

Talk about New Books. 817 by short and graphic pictures of great popular movements. A curious fact, noted here, is the influence exercised by The Imitation of A Kempis over both Wesley and Whitehead. 15. — luskegee* is an account of the history, methods, results, and prospects of the famous colored normal and industrial school in Alabama. The little volume is its own advertise- ment to those interested in the race problem in the South, while to the least sanguine of men who realize that some solu- tion of the negro question must be provided, the study of the institution here presented cannot but be full of suggestion and hope. The contents, in substance, point out that nothing is better calculated to give the Southern negro energy, indepen- dence, and the knowledge of how to make an upright living than such an educational system as that so splendidly developed by Mr. Booker Washington and those associated with him. The very detailed information in the book gives practical demon- stration of the success of the undertaking — a success which it richly deserves, and which the country is glad of, and wishes to be yet more thorough and more wide-spread. 16. — A book well worthy of the attention of Catholic stu- dents of philosophy is the new re-written and enlarged edition of Father Maher's Psychology .\ Those who are acquainted with the three former editions recognize a great improvement in the present one. It is up to date, critical, and merits a wide cir- culation. A striking and praiseworthy feature of the new volume is the extensive consideration given to the modern or experimen- tal school, something too often neglected by Catholics. Some have thought the school at least materialistic in tendency, if not essentially irreligious. The number of works which pur- port to have demolished traditional beliefs may have afforded some justification for this notion, but we must not mistake the interpretations put on the results of modern research for the results themselves. Happily nowadays every one is coming to believe, with Father Maher, that " most of what is true can be assimilated without much difficulty by the old system." It is likely that the fear which arises in timorous souls at the very mention of materialism would soon disappear did the Catholic * Tuskegee. By Max Bennett Thrasher. Boston : Small, Maynard & Co. t Psychology. Stonyhurst Philosophical Series. Rev. Michael Maher, S.J. New York Longmans, Green & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 863

8i8 Talk about New Books. [Mar., philosopher, after a thorough examination of mental phenome- na and honest criticism of the Agnostic interpretations of them, explain them in the light of Spiritualism. If we are to do any- thing toward lessening the number of followers of the modern non Christian thinker it must be on his own grounds, following him as far as true research and experiment will allow, and there bringing in the aid of an enlightened metaphysic. This is recognized as a legitimate method even by non-Catholics, notably by Professor Ladd, who says that, regarding the first and last things of mind, its origin, nature, and destiny, mortality of incorruptibility, Physiological Psychology is unable to pronounce; "if it remain faithful to its own mission, it entrusts the full con- sideration of these questions to Rational Psychology, Ethics, Metaphysics, and to Theology." The method described is that pursued by Father Maher. First Experimental Psychology claims his attention and then the Rational, though the two are not kept completely independent ; that, he claims, being im- possible. Very thorough historical sketches have been added to the present edition, and also a supplement on hypnotism. The general reader is assisted by various "hints on judicious skipping," so that those who are unable or disinclined to study the whole book can, by very little labor, acquire some knowl- edge of the sound rational basis upon which the belief in free will and a spiritual and immortal soul rests. For those desir- ing to go more deeply into the questions at issue there are given lists of books for reference. The volume will form a notable addition to our psychological literature. We note with pleasure that since its publication the author has been made an LL.D. by the University of London — an honor conferred on only one other person in the last ten years. 17. — It affords us real pleasure to note a newly published collection* of essays contributed by Professor Jastrow, within the last decade, to scientific magazines, popular and profes- sional. The book furnishes a valuable and readable history of those strange opinions which pass current under the titles occultism, telepathy, psychical research, mesmerism, and the like. In tones frankly authoritative but in no way supercilious or pharisaical, the writer addresses himself particularly to lay- men. But neither they nor Professor Jastrow's own confreres in science will, we opine, be wholly appreciative ; for the sot- disant staff of the regular army of psychology look askance at * Fact and Fable in Psychology. By Joseph Jastrow. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 864

I90i.] Talk about New Books. 819 expeditions into the land of the strange and wonderful. Nor are the "eternally gullible" without grievance. Theirs is men- tis gratissimus error, and they may show a very poor welcome to any who attempt to disillusionize them. Often, in the investigation of the occult, the question is rather, "Why are these stories told?" than 41 Are these stories true?" Professor Jastrow, however, has turned his attention, at least more than is customary, to the second question. Pre- cisely in this it is that he may have offended. "But," as he well says in defence of his position (p. 69), " the civic con- science of the psychologist may convince him that the removal of error is often an indispensable requisite to the dissemina- tion of truth." And this sounds the key-note of his writing. Of his wholly scientific attitude, as also of the logical acumen displayed, the critical notices have been entirely favorable. Professor Jastrow need have no fear of the carping of ultra- conservatives. For included in the number of those who accom- pany him on the path that conducts to the exposure of popular fraud and fashionable freak are scientists, not only representa- tive but also leading, physicists, physiologists, physicians, and psychologists. The prosecution of psychical research proper now constitutes a department apart, and has begotten a litera- ture in itself. Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Christian Science get de- servedly brusque treatment at the hands of our author. This is a happy sign of the healthy activity of science, and a con- soling contrast to the imaginative chatter of personal para- graph makers. Somewhat aside from the main theme of the book appear the five last studies. The first of these, " The Natural History of Analogy," makes an interesting supplement to Mill's well- known work. In the fifth and concluding one, " The Dreams of the Blind," an account is given by Helen Keller of her own dream life — a charming, almost powerful portrayal. As a psy- chological study it furnishes a fitting finale to this excellent work. There is a defect, common enough it is true, but one which this author should long since have learned to remedy. When he quotes he fails to give any reference more than the author's name. The phrase, as Professor James characteristically ex- presses it, "looks well enough in print; but without any note to it, it is extremely tantalizing to the student." There is pre- cedent for the citation of the work and page from which quo- Digitized by Google

Page 865

820 Talk about New Books. [Mar.f tation is made. Since imitation is counted perhaps the most important psychological (actor in mental development, but is beset with great difficulties in child-study, why did Professor Jastrow not take the excellent opportunity here presented of its subjective study ? The result would have been, possibly, of double worth. But this is a comparatively small, if vulnerable, point in a most valuable book. I.— A DICTIONARY OF ARCHITECTURE.* We have at hand an instance of one art paying tribute to another art : an example of what book- making can do to illus- trate the noble vocation of architecture. It would be a mistake to suppose that only architects, civil engineers, and their pupils may benefit by this book, for there is no art so popular as that which builds majesty into stone; every intelligent person may enjoy this cyclopaedia of the glories of material construction, the nearest approach to man's best effort at imitating God's splendid universe. Furthermore, the descriptions, though technical enough to aid the professional student, are at the same time quite intel- ligible to the average reader, besides being written in excel- lent English. But over and above the descriptive part we have here many beautiful historical pieces, including narratives of events and notices of personages. As every one knows, the nobler specimens of the builder's art are memorials of saints and warriors and statesmen, the very foremost being shrines of divine worship, which is all the more interesting because no art is so entirely traditional as this. Is there anything quite new in building? Tradition has a dogmatic place in this sci- ence, and lends to the study one of its greatest charms. Cer- tainly the whole human history is told in its homes and temples —as indeed the present work shows to perfection. The biographical sketches of architects are of extreme in- terest. On almost every page the reader is entertained with a well-written account of some genius of the divine art of pic- torial or emblematic expression, whose creations in stone or bronze are memorials of his love of the beautiful, often united to his love of God and of the true religion. Every architect * A Dictionary of Architecture and Buildings Biographical, Historical^ and Descriptive* By Russell Sturgis, A.M., Ph.D., Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and many Architects, Painters, Engineers, and other expert writers, American and foreign. In three volumes. Vol. I., A-E. Sold by subscription only. New York : The Macmillan Company* Digitized by Google

Page 866

I90I.] Talk about New Books. 821 of note from the earliest annals of this sovereign vocation will be found well represented here, if, as we may be certain they will, the other two volumes will equal the excellence of this one. The dictionary is, therefore, a biographical one of the profession of architecture and of its sister arts. Mr. Russell Sturgis is the editor. He is one of our foremost authorities upon architecture and kindred arts and sciences. Among the many fellow-contributors whom he has chosen-r-for he himself, besides being editor, is also a leading contributor — are found the names not only of distinguished mem- bers of the profession, but also of teachers in American and foreign institutes and universities. The honesty of the work and its reliability are guaranteed, among other ways, by the signatures of these contributors to the more important articles. If we remember that this is the pioneer work of its kind in our language, there being no dictionary of architecture in English unless it be a work in eight large volumes begun in 1850 and finished forty years later, we can realize how great a boon the publishers have now given the artistic public. We may say that this work is as much a cyclopaedia as a dictionary, such is the patient and elaborate treatment of the weightier matters. But the features peculiar to a dictionary and embracing all its advantages are to be found here, viz., ready reference and alphabetical arrangement carried into detail. The combination of this advantage with that of ex- tended treatment of specially important topics leaves little to be desired in the matter of plan. Students making a thorough course of artistic study will therefore find this work indispensa- ble. As an example of the practical fulness of detail character- izing this dictionary we may instance the department of brick- work. It is treated of in thirty four different numbers, making a summary of all that may be known on ancient and modern use of burnt clay for building purposes ; and this (ending with a paragraph on the appropriate bibliography) is exclusive of other series of articles (to be given in the two succeeding volumes) on Keramics and Terra Cotta. And while using this or any other part of the work the reader is offered the ad- vantage of frequent cross references for both the fuller mean- ing of terms and the more elaborate description of subjects, by which means the student may easily obtain a wider view of his topic. What is said of brickwork may be also said of the accounts of the other departments of the building trades, so that Digitized by Google

Page 867

822 Talk about New Books. [Mar., not only architects but builders and contractors and intelligent mechanics will find valuable assistance in this work. Considering the fierce " battle of the styles," raging among architects and artists no less in our day than in former genera- tions, the editor and his staff of contributors are entitled to high praise for their impartial, even their sympathetic feeling in their historical and scientific descriptions of the Classic and the Gothic styles. These are spoken of and pictured in all their beautiful variety with equal sentiments of admiration. This is to be accounted for, mainly at least, by the sense of justice in Mr. Sturgis, who has sought in each particular field a recognized expert, especially for articles of more than ordin- ary importance, as an exponent of each point of interest. The printing is perfect, and the same is to be said of the binding. The illustrations are to be counted by the hundreds, making by themselves a pictorial treatise, and illustrating in whole and in detail all the famous edifices in the world. In this one volume alone, besides the innumerable smaller plates, there are thirty-six full-page pictures of various masterpieces of architecture. 2 — shaler's study of life and death * 41 A naturalist's judgment of life and death" is presented by Professor Shiler in his recently published work. While the author's chief purpose is to inquire what is the meaning of the individual's life in the great Universe, he directs at- tention, in a subordinate manner, towards the question whether the new view of modern scientists concerning man's origin is more likely to weaken or to reinforce the sense of duty towards one's self and one's fellows. The practical fruit which the author would gather from this study of life is to make some approach towards a reconciliation of our death with the great order of the Universe. Examining the problem from the stand-point of the natural sciences — it might be said, almost exclusively from the biologi- cal point of view alone — Professor Shaler has excluded all data derived from religion, ethics, and metaphysics. Nor does he draw, except incidentally, from the testimony of conscious- ness for any light to guide him through the tangled and im- mensely complicated subject which he attacks. When we take * The Individual : A Study of Lift and Death. By Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard University and Dean of Lawrence Scientific School. New York I D. Appleton & Co. Digitized by Google

Page 868

I90I.] Talk about New Books. 823 into account the limited field of evidence to which the professor restricts himself, we hardly expect him to make any very positive contribution towards a reconciliation of man's death with the scheme of the Cosmos. And the professor himself recognizes that none of his views rests on arguments that ap- proach to anything like the nature of demonstration. Most of his conclusions are put forward only tentatively, or as clothed with some fair amount of probability The prudent reserve and scientific caution which he displays is in pleasing contrast with the dogmatic attitude commonly assumed by so many rationalistic writers who propose their theories, or more fre- quently theories which they have at second hand from others, as indubitable facts of science. To be sure, the professor as- sumes the evolutionary hypothesis of man's origin, body and soul, from the beast as an indisputable fact. In handling his subject he makes this view the " open sesame " of knowledge. The individuality of man is for him essentially the same as the individuality of the atom. He applies the terms person and personality indifferently to a molecule, a star, a bird, or a human being. It may be that this deliberate ignoring of well- established meanings is to be set down to the professor's in- tention of excluding all help from metaphysics. Yet when he himself recognizes that the human individuality, when compared with that of all beings lower in the scale of existence, is transcendent and unique (p. 344), why should he refuse to avail himself of a traditional use of terms which safeguard this im- portant distinction ? Although the professor is an evolutionist, he does not hold that this view of the universe is inconsistent with the belief that an examination of the Cosmos leads to the conviction that it is the work of a Supreme Intelligence. Though he attaches little importance to the teleological argument as it was formu- lated by Paley, he holds that the response of Nature to our mind implies that behind the harmony of natural phenomena lies' the originating Mind. "The facts connected with the organic approach to man afford what is perhaps the strongest argument, or at least the most condensed, in favor of the opinion that there is an intelligent principle in control of the universe. To those who have devoted themselves to natural inquiry, at the same time keeping their minds open to the larger impressions which that field affords, there generally comes a conviction as to the essential rationality of the operations" (p. 313). Yet the camp followers of evolution, Digitized by Google

Page 869

824 Talk about New Books. [Mar., shutting their eyes to obvious logic, are perpetually clamoring that the evolutionary view cuts away the ground of the theistic argument ! In the problem of the value of life and the meaning of death the centre of interest is the question of immortality. In the last chapter, which is consequently the most important one in the book, the professor brings to bear on this consideration the views which have been developed throughout his work* Here he renders a distinct service to the cause of truth by showing how unfounded is the dogmatism of those naturalists who pretend that natural science offers any valid argument against the belief in personal existence after death. Their false assurance he traces to two chief sources. The first con- sists in an illegitimate extension of the principle of the con- servation of energy, and an unwarranted view of the nature of causation. The other " influence which has made for the existing limited and incorrect conception as to the scope of our knowledge of the universe" "may be defined as the idol of the commonplace or the instinctive state of mind which leads us to assume that what we see is all that is to be known " (p. 298). On the other hand we are not offered anything that can be called a positive argument in favor of immortality. Professor Shaler finds in his point of view scarcely anything more than reasons which allow us to entertain the possibility and cherish the hope that for the individual all does not end in death. "To these conceptions of the historic place of man and the relation of his selfhood to the stream of life in which it ap- pears there is possibly in time to be added evidence to show that his intelligence in a personal form endures after the criti- cal point of death" (p. 331). We agree with the author, after carefully reading his study, that " what the naturalist has to show is shadowy and inconclusive " ; and we can hardly share his hope that any extension of physical science will ever throw any more light on the question of immortality. For the argu- ments in proof of immortality lie in another realm of inquiry. If, however, as we have already said, natural science offers no grounds for a belief in immortality, neither does it, as the pro- fessor shows, offer any grounds for a denial. " No well-trained observer who has carefully remembered his experience with phenomena is likely to affirm that he finds in that of death anything that can fitly be termed proof that the mind does not survive." Digitized by Google

Page 870

1901.] Talk about New Books. 825 The attempt of some scholars to find in spiritualism and its pretensions a proof of immortality Professor Shaler con- siders a waste of time. Many sound observations on different topics are to be found as obiter dicta throughout the work. A few pages devoted to what the author calls inherited or auto- matic thought touch on a subject of much interest, of which but little is known. Another feature of the book worthy of notice, as showing the logical, temperate, and sober method of the writer, is that we nowhere find him, as is now the com- mon custom, running off into metaphysical speculation and then laying down his views as the conclusions of natural science. If his example were followed, many polemical " scien- tists " would find their occupation gone. Having ungrudgingly recognized what is meritorious in Pro- fessor Shaler's work, we must uncompromisingly condemn as false, and injurious to the interests of morality, the low esti- mate which he forms concerning the importance of the bear- ing which a belief in immortality has upon the moral life. The man who thinks that he will not survive the grave must form a very different judgment as to the value of conduct from that entertained by him who is convinced that for himself and all other human beings with whom his path brings him in con- tact there is another life to which this is but the prelude. 3.— FATHER DE ANDREIS, THE LAZARIST MISSIONARY.* The Life of Father De Andreis brings to our notice another saintly pioneer of Catholicism in our country — a priest whose virtue and sanctity thus far have been too little known. The lives of the truly apostolic men whose gigantic efforts laid the foundation of the church in America must ever be for us a source of righteous pride, a comfort, a consolation, and to those who are continuing their work, a strong incentive. Moreover, they furnish matter of admiration for all fair-minded and appreciative men. Few of us realize the consuming love of God and souls that actuated these early missionaries. The labor with which they planted the seed of God's truth, and tended its growth, is for the most part still untold. History makes but a passing mention of their deeds, conveying no true * Life 0/ Felix De Andreis, CM., First Superior 0/ the Congregation 0/ the Mission in the United States. Chiefly from sketches written by Bishop Rosati, first Bishop of St. Louis ; with an introduction by the Right Rev. John J. Kain, D.D., Archbishop of St. Louis. St. Louis : B. Herder. Digitized by Google

Page 871

826 Talk about New Books. [Mar. idea of what their labor meant, not relating their story of awful hardships bravely encountered and cheerfully endured. But while reading such a book as the life of Father De Andreis we begin to realize the trials and privations which these true apostles underwent. From his own words we infer how great they must have been. "I know," said he, " that were it not for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, I would not stay where I am for all the gold in the world." The school of suffering is the true school of saints. And in many of these missionary priests we discern men worthy to be numbered among God's saints. They are of the number born to shine simply with the unseen love of God, and to offer their holy lives as a sweet incense to the Almighty, drawing down a benediction upon the land of their labors. Among these heroes of the Gospel Father De Andreis was an acknowledged leader. Their esteem for his learning and reverence for his sanctity made him their counsellor in all un- dertakings, and the model upon which to fashion their own lives. An Italian by birth, and desiring to become a priest, he was early attracted toward the life led by the sons of St. Vincent de Paul. He was held in the highest admiration both by his superiors and by the pope and cardinals, and it was only after much negotiation that his community was pre- vailed upon to allow him to accompany Bishop Dubourg to America. His work in the diocese of St. Louis lasted only about three years. Yet, during that short time, so great was the impression which his character and life made upon all who knew him that veneration still clings round his name. The book is written in a simple and unpretentious style. Dealing with a period early in the history of the church in America, it contains much that will prove interesting and in- structive. The life is compiled from sketches by Bishop Rosati, first Bishop of St. Louis, who was the friend and dis- ciple of Father De Andreis; it merely wishes to accomplish a work of love and devotion, and to make known for the greater manifestation of God's glory a life that will be a source of edification and spiritual help. Digitized by Google

Page 872

Li Correspondant (10 Jan.): P. du Lac continues his study The Jesuits. Paul Nourrisson gives a description of the General Assembly of French Freemasons held in 1900. L. de Lauzac de Laborie writes on the last years of the Empress Josephine. (25 Jan.) : In an obituary M. de Vogue records the death of the Due de Broglie, the last survivor of the famous group who in 1855 gave the Correspondant new life. M. de Meaux, formerly inspector of finances, indicates by figures that the charge of hoarding up wealth made against the French Religious is based upon prejudice. Senator de Lamaraelle, continuing the dis- cussion of reasons for the government's attack on the Religious, finds it in their strong religious and social in- fluence over the people. M. Goyan shows admirably the deep religious sentiment that shaped the life of the late M. 0116 Laprune. M. Baudrillart makes answer to the critics who regard Quo Vadis with disapproval. M. Bertrin refutes by a telling array of statistics the charge of disproportionate criminality preferred against the French clergy and religious. Revue du Monde Catholique (1 Jan.): The French translation of Sienkiewicz's Let us Follow Him is continued in this issue. In a second anonymous letter of Y to Z, Monseig- neur Dupanloup is attacked most severely as a greatly overrated man. (15 Jan.) Sequels appear to the above. Revue Thomiste (Jan.) : A discussion of St. Thomas's doctrine on the best form of government is begun by Father Montague, O.P. Dom Renaudin, O.S.B., begins the proof of a thesis very acceptable to all Catholics: "There is nothing to prevent the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin from being placed among the dogmas of the Faith." Revue Benedictine (Jan.) : Dom Baltus gives a very admirable summary of the work of the Abb6 Michiels on the "Origin of the Episcopacy." Digitized by Google

Page 873

828 Library Table. [Mar., Revue du Clergt Franqais (i Jan.) : L. Philibert, writing of Ultramontane affairs, tells of the unfortunate ill-feeling aroused among the people of Italy by the refusal of the Sacred Penitentiary to sanction the use of the queen's prayer for the assassinated king. M. Bruneti&re is enthusiastically made welcome to the ranks of the de- fenders of Catholicity in France, and his discourse at Lille highly praised by the Abb6 Delfour. One of the most pleasant memories of the holy year 1900, writes the Abb6 Tartelin, is the international congress of the Third Order of St. Francis. The writer explains at length the value of the " Third Order" to society, and recalls with pleasure the evidences of new interest in the life of St. Francis. In the " Tribune Libre " an end is put to the discussion on the " Devotion dormant, dormant" which seems to have aroused much interest. The privilege of having the last word is given to M. Hemmer, the op- ponent— not of the devotion to St. Antony, as he ex- plains, but — of the pseudo devotion which, he claims, too often takes its place to the advantage of the shop- keepers and the disadvantage of the pious faithful. (1 Feb.) : Father Vacandard sums up the result of long researches on the authorship of the Imitation by Mgr. Puyol, who believes it to be the work of Gersen (not Gerson). Dom Mackey, the English Benedictine, so well known by his writings on St. Francis de Sales, tells of that saint's ideas about the training of priests. The next issue will contain an article on St. Francis' ideal of a seminary. In a remarkable paper on the religious philosophy of Pascal, Father Laberthonni&re, of the Oratory, insists upon the spontaneous personal and interior character of the Christian religion. He says the church has taught us very explicitly that " there are no passive virtues." Revue de Deux Mondes (15 Jan.): M. Doumic writes on the "platitudes of Paul Verlaine." L'Univers (14 Jan.): M. Tavernier describes a controversy carried on between Father Gayraud and M. Doumergne in consequence of the latter having asserted that Brune- ti&re's speech at Lille contained heresy because it spoke of " proving " the authority of the church. La Vie Catholique (16 Jan.): A sharp criticism rebukes the writer in the Matin for declaring that " M. Leyques has given M. TAbb6 Loisy a position to compensate for his Digitized by Google

Page 874

I90i.] Library Table. 829 having been expelled from the Catholic Institute and excommunicated by Cardinal Richard." M. Loisy was not excommunicated, nor has he been compensated. La Quinzaine (16 Jan.) : P. Folliolley, after a long interval, re- sumes his work upon Montalembert and gives some previously unpublished information about the latter's relation with Mgr. Parisis during the curious complica- tions caused by the attempt to re-establish the Chapter of Saint Denis. M. Welschinger draws from the second volume of Von Moltke's military correspondence details regarding the siege of Metz and of Paris. (1 Feb.) : Two French writers having published a couple of volumes on John Ruskin last month, one of them, M. Brunhes, contributes a carefully studied eulogy upon " Ruskin : Art-Critic, Writer, and Social Apostle." Studies upon Pasteur, le Due de Broglie, and M. Brunetifcre deserve notice. Etudes (20 Jan.) : P. Ch£rot, continuing his study of Quietism at Bourgogne, insists on the fact that the Jesuit fathers were opposed to, instead of, as is often believed, in favor of F6nelon. P. Abt presents a paper showing that at present certain lodges of Freemasons are existing in defiance of the civil law. Since the article was published a Socialist deputy has spoken in favor of amending the Bill on Associations, as its present pro- visions would militate against the Socialists. P. Pr61ot (a translation of whose paper on Religious appeared in the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Feb., 1901) writes upon the intimate connection of the Priesthood and the Religious state by reason of their common attraction to perfection, and says: "If any state implies an authentic and official profession of sanctity it is that of the priest, by virtue both of his priestly consecration and his august ministry." P. Martin, well known as a contributor to the Etudes, gives an account of a new volume on the Cures at Lourdes by Dr. Boissarie, successor to Dr. de Saint- Maclou, who founded a bureau to record wonderful cures performed at the grotto. Civilth Cattolica (19 Jan.): A very complete summary of the recent Pastoral of the English Bishops is given with the comment that the document is as timely in Italy as in England. An interesting review of a book upon Fre- vol. lxxii.— 54 Digitized by Google

Page 875

830 Library Table. [Mar., quent Communion, by Archbishop Gennari, indicates the reasons for believing that frequent and at times daily Communion is favored greatly by the mind of the church. (2 Feb.): Criticism of atheistic evolutionism apropos of a recent book. Scoring of S. Molmenti, a Catholic deputy who recently declared in the Chamber that he hoped the occupation of Rome would some day be recognized a$ legitimate. Rassegna Nazionale (16 Jan.): Ten pages are devoted to a trans- lation of a chapter from External Religion by Father Tyrrell, S J., a book (reviewed in The Catholic World, October, 1899) which has created a great deal of atten- tion in several European countries, and with other writ- ings of the same author has been in part translated into French. .(See La Quinzaine, 16 July, 1900.) S. Conte, reviewing Cardinal Capecelatro's recent Lift of Paula Frassinttti, enumerates the numerous works of the distinguished writer. A lecture by S. Fornaciari on Can- to xviii. of the Inferno, delivered at San Michele, in Florence, is reproduced. Contemporary Review (Jan.): John H. Rigot writes to say that in its present condition Dublin University constitutes a menace to the faith of its Catholic students. Fortnightly Review (Jan.) : William O'Connor Morris declares that Lord Roseberry's Napoleon gives evidence that its author is not deeply versed in the literature of the Na- poleonic age. The Hon. Stephen Coleridge writes an Open Letter on Vivisection in protest to the Secretary of State. Frederic Harrison gives remarkably strong praise to the writer of Richard Yea and~Nay9 which, he says, is a true Romantic epic in the good old-fashioned style. The Month (Feb,): Reviewing An Englishwoman's Love-Letters, M. D. Petre speaks instructively on that very puzzling question, the relation of human to divine love. Father Lucas contends that Religious Art has still a great fu- ture before it, if it will cultivate the beauties and ignore the mere conventions of the past. Father Thurston, in what appears to be a final article on The Rosary, sums up the rebutting evidence and then sifts it; he com- ments upon the famous will of Anthony Sers. Digitized by Google

Page 876

I90i.] Library Table. 831 The Tablet (26 Jan.) : Father Coupe, S.J., criticises Mr. Bal- four's recent plea for a religious unity which should tolerate doctrinal variations. (2 Feb.) : It is remarked that the Coronation Oath of Edward VII. contains clauses so highly insulting to Catholics that they were long ago removed from the oath proposed to members of Parliament. Part of a let- ter to The Guardian is reprinted, and in it Dom Gasquet protests against the unjust suspicion that( he criticised the late Roman decision on Anglican Orders. There is a summary given of a striking sermon by F,ather David, O.S.F., on the Temporal Power of the Pope. The Critical Review (Jan.) : An able review of Cape's English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries is fur- nished by Robert S. Rait. Though short, it gives a clear picture of the times. Professor James Orr, of Glas- gow, gives an excellent critique of Ritschl's Christian Doctrine of Justification. The general book notices in this magazine are worthy of much commendation. The Biblical World (Feb.) : There are three peculiarly go*d articles in this issue. In " Atonement in non-Christian Religions " George S. Goodspeed gives a valuable con- tribution to the study of comparative religions. William R. Harper writes on " The Priestly Element in the Old Testament" in an enlightening way, and " Ezekiel's Con- tribution to Sociology," by Rev. A. W. Ackerman, pre- sents a new and profound view of the teaching of that great prophet. Catholic University Bulletin (Jan.) : Dr. Shahan deplores the unjust exclusion of the Pppe from the Peace Conference at the Hague, and shows how it effectually helped to make the Conference the failure it is now acknowledged to have been. Hon. Carroll D. Wright speaks encour- agingly of the social influence of the factory on the lives of operatives, claiming that 14 the factory reaches down and lifts up ; that it does not reach up and draw down." He talks of "the ethical mission of the factory," and declares that "gentlemen in charge of factories are the managers of great missionary establishments." Digitized by Google

Page 877

is making on the Religious Communities. American public opinion is beginning to count for a great deal in France, and if the true nature of the religious state is appreciated by the American press, and if the weight of the latter's influence is thrown in favor of liberty of association, not a little will be done to stay the raised hand of the French Anticlericals. The latest Encyclical, on Christian Democracy, is a lucid document. While it deals largely with conditions in Europe, it is evidently inspired by the devotion of the Holy See to the cause of the plain people throughout the world. Its publica- tion was first announced last fall at the close of the Inter- national Congress of the Third Order of St. Francis, but it is said that powerful influences originating with the monarchical governments, especially the German absolutism, endeavored to suppress it. It gave too much recognition to the democracy. It voiced over-much the rights of the people. But Leo is in- flexible, When he sees the right, nothing on earth can stay him from doing it. The letter is masterly in its grasp of the social situation. It is prudent in its wise and discriminating distinctions. It is conclusive and far-reaching in its practical application of the principles of former encyclicals. It will be diligently read by the social economists of our own country. The Friars in the Philippines seem just now to be the victims of a storm of accusations. There is evidently a concerted movement on the part of the press, secular as well as Protestant, to defame them in the good opinion of the honest people of this country. Let us above all things be honest. Who are the Friars? Digitized by Google

Page 878

i90i.] Editorial Notes. 833 They are men who from their youth have sought the higher life. They have prepared themselves for the Catholic priest- hood by years of study, prayer, and service. They have cast behind them the luxury of civilization, the sweet companionship of their own, and have crossed the seas to bring the glad tid- ings of the Gospel to the heathen. They are men of high ideals, and it is presumed that they make a diligent effort to attain them. It is inconsistent for any one who knows aught of human nature to think that such men should be corrup- tionists, libertines, or despoilers of men's hearts. The accusa- tions brought against them are vague generalities. It is necessary to specify names, dates, and accusers, if any evidence is to hold before any judicial tribunal. These have been sadly lacking in all the accusations brought against the Friars in the Philippines. "They are wealthy," it is said. When did it be- come a crime in the eyes of the American people to be wealthy? They are not wealthy. They are men who are vowed to poverty. They do not possess in their own right the clothes they wear or the beds they sleep on. Even if the various orders as a corporate whole possess considerable prop- erty, they have come by it legitimately, and the revenues of their landed estates are not used for their personal luxuries, but for religious and educational purposes. Not one of the accusations against these men can be substantiated. It is ab- solutely true that 90 per cent, of the people in the Philippine Islands do want the Friars to remain among them. If the American government is going to stay in the Islands it would seem to be the wiser policy to conciliate the Friars and not to antagonize them. In the many islands of the archi- pelago they have great influence over the people, and if the people are ever going to be reconciled to the American rule it will be largely through the influence of the Friars. Digitized by Google

Page 879

834 Sta tistics of Parish Schools. [Mar., STATISTICS OF PARISH SCHOOLS. It is a significant fact that a large number of citizens of the United States do not need any compulsory law, since they take the initiative in educating their children, and cheerfully pay the cost of their religious training. By an unjust discrimi- nation, attributed generally to rancorous non-sectarianism, these patrons of the parish schools belonging to the Catholic Church are also obliged to assume the whole burden of providing in- struction in the secular branches required for good citizenship. The following figures are taken from the official reports at the close of the year 1900 prepared for the bishop of each diocese named in the list : In New York State are to be included the .L/IUCCSC UI WgUCIlaUUIg, , , T if C/-»V» r\r\l c • 15 ocnooib. 3»5°° it ** QuraniCA oyidtUaCi • • . • l6 41 A &AC\ it " ** Alhanv ixiuaiiy i • . • 33 I3»COO n M " Rochester At *' I C Old it " •* "Rnffalr* DUlldlU, • • • 2 I ,334 It 14 " Rrooklvn 6a 44 it 107 aR All 4*5,4I7 it Total in New York State, 424 4* 136,239 *t Archdiocese of Baltimore, . . 8l 44 21,077 44 44 Boston, OI 37.747 48,200 tt 44 44 Cincinnati, ICO 44 26)472 a 44 44 Dubuque, . Il8 14.255 a 44 44 Milwaukee, . I50 44 27,703 1* 44 44 New Orleans, . IO6 15.721 n " Oregon, . . 23 44 2,021 it 44 Philadelphia, .III 40.I33 11 44 St. Louis, . . 138 " 24,430 a 44 St. Paul, . 79 14.230 a 41 44 San Francisco, . 32 13.000 44 Santa Fe, . 61 7,388 a 44 Belleville, . . 58 " 6.533 if 4 300 if 41 44 Burlington, . 44 4 4 Charleston, . 18 4.647 11 5 602 tt 44 Cheyenne, . 44 44 Cleveland, 140 32.361 11 44 Columbus, . . 40 9.648 11 44 Concordia, 16 1,850 it 44 44 Covington, . . 35 " 6,865 44 Dallas, . . 19 - 2,160 44 '4 Davenport, . . 42 5.50O 11 44 Denver, . 16 4.150 it 44 Detroit, . 64 44 17,200 it 9 41 1,200 11 44 Erie . 42 8,146 ii 11 41 Fargo, 12 44 1,600 it 44 Fort Wayne, . 73 " 12,038 it Digitized by Google

Page 880

1901.] Statistics of Parish Schools. 835 T^ir*f*f»«*» of f"»al Vf»Qtnn 0*7 OCI1UU15. A ri9n Ptir»i1« *t»*"'39 XuJJUa 10,170 " 1. t»n nn 13 oniric VjridllU XVapiUd, • . . 40 n VJri c CIl Day , . • • 73 II,o6o " " 4 • X-J 0 rrickti ffr ridrrisuurg, • . • 35 11 6,547 " " Hartford Hal 11U1U| • • • 53 u 05 nnn *' " Helena 9 72 n .to a *ir» 44 10,430 j-.ea.ven won n, • . • 35 4, 006 " i^incoin, .... 1S i 44 7#OI9 nuviuciitC) ... 4' '* RichmnnH 3° |4 17,100 16 II OaLIdlllClllU, • • • 9 I. 1 i aK 44 01. Augustine, . • . II K 2,023 *' St Cloud II i ion 41 4. «• c* Tncenh Ol. JUoCpii, • • • 14 #< 1,171 " 41 " Quit T qIa Oa.ll LdKC( • ■ • 41 44 San Antnnin wan iiiiiuiiiw| ■ • 3 14 oft? 44 201 • 39 44 T^n ,4 4»/u9 *• ** Savannah 7 41 4' " Sprantnn • 3/ 41 1 I 117 44 " " Sioux Kail1* IO 14 " " Springfield, . jy II 16,381 " Trenton, .... oy II 8,000 " Tucson, 7 II 900 " Wheeling, IO II I.619 Wichita, • 25 1,907 " " Wilmington, . 10 II 2,354 " " Winona, . 20 44 3,600 Vicariate-Apostolic of Brownsville, . 7 II M36 " Indian Terr., II 2,413 " North Carolina, ' I II 512 " Prefecture- Apostolic of Alaska. . . 4 II II 853,725 To remove an erroneous impression it is necessary to state that the children attending Parish Schools have homes sup- ported by their parents, who are entitled to all the civic honor that belongs to tax-payers. The figures given above do not include any statistics of children educated in the numerous Orphan Asylums under Catholic management. Academies. Colleges, and other institutions devoted to higher education are also omitted. Digitized by Google

Page 881

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE NUNS. Very few people outside of Italy appreciate the real malignity of the Revo- lution. The Law of Guarantees on its face seems to be enacted with some degree of moderation. It places many safeguards about the august person of the Holy Father, but these liberties are granted in something of the same spirit that the cat allows the mouse release from its all- devouring claws, only to pounce on it again with greater fierceness. The Holy Father by the logic of his position, by inalienable historical rights, by the highest sanction, divine as * well as human, ought and should, of necessity, be absolutely free. He should not possess his freedom as a benefaction from any government. His liberty is inalienable ; and inasmuch as the Law of Guarantees seems to make his free- dom of action a gracious bestowal of a favor, he has not been able to accept it. He must preserve the attitude of protestation. It is for this reason the status quo of the Holy See has persisted for these thirty years. The Holy Father is not and cannot be the vassal of any civil principality. But it is not so much in its attitude towards the Holy Father that the Revo- lution has shown its claws as it is in relation to church property and the re- ligious communities. It is among the religious women, who are the most helpless, that its awful severity has been felt. The government in its greed for gain laid its avaricious hand on the con- vents and monasteries, and in order to possess itself of them completely, it turned out the consecrated women and devoted men on the mercy of the world, and thus condemned them to a violation of their vows or to a lingering death amidst suffering and privation. Very few were found to accept the former 'alternative. The latter, therefore, has been their lot for these thirty years, and their only crime has been that they have sought and loved a life of service to God and their neighbor. The government has made a show of compensation. In its wonderful generosity, in lieu of the sequestrated wealth of religious prop- erty, it has granted to each sister a pension of four or five sous a day, and even this little was paid when it suited the caprice of the local officials. The result of this wonderful generosity on the part of the government is the existence to-day in Italy of several thousand nuns who are on the verge of starvation. One community writes to the Association in Aid of the Despoiled Nuns, which has been organized to succor them in their dire need : 11 We retire to our cells when the sun goes down to spend the evening in utter darkness. The scant pension we receive is barely able to provide oil necessary for the lamp before the Blessed Sacrament." The superior of another com- munity asks for an alms in order to enable her to get a few eggs for a consump- tive nun who can hardly eat anything else. Still another says that " during the last few days with the melting of the snow the water has penetrated even into our poor mattresses, and we have been obliged to sleep in chairs, for we had no money to repair the broken roofs." These few glimpses reveal a state of affairs that seems to place the con- secrated women of Italy along with the victims of the famine in India. Yet this is the opening of the Twentieth Century of enlightenment and civilization and the Italian government holds its rank among the Christian governments. The 41 Association in Aid of Despoiled Nuns " has on its list of beneficiaries over 400 convents, and were it not for the work of this energetic society many would have actually died of starvation. The Catholic World Magazine will forward to the proper persons any aid the charitably inclined may think well to give for this worthy object. Digitized by Google

Page 882

Uwanta I'ZZl Mattress S7.00 If wanted in two pieces, like cut, $7.50. Freight prepaid to ali points north of the south line of Tennessee and east of the Missouri river and of a line drawn directly south from Kansas City. Part of the freight paid to more distant points. Absolute Perfection. As soft as a $40 hair mattress and to be preferred, be- cause it never packs, is cleaner, more sanitary and never attracts moths. Guaranteed to last a lifetime without mak- ing over. They may be returned after thirty days' trial at our expense, if not positively the best mattress that money cnn buy, and your money will be instantly and cheerfully refunded. FROn FACTORY 10 CUSIOnER. The Uwanta Hattress can be had only of us. If sold by retailers, the price would be from $12 to $15. W hat is Cotton Down? It is the snow-white selected cotton fresh from the fields, in origi- nal bales, made into Cotton Down by being put through our patented process until it is almost as fluffy as feathers. Some call it "felt" when thus treated and it is undoubtedly the best mattress material known to the trade. In order- ing give the width of your bed, measuring from the inside of the side rails. Ail mattresses are 6 feet 3 inches long. Send for Booklet of Testimonials. FORT WAYNB FURNITURE COMPANY, Fort Wayne. Ind. £ In the water makes your dishes come out perfectly clean and free from grease. It is almost a pleasure to wash dishes with ST WASHING POWDER \ •• m JJ . ■i-isi* d: r^Iasfe " \9^F ' V ;£>;:> Si) 7 ~ ^K.Fairbank Company. r aawed M, bUn! drawer ■, documrnt flit ptjroo bolo boxci, »itfo- • ioa »lidr«. Utur bol.Lrt ^ Urrr. c I». a - f 10 and up. Can furnlih y-ar 0*5ce or Homo through- out at F»«-ro*T PaiCU. Pric« to low »;•■[> 14 OAn n«U at good profit.* CtUloK No. lii. Offlon Psraltara. Cat 1 lux No. 100. H M. (Jreat Fori Sute at half factory cost. W« *htp ani/tchm- on approval and ten days rial without a con tin advance. EARN A BICYCLE ^iw^t- atalo vt> lor iderful propoaltlo We he D Afl its for our Bargain List and /?p« iat Off* r. Addrei* Dept. 28o S MEAD C YCLE CO., Chicago LAUNDRY W MACHINERY. HOTEL and INSTITUTION WORK CAREFOLLY HANDLED. -|&ftgK& OAKLEY & KEATING, 40 Cortlandt St;, New York. Digitized by VjOOglC

Page 883

Millions of Women. use Pearline. They know that it is better than soap— effective, economical, saving the work, the wear and tear, the rubbing. If Pearline is not what is claimed for it, then all these women HdLve Been Fooled every time. Likely? Isn't it more reasonable to believe that they know and can see how and where Pearline saves ? And if so, isn't it a thing to be tried ? Pearline has been used Billions of Times. If there were any possible harm in it, wouldn't it be known ? Pearline has been proved. Probably no other washing medium has ever been put to such tests as Pearline has, and yet the use of Pearline is increasing. 643 "ME MANUAL OF PRAYERS. Catholic Book Exchange, 120 W. 60th St., sells it cheap. If you own a GRAPHOPHONE, Purchase an H. & S. ALUMINUM DISC. It increases volume enormously, liquifies tone, making it clear, loud, and brilliant. Any one can readily apply it. Price with Composition Point, $0.75 " Genuine Sapphire Point, .. 1 00 If you will send us your Reproducer, we will carefully adjust one of our ir 'ured, French diaphragm glasses * ts additional. Sent post-paid on ac ^ price; Money refunded if not satisfactory. The DUPLIPHONE ATTACHMENTS 33 33 33 Can be instantly applied to any Home Phonograph or Columbia Graphophone. By using it, Concert or Grand records can be per- fectly operated and running of small records not interfered with. Price, GRAPHOPHONE DUPUPHOHB ATTACHMENT, S16.00 " PHONOGRAPH DUPLIPHONE " 16 00 Wa manufacture Horns, Horn-Stands, Cabinet*, Talking-Machine Supplies, and General Novelties. 8EKD FOR CATALOGUES. HAWTHORNE & SHEBLE M'F'G CO., Inc., 297 Broadway, New York. Mascher and Oxford Sts., Phila., Pa- hfi Mass Bonk^S^ Sr.

Page 884

Digitized by Google

Page 885

Digitized by Google

Page 886

Digitized by Google

Page 887

Digitized by Google

Page 888

Page 889