Chapter XV
"The Coming Of The Messenger."
All through that terrible day, the two staid by Mr. Granger's bedside, holding his hands, cooling his fevered face, and watching for a sign of consciousness that came not. At evening there was a struggle, short but sharp, and before they had breathed forth the breath they caught as he started up, the soul had broken loose, and a lifeless form sank back upon the pillow.
Do they listen to us when they are gone? Could he, in the first surprise of sudden freedom, hear the cry, like that of a bereaved Lear, that sought to follow him, "Oh! stay a little!" or the weeping testimony of the other, "There stopped the noblest, kindest heart that ever beat"?
But, listen though he might, from one he heard no word of mourning or appeal after that. Since he was happy, and had no longer any need of her, and since she had done all in her power to do for him, she could now remember herself. That his humiliating offer of an empty hand had been kindly meant, did not lessen her resentment, but rather increased it. However confident he had been that his interpretation of her perfectly frank conduct was the true one, he should never have allowed her to know it, she said. Her heart seemed hardened toward him, and all her friendship dead. "How I have wasted myself!" was the bitter comment with which she turned away from taking her last look at him.
More than once, in the first days of their loss, that fiery anger of an insulted heart broke forth. On their way home, as she sat on the steamer-deck at night, slowly touching bead after bead of her rosary, not praying, but waiting for a prayerful feeling that might come, there came, instead, a recollection of the year before. It rose and painted itself, like a picture, between her and the wide, cool shade and sparkle of midnight sea and sky. There was the home parlor, the window where she sat that day after her retreat was over, so happy, half with heaven and half with earth, the curtain fanning her, the vines swinging in and out in the light breeze. She saw Mr. Granger come to her side and drop a rosary into her hands, saw the silver glitter of his pretty gift, and heard the words that accompanied it, "And indeed, it should have been of gold, had not Jupiter been so poor."
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The words caught a new meaning as she recollected them.
"If not gold, then nothing!" she exclaimed; and, leaning over the rail, flung his gift as far as she could fling it out over the water.
The waning moonlight ran around the frosted chain and pearl beads, as if some spirit hand had swiftly told every Pater and Ave of them in expiation of that rash act. Then the waters caught them, and they slipped twinkling down through the green deeps.
Margaret left the deck, and went down to where Mr. Lewis walked to and fro, keeping his mournful watch. His face was pale, and his eyes heavy. He looked perfectly grief stricken.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "Has any one spoken to you?"
"No; but I have been thinking." She leaned on his arm, and looked down upon the casket at their feet. "That man thought that I wanted him to marry me. Is it only a wicked pride, I wonder, that rises up in revolt when I remember it? Should not there be a better name? I could not be angry then, because he was dying; and I forgot it till the next night, after all was over, when I went in to see him. I was full of grief then, and had some silly notion, just like me! of telling him, and that he would hear. The wind had blown the hair over his forehead, and just as I started to put it back, I recollected, and caught my hand away and left him. I had nothing to say to him then, nor since. What did he want to kill my friendship so for? His memory would have been sweet to me.
It is poisoned." "Well," Mr. Lewis said, with a sort of despair, "women are queer beings, and you are ultra womanish. One day you will risk your life for a man, and the next you will look with scorn upon him in his coffin. A better name than pride, do you say? I call it the most infernal kind of pride. Where is your gratitude, girl, toward the man who never had any but a kind word and thought for you? He arranged everything for you, that first night, just as much as he did for Dora, and made me promise that you should never want for a friend while I live. You ought to humble yourself, Margaret, and beg his pardon."
"Do you think so?" she asked faintly. "I hope that you are right. I would rather blame myself than him."
"Of course I think so!" he answered indignantly. "Did he ever give you one unkind look, even? Did he ever prefer any one else before you? Did he ever allow any one to speak against you in his presence? I never, before nor since, saw him take fire as he did once when some one criticised you to him."
"Did he? Did he?" exclaimed Margaret, kneeling by the casket, and laying her cheek to the cold wood. "Ah! that was indeed friendship!"
In that softened mood she reached home.
When death, in visiting a household, is unaccompanied by sordid cares, the lost one being necessary to our hearts alone; when the living have no remorse for the past and no terror for the future of their friend; when the silent face is peaceful; and when the earth that opens to receive it is warm and full of life, like the bosom of a mother where a sleeping child hides its face--then death is more beautiful than life.
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Thus this celestial visitant came to the Granger household; and if an angel had alighted visibly in their midst, and folded his white wings to tarry there a day, the presence could not have been more sacred or more sweet. Every sign of gloom was banished. The light was no more shut out than it always was in summer; all the rooms were perfumed with flowers; and the master of the house was not left alone, but lay at the front end of the long parlor suite, in full sight of the family as they came and went.
Among the many callers who came that day was the Rev. Dr. Kenneth, the old minister with whom we have seen Mr. Southard taking theological counsel. This gentleman listened with astonishment and indignation while Mrs. Lewis told him that Mr. Granger had died a Catholic, and would have a requiem mass the next morning.
"He must have been unduly influenced, madam!" said the minister excitedly. "Mr. Granger would never have taken such a step of himself. It is impossible!"
Somewhat embarrassed, Mrs. Lewis drew back, and disclosed Miss Hamilton sitting in the shadow behind her, and, at the first word of reply, gladly left the room, having no mind to stand between two such fires, though the doctor's opponent looked too pale and quiet to be very dangerous.
"With God all things are possible, Dr. Kenneth," was what Margaret said. He regarded her sternly; yet after a moment softened at sight of the utter mournfulness of her face.
"O child of many prayers!" he exclaimed, "whither have you wandered?"
"Please don't!" she said. "I can not bear anything; and we don't want any harsh words while he is here."
The doctor hesitated, and turned to go; but she stopped him.
"While I saw you standing out there and looking at him, I remembered how often you used to come to my grandfather's, and how you petted me when I was a little girl. One day I was trying to carry you the large Bible, and I fell with it. Grandfather scolded me; but you patted my head when you saw that I was on the point of crying, and said that the Highest and the Holiest fell, not once only, but thrice, under his burden. And you pulled my curls, and said, laughing, that if strength dwelt in length of locks, then I ought to be able to carry not only the Bible, but the house. What makes the difference now? Are you harder? or am I in less need of charity?"
"You have your friends," he said coldly, "those for whom you left us."
"Not so," she replied. "I have those in this house; but in the church I had only him out there. My church, here, at least, does not receive converts as yours does. I suppose it must be because they know that we are only coming home to our own Father's house, and they think it would be presumptuous in them to come to meet us, as if we needed to be welcomed."
"What! was no courtesy, no kindness shown you?" he asked incredulously.
"Scarcely a decent civility," she replied. "But no matter about that. Only, I want you to remember it, and to send my old friends back to me. If they will not come, then their talk of religious freedom is hardly sincere; and if you do not tell them, then I shall think you unchristian. Indeed, doctor, when you have passed me ill the street, without any notice, I haven't thought that you were very good just then."
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The doctor looked at her keenly. "I will be friends with you on one condition," he said.
"And that?"
"Let Mr. Southard alone!" he said with emphasis.
Before she could utter a protestation, he had left the room.
The day crept past, and the night, and another day; and then there was nothing for them to do but take up their life, and try to make the best of it.
The first event to break the monotony came in September, when Dora was baptized. All the family attended the ceremony, for the time putting aside whatever prejudices they might feel. Then they began to look eagerly for Mr. Southard's return.
He might be expected on the first Sunday of October, he wrote most positively, but, for the rest, was very indefinite. He wrote so vaguely, indeed, that his congregation were rather displeased. His leave of absence had expired, yet he seemed to consider his coming home a furlough. Rather extraordinary, they thought it.
Mr. Southard was not one of those pastors who live in a chronic deluge of worsted-work from their lady friends. On his first coming to the pulpit, there had been symptoms of such an inundation; but he had checked them with characteristic promptness, representing to the fair devotees the small need he had of four-score pairs of pantoufles, even should his life be prolonged as many years, and suggesting that those who had so much leisure might profitably employ it in visiting and sewing for the poor. But the repulse was given with such simplicity and candor, and so utterly unconscious did he appear that any motive could have prompted their labors save a profound conviction that their pastor was shoeless, that even the most inveterate needle-woman forgave him. He was not in the least sentimental, he was indeed strict, and often cold, though never harsh.
Still, though he lacked many of the qualities of a modern popular minister, his people were much attached to him. They trusted him thoroughly, and they were proud of him. He had talent, culture, and a high character and reputation. He was not a sensational preacher; but his directness and earnestness were unique, and occasionally his hearers were electrified by some eloquent outburst, full of antique fire kindled at the shrines of the prophets. It also did not go against him that he was the handsomest man in the city, a bachelor, and rich enough in his own right to dispense with a salary.
Great, therefore, was their delight when his return was positively announced, and they set about preparing for it with a good will.
The church was renovated, a new Bible and a sofa were purchased, and a beautiful Catharine-wheel window, full of colored glass, was put in over the choir. Receptions were arranged, flowers bespoken, committees appointed, the barouche which was to take him home from the depot was chosen, and the two dignitaries who were to occupy it with him were, after due deliberation, selected. All this was done decently and in order. Mr. Southard's people were far from being of the vulgar, showy sort, and prided themselves on being able to accomplish a good deal without any fuss whatever. Even the newspaper chorus which proclaimed each progressive step of the minister's homeward journey, as Clytemnestra the coming of the sacred fire, sang in subdued language and unobtrusive type. At last, all that was wanting was the final announcement, in the Saturday evening papers, that the reverend gentleman had arrived. {725} Indeed, the notice had been written, with all particulars, the evening before, and had almost got into print, when it was discovered that Mr. Southard had not arrived. The barouche had returned from the depot without him, the two dignified personages who went as escort suffering a temporary diminution of dignity and an access of ill-temper. It is rather mortifying to see people look disappointed that it is only you who have come, and to know that not only have you lost the glory which was to have been reflected on you from the principal actor in the scene, but that your own proper lustre is for the time obscured. +
It was found, however, that a letter had been written by Mr. Southard, not a pleasing one, by any means, to his disappointed masters of ceremonies. He would be in his pulpit on Sunday morning, he informed them; and after Sunday would be happy and grateful to see any of his dear and long-tried friends who would be so kind as to call on him. But till that time he did not feel equal to the excitement of any formal reception. He had scarcely recovered his strength after a long illness, he was fatigued with travel, and also, he was returning to a house made desolate by the death of one of his oldest and dearest friends.
"They are terribly wilted," Mr. Lewis said, as the family sat around the centre-table that evening. "You never saw anybody so grumpy as the deacons are. They are scandalized, moreover, in view of the only way in which he can come now. Of course, he will have to travel all night, and come into town Sunday morning. There's Sabbath-breaking for you."
"One good thing," Mrs. Lewis said; "they have stopped ringing the door-bell. I do believe there have been a hundred people here to-day to ask if Mr. Southard had come."
"Auntie," said Aurelia, with a look of mild horror, "you don't know what uncle said to the last gentleman who came. He told him that when the minister made his appearance, he would hang out a flag over the portico, and fire rockets from the front windows."
The three ladies were sewing, and Dora sat beside Margaret with a catechism in her hand, learning the Acts.
"Aunt Margaret," whispered the child, "what do you think God told me when I said, 'O my God! I firmly believe'? Says he,' Oh! what a lying little girl you are!'"
"Why should he say that?" was the grave inquiry.
"Because I told him that I believed all the sacred truths; and how can I believe when I don't know 'em? This is what I did; I said, 'Please don't listen to me now, O Lord! I'm not talking to you. I'm only learning my lesson.'"
"Come to bed now, my dear," said Margaret, "and we will talk about it."
"I did not expect Mr. Southard to show so much feeling," Mrs. Lewis said, when the two had gone out. "He received the news of Mr. Granger's change of religion with such silent displeasure that I supposed he would discard even his memory. He shows courage, too, in still speaking of him as a friend; for some of his people will be displeased."
"I'm sure, aunt," Aurelia replied rather hastily, "no one can say that Mr. Southard ever lacked the courage to utter his sentiments."
"No," Mrs. Lewis said in a very moderate tone, but looked sharply into her niece's drooping face.
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Aurelia had not looked up in speaking, and seemed to be engrossed in her work; but there was a glistening of tears through the thick lashes, and the delicate rose in her cheeks had grown crimson-hearted. She seldom spoke with spirit; but when she did, it always woke that rich bloom.
The bell rang again, and in a few minutes the parlor-door opened, and the Rev. Doctor Kenneth came in.
"The servant told me that Mr. Southard has not arrived," he said; "but as she did not absolutely forbid me, I came in to see the rest of you."
They welcomed him cordially. The doctor had got in the way of dropping in occasionally, and they were always glad to see him. The venerable gentleman was something of a courtier, and knew how to make himself all things to all men.
"I have my colleague at last," he said, "and to-morrow I promise myself the pleasure of hearing Mr. Southard, if he comes."
Margaret returned to the parlor, and was pleasantly saluted by the doctor who made room for her to sit beside him. She took the place willingly, being especially pleased with him just then; for, by his influence, her old friends were beginning to gather about her, coldly at first, it is true, but that would mend in time.
They resumed the conversation which her coming had interrupted.
"I have never denied that Mr. Maurice Sinclair might possess some noble qualities," the doctor said, in his stateliest manner. "And I have never said nor thought that he could rightly be called a base man. But I have said, and I still think that he was a dangerous man; and moreover, that last letter of his, instead of softening my judgment, makes me condemn him all the more; for it shows unmistakably what light he sinned against."
"But, doctor," interposed Aurelia's soft voice, "he seemed to be a Christian at last."
"By no means, my dear," the doctor answered decidedly. "His unbelief was nobler, that is all. The Christian soul strains upward, and drops off the earthly; the pagan soul strains outward, and grasps what is greatest on earth. He was a pagan. I have always, during my whole ministry, had more fear of those who stand on the border-lands between good and evil, than of those who are clearly in the enemy's country. Do you want to take wine with a drunkard? Certainly not. The faithful can resist a glaring tempter; but let one of these gallant chieftains come up with his mouth full of fine sentiments, and presto,
'All the blue bonnets are over the border!'
But what can we preachers do when the ladies decide to canonize a man? I'm afraid they are disposed to believe that a fine head must deserve a fine crown."
"There's one exception, doctor," Mr. Lewis said, pointing to his wife.
The lady appeared not to notice the allusion to herself, but spoke in a musing, silvery voice, her eyes fixed dreamily on space.
"What a wise arrangement of Providence it is, that interesting masculine penitents should awaken the gushing philanthropy of ladies, gentlemen standing aloof; while interesting feminine penitents almost as invariably excite the pious charity of men, ladies, in their turn, holding off. In both cases, there are the feast and the skeleton quite correct. I recollect, doctor, hearing you preach, years ago, a sermon on the Magdalen. It was very edifying; but I was sorry that you found it necessary to mention her golden hair. Indeed, I have always thought that the old painters would have made a better point if they had represented her as a plain, middle-aged woman, with great haggard eyes, like pits of darkness through which the soul was struggling, only a spark, but kindled to a conflagration which should consume with holy fire that poor, desecrated clay of hers. That is the true Magdalen; not your light Correggio, who might be a danseuse reading a French novel after the ballet."
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The lady had dropped her careless air, and was speaking almost vehemently. It seemed, indeed, that some personal experience lent a poignancy to her convictions on the subject.
"I am glad of the chance to express my opinions," she said, "and glad that you have made me angry enough to have courage to speak. I protest against this pernicious indulgence which latter-day Christians show to vice, persuading themselves that they are charitable.'Swear him, and let him go,' as the soldier said of the rattlesnake. When I see these sentimentalists seek out real penitence where it hides speechless and ashamed, then I will call them charitable, and not before. But no; real penitence is not interesting. It cannot attitudinize, it stammers, it has red and swollen eyes, it shrinks almost from being forgiven, it never holds its head up again."
"But, madam," said the doctor, somewhat disconcerted, "all are liable to mistakes; and in being too strict with doubtful penitents, we may discourage the true ones."
"They are easily distinguished," she said curtly. "Besides, you lose sight of another risk you run. You appear to take for granted that none are tempted save those who fall. How do you know how many may be holding on to their integrity by a mere thread, struggling desperately but silently, needing every help, in so precarious a condition that a breath, a word, may destroy them? Such people do not speak; you hear nothing of them but the crash of their fall. Or, if they fall not, you never know. To me, that conflict is more pathetic, more tragical, than all the paraded sighs and tears of those who have found that dishonesty doesn't pay. Those who do right simply and purely for God's sake are few and far between. Most people need the support of public opinion and the approbation of those whom they look up to. Let it be seen that, do what they may, if only they can excuse themselves prettily and plausibly, they will be easily forgiven, and set still higher than before, and what will be the result? You can see it in society to-day. Charity, so-called, has increased; has virtue increased?"
"If good women would not make themselves so disagreeable, as they often do," Mr. Lewis said gruffly.
"Try to please them," his wife replied. "Praise them a little; be agreeable yourselves, and see if they don't improve in that respect. Meet a person with a glum face, and if that person is sincere and sensitive, you are not likely to get smiles in return."
Aurelia leaned toward her aunt, put an arm around her, and whispered, "Dear auntie, you're an angel; but please don't say any more."
"I do not like to hear men and women criticise each other," the doctor said calmly, introducing a switch into the track of the conversation. "They are neither of them fitted to think for and judge the other. They, in the moral universe, are like earth and sea in the physical. And as air is common to earth and sea, so spirit, and all higher influences, are common to man and woman alike."
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"Yes," Miss Hamilton said, "and while the earth has gold, and silver, and iron, and gems, the sea has only pearls, and they are tears, woman's proper parure. And while the earth maintains its place, and is not moved, the sea goes moaning about, breaking itself on rocks, and climbing even to heaven, only that it may fall again upon the land."
"Blessed showers!" said the doctor, who had watched her smilingly while she spoke. "Be sure, Margaret, sooner or later those for whose sakes you and your sisters have climbed to heaven with such toil and pain will see some heavenly likeness in you, and hail you as welcome messengers. Don't lose courage, dear. Don't join the bitter waves that break themselves against the rocks, or the sly, insidious waves that steal away the land and drag it down. But let your part be with those who visit us by the way of heaven. Wouldn't you rather we should look up when we want you, though it were seldom, than look down, though it were often?"
She looked up, bright and blushing for a moment, like her old self, trembling with gladness, she knew not why. It seemed to be a prophecy of good tidings.
Into the silence that followed a deep sigh broke. They all looked up, then rose, speechless, changed suddenly into a group of mourners. For Mr. Southard stood before them with that in his countenance which showed how much more plainly than even their living faces he saw the shadow of one who was gone for ever.
Pallid with sickness, fatigue, and trouble, he came forward to receive their almost voiceless welcomes.
"God knows," he said, "that if the choice had been with me, my place, rather than his, should have been made vacant."
XVI. A Deserted Flock
Bostonians have been accused of putting too much Sabbath into their Sundays; but long may it be before the noisy waves of business or pleasure shall wash away that quiet island in the weary sea of days. There is a suggestion of peace, if not of sacredness, in the silence almost like that of the country, in the closed doors and empty streets; and when the bells
"Sprinkle with holy sounds the air, as the priest with the hyssop Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,"
he must be insensible indeed who does not--at least, momentarily--remember that there is another world than this.
On the morning after his return, Mr. Southard resumed his old Sunday habit of breakfasting in his own room, and none of the family saw him before service. He always went to his church early, and alone, and never spoke to any one on the way.
"Margaret, you really ought to go with us this time," Mrs. Lewis said. "I think you might unbend for once."
"To stoop from the presence of God to the presence of a creature is bending too far," was the reply. "Such bending breaks. I and my pet are going to see the heavens open, and the Lord descend; are we not, Dorothea, gift of God?"
Mrs. Lewis turned herself about before the cheval-glass to see the effect of a superb toilet that she had made in honor of the occasion. "Ah! well," she said. "You may be right. I have indeed a faithful heart, but a woefully skeptical head; shall we go now?"
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The night had been very sharp for the season; but when they all went out together, the sun was shining warmly through the morning haze, the air was still, and the dripping, splendid branches of the October trees were hesitating between hoarfrost and dew, and glittering with both. People in holiday attire, and with holiday faces, went past, the bells clanged out, then paused, and left only a tremulous murmur in the air, the very spirit of sound. Far away, a chime rang an old-fashioned hymn, in that quaint, stiff way that chimes have.
At a street-corner the party separated, and went their several ways.
As the Lewises entered their own church, they involuntarily exchanged a smile. Nothing could be prettier than that interior. The side-lights were all shut out, and for the first time the new window was unveiled, and threw its rich light over the choir, and up the nave, kindling the flowers that profusely draped the pulpit and platform, and edging with crimson the garnet velvet cushions. The people in this church had usually easy elbow-room, but to-day they permitted themselves to be crowded a little by visitors. There were even chairs brought into the galleries; and when the hour for service arrived, there was a row of gentlemen standing behind the last pews. But there was no sound save the soft rustle of ladies' dresses, and now and then a hushed whisper. There was the most perfect decorum and composure, and a silence that was respectful if not reverential. No belligerent mutterings ever rose through the voice of prayer or praise within these walls; no belated worshipper ever went tramping up to the very front after service had begun; and moreover, neither in this, nor in any other Protestant church, did visitors come with opera-glasses and chattering tongues, to turn what was meant as a place of worship into a place of amusement.
Quite late, Dr. Kenneth came up the aisle, and seated himself in the Lewis pew; and while every one looked at him, the door leading back from the platform to the vestry was opened, and almost before they were aware, Mr. Southard had entered and taken his place.
There was a soft stir and rustle all through the church, and the choir sang an anthem--that beautiful one of Brasbury's:
"How beautiful is Zion Upon the mountain's brow, The coming of the messenger, To cheer the plains below."
Mr. Southard sat with his eyes fixed on the cornice-wreath, and let his congregation stare at him, and they did not scruple to take advantage of the opportunity. The impression was not the one they had expected to receive. He was too pale and spiritual, and his expression was too much that of some lofty martyr fronting death unmoved, a St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows, his soul just pluming itself for flight through those lifted eyes.
Moreover, not only were all their flowers invisible to him, but he never looked at their new window, though the light from one of its golden panes streamed full in his face as he sat. Where was the smiling glance that might, surely, have made one swift scrutiny of their familiar faces, unseen so long? Where was the prayer of thanksgiving that he had been brought safely back to his people, after such an absence, and through so many dangers? Where was the joyful hymn of praise?
When Mr. Southard rose, he repeated only the Lord's prayer; and the first hymn he read was anything but joyful:
"Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee, E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me."
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"Dear me! doctor," Mrs. Lewis could not help whispering, "I do wish that for to-day, at least, he could have hidden the cross under the crown."
The text was unexpected: "Little children, love one another."
Not a single war-note, not a word of that Aceldama from which he had but just come, but an impassioned exhortation that, casting aside all differences, dissensions, and uncharitableness, they should love each other even as Christ had loved them.
Mr. Southard seldom displayed any strong feeling except indignation or a lofty fervor; but now he seemed deeply moved, and full of a yearning tenderness toward those whom he addressed. And they, after the first, forgot their disappointment, and were almost as much affected as he.
"Why do I choose for my text words which recall the sufferings of our divine Lord?" he asked. "And why do I select words of parting exhortation rather than words of greeting? Because the passion is not yet ended; because Christ is no more a king to-day than he was nineteen centuries ago; because even among those who call upon his name, his commands, his entreaties are disregarded. Still his sceptre is but a reed, his purple still covers the marks of the lash, his brow still bleeds under its crown. Lastly, because I am not a pastor returning joyfully to his flock, hoping for no more partings, but one who comes sorrowfully to say farewell, scarcely daring to hope for any other meeting with you.
"A pastor? And who is he that leadeth the flocks of the Lord? He to whom the divine Shepherd hath given the charge, bidding him go. Brethren, he has not spoken to me, save in rebuking. Instead of green pastures, I have led you in the desert. For still waters, I have brought you to the banks of Marah. Who is he in whose hands the baptismal waters are cleansing, who can bind man and woman as husband and wife, who can consecrate the bread and wine, who can loosen its burden from the penitent soul? He who, looking up the line of his spiritual descent, sees the tongues of fire alighting upon his ancestors in the Lord. Bear with me, my friends! At the head of my line stands the traitor who sat at meat with Christ, and ate the bread he broke, and drank the wine he blessed, and then betrayed him."
The congregation were too much startled and puzzled by this sudden turn to notice that Doctor Kenneth's head was bowed forward on the front of the pew, and that Aurelia Lewis was leaning with her face hidden on her aunt's shoulder.
But Mr. Southard saw them, and grew yet paler. When he spoke again, it was with difficulty.
"This is no place for me to stand and advocate doctrines denied by you. Yet surely it is no treason to the trust you reposed in me when you invited me to become your pastor, if I ask, if I entreat that you will examine fairly and prayerfully before you condemn my course.
"I dare not trust myself to thank you for all your past friendship for me, to utter my wishes for your future good, or to tell you how my heart is torn by this parting. I have only strength to go.
"Do you ask whither I am going? After years of mental torment unsuspected by you, and when at last my strength was deserting me, and the waters were going over my soul, where did I find refuge and safety? In that glorious old ship whose sails are full of the breath of the Spirit, who has faith for an anchor, the cross as her ensign, and St. Peter at the helm. Brethren, I am a Roman Catholic, thank God!"
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Immediately the congregation were in confusion, and one gentleman stood up and called, "Stop, sir!"
The light that had sprung to Mr. Southard's face at the last words dropped out again. He leaned over the pulpit, and commanded silence with a gesture at once imploring and imperative.
"One word more!" he said. "Believe in my unaltered affection for you; and believe also that though my hands are not anointed to give benediction, I fervently pray that God may bless you now and for ever. Farewell!"
He turned away from them, and walked slowly toward the vestry-door. Before he had closed it behind him, a silence fell, and he heard Doctor Kenneth's trembling voice exclaim, "Let us pray!" Glancing back, Mr. Southard saw the old minister standing with upraised hands in his deserted pulpit.
Where he passed the rest of that day, the family did not know. It was early twilight when they saw him coming up the street toward the house. By that time they had recovered from their first excitement, all but Aurelia. She still kept her room.
Mr. Southard walked with a firm and dignified step, and his face was perfectly serene. He even smiled when he saw Margaret standing in the parlor window, watching for him.
"No servant shall open the door for him this time, at least," she thought, and hastened to open it herself.
"Welcome home!" she said exultingly, holding out both hands to him. "You did that nobly! A thousand times, welcome!"
Mr. Southard closed the door, then looked at her boldly, putting her hands back. "Do not mock my empty life with so slight a gift as mere kindness," he said. "If you give me your hand, give it to me to keep."
She stood one instant wavering, then gave him her hand again. "Keep it," she said.
Lingering behind him as he went to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, Margaret flung her pledged hand upward as if she flung a gauge. "Louis Granger, you shall not look down and think that I am breaking my heart for you!"
XVII. In Exitu Israel
Some one tells of a wind so strong that he could turn and lean his back against it, as against a post. Mr. Southard found some such effect as this in the excitement caused by his change of religion. For there are times when a strong opposition is wonderfully sustaining. It fans the flame, and keeps the soul in a lively glow, without any expenditure of our own breath.
Being thus saved the pains of maintaining his fervor, the new convert took up tranquilly his religious studies, viewing from the inside that church which heretofore he had seen only from the outside. The study was an ever fresh delight; and as, one after another, new beauties were revealed, and new harmonies unfolded themselves, the miracle seemed to be, not that he should see now, but that he should have been blind so long.
No one knows, save those who have been born away from this home of the soul, the full delight of that succession of surprises and discoveries in the search made by him who comes late to his father's house. The first dawn or flash of faith, come as faith may, shows only the door, and a dim and long-stretching perspective. But once inside, with what wonder, what curiosity, what incredulity, even, we wander about examining the treasures of this new-found inheritance of ours. {732} Surely, we say, here we shall be disappointed. Here there will be a shade on the picture. But, looking closely, we find instead a still more eminent beauty. Nor are these varied discoveries exhausted in a few months, nor in a few years, nor in many years. Even when the noon of life has been spent in the quest, and twilight comes, still there are
"such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune."
But the most spiritual of us are not all spirit; and when, after a few weeks, the storm of denunciation against him subsided a little, weary of its own violence, Mr. Southard began to feel the vacuum left by his loss of occupation, and to depend more on the home life.
Here the prospect was not without shadows. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis had behaved nobly, and, after the first shock, had stood by him through every trial. "Not that I am so fond of Catholicism," Mr. Lewis said. "But I like to see a man who has a mind of his own, and isn't afraid to speak it."
The shadow in this case was Mr. Lewis's niece, who showed an unconquerable coldness toward her former minister. This was not to him a matter of vital consequence, certainly, though it troubled him more than he would have expected. She had always looked up to him with undoubting faith as her religious guide. Now he perceived with pain and mortification that he had not only destroyed her respect for his own authority, but had made her distrustful of all authority.
He attempted to justify himself to her; but she stopped him.
"I do not occupy myself in criticising your conduct and opinions, Mr. Southard," she said; "and I would rather say nothing about it."
For the first time, it struck him that Miss Lewis had a very stately manner.
Neither was Miss Hamilton just what Mr. Southard wished his promised wife to be to him, though he could scarcely have told in what she was lacking. Her evident desire that for the present the engagement should be unsuspected, even by their own family, he did not find fault with, though it prevented all confidential intercourse between them; but he would have preferred that she had not been quite so positively friendly, and no more. It seemed a little odd, too, that he should never, even by accident, find her alone, though they had frequently met so in the old times.
Weary, at length, of waiting on chance, he requested an interview, and stated his wishes. He would like to go to Europe as soon as possible, and stay there a year. He could not feel himself settled in the church, till he had been in Rome a Catholic, having once been there an unbeliever. Of course he would expect to take his wife with him. Why should they delay. Why not be married at Christmas, and start so as to reach Rome before Easter?
Margaret grew pale. "It is so soon," she said in a frightened way. "And you know I cannot leave Dora. You might go without me." Then, as his countenance fell, she added, trying to smile, "I love my freedom, and want to keep it as long as I can. But when I do take bonds on myself, I shall be very dutiful."
"I do not think that you will lose any freedom which you need greatly desire to keep," he said gently, but with a shade of disapproval. "And as to Dora, Mrs. Lewis would take good care of her."
{733}
"Dora is a sacred charge to me, Mr. Southard," Margaret said hastily; "not only her person, but her faith. I cannot intrust her to any one else. Besides, she would break her heart if parted from me. No one else can comfort her when--when she needs comfort."
Mr. Southard considered awhile.
"I approve of your being careful to do your duty by the child," he said presently. "But, you know, some priest could have her religious education under his supervision while we are gone. I would not, on any account, urge you to violate a scruple of conscience. Possibly, however, if you should consult your confessor, he might decide that your duty to the child should bend to your duty to me."
Margaret's face blushed up crimson, and her eyes emitted a spark. "The confessor whom I shall consult when I name my wedding-day, will be my own heart," she said, in anything but a humble tone of voice.
Mr. Southard looked at her searchingly. "Can it be," he asked, "that a lack of affection on your part is the cause of this reluctance?"
"I esteem you highly, Mr. Southard," she replied faintly, shrinking a little. "But I am not very reasonable, and you must have patience with me. Please don't say any more now. This is very sudden. I will think of it."
"Very well," he replied. "Perhaps when you have thought, you may accede to my first proposal. It is not worth while to delay, you know, when one's mind is made up."
"I must go now with Dora to make her first confession," Margaret said, anxious to change the subject. "Will you excuse me? I am afraid the storm may grow worse. The rain is falling gently now; but you know the old proverb:
'When the wind comes before the rain, You may hoist your topsails up again; But when the rain comes before the winds. You may reef when it begins.'"
"And a true proverb it is in more ways than one," Mr. Lewis said, appearing at that moment. "When my wife begins by flying at me and tearing my hair out, and then goes to crying afterward, I hope for fair weather soon. But when she starts with a gentle drip of tears, I always look out for squalls before it is over. Remember that for your future guidance, Mr. Southard."
Margaret escaped from the room, and in a few minutes was on her way to the church, with Dora half hidden under her cloak, and nestled close to her side. As she rode along, feeling, some way, as if they were flying from pursuit or from a prison, she experienced one of those tender touches of recollection with which the Spirit, ever following us, seeks to recall our wayward hearts. "What should I do if I had no church to go to?" was the thought that came; and as it came, the altar toward which she was approaching, glowed through the chill November rain like the fire in happy homes.
Outside, in the corridor leading to that familiar chapel of St. Valentine, endeared by so many sacred and tender memories, they paused a moment and recollected themselves.
"My dear little one, Christ Jesus the Lord is in there!"
"Do you truly think that he likes me?" whispered Dora apprehensively, glancing askance at the lambent little flame that burned inside.
"Oh! yes," was the confident answer. "He is very fond of you when you are good."
The sweet face smiled again.
"Then I an't afraid of him, auntie. Come."
{734}
After an act of contrition on her own account, and a prayer for the child, Margaret led Dora to the confessional, placed her on her knees there, and, dropping the curtain behind her, retired to wait at a distance.
Verifying the proverb, it was blowing quite violently when the two started for home again. Margaret went directly up to her chamber, having need to be alone. What was it striving within her, what memory, almost at the surface of her mind, yet unseen, like a flower in spring just ready to burst through the mould that feels but knows it not? On her table was a bunch of English violets that some one had left there for her. At the sight of them, her trouble sharpened to pain that had yet some touch of delight in it. The wind was full of voices, it caught the rain, and lashed the windows, it shook the doors, and called sighingly about the chimneys, and swung the vines against the panes. As she leaned there wondering and troubled, a faint, sweet perfume from the violets stole into her face. It was magical. She sank on her knees and drew the flowers to her bosom.
"O my friend! how could I ever dream of forgetting you?"
How it came back, that rainy day at the seaside, the terror of the tempest, the fire she had kindled, the watch she had kept, the presentiment of sorrow, then the muffled figure coming down the road, the rain, the wind, and his smile, all meeting her at the door, and the perfume of the violets he had brought her!
Who knows not the power that perfumes have over the memory? The influence of sound is evanescent, that which the eyes have seen the imagination changes in time; but a perfume is the most subtile and indestructible of reminders. You have walked in the world's beaten ways many a year, till the country home of your childhood is a picture almost effaced from your mind. Its tones echo no more, its faces are faded, its scenes forgotten.
Some sultry summer day, wandering from the city, but only half weaned from the thoughts of it, your listlessly straying feet crush the warm, wild herbage, and a thick perfume of sweet-fern rises about you. What does it mean? Thrilling to your finger-tips, you bend and inhale that strange yet familiar scent. Its touch is as potent as the touch of the rod of Moses.
"A score of years roll back their tide Of mingled joy and pain; Dry-shod I cross the torrent's bed, And am a child again."
Old scenes come up: gray rocks start out, lichen-jewelled; there are billows of butter-cups, mayweed, and clover, over which your young fancies sailed moth-winged, and brought rich freights from every port; the long lines of pole and stone fences are built up again in a twinkling; the boiling spring leaps bubbling into the heart of the sunshine; in the woods the cold, bright waters run hurrying over the pebbles; there is the homestead, the smoke from the chimney, the open windows, some one standing in the door, some one calling you with a voice as real as your breath; there are faces with eyes that see you, every feature plain, there are hands stretched out.
How it rises and tramples on your present, that past that hides but never dies! How your heart-strings strain with the vain longing to stay for ever in this bright, recovered country, and look no more on the desert and the land of bondage!
"Flow back, O years! into your channel, Flow, and stop the way! Let me forget how vain the fancies Of that childish day."
{735}
If we did not know that every hope and sweetness in the past were but seeds for future blossom and fruit; if we did not know that childhood is but a bee's load of honey, but a babe's sip of milk, to those flowing streams in the promised land; if we did not believe that God's denial is brief, his bounty endless; that surely he sees and marks every pain; and that he holds the fulfilment of our utmost wish just at the verge of our utmost endurance--if we were not sure of this, could human nature bear the cross that sometimes is laid upon it? It could not!
Miss Hamilton did not appear at the dinner-table that day; but in the evening Mr. Southard was summoned to her in the library. She met him with an April face full of a grieved kind of joy, or a joyful grief, crossed the room toward him when he came in, and held out her hands to him.
"Forgive me!" she said hurriedly. "But, Mr. Southard, I cannot marry you. I made a mistake. Don't be angry with me. I cannot help it. And I think, too, that you mistook also."
"I do not understand this," he said, dropping her hand.
"I should never have thought of marrying, if I had not been angry with him," she said. "That was wicked and foolish, and I have got over it now. We are reconciled. I shall never forget him."
"Am I to understand that your remembrance of Mr. Granger is a bar to your union with me?" asked Mr. Southard, regaining his composure.
"An insurmountable bar!"
He bowed gravely. "Then there is no more to be said. I wish you good-evening."
She watched him go; and when the door had closed, broke into a soft laugh. "In exitu Israel;" she said. "I am free!"
The door opened again, and Mr. Lewis came in. "You here?" he said. "I want to get the first volume of--But what's the matter with you? I just met Mr. Southard going into his room. Have you promised to marry him?"
"No, I have promised not to," Margaret said, smiling.
Mr. Lewis looked at her with a softening face, and eyes that grew dim.
"I'm glad of it, Maggie," he said. My wife and Aurelia were sure that you and he would make a match; and I couldn't say anything against it. But I hated the thought of your forgetting him."
There was no danger, indeed, of her forgetting him. It was impossible for her. She had not one of those facile hearts that rest here and there, on whatever offers, growing worn and threadbare at last, till there is nothing left to give. Hers was an imperious constancy which, having once chosen, did not know how to change, and perpetually renewed itself, like a fountain, as fresh to-day as it was a century ago. Such affection does not absolutely need the happiness of earth; for its root is in the soul, not in the flesh, and the time of its perfecting is hereafter.
XVIII. Daybreak
As there are plants that need crushing to bring out their perfume, so there are natures that become thoroughly amiable only through pain and humiliation. Mr. Southard's was one of these. Every blow that struck him made some breach in his puritanic severity, and revealed some hidden grace of mind or heart. He had possessed an intellectual humility, and had submitted himself with all the force of his reason. {736} But such humility is like the weight of snow that in winter presses the head of the slender sapling to earth, whence it is ever ready to spring back again at the first fiery sun-touch. It savored too much of the arrogant self-accusation of those who, as Mr. Lewis said, think they are the sun because they have spots on them. Now, he seemed really humble, he distrusted himself, and he accepted kindness with a gratitude that touched the hearts of those who gave it.
To Mrs. Lewis's surprise, he made a confident of her, and spoke quite freely of his disappointment.
"I do not blame Margaret," he said. "It was ungenerous of me to take advantage of her first moment of enthusiastic sympathy for me to exact a promise from her. But the temptation was strong. Existence with her would never be mere vegetation. She always gets at the inside of life. However, since God has willed it otherwise for me, I shall try to act like a Christian and like a sensible man. All the difference it makes in my plans is that I shall go away a little sooner."
They were sorry to have him go; for their esteem for him had insensibly grown into affection, and their affection constantly increased.
"I declare, I had no idea that I should feel so bad about it," Mr. Lewis said when the time came for good-byes. "Give me your shawl to take out. I am going to the depot with you."
Margaret and Dora had taken leave of Mr. Southard, and were standing in one of the front windows, watching to see him off. Mrs. Lewis walked slowly out of the parlor with him.
"Where is Aurelia?" he asked, looking about. "I have not seen her."
"Oh! she told me to say good-by for her," answered Mrs. Lewis carelessly. He hesitated, and looked hurt. "I suppose she doesn't care to take the trouble to see me," he said. "Tell her I said good-by, and God bless her."
"I will do nothing of the kind!" said the lady, with emphasis.
Mr. Southard stared at her in astonishment.
"'Doesn't care to take the trouble!" she repeated indignantly. "It is rather you who haven't cared to treat her with common gratitude or civility. You have had eyes for only Miss Hamilton, who didn't care a fig for you; while Aurelia, the poor simpleton! who made a hero of you, and broke her heart because you were in disgrace with the world and disappointed in love--you hadn't a glance for. No; I won't say good-by to her. I will let her believe that you went without remembering her existence, as you came near doing. It will help her to forget you. There, take that with my blessing, and good-by. The carriage is waiting."
"Where is she?" he exclaimed, his whole face changed, and become alive all at once. "I shall not stir from the house till I have seen her, if I have to wait a year."
"What will Miss Hamilton think of your constancy?" asked Mrs. Lewis with a toss of the head.
"Madam," said Mr. Southard, "for me there is but one woman in the world, and that is she who loved me without waiting to be asked. Will you be so good as to tell Aurelia that I wish to see her in the library?"
He went toward the library, and Mrs. Lewis leisurely returned to the parlor, a curious little smile on her lips.
{737}
Aurelia Lewis was seated before the library fire, with her hands folded in her lap.
As Mr. Southard paused an instant at sight of her, then came hastily in and shut the door after him, she rose and looked at him with an air of dignified composure. Her face was perfectly colorless.
"Is it true," he began at once, "that you have sympathized with me more than I knew? Tell me! A disappointment now would be too cruel."
Aurelia's full bright eyes opened a little wider, and a faint color warmed her cheeks; but she seemed too much astonished or too indignant to speak. Yet after the first glance, she drooped a little, and leaned on the back of her chair, as if, like that fair Jewish queen, for delicateness and overmuch tenderness, she were not able to bear up her own body.
How pure and sweet she was! Silent as dew. How utterly womanly her untainted loveliness!
"Esther!" exclaimed Mr. Southard.
After ten minutes Mr. Lewis put his head out of the carriage door, and made a sign to his wife, who was benevolently contemplating him from the parlor. She raised the window.
"Where is Mr. Southard?" he asked.
"He is saying good-by to Aurelia," was the reply; and the window went down again.
Minutes passed, but no Mr. Southard appeared. It was the day before Christmas, and the air was too sharp to make a long tarrying out doors agreeable.
"I've heard of eternal farewells, but I never before had the honor of assisting at one," muttered Mr. Lewis; and having waited as long as endurance seemed a virtue, he went into the house.
"Where is Mr. Southard?" he asked, looking round the parlor.
"In the library, saying good-by to Aurelia," replied his wife suavely.
Mr. Lewis looked at Margaret.
"Will you tell me what she means? I don't believe her. She always puts on that truthful look when she tells a lie."
Margaret laughed. "I think you may as well dismiss the carriage," she said.
In something less than half an hour Mr. Southard and Aurelia made their appearance. They were received with great cordiality.
"I hope you liked your journey to Europe," said Mr. Lewis with immense politeness. "Is the pope in good health?"
Mr. Southard was beyond the reach of mocking. "I have postponed my journey till this lady can be ready to accompany me," he said. "And I have convinced her that four weeks will be enough for her preparation."
Aurelia went to lean on Margaret's shoulder. She was trembling, but her face showed full contentment. "I would rather be Esther than Vashti," she whispered.
"I'm delighted enough to forgive you even a greater impertinence than that, if greater could be," was the whispered answer. "I am not Vashti, though you are Esther."
The next day, after coming home from early mass, Margaret sat in her chamber toward the east, with Dora and her two friends, Agnes and Violet, leaning on her lap, and watching her face. She had been telling them the story of that miraculous birth, and, finishing, looked up into the morning sky, and forgot them; forgot the sky, too, presently, with all its vapory golden stretches, and glimpses of far-away blue, and saw instead her life past, present, and to come. Looking calmly, she forgave herself much, for had not God forgiven her? and hoped much, for there was no room for despair; and grew content, for all that she could desire was within her reach.
{738}
Beginning at the lowest, she had an assured home, kind friends, and a dear and sacred duty in the care of this child. So far, all was peace.
One step higher then. Could the friend who still lived on in her heart forget her in that heaven to which her love had led him? And, weak and childish though she was, with her impatience, her scarcely broken pride, her obstinately clinging affection, could she be altogether unlovely to him? Some strong assurance answered no.
Higher yet her thought took its stand. There was faith, that second sight by which the soul sets her steps aright as she climbs, never missing the way. There was an unfading hope, and a charity that embraced the world. There was God. And all were hers!
As Margaret sat there, the three children leaned motionless, hushing themselves lest they should break that beautiful trance. It was no momentary glow of enthusiasm, no mere uprising of feeling; for mounting slowly, through pain, and doubt, and weakness, she had reached at last the heights of her soul, and saw a wide, bright daybreak over the horizon of a loftier life.
----------
A Glimpse Of Ireland.
I had long cherished the desire to visit Ireland, a country for many reasons so interesting to every American Catholic. The opportunity of making a brief tour in Europe during a summer vacation having unexpectedly presented itself, I determined, therefore, to leave the steamer at Queenstown and make the journey to London by way of Dublin. On the 29th of July, 1867, after a remarkably pleasant passage, we found ourselves, at an early hour of the morning, in sight of the famous Skellig rocks--called by sailors the Bull, Cow, and Calf--and thus gained the welcome advantage of sailing all day in sight of the Irish coast. The first impression one receives from the appearance of the country between Valentia and Cork is sad and desolate; in harmony with the tragic history of the suffering, oppressed race, whose home is seen for the first time, by the voyager from the New World, under one of its most barren and lonely aspects. The only interest which can attract the eye and the mind is that of a sort of wild and rugged grandeur, coupled with the historical associations which give a charm to the names of Bantry and Dingle. The lonely waters, where scarcely a sail was to be seen during the live-long day, told of the suppression of the industrial and commercial life of the Irish nation by the long-continued tyranny of that power which absorbs all its resources to feed its own greatness.
The long, barren stretches, showing scarcely a sign of vegetable, animal, or human life, where for miles one could see only here and there a little shealing and a few sheep cropping the brown, scanty herbage, seemed to give the lie to the well-known, and, as I afterward saw, well deserved appellation of "the Emerald Isle." {739} Expressions of surprise escaped from some of my fellow-passengers, agreeable and intelligent American gentlemen, who, like myself, were on their maiden trip to Europe; and from some others of the party who were children of Irish parents, looking for the first time on the land of their exiled ancestors. The coast is frequently steep and precipitous, suggesting to the memory the many tales of shipwreck in wild nights of tempest one has read in boyhood. The Martello towers stand at intervals along the horizon, like gigantic watchmen looking out seaward to spy the smuggler or the foreign invader, and in the distance the line of the Kerry Mountains completes the view of the wild, desolate landscape. The heights of Bantry are rendered for ever sacred and memorable by the martyrdom of the Franciscan fathers, Donald and Healy, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They were revisiting the ruined monastery of Bantry, for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual wants of their poor, persecuted flock, when they were seized by the agents of the glorious reformation, tied back to back, and hurled headlong down the precipice into the ocean. What a wonder that the Irish people are so insensible to the value of a gospel brought to them with so much pains and trouble, so kindly presented to them, enforced by such lovely examples of Christian virtue, and supported so long, notwithstanding their obstinacy, at such great expense!
Early in the morning, we stopped our engines off the Cove of Cork, a little steamer boarded us, the freight and baggage were speedily, though, in the case of rocking-chairs, not very safely, tumbled aboard of her decks, under the herculean direction of our fat boatswain. Three cheers went up from the City of Paris, which steamed off grandly for Liverpool, and we puffed in, not grandly but very pleasantly, toward Queenstown. The Cove of Cork is world-renowned for its beauty and excellence as a haven for ships, but desolate-looking from the fact that it is better supplied with fortresses, cannon, and ships of war than with the peaceful, plenty-bringing steamers and sailing-vessels of commerce. I once heard a little American boy utter the exclamation, as we were entering the port of Havana and espied the soldiers on duty, "How afraid they must be, guarding everything that way!" It appears to be the same case in Ireland. The English government is very much afraid of its Irish subjects, if we may measure its fears by the display of force which meets the eye everywhere. The only consolation which a sincere lover of the Irish people can find in looking upon this state of things is, that, since the endurance of this coercive tyranny is for the time a necessary evil, the force is so very irresistible as effectually to prevent the bloody horrors which would follow a general insurrection. A young English officer, whom I met at the hotel in Cork, expressed his regret that an open rebellion had not broken out, which, he said, would have been an affair of a month, and which of course would only have increased the miseries and riveted the chains of the Irish people. For myself, I could not help shuddering at the thought of the fearful tragedy which would have been enacted if the people had been goaded by demagogues to such an attempt, and blessing God that the efforts of these madmen had failed. It is plain enough that Ireland cannot be governed in this way much longer. {740} There is but one hope and one method for the English crown to retain Ireland as a portion of the British empire; which is, to win the willing loyalty of the people by an ample redress of their grievances, and the inauguration of a policy which has in view the real good of the Irish people.
Our little steamer landed us at about eight in the evening; the officers were very polite and obliging, and we were soon ashore on the sacred soil, with our luggage in the hands of a couple of lively gossoons, and our steps free to go anywhere we pleased.
As soon as one steps ashore on the Irish soil, he feels that he is in the land of frolic and drollery. The irrepressible and indomitable spirit of the Celtic race rebounds under the strokes of adversity like an india-rubber ball under the blows of a bat. "The harder you do knock him down, the higher he do bounce." My fellow-voyagers who came ashore at Queenstown fell into a state of hilarity at once which was wonderful to behold, and which continued during their whole stay in Ireland. They held their sides and laughed uproariously, not, be it understood, with any feeling of contempt or ridicule--for they were gentlemen, and altogether free from snobbish prejudice or religious bigotry--but from pure, genial sympathy with the comedy which was going on in the crowd that pressed eagerly around the welcome passengers from America, contending for their luggage. Old women whose vivacity old age had only sharpened, and little boys who were so many Flibbertigibbets in fun and smartness, with huge cars drawn by diminutive donkeys, on which they piled pyramids of trunks, if they were lucky enough to get them; boys with barrows, and boys with only hands and shoulders--struggled and jibed and danced and scolded, and rushed upon every passenger as he emerged from the barrier, in a good humored and tumultuous manner that can only be appreciated by one who has seen it. We pushed off for the last train to Cork, followed by a dozen runners of the Queenstown hotels, vociferating the praises of their several houses, assuring us that the train had left five minutes before, and urging us most affectionately to go up the next morning after a good night's sleep, by the boat, that we might enjoy the scenery of the beautiful river Lee. This piece of advice was good, and I recommend every traveller to follow it. We turned a deaf ear to it, however, reached the train in time, and in half an hour were comfortably deposited in the well-known and most excellent Imperial Hotel of Cork.
The rather singular English name of Cork is not, as one is apt to suppose, our common word designating a certain very light substance, and applied without any reason or propriety that anybody can see to a very substantial city and county. It is a corruption of the Irish word Carroch, signifying a valley, which has been Anglicized, like many other foreign words, by a most perverse and stupid English custom of changing them into English words of somewhat similar sound. The first beginning of the city was a monastery founded in the seventh century by St. Finnbar, whom I recognized as an old acquaintance, from the cathedral dedicated to his honor at Charleston, S. C., by the illustrious Bishop England, who was a native of Cork. The old cathedral of St. Finnbar, which was rebuilt in 1735, has been demolished, to make way for a new one, which I most devoutly hope may never be built on the sacred spot consecrated by the ancient Irish monk until this shall revert to its rightful possessors. {741} Another holy site, that of Gil Abbey, which is extremely picturesque and beautiful, is occupied by the Queen's College. The Sisters of Mercy are fortunate enough to possess another pleasant spot, rising to a wooded hill, which was also the seat of an ancient monastery, and where is now situated their very neat and commodious convent. There are three very good Catholic churches in the city--St. Patrick's, St. Mary's, and Holy Trinity; the latter founded by F. Matthew, and containing a stained glass window as a memorial of O'Connell. The Mardyke, an avenue shaded with elms for the distance of a mile, is a pleasant walk, and I passed an hour there in company with a small party of friends, from New York, in a most amusing and agreeable manner, surrounded by a group of children with whom we soon established a most intimate friendship by means of plums. The Irish children are remarkable for their beauty, their blooming health, and for a mixture of fun and innocence, of brightness and simplicity, of boldness and modesty, indicating a state as near to that of unfallen childhood as I can imagine. The pranks of the young Corkonians afford a source of unfailing amusement to the stranger within their gates; but I was most amused by the boys with donkeys, who were to be seen riding in state to school in the morning, and, in the afternoon, all about the environs scattered in groups on the grass, ready to exchange a biting sarcasm with every passing coachman, while their dear little friends, the donkeys, fed quietly near by. It would be useless, however, to attempt to describe all that is droll and comic in the population of Cork, for it seems as if it were the business of their lives to be as funny as they can, for their own delight and that of the beholder.
Cork is a fine, well-built town, of 90,000 inhabitants, the third in importance in Ireland. The environs are extremely beautiful. I was there at midsummer; the weather was perfect, and I could see to the best advantage the tilth and verdure which make the Emerald Isle so famous. Certainly, they have not been exaggerated, and no one can wonder at the praise which the Irishman bestows upon his soil, or the intense love which he cherishes for it. I only wonder that those who were born and bred there can ever be contented elsewhere; and surely nothing but the most unendurable poverty and want would ever drive such numbers of them into exile. Perhaps the most picturesque objects which meet the eye, in the country, are the white farm-houses with thatched roofs, standing in their neat little flower-gardens, their walls covered with honeysuckle or other creeping vines. The only thought which mars the pleasure of looking on the rich meadows, the waving fields, the herds of superb cattle, and flocks of fat sheep, is, that the outward show of beauty and prosperity is obtained by the sacrifice of the poor people, and enjoyed by a small number only. If you drive out, your carriage is followed by a troop of ragged, fleet-footed young beggars; and if you chance to pass a factory when the hour for stopping work has come, you may see a long procession of young women, bareheaded, barefooted, ragged, and emaciated, who are glad to work for a shilling a day.
The most interesting place to visit in the neighborhood of Cork is Blarney Castle. I am ashamed to say that I was afraid to go on a jaunting-car, although at Dublin I made the experiment with great success and pleasure. It seemed to me, when I looked at the jaunting-car for the first time, that it would shake one off as soon as it turned a corner. {742} We accordingly drove out to Blarney in an open carriage, going by the road to Kanturk, and returning by Sunday-Well road. Aside from the merely jocose associations of the Blarney-stone, the old, ivy-clad tower is an extremely interesting and picturesque object, and the grounds of the demesne, so celebrated in Irish lyrics, are charming. The cromlech and pillar stones, on which are inscriptions in the ancient Ogham characters, carry back the imagination to an antiquity almost without limits, and suggest the thought that perhaps as long ago as the time of King David, or even the Exodus, Druids may have performed their sacred rites in these still groves. Our guide was a poor little sickly humpbacked boy of sixteen rejoicing in the sobriquet of Lord John Russell, and possessing very sharp wits and inexhaustible good-humor. Every one about the castle seemed to take especial delight in a standing joke at his expense, that he was an old man with a heavy family. The poor fellow seemed to enjoy our company very much, and expressed the intention of emigrating to America. The only reason he could give was that the weather was too warm in summer at Blarney. At the castle gate his jurisdiction terminated, and we were handed over to another amusing original, the lame old gardener, who has many a story to tell of Walter Scott, and Tom Moore, and Father Prout. As for the Blarney-stone, I will not say how many of our party kissed it. In Lord John Russell's opinion, there was no need of our doing so; he was sure we had one of our own in America which we had all kissed frequently before leaving home. Whoever has spent an afternoon at Blarney, in genial company, will admit that it was one of the pleasantest days of his life, if his soul is not too full of steam and railroads to be capable of simple and natural enjoyments.
The journey by rail from Cork to Dublin is a most tantalizing one. Flying at full speed through several counties, one catches glimpses at every moment of places and scenes of historic interest and natural or artificial beauty, which he longs to visit and inspect at leisure. The distance is one hundred and sixty-five miles; the railway is an admirable one; everything about the way stations is neat and attractive, and the route passes in a direct line through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, King's, Queen's, and Kildare. Among the objects of interest which are passed are the abbeys of Mourne, Bridgetown, Kilmallock, Knocklong, Holy Cross, Thurles, Templemore, Moore Abbey, Old Connell, Kildare Cathedral, with St. Bridget's chapel; the castles of Barrett, Carrignacenny, Kilcolman, which the poet Spenser received as his share in the spoliation; Charleville; the Rock of Dunamase, with the ruins of Strongbow's Castle; the Rock of Cashel; the Hill of Allen, where Fin McCoul lived; several round towers; the famous bog of Allen; the Curragh of Kildare; and quantities of others--which keep one perpetually, and to a great extent vainly, looking out of window, first on one side, then on the other, while you are hurried over a country every step of which is rich in history, poetry, and legend, and should be slowly traversed on foot and at leisure. Three of my agreeable companions of the voyage were with me in the same carriage; a very pleasing gentleman, with his son, a bright youth of sixteen, joined us an hour or two before reaching Dublin, and they were as curious about America, especially Indians, and our sea-voyage, as we were about the antiquities and curiosities of Ireland. {743} Our trip was therefore wanting in nothing to make it lively and agreeable, and we were finally deposited at the Gresham Hotel, Sackville street, Dublin, in high good humor, and quite ready for a good dinner.
As I had only that evening and the following day to remain in Dublin, I was obliged to content myself with a superficial view of the city, and a visit to a few places of particular interest. In its general features, Dublin is at least equal to our finest American towns of the same class, although more quiet, and showing signs of stagnation in commercial prosperity. Its agreeable climate makes it a delightful place of residence at all seasons of the year, especially in the summer.
My first visit was made to the scene of the life and labors of the saintly Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, the convent in Baggott street, where also repose her mortal remains--a lovely spot for the cradle of a religious order, and suggestive of the time, I hope not far distant, when Ireland shall once again be full of these sacred homes of the monastic life, as she was before the spoliation of her holy places by the ruthless minions of Henry and Elizabeth. I visited also Clontarf, the scene of Brian Boru's decisive victory over the Danes, and death, and went to see what is said to have been his harp, and is undoubtedly a relic of very ancient times, at the museum of Trinity College. The college is a most attractive place, and delightfully situated, on ground of course originally stolen from the Catholic Church, and endowed out of the spoils of monasteries. Quite in keeping with its origin is the fact that its library contains a large number of valuable manuscript records, originally stolen from the papal archives. The learned body which rules within its classic halls has also made itself remarkable by sustaining a claim, perhaps the most absurd ever advanced by persons professing to be scholars, namely, that the Protestant Church of Ireland is the lineal and legitimate successor, in a direct, unbroken line, of the ancient church of Saint Patrick. This is adding insult to injury. As if it were not enough to rob the Irish people of their property, to persecute, torture, exile, and massacre them by millions, on account of their fidelity to their hereditary faith, their title to the very name of Catholic must be denied to them, and arrogated for the intruders who have forced themselves into their heritage by the point of the bayonet and the violation of treaties. Two terrible antagonists have arisen, however, out of their own camp to smite these pretenders; Dr. Maziere Brady, an Irish Protestant clergyman, and Froude, the English historian. The former gentleman, in several learned and unanswerable works, has demonstrated the regular, unbroken succession of the present Catholic hierarchy and people of Ireland, from the bishops and faithful who preceded the reign of Henry VIII., and has shown that the Irish Protestant Church is nothing but an English colony. The learned and accomplished Dr. Moran, also, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, has written with great ability and research upon the same topics.
Stephen's Green, which is near by Trinity College, witnessed the burning of the heroic martyr Archbishop O'Hurley, tortured and put to death, at the instigation of the infamous Loftus, archbishop of Dublin. A few days later, I saw in the private chapel of Archbishop Manning, at London, a cloth stained with the blood of Archbishop Plunkett, another illustrious martyr, who was publicly executed by the English government on false charges. {744} I venerate the relics of the older martyrs, and the places made sacred by the hallowed memories of other countries and ages far remote; but nothing stirs my blood like the holy mementoes of the men who suffered in Ireland and England, for the faith, under the tyranny of the apostate sovereigns and bishops of Great Britain. These men are our fathers in the faith, the heroes who fought our battles, from whom we have received the precious heritage we enjoy in comparative peace. Their memory ought to be kept alive and honored among us, in every possible way, as a powerful incitement to imitate their example, and a means of endearing to our people that religion which has been handed down, bathed in the blood of so many noble Christians.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is the most interesting and venerable monument of antiquity in Dublin. My fellow-travellers were astonished at seeing a Protestant St. Patrick's, with a statue of the great apostle over the principal door. Probably most Americans who have not made themselves specially familiar with Irish history fancy that most of the fine churches of Dublin are Catholic churches. Perhaps many of them are not aware that every church, graveyard, glebe-house, abbey, every rood of land, every building, and every farthing of revenue belonging to the Catholic Church in Ireland, has been confiscated by the English government. In Dublin, out of eighty-four churches, forty belonged to the English church, and only twenty to the Catholics, in 1866. At the close of the last century there was not a Catholic church in Dublin, nor could there be one according to law. All the churches and other institutions in Dublin are therefore the creation of the present century, the fruit of the free-will offerings of the poor people, and a few wealthy persons, such as Catherine McAuley, who consecrated her handsome fortune entirely to religion.
St. Patrick's dates from the year 1190, though the spire was added in the fourteenth century. It has been thoroughly repaired and renovated, at a cost of one hundred thousand pounds, which was given by the well-known brewer, Mr. Guinness. It contains one of St. Patrick's holy wells, which is visible through an opening in the floor, and guarded with great respect. Tradition says that the saint baptized the first Irish convert in this fountain. This is probably not true; but it is very likely that he did use it for baptism, and perhaps baptized in it the first converts in that part of the country. There are some ancient monuments of bishops and knights, and some modern ones of persons who have figured during the Protestant ascendency--Brown and Loftus, Swift, Stella, and the late Dr. Whately, who was Dr. Trench's immediate predecessor. It is painful enough to see the old churches and abbeys of England in the hands of aliens from the faith, although the mass of the people have fallen away and cannot appreciate the fearful loss they have suffered, in the substitution of a creature of parliament in the place of the spouse of Christ. In Ireland, where the people remain fervently and devoutly Catholic, it is a far more painful sight to witness their ancient shrines and holy places in the hands of the descendants of their spoilers, who are unable to make any use, even for Protestant worship, of the greater part of them. {745} While the respectable sexton, whose appearance was that of a faded dean, was showing me the church for the consideration of a shilling, I was busily occupied in my own mind invoking St. Patrick to take his own again, bring back the altars, restore the unbloody sacrifice, and cause the chants of High Mass to resound once more within the walls of the venerable cathedral dedicated to his honor. It is a great consolation to reflect that since then the death-blow has been levelled at the state church by the same power which created it. And although justice has not yet been done to the Catholic people of Ireland, or any step taken to restore to them the sacred property of which they have been robbed, there is the greatest reason to hope that, in the course of events, they will yet regain it by fair and peaceable means, without violence or revolution.
Two other objects which interested me greatly, were the chamber of the Irish House of Lords, preserved still in the same state as when the last session was held in it, and the tomb of O'Connell, at the beautiful cemetery of Glasnevin.
The next morning I bade adieu to Ireland from the deck of the Kingstown and Holyhead steamer, and although it was only a passing glimpse I had obtained of this fair island, I shall always be thankful to have had even this glimpse.
Ireland has the strongest claims on the love and gratitude of all Catholics throughout the English-speaking world. Her Celtic race, although distinct in character, language, and history from the people whose mother tongue is English, has been brought into such close relations with it, and is now blending with it to such a remarkable extent in this country, and other British colonies, that its history becomes as interesting to us as the early history of England. Moreover, although a handful of English and Scotch remained true to the faith during the revolution of the sixteenth century, it is to Ireland that is due the honor of holding aloft the banner of religion, around which are now grouped one fifth of the bishops owning allegiance to St. Peter. American converts are especially bound to gratitude to that Irish people who, above all others, have been the founders of the Catholic Church throughout the largest portion of our republic. For fourteen centuries, that people has handed down and witnessed to the faith which St. Patrick brought from France and Rome in the fifth century, when St. Augustine was yet scarcely cold in his grave. Without disparaging the great services which other nationalities have rendered to religion in our country, it is undoubted that, in our portion of it, it is through the Irish succession chiefly that we communicate with past ages, and through their rich life-blood that our Catholicity has become vigorous. As Catholics and as Americans, we are the natural friends of Ireland and the Irish. One very good and pleasant way of showing this friendship is, for those who have money enough to travel, to spend a portion of their time and money in Ireland. The advantage will be mutual. Those who are in search of health, pleasure, and improvement, cannot spend a month or two more delightfully or beneficially than on such a tour. On the other hand, the money spent, whether in purchases or in alms to the poor, will do great good, and the sympathy, kindness, respect for their religion and themselves, manifested toward the people so long borne down by the peine forte et dure of oppression and contempt, will be fully appreciated by their warm hearts, and encourage them to hope for the full coming of that better day whose dawning already appears in the horizon.
{746}
It is much to be desired that the good beginning already made by several excellent writers, in publishing books on the religious history of Ireland, should be actively followed up. A well-written, popular history, with illustrations, of all the principal places of interest in the secular and ecclesiastical history of the country, with sketches of the monastic institutions formerly flourishing; of the old churches, and episcopal sees; and lives of the saints and great men who have flourished, especially the martyrs, would be of the greatest service to religion. Such a volume would enable the Catholic tourist to visit the country with the greatest possible advantage and pleasure, beside the more important help it would give in strengthening the faith and devotion of the rising generation in Ireland, and the countries to which she has sent her colonies. The richest and most abundant field is open to literature of all kinds, both of the lighter and the more solid character, and it is to be hoped that it will be thoroughly explored and well worked by those who are true and faithful to the ancient, valiantly defended faith of the Island of Saints.
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Primeval Man. [Footnote 196]
[Footnote 186: Primeval Man. An Examination of some Recent Speculations. By the Duke of Argyll. New York: Routledge & Sons. 1869. 16mo, pp. 210.]
There are few more active or able members of the English House of Lords or of the British ministry than the Scottish Duke of Argyll, and, if we could forget the treason to the Stuarts and the Scottish nation of some of his ancestors, there are few scholars and scientific men in the United Kingdom whom we should be disposed to treat with greater respect. He is at once a statesman, a scientist, and a theologian; and in all three capacities has labored earnestly to serve his country and civilization. In politics, he is, of course, a whig, or, as is now said, a liberal; as a theologian, he belongs to the Kirk of Scotland, and may be regarded as a Calvinist; as a man of science, his aim appears to be to assert the freedom and independence of science, without compromising religion. His work on the Reign of Law, reviewed and sharply criticised in this magazine for February, 1868, was designed to combat the atheistic tendencies of modern scientific theories, by asserting final causes, and resolving the natural laws of the physicists into the direct and immediate will of God.
In the present work, quite too brief and sketchy, he treats of the primeval man, and maintains man's origin in the creative act of God, against the developmentists and natural selectionists, which is well, as far as it goes. He treats, also, of the antiquity of man, and of his primeval condition. He appears disposed to allow man a higher antiquity than we think the facts in the case warrant; but, though he dissents, to some extent, from the theory of the late Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, we find him combating with great success the savage theory of Sir John Lubbock, who maintains that man began in the lowest form of barbarism in which he can subsist as man, and has risen to his present state of civilization by his own spontaneous and unassisted efforts--a theory just now very generally adopted in the non-Catholic world, and assumed as the basis of the modern doctrine of progress--the absurdest doctrine that ever gained currency among educated men.
{747}
The noble duke very properly denies the origin of species in development, and the production of new species by "natural selection," as Darwin holds, and acceded to by Sir Charles Lyell and an able writer in The Quarterly for last April. The duke maintains that man was created man, not developed from a lower species, from the tadpole or monkey. But, while he asserts the origin of species in the creative act of God, he supposes God supplies extinct species by creating new species by successive creative acts; thus losing the unity of the creative act, placing multiplicity in the origin of things, and favoring that very atheistical tendency he aims to war against. His Reign of Law, though well-intended, and highly praised by our amiable friend, M. Augustin Cochin, of Le Correspondant, showed us that the noble author has failed both in his theology and philosophy. In resolving the natural laws into the will of God enforcing itself by power, he fails to recognize any distinction between first cause and second cause, and, therefore, between the natural and the supernatural. God does all, not only as first cause, or causa eminens, as say the theologians, but as the direct and immediate actor, which, of course, is pantheism, itself only a form of atheism. Yet we know not that his grace could have done better, with Calvinism for his theology, and the Scottish school, as finished by Sir William Hamilton, for his philosophy. To have thoroughly refuted the theories against which he honorably protests, he must have known Catholic theology, and the Christian view of the creative act.
We have no disposition, at present, to discuss the antiquity either of man or the globe. If the fact that God, in the beginning, created heaven and earth, and all things therein, visible and invisible, is admitted and maintained, we know not that we need, in the interest of orthodoxy, quarrel about the date when it was done. Time began with the externization of the divine creative act, and the universe has no relation beyond itself, except the relation of the creature to the creator. Considering the late date of the Incarnation, we are not disposed to assign man a very high antiquity, and no geological or historical facts are, as yet, established that require it for their explanation. We place little confidence in the hasty inductions of geologists.
But the primitive condition of man has for us a deeper interest; and we follow the noble duke with pleasure in his able refutation of the savage theory of Sir J. Lubbock. Sir John evidently holds the theory of development, and that man has been developed from a lower species. He assumes that his primitive human state was the lowest form of barbarism in which he can subsist as man. With regard to man's development from lower animals, it is enough to say that development cannot take place except where there are living germs to be developed, and can only unfold and bring out what is contained in them. But we find in man, even in the lowest form of savage life, elements, language or articulate speech, for instance, of which there are no germs to be found in the animal kingdom. We may dismiss that theory and assume at once that man was created, and created man. But was his condition in his primitive state that of the lowest form of barbarism? Is the savage the primitive man, or the degenerate man? {748} The former is assumed in almost every scientific work we meet; it is defended by all the advocates of the modern doctrine that man is naturally progressive. Saint-Simon, in his Nouveau Christianisme, asserts that paradise is before us, not behind us; and even some who accept the Biblical history have advanced so little in harmonizing their faith with what they call their science, that they do not hesitate to suppose that man began his career, at least after the prevarication of Adam, in downright savagism. Even the learned Döllinger so far falls in with the modern theory as to make polished gentilism originate in disgusting fetichism.
The noble duke sufficiently refutes the theory of Sir John Lubbock, but does not seem to us to have fully grasped and refuted the assumptions on which it is founded. "His two main lines of argument," he says, (page 5,) "connect themselves with the two following propositions, which he undertakes to prove, First, that there are indications of progress even among savages; and second, that among civilized nations there are traces of barbarism."
The first proposition is not proved or provable. The characteristic of the savage is to be unprogressive. Some tribes may be more or less degraded than others. The American Indian ranks above the New Hollander; but, whether more or less degraded, we never find savages lifting themselves by their own efforts into even a comparatively civilized state. Niebuhr says there is no instance on record of a savage tribe having become a civilized people by its own spontaneous efforts; and Heeren remarks that the description of the tribes eastward of the Persian Gulf along the borders of the Indian Ocean, by the companions of Alexander, applies perfectly to them as we now find them. No germs of civilized life are to be found among them, or, if so, they are dead, not living germs, incapable of development. The savage is a thorough routinist, the slave of petrified customs and usages. He shows often great skill in constructing and managing his canoe, in making and ornamenting his bow or his war-club; but one generation never advances on its predecessor, and the new generation only reproduces the old. All the arts the savage has have come, as his ideas, to a stand-still. He is stern, sad, gloomy, as if oppressed by memory, and exhibits none of the joyousness or frolicsomeness which we might expect from his fresh young life, if he represented the infancy or childhood of the race, as pretended.
Even in what are called civilized heathen nations we find a continual deterioration, but no indication of progress in civilization, or in those elements which distinguish civilized from barbaric or savage life. Culture and polish may be the concomitants of civilization, but do not constitute it. The generations that built the pyramids, Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, Rome, were superior to any of their successors. No subsequent Greek poet ever came up to Homer, and the oldest of the Vedas surpass the powers of the Indian people in any generation more recent than that which produced them. The Chinese cannot to-day produce new works to compare with those of Confucius. Where now are the once renowned nations of antiquity whose ships ploughed every sea, and whose armies made the earth tremble with their tread? Fallen, all have fallen, and remain only in their ruins, and the page of the historian or song of the bard. {749} If these nations, so great and powerful, with many elements of a strong civilization, could not sustain themselves from falling into barbarism, how pretend that the lowest and most degraded savages can, without any foreign assistance, lift themselves into a civilized state?
The second proposition, that civilized nations retain traces of barbarism, proves nothing to the purpose. These traces, at most, prove only that the nations in which we detect them have passed through a state of barbarism, as we know modern nations have; not that barbarism was, in any form, the primitive condition of the race. It is not pretended that no savage tribe has ever been civilized; what is denied is, that the race began in the savage state, or that, if it had so begun, it could ever have risen by its own natural forces alone to civilization. There is no evidence that the cruel and bloody customs, traces of which we find in civilized nations, were those of the primeval man. The polished and cultivated Romans were more savage in their customs than the northern barbarians who overthrew their civilization, much to the relief of mankind. When the late Theodore Parker drew a picture of the New Zealander in order to describe Adam, he proceeded according to his theory of progress, but without a shadow of authority. We find a cruelty, an inhumanity, an oppression, bloody and obscene rites, among polished nations--as Rome, Syria, Phoenicia, and modern India--that we shall look in vain for among downright savages; which shows that we owe them to cultivation, to development, that is, to "development," as the noble duke well says, "in corruption."
But these traces of so-called barbarism among civilized nations are more than offset by remains of civilization which we find in savage tribes. Sir J. Lubbock and others take these remains as indications of progress among savages; but they mistake the evening twilight deepening into darkness, for that of the morning ushering in the day. This is evident from the fact that they are followed by no progress. They are reminiscences, not promises. If germs, they never germinate; but have been deprived of their vitality. To us, paganism bears witness in all its forms that it has degenerated from its normna, or type; not that it is advancing toward it. We see in its incoherence, its incongruities and inequalities, that it is a fall or departure from something higher, more living and more perfect. Any one studying Protestantism, in any of its forms, may see that it is not an original system of religion; that it is a departure from its type, not an approach to it; and, if we know well the Catholic Church, we see at once that in her is the type that Protestantism loses, corrupts, or travesties. So paganism bears unmistakable evidence of what we know from authentic history, that, whether with polished gentiles or with rude savages and barbarians, its type, from which it recedes, is the patriarchal religion. We know that it was an apostasy or falling away from that religion, the primitive religion of the race, as Protestantism is an apostasy or falling away from the Catholic Church. Protestantism, in the modern world, is what gentilism was in the ancient; and as gentilism is the religion of all savage or barbarian tribes, we have in Protestantism a key for explaining whatever is dark or obscure in their history. We see in Protestant nations a tendency to lose or throw off more and more of what they retained when they separated from the church, and which before the lapse of many generations, if not arrested, will lead them to a hopeless barbarism. The traces of Catholic faith we find in them are reminiscences, not prophecies.
{750}
We find with the lowest and most degraded savages, language, and often a language of great richness, singular beauty and expressiveness. Terms for which savages have no use may sometimes be wanting, but it is rare that the language cannot be made to supply them from its resources. In the poorest language of a savage tribe, there is always evidence of its having been the language of a people superior in ideas and culture to the present condition of those who speak it. Language, among savage tribes, we take to be always indicative of a lost state far above that of barbarism; and it not only refutes the theory of natural progress, but, as far as it goes, proves the doctrine of primitive instruction by the Creator, maintained by Dr. Whately, and only partially accepted by his Grace of Argyll.
Language is no human invention, nor the product of individual or social progress. It requires language to invent language, and there is no individual progress out of society, and no society is possible without language. Hence, animals may be gregarious, but not sociable. They do not, and never can, form society. Max Müller has disposed of the bow-wow theory, or the origin of language in the imitation of the cries of animals, and also of the theory that supposes it to originate in the imitation of the sounds of nature, as buzz, rattle, etc.; for if a few words could originate in this way, language itself could not, since there is much more in language than words. The more common theory, just now, and which has respectable names in its favor, is that God is indeed the author of language, but as causa eminens, as he is of all that nature does; that is, he does not directly teach man language, but creates him with the power or faculty of speaking, and making himself understood by articulate speech. But this theory will not bear examination.
Between language and the faculty of using it there is a difference, and no faculty creates its own object. The faculty of speaking could no more be exercised without language, than the faculty of seeing without a visible object. Where there is no language, the faculty is and must be inoperative. The error is in supposing that the faculty of using language is the faculty of creating language, which it cannot be; for, till the language is possessed and held in the mind, there is nothing for the faculty of speech to operate on or with. To have given man the faculty of speech, the Creator must have begun by teaching him language, or by infusing it with the meaning of its words into his mind. We misapprehend the very nature and office of language, if we suppose it can possibly be used except as learned from or taught by a teacher. Man, as second cause, can no more produce language than he can create something from nothing. If God made us as second causes capable of creating language, why can we not do it now, and master it without a long and painful study? Since the faculty must be the same in all men, why do not all men speak one and the same dialect?
We will suppose man had language from the first. But there is no language without discourse of reason. A parrot or a crow may be taught to pronounce single words, and even sentences, but it would be absurd to assert that either has the faculty of language. To have language and be able to use it, one must have knowledge, and the sense of the word must precede, or at least be simultaneous with the word. Both the word and its meaning must be associated in the mind. {751} How then could the Creator give man the faculty of language, without imparting to him in some way the ideas and principles it is fitted to express, and without expressing which it cannot be language? He must do so, or there could be no verbum mentis, and the word would be spoken without meaning. Moreover, all language is profoundly philosophical, and conforms more nearly to the reality of things than any human system yet attained to, not only by savages, but by civilized and cultivated men; and whenever it deviates from that reality, it is when it has been corrupted by the false systems and methods of philosophers. In all languages, we find subject, predicate, and copula. The copula is always the verb to be, teaching those who understand it that nothing existing can be affirmed except by being and in its relation to being, that is God, who is QUI EST. Were ignorant savages able distinctly to recognize and embody in language the ideal formula, when no philosopher can ever apprehend and consider it unless represented to him in words? Impossible.
We take language, therefore, as a reminiscence among savages of a previous civilization, and a conclusive proof that, up to a certain point at least, the primeval man, as Dr. Whately maintains, was and must have been instructed by his Maker. As language is never known save as learned from a teacher, its existence among the lowest and most degraded barbarians is a proof that the primeval man was not, and could not have been an untutored savage. The Anglican archbishop, having, as the Scottish duke, no proper criterion of truth, may have included in the primitive instruction more than it actually contained. An error of this sort in an Anglican should surprise no one. Truth or sound philosophy from such a source would be the only thing to surprise us. We do not suppose Adam was directly instructed in all the mechanic arts, in the whole science and practice of agriculture, or in the entire management of flocks and herds, nor that he had steam-engines, spinning-jennies, power-looms, steamboats, railroads, locomotives, palace-cars, or even lightning telegraphs. We do not suppose that the race, in relation to the material order, received any direct instructions, except of the most elementary kind, or in matters of prime necessity, or high utility to his physical life and health. The ornamental arts, and other matters which do not exceed man's natural powers, may have been left to man to find out for himself, though we have instances recorded in which some of them were taught by direct inspiration, and many modern inventions are only the reproduction of arts once known, and subsequently lost or forgotten.
It is not difficult to explain how our modern advocates of progress have come to regard the savage as the primeval man, and not as the degenerate man. Their theory of natural progress demands it, and they have always shown great facility in accommodating their facts to their theories. They take also their starting-point in heathenism of comparatively recent origin, and study the law of human development in the history of gentilism. They forget that gentilism originated in an apostasy from the patriarchal or primitive moral and religious order, and that, from the first, there remained, and always has remained, on earth a people that did not apostatize, that remained faithful to tradition, to the primitive instruction and wisdom. {752} They fail to consider that, language confounded and the race dispersed, those who remained nearest the original seats of civilization, and were separated by the least distance from the people that remained faithful, became the earliest civilized or polished gentile nations, and that those who wandered further into the wilderness--receding further and further from light, losing more and more of their original patrimony, cut off from all intercourse with civilization by distance, by difference of language, and to some extent, perhaps, by physical changes and convulsions of the globe, degenerated gradually into barbarians and savages. Occasionally, in the course of ages, some of these wandering and degenerate tribes were brought under the influence of civilization by the arts, the arms, and the religion of the more civilized gentile nations. But in none has the gentile civilization, in the proper sense of the term, ever risen above what the gentiles took with them from the primitive stock, when they apostatized. Protestant nations are below, not above, what they were at the epoch of the Reformation. The reformers were greatly superior to any of their successors.
But our philosophic historians take no account of these things, nor of the fact that history shows them no barbaric ancestors of the Egyptians, Indians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Syrians, Phoenicians, etc. They find, or think they find, from the Greek poets and traditions, that the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans, each a comparatively modern people, were really savages, and that suffices them to prove that the savage state is the primeval state of the race! They find, also, that a marvellous progress in civilization, under Christianity has been effected, and what hinders them from concluding that man is naturally progressive, or that the savage is able, by his own efforts, to lift himself into civilized life? Have not the northern barbarians, who overthrew the Roman empire of the west, and seated themselves on its majestic ruins, become, under the teachings and the supernatural influences of the church, the great civilized nations of the modern world? How, then, pretend to deny that barbarians and savages can become civilized by their own spontaneous efforts and natural forces alone?
Whether any savage tribe was ever civilized under gentilism is, perhaps, doubtful; but if the philosophers of history would take the right line, instead of a collateral line or bastard branch of the human family, and follow it from Adam down, through the patriarchs, the synagogue, and the Catholic Church, they would find that there has always been a believing, a faithful, an enlightened, and a civilized people on earth, and they never would and never could have imagined any thing so untrue as that man began "in the lowest form of barbarism in which he can subsist as man." We have no indication of the existence of any savage or barbarous tribes before the flood; nor after the flood, till the confusion of language at Babel, and the consequent dispersion of the human race; that is, till after the gentile apostasy, of which they are one of the fruits. Adam, by his fall, lost communion with God, became darkened in his understanding, enfeebled in his will, and disordered in his appetites and passions; but he did not lose all his science, forget all his moral and religious instruction, and become a complete savage. Besides, his communion with God was renewed by repentance and faith in the promised Messiah, or incarnate Son of God, who should come to redeem the world, and enable man to fulfil his destiny, or attain his end.
{753}
We do not by any means deny progress. We believe in it with St. Paul, and struggle for it in individuals and in society. We only do not believe in progress or perfectibility by the simple forces of nature alone, or that man is naturally progressive. Existences have two movements or cycles: the one, their procession, by way of creation, from God as first cause; the other, their return, without absorption in him, to God as their final cause or beatitude, as we have on several occasions very fully shown. In the first cycle, man is explicated by natural generation, and his powers are determined by his nature, or the physical laws of his existence. In the second cycle, his explication is by regeneration, a supernatural act; and his progress is directed and controlled by the moral law prescribed by God as final cause, and is limited only by the infinite, to which he aspires, and, by the assistance of grace, may attain. The first cycle is initial, and in it there is no moral, religious, or social progress; there is only physical development and growth. It is under the natural laws of the physicists, who never look any further. The second cycle is teleological, and under the moral law, or the natural law of the theologians and the legists. In this teleological cycle lies the whole moral order, as distinguished from the physical; the whole of religion; its means, influences, and ends; and, consequently, civilization, in so far as it has any moral or religious character, aims, or tendency.
Civilization, we are aware, is a word that has hardly a fixed meaning, and is used vaguely, and in different senses. It is derived from a word signifying the city--in modern language, the state--and relates to the organization, constitution, and administration of the commonwealth or republic. It is used vaguely for the aggregate of the manners, customs, and usages of city life, and also for the principles and laws of a well ordered and well-governed civil society. We take it chiefly in the latter sense, and understand by it the supremacy of the moral order in secular life, the reign of law, or the subjection of the passions and turbulent elements of human nature in the individual, the family, and society to the moral law; or, briefly, the predominance of reason and justice over passion and caprice in the affairs of this world, and therefore coincident with liberty, as distinguished from license. The race began in civilization, because it began with a knowledge of the law of human existence, man's origin and destiny, and of the means and conditions of gaining the end for which he exists; and because he was placed in the outset by his Maker in possession of these means and conditions, so that he could not fail except through his own fault. Those who reject, neglect, or pervert the moral order, follow only the natural laws, separate from the communion of the faithful, and remain in the initial cycle, gradually become barbarians, superstitious, the slaves of their own passions, cruel and merciless savages, even if still cultivated, refined, and mild-mannered.
We place civilization, then, in the second cycle or movement of existences, under the moral law, and must do so or deny it all moral basis or moral character. What is not moral in its aims and tendencies, or is not in the order of man's return to God as his last end, we exclude from civilization, as no part of it, even if called by its name. There is no civilization where there is no state or civil polity; and there can be no state or civil polity, though there may be force, tyranny, and slavery, out of the moral order. {754} The state lies in the moral or teleological order, and is under the moral law--the law prescribed by God as final cause. It derives all its principles from it, and is founded and governed by it. Its very mission is the maintenance of justice, freedom, and order; and, as far as it goes, to keep men's faces towards the end for which they are created. And hence the concord there is, or should be, between the state and the church.
Most of those things, it will be seen from this, after which the gentiles seek, and which the moderns call civilization, may be adjuncts of civilization, in the sense of our Lord, when he says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you;" but they do not constitute civilization, are not it, nor any part of it. Here is where modern gentilism errs, no less than did the ancient. Take up any of the leading journals of the day, and you will find what with great emphasis is called modern civilization is in the initial order, not the teleological; and is only a development and application of the natural laws of the physicists, not the natural or moral law of the theologians and legists. The press and popular orators called, a few years ago, Cyrus W. Field, who had taken a leading share in laying a submarine telegraph from the western coast of Ireland to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, a "second Messiah." When, after much urging and some threats, President Lincoln proclaimed, as a war measure, the emancipation of the slaves in certain States and parts of States then at war with the general government, the press and orators that approved, both at home and abroad, forthwith pronounced him also a "second Messiah," and without stopping to inquire whether the emancipation would be any thing more than the exchange of one form of compulsory physical labor for another, perhaps no better. Now, when a new Atlantic cable is laid from France to Massachusetts, we are told in flaring capitals and lofty periods that it is another and a glorious triumph of modern civilization--of mind over matter, man over nature. If our San Francisco friend succeeds in constructing an aerial ship, with which he can navigate the air, it will be a greater triumph still of modern civilization, and the theologians and moralists will have to hide their heads. All this shows that civilization, by the leaders of public opinion in our day, is placed wholly in the physical order, and consists in the development and application of the natural laws to the accomplishment of certain physical ends or purposes of utility only in the first cycle of our existence, and without the least moral significance. So completely have we become devoted to the improvement of our condition in the initial order, that we forget that life does not end with it, or that the initial exists only for the teleological, and that our development and application of the physical laws of nature imply no progress in civilization, or the realization of a moral ideal.
But whatever success we may have in developing and applying to our own purposes the physical laws of man and the globe he inhabits, we must remember that no success of that sort initiates us into the second cycle, or the life of our return to God. To enter that life we must be regenerated, and we can no more regenerate than we can generate ourselves. Here, we may see why even to civilization the Incarnation of the Word is necessary. The hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the divine person of the Word carries the creative act to its summit, completes the first cycle, and initiates the second, into which we can enter only as we are reborn of Christ, as we were born in the first cycle of Adam. {755} Hence, Christ is called the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Civilization, morality, salvation, are in one sense in the same order and under one and the same law.
Progress being possible, except in the sense of physical development, only in the movement of return to God as final cause, and that movement originating in the Incarnation only, it follows that those nations alone that are united to Christ by faith and love, either united to him who was to come, as were the patriarchs and the synagogue, before the Incarnation, or to him in the church or the regeneration, as are Catholics since, are or can be progressive, or even truly civilized nations. They who assert progress by our natural forces alone, confound the first cycle with the second, generation with regeneration, and the natural laws, which proceed from God as first cause, with the natural or moral law which is prescribed by God as final cause. It is a great mistake, then, to suppose, as many do, that the mysteries of faith, even the most recondite, have no practical bearing on the progress of men and nations, or that it is safe, in studying civilization, to take our point of departure in gentilism.
In accordance with our conclusion, we find that gentile nations, ancient or modern, are really unprogressive, save in the physical or initial order; which is of no account in the moral or teleological order. We deny not the achievements of Protestant nations in the physical order; but, in relation to the end for which man exists, they not only do not advance beyond what they took with them from the church, but are constantly deteriorating. They have lost the condition of moral and spiritual progress, individually and collectively, by losing communion with Christ in his church; they have lost Christ, in reality, if not in name; and by losing the infallible word preserved by the church alone, they have lost or are losing the state, civil authority itself, and finding themselves reduced to what St. Paul calls "the natural man." They place all their hopes in physical success, always certain to fail in the end, when pursued for its own sake.
We have raised and we raise here no question as to what God might have done, or how or with what powers he might have created man, had he chosen. We only take the plan he has chosen to adopt; and which, in his providence and grace, he carries out. In the present decree, as say the theologians, he has subjected the whole teleological order to one and the same law; and civilization, morality, and Christian sanctity are not separable in principle, and depend on one and the same fundamental law. Gentilism divorces religion and the state from morality; and modern heresy recognizes no intrinsic relation between them. It tells us religion is necessary to the stability of the political order; that Christianity is the basis of morality, and that it is the great agent of progress; but it shows us no reason why it is or should be so, and in its practical doctrine it teaches that it is not so. Every thing, as far as it informs us, depends on arbitrary appointment, and without any reason of being in the system of things which God has seen proper to create. Hence, people are unable to form to themselves any clear view of the relation of religion and morality, of morality and civilization, or to arrive at any satisfactory understanding of the purpose and law of human existence; and they either frame to themselves the wildest, the most fanciful, or the most absurd theories, or give the whole up in despair, sink into a state of utter indifference, and say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." {756} They simply vegetate in vice or crime, or, at best, only take themselves to the study of the physical sciences, or the cultivation of the fine arts. We have shown that their difficulties and discouragements are imaginary, and arise from ignorance of the divine plan of creation, and the mutual relation and dependence of all its parts. One divine thought runs through the whole, and nothing does or can stand alone. We study things too much in their analysis, not enough in their synthesis.
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Translated From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden.
Angela.