Chapter III

Chapter III

And now I am sure you are satisfied that Dick was on the right road, acting religion as fast as he learned it; trying to be all he knew--to live a truthful, generous, self-respecting life. He had little help, you know, and, if he followed that crowd that I told you of oftener than before, and heard much that enabled him to take whole books into his "inner consciousness" which would otherwise have been a dead letter to him, he was not one to make a flourish of trumpets about it, or to dream of complaining that the world would not stand still until he got up to it. He had but one intimate friend, it is true; but he was a friend you and I might be glad to win; a friend who never argued or lectured, but only quietly built his life on the only true foundation--the true faith--and then left it to show for itself. So, simply trusting in whatever was good, yet so fierce against whatever was evil, scornful of everything wrong and weak, practising as well as believing, you may be sure Carl Staffs would never have held out his honest hand to Dick, if Dick were not worthy of it. And this makes me think great things of my hero, of whom scarcely anybody thought at all. He had his place in Ames & Harden's store, and he had his talks, too, now with one person, now with another, and perhaps thought of things he heard. He was only a boy yet, and had his follies, without doubt, fancying at times that there was something in him, if circumstances would only draw it out, which would prove him a great deal worthier of high places than those now occupying them. I am not sure but that, if he had had a country-home, he might sometimes have lain down under the trees, and, while watching in a dreamy way the clouds sailing down to the west, and the vigilant stars coming out to guard the earth in the sun's absence, and listening to the wind among the trees, the twittering of some wakeful bird, or the rustling of some grand old river, he might have had yearnings no one could explain, and not have felt the sky too far to climb or the river too deep to fathom; for Dick's was only a boy's heart, that had still to learn that we cannot go from the Broadway pavement to Trinity spire in one step. {530} Even in his city home, if home it could be called, it may be that, just after he had been to church with Carl, he had glowed with the thought that he--even he--might some day be a Loyola or a Francis Xavier, for "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

But as yet his life consciously held but one romance--one dream of earth. There were few to care for him; but there was a little girl once who had made Christmas memorable to him, and Dick had not forgotten her. She had grown a beautiful young lady now, in Dick's eyes, though to all others she was merely a thin, dark school-girl. They still lived in the handsome house on Fourteenth street, and Carl Stoffs and his band played for many a dance there, although I am sorry to say that, even after a New Year's party, Dick had to be sent more than once to Mr. Brandon's office with a little bill, due to Ames & Harden, mostly for school-books, novels, and gilt annuals. But then that was no fault of Mary's, you know.

Mr. Brandon was not a pleasant man to go to with a bill, or for much of anything in the money line. "The deuce take it, my dear!" he often said to his wife. "Are you bent on ruining me?"

"Don't be silly, Charley, love," the dauntless little woman would say, not in the least disturbed by the angry voice and black brow that were so terrible to Dick. "For people of our position, we live very shabbily."

"Hang our position! I tell you, madam, we are going the road to beggary; we are, indeed."

"O Charles! do be quiet," was her ready answer. "I am so sick of that sort of stuff."

"Then be sick of it," this dreadful man would exclaim; "for I'll tell it to you every day and every hour, until it gets through your silly head. Money! money! money! I never hear anything else in this house. I've sold myself for it, body and soul, and much good it has done me! I'll not give you a penny, madam; not a penny."

But that was all talk; for, of course, he had to give his wife, who was a nice little body, very sweet and good-tempered, but rather fond of the good things of this world, whatever she had set her heart upon having.

"If papa should be right--" Mary would sometimes urge.

"Nonsense! they all say the same thing; why shouldn't they? If I didn't spend your father's money in making things pleasant at home, he'd be spending it on clubs, or whatever it is which uses up their money when they have the spending of it all to themselves. You'll have a husband, likely enough, one of these days, who'll scold for every pocket-handkerchief you buy; but you won't mind it. They must scold about something, you know, dear."

"O mamma! I'd never live a day--if--" At which sentence, never completed, Mrs. Brandon would laugh, and the subject would be dropped for the present; but, of course, after such scenes, Mr. Brandon wouldn't be very amiable to a boy like Dick with a bill in his hand. But Dick to him was a mere machine, belonging to a store over the way, and as such he treated him, with as little malice in his hard words as if he were swearing at a table or chair. To Dick, Mr. Brandon was Mary's father, and that meant a great deal; Dick could never talk openly to him, nor stand in his presence quite as he did in the presence of other men.

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For, though Dick had never been outside the city limits, and had never seen a hill, nor a field of corn, he was a trifle romantic, I am afraid, after all.

Yes, it is true that he grew to be almost a man without having ever climbed a hill or seen a field of grain. But there was a good time coming.

"Dick," said Carl Stoffs, that true and faithful friend--"Dick, would you like to go to the country?"

"Would I like to go to the country?" he repeated, finding no words of his own to say, so great was his bewilderment at such a question--"Would I like to go to the country?"

"Any time you're ready," said the German, seating himself. "Take your time to answer, my lad."

"What would I do in the country? I was never there in my life!"

"And you don't look more pleased than though I'd asked you to go to--to--the end of the world."

"I have often wished to see the country," returned Dick, in the tone in which we might wish to see China if we had nothing else to do; "but I don't see my way to doing so at present."

"I do believe, Dick, that you have lined the walls with gold pieces, you are so miserly of your time, and so stuck to this old place. Come now, we shall take you to the country, my wife and I. Now, to think there should be one on earth who never saw the green fields and the woods! It is to me a very odd thing! You are the blind man who never saw the sun, and does not think the sun worth seeing."

"Oh! no, indeed; not so bad as that; but--"

"Then you shall go. My sister has a house, with room for many, and we have taken half, keeping one room for you. Come and take your week with us."

"But, Mr. Stoffs, I intended during that week to read so much to take long walks about the city--and Mrs. Stoffs--"

"My wife sent me; I would not of myself have such a blind man with me, to read, to study, to walk; how can you in the city now? You will be wild when you have been once with us. You will go to-day with me--I will be waiting for you at my place at five. Will you come?"

"Indeed--"

"You will come." And, in truth, Mr. Stoffs had previously said so much of that wonderful land in which he was now living that Dick could not resist his last appeal, and afraid and shy as he well might be, having never spent twenty-four hours in a home circle in his life, he gave his promise to be at the appointed place of meeting in good time for the train.

But when the magnetism of his friend's presence was taken from him, Dick's heart grew heavy in his breast. If it had been to go to another city, or on a matter of business, Dick's excitement would have been delightful; but "the country," of which he knew nothing, and of which he had such strange fancies, picked up he could not tell where, that was another thing. City boys always laughed at country people when they came to the city--they had such queer ways--and yet--and yet--he felt strange and shy about going among them. Perhaps he felt that the tables would be turned on him there, and that his ways would be as queer in their eyes as theirs had been in his; perhaps he felt the full force of the homely old saying that "a cock can crow best in his own farm-yard."

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But, as the day wore on, Dick's spirits rose; he thought of all the stories he had read of fresh country life; a poem or two of cows and brooks came vaguely among his thoughts, and by the time he reached his little room, and began to pack his not abundant wardrobe, he was eager for the first glance at "the country."

"Then, may the Lord's blessing go with you," said his kind but very slovenly landlady. "I hope you'll come back as brown as a berry, sir. I was two year in the country once, and, though I won't say I'd like it for always, yet my heart do get to wishing these days for a sight o' the flowers and the fields. You'll mind the fruit, sir, and the dews o' night; there does be great dews fallin', and a deal of ague, I'm told. Good-by to you." And Dick said "good-by" to her with something like emotion; for it was his first "good-by" to any one, and the woman had been good to him, and if her hair was in a blouse, and her garments ill made and not clean, Dick was not startled, for he had never seen them otherwise.

Then he walked on to meet Mr. Stoffs, and found he was nearly an hour before the time. It seemed as if the moment of departure would never come; but it did, at last, and, as in a sort of dream, the dusty city youth was whirled by cottages nestling among proud, protecting trees, past the green hills, and through fields "all rich with ripening grain," until the panting train pulled up between a pile of stones and a little yellow station-house, with a narrow platform running beside it.

"Now, then, here we are!" said the German, and took up his bundles and basket; for who ever saw a Carl Stoffs in the cars that had not a bundle and basket, and a quantity of household furniture besides? This last Dick took in charge, and so laden the two made their way out of the cars. Around the little yellow station-house dodged two splendid bays with silver harness, that were being driven rapidly round a corner close to the narrow platform, and went out into the dusty road; for sidewalks there were none. Soon the sound of carriage-wheels made them turn aside, and Dick stumbled, as he walked for the first time on the soft green grass.

When you take a mountain lassie to Rome and show her St. Peter's, she is not enthusiastic; indeed, she is terribly disappointed. She expected something so much greater than her mountains, so much brighter than her green valleys. If Dick was disappointed when he put his foot on nature's velvet carpet and found it only caused him to stumble, I cannot say. I think he felt surprised that a brook beside the way and far blue hills before him wrought no emotion within him. Fortunately Carl asked no raptures.

"That was the Brandons' turnout," he said in a prosaic way, as Dick recovered his footing, and returned to the road.

"Is that so?" asked Dick. "Do they live here?"

"Yes," said Carl, "and a fine place it is too; but I think the man's going too fast."

Then Dick was thoughtful for a minute or two, pitying the daughter, if it were so; but it is hard to think that a man's family are near to want when his stylish carriage has just turned you out of the road, and the pity soon seemed misplaced.

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The walk seemed long to Dick; he did, indeed, enjoy the cool breeze, fresher and purer than any he had ever felt before but he had his own baggage and Carl's curtain-rods besides, and he was used to pavements. They had already passed many fine houses, with lawns and carriage-ways, shaded by great trees in front of them, and now and again a little house, with flowers and clustering vines, and groups on the porches; but Carl's steps lingered at none. At last they turned out of the dusty road into a shaded lane, a veritable lane, as new to Dick as the Paris Boulevards would be to Mrs. Partington; two or three more cottages, smaller and not so much garden-room, and then Carl said:

"Eh! but I'm glad to get home! Come here, Will! Come, boys!"

The last call seemed to fill the lane with children. They might have come down from the trees, or up from the earth, for all Dick could tell; but at the sound of Carl's voice the place was alive--big boys and little boys, great girls and small girls, all round and fat, brown-eyed and yellow-haired, with all manner of greetings, gathered around the travellers, eagerly drew their baggage from their hands, and with baskets, bags, bundles, and curtain-rods, made a grand triumphal procession before them, shouting, laughing, pushing against each other, the big ones stumbling over the little ones, and yet nobody hurt.

A few steps more and a rustic gate was opened and some one came and stood under the archway of evergreen branches, intertwined with some drooping vines. She was facing the West, looking down the lane, shading her eyes with her hand, although the sun was almost down. Just for a moment she stood in the bright sunset glow, under the green archway, shading her brown eyes from the light, looking down the shadowy lane; and, as she so stood, she seemed a very fair and graceful girl indeed. An instant more and the children, in the importance of their mission as baggage-carriers, pushed past her, and she retreated with them toward the house.

"Come, Rose! Here we are!" called Carl to her. And she turned and met them as they reached the gate.

"You are welcome," she said to Dick when he was introduced at the gate.

"You are welcome," said Mrs. Stoffs, coming toward them from the porch.

"You are welcome," repeated Mrs. Alaine, at the door. And Dick had not a word of answer to any one of them.

They were to him as grand as princesses and as gracious as queens, as they came forth to receive him and bid him welcome to their little cottage; and Dick was not used to courts or to queens and princesses, so he could only bow and shake the hands so cordially extended to him.

I am afraid my hero was not at all happy for the first few minutes that he sat on the stoop between Mrs. Stoffs and Mrs. Alaine, not knowing what answer to make to even their simplest remark, and that he was much relieved when they joined their voices to the hubbub the children were making around Carl. Such shyness as Dick's is very painful to the spectators, as well as to the embarrassed one; but, then, there's this to be said about it, when it is once entirely conquered it never can come back again, and I fancy there are some very nice people in the world, now very self-possessed and perfectly well-bred, who would give much to feel again the awkwardness and embarrassment which, once upon a time, caused them such keen annoyance. {534} The women pitied Dick, but liked him none the less for the color that would come into his face and the hesitation of his replies; but their feeling for the stranger was greater than any pleasure to themselves, and so it was not long before they went into the house with the declared intention of "getting tea." But going into the house was not going away altogether, for the room which served for parlor, library, sitting-room, dining-room, and all, had a low window opening on the stoop, and Carl and Dick could see them well, and speak, if they chose, without raising their voices, as they went-back and forth from the table to the closet, and from the closet to the table, not to mention innumerable visits to Carl's basket, which seemed a pantry in itself. The children ran in and out, and one jolly little one, called Trot, who was as round as a dumpling, and was too young to be shy for very long, informed Dick she was glad he had come, for they were to have sweet-cakes for tea. Occasionally Rose would come and stand at the window and say something to tease "Uncle Carl," who was not slow to "give her as good as he got." Thus gradually Dick became more at ease, and began to distinguish a difference in the tones of the children's voices, and to take note of the strange Sunday-like stillness which, except for the merry noises in the house, was complete, and, to him, wonderful.

I think a tea-table is one of the nicest sights in the world. If there is a grain of poetry in a woman, and I believe that there is no woman without a grain of poetry in her, it will surely, mark my words, however rough and prosaic she may be, come out about tea-time. That was a very pretty tea-table at which Dick took his place that evening; there was no silver nor China, and there was, perhaps, too great an abundance of good things; but it startled Dick, and I contend that it was nice and pretty, if only for the reason that it had a clean table-cloth, a bunch of flowers, and every dish in its proper place. Mrs. Alaine, who was only a feminine edition of her brother Carl, sat at the head of the table, in a clean calico dress, with a white collar and a blue ribbon. She had a child on each side of her, whose glee, at the prospect of sweet-cakes and peaches (out of Carl's basket) after they had eaten their bread and butter, she tried to moderate with a smiling, "Hush, children! What will Mr. Heremore think of you?" Mrs. Stoffs, who had also a round flat face, and was dressed in a clean calico, with white collar and a knot of pink ribbons, Dick had seen many times before, and dearly loved the good humor that bubbled all over her face whenever she spoke. She also had a child on each side of her, whose audible whispers about the good things coming she answered and mysteriously increased by promises of the same again another day. But opposite Dick was a face that was not round nor especially good-humored; for the two children under charge of Rose were the least repressible of the whole flock, and they tried her slender stock of patience sorely; especially, as she said afterward to her mother, with many blushes and half crying at the recollection, "as they would say such things right before the strange gentleman!" Rose had a pretty blue muslin, with a tiny bit of lace around the neck, for her raiment, and there was a something red, green, brown, blue, pink, or yellow, that fluttered here and there before Dick's eyes whenever she moved to help the children, or turned her young face, with its flitting colors, toward him. {535} But whether it were a ribbon, or a blush, or the hue of her hair, or an aureole around her head, and whether it were no color at all, or all colors together, or a rainbow out of the clouds, I do not think Dick had, for one moment, a definite idea--at least, while it was flitting before his eyes.

After tea, Carl took out his pipe, and settled into his big chair on the porch; and the children, having got somewhat over their awe of the stranger, volunteered to take him down the lane, and show him where there had been a robin's nest last spring, an expedition, however, that was vetoed by Carl on the ground that you couldn't see even a robin's nest in the dark. Then Rose came out to tease Uncle Carl again; but, forgetting her purpose, stood where the light from within seemed to set her in glory, like the angels in pictures; and by and by, it came about, no one knew how, that her shrine was vacant, and she, a very nice little girl with her hands in the pockets--very impracticable pockets they were--of her muslin apron, was telling Dick, with the children as prompters and commentators, the full particulars of the finding of the robin's nest, and what work she had had to keep the children from bringing sorrow and dismay to the hearts of the parent robins by stealing away their little ones. Then, as the moon rose, there was no reason why the children should not take Dick down the lane to show to him the tree where the nest had been; and then it was needful that he should know just how far it was from sister Rose's window, and yet how quickly, on hearing the shouts of rejoicing, she had come to Mrs. Robin's assistance. Then it was so funny to see a man who had never climbed a tree, that it was needful two or three should go up one to show how it is done. Then, too, there were lightning-bugs by the million around them, and as Dick had never seen anything like them, unless it was fire-crackers on Fourth of July night, they had to catch several for his investigation. When Rose told how those little things are really the people of the forest, who are so timid they do not dare to come out in the daytime, but do all their praying by night, and have always been good friends to children, showing them their way home when lost, and driving away the ghosts that would frighten the wanderers, then the children opened their brown hands and let them fly away, promising never to make prisoners of them again.

And so, though Dick still felt strange and shy, it was not in such an unpleasant way as when he sat on the porch trying to answer Mrs. Alaine and Mrs. Stoffs when they spoke to him. When, at last, he closed his eyes that night, he was half ready to admit that "the country" might almost be the enchanted land some people had made it out to be.

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Letter Apostolic Of Our Holy Father The Pope Pius IX.

To All Protestants And Other Non-catholics.

To All Protestants And Other Non-Catholics, Pius IX., Pope:

You already know that We, having been elevated, notwithstanding our unworthiness, to this Chair of Peter, and therefore invested with the supreme government and guardianship of the whole Catholic Church by Christ our Lord, have judged it reasonable to summon to Us Our Venerable Brethren the Bishops of the whole earth, and to unite them together, to celebrate, next year, an OEcumenical Council; so that in concert with these our Venerable brethren who are called to share in our cares, we may take those steps which seem most opportune and necessary, to disperse the darkness of the numerous pestilential errors which everywhere rage to the increasing overthrow and the intoxication of many souls; and also to confirm and increase daily more and more among the Christian people entrusted to our watchfulness the dominion of true Faith, Justice, and the Peace of God. Confidently relying on the close ties and most loving union which in so marked a way unite to Ourselves and to this Holy See these our Venerable Brethren, who, through all the time of our Supreme Pontificate, have never failed to give to Ourselves and this Holy See the clearest tokens of their love and veneration; We have the firm hope that this OEcumenical Council, summoned by Us at this time, will produce, by the inspirations of Divine Grace, as other General Councils in past ages have done, abundant fruits of benediction, to the greater glory of God, and the eternal salvation of men.

Sustained by this hope, and roused and urged by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life for the whole human race, We cannot restrain Ourselves, on the occasion of the future Council, from addressing our Apostolic and paternal words to all those who, whilst they acknowledge the same Jesus Christ as the Redeemer, and glory in the name of Christian, yet do not profess the true faith of Christ or hold to and follow the Communion of the Catholic Church. And we do this to warn, and conjure, and beseech them with all the warmth of our zeal and in all charity, that they may consider and seriously examine whether they follow the path marked out for them by Jesus Christ our Lord, and which leads to Eternal Salvation. No one can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ himself, in order to apply the fruits of his redemption to all generations of men, built his only church in this world on Peter; that is to say, the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and that he gave him all the power necessary to preserve the deposit of Faith whole and inviolable, and to teach the same Faith to all kindreds, and peoples, and nations; so that all men who through baptism become members of his mystical body, and of that new life of grace, without which no one can ever attain to life eternal, may always be preserved and perfected in them; and this church, which is his mystical Body, may always in its own nature remain firm and immovable to the consummation of ages, that it may flourish, and supply to all its children all the means of Salvation.

Now, whoever will carefully examine and reflect upon the condition of the various religious societies divided among themselves, and separated from the Catholic Church, which from the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles has ever exercised, by its lawful pastors, and still does exercise, the divine power committed to it by this same Lord; will easily satisfy himself that none of these societies, singly nor all together, are in any way or form that one Catholic Church which our Lord founded and built, and which he chose should be; and that he cannot, by any means, say that these societies are members or parts of that Church, since they are visibly separated from catholic unity.

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For such like societies, being destitute of that living authority established by God, which especially teaches men what is of Faith, what the rule of morals, and guides them in everything that relates to eternal life, are always varying in their doctrines, and this changing and instability is increasing. Every one therefore must perfectly understand, and clearly and evidently see, that such societies are distinctly opposite to the church instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ; for in that church truth must always continue firm and inaccessible to change, so as to preserve absolutely inviolate the deposit confided to her, for the guardianship of which the presence and aid of the Holy Ghost has been, promised to her for ever. Every one also knows that from these divergent doctrines and opinions, social schisms have had their birth, which have again generated within themselves sects and communions without number, which spread themselves continually to the great injury of Christian and civil society.

Indeed, whoever observes that religion is the foundation of human society, must perceive and confess the great influence which this division of principles, this opposition, this strife of religious societies among themselves, must have on civil society, and with what force this denial of the authority established by God, to determine the belief of the human mind, and direct the actions of men as well in private as in social life, has fostered, spread, and supported those deplorable changes of times and circumstances, those troubles which at this day overwhelm and afflict almost all peoples.

Let all those, then, who do not profess the unity and truth of the Catholic Church, avail themselves of the opportunity of this Council, in which the Catholic Church, to which their forefathers belonged, affords a new proof of her close unity and her invincible vitality, and let them satisfy the longings of their hearts, and liberate themselves from that state in which they cannot be assured of their own salvation. Let them unceasingly offer fervent prayers to the God of Mercy, that he will throw down the wall of separation, that he will scatter the darkness of error, and that he will lead them back to the Holy Mother Church, in whose bosom their fathers found the salutary pastures of life, in whom alone the whole doctrine of Jesus Christ is preserved and handed down, and the mysteries of heavenly grace dispensed.

For Ourself, to whom the same Christ our Lord has entrusted the charge of the supreme Apostolic ministry, and who must, therefore, fulfil with the greatest zeal all the functions of a good Pastor, and love with a paternal love, and embrace in our charity all men, wherever dispersed over the earth, We address this letter to all Christians separated from Us, and We again exhort and conjure them quickly to return to the one fold of Christ.

For We ardently desire their salvation in Jesus Christ, and We fear to have one day to render account to him who is our Judge, if We do not show them, and if we do not give them, as far as is in our power, the sure means to know the way which leads to eternal salvation. In all our prayers, beseeching and giving thanks, we cease not, day or night, to ask earnestly and humbly for them, of the Eternal Pastor of souls, the abundance of light and heavenly grace. And since, notwithstanding our unworthiness, We are his Vicar upon Earth, with outstretched hands We wait, in the most ardent desire, the return of our erring sons to the Catholic Church, so that We may receive them with love into the mansion of our Heavenly Father, and enrich them with his unspeakable treasures. On this longed-for return to the truth and unity of the Catholic Church depends not only the salvation of individuals, but still more Christian society; the whole world cannot enjoy true peace unless it becomes one Fold under one Shepherd.

Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, the 13th day of September, 1868, and the twenty-third year of our Pontificate.

The remarks which follow are extracted from _The London Saturday Review_:

The Pope And The General Council.

We read the Pope's Address to all Protestants and non-Catholics at some disadvantage. It reaches us only through a French version, furnished to the Moniteur, and published in that journal of Monday. And we may, in the first place, complain to His Holiness of the slovenly and parsimonious way in which he discharges the function so dear to him. He expatiates on his zeal for all Christian souls, and he is assured that he shall have to give account for us all at the Great Day. He, the Good Shepherd--such is his title, and we ought perhaps to write it, "His," entrusted to him by Christ Himself our Lord--is bound by the charge of his Supreme Apostolic Ministry to embrace in his paternal charity all men in the whole world, and therefore he addresses this letter to all Christians separated from him. So lofty a purpose might have justified some care in carrying it out. But what has His Holiness done that his epistle should reach his erring people? Does he expect that the whole human race is bound to read the Government journal of Rome? Is his conscience satisfied that his tremendous responsibility is fulfilled by the cheap and easy method of publishing his behests in an obscure newspaper, and leaving to those most concerned to find out, as they can, what so nearly concerns their eternal salvation, through the medium of unauthorized versions and newspaper reports? {538} This is the difficulty of a Vicar of Christ who has heavenly functions to discharge, and only human means to work with. As it is quite certain, as things stand, that the awful words which concern the immortal destinies of every human being who names the name of Christ will not reach one in a hundred thousand of them, it seems to follow that if the Pope has these duties toward all mankind, he ought to have been entrusted with an archangelic trumpet to address himself to so very large an audience. It is a sad come-down from the appeal urbi et orbi to have to hoist it up in a penny Dublin paper. Who knows how many the Pope would not influence if he would be at the trouble of addressing us by some such mundane instrumentality as the penny post? The Archbishop of Canterbury, for example; has he, as courtesy would seem to require, received in any authoritative way this communication from Rome, or heaven, or wherever it was indited?

We say it with all respect, that the Pope's address was calculated not so much to attract as to repel. He does not condescend to argue; although he assures us that we are enveloped in a cloud of error, he is at no pains to dissipate it; with a bold petitio princitii he sonorously assumes the very point at issue--the point, be it added, at issue not only between him and his bishops on the one hand, and the imposing ranks of the vast oriental church, our own church, and the vast Protestant communities of Europe and America, on the other, but the point which has been most keenly debated by the theologians and canonists of the western obedience. The Pope's address rests upon one, and upon only one, huge assumption. It is that the Pope, in his single capacity as monarch and autocrat of the church, advanced to the supreme government of the whole Catholic Church, has the inherent right of prescribing the faith of the church; that he is the one and supreme legislator as well as administrator. This is what even the church of Rome has not yet formally decreed, even by the easy method which a few years ago decreed the Immaculate Conception. Ultra-montanism--or, in other words, and to express it generally, the personal infallibility and supreme authority of the pope--is not yet de fide. But this is what the Pope assumes; and it is most likely as a step toward what it is understood will be the next Roman development of doctrine, and probably the end aimed at in summoning this so-called oecumenical council that the Pope, in his letter, takes up the position of autocrat. He addresses us, but it is only to assist his next move as regards his own subjects, and to help to settle the vexed question which his predecessors have found to be so inconvenient when denied by Bossuet, De Marca, Van Espen, and the Doctors of the Sorbonne, to say nothing of the Councils of Constance and Basle.

In the mean time let us see what it is the Pope in his exuberant charity offers us. It is, we regret to say, extremely little. He bids us stay at home and pray to be united; at least we hope that he goes as far as this. But as he cannot count much upon the efficacy of the prayers of obstinate heretics, it would be perhaps nearer to the truth if we said that all that the Pope has to say is to invite us to return to his fold. The Vatican Eirenicon is of the simplest--no conditions, no explanations, no discussion of difficulties, no healing of wounds, no solemn canvassing of controversies, no arguments. Return first, and discuss afterward, when there is nothing to discuss. Might we venture to hint to Archbishop Manning who is polite enough to consider the present attitude of the Church of England toward Pius IX. as exactly similar to the state of things as between Gregory I. and the Pagans and Goths and Arians of his time--that even Arius got a hearing, and was allowed his say? Not so with us. There is a controversy between Rome and those whom Rome calls non-Catholics, as to the, not primacy, but exclusive autocracy of the See of Rome. There is only one way of deciding it--rixá est ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. All that we have to do is to be kicked, and submit. This is good schoolmaster's language; but, as far as we remember, it is not the old way of dealing with even heresy and schism. The huge series of councils might have been reduced to a single and very portable volume, had this mode of settling controversy been the church's old and compendious method.

One misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, it seems to be well at once to remove. The Westminster Gazette--writing, we hope, without having read the Pope's address speaks of it as an invitation to those to whom it is addressed to repair to the OEcumenical Council of 1869, adding that the church will ever be ready to offer explanations, and to labor to remove obstacles to reunion. This is just what the Pope does not do. He does not invite non-Catholics, either in any corporate or private capacity, to repair to Rome. He simply says that he will pray for them, and bids them be reconciled. {539} Invitation there is none; offers of explanation there are none. We are seriously to lay to heart our condition, and give it up. We are invited to conform, and nothing else. To the council neither our bishops nor pastors are asked. And this is the more noticeable because the Orientals are invited. "We raise our voice once more to you, and with all the power of our soul we pray you, we conjure you to come to this Council, as your ancestors came to the Council of Lyons and to the Council of Florence." Such is His Holiness's language to the Oriental bishops, as we find it in his Apostolic letter of September 8th, translated in the Westminster Gazette. This Florentine precedent will hardily be reassuring to the Orientals; and though, after all, the summons to them is substantially only what the summons to us is, as the Pope in either case takes up the same position--that of the exclusive supremacy of the See of Peter, and denies that the Eastern bishops are really bishops till they have submitted to him--yet we must remind not only the Westminster Gazette but the Univers, that their statement that the Pope has issued anything like an invitation to attend the council, or rather his council, to "all those whose separation dates from the sixteenth century," is simply untrue. Even if we had been asked, and even were it announced that we should have ample liberty to state our case, we say, as Laud said more than two centuries ago, "To what end freedom of speech, since they are resolved to alter nothing?"

The following report of the action of the New School Presbyterian Synod of New York and New Jersey we clip from the columns of one of the daily papers:

The Presbyterians And The Pope.

The following memorial and resolutions were presented by Rev. Dr. Adams:

Whereas, The Pope of Rome, called Pius the Ninth, did, on the 13th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1868, issue a certain letter, a proclamation addressed to all Protestants and non-Catholics throughout the world, the import of which is to unite and urge all persons and organizations thus designated to hasten to return to the only fold, meaning the Church of Rome.

Whereas, The said Pope in the said letter, called paternal and apostolic, has in an unwonted manner, as if pleading at the bar of public opinion, assigned several and various reasons for its preparation and publication.

Whereas, Among the reasons so mentioned are the assertion of his own supremacy over the human conscience as the vicar of Jesus, and "the authority to govern the persuasions of the human intellect and to direct the actions of men in private and social life," as also this, that the rejection of this authority and protest against it by so many has promoted and nourished those perturbations in human affairs, in this our day, which the said Pope pronounces miserable and grievous, but which must be regarded by every friend of his species as eminently hopeful and auspicious.

Whereas, All such claims and assertions on the part of the Pope of Rome are to the last degree unfounded in fact, contrary to the truth, reason, Scripture, and the whole genius of Christianity, and, if allowed, would prove subversive to all human rights and liberties.

Whereas, Recent movements, especially in Austria and Spain, nations long in subjection to the monstrous pretensions of the Papacy, command the prompt recognition, sympathy, and support of all friends of humanity, freedom, and religion throughout the land; therefore, be it

Resolved, That the facts here recorded furnish and present a proper and fitting occasion for all Protestant churches throughout Christendom, each in the mode which its own wisdom shall suggest, to prepare and set forth for general distribution, through the same channels which the Pope himself has chosen, a suitable response to his letter, which response shall contain a statement of the reasons why his claims can in no wise be recognized, as inconsistent with a catholicity more catholic than Rome the authority of infallible Scripture and the glorious supremacy of Jesus Christ.

Resolved, That a committee be appointed by the Synod, whose duty it shall be to consider the expediency of corresponding with other Protestant bodies in this country and in Europe as to the propriety of such timely action for the furtherance of free Biblical Protestant Christianity.

Resolved, That it be referred to the same committee, if they deem it wise, to prepare and publish a reply to the said letter of the Pope, which shall be regarded as an expression of the sentiments of this Synod concerning the matters therein contained as of vital importance to all civil and religious liberty throughout the world, and to the salvation of the human race.

{540}

It was suggested that a committee consisting of three ministers and three elders, be appointed to carry out the objects of the resolutions. Dr. Cox wanted to see the committee larger. It was an important subject, and we want names on the document which will encourage our brothers in England and in all parts of Europe. The following committee was appointed to take the whole subject into consideration: Rev. William Adams, D.D., Rev. Henry B. Smith, D.D., Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, D.D., Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D.D., Rev. Samuel T. Spear, D.D., Rev. George L. Prentiss, D.D., Hon. William E. Dodge, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, LL.D., Hon. Daniel Haines, Hon. Edward A. Lambert, J. B. Pinneo, Esq., S. F. B. Morse, Esq., Cyrus W. Field, Esq.

We subjoin another report of the action of the central authority of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, from The New York Herald:

The Berlin Evangelical Consistory On The Pontifical Letter.

The pastoral letter in connection with his oecumenical circular addressed by Pope Pius IX. to non-Catholic Christians has roused Prussian evangelic church authority. The following circular has been addressed to its consistories: "An open letter of the 13th ult., by the chief of the Roman Catholic Church, is directed to all Protestants, thus including the members of our Evangelical State Church. As this document contains, besides unjust accusations, many expressions of respect and kindness toward Protestants, we are ready and willing to consider it as a pledge of friendly and peaceable relations for the future between both confessions for the sake of the state and its citizens, and for the efficiency and triumph of Christian truth. Every sincere evangelic Christian acknowledges the duty of loving other confessions and deplores the separation in the church, especially among members of a common country. But as the chief of another church undertakes in the said letter to demand, with assumed authority, from the members of ours a renunciation of their cherished creed, founded upon the inviolable word of God, and a retractation of evangelical truth won by the blessed Reformation, without offering on his part the least prospect of a reconciliation on the basis of evangelical truth, we must decidedly reject his action as an unjustifiable trespass upon our church, and in so doing we are sure of the agreement of all Evangelicals. An appeal to the members of our church not to heed this voice may be deemed unnecessary; but it is proper to keep still more in mind, opposed to such pretensions, the numerous members of our persuasions who in the midst of Roman Catholicism are exposed to the temptations of infidelity toward the Evangelical creed; therefore, to procure the means for preaching to them, giving them the sacraments, the Evangelical school and pastoral care, collections are directed soon to be made in all our churches. The royal consistories will communicate this to the ministers of the dioceses, who on the days of collection on the following Sundays are to make proper mention of it to their congregations.

There was also an announcement in the papers that some sort of a letter to the Pope was proposed by members of the late General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, although we do not know what came of the affair eventually.

We must give justice to one portion of the comments of the Saturday Review, namely, that which refers to the publication of the pontifical letter. It is a matter of great inconvenience to Catholics throughout the world, that the publication of important official documents at Rome is so tardy and insufficient. This is a defect which ought to be, and we hope will be, remedied. We have not yet seen the Latin text of the letter addressed by the Sovereign Pontiff to Protestants, and have been obliged to take a translation of it which is not remarkably well-executed, and in which we have corrected forty-seven typographical errors, from an English Catholic newspaper. The English translations of the grand and dignified pontifical documents which are sent forth by the Holy See, are generally wretched, and make them appear to readers who are unacquainted with the originals in a very unfavorable light.

{541}

It seems to us that it would have added very much to the effect of the Holy Father's paternal address to his erring and strayed children, if authentic copies had been at once sent to all the bishops, with a command to publish both the original Latin text, and also a translation authorized by themselves, with their own official counter-signature appended, for the benefit of all Christians within their several dioceses. As it is, however, the letter of the Holy Father has become very generally known through the indirect channel of the newspapers, and has not failed to produce a great sensation. It is just such an admonition as the head of the Church, who is conscious that his authority to teach the world is indubitable, might be expected to issue. It is in the style and manner which become the Vicar of Jesus Christ speaking to all the baptized, who, by virtue of their baptism, are lawfully subject to his pastoral jurisdiction. The Pope speaks as one having authority, and must necessarily do so, just as our Lord and the Apostles did, because he knows that he has authority, and that the evidence of his authority is so plain and clear, that at least all the educated pastors and teachers of the different Christian sects are capable of perceiving it and bound to acknowledge it. The Saturday Review complains that the Pope does not argue on the subject, or adduce reasons to convince those who reject his authority. This is a most unreasonable objection. How would it be possible, within the limits of a brief letter, to address arguments, at length, to all the hundred and one different sorts of Protestants? The letter is not destitute of that kind and amount of argument which are alone suitable in a document of the kind. It appeals to the manifest fact that Protestants are divided among a multitude of differing sects and doctrines, without any principle of unity or certain criterion of truth; whereas the Catholic Church, in communion with the See of Peter, possesses that unity and universality which are the sure and evident marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit within her body, leading her perpetually into all truth, according to the promise of Christ. Our Lord, when he demanded the obedience of faith under the peril of eternal damnation from all his hearers, did not enter into long arguments. He presented brief and simple reasons in an authoritative manner to his auditors, and appealed to the evidences by which his divine mission was attested from heaven. In like manner the Holy Father, who is Christ's vicegerent upon the earth, affirms his own authority, commands submission to his teaching, and presents a simple, obvious argument addressed to the reason and conscience of all men, which they have the means of easily verifying if they will. The affirmation of his authority, and the command or exhortation to submit to it, are not made gratuitously, and do not rest upon a mere personal declaration of the Pontiff, to which men are to yield an assent which is blind, unreasoning, or destitute of solid motives. The motives are not expressed explicitly and at length in the letter; but they are appealed to as existing within the reach of those who are addressed, and the claim of submission is based upon them. The Holy Father speaks as the head of a communion embracing almost two thirds of all Christendom, which has existed in an unbroken continuity of doctrine and organization from remote antiquity, with the entire united moral force of all the bishops, doctors, and saints of the church in the present and the past ages, to back and support him. He speaks to those whose ancestors acknowledged his authority, and who have been severed from his communion by a violent revolution, whose justification three centuries have not been able to establish; but whose condemnation has been unmistakably pronounced by the disastrous results it has produced. {542} He has, therefore, a prima-facie claim of prescription, possession, and general acknowledgment in his favor, which gives an immense moral weight to his utterance. Moreover, he speaks after having for three hundred years argued the whole case between himself and Protestants in the most thorough and complete manner, by the means of the theologians and writers of the Catholic Church, whose works are accessible in all languages. His bishops and priests are everywhere to be found, ready to argue and explain the doctrines of the church for the benefit of all those who desire it. At the council itself, instructions and conferences in various languages will be given upon all the points of controversy by the ablest and most learned preachers of all nations, and theologians will be ready to give private conferences to those who desire them. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Holy Father shuts out inquiry, argument, or discussion; for he does everything to invite and favor them, and by his act in summoning a council, and challenging the attention of the whole world, throws open all the doors and windows of the church to the light of all the intelligence of Christendom.

The reviewer complains, moreover, that the Pope claims an authority above that which is admitted by a school of Catholic theologians, or even required by any formal pontifical decree to be acknowledged as of obligatory doctrine. This is an utterly reckless and baseless assertion. Whatever may be the teaching of Van Espen, Von Hontheim, Richer, and other court canonists and lawyers, whose erroneous and schismatical doctrine is condemned rejected in every Catholic school, Bossuet, De Marca, and all orthodox Gallicans have always recognized and supported every whit of that authority which is affirmed or implied in the pontifical letter.

As for the schismatical Orientals, who are supposed to be aggrieved by the terms of the invitation which the Pope has extended to them to attend the council, they are forced, in consistency with the doctrine they have evermore admitted, to acknowledge the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, and his right to call an oecumenical council. The Patriarch of Constantinople, although some of the bishops of his synod are said to have favored the acceptance of the Pope's invitation, has refused even to receive the letter containing it. The Armenian Patriarch will probably follow suit, and the Synod of St. Petersburg, which is only a bureau of the imperial government, will, of course, not only reject the invitation to the council in the most decisive manner, but will put forth the entire political influence which Russia possesses in the East to hinder the Oriental prelates from attending. This line of conduct, however, is totally inconsistent with the principles and professions of the Eastern communions. They all recognize the primacy of the Roman bishop, and his right to convoke a council. They acknowledge that their separation from the Western church is an abnormal condition, and that all portions of Christendom ought to be in unity. Their refusal to attend the council will therefore be a condemnation of themselves, and will manifest most clearly the schismatical spirit by which they are actuated. It may be said that the terms on which they are invited are such that they cannot attend. {543} The gist of this excuse is, that the Pope demands a submission to his supremacy which they cannot admit. This, however, does not really excuse them. Admit, for the sake of argument, that the Roman Church has usurped a supremacy which does not belong to it, and is really to blame for the existing schism. They are invited to attend the council and sit in it as bishops. If they are confident of the justice of their cause, why do not they embrace the opportunity to send their patriarchs, metropolitans, and fifty or a hundred of their principal bishops, together with their most learned archimandrites and theologians, and the diplomatic representatives of Russia and Greece, who may argue their cause before the council and in presence of all Christendom. If they had any moral force at all, now would be the opportunity to show it. But they have none, and therefore they dare not go, and by their open manifestation of cowardice and utter recklessness of the common good of Christendom, they will give a death-blow to their own cause.

The Pope is blamed for not having invited the Protestant bishops to attend the council. It is impossible for him to invite them, because it is impossible for him to recognize their episcopal character. The Orientals themselves would not sit with them in council as fellow-bishops. Their claim even to an exterior succession is so extremely doubtful that at the highest it has only probability in its favor. Aside from all question, moreover, concerning the alleged fact of Parker's consecration by Barlow, and of the consecration of Barlow himself, the essential defect of form in the English ordinal of Queen Elizabeth must prevent the recognition of any true episcopal succession in the Protestant Episcopal Churches. This is no reason, however, why the Protestant bishops should not make an attempt to gain a hearing and present their claim before the council. They cannot be admitted to the council as bishops, but they might, and no doubt would, be received with courtesy and urbanity as distinguished personages, and as representatives of some millions of baptized Christians. Do they believe themselves to be a portion of the Catholic episcopate? One of their most learned divines, Palmer, to say nothing of many others, acknowledges that the Roman Bishop, when he is in communion with the whole Catholic Church, is the centre of unity and the presiding bishop of all Christendom. Why, then, do they not depute a large body of their number to go to the council, attended by their most learned theologians, and ask for a hearing? Nothing could give them a better chance of manifesting the full strength of their position, and bringing into the light all the justice there is in their cause, than such a demonstration as this, if they only had courage, independence, and concert of action enough to make it.

We would say the same of other Protestant communions making no pretension to any Episcopal succession. They very generally profess a desire for union among Christians. Surely there must be some basis upon which this union is possible. Those who profess that Jesus Christ has established a religion, given a revelation, taught a doctrine and way of salvation, must admit that there is some way of ascertaining with certainty what Christianity really is, and refuting the claims of every kind of pseudo-Christianity. Why can they not make a bold and generous effort, then, to bring the matter to a test, send their representatives to Rome, and try to have at least some beginning of a conference respecting the cause of dissension and disunion?

{544}

We are glad to see the action taken by the Presbyterians of New York and New Jersey and the Evangelicals of Berlin. We could have wished that the former had exhibited equal courtesy and amenity in their language with the latter. However, we let that pass. What we desire above all things is, that attention should be drawn to the letter of the Holy Father, and to the great and vital matters which it presents. Our Protestant brethren can do us, in this respect, a much greater service than we can do ourselves. Their resolutions, replies, discussions, and indignant denials of the authority of the successor of Peter only bring before the minds of the multitude more distinctly and universally the claim which he makes to be heard and reverenced as the Vicar of Christ. This is precisely what we desire. We do not ask, and the Holy Father has never demanded, that those who are separated from his communion should submit to his authority without having just and adequate reasons presented before their minds. We ask only that they lay aside their inherited prejudices, and that animosity which is their result; examine, inquire, and weigh calmly, with a pure desire to know the truth, and with prayer to God, the evidence of the supreme authority bequeathed to the Roman Pontiff by St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. It is idle to pretend that the claims of the Roman See are unworthy of a hearing, and can be set aside by a simple denial. There is no other human being except the Pope who has the slightest claim to call himself the Father of all the faithful, or who would dream of doing it. Whoever should attempt it would receive no attention, but would be disregarded as an idiot. No church, even, however large its numbers, can gain any general attention to its pretensions of possessing that doctrine and polity which are truly apostolic, or its invitations to the rest of Christendom to conform to its peculiar type of Christianity. The Pope alone compels the attention of the world when he speaks. The emphatic protests which his majestic and paternal admonitions to all Christians to return to the fold of unity call forth, are themselves witnesses to the immense power which he possesses as the successor of St. Peter and the heir of that promise which was made by Jesus Christ: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." There is no humiliation in being admonished and instructed by the voice of one who is the inheritor of such a promise, or in being invited to return under the guidance of such a majestic and ancient pastoral authority. It is not in the spirit of pride or disdain that we urge upon our fellow-Christians the duty of returning to the bosom of the Mother Church. We ardently desire that they may be our brethren, united with us in faith and fellowship, sharers with us in the glorious privilege of Catholic communion, and in the noble work of propagating Christianity throughout the world. We desire to judge as favorably as possible of the motives and intentions of those who, with mistaken zeal, repulse the earnest and paternal exhortations of the Father of Christendom, and trust that when they have more calmly and thoroughly investigated the grounds of their separation, many of them will obey the voice of truth and conscience, and retrace the path which led their ancestors away from the doctrine and fold of the successor of St. Peter. {545} We are not sanguine enough to expect that the approaching Council of the Vatican will be followed by the immediate and universal return of all Christians to Catholic unity. We have no doubt, however, that it will mark a great epoch in ecclesiastical and human history, and, like the Council of Trent, will inaugurate a new period of progression and triumph for the church. To what extent the separated Christians of the East and West will become reconciled to the Catholic Church, we will not venture to predict; but we will hazard a prophecy that within the next half-century the great mass of those who are not reabsorbed into catholicity will have melted away into some form of infidelity, or have been swept up by some new false religion which is openly anti-Christian. What course the body of the Protestant clergy will take remains to be seen; but if they are not wise enough to anticipate and lead the movement which must inevitably bring back the most religious portion of their people to the unity of the See of St. Peter, they will be left behind by it, and will ere long find themselves without flocks and without churches.

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Sonnet (XIII.) From The Vita Nuova Of Dante Alighieri.

So gentle seems my lady and so pure When she greets any one, that scarce the eye Such modesty and brightness can endure, And the tongue, trembling, falters in reply. She hears; but heeds not, people praise her worth-- Some in their speech, and many with a pen-- But meekly moves, as if sent down to earth To show another miracle to men! And such a pleasure from her presence grows On him who gazeth, while she passeth by-- A sense of sweetness that no mortal knows Who hath not felt it--that the soul's repose Is woke to worship, and a spirit flows Forth from her face that seems to whisper, "Sigh!"

T. W. P.

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{546}

Christmas Gifts.

A pleasantly-furnished parlor, looking out upon noble trees and gray shrubbery.

Within, books, pictures, portfolios, and a superb piano.

At the piano a lovely girl of twenty summers, whose face, figure, and fair white hands give token that no care, or sorrow, or labor has ever reached her.

A footfall on the piazza startles her; the bell rings, and is answered.

"George!"

"Isabel!"

And in another moment brother and sister are locked in each other's arms. He put her from him a little, and looked in her face.

"You are more than ever Bella," he said, while two or three times he kissed her fair forehead.

"How is my mother? Didn't I hear some strains of Mozart's 'Twelfth' as I came into the gate?"

"Yes, I was just playing the Agnus Dei. Mother is nicely; and I was enjoying my music immensely; for it is the first day in two or three weeks that I have been allowed to touch the piano."

Why?"

"Because mother has been so sick. Don't look so frightened; she is quite well now. Did you know you had a little sister up-stairs?"

"No, indeed!" he exclaimed, with an expression of delight, at which Isabel laughed again, while she went on to say:

"Mother was so nervous, and so excited by the storms and shipwrecks that the papers were full of, that for nights and nights she did not sleep at all, and the doctor was afraid she would die or lose her reason; but for some time past she has slept, and now she seems quite recovered."

"Let us go to her--can I go up?"

Just then a little girl of six years came into the room, with wide expectant eyes, and, "Mother says--"

"Ah! little one," said the young man caressingly, "do you remember brother George?"

"Yes, indeed I do."

"Then give me a hug," said he, folding her in his arms, and then releasing her. "It is a long time since you saw me. I should not wonder if you had forgotten me."

"But I have not forgotten you; and mother says," she went on, dancing up and down in great glee, "if it's brother George, you're to come right up-stairs; only you mustn't make a noise for the sake of the baby. What did you bring me?"

"If you have a baby, you ought not to expect me to bring you anything. Isn't the baby enough?"

She smiled rather doubtfully, and trotted on before them up-stairs.

"Isabel," said George, "wait a minute." Then, as if something in his sister's face failed to invite the meditated confidence, he asked, as they slowly ascended the stairs, their hands locked, "Is Philip here?"

"No; he will not be here till next Monday--the Monday before Christmas."

"And you are to be married--"

"On Christmas eve; how glad I am you've come!"

"Is my father well?"

"Yes; he will be so sorry not to have met you at the wharf; but he had to go to W---- on Thursday, and will not be home till evening."

{547}

They entered Mrs. Hartland's room, and the son, so hardly parted from, so anxiously and long expected, was pressed to his mother's heart. "My darling boy, you are indeed a Christmas gift."

"Yes, dear mother, we ought to have been back long ago; sometimes I was afraid I should never get back to you. Besides that hurricane off the Cape, which obliged us to put in for repairs, we have had very heavy weather since we crossed the line. But I have accomplished the business father sent me to do, thank God, and am with you all once more. Are Mary and Fanny well?"

"Yes, they have gone out to buy Christmas presents, and Robert with them."

"And Charlie?"

"Is spending a few days with Aunt Ellen, and will come back with them on Monday for the wedding and for Christmas."

"O mother dear!" said Isabel, "whom was your letter from?"

"From Aunt Ann. They are all well, and are coming on Monday."

"And Lucy and Jane?"

"Yes."

"But, my darling mother," exclaimed George, with a look of distress, "you will be perfectly worn out with all this company."

"Mother has nothing to do with that," said Isabel; "we take care of that. If mother takes care of the baby, that is all we expect of her; and Mrs. Reilly is to stay till Philip and I are off."

"And how is this dear little Christmas present?" said George, stooping tenderly over the sleeping infant.

"Lovely," said his mother, smiling.

"As lovely," said Isabel, with a slight laugh, "as such little nuisances ever are."

"Why, Bella dear, don't you love her?" asked George.

"Oh! yes, to be sure, I love her; but I don't see the use of her; nobody wants her."

"I beg your pardon, dear, I want her," interrupted her mother.

"Oh! yes, mother, I don't mean that; I know you want her, and I am sure I am glad you have her; only I mean to say that she has chosen to come at the most inconvenient time possible, as babies always do; and that there is no place here for a baby, and that she deranges everything; and turns the whole house upside down; and I think babies are a nuisance; and then Kate is six years old, and we had no right to expect any more babies; and there were enough of us without her; and I am just going to be married, and it all seems so odd and queer."

Mother laughed, and seemed to think it not at all odd and queer, nor yet did she take to heart Isabel's repugnances; but George said musingly:

"And yet you are going to be married yourself next week?"

"That is precisely why it is such a nuisance," said Isabel.

"Would there have been enough of us without her," said her mother, "if brother George had never come back, as for so long a time we feared he would not?"

"There are never enough of us without George," replied Isabel, reddening, partly from vexation, and partly from the consciousness that the brother, of whom she was so fond and proud, was regarding her, she really did not know why, with something like surprise and disappointment.

Just then the baby stirred, woke, was taken up, admired, discussed, and caressed, and in the midst of a consultation as to what her name should be, a noise of feet and voices was heard in the hall below.

{548}

By a mutual instinct that "mothers room" should be spared the disturbance of too noisy greetings, the young people ran down-stairs. There were tender embraces on the part of the girls, more vehement and tumultuous ones from Bob, and confused cries of, "Are we not glad to see you!" and "How long you staid!" and "We thought you would never come back!" with "I was in danger of never coming back;" and "How you have grown!" and "How pretty you are!" at which Mary and Fanny laughed and blushed.

"I say, old fellow," cried Bob, "hadn't you a terrible time? were you frightened?"

"I hadn't time to be frightened," returned George, "there was too much to do."

"What could you do?"

"Not so much as a sailor, of course; but every one can do something--every one who is cool and not afraid."

"By Jove! but I should think 'twould be fun! only I should be afraid; I shouldn't like to go to the bottom."

"No, most of us would object to that."

"I wish you wouldn't say 'by Jove,' Robert," said Isabel; "I wish you wouldn't take up expressions from your school-fellows that you never hear at home."

"Isabel isn't fond of foreign importations," said Fanny.

"Yes, she is, though," retorted Robert wisely, "what is she made of, from top to toe, but foreign importations?"

Amid the general laugh which followed this thrust, Mrs. Hartland's voice was heard at the head of the stairs:

"Fanny! brother George will want to go to his room; is it ready for him?"

"Yes, mother, it is all ready; I will go and see. You will have plenty of time, George; for dinner is half an hour later to-day, on account of father."

Not long after this, there was a thundering rap at George's door, which opened and admitted his youngest brother, a lad of ten years.

"Why, Charlie, boy," he exclaimed, as the lithe little fellow sprang into his arms, "I didn't expect you; I thought you weren't coming till Monday."

"No, I wasn't; but father saw by the paper that the ship was in, and I told Aunt Ellen I couldn't stay any longer."

"You've grown a head taller since I saw you."

"I should think I'd had time enough to grow; how long have you been gone?"

"Fourteen months; but let's go down and see father."

"But, George," said the little boy, looking round the room, "do let me come back and chum with you now. I've slept with Robert ever since you went away, and I like it very well with Robert, but I'd rather come back to you, mayn't I?"

"Certainly you shall, if mother and Robert agree to it." And Charlie made one leap to the first landing, another to the second, and with a third bound reached his father's door.

A gay party assembled at dinner. Mother came down for the first time, to honor her boy's return. Mr. Hartland said a long, earnest grace, thanking God for the bounties spread before them less than for the return of the long-absent, and for their joyful reunion. The girls were looking their prettiest, the boys full of glee. All being more talkative than hungry, they discussed home affairs, family affairs, the voyage, the tropics, and Valparaiso, until Charlie, tired of his chair, pushed it back, and began turning summersets over the floor, by way of digesting his dinner.

{549}

A general move followed; father and George exchanged a few sentences on business matters in a low voice to which nobody listened, and the young man left the room. Presently he returned with a bulky envelope, which he gave his father, saying:

There are the papers, sir; I think you will find the whole matter very clearly stated, and the affair satisfactorily arranged."

Mr. Hartland took the bundle, and, placing himself at a side table, turned the drop-light conveniently and began to open and read. At this signal the rest of the party moved into the parlor; mamma was placed in the most comfortable chair, and the young people were presently absorbed in a conversational and philosophical game. How long the wits of all of them had been on the strain, not one of them could have guessed, when, just as Robert was insisting that the article under discussion must be red clover, and that it must be found chiefly in icebergs, or else both Fanny and George had made wrong answers, suddenly their father's tall figure loomed up before them. His usually calm face was slightly tremulous.

"We never can be thankful enough, my dear boy," he began abruptly, and his voice trembled also, "to have you among us once more; and I must say I am very proud at the manner in which you have managed this business."

George blushed, mamma's eyes filled with tears, and Charlie, who for the last half-hour had been so sleepy that he was of no use except to make a laugh at his own expense, rubbed his eyes and looked up.

"George is a trump!" said he sententiously.

This was a great relief to papa, who fairly looked as if he would have liked to cry himself, and the hubbub of voices and inquiries which followed was quieted by Isabel placing herself at the piano, and beginning the same strain from Mozart's Twelfth which had charmed her brother on entering the gate.

George stood over the piano and again looked at Isabel, as if he were half inclined to tell her something, but refrained; and Isabel was too much occupied with her own plans and prospects to indulge an indiscreet curiosity.

The next day Mr. Hartland having established himself in the library soon after breakfast, and the younger members of the family having gone out on their Christmas errands, Mrs. Hartland bethought herself to go and see if her son's room were supplied with all things necessary to his comfort. The door was open, and George and Isabel were both there, gaily chatting and laughing, amid a confused medley of books, papers, clothes, and odd nicknacks, to which George was busily adding, as he pulled pile after pile from his trunk. Isabel glanced from one object to another, with the idle curiosity and eagerness begotten of such occupation; but seeing her mother approach, she made haste to clear the rocking-chair and place a footstool for her feet.

"Tell mother about that curious little pipe," she said.

"Yes, but let her see it first; isn't it odd?" said he, showing it. "I thought of giving it to Robert, he is so fond of oddities; and see, mother, is not this shagreen case pretty, with the silver trimmings, and that quaint old medallion on the cover? It will do to keep your needles and thimble in."

{550}

"Yes, and scissors, and a good-sized spool of cotton; it will do nicely to take to the sewing society, mother dear."

"And here is a box which I thought of giving to father," returned George, "only he never takes snuff," producing a beautiful amber snuff-box, mounted and lined with gold.

"Exquisite! he could keep postage-stamps in it," suggested Isabel.

"That would do very well for you girls, who only write three or four letters a week; I have something else that will please father much better." And he brought from his trunk a dagger of fine metal, curiously wrought in arabesque, the massive handle also richly carved and inlaid. While her mother was admiring the workmanship of the dangerous little weapon, Bell took up, one after another, the books upon the table, most of them old acquaintances, travelling companions, taken from home and brought home again. As she listened to the story of the pipe, mamma observed in Isabel's hand a little, well-thumbed book which attracted her attention.

"What book is that, dear?" she asked, as the story ended.

"A prayer-book," said Isabel.

"An Episcopal prayer-book?"

"No," said George, "a Catholic."

"What do you have that for?" said Mrs. Hartland, with a mingled expression of surprise, contempt, and indignation.

"Because I want it," he returned, smiling.

"What do you want it for?" she exclaimed, instantly alarmed at his look and tone.

"Because, dear mother, I want it to use; I am a Roman Catholic."

"A Roman Catholic! You might as well plunge this dagger into my heart," said his mother, "as tell me that. Dearly as I love you, I would much rather see you dead and buried."

"And I," said George quietly, "would much rather be dead and buried than ever be a Protestant again."

"What infatuation! But how came you to be a Catholic, and what put it into your head to change your religion?"

George began to tell her of an acquaintance formed on the outward voyage with a Catholic priest, who was bound for the same port as himself; of the inexplicable attraction which drew him to this man; of the charm of his conversation and manners; of their discussions; of the books which he lent him; of his tender and fatherly advice and instructions--here Mrs. Hartland interposed an expression of impatience and contempt--"in short, dear mother," pursued the young man earnestly and quietly, "I became perfectly convinced that the Catholic religion is the only true religion; and as I did not choose to risk my salvation by living any longer without it, I was received into the church before I left Valparaiso."

"Well, I feel as if all the happiness of my life were blighted."

"I am sorry you feel so, dear mother; I am grieved to pain you, but there was no help for it; you would not have me violate my conscience."

"There is such a thing as an ill-enlightened conscience."

"That's so, my dear mother," said he, with something more than his old bright smile, "and I am sure that when you have heard fairly stated the arguments which have influenced me--"

"I don't want to hear any arguments or any reasons; I would rather die than be a Catholic; it is a bad sign when young people begin to think themselves wiser than their elders."

{551}

"So it is, dear mother; but you did not repulse Grace Estabrook with that argument when she left the Unitarian church and began to come to yours, against the wishes of both her parents."

"I don't wish to hear anything about it, or to talk or argue; the whole subject is hateful to me. You have given us all the dagger, my son," said she, placing it upon the table, and rising, she went below to communicate to Mr. Hartland the sad intelligence.

The allusion to the dagger affected George very sensibly, and he dreaded to go down-stairs or meet his father and sisters; but having at last made the effort, he was immensely relieved to find every one as kind as usual. His father's face was pale and excited, but he said nothing; Bob stared at him rather saucily, as if he were a phenomenon; and the rest of the family evidently regarded him as an amiable dupe. This was hard, but endurable. His spirits rose, he romped with the little ones, capped verses with his sisters, and convinced every one that his self-respect was in no way diminished by the slender appreciation put upon his faith. There were, of course, not wanting arguments and persuasions to lure him back to the faith of the family; but George was not a fellow having once in his life met with positive truth, to abandon it afterward for a mere negation.

After dinner, some of the novelties which he had brought home were produced: the dagger, which his father accepted and admired, without seeming seriously wounded by it; a collection of shells, a set of corals, and some exquisite little articles of mother-of-pearl. Kate fished out of his pocket a necklace, as she called it, of garnet beads, not running all together, but separated occasionally by little bits of gold chain, with a gold medal pendent from it.

"Isn't this a reward of merit?" exclaimed she; "is this for me, brother George? may I have it?"

"Yes," said George, laughing, "you may have it."

But it would not go over her head, and it had no clasp to fasten round her neck; then she tried it on for a bracelet, but it would fall off. In short, it was not meant to wear, nor for an ornament at all, but for something else; and as she twirled it rather uneasily over her fingers, not knowing exactly what to do with it, George took it from her, and replaced it with a carnelian necklace which he clasped round her white throat. Kate was contented to see the little garnet beads slip back into her brother's pocket, with the assurance that she should see them as often as she wished, not, however, till they had been curiously examined and inquired into by Charlie and Fanny.

"They are to say?" said Fanny, with great curiosity, "how do you say them?" But before George could answer the question, the baby was brought in, and the subject dropped.

The little one was petted, praised, and passed from hand to hand with an affectionate eagerness which showed plainly that she was not generally considered a nuisance, and at last all protested that it was high time she had a name.

"I shall not call her Bridget, to please George," said mamma.

"But it would not please me, dear mother, to have you call her Bridget. I see no more propriety in calling her Bridget than in calling her Eulalie, or Genevieve, or Inez."

"I think I will call her Elizabeth Tudor; she was a good Protestant."

{552}

"I doubt very much Elizabeth's being what you would call a good Protestant," returned George merrily; "but if you call baby after her, I shall immediately put her under the protection of St. Elizabeth."

"Who was St. Elizabeth?" asked Fanny.

"She was a Hungarian princess, and very pious. She washed the saints' feet and tended the sick and poor with her own hands."

"If it was a boy, I would call him Cranmer," said mamma.

"I guess not," said Mr. Hartland; "I should have something to say about that."

"You might call her Jezebel, or Bathsheba," suggested Robert; "I dare say they were both genuine Protestants." There was frequently an uncertainty as to how Robert's missiles were intended to fall; and whether his barbed arrows were sped in innocence or with malice aforethought was a point in regard to which the most unlimited private judgment was conceded to every member of the family. Of course, nobody laughed at this sally, though Isabel bit her lip to keep from smiling, and George said,

"Why not call her Annie, after Aunt Ann?"

"I have been thinking of that," said mamma, "only Isabel thinks it is such a homespun name."

"I like homespun names," said papa.

Isabel liked Blanche, and Fanny suggested Margaret. Robert thought Schwartz would be more appropriate than Blanche. George said any name was good that was in the calendar. Robert said Charlotte Corday was in the calendar. George thought not, and after a brisk discussion and sundry pros and cons, it was decided to call the little one Annie.

"And St. Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary," whispered George to Isabel, as he opened the piano for her.

"Christmas gifts not appreciated," said George, turning round at the head of the first flight of stairs to bid Isabel good night.

"What do you mean?" said Bell.

"I mean the dear little sister in there," pointing to his mother's room, "whom you think a little nuisance."

"Psha!" said Isabel.

"And I here, too," he went on, "who should have been under the water rather than have come home a Catholic. And the gift of faith," he said seriously, "which God has bestowed upon me, and which my friends would wish me to throw away or trample under foot, and the guardianship of saints and angels, which people mock at."

"Baby can hardly be called a Christmas present," said Bell, "since she is four weeks old, and Christmas is not until next Thursday."

"Not precisely."

"Nor your gift of faith, as you call it, since you became a Catholic, you say, before leaving Valparaiso."

"Not as we usually speak; but every blessing comes to us really because of the Incarnation, and so any blessing which we have particularly to be thankful for may be gratefully regarded as a Christmas gift."

"Well, it must be owned," said Isabel, "that you bring your ideas, like the wise woman in the Proverbs, from afar."

George went on quietly without smiling. "There will be more Christmas gifts next Thursday."

"I dare say," said Bell, though her face demanded an explanation.

"Father and mother will have another son, and we all shall have another brother, and you will have one who in some sort will stand to you in the place of God."

{553}

Bell colored and was silent. If she had chosen to speak, she would have said that of all her brother's far-fetched ideas this was the oddest, and one which she was little likely to appreciate. She certainly had not regarded Philip at all in that light, or as a gift from God any way. She returned her brother's good night, and, going into her own room, meditated how George was always the same incomprehensible fellow, always gay and full of life, and yet always taking seriously what every one said in temper or in fun, or by vanity, or for effect, "as if an idle word signified." With every one else in the house she did pretty much as she pleased; but George always contrived to manage her, and had done so ever since she was born. He had a quiet, serious way of talking to her, as if he were twenty years her senior, which was not flattering to Bell's vanity; yet she loved him so very much, she was not at all sure that she loved Philip better.

"Well, George," said Robert on Saturday night, "I suppose you are not going to church to-morrow with us?"

"Probably not," said George.

"I suppose you will go to St. Lawrence's, over here, with servant-girls, and stable-men, and rag-pickers; won't it be a sweet crowd!"

"Do be quiet, Robert," said his father, "what difference does it make whom you go to church with?"

"Mother," said Fanny, "may I go to church with brother George tomorrow?"

"No, Fanny, you may not," said Mrs. Hartland shortly, "and you are not to ask for such a thing. The Catholic religion is the religion of the devil, and I don't want you to know anything about it, or to hear or think anything about it. I would rather you were dead and buried than that you should be Catholics, any of you."

Poor Fanny looked dismayed, and Robert and Mary laughed irreverently; but Mr. Hartland said mildly,

"If the Catholic religion were the religion of the devil, my dear, I think there is nothing gained by saying so."

And when the children had dispersed for the night, and he was alone again with Mrs. Hartland, he said:

"George has been led away by his imagination; and your vehement opposition will only strengthen him; let him alone, and he will get over this."

In due time Philip made his appearance. He was a gay, spirited, handsome fellow--a great favorite with every one, and especially with George, whose classmate he had been.

The Shirleys and Hartlands had been intimate for many years, having moved in the same society, inherited the same religious opinions, and imbibed by association the same ideas. Mr. Shirley was a man of great wealth, and was still living; but Philip had just inherited a fine property from the uncle after whom he was named, so that he was as rich as he needed to be now, with a prospect of as much again hereafter. Indeed, as Mrs. Hartland rather proudly said, "It was precisely the connection which they had most desired for Isabel."

And yet, such as Philip was, it was not strange, perhaps, that George's idea of the Christmas gift should seem to Isabel far-fetched. "But it is not so," George reasoned, "for you all say that marriages are made in heaven, and St. James says that 'Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.'"

{554}

Christmas eve arrived, and, according to the programme, the young people were married. "The wedding was furnished with guests," and it may be taken for granted at once that everything was planned and carried out in the most approved style, since Isabel had the supreme dictatorship. George was first groomsman, and the others were selected from the list of Belle's inconsolable admirers. Little Kate was the smallest bridesmaid, and went through her part with serious gravity, evidently believing that she was assisting at a solemn function. The bride and groom were pronounced the handsomest couple, and so forth; the cake and the weather were delicious. Philip certainly appreciated his Christmas gift, and thought himself a happy man. He had always considered Belle the prettiest girl in P----, as she was certainly one of the cleverest; he was perfectly persuaded that she was equally good and beautiful, and he had the grace to think that his own wealth, with his other advantages, did no more than place him upon a par with her. Certainly, Isabel's prospects of happiness were very fair.

And so she passed away to adorn a new house, very much missed by all at the old, and by none more than by Mary, who succeeded to the place and honors of elder sister, though confessedly by no means so beautiful, brilliant, or clever as "Miss Hartland that was." But Mary was a good girl, played and sang very sweetly, and was always ready to gratify her father with those simple ballads in which he chiefly delighted. Home was quieter, but perhaps scarcely less happy, and home happiness was constantly augmented by the pleasure of anticipating Isabel's visits.

If Mr. Hartland really expected George to get over his love for and belief in the Catholic religion, he was evidently doomed to disappointment; for, to all appearance, it every day penetrated more and more the very substance of his being, though he had always been so sincerely religious that his external conduct was modified by it less than might have been supposed. Fanny never repeated her preposterous request for permission to go to church with brother George; but she was perpetually slipping into his room, peeping into his books, admiring his little pictures and statuettes, trying, in fact, with a girl's insatiable curiosity, to discover why the forbidden fruit was so unspeakably poisonous. She incurred repeated scoldings for her restless inquest; and, after being reproved the twentieth time for taking possession of brother George's books and carrying them off into her own room, she fairly disconcerted her mother by indignantly inquiring, "Why they had no 'creed,' and what right the people who first started the Protestant religion had to hide away the 'Apostles' Creed' from everybody, so that hundreds of persons who thought themselves Christians, and meant to be Christians, lived and died without ever knowing there was any 'creed.'"

Poor Mrs. Hartland was completely nonplussed; she knew nothing about creeds herself, but she hesitatingly suggested that they had a "form of covenant." This, Fanny insisted, was not the least like the "Creed," and her mother, having no other forces in reserve, took refuge in the usual invective, and assured her daughter in the most solemn manner that she would prefer to see her in her grave rather than have her imbibe her brother George's sentiments. {555} Fanny, of course, was obliged to go to George for a satisfactory answer to her question, and having learned from him the gradual process by which the first Protestantism had dwindled down into New England Congregationalism, her reverence for the system in which she had been brought up was not increased.

Meanwhile, almost another year has passed away. Little Annie Hartland is creeping about the carpet, or pushing herself round with a chair, and, under great persuasion and generous bribery, making some diffident attempts to talk. Isabel has been at home some weeks, and is domiciled in her own old room. Philip's visits are frequent, but short and uncertain, for though a rich he is by no means an idle man. All are improving the last beautiful days of autumn, in anticipation of the disagreeable weather of settled winter.

Fanny, especially, who was fond of riding and a capital horsewoman, rode almost every afternoon, sometimes without any escort, and sometimes accompanied by Robert, who was very proud of the elegant figure his sister made on her spirited yet gentle horse.

On one of the loveliest of these days, as George, returning from a long walk, was sauntering up the drive, he was startled at seeing Robert upon the lower end of the piazza without a hat, trembling, and excessively pale.

"Do you know? did you see her?" he asked, quivering with excitement, and without waiting for an answer, "Fan--she's been thrown--and mother says she's been terribly hurt."

"Where was she? who was with her? is she here?"

"In mother's room. Where were you that you did not see it?"

"I have been in the other direction, up toward the academy. Has Philip come?"

"Yes, he came just before Fan was hurt."

George went up-stairs, and found Fanny quite insensible.

The poor child was settled in her mother's room, out of the way of Isabel, whose little boy was only a week old, and from whom the sad news was to be kept as long as possible. For some days it seemed very doubtful whether Fanny would recover; but her youth prevailed, and at last the doctor pronounced that, with great care, she would be perfectly restored, though she would scarcely be able to leave the house before spring.

During this interval Belle, who was rapidly convalescing, had repeatedly asked for Fanny, and wondered so much that she did not come to her room that it was at last no longer possible to conceal her sister's injury. Isabel's excitement and agitation were at first extreme; but the assurance that the invalid was now doing well soon soothed and cheered her, and she pleased herself that before long she could go into her mother's room and show Fanny her beautiful baby.

"He is four weeks old to-morrow," said Isabel, "and the doctor says I may go down-stairs to-morrow. Poor dear little Fanny! I wonder when she will be able to go out? Do you know, George, I think, considering all that has been said on several occasions about preferring that we should be dead and buried rather than that we should be this and that, we all ought to be very thankful that Fanny was not killed outright?"

"Of course."

"I wonder if mother ever thought of it?"

{556}

But George made no reply; only, after a few minutes, he said:

"You ought to have this dear little fellow baptized, now, while Philip is here."

"O clear!" said Isabel, "we don't dream of having him baptized till spring; it is too cold; and Philip is going to-morrow evening. Annie was almost six months old before she was baptized."

"I know, but it is very wrong; most Catholic children are baptized before they are ten days old."

"Oh! yes, I know you think it is necessary."

"If it is not necessary, I don't see why you do it at all."

"Why, it is a pious observance," said Isabel. "What hurry is there? besides, we can't have him baptized now, for Philip and I have not agreed what to call him."

"And while you are debating that point, you run the risk of having him die without being baptized at all."

"I don't think there is any danger. He is as well as he can be. And mother's little--I forget what his name was--died without being baptized at all, and I don't believe it makes any difference."

"Just as I told you last year, Belle," said George, smiling, "gifts despised; you place a sacrament instituted by our blessed Saviour himself on the same footing with grace at table; a pious observance, of course; to be attended to, no doubt, when one is not in too much of a hurry."

Isabel half smiled; but she was too proud and happy, and too busy petting her darling, to regard much the drift of her brother's words. At that moment Philip came in to get the baby to show Fanny, and the three adjourned into their mother's room, Philip carrying the baby, of whom he was evidently very proud.

"There are most too many of you," said Mrs. Hartland; but she could not choose which to dismiss, so they all went in. "I don't let Fanny hold levees, but you need not stay long."

Fanny was very fond of babies, and they made her examine his beautiful eyes and forehead and dimpled chin; and then Belle called her sister's attention to the exquisitely embroidered dress which she herself had worked.

"I wonder how long it will be before I shall be able to work another," said Fanny, with a patient smile.

"You will soon be well enough, dear Fanny, for me to come and read to you," said George.

"Oh! yes, I shall enjoy that; and if Belle is going down-stairs to-morrow, she can play a little, and if the doors are left open, I shall hear."

"Yes, and Mary can play to you; for I shall be carrying Belle off pretty soon," said Philip.

"No, indeed," said mamma, "she can't go till after Christmas; so you will have to come back and spend Christmas with us."

"It will be a great drawback to our Christmas, having Fanny upstairs," said Isabel.

"Yes," returned mamma; "but if she recovers, we shall have no reason to complain."

"I have been telling Isabel that she ought to have the baby baptized while Philip is here," said George.

"Nonsense, George!" replied his mother; "nobody thinks as you do, and why will you be forcing your peculiar notions upon us?" And so the suggestion passed and was thought of no more.

"Put him down and let me kiss him," said Fanny; "dear little fellow! I wish I could take him." But she knew it was impossible, and she made no objection when, after a few minutes, Mrs. Hartland put them all out of the room.

{557}

That evening, when the baby was put to bed, Mrs. Hartland thought he seemed dull; but this was natural enough; nurse said he was sleepy. He slept very well and was bright in the morning, but toward night became dull again. Another day brought no improvement, and Mrs. Hartland became uneasy. She consulted the doctor, and strictly followed his suggestions, but the symptoms were only aggravated. She did not like to show Belle her anxiety, and proposed taking the baby herself into Fanny's vacant room, in order, she said, that Isabel need not be disturbed. For two nights she watched and tended him, hardly sleeping herself until daylight, when she suffered Mrs. Reilly to take her place.

Mrs. Reilly was a kind, prudent, motherly woman, and very fond of Mrs. Hartland's children, most of whom had been washed and dressed by her for the first time in their lives. She was also a Catholic.

The second night George sat in his room till very late, reading. Shortly before midnight, he went to bed, and slept uneasily for two or three hours, then rose, and finding that it wanted some minutes to four o'clock, he dressed, and resumed his reading, listening the while till some one in the house should stir.

Soon after the great hall-clock struck five, Mrs. Reilly left Isabel's room very softly, and went into Fanny's to take the baby. George waited until he heard his mother pass from the little room into her own, and close the door. Then he went down-stairs and into Fanny's room, where Mrs. Reilly sat with the poor little suffering child upon her lap.

"Is there any change?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"He'll not live till night, Mr. George," she whispered. "Poor Miss Belle! what will she do?"

Mrs. Reilly could not get over her habit of calling: Isabel "Miss Belle."

"Did you ever baptize a child, Mrs. Reilly?"

"Indeed I have, sir."

"Then you can do it once more," said he, smiling sadly. "We must not let this child die without baptism." And he poured water into the basin, and brought it to her.

And the humble Irish nurse performed those sacred acts which, by the power of the Word made flesh, sanctify the soul.

George replaced the basin, kissed the little creature upon whose head the baptismal water was still glistening, and returned to his own room as silently as he came.

Isabel slept heavily and uneasily, and woke unrefreshed and with a vague sense of apprehension. She rose on hearing the bell ring for family prayers, and hearing her brothers go down-stairs she dressed languidly and went into the next room.

The babe still lay upon the pillow in the nurse's lap, and, although the breakfast-bell had already rung, Mary was sitting in the window, looking silently and with folded arms at the sick child.

"Why, he seems so sick," said Isabel, with a tone and look of pain and alarm.

"Yes," said Mary, "he is very sick."

Mary had always helped her mother more than Belle in taking care of the little ones, and she knew better than her sister how to judge of illness. Isabel asked several questions, to which Mrs. Reilly gave only the most vague and cautious answers. The faint ring of silver was heard in the hall.

"There is your breakfast, Belle, dear," said Mary, "go into your own room and take some coffee; you ought not to be standing about here without having taken anything." "O dear!" said Isabel, "I don't want any breakfast. I wonder when Philip will come, and what will he say to see the baby so sick?"

{558}

After a few moments, she followed her sister's advice. Mechanically she put the sugar and cream into the coffee, and had just drunk it off, and pushed away the little stand, when the door opened and Philip entered.

"Where is he?" and his face of agony and consternation told all.

He had been sent for, and she knew why.

"Oh! no, no, they don't think he will die," cried Isabel passionately, throwing herself into Philip's arms; "they don't think he will die! O my darling! my baby! my beautiful boy!" And she rushed into the next room.

Her grief was terrible to witness, and Philip had to command himself.

"He has changed a good deal since daylight," said Mrs. Reilly, looking up at Philip; but she was sorry she had looked, and hastily turned her eyes again upon the child.

Presently Mrs. Hartland came in, and insisted that Philip should go down and have some breakfast, and he felt bound to obey.

Isabel was stunned. It had never entered her head that he could die; he was so strong and bright and beautiful, and he was hers. She threw herself helplessly upon the couch, and cared for nothing. By and by she remembered that now she could see him for a little while, but that soon she could see him no more, and she rose and went into the room.

George and Philip were both there. The quiet little form lay sweetly, as in sleep, upon the white counterpane of Fanny's cot. Death had only beautified him. The tiny waxen hands clasped upon the breast, almost as white as the white rosebud they enfolded, the smile of beatitude upon the face, the beautiful forehead, the closed eyes with their long lashes--no pain, no sorrow, the ineffable peace there, contrasting with the tumult of agony in her own soul, brought the tears to Belle's eyes.

George could not help thinking of his own little brother, just about as old, whom, years ago, he had seen lying in the same way in that very room, upon whose head the baptismal water had never fallen; and he thought Isabel very happy.

And thus was laid away, till the morning of the resurrection, the fair casket which had enclosed, for so short a time, a beautiful soul.

Isabel's room was neatly set in order. It was the brightest and prettiest chamber in the house, but it looked empty and desolate, though the family inclined to congregate there, every one wishing to do something to comfort their poor sister.

"It is five weeks to-day since my little darling was born," said Isabel; "how proud and happy I was only a week ago, showing him to Fanny."

George seemed in a reverie, but after a moment he said,

"And it is a year to-day since I returned from Valparaiso."

Belle fixed a look of anguish upon her brother's face, and then wept bitterly, until having stopped, apparently from mere exhaustion, she said,

"I have been properly punished."

"What do you mean, Belle dear?"

"I mean I have been punished for making so light of one little life, or rather, for my own life-long selfishness," said she, looking at Annie who was playing upon the carpet.

George looked at Isabel with much concern and tenderness, but said nothing.

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"I deserve to be punished, I know, George. I have been perfectly selfish. I have thought more, all my life long, about dress and vanity and pleasure than about anything else in the world. I have been a member of the church and have had a class in the Sunday-school, and I have thought myself a very good Christian; but I have really occupied all my life in thinking how I should contrive to look prettier and to dress better than others, and to secure my personal gratification. And I have always thought everything a nuisance that has stood in my way. When the dear baby came, I have been thinking ever since he was born how I should dress him and make him look pretty--and now the body that I thought so much of--" She stopped and sobbed again.

"Don't make yourself so unhappy, my darling sister," said George tenderly, as he rose and kissed her.

She seemed soothed, and presently ceased weeping.

"And for my Christmas gift this year, I have that little grave."

"Dear Belle, you must not be too hard upon yourself; the gifts of God are as many as the sands upon the sea-shore, and one honest sight of one's self is a Christmas gift worth having. Even if we think we are punished, his chastisements are always gifts, if we know how to receive them; my dear sister, isn't it so?"

"I have heard so times enough from the pulpit," said Belle, through her tears; "but you know, George, I have never thought about those things. And then, my baby's soul, which I cared so little about--dear George, do you really think it makes any difference?"

"What, dear?"

"Whether he was baptized or not?"

"I don't think anything about it, my darling sister; I know that it makes all the difference between going instantly to the heaven of heavens, where God is, and staying, perhaps for ever and ever, in a place which, though not an unhappy place, is by no means so happy as the very presence-chamber of the King of kings. But you need not grieve about that; for he was baptized, and your little darling has gone to keep a joyful Christmas in heaven."

And then he told Belle how he came down that morning, and how Mrs. Reilly had baptized the child.

Isabel listened and wept and seemed comforted.

"I am sure I thank you, dear George, you are always so kind and thoughtful. I know father and mother don't think it makes the least difference in the world, and I don't know why I should trouble myself about it; but still, now that I have lost him, I can't bear to think that anything was left undone which could have been done to his possible advantage. And then Philip--Philip is a great deal better than I am; I have thought very often, George, of what you said last year about Philip being a gift to me--a gift from God; he really is very good, and he seemed to feel so badly because baby was not baptized."

"Our blessed Saviour has given us the sacrament of baptism for something, no doubt," said George, "and it is taking considerable upon ourselves, short-sighted creatures as we are, to pronounce that it is of no consequence to any one, even to a babe a day old. But you must be comforted now, my darling sister, and remember that God has given you this year for your Christmas gift, not merely that little grave, but a spotless soul before his throne, who will never cease to pray for you and Philip until you are so happy as to arrive there yourselves."

Then bending over her, he made the sign of the cross on her fair forehead, and in his heart invoked on her those Christmas benedictions which faith alone can give.

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The American College In Rome.

We design, in the few following re to call the attention of our readers to a work which is in process of execution in this country at present, to secure an endowment for the American College in the Eternal City. In the earnest appeal which will be found at the end of this article, made by the most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore and the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Philadelphia, in the name of their brethren of the Episcopate, to the more wealthy among our American Catholics, the reasons are plainly stated why this should be done. The voice of our prelates is to us the voice of God; and we believe that we are furthering the designs of his providence in sustaining this institution, which was founded by the Holy Father for the benefit of the Catholics of the United States. We have had the college in Rome for some years, and we are now called upon to decide whether we shall permit it to be closed for want of proper support, and thus show that we are not able to appreciate the gift of his Holiness, to maintain the College when he has given the building, to do our share when he has so generously done his.

The prelates have placed the whole question with admirable practical wisdom before us. Their plan is both grand and feasible, and is characterized by that energy of purpose, zeal for religion, and attachment to the real progress of the church, which eminently distinguish the hierarchy, the clergy, and the faithful of the United States.

It is not necessary to recapitulate the arguments which are contained in the circular, for they speak for themselves. Reference, however, may be briefly made to some of the immense advantages which are enjoyed by the young Levites brought up in the centre of unity, as Samuel of old within the precincts of the temple. In the first place, the constant presence of the visible head of the church upon earth reminds them continually of our blessed Lord's promises to his first Vicar, so perfectly fulfilled in the long line of his successors, the gates of hell continually striving but never prevailing against them, and excites in their hearts that true devotion to the Holy See which is the surest test of orthodoxy, as it is the most perfect safeguard against error. Wherever they turn, they behold the evidences of the victory achieved by the faith of Christ over paganism and infidelity. The despised cross has fully conquered. The student in Rome is continually reminded of the immense revolution which took place first in Rome, when Constantine embraced the faith of Christ, and the Caesars gave place to the pontiffs, and heathen temples were converted to the worship of the one true God, and Rome became the centre of another empire grander far than the one of which she was the centre before, which stretches "from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." There is something, moreover, in the atmosphere of Rome provocative of study; nor is there wanting that generous competition which serves to awaken every energy in the endeavor to excel in the various departments of learning. Rome is, in this sense, an intellectual arena in which contend bright intellects from all parts of the known world, whose powers are brought out and strengthened by their very exercise.

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Not only are there many advantages to be enjoyed there in a literary and intellectual point of view, but even greater in a spiritual. Where else are the great festivals of our holy religion celebrated with the splendor and magnificence that they are there? Where else is God awarded the first place, and religion paramount? Where else is devotion to the blessed sacrament practised as it is in Rome? To say nothing of the countless masses, of the churches open from early dawn to dusk; the kneeling worshippers; no day in the year but what, in the beautiful devotion of the Forty Hours, the blessed sacrament is exposed to the adoration of the faithful--now here, now there--the Son of God upon his earthly throne; lights burning as they burn nowhere else; and the silent throng adoring, worshipping, thanking, praying. Then the intense devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the Madonna at every street corner, in every shop, in every house, and the light which love and reverence have lighted, burning before it. It has well been said that the business of Rome is prayer. What an advantage for one who must labor in a country like ours, filled with every form of religious error, to have these memories to fall back upon, to encourage him in the midst of the contradiction of these dogmas of our holy faith in which he has to dwell, to stimulate both himself and the flock committed to his care to imitate the example of fervent piety and devotion which Rome sets to the world. How powerful there, too, the example of the saints! Nowhere else so much as in Rome does the truth spoken by the apostle, that we are "the fellow-citizens of the saints and the domestics of God," come home to us; we seem to stand in their footsteps, from the martyrs who laid down their lives during the fearful persecutions of the first three centuries to the confessors and virgins almost of our own day. There lie, side by side, the bodies of the great apostles, Peter and Paul; of Peter, who received from our blessed Lord the charge of the sheep and lambs of his flock; of Paul, miraculously converted to faith in Him whose followers he had persecuted; who, in turn, became the great instrument in the hands of God of preaching that holy faith and leading thousands to embrace it. There, in that amphitheatre, the martyrs were torn in pieces by wild beasts from the Libyan deserts. There, in those catacombs, their bodies were reverently laid. Here, one martyr after another suffered. There is the resting-place of Lawrence, of Sebastian, of Agnes, of Cecily. Here lived those holy popes whose names are found in the calendars of the saints; and, to come nearer home to our own day, there St. Ignatius lived; here St. Aloysius and St. Stanislaus Kostka passed their angelic lives, and breathed out their pure souls to God. This was the home of St. Philip Neri, the apostle of Rome; here he preached, said mass, and heard confession.

But the list is too long, and we must stop. Let the examples given suffice. There can be no question of the advantages of such influences as these upon the lives of those who are surrounded by them, and specially upon those who are to be consecrated to God in the service of his sanctuary.

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Another point must be remembered, and that is, that as Rome is to us what Jerusalem was, under the old dispensation, in a certain sense, the place whither the "tribes of the earth go up," so it is very desirable that every nation should have a college there which should serve as a kind of headquarters to represent them, and to which persons coming from that nation could go, and feel that they were at home. Thus, the Englishman naturally finds his way to the English college, the Irishman to the Irish, and so on; and he finds those there who can speak to him in his own tongue, and to whom he can apply for advice and information. Again, at Rome are the limina apostolorum, which every bishop is bound to visit at certain periods of his episcopate. We have now between forty and fifty bishops in this country, and from time to time they go thither, as Paul did to see Peter, to expose to the Chief Pastor the condition of their flocks, to consult with him, and to obtain for themselves and their flocks the blessing of the Vicar of our Lord upon earth. During the late gathering at Rome, fourteen of our bishops were lodged at the American College. During the coming council there should be more; and at other than these special times there will be sometimes one, sometimes another of our bishops there, not for himself, but for us; and this alone should be a strong argument why the college should be sustained, that as the bishops of other nations have homes in Rome, so ours should have one too.

There can be no doubt, then, about the advantages of the college and the importance of maintaining it. It involves an outlay of money, but the return will be sure and great. There is no more pressing need at the present time than that which this college, with many others, supplies, namely, an increased number of priests. There are five millions of Catholics in this country, and it is impossible that with so many to prevent it, and specially of the class now called upon, the necessity of closing the college should occur.

We are proud of our country, of its lakes, and its rivers, and its mountains, surpassed nowhere in the world. Let us not be content with these natural excellences which are not of our making, but come to us from the hand of God. Let us try to excel in those things which are under our control--in virtue, in learning, and in all that makes man great and good; and in this particular instance let us try to excel the other nations in our college in Rome. Let it be a model in discipline, in spirit, and in intellectual culture. Let us try to make it the leading college in this respect, and also in the number of students. In this point let it be second only to the Propaganda. Let us not be satisfied until we have it fully established, and at least a hundred students within its walls. That this may be accomplished, we call the attention of our readers to the appeal, and trust that every one who is able will take part in this great undertaking to the utmost of his ability.

Appeal To The More Wealthy Among The Catholics Of The United States.

Beloved Children In Christ: You are aware that some years ago the cluster of National Colleges in Rome was increased by one, and that one was the College representing our own nation. Almost every nation had previously been represented there: the Irish, the English, the Scotch, the French, the Germans, the South Americans, etc. At last the deficiency was supplied, through the munificence of our beloved Pontiff, Pius IX., who generously bestowed a spacious and centrally located site for the purpose. Our College was opened, and it has already trained a number of priests for the American Mission; while it has also been a place to which Americans in Rome, no matter what their faith, might resort, and feel that they were at home.

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Unfortunately, however, sufficient means were not provided, at the commencement, to establish the College on a solid basis; and after struggling on for some years, it is now in imminent danger of being closed. It would be one thing never to have had the College, but it is another altogether to have had it and to lose it. This latter contingency, besides being a great disgrace to us, would be also an irreparable loss to the country.

The late Plenary Council ordered a general collection for the relief of the immediate wants of the College; nor is it our intention to supersede this collection, but rather to aid it toward effectually accomplishing the object in view. This collection will still be necessary to pay debts already incurred, and to provide for pressing needs.

But, in addition to the general collection, which we hope will soon be taken up, it has been suggested to propose to our wealthier Catholics, for their imitation in this matter, the noble example of their forefathers in the faith, who did great things for religion and for God. Instances of this occur in Rome itself, where, besides several other colleges for various nationalities, founded principally by the munificence of particular wealthy Catholics to rear up priests for their respective countries, the English College, since such a blessing to the English nation, was founded by Ina and by Offa, Saxon princes, first as a resting-place for English pilgrims, and then as a nursery to train up priests for the English Mission. In those days, kings and princes, and men of wealth willingly founded and endowed churches, colleges, asylums, hospitals, institutions of religion, learning, and charity, whose very ruins, in lands where they have been allowed to go to ruin, are monuments of former Catholic munificence while they are a reproach to our own degenerate days. It has been thought that, at this juncture, this glorious example of our ancestors would be promptly imitated; and that an appeal made to those Catholics in this country, whom God has blessed with abundant means, to come to the rescue, and not only to save the College, but to put it at once on a sound and substantial basis, would not be made in vain, but would be generously responded to.

It is with this view, that we make our earnest appeal to you at this time, and propose a plan which, we think, with your co-operation, will be successful in speedily founding and endowing the American College in Rome. We urge the matter upon you the more strongly, as next year the great General Council is to be convened in Rome, and we are to meet the bishops of the whole world in one of those grand assemblies which mark an era in the history of the Universal Church. To the Councils of Nice, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Lateran, Lyons, Florence, and Trent, is to be added that of the Vatican. Let us, before we go to the Holy City, have the consolation of knowing that, through your munificence, we have a college there to which we can proudly point, as bishops of a great Catholic people; let us be spared the disgrace of going thither to find its doors closed, and its name blotted out from the list of National Colleges existing in the Eternal City. We confidently appeal to you as Catholics and as Americans, loving your religion and your country, that this may not be so. Surely, the means with which God has blessed you can be applied to no higher or holier purpose than this; nor can there be any which will draw down upon you and your families a more abundant blessing of heaven. The prayers and holy sacrifices which will be cheerfully offered up in your behalf by those who, through your bounty, will be trained up for the holy ministry, cannot fail to draw down upon you heaven's choicest benedictions. Our plan, then, is briefly this:

We wish to raise from $250,000 to $300,000. We have appointed, as our agent in the matter, the Rev. G. H. Doane, Chancellor of the Diocese of Newark, to visit all the principal dioceses of the United States, and call upon those who are most able, to contribute their subscriptions. We propose that of these generous contributors to a noble work there should be three classes:

1. Founders Of Burses; who will contribute, once for all, five thousand dollars in currency, yielding something over two hundred dollars, in gold, of yearly interest; and who will have the right of selecting, from those who will be recommended and approved of their respective bishops for this purpose, one student of the College for ever.

2. Patrons; who will contribute one thousand dollars, once for all, and will be entitled to send a student, approved of by the bishop, for three years.

3. Life Members; who, by contributing five hundred dollars, will share in the holy sacrifices and prayers of the College and of the students.

The names of all these three classes will be enrolled, and placed in a handsome frame, to be kept in the Chapel of the American College; and solemn high mass will be celebrated for them in Rome twice a year--once for the living and once for the deceased benefactors; besides the private masses which the priests educated at the College will feel impelled by gratitude to offer up frequently for their respective patrons and benefactors and their families.

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This plan, if zealously and efficiently carried out, will, we are convinced, accomplish the desired result in very short time. One Catholic gentleman in Baltimore has already founded a Burse, and others will follow his good example. We believe that we can safely calculate on the following amounts to be realized in the United States, under the three heads above named:

Twenty Burses, at $5,000---- $100,000 One Hundred Patrons, at $1,000---- 100,000 One Hundred Life Members, at $500.---- 50,000 Total $250,000

The reverend father to whom we have entrusted this important matter, and in whose zeal and efficiency we have the utmost confidence, will call upon you during the course of the coming winter. You will, we are quite sure, receive him worthily, as our representative; and you will enable him, we trust, to return to us with fresh and abundant proofs of your well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and with an ample and sufficient sum not only to save, but to endow, and render perpetual for all time, our American College in Rome.

M. J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, and Chairman of Metropolitans.

J. F. Wood, Bishop of Philadelphia, Chairman Executive Committee of Bishops, and Treasurer.

Baltimore, Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, 1868.

Letter Of Rev. George H. Doane.

Having been appointed by the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, and the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Philadelphia, as Chairmen respectively of Metropolitans, and of the Executive Committee of Bishops, who have charge of the affairs of the American College in Rome, with the duty of endeavoring to raise an endowment fund for the College, I have, with the consent of my own bishop, accepted the trust which they have confided to me, and propose to enter upon the work at once. Before Christmas I hope to visit, with the consent of the Archbishops and Bishops of those Sees, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, and Hartford; during the holidays, New-York, Brooklyn, and Newark; and about the middle of January to start for the North, West, and South.

Love for Rome, and the desire to make some little return for the many blessings I received while a student in one of the National Colleges there, (the American College not having then been founded,) by trying to procure the same blessings to others; and love for my country, with the desire to see preserved for her, in the very heart of the Eternal City, a place where some of her young Levites may grow up in the schools of Rome, under the shadow of St. Peter's, and in the immediate presence of the Vicar of our Lord upon earth, are the motives which prompt me to undertake this arduous duty.

That it may succeed, I earnestly beg the prayers of the faithful, the generous and zealous co-operation of all in the good work, and remembrance on the part of my fathers and brethren at the altar of God in the daily sacrifice.

G. H. Doane.

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Catholicity And Pantheism.

Number Three.

The Problem Of Multiplicity.

In the development of the Catholic idea of God, which we have given in the previous number, we have met with no opposition from pantheism.

Here, however, it raises the most difficult as well as the most sublime and profound question which can be proposed to human intelligence--the problem of multiplicity. We shall let a pantheist propose it in his own words.

It will be remembered that the last of the attributes which we vindicated as belonging to the infinite was that of absolute unity. This attribute gives rise to the problem.

"What is unity," says Cousin, "taken by itself? A unity indivisible, a dead unity, a unity which, resting in the depths of its absolute existence, and never developing itself, is, for itself, as if it were not. In the same manner, what is variety without unity? A variety which, not being referable to a unity, can never form a totality, or any collection whatever, is a series of indefinite quantities, of each of which one cannot say that it is itself and not another, for this would suppose that it is one; that is, it would suppose the idea of unity; so that, without unity, variety also is as if it were not. Behold what variety or unity isolated would produce; the one is necessary to the other in order to exist with true existence; with that existence, which is neither multiple, various, mobile, or negative existence; nor that absolute, eternal, infinite existence, which is, as it were, the negation of existence. Every true existence, every reality, is in the union of these two elements; although, essentially, the one may be superior and anterior to the other. You cannot separate variety from unity, nor unity from variety; they necessarily coexist. But how do they coexist? Unity is anterior to multiplicity; how then has unity been able to admit multiplicity?" [Footnote 162]

[Footnote 162: Cousin's History of Modern Philosophy.]

Again: "Reason, in whatever way it may occupy itself, can conceive nothing, except under the condition of two ideas, which preside over the exercise of its activity; the idea of the unit, and the idea of the multiple; of the finite and the infinite; of being and of appearing; of substance and of phenomenon; of absolute cause and of secondary causes; of the absolute and of the relative; of the necessary and of the contingent; of immensity and of space, of eternity and of time.

"Analysis, in bringing together all these propositions, in bringing together, for example, all their first terms, identifies them; it equally identifies all the second terms, so that, of all these propositions compared and combined, it forms a single proposition, a single formula, which is the formula itself of thought, and which you can express, according to the case, by the unit and by the multiple, the absolute being and the relative being, unity and variety, etc. Finally, the two terms of this formula, so comprehensive, do not constitute a dualism in which the first term is on one side, the second on the other, without any other relation than that of being perceived at the same time by reason. {566} The relation concerning them is quite otherwise essential, unity being eternity, etc.; the first term of the formula is cause also, and absolute cause; and, so far as absolute cause, it cannot avoid developing itself in the second term, multiplicity, the finite and the relative.

"The result of all this is, that the two terms, as well as the relation of generation which draws the second from the first, and which, without cessation, refers to it, are the three integral elements of reason. It is not in the power of reason, in its boldest abstractions, to separate any one of these three terms from the others. Try to take away unity, and variety alone is no longer susceptible of addition--it is even no longer comprehensible; or, try to take away variety, and you have an immovable unity--a unity which does not make itself manifest, and which, of itself, is not a thought; all thought expressing itself in a proposition, and a single term not sufficing for a proposition; in short, take away the relation which intimately connects variety and unity, and you destroy the necessary tie of the two terms of every proposition. We may then regard it as an incontestable point, that these three terms are distinct but inseparable, and that they constitute at the same time a triplicity and an indivisible unity." [Footnote 163]

[Footnote 163: Lecture Fifth.]

As the reader may have observed, Cousin raises the problem of multiplicity. He expresses it under a logical form, but the problem is a metaphysical one, and hence applicable to all orders, logical as well as ontological. It is raised by all pantheists, whose words we abstain from quoting for brevity's sake; and so far as the problem itself is concerned, it is a legitimate one; and every one, who has thought deeply on these matters, and is not satisfied with merely looking at the surface of things, must accept it.

Let us put it in its clearest light. The infinite, considered merely as unity, actuality, (all words which mean the same thing,) can be known neither to itself nor to any other intelligence. It cannot be known to itself. For to know implies thought, and thought is absolutely impossible without a duality of knowing and of being known, of subject and of object. It implies an intelligence, an object, and a relation between the two. If, then, there is no multiplicity in the infinite, it cannot know itself. It is, for itself, as if it were not; for what is a being which cannot know itself?

Nor can it be known to any other intelligence; for mere existence, pure unity does not convey any idea necessary to satisfy the intelligence.

Moreover, the mere existence and unity of an object does not make it, on that account, intelligible. For an object to be intelligible, it is required that it should be able to act on the intelligence, such being the condition of intelligibility. [Footnote 164] Now, action implies already a multiplicity, a subject and the action. Therefore, if the infinite were mere pure unity, it could not be intelligible to any intelligence. But in the supposition that there is a kind of multiplicity in the infinite, how would multiplicity be reconciled with unity? How would these two terms agree?

[Footnote 164: See Balmes's Fundamental Philosophy, on Intelligibility.]

Multiplicity seems to be a necessary condition of the infinite, without which it would not be intelligible either to itself or to others. Absolute unity seems also to be a necessary attribute of the infinite, and yet these two necessary conditions seem to exclude each other. How then must we bring them together?

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This is the problem to be solved; the grandest and most sublime problem of philosophy; which has occupied every school of philosophy since man began to turn his mind to philosophical researches.

The two great antagonists, pantheism and catholicity, give an answer to the problem, and it is the province of this article to discuss the two solutions, and see which of them can stand the test of logic, and really answer the problem instead of destroying it. We shall enter upon the discussion, after premising a few remarks necessary to the right understanding of the discussion.

The first remark which we shall make is to call the attention of the reader to the absolute necessity for the existence of the problem.

It is not pantheism, nor Catholicity, which arbitrarily raises the problem; it exists in the very essence of being, in the very essence of intelligibility. Those philosophers who cannot see it may have taken a cursory glance over some pages of what purports to be philosophy, but they never understood a word of that which really deserves the name of that sublime science. We make this remark for two different reasons: First, in order to close the door to all the objections raised against the problem. For if it is demonstrated that a multiplicity is required in the infinite, then to raise objections against it only shows want of philosophic depth, but does not prove anything against the existence of the problem. We shall return to this subject. The second reason is a consequence of the first, to wit, that should we find that the answer to the problem is not as clear and evident as we might desire, we must not, on that account, reject the problem, but should be satisfied with the light that is afforded. This is but reasonable. Deny the problem we cannot. It follows then that we must be satisfied with an answer which, whilst it saves the problem, throws as much light on it as is possible, under the circumstances.

Pantheistic Solution Of The Problem Of Multiplicity And Unity In The Infinite.

Pantheism arrives at infinite unity by eliminating from it all possible determination, definition, reality, ideality, thought, will, consciousness; and rising from abstraction to abstraction, from elimination to elimination, from a more limited indefiniteness to a higher and broader and less restricted one, up to mere simple, unalloyed abstraction and unity.

All pantheists follow the same process in order to arrive at unity. Cousin calls it dead, immovable, inconceivable; a thing existing as if it were not; the Being--Unreality of Hegel. But ascended to such a summit, all multiplicity eliminated, and pure unalloyed unity once found, how is multiplicity to be reconstructed? With the greatest ease in the world. Pantheists make this Being--nothing unfold and develop itself like a silkworm; alleging, as a reason for such development, an intrinsic necessity of nature, an imperative instinct which broods in its bosom.

Thus they reconstruct multiplicity by making the Infinite become finite, cosmos, matter, spirit, humanity, etc. Let us hear Cousin: "This is the fundamental vice of ancient and modern theories; they place unity on one side, and multiplicity on the other; the infinite and the finite in such an opposition that the passage from one to the other seems impossible."

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And, after having remarked that this was the error of the school of Elea, he continues: "Immensity or unity of space, eternity or unity of time, unity of numbers, unity of perfection, the ideal of all beauty, the Infinite, the absolute substance, being itself, is a cause also, not a relative, contingent, finite cause, but an absolute cause. Now, being an absolute cause, it cannot avoid passing into action. If being, in itself alone, is given as absolute substance without causality, the world is impossible; but if being in itself is also a cause and an absolute cause, movement and the world naturally follow. The true absolute is not pure being in itself; it is power and cause taken absolutely, which consequently creates absolutely, and, in developing itself, produces all that you see around you."

We quote Cousin in preference to others on account of his lucidity of style and expressions; but every one acquainted with the systems of the German pantheists knows that their answer to the problem of multiplicity is substantially the same. We refer the reader, in confirmation of our assertion, to the excellent lectures on the systems of the German Pantheists, of Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, professor at the University of Kiel.

Now, does the answer resolve the problem? Does it really conciliate unity with multiplicity in the Infinite? Does it really maintain intact the two terms of the problem? We think that it does not, and maintain that it destroys both terms of the problem. The leading idea and principle of Pantheism is that unity is becoming multiplicity.

It is an existence in a continual ex-sistere in an emergence and manifestation. [Footnote 165]

[Footnote 165: Chalybäus' Lectures, etc.]

Now, who can fail to perceive that if unity is such, that is, unity when it is merely potential, when it has only the power of becoming, of passing into multiplicity, it is doubtless destroyed as soon as it passes from the power into the act; or, in other words, it is destroyed as unity when it becomes multiplicity? Strip this idea of a potential unity becoming actual multiplicity, strip it of all the logical phantasmagoria with which it has been adorned, especially by pantheists of the German school, which phantasmagoria can only impose upon the simple, and you can see, as clearly as that two and two make four, that the whole thing amounts to nothing but to this; that unity vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. It is with a special intention that we have made use of the simile of the silkworm. This poor creature too, like the unity of the pantheists, has an instinct given it by God, of unfolding and developing itself, and the effect of its operation is the silk which serves to set off the beauty of man. But unfortunately, the process of development exhausts the little creature; for when it is completed, the poor creature dies, and its development is its death, and its production is its shroud; yet, it has this advantage over the unity of the pantheists, that its remains continue to exist, whereas their unity evaporates completely in multiplicity. To speak more seriously, it is perfectly evident to every mind, that the answer of the pantheists destroys the very problem it undertakes to solve. Unity is unity so long as it is a potency, a power of becoming; it vanishes as soon as it becomes multiplicity. Add to this, that their unity, to be infinite, must remain undefined, potential, and in the possibility of becoming; such being their idea of the Infinite. {569} For which reason they eliminate from it every limitation, all individuality, all thought, all consciousness. The natural consequence of this principle must be that it remains infinite so long as it is wrapped up in its vagueness and indefiniteness. Let it come forth from its indefiniteness, let it become definite, limited, concrete, and its infinity together with its unity is gone. It evaporates in the finite forms it assumes. On the other hand, let it remain absorbed in its indefiniteness, in its abstractiveness, and consequently, in its infinity, and multiplicity can no longer be conceived. It is absurd then to speak of multiplicity in the Infinite of the Pantheists, since it is clear that, when it assumes multiplicity, it can no longer be either infinite or one; and when it remains infinite it cannot be conceived as multiple. All this we have said, conceding the premises of pantheism. But we have, in the first article, demonstrated the following principles:

1st. If the pantheists take their unity in the sense of a pure abstraction, a transient act, the elements of which do not last one single instant, it is in that case an absolute nonentity, an utter unreality, and then it is useless to speak of multiplicity, since ex nihilo nihil fit.

2d. Or, they suppose their unity as something really existing, having the power of gradual development, and in that case we have demonstrated that such a being could not develop itself without the aid of a foreign being.

The premises of pantheism then being false, the solution of the problem falls to the ground independently of its intrinsic value, if it have any, which we have shown it has not.

Pantheism cannot answer the problem of multiplicity. How can we then attain to its solution?

We answer: the Catholic Church resolves it, giving such an explanation of it as the finite and limited intellect of man may reasonably expect. For the Catholic Church does not pretend to give such a solution of the problem as to enable us thoroughly to understand it. She proceeds from two premises, to wit, that God is infinite, and that man, necessarily distinct from God, is finite, and therefore endowed only with finite intelligence. That these premises are true, appears evident from the demonstration we have already given, in which we have shown that the pantheistic idea of the infinite is the idea of finite being when it is not taken as meaning only an abstraction, a pure mathematical point. The ideas of the infinite and the finite exist, and therefore there must be also objects corresponding to these ideas. We shall return to this subject in a following number.

From these two ideas of the finite and the Infinite, it follows that man can never comprehend God; or, in other words, that the intelligence of man, with the relation to God as its object, must find mysteries or truths above and beyond its capacity. For, as it is absurd to shut up a body of large size in a body of much more limited size, supposing the present conditions of bodies not suspended, so it is absurd to suppose that the intellect of man, limited and finite, could grasp or take in God, who is infinite. We are aware of the opposition which is made by many to mysteries or super-intelligible truths; but we insist upon it, that all such opposition would vanish, if men would study philosophy more deeply and more assiduously. Why, a real philosopher, one who has sounded the depths of creation, and plunged into the profundity of the great ideas of being, of substance, of the absolute, of the infinite, the finite and the relative, into the ideas of eternity, of immensity, of immutability, of space and time, into the ideas of cause, of action, of movement; one who has entered into the labyrinth of his soul, and tried to catch the flying phenomena of its life, and to analyze all the fibres of its consciousness; such a one meets, at every step, with mysteries, and the more he digs into them, the profounder and the wider is the abyss lying at his feet. {570} If we should meet with a man denying mysteries, and desirous to engage in a discussion, we would beg of him to go and first study the alphabet of philosophy.

The problem, then, proposing the reconciliation of unity with multiplicity in the Infinite, is held by the Catholic Church as a mystery, a truth which cannot be thoroughly understood by the human mind. But, notwithstanding all this, the solution which Catholic doctrine affords, though a mystery, is clear enough to be perceived, and distinct enough to make us see through the agreement of the two terms of the problem; so that, through the help of the Catholic Church, we shall have all the light thrown upon the problem in question which man may reasonably expect, seeing that the object of the problem is the Infinite, and the intellect apprehending it only limited and finite.

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New Publications.

Philip II. Of Spain. By Charles Gayarré. Author of the _History of Louisiana under the French, Spanish, and American Domination_. With an Introductory Letter by George Bancroft. New York. 1866. W. J. Widdleton. 8vo, pp. viii. iv. 366.

Mr. Gayarré is not unknown among American authors. Of Spanish origin, born and nurtured in Louisiana, he has connected his name with the history of that State by his devotion to its annals. Laborious research has enabled him to give to the world three volumes, comprising the history of Louisiana, under French, Spanish, and American domination. Unfortunately, the first volume was taken up rather as a romance of history; and in the treatment of his subject imagination is allowed a scope that the stricter schools of history deny that faculty. Imbued to no small extent with the petty philosophism of the worst age of France, he seldom fails to give the Church, where it enters his historic paintings, darker colors than truth will warrant.

His present work is not a life of Philip II. It is a series of studies, not complete enough, indeed, to form a character of that great and singular ruler, who made Spain a great power in Europe, but failed to bequeath to his successors the ability and statecraft that enabled him to maintain the influence of the peninsula in European affairs.

Mr. Gayarré's studies are disconnected, involve repetitions, and fail to give us the salient points which mainly need discussion and examination. He begins with the death of Philip; then treats of his religious policy; his love of art; his reign in general; Antonio Perez; the Cortes during his reign; literature. The point of view may be inferred from Mr. Bancroft's remark, that the present work is written "with a mind superior to the influences of superstition"--an idea we have already expressed in somewhat different terms, vocabularies differing slightly, as Saul of Tarsus notes, in giving the estimate made by the most civilized and enlightened people of his day in regard to the cross.

{571}

Philip as ruler of Spain, Portugal, and the Indies; Philip and the Low Countries; Philip in his relations with foreign countries; Philip and the Inquisition in Spain; Philip and his family, here were indeed themes to discuss, to examine by the aid of the soundest authorities. Had Mr. Gayarré done this in true historic spirit, his work, whatever the judgment at which he arrived, would have been of real value to every thinking man. As it is, we cannot say that we see any necessity or utility for the work. In Prescott there is at least a complete picture and an array of authority. Gayarré gives neither, and can scarcely be read without obtaining false views--without the facts which in Prescott often enable you to see the fallacy of statements based really on erroneous arguments.

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Recollections Of A Busy Life. By Horace Greeley. New York. J. B. Ford and Company. 1868.

The autobiographical papers, which compose the larger part of this volume, were originally published in a weekly journal of this city, and have probably attracted the attention of many thousands of readers. They are now issued in a permanent form, under Mr. Greeley's personal supervision, and will take their place among the standard works of American biography.

Whatever may be said or thought of the religious and political principles from time to time professed and advocated by the "Editor of The Tribune," no man can deny to him the character of an earnest, outspoken, indefatigable supporter of what, at the moment, he believes to be just and right. The manner in which he braved a public opinion thoroughly tyrannical, both at the opening and close of the late war, sufficiently attests his independence of spirit and his fidelity to the dictates of his own judgment.

One interest, however, attaches to Mr. Greeley, chiefly as a man who, from the humblest beginnings, has raised himself, by his own exertions, to one of the most influential and honorable positions in this country. The story of his projects and reverses, of his perseverance and his triumphs, is well told in the volume before us, and will serve to encourage and refresh the hearts of many young men, whose struggles after influence and honest wealth are meeting with continual disappointment.

In the hurry of preparing this work for the press, Mr. Greeley has fallen into an historical error which should certainly be corrected. In his opening chapter he informs us that, in 1641, during the insurrection which occurred in the province of Ulster in Ireland, against the British power, "40,000 Protestant settlers were speedily massacred, with small regard to age or sex." The number who actually suffered in that "rebellion" has been variously estimated by historians not favorable toward Ireland or her people. Sir John Temple fixes it at 150,000; Milton, in his Eiconoclastes, at 154,000 for one province alone; Clarendon puts the number at 40,000. Mr. Greeley follows Clarendon, but with equal reliability he might have taken Temple or Milton for his authority. He might also have stated with the former, that "Hundreds of the ghosts of Protestants, that were drowned by the rebels at Portadown Bridge, were seen in the river, bolt upright, and were heard to cry out for revenge on these rebels. One of these ghosts was seen with hands lifted up, and standing in that posture from December 29th to the latter end of the following Lent." For additional testimony about the presence of the ghosts, he might have called upon Dr. Maxwell, the Protestant Bishop of Kilmore. But if instead of relying upon such ghostly authorities, Mr. Greeley had consulted a little work, entitled Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon, written by Daniel O'Connell, and published by Greeley & McElrath in 1844, he would have seen that, in 1641, there were less than 200,000 Protestants in the entire island, and that the number massacred (?) in its most northern province failed to reach any thousands whatever. He would also have discovered that in these insurrections it was the Catholics who suffered, and not Protestants, as, for instance, at Island Magee.

{572}

Mr. Greeley is too wise and liberal a man wilfully to repeat so stale a calumny, and he is not so inconsistent as to contradict, in 1868, the statements of a work which he deemed worthy of public confidence in 1844. While, therefore, we point out the error, we impute no malice to the writer; to whom, in view of his constant activity, some inaccuracies may be pardoned. But the injury inflicted by his mistake is not lessened by its thoughtlessness, and the least that can be done to remedy the evil is to correct the error in the next edition, should one be ever issued.

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The Ideal In Art. By H. Taine. Translated by J. Durand. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1869.

The object of these two lectures, first delivered by M. Taine to the students of the School of Fine Arts in Paris, and now published in an American translation by Messrs. Leypoldt & Holt, is to erect a standard of criticism in art, independent of the taste and fancy of the individual critic, and so based upon established principles as to be worthy of the name of "a law." To our mind, the distinguished author has approached, if not attained, success. The fundamental rule with which he starts, distinguishes between that mechanical skill by which the production of the artist is made a faithful representation of his own ideal, and that artistic genius by which the loftiness and grandeur of the ideal is itself determined. He then proceeds to measure the ideal itself, and, upon the purity and elevation of this, bases the standing of the artist and the merit of his works.

A complete sketch of M. Taine's system would necessitate a reproduction of the work itself. In his volume there are no wasted words; and while, perhaps, not altogether intelligible to the utterly unlearned in art, the treatise which he gives us will serve to stimulate the reader to an inquiry which cannot fail to improve his taste in literature as well as in the peculiar domain which it professes to explore.

We especially welcome this volume at this time, because of the opportunities which are now afforded for a study of the principles of M. Taine, in connection with the great schools of Italian art themselves. In the Jarves Collection, now at Yale College, may be found paintings of representative masters, from the dawn of Italian art to the commencement of its decline. Hundreds of visitors have examined this treasure-house of painting, and thousands more should follow their example. And we venture to suggest that a careful study of the work before us will render, at least in the case of cultivated persons, what would otherwise have been a mere visit of curiosity, a most valuable lesson on that ideal in art in which the true artists of every age have given the measure of their own genius and the pledge of their artistic immortality.

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The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, for the United States, for the Year of our Lord 1869. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.

This is the first attempt by any Catholic publisher in this country to get up an Almanac suitable for Catholic families. It contains a complete calendar for the year 1869, with a variety of other matter both useful and entertaining. The illustrations, nineteen in number, are excellent. We are glad to be able to state that it is the intention of the Society to issue such an almanac every year, and we hope that this first attempt may meet with the success which it so well deserves.

It should be found in every Catholic household in the United States. Almanacs have become almost a necessity, and are looked for as regularly as the new year. It is, then, highly important that an almanac, to say the least, should contain nothing objectionable to morals, and this cannot be said of too many frequently met with, which are only mere advertising mediums for quack medicines, etc. We hope The Catholic Family Almanac will henceforth supersede all such trashy productions--which no father of a family should allow to endanger the faith and morality of his children. The excuse heretofore urged for their presence in the house, that there was no Catholic family almanac to be had, is no longer valid.

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{573}

Criminal Abortion: Its Nature, its Evidence, and its Law. By Horatio R. Storer, M.D., LL.B., and Franklin Fiske Heard. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 1868.

This subject is here brought before the public in a manner proportioned to its importance; and Dr. Storer, for his indefatigable efforts in ferreting out the statistics of this crime, and his outspoken honest opinions, deserves the thanks of the American people. The evidence adduced in support of the author's assertions is so conclusive that the question suggests itself, Whither are we drifting? In a note on page 74, the moral effect of the Catholic religion is shown in preventing this "slaughter of the innocents," but the author fails to suggest the general dissemination of the religion throughout the country as a means of checking this rapidly growing evil.

Book II. gives ample extracts from the Common and State Laws on the subject, as well as quotations "from English reports, which are not generally accessible even to the legal profession in this country," making the work an indispensable addition to the library of every lawyer and physician in the country.

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The Knowledge And Love Of Jesus Christ. By the Rev. Father St. Jure, S.J. New York: P. O'Shea, 39 Barclay street.

St. Jure was one of the best spiritual writers in France of the early part of the seventeenth century, and this is one of his best works. It is full of solid thought and learning, as well as of the purest and warmest piety. I cannot, therefore, be too highly recommended as a book for spiritual reading, well adapted to the wants of the most intelligent and highly educated persons, and approved by the judgment of the most enlightened men in the church for two centuries. The translation was made by the accomplished authoress of the Life of Catharine Macaulay, and the publisher has issued it in a very good style.

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O'Shea's Popular Juvenile Library. Second Series. 12vols. Illustrated. New York: P. O'Shea. 1868.

This series is an acceptable addition to our rapidly increasing list of Catholic "juveniles." The titles of the volumes it contains are as follows: The Generous Enemy, and other stories; Anna's Vacation, and other stories; The Beggar's Will, and other stories; Bertrand du Guesclin; Kasem the Miser, and other stories; The Blind Grandfather, and other stories; Trifles; The True Son, and other stories; Marian's History; Patience Removes Mountains, and other tales; The Best Dowry, and other tales.

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Rural Poems, by William Barnes. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869.

These poems have received unqualified praise by English critics in the principal literary reviews. It is said of them that they are "in a high degree pleasant and novel;" "invested with a simple beauty," "clothed in homely, healthy language," etc. We might, and do, say the same of the renowned Melodies of Mother Goose, whose "Poems" the greater part of the present collection very much resembles. Who will not be forcibly reminded of "Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross" by the following verses?

"Bright was the morning and bright was the moon, Bright was the forenoon and bright was the noon, Bright was the road down the sunshiny ridge, Bright was the water and bright was the bridge: Bright in the light were two eyes in my sight, On the road that I took up to Brenbury tower. The eyes at my side were my Fanny's, my bride, The day of my wedding, my wedding's gay hour.

{574}

We think that if the author had been an American, the English critics would have laughed at him. The book is elegantly published, with good illustrations, and would make a nice holiday present for children.

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Beginning German. Lessons introductory to the Study of the German Language. With a Vocabulary, Select Phrases for German Conversation, and Reading Lessons. By Dr. Emil Otto, Professor of Modern Languages and Lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. First American Edition. With additional reading matter and notes, arranged by L. Pylodet. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1869.

Dr. Otto deserves a great deal of praise for the attention that he has shown to the wants of the student. In the above work he has carefully collected all the necessary matter for the commencement of a systematic study of the German.

The book has been prepared for young persons; but contrary to the usual method, Dr. Otto does not overtask the memory of the learner with endless vocabularies, which serve only to hide the important parts. He first explains the alphabet, and also German accentuation and punctuation. Next he gives a thorough drill upon each of the parts of speech, and by the aid of foot-notes, gradually places before the student the salient points of the German grammar. After which comes select phrases and reading lessons.

The vocabularies in nearly all French and German grammars are made up of the most foolish and impracticable sentences that could possibly be invented; and Dr. Otto cannot put forth the claim of originality for his selection of sentences.

The "partitive sense" and the possessive case create an immense amount of confusion in the minds of those who plan German methods, and they accordingly attempt to perpetuate their trouble by filling their exercises with childish and improbable examples. Dr. Otto forms no exception to the general custom. The rules given at the bottom of the pages in regard to declensions, are spread over so many pages that they will not be of much assistance, and the student will be obliged to turn at once to the synopsis of German Grammar, which the book also contains, if he desires to thoroughly understand this part of the German.

The reading lessons are simple and well selected; but there is no necessity for the abundant notes which are appended.

On the whole, this is a very excellent work: being far in advance of the German text-books that are so much used in the schools of this city, by serving to impress upon the minds of the learner a true regard for the grammatical formation of their own language.

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The Little Gypsy. By Elie Sauvage. Illustrated by Lorenz Frölich. Translated from the French by I. M. Lyster. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Pp. 133. 1868.

This is a charming little story--one that we can heartily recommend, both from its intrinsic merits and the beautiful manner in which it is got up, as a suitable Christmas present.

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Verses On Various Occasions. Boston. Published by Patrick Donahoe. 1868.

On the reception of the English edition of this exquisite volume, we called the attention of our readers to the true Catholic beauty and fervor of the poems which it contains. The edition by Mr. Donahoe is elegantly printed on toned paper, and faultlessly bound. We can think of no more appropriate book for a Christmas gift than this.

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The Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors: with some Inquiries respecting their Moral and Literary Characters, and Memoirs for our Literary History. By Isaac Disraeli. Edited by his Son, the Right Hon. B. Disraeli. New York: W. J. Widdleton. 2 vols. pp. 349, 411. 1868.

{575}

These two volumes complete an edition in nine volumes of the writings of the elder Disraeli. His works are too well known to need, even if the limited space at our disposal this month permitted, an extended notice.

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Twentieth Annual Report Of The Regents Of The University Of The State Of New York, On The Condition Of The State Cabinet Of Natural History, And The Historical And Antiquarian Collection Annexed Thereto. Albany: Van Benthuysen and Sons' Printing House. 1868.

The study of Natural History is in its infancy in the United States, yet it is encouraging to know that there are a few earnest men who continue their investigations in spite of the almost universal indifference upon the subject. It is not so much because there are no men of science to determine the species of our fauna, as that there is a general lack of attention to these questions. Perhaps one of the most gratifying features of the present Report is the indication of a newly-awakened interest among our citizens. A large number of types have been presented to the Museum by private collectors; among the more interesting of these is the skeleton of a Mastodon found recently at Cohoes. This animal has been imbedded in such an unusual stratum of rock, and in such a peculiar manner, that the learned Curator of the Cabinet believes it will afford a valuable guide in determining its natural history and geological relations. The Smithsonian Institute has generously presented more than two thousand specimens to the collection of shells. These, as will be seen from the catalogues given, are of great value, because they embrace almost exclusively species from distant quarters of the globe, and which consequently can only be obtained through some State institution.

However, the zealous efforts of the Curator and Regents seem to be much impeded by the want of proper cases for the display and arrangement of specimens. A similar difficulty was experienced by the Society of Natural History in this city; they at one time possessed a large and interesting collection of insects, which were packed in boxes and stored in the basement of the Medical College of the New York University. The destruction of that building by fire has relieved the officers of the society from any further trouble concerning them. It is to be hoped that a similar fate does not await the State Collection, but that the modest request of the trustees for a small appropriation will be granted at the present session of the Legislature. The catalogue of books scarcely numbers a hundred volumes, and does not merit the name of a library. This is a serious obstacle in the way of those who are charged with the duty of classifying the specimens sent to them, but one which the Regents of the Cabinet anticipate to see gradually removed.

The statement of the necessities and financial condition of the State Cabinet is followed by an essay of Prof. W. D. Wilson, of Hobart College, on Local Climatology. This is chiefly interesting because of a new theory accounting for the cold weather of winter. Of course, one of the principal reasons why the temperature is lower in winter than in summer is because the days of winter are several hours shorter. But the sun's heating power is also determined by its altitude. Herschel and Pouillet have demonstrated that a large proportion of the sun's rays are absorbed by passing through the atmosphere, or rather by the moisture in the atmosphere, so that only about seventy-five per cent of its heat reaches the earth. Hence, it is evident that the temperature will vary, not only for places of different latitudes, but also at the same place at different seasons of the year, and during the different hours of the day. Still, the mere fact of the absorption of heat does not explain the difference of temperature. Heat absorbed always increases the temperature of the absorbing body, except when the heat becomes latent by passing from a solid to a fluid, or from a fluid to a gaseous state. {576} As an atmosphere does not change the form of the heat, it would itself be increased in temperature, and consequently the influence of the heat would be felt in precisely the same degree as if it were conducted directly to the earth. But this difficulty is removed by Prof. Wilson, who claims that the atmosphere has the same power of reflecting as of absorbing heat; hence the heat is never transmitted beyond the outer boundary of our atmosphere, but is immediately reflected into space, and loses its influence upon anything within the power of our observation. The decrease of heat has long been known to depend greatly upon the sun's altitude. It varies with what is commonly termed the sine of the sun's altitude. It is worthy to be remarked, therefore, that on this theory the decrease of heat will depend upon the angle at which the sun's rays strike the atmosphere, and hence it must always, as in fact it does, coincide with the sun's height.

The result of Prof. Hall's labor for the year is seen in several elaborate notices upon the Palaeontology of the State. Those who feel interested in this enticing department of Natural History will take pleasure in the clear analysis of certain families and genera described in the Report. The effort to aid beginners in this study, as seen in the monogram upon the Graptolites, is particularly commendable. These sciences cannot make any substantial progress until they are brought down to the capacity of learned men engaged in other pursuits, because they all depend upon the careful observation of phenomena which require the united attention of many individuals. Hence, all domestic contributions to the determining of the species of our own fauna should be sufficiently elementary to be understood by amateurs in the science. And to the want of such works as these may fairly be attributed the fact, that many young men begin to investigate the various branches of natural science, but very few persevere.

The volume is increased in value by a number of well-executed plates, which appear to be accurate copies of the specimens in Prof. Hall's collection. It shows, at least, that he recognizes their importance in conveying scientific knowledge. A figure skilfully drawn will frequently determine a species in a moment's comparison, which would have cost many hours' careful study of the descriptions of even the most accurate and painstaking observer.

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Beginner's French Reader. Short and Easy Pieces in Prose and Verse, with a complete Vocabulary. Arranged by L. Pylodet. New York: Leypoldt & Holt.

This little book seems to be very well adapted to fully carry out the end indicated by its title-page.

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MESSRS. JOHN MURPHY & Co. have just published a small volume containing the life of John M. Costelloe, or The Beauty of Virtue, exemplified in an American Youth. The author simply proposes to lay before the reader "the virtues of a young man who passed seventeen years of his short life in the peaceful seclusion of his home, and the remaining two and a half in the quiet routine of a college, and who, therefore, could have practised only what St. Francis of Sales calls 'little virtues.'"

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Books Received.

From CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co., New York:

Madame Thérèse; or, The Volunteers of '98. By MM. Erckman-Chatrian. Translated from the thirteenth edition, with ten full-page illustrations.

From PATRICK DONAHOE, Boston:

Le Petit Catéchisme de Quebec.

The Farleyes of Farleye: or, Faithful and True. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter, All Hallows College, Dublin.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston:

Dr. Howell's Family. By Mrs. H. B. Goodwin.

Hillsboro Farms. By Sophia Dickinson Cobb.

The Mimic Stage. A series of Dramas, Comedies, Burlesques, and Farces, for Public Exhibitions and Private Theatricals. By George M. Baker.

From LEYPOLDT & HOLT, New York:

Madame de Beaupré. By Mrs. C. Jenkin.

From JOHN MURPHY & Co., Baltimore:

The Purgatorian Consoler. A manual of prayers, containing a selection of devotional exercises originally prepared for the use of the members of the Purgatorian Archconfraternity; enlarged and adapted to general use by a Redemptorist Father. Published with the approbation of the Most Reverend the Archbishop of Baltimore.

The Visitation Manual: A collection of prayers and instructions, compiled according to the Spiritual Directory and Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, founder of the Religious Order of the Visitation of B. V. Mary. Published with the approbation of the Most Reverend Archbishop of Baltimore. 1869.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD,

Vol. VIII, No. 47. February, 1869.

Cardinal Ximenes.

The greatness of Cardinal Ximenes has weathered the storms of time. It has spread far beyond the people by whom it was first recognized and proclaimed. All Europe has done it homage, and the whole civilized world hails it with gratitude and joy. It is a small thing in comparison to excel as a prelate, a statesman, a general, or a man of letters; but to shine foremost in each and all of these capacities, as did Ximenes, to make a lasting impression on the age in a fourfold character, and to mould anew the destinies of a nation in virtue of it, have been the lot of few, and scarcely the ambition of any. Ximenes de Cisneros is part of the Spaniard's nationality. They admire, they love him, they boast of him; and so lately as April, 1857, they assembled in vast numbers in the city of Alcalá to deposit his remains in the Iglesia Magistral, just 340 years after his decease. The precious memoirs left by Gomez have never been employed with greater effect than by Dr. Von Hefele, who, from these--the basis of all lives of Ximenes--and from a variety of collateral sources, has produced a complete and most valuable history of the illustrious cardinal.

Like many eminent prelates in the Catholic Church, Ximenes was a self-made man. He was born at Tordelaguna--a small town--in 1436. His father, though of noble descent, was comparatively poor, and collected tithes for the king. His mother likewise came of a valiant stock decayed in fortune; so that Ximenes enjoyed on both sides the advantage of gentle blood. From an early age he was destined for the Church; at Alcalá he was well schooled, and at Salamanca he studied canon and civil law, theology, and the Scriptures. It was here that his love of biblical lore first displayed itself, and gave promise of that abundant growth which afterward made the name of Ximenes famous in the literary world. Poverty was his good angel. It urged him to exertion, and he supported himself at the university by giving lessons. Then, having taken his bachelor's degree in canon and civil law, he boldly turned his face toward Rome, and resolved to better his fortune, if possible, in the heart of Christendom. {578} Twice on the way he was plundered by robbers, and but for the kindness of a former school-fellow would have been stopped at Aix, in Provence, and compelled to return, minus money, clothes, and horse. To Rome, however, he came, and worked steadily in the ecclesiastical courts during six years, till his father died, and he was recalled to Spain to perform a parent's part to his bereaved family. Happily he carried in his pocket an expectative letter, by which the pope granted him the first vacant benefice in the diocese of Toledo. The right of bestowing benefices in this manner had often been questioned, often resisted; but with such controversies Ximenes had nothing to do. It was not till the Council of Trent that Gratia Expectativae were finally suppressed; [Footnote 166] and it was clearly his interest to obtain a living from the holy father, if he could, according to established precedent. Uzeda soon fell vacant, and though Ximenes laid claim to it immediately, Carillo, the archbishop, was in no degree inclined to yield it to him. The more Ximenes pressed his claim, the more stoutly Carillo resisted, and the result was that the claimant, though backed by papal authority, soon found himself a prisoner in the very parish of which he sought to be pastor. Nothing could break his iron resolution, and being removed to the fortress of Santorcaz, he there spent six years in confinement, till the archbishop, wearied by his firm and constant refusal to forego his claim, at length yielding the point, restored him to liberty, and confirmed him in possession of the benefice.

[Footnote 166: Sess. xxiv. cap. 19.]

His constant study of the Scriptures could not escape observation, and he was often referred to as an authority in Hebrew and Chaldee. Being made vicar of the diocese of Sigüenza, and agent for the estates of a nobleman who had been taken prisoner by the Moors, Ximenes sighed for retirement, and entered as a novice a convent of the Franciscan order. But his interior life was still disturbed. Numbers resorted to him for counsel and instruction. He prayed to be sent to some more lonely retreat, and accordingly found his home in a small convent near Toledo, called after our Lady of Castañar. It stood in the midst of a forest of chestnuts, and here, like an anchorite of old, he built a hermitage and supported life on herbs and roots, with water from the neighboring rill. Though a scourge was in his hand and a hair-shirt on his body, the Bible he so prized was before him, angels surrounded him, and the Holy Ghost established within him a reign of serenity and light.

According to the rule of the Franciscans, he was, ere long, again removed. He became guardian of the convent of Salzeda, and it was here, in his fifty-sixth year, that his career, so far as it concerns history, began. A confessor was required for the devout and beautiful Queen Isabella, and Cardinal Mendoza, who had been Bishop of Sigüenza, and knew Ximenes well, recommended him as the fitting person to guide her conscience. Being summoned to court on pretence of business, the Franciscan recluse was introduced, as it were by accident, into the royal presence. Isabella was charmed by his candor, his modesty, and native dignity. In vain he declined the office for which he was designed. The queen would take no refusal, but consented to his residing still in his monastery, away from the splendor and temptations of a court. He strove to avoid interference in politics, but Isabella so much the more applied for his advice in the affairs of state. {579} Thus influence over others is often given to those whose only aim is to acquire the mastery over themselves. Not long after being made confessor to the queen, Ximenes was elected Provincial of the Franciscan order for Old and New Castile. He made his visitations on foot, begged his way like any other of his brethren, and often lived on raw roots. The order had relaxed its original strictness, and was divided into Conventuals and Observantines, of whom the latter only adhered to the letter and spirit of their founder's laws. The report, therefore, which the provincial had to make to his royal mistress was anything but favorable, and he consequently became himself an object of calumny and dislike to those whose vices he sought to correct. Many of the Conventuals who would not reform were ejected from their sanctuaries by his order, and his conflict with evil was silently and surely preparing him for the high post of Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, and Chancellor of Castile. This see had generally been filled by one of noble birth, and Ferdinand was anxious to bestow it on his natural son, Alfonso, Bishop of Saragossa. But Isabella was strong in her resolve to promote Ximenes. On Good Friday, 1495, she sent for her confessor, and placed a paper in his hands. It was addressed by his holiness Alexander VI., "To our venerable brother, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop-elect of Toledo." As he read this the friar turned pale. "It cannot be meant for me," he said, and abruptly left the apartment, dropping the packet. "Come, brother," he exclaimed to his companion, "we must be gone in haste." But the royal messengers overtook him on the road to Ocaña, trudging along bravely in the noontide heat. He was flying from an archbishopric with 80,000 ducats a year, from power and influence second only to that of the king, and from towns and fortresses with numerous vassals. No arguments could induce him to accept these earthly goods. During six months he persisted in refusing them, and yielded at last only in obedience to a command from the sovereign pontiff.

He was now in his sixtieth year. In October, 1495, he was solemnly consecrated in presence of the two sovereigns, and when, after the ceremony, he came to do them homage, he said: "I come to kiss the hands of your majesties, not because they have raised me to the first see in Spain, but because I hope they will assist me in supporting the burden which they have placed on my shoulders." Ximenes was, on the whole, the model of a prelate; and accordingly we see in him modesty and self-confidence singularly combined. In the well-balanced mind they react upon each other and produce each other. Hence, humility is the source of moral power. No silver adorned Ximenes's table, no ornaments hung on his walls. His garment was the habit of St. Francis, his food was coarse, his journeys were made on foot or on a mule's back, and his palace was turned into a cloister. But many persons cavilled at this austerity and ascribed it to spiritual pride. The pope thought it undesirable in the case of a primate of Spain, and exhorted Ximenes, by letter, to "conform outwardly to the dignity of his state of life in his dress, attendants, and everything else relating to the promotion of that respect due to his authority."

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In private, however, Ximenes continued as mortified as before. The hair-shirt was next his skin, and he mended with his own hand the coarse garments concealed by the silks and furs of office. The sumptuous bed, adorned with ivory, purple, and gold, which stood in the palace, was never used by him; he slept, though, his attendants knew it not, on the bare floor, and thus, by night and day, he kept up in his own person a ceaseless protest against the prevailing luxury of the times. He feared the seduction of wealth, and was ever on his guard against the temptations of his princely domain, consisting of fifteen cities, besides many villages and towns. But if any presumed on his unworldly habits, and thought that he must be pliant because he was devout, they were soon disabused of their mistake. He refused, at the outset of his primacy, to make any appointments at the instance of great men, and declared that he was willing at any time to return to his convent and his beads; but that "no personal considerations should ever operate with him in distributing the honors of the Church." Even the brother of Cardinal Mendoza was unable to obtain from Ximenes the confirmation of his appointment to the governorship of Cazorla, and his relations, highly incensed, could gain no redress from the queen. Having thus established his own independence and freed himself from importunate suitors, Ximenes saluted Don Pedro de Mendoza one day by the title of Adelantado of Cazorla, saying that, as no suspicion of sinister influence could now attach to him, he was happy to restore Don Pedro to a post for which he knew him to be qualified.

In the biographies of Gomez and Quintanilla, of Oviedo and Robles, Marsollier, Fléchier, Baudier, Von Hefele, and Barrett, a number of such anecdotes may be found, illustrating the diocesan life of Ximenes, his wonderful penetration, piety, and zeal. But these, for the most part, we must pass over, and dwell rather on those events in his career with which the history of his country is concerned. Several years had passed since the last Moorish king in Spain had been defeated and stripped of his dominions. The genius of Washington Irving, the research of Prescott, and the fancy of Southey and Bulwer have found full scope in detailing the history of the war of Granada, the surprise of Zahara, the exploits of the Marquis of Cadiz, the fierce resistance of the Moors, and the capture of Alhama. But the Moors, though conquered, had reason to be satisfied with the terms of the victors. They were allowed by treaty to retain their mosques and mode of worship, their property, laws, commerce, and civil tribunals. They had some privileges of which even the Spaniards were deprived; and if, during the governorship of Tendilla and the archbishopric of Talavera, the Moors of Granada were brought under various Catholic influences, they could not complain of any force or severity being employed by those who sought to convert them. Talavera, indeed, whom Ximenes had succeeded as confessor to the queen, was ceaseless in his efforts for their salvation. He learned Arabic at an advanced age, and required his clergy also to do the same. He caused portions of the Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism to be translated, and so recommended the religion he professed by his consistent life and amiable temper that Mohammedanism in Granada melted away before the genial light of the gospel, and the Moors themselves came to love and revere the Christian bishop, whom they called "The Great Alfaqui," or Doctor.

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Thus far all was progressing hopefully, when, in 1499, Ximenes was invited by the Catholic sovereigns to assist Talavera in his important mission. In addition to the means already employed, Ximenes resorted to a large distribution of presents. "In order," says Von Hefele, "that his instructions might make some impression on their sensual minds, he did not hesitate to make the Moorish priests and doctors agreeable presents, consisting chiefly of costly articles of dress and silks. For this object he encumbered the revenues of his see for many years." [Footnote 167] Conversions followed in great numbers, and Ximenes baptized in one day 4000 persons. Many of the mosques were converted into churches, and the sound of bells for Mass and vespers was heard continually in the midst of a Moslem population. But this success produced a reaction. The Moors who were zealous for the false prophet raised a clamor against the archbishop and the government. The most noisy were arrested by Ximenes's order, but "in the height of his zeal he overstepped the bounds of the treaty which the government had made with the Moors, by trying to impose on the prisoners the obligation of receiving instruction from his chaplains in the Christian religion. Those who refused he even punished very severely." [Footnote 168]

[Footnote 167: Von Hefele, translated by Canon Dalton, p. 62.]

[Footnote 168: Id. p. 64.]

Among those who were thus imprisoned was a noble Moor named Zegri, who had distinguished himself in the recent wars. Being obliged to fast several days and wear heavy irons, he suddenly declared that Allah had appeared to him in a vision and commanded him to embrace the Christian faith. Certain it is that during the remainder of his life he attached himself to Ximenes with constant fidelity, and gave undeniable proofs of the sincerity of his conversion.

Encouraged by this signal success, Ximenes became more and more averse to dilatory measures. He believed that Providence designed the extinction of Islamism in Spain, and that he should best co-operate with the divine will by prompt and energetic steps. Some thousand copies of the Koran and other religious books were delivered up to him by the Moorish alfaquis, and committed to the flames in the public square. Works on medicine only escaped, and these were afterward placed in the library of the university which he founded at Alcalá. The children of those Christians who had become renegades were taken from their parents and received into the Church, for Ximenes would not suffer a treaty, which he perhaps considered too temporizing, to stand in the way of rescuing souls from error and converting an entire people.

About the end of the year 1499, a terrible outbreak checked for a time the progress of evangelization. Salzedo, the archbishop's major-domo, was sent by his master into the city with another servant and an officer of justice to seize the daughter of an apostate from Christianity. The young woman, however, raised a cry against the violation of the treaty; the Moors rushed to her aid; the officer of justice was killed by a stone; and the major-domo escaped a like fate only by secreting himself under the bed of an old Moorish woman who offered him assistance. The Albaycin, or Moslem quarter of the city, containing 5,000 dwellings, rose in arms. The palace of Ximenes was the object of their attack, and they cried for the blood of him whom a few days before they had extolled with praises.

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The archbishop's friends urged him to fly to the fortress by a secret passage. But they knew not the temper of the man whom they counselled. He would never, he said, desert his servants in the hour of danger. All night he was engaged with them in repelling the Moors' assaults, and in the morning the Count of Tendilla arrived from the Alhambra with an armed force, and rescued Ximenes from imminent peril. The outbreak, however, was not so easily subdued. The herald sent by the count to the rebels was murdered, and his staff of office was broken in contempt. Nine days this frantic resistance continued, though without even a remote prospect of ultimate success. Ximenes tried in vain to soothe the raging multitude; but the milder archbishop, Talavera, going forth with his cross and a single chaplain, like Pope Leo when he encountered Attila, the crowd of rebels became appeased, and pressed round him to kiss his garment's hem. The governor Tendilla then appeared before them in a civil attire, threw his scarlet bonnet among the crowd, promised his influence to obtain the royal pardon, and left his wife and two children as hostages in the Albaycin.

Meanwhile, Ximenes, on the third day of the revolt, sent to the sovereigns at Seville an account of what had happened. His messenger was an Ethiopian slave--one of the telegraphic wires of those days--who could run fifty leagues in forty-eight hours. But the slave got drunk on the way, and arrived in Seville five days after he was despatched, instead of two. Reports frightfully exaggerated had reached the king and queen. The court was in a panic. Ximenes was blamed for his indiscretion; and Ferdinand, who had not forgotten the preference given to Ximenes over Alfonso of Aragon, his natural son, bitterly reproached Isabella for having raised an incompetent monk to the see of Toledo. But the archbishop soon appeared to plead his own cause. The king and queen were not only satisfied with his explanations, but thanked him for his services, and assented to his proposal that the inhabitants of the Albaycin should be punished for high treason, unless they purchased their pardon by being baptized. The treaty made with the Moors was thought to be annulled by the violence of the Moslems themselves. Those who persisted in their errors retired to the mountains or crossed over into Barbary; but by far the greater part of the Moors embraced Christianity, and the number of the converts is computed at about 60,000. Ximenes and Talavera together catechised the people, working in perfect harmony, except in reference to the translation of the Bible into Arabic. Talavera wished to make the version complete, while Ximenes, on the contrary, was of opinion that the Scriptures should be preserved in the ancient languages hallowed by being used in the inscriptions on the cross. To place the Bible in the vulgar tongue in the hands of neophytes and ignorant persons was, he believed, to cast pearls before swine, and would certainly issue in spiritual revolt. But the friendship of the two prelates remained unbroken, and Talavera declared that the triumphs of Ximenes exceeded those of Ferdinand and Isabella, since they had conquered only the soil, while he had won the souls of Granada. There can be no doubt that in the mass of converts there were many unworthy persons who afterward disgraced their profession. It will always be thus when worldly advantages are held out to proselytes; but Ximenes knew that this would be the case, and was prepared to meet the evil with appropriate remedies. He believed that good on the whole would result from his decisive measures; that many, to say the least, of the conversions would be sincere, and that the children of the converts in general would be educated in the true religion. {583} We do not criticise his conduct, neither do we altogether set it up as exemplary. It was more suitable to his time and country than it would be to ours; and having recorded it faithfully, our work is done. By whatever means accomplished, the result has been a happy one. Islamism, after many spasmodic attempts at revival, has died out of Spain, and the cause of European morality and civilization has been saved from its most formidable enemy.

Ximenes was in his sixty-fourth year when extreme activity brought on a severe illness and endangered his life. Every day his energies were divided between the sovereigns who required his counsel and aid, and the converts, chiefs, and others who listened to his instructions. The king and queen evinced the greatest concern for him when smitten down with fever, and removed him from the fortress of the Alhambra, which was exposed to the wind, to the royal summer-house of Xeneralifa. Isabella in particular bestowed on the venerable prelate her utmost care. He was soon able to walk along the banks of the Darro and enjoy its pure and bracing air, soon able to return to his beloved Alcalá, where he was founding the university which has made his name blessed for ever; while the queen, so much younger than himself, who had raised him so high, and from whose sympathy and protection he had so much to expect, the queen who was "the mirror of every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an avenging sword to the wicked," [Footnote 169] was ere long [Footnote 170] to be called away from her earthly throne, and leave her aged and faithful servant to fight his way in the midst of those who understood him less perfectly and prized him less highly than she had done.

[Footnote 169: Peter Martyr, Epist. 279.]

[Footnote 170: November 26th, 1504.]

He was engaged, at this time, in a great work. The new university, founded by him at Alcalá in 1500, became the rival of Salamanca, and was called by the Spaniards "the eighth wonder of the world." From the moment he was made Archbishop of Toledo, he resolved to devote its immense revenues to the construction of this seat of learning. The spot was pleasant, the air pure, and the site of the ancient Complutum was hallowed in the eyes of all whose sympathies were with the past. Gonsalvo Zegri, the converted Moor, assisted at laying the foundation-stone; and Ximenes obtained from his royal patrons an annual grant and sundry privileges for the projected establishment. Thither Ximenes repaired, as to his fondest occupation, whenever the duties of state and of his diocese permitted. Often he might be seen on the ground, with the rule in his hand, taking measurements of the works, and encouraging the laborers by his example and by suitable rewards. Pope Julius II. issued a brief authorizing the endowment, and Leo X. afterward augmented the liberties of the new foundation. The College of San Ildefonso stood at its head; in 1508, several students arrived, and 33 professors with 12 priests were installed, who answered in their numbers to the years of our Lord's life and his college of apostles. Schools were attached for boarders, lectures and disputations were set on foot, classes were formed, scholarships founded, examinations publicly conducted, and diplomas conferred. The intellect of the students was exercised in every branch of knowledge--in the ancient languages, including Hebrew, in theology, canon law, medicine, anatomy, surgery, philosophy, moral philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and grammar. {584} The physical sciences were as yet little known and barely studied. Theology spread its arms widely beneath and around all attainable knowledge. In 1514, King Ferdinand visited the university, attended some of the lectures, and expressed his admiration of the grandeur and beauty of the buildings. They were but a feeble sign of the mental fabrics which Ximenes was raising to the honor of Spain and for her service. Patriotism blended in him with religion, and helped to make him what he was.

Some years after the death of Ximenes, Francis I., of France, on visiting Alcalá, is reported to have said: "Your cardinal has undertaken and accomplished a work I myself could not attempt. The University of Paris, which is the pride of my kingdom, is the work of many sovereigns. But Ximenes alone has founded one like it."

It was by a ruthless decree that this grand and famous seat of learning was finally broken up, in 1850, by the creation of a central university and the sale of the buildings to the Count de Quinto. [Footnote 171] The inhabitants resolved at least to save the rich tomb of the illustrious cardinal, and the translation of his remains was effected with great solemnity on the 27th of April, 1857.

[Footnote 171: L'Univers, June 6th, 1857.]

It was in this university that Ximenes published that noble Polyglot by which he earned the praise and gratitude of all biblical students. The text of the sacred Scriptures had become deplorably corrupt at the commencement of the fifteenth century, owing to the inattention or ignorance of copyists. But the invention of printing gave a new impetus to every branch of learning, and promised biblical scholars great advantages in their study of the Bible. From the year 1462 to 1500 no less than eighty editions of the Vulgate appeared; and the zeal of Jews in amending the Hebrew text became an invaluable assistance to the labors of Christians in the same field. The constant perversion of the meaning of Scripture by those who were aliens to the Church made it increasingly necessary to study the Bible in its original languages, so as to be able to refute the impudent assertions of upstart divines. Hence Ximenes, whose designs were naturally grand, formed the intention not only of raising a new university, but of publishing a new edition of the Scriptures in their original tongues, and of thus restoring in some measure the lost Hexapla of Origen. No translation, he held, could perfectly represent the original, and the MSS. of the Latin Vulgate were painfully discrepant. It was needful, therefore, to go back to the prime sources, and "correct the books of the Old Testament by the Hebrew text, and those of the New Testament by the Greek text." [Footnote 172]

[Footnote 172: Prolegomena to the Polyglot.]

Having thus resolved to revive the dormant study of Holy Writ, Ximenes's next step was to procure assistance from learned men, and access to the most ancient MSS. Several Jewish converts were enlisted, and, besides other professors, a Greek named Demetrius Ducas. They were all handsomely paid and stimulated to the utmost exertion. "Make haste, my friends," Ximenes would say; "for, as all things in this world are transient, you may lose me or I may lose you. Let us work together while we can." Enormous sums were spent by him in the purchase of MSS., and some were lent to him by Pope Leo X., who honored him as sincerely as he loved the fine arts. {585} To these loans Ximenes refers in the introduction to the Polyglot. It is calculated by Gomez that nearly £25,000 sterling (50,000 ducats=$125,000) were spent in bringing the work to a conclusion. The sale bore no proportion to the publishing expenses, as 600 copies only were struck off, and these, though consisting of six folios, were sold at six and a half ducats each. The price of the copies still in existence varies according to the state in which they have been preserved; but it ranges from £40 to ^£75. The Polyglot occupied fifteen years in its completion, and the New Testament, which forms the sixth volume of the work, appeared first in order of time. The Greek, being without the accents, has a strange appearance, but the editors excuse themselves on the ground of the accents not having been used by the ancient Greeks, nor by the original writers of the New Testament. The volume, on the whole, is beautifully printed, while the grammar and lexicon which accompanies it made it a valuable means of promoting the study of Greek. The Pentateuch appeared in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, together with three Latin translations. The roots of difficult words in the Hebrew and Chaldaic texts are given in the margin, and this is no mean assistance to beginners in studying these languages, in which the radical meaning pervades all the derivatives in so marked a degree. Altogether, it was a boon to mankind, munificent in its cost, noble in its design, beautiful in execution, and as profound in scholarship as it could be in the age in which it saw the light. When John Brocario, the printer's son, brought the last sheets to the cardinal in his best attire, Ximenes raised his eyes to heaven with great joy, and exclaimed: "I give thee thanks, O God most high! that thou hast brought to a long-wished-for end the work I undertook in thy name." Only four months later his eyes were closed in death. The Complutensian Polyglot became very useful in preparing subsequent editions of the Scriptures; and though the labors of Griesbach, Buxtorf, Michaelis, and other critics have thrown its authority into the shade, it was an important link in the chain which has issued in the present comparative purity of sacred texts. All real scholars award it cheerfully their meed of praise, and the charges brought against it by Wetstein and Semler have been amply refuted. It is an astonishing production, considering the disadvantages under which its compilers lay, that they had not access to the best and most ancient MSS., and that the Codex Vaticanus was not within their reach. What MSS. were really used we shall never know; for, besides that many were returned to their owners after the Polyglot was completed, others, which had been purchased, were sold in 1749 as waste-paper to a rocket-maker named Torzo!

As the reform of the Franciscan order was the first glory of the hermit of Castañar, and the foundation of a great university the second, so the Bible of Alcalá will ever be regarded as the third durable monument of Ximenes's vast and varied powers.

But his literary labors were not confined to Holy Writ. He set on foot a complete edition of the works of Aristotle; and though his death interrupted the design, he was able to bring out many other useful books, in Latin and Spanish, for the use of the learned and the instruction of the people. The demand for such works was then steadily increasing, and the supply not being equal to it, there was difficulty in finding on sale, fifty years later, a single copy of the volumes Ximenes had edited. {586} Ecclesiastical music-books also, which had hitherto been in manuscript, were published by him, and distributed through the churches of his diocese, so that the Gregorian chant, to which he was strongly attached, might be better known and practised. Nor did he forget works on agriculture, being desirous of promoting in every way the welfare of his kind.

Finding among the MSS. in the library of Toledo a number of liturgies in old Gothic characters, he conceived a design of rescuing from destruction the Mozarabic or Mixt-Arabic rite. Its use was long confined to Toledo and to some parishes where Christians lived under Moorish dominion. Then, in course of time, the Mozarabic families having died out, and the reign of the Moors being at an end, the Gregorian rite superseded the old Gothic one, and the memory of it was kept alive only by occasional use on certain festivals. It was evidently desirable, for the sake of history and literature, to collate the MSS. of this ancient liturgy, and preserve it in a printed form for future generations. This task Ximenes accomplished in a manner worthy of his comprehensive genius. He printed a number of Mozarabic missals and breviaries, changing the Gothic characters into Castilian, and erected a chapel in his cathedral where the Mozarabic Mass might be said daily. He founded a college of thirteen priests, who should recite the canonical hours, and perform other functions according to this liturgy. Robles himself, Ximenes's biographer, was one of these chaplains. This foundation gave rise to others of the same kind in Salamanca and Valladolid. They have fully answered the purpose of the founder, and Mozarabic missals can easily be purchased at the present day.

The obstacles which Ximenes had to overcome in reforming his diocese were very serious, but he encountered them with the utmost firmness. The bishops enjoyed at that period immense revenues, the benefices of priests were richly endowed, and the clergy were too numerous, lax in morals, and often extremely ignorant. The corruption of the Castilian court was scandalous, and the natural children of kings and princes were constantly elevated to episcopal sees. The monasteries were changed into abodes of luxury, and it needed a queen like Isabella, and a primate like Ximenes, to stem the tide of licentiousness. His first effort was to reform the lives and habits of his chapter, and in this attempt he was opposed by a canon named Albornoz, whom he caused to be arrested on his way to Rome and cast into prison. Severe measures were indispensable in the state of society then existing. His own life as a bishop was strict in the extreme. He shunned all intercourse with women, and sitting always with a Bible open before him, he had no time for idle and intrusive visitors. His charities made him beloved by the poor, and all the decrees issued by the synods under his presidency tended to revive the spirit and the forms of true religion. The strict rule of the Observantines was introduced into the Franciscan order, and those who would not conform to it were expelled [from] the country. The valiant reformer raised up enemies enough by his courage and zeal; but honest intentions such as his and force of character only triumph the more signally by being opposed. His friends pointed to his works of mercy as the best answer to the calumnies of petty foes. {587} He raised twelve churches; he founded four hospitals and eight monasteries; he fed thirty poor persons daily at his palace, visited the hospitals, and pensioned desolate widows. Would his enemies, even if they had possessed the means, have done the like?

When Isabella died, Ximenes, holding in one hand the archbishop's cross, grasped in the other the sceptre of state. Joanna, the consort of Philip the Fair, who inherited the crown of Castile, had become the prey of a disordered imagination. Her husband would not reside in Spain, and she would not consent to live there without him. Isabella had foreseen her incompetency and probable absence. She had appointed Ferdinand of Aragon, her own husband, Regent of Castile, till her grandson Charles should have attained his twentieth year. The nobles of Castile factiously resisted this wise provision; and though Ferdinand acted with prudence and moderation, though he caused his daughter Joanna, with Philip her husband, to be proclaimed sovereigns, and contented himself with administering the affairs of state in their absence, a struggle ensued in which Ximenes sided constantly with Ferdinand, and adhered closely to the terms of Isabella's will. Philip prepared an army to drive his father-in-law from Castile, while Joanna wrote to him requesting that he would not resign the government, and surrendering her rights to him in the most earnest and affectionate terms.

By the wisdom and resolution of Ximenes, the rupture between Philip and Ferdinand was partially healed. He mediated between them with admirable finesse, and his success was the more remarkable because he found in Philip a faithless, wrong-headed, and vindictive man, the slave of passion and the dupe of evil counsellors; while the confidence reposed in him by Ferdinand was not always complete, nor equal at any time to that placed in him by the virtuous and noble Isabella. With his consent Philip was allowed to have his own way, and to govern Castile without the assistance of Ferdinand. But Philip was removed from this world in the flower of his age, and thus the path was opened for Ximenes becoming Regent of Castile. He was by this time thoroughly conversant with the affairs of state. Every Thursday he gave an audience to the king's chief ministers, and heard from them the most important matters which were next day to be brought before the council. On Friday he gave these matters again his careful consideration, and then handed in a report respecting them to the king.

It was in September, 1506, that Philip died after a short illness, and Ximenes, with several others, was chosen provisional administrator of the kingdom. His powers were soon increased, and exalted above those of his colleagues. He had a difficult part to play, for the Castilian nobles were passionate and intriguing, and the disconsolate widow Joanna refused to endorse his authority as regent. She sat nearly all day long in a dark chamber, with her face resting on her hand, silent, bitter, and sorrowful, listening only at intervals to sweet music which nursed her melancholy. These eccentricities ended in total derangement. She disinterred her husband's corpse at Miraflorés, contrary to the laws of the church and to Philip's will, and ordered it to be conveyed before her by torch-light to the town of Torquemada. Endless funereal ceremonies were performed, and fantastic images of death and grief were multiplied in virtue of her diseased imagination. {588} She insisted on residing in a little town where her court and attendants could scarcely find a cabin-roof to screen them from sun and storm.

In August, 1507, the unhappy queen, wild and haggard in appearance, attended by the corpse of her royal husband, met her father Ferdinand at Tortolés. With her consent he assumed the reins of government, and Ximenes resigned his powers into the hands of the king. His services had been great, and Ferdinand was too noble to leave them unrewarded. The archbishop was named Cardinal and Grand-Inquisitor of Castile and Leon. Never was a cardinal's hat bestowed at Rome with greater satisfaction; and the important office of grand-inquisitor, which was attached to the higher dignity, will be estimated more correctly after a few observations.

It was the opinion of St. Augustine, who herein followed that of St. Ambrose and St. Leo, that persons ought not to be put to death for heresy, but the great doctor did not disapprove of force being employed to restrain and correct heresy. This opinion became the basis of the civil laws of Theodosius II. and Valentinian III.; but in the middle ages the alliance between church and state was much closer than it had been in earlier years, and it was usual to punish obstinate heresy as a twofold crime worthy of death. St. Thomas Aquinas defends this as reasonable, but St. Bernard was in favor of a more lenient policy. Ecclesiastical tribunals were established in which cases of heresy were tried, and the civil magistrates were required by law to carry into effect the judgment of bishops. Papal legates also, like Peter de Castelnau, were often entrusted with inquisitorial powers. The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, issued various decrees relative to the suppression of heresy, [Footnote 173] and may thus be considered as founding the first inquisition. [Footnote 174] The Dominicans especially were employed in the work of extirpating heresy, and but for the exertions of such men the nations of Europe would have been overrun with Manichaeism and various other forms of pestilent error. The Jews settled in Spain, penetrated in disguise every branch of society, and strove in every age to Judaize the people. The inquisition was directed in a particular manner against this subtle influence, and the peculiar nature of the evil required peculiar remedies and antidotes. It was Judaism in the church that it labored to extirpate, and not the race of Israel dwelling in the Peninsula.

[Footnote 173: Harduin, tome vii. pp. 173-178.]

[Footnote 174: Von Hefele, p. 286.]

The inquisitors of Seville took office in 1481, and were appointed by the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. Nothing was more natural than that they should seek to rid the body politic of a gangrene so fatal as secret Judaism. Yet Sixtus IV. had occasion to rebuke the royal inquisitors for their needless severity and to take measures for the mitigation of their sentences. But the tribunal was placed more and more under the control of the state, and whether clergymen or laymen were employed, they were alike subservient to the Spanish government. In 1492, when, by a memorable edict, the Jews were ordered to quit Spain, unless they submitted to be baptized, the sphere of the inquisition's labors became greatly enlarged in consequence of the increased number of Jews who professed Christianity from worldly motives alone. The Moriscos also, or baptized Moors, came within the sphere of its action; and it was introduced into Granada by the advice of the second grand-inquisitor, Deza, in order to prevent their relapsing into Islamism.

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The sovereigns of Castile and Aragon promoted the inquisition for other motives besides those here alluded to. They used it as an instrument for consolidating their own power and breaking that of the clergy and nobles. Piombal, at a later period, did the same in Portugal. Hence it was popular with the lower classes, detested by the aristocracy, and often censured by popes. To these facts Ranke and Balmez abundantly testify, and their evidence is confirmed by that of Henry Leo, Guizot, Havemann, Lenormant, De Maistre, and Spittler. The falsehoods of Llorente respecting the inquisition have been fully exposed, and those who sift the matter thoroughly will find that it was latterly more a political than a religious institution; that the cruelties it exercised have been enormously exaggerated; that it was in accordance with principles universally recognized in its day; that its punishments, however severe, were in keeping with the ordinary penal laws; that the popes constantly endeavored to mitigate its decrees; that Gregory XIII., Paul III., Pius IV., and Innocent XII., in particular, reclaimed against its rigors; that its intentions were good on the whole; its proceedings tempered with mercy; and that Ximenes, the third grand-inquisitor, conducted himself in that office with moderation and humanity, provided for the instruction of Jewish and Moorish converts, and "adopted every expedient to diminish the number of judicial cases reserved for the tribunal of the inquisition." [Footnote 175]

[Footnote 175: Von Hefele, p. 387.]

He caused Lucero, the cruel inquisitor of Cordova, to be arrested, tried, and deposed from his high functions. He protected Lebrija, Vergara, and other learned men from envious aspersions, and kept a strict watch over the officers of the inquisition, lest they should exceed their instructions or abuse their power. He endeavored, but without success in Ferdinand's lifetime, to exclude laymen from the council, and thus free the tribunal as far as possible from state influence. The number of those who suffered punishment under his régime has been greatly exaggerated by Llorente; and if he introduced the inquisition into Oran, America, and the Canary Isles, it must be remembered that its jurisdiction extended over the old Christians settled there, and not over the natives.

In reviewing Ximenes's conduct in such matters, we must never lose sight of the fact that absolute unity of religion was then the aim of all Catholic governments, whereas circumstances are now altered, and the question of religious liberty, though the same in the abstract, is wholly changed in its practical application. But the scene now changes. We have seen the hermit of Castañar doff his cowl to wear a mitre, found the University of Alcalá, edit the famous Polyglot, and rule as regent the kingdom of Castile. We shall now behold him mount a war-charger, place himself at the head of an army, and lead it to victory on the coasts of Africa. We shall admire and wonder at the versatility of his genius, and the resolution and activity which no difficulties could break nor advancing years slacken. It would be easy to point out resemblances between Ximenes and the fiery Chatham, nor can we wonder that the latter statesman admired the former more than any other character in history. [Footnote 176]

[Footnote 176: Horace Walpole's George II. p. iii. 19.]

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The cardinal had a double reason for advising Ferdinand to employ the troops which Gonsalvo de Cordova had led to victory in Italy, in the conquest of some stronghold on the African coast. Mazarquivir was taken in 1505, and Ximenes, expanding his designs as usual, conceived a vaster project for a new crusade and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. It had been for ages the favorite and oft-baffled scheme of popes and Christian princes. It seemed to realize every hope of Catholic domination in Europe, and to involve the downfall of Islamism. The idea was as glorious as the accomplishment would be useful to humanity. It was the cause of civilization against barbarism, and of truth against error. But the strife between Philip and Ferdinand, already referred to, completely frustrated it, and the loss of Mazarquivir, in 1507, supplied Ximenes with an opportunity of opposing Mohammedanism nearer home and under more urgent circumstances. At his earnest request a fleet was fitted out for the conquest of Oran. That city was strongly fortified, rich and powerful, and in its harbors were a multitude of cruisers, ever ready to sweep the shores of the Mediterranean and carry off their victims to be sold as slaves. Though in his seventy-second year, though hampered by the infirmities common at such an age, Ximenes resolved to march in person to the conquest of this place, and to furnish the means required for the expedition out of his own revenues. He would thus, he thought, be able to pursue his own plans with greater freedom, and exempt the king from responsibility and loss which he might not be able or willing to incur. There were those who sneered at the cardinal's girding on his sword, and murmured that he had better tell his beads, but Ferdinand knew well the temper of his mind. He willingly placed at his disposal all the forces that could be raised, and gave him a large number of blank papers, signed only with the royal manual, to be filled up as the great cardinal might think proper. Fourteen thousand men were soon under arms, and Count Pedro Navarro was appointed by Ximenes commander of the forces. A titular bishop was at the head of one division, and all the generals were distinguished for their valor. During some years Ximenes had been husbanding his resources for some such enterprise, and subsidies flowed in from other churches and dioceses.

Intrigues and jealousies delayed for awhile the sailing of the expedition. Navarro strove to obtain the sole command. Ferdinand was often wavering. A mutiny broke out in the army. The soldiers demanded their pay in advance. But the voice of the cardinal calmed the storm, and the soldiers, being promised a part of their pay as soon as they had embarked, hastened to the ships with the merry sound of trumpets. On the 16th of May, 1509, the fleet weighed anchor. Ten galleys, eighty large transports, and many smaller vessels traversed the straits, and on the following day--the Feast of the Ascension--Ximenes with his fleet and army anchored in the port of Mazarquivir. He passed the night in giving his instructions; and though his health and strength were impaired by age, toil, and study, his energy filled the troops with confidence and enthusiasm. He summoned Navarro before him, and entrusted the conduct of the army to him alone, yet the relative positions of the cardinal and the commander were not, after all, clearly defined

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The lines were formed in order of battle, when a striking scene presented itself. Oran was to be attacked by sea and land. A mendicant friar was transformed into a chieftain and a hero. Forth he rode, mounted on a mule, with a sword belted over his pontifical robes. Many ecclesiastics surrounded him. Canons and priests were his body-guard. Swords and scimitars hung from their girdles, and before them rode a giant Franciscan on a white charger, bearing the primate's silver cross and the arms of the house of Cisneros. The hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt rose to heaven as the cavalcade advanced; and the cardinal, riding along the ranks, imposed silence and harangued the troops. His words were few, but full of fire. The mothers of Spain, he said, whose children had been dragged into slavery, were prostrate at that moment before the altar of God, praying for success to his soldiers' arms. He desired to share their danger, remembering how many bishops who had preceded him in the see of Toledo had died gloriously on the battle-field.

Officers and men were excited to the utmost by Ximenes's address, but when he was about to place himself at their head, they entreated him with one voice not to expose so precious a life. He retired, therefore, within the fortress of Mazarquivir, and there, in the oratory of St. Michael, implored the God of battles to crown his troops with victory. Scarcely had he entered the fort, when the folly of Navarro compelled the cardinal to interfere. The commander had ordered the cavalry to remain inactive, because the country was so hilly, and if Ximenes had not resolutely insisted on their supporting the foot-soldiers, the day would probably have been lost. With like energy Ximenes condemned any delay as criminal, and prevented Navarro from deferring the combat, as he proposed, to the next day, when the arrival of the chief-vizier of Tremesen with strong re-enforcements would have been dangerous, if not fatal, to the Spaniards' prospect of success.

The infantry, therefore, in four battalions, advanced immediately up the sides of the sierra, shouting, "Santiago, Santiago!" A shower of stones and arrows was hurled on them by the Moors, and the position was obstinately disputed. But a battery of guns playing on the enemy's flank, they wavered and fled, while the Spaniards, in spite of contrary orders, pursued and slaughtered them with great havoc. The fleet, meanwhile, bombarded the city, and, though ill provided with ladders, the Christian troops scaled the walls, planted their colors, and with loud cries of "Santiago y Ximenes!" opened the gates to their comrades. In vain did their general call them off from the work of carnage. No age or sex was spared; till at last, weary with plunder and butchery, they sank down in the streets, and slept beside the corpses of their foes. Four thousand Moors were said to have fallen, and only thirty Spaniards. The booty was counted at half a million of gold ducats.

The cardinal spent the night in praising God, and the next day, proceeding by sea to Oran, made a solemn entry. The troops hailed him as the conqueror, but he was heard to say aloud, "Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam." He set at liberty three hundred Christian captives; and when the entire spoil of the city was presented to him, he reserved nothing for himself, but set apart a portion for the king, and divided the rest among his troops. Sixty pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and it seemed little less than a miracle that a place so defended should have been taken in a few hours. {592} Others affirmed that there had been traitors among the inhabitants, and that Ximenes had gained over to his side some persons who acted as spies and gave him secret intelligence. The mosques were soon converted into churches, and a branch of the inquisition was established, lest convert Jews should hasten from Spain to Oran and renounce the Christian religion with impunity.

It now became a question whether the war should be pushed further into Africa. The people of Tremesen, stung to madness by the fall of Oran, had massacred the Christian merchants and slaughtered even the Jews. But Navarro had grown jealous of Ximenes, and scorned to obey orders issued by a monk. He informed the cardinal that his power expired with the siege of Oran, and that, if he remained with the army any longer, he would be treated as a private individual. To this indignity Ximenes would not submit, yet he had no desire to continue in Africa. A letter of Ferdinand's, which he saw by chance, instructed Navarro to detain him there as long as might be needful; and he suspected that the king wished him to languish and die on a foreign shore. He knew that Ferdinand could ill bear to see the glory of Gonsalvo de Cordova, "the great captain," and his special friend, to be obscured by that of a general in a monk's cowl, but he was not disposed to gratify his royal master by dying before his time.

Just a week after he had landed, the cardinal set sail on his return. He remained seven days at Carthagena; established a line of transports to run between it and Oran, and then departed for Alcalá, where he made his entry with a sort of military triumph. A part of the walls had been broken down for him to pass through, but this honor he declined, and contented himself with entering through the usual gate, preceded by Moorish slaves leading camels laden with booty. The keys of Oran, chandeliers from the mosques, banners, and Arabic MSS. on medicine and astrology were presented to the university; and a tablet was placed in the Mozarabic chapel of the cathedral of Toledo, with an inscription recording the success of the expedition. Some of these curiosities are still shown to visitors in the cathedral; but the fame of Ximenes has little need of such memorials. As a martial expedition was an enterprise least to be expected of him, so it is that which marks him most prominently on the page of history.

The capture of Oran led to further conquests on the coasts of Africa; yet, after all, the declining power of Spain made it difficult to retain what she had acquired, and impossible to extend her dominions. In 1790, after a dreadful earthquake, Oran fell into the hands of the Dey of Algiers. Since then, it has been annexed to the French empire, under conditions more favorable to civilization than it enjoyed under Spanish rule.

One of the conditions attached by Ximenes to the conquest of Oran had been that it should either be annexed to the archbishopric of Toledo, or that the expenses he might incur should be refunded from the treasury. Cabals, however, were raised against him. He was charged with having enriched himself, and the promised conditions seemed likely to stay unfulfilled. He persisted in his claim, wrote to Ferdinand on the subject, and was mortified by seeing a commission appointed to examine his private apartments, in order to ascertain what part of the spoils he had reserved for himself. {593} The account-book, which he handed to the commissioner, was the only reply he made to this indignity. Not long after, the king proposed that he should exchange the archbishopric of Toledo for that of Zaragoza, and yield the primacy to Ferdinand's natural son, a brave warrior and able politician, but a worldly prelate. To this unworthy proposal Ximenes made answer that he would never exchange his see for any other. He was willing to return to the poverty of a cloister, but if he held any see at all it should be that one over which Providence had appointed him to rule.

Cold and capricious as Ferdinand was sometimes toward the cardinal, he treated him with the same respect as ever when his own interests or those of the state seemed to require it. When he had espoused the cause of Julius II. against the King of France, he sent for Ximenes to meet him at Seville and aid him with his counsels. It was in the depth of winter, but the cardinal promptly obeyed the summons. He admired the bold attitude assumed by the pope, and heartily sympathized with his efforts to recover the territories which had been torn from the Church, to extend the temporal sovereignty of the successor of St. Peter, to compel his vassals to obey him, and to humble the power of Venice, then mistress of almost all his seaports. He saw with satisfaction the blows inflicted on the pride and insolence of the Baglionis and Bentivoglios, and he approved of the League of Cambray, by which Julius II., Louis XII., the Emperor of Germany, and the King of Spain bound themselves to enfeeble Venice and avenge the injuries she had done to the domains of the Church. But Ximenes, though he concurred in the papal policy as regards Venice, shared also the fears of the sovereign pontiff lest France should extend her possessions in the north of Italy. He justified Julius II. in withdrawing from the League into which he had entered, and was prepared to afford him every assistance in resisting the arrogance of Louis XII. when he seized on Bologna and convened a council at Pisa, in defiance of the Holy See. The adhesion of Ferdinand and Ximenes encouraged Pope Julius to form an alliance with Venice, and thus to oppose the united forces of the Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII. Under the auspices of these princes a schismatical council dared to assemble at Pisa, and afterward at Milan. Seven insubordinate cardinals and twenty bishops, chiefly French, were present at the opening, and in the eighth and ninth sessions they audaciously declared Julius II. deposed. But a general council, convened by the pope, met in the Lateran in 1512, condemned these schismatical proceedings, and restored the wavering to obedience. Even Maximilian deserted the King of France, and Henry VIII. of England sided with Ferdinand against the pope's enemies.

It may here be mentioned that Ximenes was averse to the distribution of indulgences under Julius II. and Leo X. for the completion of St. Peter's in Rome. The ground on which he disapproved of it was, that the relaxation of temporal punishment which these indulgences conferred might weaken and disturb ecclesiastical discipline. Devoutly submissive as he was to the Holy See, he nevertheless, as Gomez relates, advised Ferdinand to enact a law by which all papal bulls should, before publication, be submitted to a minister of state. His object was to guard against abuses, since dispensations were often obtained too easily from Rome.

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During Ferdinand's last illness, Ximenes occupied a prominent post in the affairs of state; and on one occasion, when the sovereign was absent from Castile, the government was entrusted to him, in concert with the royal council. It was, therefore, natural that, when the king died, he should be appointed regent during the minority of Charles V. Ferdinand had, it is true, objected to him as too austere, but he yielded to the advice of others, and consented to the appointment immediately before receiving the last sacraments. It was, he thought, an advantage in his case not to have been born of a noble family, since he could on that account conduct the administration with greater impartiality. Thus, on the 23d of January, 1516, Ximenes became once more the ruler of a nation daily rising in importance.

Another claimant of supreme power appeared on the scene. This was Dean Hadrian, afterward pope, who had been tutor to Prince Charles, and who produced a document signed by the prince, authorizing him to assume the regency of Castile in the event of Ferdinand's demise. The legal decision on the question was unfavorable to Hadrian's claim; but Ximenes, wishing to avoid disputes, consented to rule conjointly with his rival until Charles himself should decide by which of the two he would be represented. Nothing could exceed the promptitude and energy of the cardinal's measures. If an insurrection broke out, troops were despatched instantly to suppress it. Madrid was in the neighborhood of his own vassals, and he therefore chose it as the seat of government, lest he might in some other place be exposed to the violence of interfering grandees.

The authority given in the first instance to Ximenes was fully confirmed by Charles, and in a letter which he addressed to the cardinal he declared that "the most excellent clause he had found in his grandfather's will was that by which Ximenes was invested with the government of the kingdom and the administration of justice." The fame of the consummate wisdom, experience, and eminent virtues of the cardinal had reached, he said, even Flanders; and he therefore enjoined on all the members of his family, the nobles and prelates, to recognize him as regent. To Hadrian the prince assigned a subordinate post, and every arrangement was made with due regard to the rights of the unhappy Queen Joanna, whose derangement made her practically a cipher, though nominally supreme ruler. Her name preceded that of her son Charles in all public documents; but the prince was proclaimed King of Castile by order of Ximenes. It was not until Charles arrived in Spain that the Cortes of Aragon consented to recognize his title as king of that country also.

The height of power is generally the height of discomfort. Many of the nobles combined to harass Ximenes, and incite the people to rebel against "a monk of base extraction." They questioned his authority, and decided on sending messengers to Flanders to demand his dismissal. The cardinal, however, was fully apprised of all their plans; and it is said by Gomez that, when some of them waited on him to ask for the documents in virtue of which he held the regency, he took them to the window, and showing them a park of artillery, said, "These are the powers by which I govern Castile according to the king's will and command."

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He took, indeed, if Peter Martyr can be credited, great interest and pleasure in military affairs. He had heard Ferdinand expatiate on the advantages of a militia as opposed to an army recruited from different countries; and now that he was wielding dictatorial power, he resolved to put the scheme in execution. He conferred with the senate, and issued a proclamation inviting the enlistment of volunteers. They were, with the exception of officers and musicians, to serve without pay, but in return they were exempted from taxes, socages, and all other charges. Immediate success attended this measure. Thirty thousand citizens were speedily enrolled, and were daily drilled in public. The compliments paid to Ximenes by ambassadors, and the envious cavillings of foreign princes, sufficiently proved the wisdom of this organization. It encountered great opposition from the nobles, but, being endorsed by the special approval of Charles, it triumphed ultimately over every obstacle.

Ximenes's attention, at the same time, was turned to the maritime power of the kingdom. He added twenty trireme galleys to the navy, and put the entire fleet in movement against the Moors and pirates who infested the Spanish coasts. The seas were thus cleared of "Red Rovers," and Pope Leo X. congratulated the cardinal on the success of his marine administration. His government was assailed on all sides, but the great churchman was never at a loss. Whether he had to meet invading forces on the frontier, or suppress rebellion in the interior, he was in the highest degree prompt and resolute; he struck terror into his foes, and earned the absent sovereign's warmest gratitude. He was equally attentive to the details of government and to its general aims. He caused exact accounts to be drawn up of the revenues, finances, and laws of the three military orders; and was preparing similar documents relative to the kingdom at large when arrested in his labors by the hand of death. To relieve the royal treasury he suppressed numerous sinecures, beginning with those held by his own friends, and remonstrated with Charles on his lavish expenditure.

Successful as Ximenes had been in the capture of Oran, it was his misfortune afterward to be foiled and worsted by a robber. The name of Horac Barbarossa was feared throughout the Mediterranean. He was scarcely twenty years of age when a pirate-fleet of forty galleys sailed under his command. Though a cannon-ball carried off his left arm in an attack on Bugia in 1515, he returned to the assault, took the citadel, and put the entire Christian garrison to death. He roused the fanaticism of the Moslems, and excited them to throw off the Spanish yoke. The King of Algiers sought his aid against the Spaniards; but the treacherous pirate murdered his friend in a bath, seized the throne, and refused to pay tribute to Spain. He also took the King of Tunis prisoner, and put him to death. A talkative and bragging general, named Vera, was sent by Ximenes with 8000 men to reduce this brigand and usurper to subjection. But he was too strong and skilful for the blundering Vera. The Spanish expedition utterly failed, and the two-armed general who could not beat the one-armed buccaneer was an object of ridicule and scorn to women and children when he returned to Spain.

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The conquest of Granada had been the means of bringing into public notice two of the greatest men of that or any other age. The appointment of Talavera to the see of Granada led to Ximenes being summoned to court to fill his place as confessor to the queen; and in the joy felt by Isabella at the final victory over the Moors in Spain she granted Columbus the vessels he had solicited during many years. In March, 1493, the glorious adventurer returned from the far West, and brought with him numerous proofs of the extent and importance of his distant discoveries. The natives whom he had on board his ships increased the desire of Ferdinand and Isabella to impart the blessings of Christianity to their new subjects; and Ximenes, then occupied with the conversion of the Spanish Moors, was anxious to co-operate with the sovereigns for the repression of crime and cruelty in the American colonies, and in the instruction of the caciques and the Indian tribes in the faith of the gospel. It is well known how long and how miserably these pious designs were frustrated by the barbarity of Spanish governors, the rapacity and license of Spanish sailors, convicts, and settlers. It is not surprising that the cacique Hatuey vowed he would rather not go to heaven if the Spaniards were there.

The royal decrees respecting slavery had been hesitating and contradictory; nor were the religious orders in the New World agreed as to the practice that should be pursued. Some of the governors allowed the natives to be treated as slaves, while others received orders from the home government to limit slavery to the case of cannibals. When Ximenes became regent, he carefully investigated the matter, heard a number of witnesses, and formed his own resolution independently of other counsellors. The principal caciques were to be called together, and informed, in the name of Queen Isabella and her son Charles, that they were free subjects, and that, though the tribes would be required to pay a certain tribute, their rights, liberties, and interests would be protected. The caciques would rule in the several territories and villages in conjunction with a priest and royal administrator; religion would be taught, civilization promoted, merciful laws introduced, and traffic in slaves, whether Indian or negro, strictly forbidden. It was found by subsequent experience that these wise and merciful regulations were too good for the purpose required; that it would be dangerous to emancipate the Indians suddenly; and that it could only be done after a sufficient number of negro slaves had been imported from Africa.

The authority of Ximenes during the latter part of his regency was disputed, not merely by factious nobles, but also by Dean Hadrian and the Seigneur de la Chaux. They sought to establish a triumvirate, and reduce Ximenes to a second-rate power. But the cardinal receiving some papers to which they had first affixed their signatures, he immediately ordered fresh copies to be made, and signed them himself only. From that time neither La Chaux nor Hadrian was ever allowed to sign a decree. They complained, indeed, to the king, but with little effect. Ximenes paid no attention to the remonstrance of the royal ambassador, and the affair ended by his exclusive authority being recognized and approved.

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The machinations of his enemies ceased only with his life. To the last, intrigues, jealousies, and calumnies hedged in his path with thorns. In August, 1517, it is said, an attempt was made to poison him; and it would have succeeded had not his servant, according to custom, first tasted every dish set before him, and fallen seriously ill at Bozeguillas. His health was failing fast when Charles arrived from Flanders, and the courtiers used every artifice to prevent his having an interview with the young prince. They feared the influence of his genius and experience, and hoped that death might speedily rid them of his presence. Issuing vigorous orders daily for the government of the state, he calmly awaited the arrival of the king, and of his own approaching end, in the monastery of Aguilera. There he renewed and corrected the will by which he left the bulk of his vast property to the University of Alcalá. He often blessed God for enabling him to say that he had never knowingly injured any man, but had administered justice even-handed. The peace of his own conscience did not preserve him from the persecution and insults of his enemies. They even indulged their spite by the paltry annoyance of quartering his servants in a neighboring village, instead of their being under the same roof with their master, when, wrapped in furs, he took his last journey to meet Charles, and welcome him to his kingdom and throne. From the sovereign himself he received a heartless letter, thanking him for all his great services, and expressing a hope that they should meet at Mojados; but after their meeting, he suggested that the cardinal should be relieved of his arduous duties; in other words, that he should share no longer in the conduct of public affairs. This cruel letter is thought by many writers to have hastened Ximenes's death, while others are of opinion that it was never delivered to him, and that he was thus spared a wanton addition to the pangs of dying. Ximenes died in all respects the death of the righteous. The language of contrition and praise was on his lips, and the crucifix in his hand. He recommended the University of Alcalá to the king in his last moments, together with the monasteries he had founded. He expired, exclaiming, "In te, Domine, speravi" on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1517, in the eighty-second year of his age. All the surrounding country hastened to kiss his hands while his body lay in state. The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed by slow stages, and amid the blaze of numberless torches, to Torrelaguna, his birthplace, and afterward to Alcalá, the city of his adoption. Arriving there on the Feast of St. Eugene, the first Archbishop of Toledo, the day was celebrated yearly from that time by a funeral service and panegyric in honor of Ximenes. Fifty-eight years after the university was founded, his monument was enclosed in bronze tablets, on which the chief events in his career were represented. Thus, by sermons, by external images, by tradition, and by history, the memory of this remarkable man was kept alive. Posterity became indulgent to his defects. They were specks in a blaze of light. Heroism and saintdom encircled his memory with effulgent halos. His person became familiar to the Spaniard's eye: his tall, thin frame, his aquiline nose, his high forehead, his piercing, deep-set eyes, and those two prominent eye-teeth which gained him the nickname of "the elephant." According to the custom of the time, he kept a jester, and his dwarf's jokes diverted him when depressed with violent headaches, or worn with the affairs of state and opposition of factious men. Study was his delight. He never felt too old to learn, and he frequently assisted at public disputations. {598} Prayer lay at the root of his greatness; it regulated his ambition, tamed his impetuosity, and filled him with the love of justice. It made him severe toward himself, firm and fearless, equally capable of wielding a sceptre of iron and a pastoral crook. You may search as you will for historical parallels, but Ximenes is the only prime-minister in the world who was held to be a saint by the people he ruled, and the only primate who has acquired lasting renown in such varied characters as ascetic, soldier, chieftain, scholar, man of letters, statesman, reformer, and regent.

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From La Revue Du Monde Catholique.

The Ignorance Of The Middle Ages.

A recent and famous circular respecting the education of women has called attention to the public schools of France, and the revolutionary journals have unanimously profited by the opportunity to load past ages with sarcasm and irony. It is because there is a question of religion in this case, as in all the principal incidents of the time. The antichristian press is but little interested in the degree of knowledge diffused in the middle ages, or in the pretended degradation of the people of Rome; [Footnote 177] but under these deceitful pretexts is concealed a design, persistently and ardently pursued--the annihilation of Christianity. Christianity must be put down because it is now the only force that strongly resists unruly passions, and because modern barbarians, eager to possess the goods they covet, wish to submit no longer to any obstacle or delay.

[Footnote 177: The degradation of which an editor of the Journal des Débats (M. J. Janin) wrote in 1836: "Talk to me of the enslaved country of the Holy Father as free!"]

Let not Christians be deceived by the hypocritical protestations of respect uttered by this enemy, to whom falsehood is a jest. Let them not grow weary of countermining the subterranean attacks carried on against the city. For each assault let there be a sortie; for each new battery, a new bastion! Resources are not wanting; we possess facts, works, men, the testimony of history, and even the admission of our enemies, and we are sure victory will be ours in the end.

A former essay [Footnote 178] depicted the savage brutality of the barbarous nations converted to Christianity, their passions, their vices, their ferocity, and their excesses. We will now show what the church did in one particular to subdue, civilize, and elevate them, by diffusing with unparalleled munificence the most extended, the most general and complete course of instruction ever given to the world; how, in the most troublous times--in the tenth century, for example--the church was the inviolable guardian of the productions of the human mind; what ardor for knowledge it excited in these men, but recently so violent and so material; and besides its saints, what learned men, it formed--what great men, full of talent and genius!

[Footnote 178: "Les Barbares et le Moyen Age," Revue du Monde Cath., of Aug. 10 and Sept. 10, 1867.]

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I.

Christian Antiquity.

Some writers, having lost the spirit of Christianity, have denied that Christian antiquity had a taste for science and literature, and have stigmatized the middle ages as dark. If they had been Christians, they would have known that this accusation is as erroneous as it is injurious--was contrary to the very principles of Christianity.

Pagan society, established, with a view to this life, for the well-being of a few, kept the people in ignorance in order to keep them in servitude. Ignorance, by rendering men material, disposes them to servility and strengthens tyranny. It had academies for the free-born, but not for the slave. Why trouble themselves about the minds of those miserable creatures who were "incapable of good, of evil, and of virtue," who were called speaking instruments and chattels? It had philosophers, poets, and learned men, but no popular schools; for it loved science and not man.

The first principle of Christianity, on the contrary, is love. Love is without narrowness: it does not repel, it attracts: it is not exclusive, it is all-embracing: it seeketh not its own, it is generously and openly diffusive, it searches out and summons the whole world: Venite ad me omnes. Christianity knows only one race of men who are all equal. Its other name is Catholicism, universality. It has but one object, which is supernatural--to lead men to God.

In order that man may aspire to this sublime end, he must be made free--cui liber, est liber--must be enlightened, that he may comprehend the Supreme Intelligence that created him. Christianity breathes into man "that ardent love of knowledge" [Footnote 179] which buoys up his wings: it lights up before him a perspective extending to the very confines of heaven. "The more fully man comprehends in what way God has established everything in number, weight, and measure, the more ardent is his love for him," says a simple nun [Footnote 180] of the middle ages, beautifully expressing the idea of the church. This is the reason why Christianity has patronized science, and diffused and cultivated it.

[Footnote 179: J. de Maistre, Du Pape, iv. 3.]

[Footnote 180: Roswitha, Paphnuce.]

As soon as Christianity had a foothold in the world, instead of turning toward a few, like the philosophers, it addresses all--the poor who had been despised, the lowly who had been made use of, and the slaves who had not been counted. The door of knowledge was opened wide to plebeians. "We teach philosophy to fullers and shoemakers," says St. Chrysostom. From the depths of the catacombs, where they were obliged to conceal themselves, the first pontiffs, whose lives for three centuries terminated by martyrdom, founded schools in every parish of Rome, and ordered the priests to assemble the children of the country in order to instruct them. What, then, was the result when Christianity, issuing from the bowels of the earth, bloomed forth in freedom? There were schools everywhere, monastic schools, schools in the priests' houses, [Footnote 181] episcopal schools, established by Gregory the Great, and schools at the entrance of churches, (as in the portico of the cathedral of Lucca, in the eighth century.)

[Footnote 181: A council of the sixteenth century speaks of schools in the priests' houses.]

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The decrees of councils, the decretals of popes, attest the desire of distributing to all the food of the mind, and of multiplying schools. [Footnote 182] And who were their first masters? The priests, bishops, and doctors of the church. "It is our duty," (it is a pope who speaks,) "to endeavor to dispel ignorance." [Footnote 183] Ulphidas, a bishop of the fifth century, translated the Bible into the language of the Goths, for the instruction of the barbarians; and at a later period, Albertus Magnus and St. Bonaventura composed abridgments of the Scriptures for the poor, called the Bible of the Poor, Biblia Pauperum. "If the important knowledge of reading and writing was spread among the people, it was owing to the church," says St. Simon the Reformer. [Footnote 184]

[Footnote 182: Report of the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Duruy, 1865.]

[Footnote 183: Innocent III. at the Council of 1215.]

[Footnote 184: La Science de l'Histoire.]

And how did the church bestow it? Gratuitously, "to all who could not pay for it." The church is truly democratic, according to the modern expression, or rather, it is an institution of charity; gratuitous instruction is its conception which it put into execution. (Ventura.) Listen to its councils: "Every cathedral and every church that has the means is obliged to found a professorship of theology for ecclesiastics, and provide a master for the gratuitous instruction of the poor, according to the ancient customs. [Footnote 185] It is thus it understood obligatory instruction, not imposed on those who received it, which would be tyranny, but exacted from those who gave it, which was an act of virtue.

[Footnote 185: The Council of Constantinople in 680; then the Councils of Lateran in 1179 and 1215, and the Council of Lyons in 1245. In the eighth century Theodolphus, Bishop of Orleans, wrote to his priests: "Exact no pay for the instruction of children, and receive nothing, except what is offered voluntarily and through affection, by the parents."]

But was it elementary knowledge alone? Does the church disdain literature, which a father calls the ornament and consolation of the wretchedness of man--polite literature, the humanities par excellence, because they sustain humanity in the combat of life? Certainly not; the church found the pagan world powerful and renowned for its attainments in literature, the sciences, and the arts; it would not leave to that world its superiority; it would also become the patron of knowledge, because that would aid in the progress of truth. "We ought," says St. Basil, "to study the profane sciences before penetrating the mysteries of sacred knowledge, that we may become accustomed to their radiance." [Footnote 186] The church exhorted its children to the acquirement of knowledge; nay, it even wished itself to excel therein, and it succeeded so as to terrify its enemies, as in the case of Julian the Apostate, who, to crush the church, undertook to prohibit it from studying the sciences. Where shall we find men more learned than Clement of Alexandria, who fathomed and explained the origin of pagan mythology; St. Basil and the two Gregorys, who, pupils of the Athenian school, acquired there the eloquence in which they equalled Demosthenes; St. Augustine, whose work, De Civitate Dei, is the compendium of all knowledge, philosophy, literature, science, and the entire history of the world; and Origen, before whom the most celebrated masters of the East rose up and ceased to teach, intimidated by his presence? "We are not afraid," says St. Jerome, "of any kind of comparison!"

[Footnote 186: _Discourse on the Utility of reading Profane Literature_. See also St. Gregory of Nazianzen, Discourse at the Funeral of St. Basil.]

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The church thus continues: "Study," wrote Cassiodorus, in the fifth century, to his monks--"study Galen, Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and the other authors you find in the library." The course of study at Salernum was pursued by a great number of clerics, priests, and bishops: [Footnote 187] priests learned history, grammar, Greek, and geometry at the school in the basilica of Lateran. [Footnote 188]

[Footnote 187: Daremberg, Cours de 1866 sur l'Histoire de la Medecine.]

[Footnote 188: And in the Benedictine monasteries.]

Where did the Greek artists, driven out by iconoclasts, take refuge? In Rome, under the protection of the popes. Who were the first historians of the West? Priests and bishops: Gregory of Tours, Fredegarius, Eginhard, Odo, and Flodoard. There is an ecclesiastical tone throughout the entire Merovingian literature--the legends, hymns, and chronicles. [Footnote 189] Even the poets, Fortunatus and Sidonius Apollinaris, are priests familiar with the works of antiquity. "I am engaged," wrote Alcuin to Charlemagne, "in giving instruction to some by drawing from the fount of Holy Writ, and intoxicating others with the old wine of the ancient schools." And for what purpose? He continues: "In order that the church may profit by the increase of knowledge." Finally, when a pope, great through his genius and his sanctity--Gregory VII.--was inspired with the noble ambition of christianizing the world, he called science to his aid, revived the ancient canons that instituted schools for the liberal arts in the vicinity of cathedrals; [Footnote 190] "desiring a saintly clergy, he wished them also learned." [Footnote 191]

[Footnote 189: D'Espinay, Influence of Canon Law on French Legislation.]

[Footnote 190: Innocent III. continued the work; he extended the obligation of acquiring knowledge among the priests. "The bishop will ascertain," says he, "the capacity of those on whom he confers holy orders. It is better to have a few who are learned to serve the altar than many who are ignorant." And in our own day the Roman College gives gratuitous instruction in the classics and in the higher sciences, theology, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, etc., which does not prevent the revolutionary journals from declaring the pontifical government an enemy of progress and of light.]

[Footnote 191: Ozanam, Le Christianisme chez les Barbares.]

And it is so truly the spirit of Christianity that schools are multiplied in proportion to its diffusion. Clovis hardly received baptism when schools were established even in his palace; [Footnote 192] the more fully kings were imbued with a Christian spirit, the more letters were protected and honored. Theodosius, who almost attained to sanctity by his penitence, decreed that masters, after teaching twenty years, should be ennobled with the title of count, and be on an equality with the lieutenants of the prefect of the pretorian guards; and Charlemagne, the great Christian emperor, established under his eye an academy, which, we are told, was called the Palatial School: the palace was consecrated to science, and its true name would have been the Scholastic Palace. [Footnote 193]

[Footnote 192: Dom Pitra, Rapport sur une Mission scientifique, 1850.]

[Footnote 193: Dom Pitra, Histoire de St. Léger, ix.]

II.

The Tenth Century.

We are not contradicted. Yes, in the first centuries the church favored knowledge; but there is an exception: from the ninth to the eleventh century, letters almost entirely disappeared, the light of knowledge was obscured, and this epoch is justly called the night of the middle ages.

It is not so; a multitude of witnesses prove how unfounded is this prejudice. [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: That is to say, the erudite men who have carefully studied this confused epoch and have arrived at the same conclusion, whatever their philosophical opinions: Littré and Ozanam, Daremberg and Villemain, Renan and Dantier, Hallam and Berrington, etc,]

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Letters never perished. In the sanguinary tumult, the royal offspring of intelligence was saved by a pious hand, and protected that it might be restored some day to the world-- great, powerful, and fit to reign. [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: In the tenth century, we include the end of the ninth and the beginning of the eleventh, as men who lived at the end of the seventeenth century and the commencement of the nineteenth are considered as belonging to the eighteenth; Fontenelle and Delille, for example.]

Charlemagne was hardly laid in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, when his lords, barons, counts, dukes, and the inferior leaders dispersed and established in a thousand places their divided rule; furious and devastating wars overwhelmed the people and spread terror in every heart through the country; there was no longer peace, security, or leisure. Were intellectual pursuits suspended during that time? No. Throughout Europe, then a field of battle, sheltered in the valleys and intrenched on the summits of the mountains, were fortresses, which became the asylum of knowledge, with an army resolved to defend it--monks in their convents. Italy was like a camp with a reserve corps of instruction: there soldiers were formed and organized and drilled in the use of all kinds of arms; the Benedictines of Monte Casino, "where ancient literature was constantly studied," [Footnote 196] the ecclesiastical schools of Modena, the episcopal schools of Milan, the school of jurisprudence at Lucca, of rhetoric at Ravenna, of literature at Verona, of the seven arts at Parma, of grammar at Pavia, and, in the midst, Rome, guardian of the heritage of ancient traditions and the seat of the papacy, "which has always surpassed all other nations in learning." [Footnote 197]

[Footnote 196: And a great number of other religious houses; as late as the seventeenth century there were more than three hundred.]

[Footnote 197: Villemain, Histoire de la. Littérature au Moyen Age, lesson xx.]

Beyond the Alps, traverse Provence, almost Italian, Languedoc, also half Roman in learning and in language, on the banks of the Loire you will find these abbeys, famous as seats of learning: Fleury, St. Benoit, and Ligugé, (near Poitiers;) and proceeding to the north, Ferrière, Saint Wandrille, Luxeuil, Corbie, and Le Bec, (in the eleventh century.) From Lyons you could see, far away on the mountain-heights of Switzerland, Reichnau, whose garrison was re-enforced by foreigners who crossed the water, (Irish monks,) and St. Gall, whose monks quote the Iliad. In Spain, Christians did not strive in valor alone with the Moors; they vied in learning with the Arabs, and studied and translated their works. The mélée was universal. Luitprand, an Englishman, who took part in it, as well as Gerbert, a Frenchman, heard ten languages spoken there; among others, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. [Footnote 198]

[Footnote 198: Greek by merchants, Hebrew by the Jews, Arabic everywhere, while Latin is the foundation of the national tongue.]

Cross the Channel: in England at every step are colleges and seminaries: that far-off murmur comes from the seven thousand students of Armagh, in Ireland. And if you penetrate the wilds of Germany, among the Saxons but just converted, you will discover the advanced posts--the school of Fulden, founded by St. Boniface; New Corbie on the Weser, where, at a later day, were found the five books of the Annals of Tacitus; and what is more, a convent of learned nuns--the Monastery of Roswitha.

This is the main army, and it is not without support. The leaders of the people and the directors of souls do not abandon these valiant troops. Kings, when they have the power and the leisure, send them reenforcements: there are the schools of Eugene II. for the study of the liberal arts; of grammar under Lothaire in France of jurisprudence at Angers; of Edward the Confessor in England. It is not till the time of Henry of Germany that princes are unmindful of them. He would not listen to the petition of a poet for schools of belles-lettres and law. These are the scattered forts that support and bind together the main army.

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But perhaps they are destitute of arms and have no arsenals and ammunition? What, then, are all these books of medicine dating from the seventh to the tenth century, "accumulated in all the convents"? [Footnote 199]--the celebrated libraries of Ferrière and Bobbio, which owned Aristotle and Demosthenes; of Reichnau, which in 850 possessed four hundred volumes catalogued; the Greek manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries discovered at Rome, Verona, Monte Casino, [Footnote 200] and at Tournay:[Footnote 201] the copies of ancient authors, made in the ninth and tenth centuries by the monks of St. Gall? [Footnote 202] Do you not hear resounding the most illustrious names--of poets, historians, philosophers, and orators--Homer, Seneca, Ovid, Sallust, and Pliny? [Footnote 203] This one, like a watchman who calls for help from the mountain-heights, (Lupus, abbot of Ferrière to Pope Benedict III.,) requests the loan of the Orator of Cicero, the Institutions of Quintilian, and a commentary of Terence; another (see Life of St. Columba) quotes Titus Livius; others (see Acts of the Saints) quote Horace; treaties are fortified with passages from Cicero; [Footnote 204] and there is not a barbarous chronicle in which there are not lightning-like flashes from the inspired lines of Virgil. [Footnote 205]

[Footnote 199: Dander, Missions scientifiques.]

[Footnote 200: Renan, Missions scientifiques.]

[Footnote 201: Dom Pitra, ibid.]

[Footnote 202: Dander, ibid.]

[Footnote 203: There are proofs, says Daremberg, that the Franks of the age of Charlemagne read Pliny. These books were not lost, but preserved in the convents.]

[Footnote 204: Dom Pitra, Missions scientifiques.]

[Footnote 205: See Villemain, Histoire de la Littérature du Moyen Age, lesson x.]

They do not lack arms, and they make use of them. They have captains--leaders who are capable, learned, and indefatigable. They are well known: Abbo, abbot of Fleury-sur-Loire, who is called the "Alcuin of the tenth century," who wrote a history of the popes, on philosophy, physics, and astronomy, and the commander of a numerous corps of more than five thousand students, among whom is one who translated Euclid; [Footnote 206] Flodoard, author of La Chronique de France; the thirty-two professors of belles-lettres at Salernum; St. Fulbert and Henry of Auxerre, in France; Elphege at Monte Casino; in Spain, Petrus Alphonsus, who compares the literature of France with that of his own country; [Footnote 207] in England, Odo and St. Dunstan, a geometrician, musician, painter, and sculptor;[Footnote 208] and finally, that wonderful man, who made the tour of the world of learning and was familiar with every part of it--mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, literature, and philosophy--at once a prince of the church and of science-- Gerbert. [Footnote 209]

[Footnote 206: There is a second Abbo in the tenth century-- a monk also, and a poet.]

[Footnote 207: In his book De Disciplina Cleri. See Dom Pitria, Histoire de St. Léger.]

[Footnote 208: Berrington, History of Literature in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.]

[Footnote 209: Gaillard, in his Histoire de Charlemagne, gives a list of masters who succeeded each other without interruption from Alcuin till the twelfth century.]

But, blockaded in their fortresses by barbarism, brigandage, and tyranny, what important deeds could they achieve, what feats of arms, what expeditions? In the first place, they held their position by keeping the ramparts in constant repair. {604} In the scriptorium of every abbey, a numerous detachment of patient copyists, bending all day over manuscripts, transcribed the holy books and the masterpieces of antiquity, and rendered eminent service to the arts, to letters, and to history by preserving and keeping in order the store of munitions which otherwise would have been squandered and for ever lost. At the same time, watchful sentinels on the walls observed all that was passing in the world without, and made an exact report of it; that is to say, they drew up those chronicles, charters, and cartularies in which were recorded facts, names, contracts, donations, and the changes in the countries in which they lived, among the people they directed, in the lands they cultivated, the sovereigns who ruled over them, and the conquerors who despoiled them. [Footnote 210]

[Footnote 210: It is sufficient to mention the Polyptique of the abbot Irminon, (tenth century,) and the numerous cartularies that have been published within half a century.]

And that the descriptions might be complete, painters illuminated the margins of the vellum manuscripts, supplying by delicate and faithful miniatures in the brightest colors what was wanting in the text, general details respecting the splendor of the vestments, the sculptures on the walls and the ornaments of the houses, thus bequeathing to posterity a lively and true portrayal of their time. And the whole makes up the immense and inexhaustible treasure where we find depicted the manners, customs, classes of society, the nature of the soil, and facts respecting the tillers of the earth, their lords, and the church, forming the moral, industrial, and agricultural history of all Christendom. These transcripts, chronicles, and paintings are the magazines, casemates, and bastions without which the citadel of letters and science would have been dismantled and rendered uninhabitable for generations to come!

They did not confine themselves to this; nothing was neglected that should occupy a well-organized army; first, regular exercise, which makes the soldier active, robust, and ready for any duty; the study of the liberal arts, divided into two classes for the recruits and the veterans: the quadrivium, (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy,) and the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics. [Footnote 211] ) These labors were carried on in the interior of the fortress. They also made expeditions and sallies to keep the ways of access clear--commentaries upon authors, variations of texts, (as the commentaries on the Fasti of Ovid, [Footnote 212] the treatise De Senectute, with different readings of the same text, [Footnote 213] and numerous manuscripts with Greek annotations.[Footnote 214]) They undertook sieges, for a translation may be called a siege; everywhere you could find real workshops for translating Greek authors into Latin, such as books of medicine, (Galen, Hippocrates, and Oribasus,) the fathers, (the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom,) and the principal ancient authors, [Footnote 215] (the Logic of Aristotle.) Under the guidance of the leaders already named, they went forth to daily combat and even to fight great battles; in the schools, colleges, monasteries, and public lectures, professors, doctors, and students [Footnote 216] stimulated the public mind; they touched on every science, and treated, under the names of nominalism and realism, of all those questions about which man is continually agitated--his nature, his origin, his relations with God, and his destiny;

[Footnote 211: Mentioned by Roswitha in the tenth century.]

[Footnote 212: Found at Reichnau by M. Dantier.]

[Footnote 213: At Mr. Philipps's in England, by Dom Pitra.]

[Footnote 214: At Monte Casino, by M. Renan.]

[Footnote 215: See Daremberg, ibid. A proof, says M. Littré, in Les Barbares et le Moyen Age, that during the Merovingian and Carlovingian periods the Greek filiation of the sciences was preserved. As to medical science, he adds, it is evidently not a simple question of medicine.]

[Footnote 216: Béranger, Lanfranc, Roscelin, etc.]

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struggles constantly renewed, in which they fought furiously and displayed all their strength by quotations from authors, allusions to celebrated events and to sayings of antiquity, (for example, the sarcasm of Julian to the Christians, mentioned by Roswitha; [Footnote 217] the veil given by a king of England to the Abbey of Croyland, on which was embroidered the Ruin of Troy; [Footnote 218] the Latin war hymn chanted at Modena, which alludes to the devotedness of Codrus; [Footnote 219]) brilliant tournaments in which, like knights of prowess, some endeavored to distinguish themselves by a display of erudition better suited, it might seem, to the refined age of the sixteenth century than to the tenth. They signed acts written in Greek; [Footnote 220] in Latin verse; [Footnote 221] they wrote the lives of the saints in French verse; [Footnote 222] the kings of England prided themselves on the name of [Greek text]; they spoke Greek in ordinary intercourse. [Footnote 223] These knights of science, like the paladins in the combats with giants, displayed wondrous feats. "I am over shoes in Cicero's Rhetoric," writes Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland. [Footnote 224]

[Footnote 217: Christians should congratulate themselves on being deprived of their riches, for Christ said: "Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple." See the Gallicanus.]

[Footnote 218: See Darboy, Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury.]

[Footnote 219: A Latin hymn was also chanted at Pisa, in the eleventh century, to celebrate a victory over the Saracens.]

[Footnote 220: At Poitiers, at the end of the ninth century.]

[Footnote 221: At Sienna.]

[Footnote 222: In 1050, Thibaud de Vernon, canon at Rouen.]

[Footnote 223: The monks of England and Ireland.]

[Footnote 224: Tenth century.]

They did not confine themselves to the defensive. In studying the ancient writers they were inspired to imitate them, and they went forth into the open field and vied in a thousand works of the imagination--fiction, poetry--(hymns, poems of the eleventh century, and history.) What is more, they undertook fatiguing and dangerous expeditions into far-off and almost unknown countries-- archaeology, which had not then a name, (see "the valuable manuscripts of the tenth century, discovered by Mabillon at Einsiedeln, which treat of Roman inscriptions;") cosmography, in which they divined truths of the highest importance. The Irish monk Virgilius taught in Bohemia the antipodes, and consequently that the earth is round. He was not comprehended: they supposed him to believe there were other lands under our earth, with another sun, another moon, and inhabitants for whom Christ did not die, and he was excommunicated. He went to Rome, where he was permitted to explain his theory; the pope withdrew his anathema and elevated him to the episcopacy. [Footnote 225] Finally, the drama, into which was infused a new and original character. Whilst the monk Virgilius taught the true form of the earth, the nun Roswitha composed her tragedies, the first specimens of the Christian drama, at once full of the reminiscences of antiquity and the spirit of the gospel.

[Footnote 225: Quatrefages, Peuplement de l'Amérique, which proves: 1. The geographical knowledge of the times. 2. The perpetuity of tradition. 3. The intercourse of different nations. 4. The tolerance of the church. Bouillet, in his Dictionnaire universelle d'Histoire et de Géographie, is deceived on this point.]

You will see by all this activity, this animation, and these names, "that the tenth century has been unjustly accused of barbarism" (Magnin)--that age in which there was such a taste for classical studies that "many Christians," says Roswitha, "preferred the vanity of pagan books to the utility of the Holy Scriptures, on account of the elegance of their style," and that, far from meriting the appellation of the Iron Age, it should rather be called "a great centre of light." [Footnote 226]

[Footnote 226: Dom Pitra, Rapport sur une Mission scientifique. To all these works add the memoir of Ozanam, Des Ecoles et de l'Instruction publique en Italie au Temps barbares, in which he clearly demonstrates that letters never ceased to be cultivated.]

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When we look down from the lofty elevation of the nineteenth century, which is called the age of progress, into this deep gulf of the middle ages--the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries--we are not astonished at its darkness, but by the brilliant rays that issue from it. It is not an abyss. At the first glance there seem to be only a few points of light; but the eye is soon attracted by a multitude of peaks everywhere rising up with brilliant summits and resplendent glaciers sparkling with radiant light. We are astonished and give ourselves up to admiration, in the words of the poet who, perceiving the Alps afar off, thinks that

"Ces monts glacés Ne sont qu'affreux déserts, rochers, torrents, abîmes,"

but who, when he reaches them,

"Y trouve, ravi, De l'ombre, des rayons, des solitudes vertes, Des vergers pleins de dons, des chaumières ouvertes A l'hospitalité. ... Des coteaux aux flancs d'or, de limpides vallées, Et des lacs étoilés des feux du firmament" [Footnote 227]

--finds the hospitality of the church, the solitude of monasteries, and the firmament of Christianity!

[Footnote 227: Lamartine.]

III.

Intercourse Of Nations.

Doubt is still displayed. There are other objections. Noblemen did not know how to read, women lived in ignorance; how could knowledge be diffused when people within fortified walls and the narrow limits of their territories could with so much difficulty hold communication with each other?

There is a false idea of the middle ages. It is imagined that men, so independent and so wilful, remained stationary and shut up in their fortresses without endeavoring to see and know each other. It is precisely the contrary. There was a constant and ardent desire for intercourse which caused nations to mingle and exchange languages, ideas, and customs. What was the consequence of the incessant wars, if not to lead men of the North to the South, those of the East to the West, the people of Normandy to Naples and to England, the Britons of Armorica into Great Britain, and vice versa, (from the fifth to the eleventh century;) [Footnote 228] the Burgundians into Lusitania, where they founded the kingdom of Portugal, (Henry of Burgundy, in the eleventh century, accompanied by knights and troubadours)? And then the varied and extensive commerce of the great cities of France and of the rich and industrious Flemish cities, whose ports, filled with vessels from every land, resounded, as we are told by the chroniclers, with the sounds of all languages? And the celebrated fairs, Beaucaire, Novgorod, and the Landit, (at St. Denis,) rallying-points for the merchants of Europe, Egypt, Asia, and the islands of the Levant--and which were the universal expositions of the productions of the middle ages? The bold enterprises of the Italian republics, powerful through commerce, which owned vessels enough to transport the entire army of the crusaders, and which owned a part of the East--the Genoese, the faubourgs of Constantinople; the Pisans, several ports in Syria; the Venetians, the Morea and Crete, the Archipelago; which trafficked not only with the rest of Europe, but with the coast of Barbary, Tunis, and Morocco, [Footnote 229] in fact, with the interior of Asia, into which its adventurous citizens penetrated, (as in the case of Marco Polo and several others,) and with the extreme East, which the nineteenth century has only just discovered, if we may dare say so, and allied with the rest of the world. [Footnote 230]

[Footnote 228: La Villemarqué, Discours au Congrès celtigue de Saint-Brieuc, 1867.]

[Footnote 229: Malastrie, Missions scientifiques.]

[Footnote 230: The Venetian Sanuto penetrated as far as Cambodia; a goldsmith of Paris settled in China; merchants from Breslau and Poland met Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian merchants in the interior of Tartary, etc. See Le Bas, Précis de l'Histoire du Moyen Age.]

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The love of knowledge also drew nations together. Learned men did not hesitate to undertake long journeys, to cross the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the sea, that they might pursue their studies in Italy, (as Fortunatus at Ravenna in the sixth century,) obtain books on medicine, (Richer in the eleventh century,) [Footnote 231] meet English students in Spain, (Peter the Venerable in the twelfth century,) hold converse with some doctor at Bologna, or some monk in a monastery of the Apennines. How could there be no intercourse between the universities of Salamanca, of Pavia, of Oxford, and of Paris, when the same questions were discussed at them all; when the metaphysical heresies which sprang from one were refuted in another five hundred leagues distant; [Footnote 232] when the masters and pupils of Germany, England, Spain, France, and Italy flocked to these schools; from France to Padua, from England to Valencia, and from all countries to Paris, where, almost at the same time, disputations were carried on by Englishmen, Italians, Irishmen, and Germans, who were to be known as Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Brunetto Latini, Albertus Magnus, Alexander of Hales, and St. Thomas Aquinas?

[Footnote 231: Daremberg, ibid.]

[Footnote 232: And there were such close relations between the factions in France and those of England, that, in the fourteenth century, the revolutionary movements in Paris coincided with those in London. See Naudet, Conjuration d Etienne Marcel.]

It has been said that for literature to flourish, a nation must be invigorated by powerful and varied deeds: [Footnote 233] at what epoch was there a more stirring and varied life than in the middle ages?

[Footnote 233: Madame de Staël.]

Follow the continued journeys of the poet-historian Froissart to and fro in every direction, in France and without, now at the foot of the Pyrenees at the Chateau de Foix, and now in Italy, where, at Milan, he meets another poet, Chaucer of England, who had come to visit Genoa, Padua, etc. From Brittany he goes to Flanders, and even to Zealand, where he forms a friendship with a Portuguese lord. He thinks nothing of crossing the water; he goes to England repeatedly, dwells there, and penetrates even to Scotland, then "an unknown land." He traverses France from one end to the other; is in Spain to-day and to-morrow in Germany. Would you not think you were reading the life of a modern individual? He is called a chronicler: a chronicler indeed, and after the manner of the men of our own time; like them, chronicler and tourist, traversing earth and sea to participate in festivities, witness battles, and mingle in courts. [Footnote 234]

[Footnote 234: But with this difference: he did not travel in a cushioned car going at the rate of forty miles an hour, but on horseback, at a good round trot, with spurs on his heels and his luggage behind.]

Yes, kings, conquerors, and those in pursuit of adventures took long journeys with their armed followers, their vehicles, machines, and engines of war; princes, nobles, and warriors traversed Europe, escorted by brilliant cavalcades, upon their steeds and palfreys; merchants landed on foreign shores, the winds swelling the sails of their vessels; even learned men crossed the water and the mountains to add to their knowledge; conquerors to found empires, princes to strengthen their power by alliances, and merchants to gain wealth. But there were men who surpassed all these who were borne by chariots, vessels, and noble horses--the pilgrims who went on foot.

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Crowds, in constant succession, of men, women, and children, from all countries, undertook these pilgrimages to hundreds of holy places in Flanders, Spain, Rome, (where, says Villani, the jubilee of 1300 led more than two hundred thousand pilgrims,) and, above all, to the Holy Land, which led to the wonderful outpouring of all Europe into Asia and Africa for three centuries--the crusades, during which the West was brought into contact with Egypt, and through Egypt with India; through Constantinople, where the Latins founded an empire that lasted more than fifty years, with the Greeks, and through them with the chefs-d'oeuvre of pagan and Christian antiquity, and from whom they obtained books, manuscripts, agricultural implements, and a knowledge of industrial pursuits literature, and the arts. [Footnote 235]

[Footnote 235: They brought back, among other books, Aristotle's works on metaphysics, and cane, millet, camel's-hair stuffs, etc.]

And the monks, what long journeys they made in the world! Carried away by zeal for religion, they dispersed in every direction to preach the gospel; some to Prussia, Poland, and the extremities of Europe--to Norway; others from Greece, Egypt, and Syria to Ireland; others still (in the time of St. Louis) into Tartary, and even into China, where they found traces of Christianity left there by other monks who had preceded them. They went still farther beyond Ireland and Norway into Iceland, and from Iceland (St. Brandan in the eighth century) into an unknown land, peopled by strange men, clad with the skins of marine animals, where they built monasteries and churches, whence they penetrated still farther into the interior, even as far as Mexico perhaps, leaving behind them an ineffaceable remembrance, thus being the first to discover [Footnote 236] and inhabit the country to which they did not give its present name, but which was really the southern extremity of the New World which, four centuries after, Columbus discovered, and which is called America.

[Footnote 236: "When, in the eleventh century, the Scandinavians landed in Greenland, the Esquimaux told them that at the south there were white men clad in long black robes, who walked chanting and carrying banners before them; they were the monks who, in the eighth century, had set sail for Iceland, and had been thrown by the wind on the American coast." (Ozanam, Le Christianisme chez les Barbares.) Dom Pitra (Histoire de St. Léger) mentions a book of the sixteenth century on the voyages of the Benedictines into America--doubtless these monks lost among the savages, who left those signs of Christianity, crosses, a kind of baptism, etc., which were afterward found, and which otherwise would be inexplicable.]

It was neither thirst for riches, nor love of conquest, nor longing for power, nor even enthusiasm for knowledge, that induced them to undertake these extensive, dangerous, and fruitful enterprises; they were inspired by a more sublime sentiment--the love of God and of souls--the desire of devoting themselves to God, and of leading to him new followers out of strange nations.

IV.

Woman

There is no mark more distinctive of the character of individuals or nations than the treatment of woman. Christianity emancipated woman; it brought her forth from the obscurity to which she had been banished, and taking her by the hand, introduced her into the social world, and gave her a place beside man, that she might receive the spiritual aliment which would develop her mind, as well as elevate her soul. Taught by the example of Christ, the most eloquent and learned of the fathers--those philosophers of no sect--Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzen, Augustine, Paulinus, and Basil, address numerous letters to women--to women, so disdained by paganism that not a single letter to a woman is to be found in all the correspondence of Cicero. [Footnote 237]

[Footnote 237: And of Pliny. If Seneca composed two treatises, De Consolatione, for Marcia and Helvia it was because his ideas were modified by contact with Christianity. And I see herein a proof, which has not been sufficiently noticed, of his knowledge of the Christian doctrine or of his acquaintance with St. Paul.]

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But it may be said that these women who showed themselves worthy of holding converse with such great men read and wrote Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and belonged to the highest Roman society. There are no women who are not noble. The church opened schools for women where they received the same instructions as men. [Footnote 238]

[Footnote 238: Dom Pitra, Histoire de St. Léger, vi.]

There is, from the time of the illustrious patrician ladies who followed St. Jerome into the desert, St. Paula, St. Eustochium, etc., [Footnote 239:] an uninterrupted list of nuns, of abbesses, whom the church reveres as saints, and who might be claimed by the literary world on account of their attainments. For example, St. Radegonde, (in the sixth century,) who introduced into the monastery of St. Croix, at Poitiers, the rule of St. Caesarius, which obliged all the nuns to the study of letters, that is to say, Latin, the fathers, canonical law, history, cosmography, etc., to devote two hours a day to reading besides that which they listened to during labor and their meals, and to the transcribing of books, etc. etc.; Lioba, at Bischofsheim, in Germany, the mistress of a school in a barbarous country who only left her books to pray; [Footnote 240]

[Footnote 239: And Marcella, Blezilla, Paulina. Fabiola, (of the family of Fabii,) Furia, (of the family of Camillus, Melania, Marcellina, etc.)]

[Footnote 240: See Dom Pitra, ib. He mentions St. Aldegondes, St. Anstrude, etc. The monastery of Lioba, he says, was like a normal school with respect to the other schools springing up in Germany.]

St. Bertille, at Chelles; St. Gertrude, in Belgium, (seventh century,) who sent to Ireland and to Italy for books; and those poor women who studied theology under St. Boniface, (eighth century;) and Roswitha, whose dramatic works display not only the inventive imagination of the poet, but a learning rare among women of any age, shown by her quotations from the ancient poets, the historical facts she mentions, her knowledge of foreign languages, etc. [Footnote 241] A Gerbert and a Roswitha are sufficient to redeem a whole century from the charge of ignorance and barbarism; and if nuns in the heart of Germany made such attainments in literature, what must have been the women of the age of Charlemagne, of St. Bernard, and of St. Louis? Then the daughters and nieces of the emperor took lessons of Alcuin: a queen sang the sweet serenity of the cloister in graceful Latin verse; [Footnote 242] a young girl of Paris had for her teacher one of the most celebrated professors of her time; [Footnote 243] and then was drawn up a course of studies in which were prescribed, such as these: [Footnote 244]

[Footnote 241: Spanish particularly, proved by the Hispanismes in her style, pointed out by her learned editor, Magnin.]

[Footnote 242: Richarde, wife of Charles le Gros.]

[Footnote 243: Heloïse, and doubtless she was not the only one among the bourgeoisie of Paris. Recall also the learned nun mentioned in the beginning of Du Guesclin's life, who, in predicting his success, removed, as it were, the obstacles to his glorious career.]

[Footnote 244: Boutaric, _Vie et OEuvres de Pierre du Bois_, in the memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, 1864.]

"Children of both sexes, from five to twelve years of age: reading, (in the Psalter,) singing, grammar, moral distichs, (of Cato,) and, a little later, Latin, which they will learn to speak. Young girls: natural history, surgery, medicine, logic, Latin, and the oriental languages"--a plan drawn up in the dark and ignorant middle ages, which could not be easily pursued even in this age, distinguished and enlightened by the romances of so many women of genius!

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We need not wait till the time of Clemence Isaure (fourteenth century) to find a woman whom Christianity had imbued with taste and a delicate poetical nature. History, chronicles, and ballads have opened to us the chateaux where, whilst the mail-clad baron and his armed followers fought without, his wife, seated in some deep embrasure, would cast a glance from time to time through the narrow window upon the varied landscape, and then resume, in the large, open volume before her, the fabulous and heroic exploits of knights and brave men among the paynim and giants; where, at nightfall, in the midst of her servants and followers, she listened smilingly and thoughtfully to some wandering troubadour singing of war, of love, and of tournaments, and relating his adventures--a charming picture which allies the romantic chatelaine--passing by the elegant and trifling ladies of the court of the Restoration--with the strong-minded women of the seventeenth century, so captivating and so learned, who read philosophical treatises, spoke several languages, studied the doctors and fathers of the church, and who are considered by the world as models of wit, taste, elegance, and grace: Longueville, Montausier, Lafayette, Rambouillet, Jacqueline Pascal, Maintenon, and Sévigné!

V.

The Nobility.

But it is necessary to make a painful avowal. In the midst of the general diffusion of knowledge in monasteries, schools, universities, towns, boroughs, and villages, and even among the poor and lowly, there is one class of society which remained during all the middle ages in shameful ignorance--the nobility.

The kings, however, who issued from its ranks, and who in all ages prided themselves on the name of gentleman, were an exception. The sons of Clovis were the first pupils of the school established in his palace and directed by his chaplain. This example was perpetuated. The princes of the Merovingian dynasty pursued their studies in the monasteries, and literary habits became so congenial to them that, in some instances, they were carried to excess and became a kind of mania, as in the case of the prince called the Clerc couronné. (Chilperic.) As to Charlemagne, who spoke the Latin language, understood Greek, made astronomical calculations, brought professors from Italy, (Peter of Pisa and Paul the Hellenist deacon,) and founded the first academy and the first university, it is useless to insist on him, for he is universally acknowledged to be at once a hero, a learned man, and a saint. Nor are the literary tastes of the most eminent sovereigns denied, as Alfred the Great, the translator of AEsop and commentator of Bede; Charles le Chauve, who had Aristotle and Plato explained to him by masters from Constantinople; Alfonso the Wise, astronomer, legislator, and historian; Robert the Pious; Otto II., who appointed Gerbert, the wisest man of the age, tutor to his son; Frederick II., who spoke German, French, Arabic, Latin, and Greek; and Philip Augustus, the patron of literature and the arts, "who, for that age, was as magnificent as Louis XIV." [Footnote 245]

[Footnote 245: Villemain, ibid.]

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And later than the twelfth century, is it astonishing that St. Louis admitted St. Thomas of Aquin to his table, where, in his presence, were discussed the highest questions of philosophy? That the rule of study drawn up for John, son of Philip of Valois, included Latin and several languages? [Footnote 246] That Charles V. collected at the Louvre a library of considerable size, and that his brothers, the dukes of Burgundy and Berri, carried away by love for the arts, ordered miniatures, which are admirable paintings, from the celebrated painters, Memling, Van Eyck, and Jean Fouquet? But we are approaching the time of the Restoration, and consequently all these facts prove nothing.

[Footnote 246: In a memoir addressed to the queen in 1334 and composed of one hundred and six articles, the unknown author gives the king's daily rule of life as follows: "Rise at six all the year round--Mass at seven--business till ten--supper at six--to bed at ten--to have his son taught several languages, even Latin, to fit him to travel."]

But were these enlightened, well-informed, and even learned monarchs satisfied with their own attainments, and did they live in their courts among brutal, ignorant, and coarse warriors who could only talk of combats and gallantry? No; it is well known that their principal vassals, the minor sovereigns, especially those of Southern France, where the learning of Rome was diffused, were not wholly unlettered. In the ninth century, there was the son of a Count (Maguelonne) St. Benedict of Amiane, who was at the head of all the monasteries in France, and who compared, modified, and wrote commentaries on the rules of the various religious orders--Greek as well as Latin; Foulques, Count of Anjou, in the tenth century--yes, in the tenth century, that darkest period of the middle ages--understood Aristotle and Cicero, as has been proved, and in the following century, when the leaders of the crusades assembled at Jerusalem to draw up a code of laws--a civil and political code--charter of citizenship, etc., they evidently understood not only the general customs, but Roman law; and several of them (Iselin, etc.) were no less proficients in the law than valiant knights; [Footnote 247] finally, if the muse of France would trace its ancestry back to former times, it would find two princes, William of Poitiers and Thibaut of Champagne. It is right, then, to leave out the testimony of sovereigns.

[Footnote 247: Robertson, in his introduction to the History of Charles V., is mistaken when he says the middle ages were ignorant of Roman law until the twelfth century. Roman law was not revived by the discovery of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi: it was always known and practised: it was cited at the tribunals, and generally known during all the middle ages, as demonstrated by Savigny, Histoire du Droit romain au Moyen Age. See also Fauriel, Histoire des Populations méridionales.]

History also certifies a very singular fact: the leaders, the leudes, under the Merovingians, sent their children to the school at the palace "to be initiated in palatial learning." There they underwent examinations, studied the fathers, history, law, religious dogmas, received degrees, etc. This fact is thus explained: these young men were hostages that the king kept at court to insure the fealty of their fathers, no doubt; and the consequence of this truly barbarous idea was to convert a prison into a school and an academy! There was another custom almost as singular: these young men are represented as travelling, even in the earliest ages, in the various countries of Europe--France, Spain, and Italy--and in the East. Yes, notwithstanding the insecurity of the routes, it was the fashion in the seventh century to send young Englishmen to France to be reared, and even in many cases across the Alps to Rome, Padua, etc. Some went to complete their education in Greece, and, after the establishment of the Latin Empire, at Constantinople. These young men apparently belonged to wealthy and noble families. {612} And we would recall the fact that in the schools directed by Clement, a Scotchman, Charlemagne assembled--strange idea!--"a great number of children of all classes from the highest to the lowest rank;" [Footnote 248] that among the pupils of Lanfranc, at the abbey of Bec, were a great number of the children of lords and barons, and, among others, William, Duke of Normandy, and that son of an Italian nobleman who, later, was known as Pope Alexander II. It would appear that these young men did not allow the faculties they had developed to remain unproductive and useless, from the fact that the earliest poets were princes and nobles. But then, poetry is the offspring of the imagination and of genius, and the French race, particularly in the South, are so richly gifted therewith!

[Footnote 248: The monk of St. Gall, mentioned by Phil. le Bas, ibid.]

What is more surprising, the first French historians were two lords: Villehardoin in the twelfth century, and Joinville in the thirteenth--historians not without culture. There are in their language elegance, distinction, and Attic wit. They mention, en passant, and without affectation, names and facts that attest varied knowledge, and their style is so perfect that competent writers have concluded that the nobility moulded the French language to history and poetry--the ideal and the practical! [Footnote 249] It is probably to these studious habits and this inclination for intellectual pursuits, perpetuated for ages like a tradition, is due the delicate and correct taste peculiar to the French nobility of the last two centuries, and the noble ambition of the great lords who have not been satisfied with protecting the arts, but have deemed it an honor to have their historical names inscribed on the list of the academies, have striven to acquire a knowledge of letters, to excel in it, and to add to the lustre of their descent brilliancy of talent and the glory reserved for intellectual labors.

[Footnote 249: Villemain, ibid., Léop. Delisle, A. de la Borderie, Marchegay. See also Audé, Mémoires de la Société d'Emulation de la Vendée, and the works already mentioned of Boutaric, Littré, Pierre Clémnent, etc.]

Finally--for we must collect testimony for the acquittal of the accused--since the judgment has been so severe, the most conscientious and erudite men of modern times, having traversed the middle ages and returned laden with documents, declare that, among the numberless titles that passed through their hands, they never met this formula, so often mentioned: this one, being a nobleman, attests his inability to sign his name.

Yet in spite of these proofs, these attestations, and the authority of the witnesses, there is one fact beyond doubt, the absolute ignorance of the nobility of the middle ages, and we are forced, to our great regret, to conclude that this opinion must be accepted as a historical fact of the same class, and as clearly proved, as the so well authenticated facts of Sixtus V. throwing away his crutches as soon as he was elected Pope, Gilles de Raiz slaughtering his wives like Bluebeard, Charles V. participating in his own funeral rites at St. Just, Marie de Medicis dying of hunger in a garret at Cologne, and Galileo imprisoned in a dungeon of the Inquisition!

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VI.

Character Of The Knowledge Of The Middle Ages.

The language of a people is One of the Signs that mark its progress Or decay. If the genius of a language is fully developed, the nation is in its apogee; if it is not developed, or if it is losing its purity, the nation is progressing or declining. This is a truth remarked by one of the most active minds of the last century. "In the thirteenth century," says Rivarol, "the French language had more nearly attained a certain perfection than in the sixteenth." [Footnote 250] He is astonished: he finds the fact "very extraordinary," but he does not explain it. The explanation is easy. The French language was much nearer perfection in the thirteenth than in the sixteenth century, because society was more firmly established. The sixteenth century was an age of transition, the dawn of a great era--an avenue leading to a large city which we pass through, but in which we do not linger. The men of that time, without being aware of it, were preparing for the future. They collected materials for building from the remains of antiquity and the attempts of foreigners; they imitated and did not invent. Consequently their language was obscure and loaded with foreign idioms and antiquated expressions; it was neither bold, nor expressive, nor clear; it was ornamented, rich, and redundant; it was overladen like a tree not pruned; the fruit was hidden by an excess of foliage. A great wind--the agitation of civil war-- shook off this exuberant foliage and the fruit appeared; the sun of the seventeenth century warmed and colored it with its rays; then it ripened, and the French language attained its definite form and became immortal.

[Footnote 250: In his Discours sur l'Universalité de la Langue Française, always to the point, and often profound, a writer of our time goes still further: "The language was fully developed and equal to our own," says M. Villemain, Histoire de la Litérature du Moyen Age, lesson x.]

The language of the thirteenth century was as complete and perfect as it could be. At that period were laid the foundations of Christian science. [Footnote 251] Doubtless, each age adding to the knowledge of mankind, that science was not as extended as now, but it had the essential qualities of true science: it was analytical; it constantly applied this axiom, which is the condition of progress: Multùm, non multa. Everything corresponds: the science of the Egyptians was on a level with their arts; their philosophy was as complex as their religion was mysterious. It was the same in the middle ages. They possessed the true religion, had right views of philosophy, attained to eminence in the arts, and made accurate scientific observations. And late researches have shown that they greatly extended the knowledge they inherited from antiquity. [Footnote 252] Their alchemists and physicians were not charlatans. The general principles of Albertus Magnus and the Jewish and Arabian physicians of Spain and Asia harmonize with those of modern science. They were ignorant of certain phenomena, as a certain skill was wanting to the artists of the time; but this ignorance can no more be raised as an objection than against the learned men of our time for not knowing the scientific discoveries of a thousand years hence. It is not extent of knowledge that stamps an epoch as great, but the use it makes of it, and the logical conclusions it draws from its principles.

[Footnote 251: La Raison Catholique et la Raison philosophe, ii., by Ventura.]

[Footnote 252: Littré, ibid.]

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The science of the middle ages was eminently logical, for it had its source in a mountain whose summit rises to heaven--in theology--whence it flows in streams upon all minds. Theology, it has been said, [Footnote 253] is only the expression of an idea: it is much more, it is the sublime end of thought--the first of all sciences, the science par excellence--the science of God. The sceptre of science belongs to Europe only because it had its source in theology, [Footnote 254] which occupied every mind in the middle ages--the greatest as well as the narrowest minds--"which, dwelling on great things, became great." It prompted them to other attainments. To climb to the heights of knowledge, they had to lay hold of the asperities of the mountain and of all the branches of science one after another; of jurisprudence, civil law--the branch nearest the surface of the earth; then of the physical sciences; afterward of geometry, algebra, astronomy, and the still higher branches, canon law and philosophy! [Footnote 255]

[Footnote 253: Villemain, Histoire de la Littérature da Moyen Age, lesson xviii. He evidently does not comprehend the influence of theology, for he adds, "As in another age the public mind is expressed by politics, the theology of one epoch is the philosophy of another."]

[Footnote 254: J. de Maistre.]

[Footnote 255: The Oxford students and those of other universities studied at the same time civil and canon law.]

And above all, and mingled with all, literature; for letters are the expression of the mind itself--the universal mind--whilst "the sciences require only a partial application of it." [Footnote 256] In the literature of a people are embodied its ideas, manners, arts, industrial pursuits, worship, and its whole life. By it man traverses countries and ages, imbibes their spirit, and strengthens his mind more than by any other study. Thence the incessant study of ancient literature, which, in the thirteenth century, was more generally diffused than ever. Latin, the language of tradition and of the church, the original language of the present dominant nations of France, Italy, Spain, and even England, (Latin was spoken in England until the fourteenth century, and a great number of words in the English language is derived from the Latin,) was understood by all classes; discussions in Latin were carried on in universities, and grammar and Latin were taught in the village schools. [Footnote 257] They were constantly making researches; Villani at Rome read Lucan, Virgil, Valerius Maximus; the scholars of Cambridge wrote commentaries on Cicero. In France, Sallust and Titus Livius were translated, soon followed by Caesar, Ovid, and Suetonius, (under Charles V.) Greek became more universally known after the taking of Constantinople by the crusaders; Aristotle was translated into Latin by Michael Scott, and bishops in Italy wrote homilies in the language of Chrysostom. [Footnote 258] Theologians, philosophers, and poets were nourished by the valuable and concise remains of antiquity; Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, as well as the Franciscan lyrics and the Romance of the Rose. All the works of that time are full of ancient reminiscences.

[Footnote 256: Expression of Napoleon I.]

[Footnote 257: Léop. Delisle, Les Classes agricoles en Normandie au treizième siècle.]

[Footnote 258: Manuscripts seen by M. Renan, in the Vatican. Missions scientifiques.]

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Nevertheless, they did not neglect other languages. In the great intercourse of nations there was an exchange of idioms. How much is proved respecting that intercourse and the knowledge of languages, by the single fact that the Archbishop of Toledo, at the Council of Lateran in 1215, delivered a discourse in Latin, and then repeated it for the laity in Spanish, French, and German. But they did not restrict themselves to the European languages. Why should not the learned men who went to seek knowledge from the Jews and the Moors, and studied Aristotle as often from the Arabian commentators as from the original works, endeavor to acquire the language of those they so often came in contact with? and the adventurers who crossed the deserts into the heart of Asia; and the Italian republics that traded with Africa; the ambassadors that kings sent to the Khan of Tartary; the merchants who daily saw, landing in their ports and mingling in their fairs, the turbans, pelisses, and caftans of merchants from Cairo, Aleppo, Bagdad, Novgorod, and Sarmacand? Besides, the oriental languages had never been neglected. In the sixth century, King Gontran, at his entrance into Orleans, was addressed in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. [Footnote 259] In the crowded schools of the eighth century were studied all languages, even the oriental, says Dom Pitra. From the tenth century the pilgrimages to the Holy Land and the crusades made the language of the Saracens (Arabic) familiar to a great number. But there was a still stronger reason which led to the acquisition of the Eastern languages--the conversion of the infidels.

[Footnote 259: See Gregory of Tours.]

The course of study already mentioned was inspired by a great idea--Christian in its nature--the conquest of the East by the infusion of Christianity; regeneration by civilization, to use the modern expression. The noble mind that conceived it wished to continue the work of the crusades by diffusing the doctrines, opinions, and arts of Christendom: after arms, the sciences. France, in its enthusiasm for proselyting, wished to send on a mission of priests, artisans, physicians, women, entire families, in fact, a whole colony. These people would establish themselves in the Holy Land, colonize it, found a Christian race, and from that sacred spot--from Mount Zion--diverge on every side, into Africa as well as Asia, into Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Arabia; mingle among the people enveloped in darkness, (the term is just in this case,) influence them by their actions, morals, intelligence and good deeds, and accomplish in that age--the thirteenth century--the providential work that Europe, without entirely knowing what it is effecting, is realizing in our day--the transformation of the rest of the world, the union of savage, barbarous, and brutal people into a universal nation who will be guided by the spirit of the gospel. [Footnote 260]

[Footnote 260: Abel de Rémusat, Mémoire sur les Relations des Princes Chrétiens avec les Empereurs Moguls, quoted by M. Guizot, Histoire de la Civilization en Europe.]

It was in order to prepare laborers for this sublime enterprise that this plan of studies, as varied as extended, was prepared. Do you not see all it supposes--the comprehension of the authors, schools, and men capable of applying the plan? And it did not remain a mere project; it began to be executed. The University of Paris proposed to establish a professorship of the Tartar language. It was not done till a later day, because the university only acts with a view to science; but the church did not delay, prompted by a more noble motive. At Rome it taught the oriental languages in its colleges; at Paris, the monks of St. Père de-Chartres, at the annual expense of one thousand francs, opened, for the space of three years, a school for young men from the East, who returned to their country carrying with them the acquirements of the West and the eternal truths of religion. [Footnote 261]

[Footnote 261: Cartulary of St. Père de Chartres.]

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The councils (that of Vienna in 1311) decreed that the oriental languages. should be taught at Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, Oxford, and all the great universities. The church wishes to diffuse knowledge in order to evangelize the world; it arms men with science that they may be more powerful, and it pushes them forward in the career of learning, that, at the end, they may find God.

VII.

Ardor For Learning.

And the church has always found disciples eager to listen to its instructions. The very barbarians, it has been remarked, were not averse to study; they had, on the contrary, that innate taste for letters which distinguishes the Germanic race. The Franks were easily instructed; they mingled among the Gauls of the South in the course of rhetoric and poetry, (at Bordeaux in the fifth and sixth centuries;) St. Medard, Bede, and Mici counted them by thousands in their schools. When the twelfth century opened more numerous schools, an immense crowd hastened to them. It was an invasion of recruits, who wished to learn the use of the arms of knowledge, in England, Germany, and Italy; at Milan there were eighty masters who were laymen; France above all, displayed its characteristic ardor. At Paris, colleges were founded one after another; two at the end of the twelfth century, fifteen in the thirteenth and fourteenth; one half of Paris was transformed into schools. That of the Canons of Notre Dame extended from the church to the Petit-Pont; then it passed over the left bank and ascended the mountain [Footnote 262] --the mountain that has preserved the name of Quartier Latin--the true realm of science imagined by the poets, where lived, in close proximity, turbulent bands of students from every land, in groups, according to their nations and languages.

[Footnote 262: Vict. le Clerc, Histoire de la Litterature au treizième siècle.]

Foreigners [Footnote 263] proclaimed Paris the centre of knowledge, and, in a right and elevated sense, the leader of Europe. There was then some merit in the pursuit of knowledge. The name of one of the streets of Paris, the Rue du Fouare, so-called from the straw and hay upon which they seated themselves, bears witness to the ardor of these students of the dark ages, less anxious for their ease than to obtain knowledge. They rewarded their own masters, and valued no expense to obtain those most renowned; they sent to all parts of Europe for them, and gave them a position often ten times more valuable than that of the professors of our time. [Footnote 264]

[Footnote 263: John of Salisbury, Dante, Brunetto Latini, etc.]

[Footnote 264: Le Play, Réforme sociale, (47,) and Mateucci, Les Universites d'Italie, (Revue des Cours scientifiques, 1867.)]

It was difficult for many to contribute their share in all this expense, in addition to the cost of living in a large city; but in the hope of acquiring the knowledge, the poorer subjected themselves to the most painful sacrifices. The romance of Gil Blas depicts the young men of the University of Salamanca as valets and students. What existed in Spain in the eighteenth century was the condition of many students of the middle ages. Yes, they reduced themselves to servitude to obtain degrees, and made themselves valets to gain their daily bread--a noble servitude for which they did not blush, which put the body in subjection, and left the mind free, showing the superiority of mind over matter; it was a voluntary humiliation, which, for a time, put the indigent scholar beneath the rich, but aided him to attain in the world the place due to intelligence and knowledge, to rise to the level of the most powerful, and often to the most eminent dignities of the church and state--to the councils of kings and the purple of cardinals.

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And what ardent scholars! It was the age of the schoolmen. Scholastic learning, afterward so disdained by forgetfulness or ignorance, was the animated, living, and natural form which gave expression to the passionate love of those young men for study. Those descendants of the Franks rushed forward with the same eagerness as to battle to share in the close reasoning, the logic that contended so fiercely, that made every effort and climbed tooth and nail to obtain a position strongly contested. What valiant armies! what soldiers in "these tournaments that are like combats!" [Footnote 265] But what captains also! what leaders! what masters! St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus--at once theologians, philosophers, moralists, politicians, writers on political economy, and savants! What a trio in one century and at the same period!

[Footnote 265: Bonald.]

But do you know what took place in the thirteenth century at the course of Albertus Magnus? Not hundreds but thousands of pupils hastened to his lessons. [Footnote 266]

[Footnote 266: It was the same throughout the middle ages. At Bologna there were, in the thirteenth century, ten thousand pupils at the law school; in the eleventh century, they came from every land to attend the instructions of Abelard; he counted several thousand auditors, and among them twenty cardinals and fifty bishops. We could multiply these examples indefinitely.]

It was not ardor that animated them, but enthusiasm; an apartment was not required to contain them, but a square! No enclosure would have sufficed for such a multitude. A great commotion forced the master to leave his chair--a commotion such as is rarely seen in our days, in which the crowd cried to their teacher, "Away from here!" "Exi! Foras!"--a respectful uprising in which the master is proud to obey; he descends from his chair into the midst of the crowd, which is roaring like the sea, and is borne away by a thousand arms to a large square, where, on an elevation of stone, he can overlook the countless human heads which extend back to the houses and fill up the openings of the streets, but which are now motionless, attentive, and mute before the sound of a single voice that enchains them. O barbarous generation! O age of darkness in which a master required the open air of heaven and the paved square for a classroom! Compare the literary dilettantism of a few hundred young men enclosed within the walls of an amphitheatre of a hundred feet, with the ardent thirst of this crowd, which required not a jar, but a whole river, to satisfy its thirst for knowledge, and which has left a proof of its eager desire in the capital and in the language, the name of the square into which so many students crowded to hear their master--the Place Maubert, Magni Alberti--the Square of the great Albert!

We see how erroneous is the opinion that attributes to the epoch between the middle of the fifteenth and the middle of the seventeenth centuries the revival of letters and the arts. Letters were not revived; they still existed and enlightened the world. "The great agitation of the Reformation is often represented as having contributed to literary and scientific development," says M. A. Maury, a writer not suspected of partiality to the middle ages. "This is not absolutely true. {618} The contests to which it gave rise retarded for a time the diffusion of knowledge; many monasteries, libraries, and schools were suppressed, which had been, up to that time, the great sources of light." Christian historians were the first to become suspicious of error and to point it out. Hurter, the great German historian, says: "Only superficial minds that disdain the study of documents and are blinded by the pretended superiority of our epoch, or by systematic hatred, dare accuse the church of having favored ignorance." [Footnote 267] All truly learned men soon became of the same mind. One of them, who has made the middle ages his study for twenty years, cannot restrain his indignation: "Our historians, even those who are considered the best, dwelling on the grossest conjectures and influenced by obsolete prejudices, without thinking of verifying, still less of rectifying, old assertions, have summed up the whole history of the first part of the middle ages in these two words, ignorance and superstition; but it is to themselves," he adds severely, "and not to the ages they have misunderstood and calumniated, that these two words should be applied." [Footnote 268] "The idea of progress is not a pagan idea," says Ozanam. [Footnote 269]

[Footnote 267: History of Innocent III., book xxi.]

[Footnote 268: Daremberg, Cours of 1867; and to the support of his opinions he brings Guizot, Dom Pitra, Ozanam, Heeren, etc.]

[Footnote 269: Histoire de la Civilisation an cinquième siècle, chap. iv.]

The doctrine of progress is as old as the gospel; and the author of Les Etudes sur les Barbares et le Moyen Age confirms this: "The people of the middle ages felt the necessity of knowledge; they studied and labored conscientiously and energetically, and marked each age by important developments." The more carefully we examine those ages, the better shall we understand the extent of knowledge in the church. The most eminent men of those times--who does not know them?--are bishops, monks, and popes: Gerbert, St. Bernard, Innocent III., and St. Thomas Aquinas, who can only be compared to Aristotle; the most original writers--who does not forget it?--are priests: Froissart, Petrarch, and later, Calderon, Lope de Vega, and Tirso de Molina; the greatest poet of the middle ages, Dante, was he not a theologian? Cimabue, who revived the art of painting, was he not reared among the Dominicans of Florence? Was not the first press in Paris set up at the Sorbonne? The best informed class of men were so incontestably the clergy that the names of priest and savant were confounded. The word clergie in the middle ages signified learned. [Footnote 270] The church takes the highest rank in the world of science. It does not acquire knowledge for itself alone, but to diffuse everywhere, that the whole earth may be enlightened. Like the sun, it is a great centre diffusing the light it derives from God--its eternal source!

[Footnote 270: J. de Maistre, Du Pape, ii. 16.]

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From The French Of Erckmann And Chatrian.

The Invasion; Or, Yegof The Fool.

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