VIII. AVOWALS (part 1 of 2)

VIII. AVOWALS (part 1 of 2)

In the same deep valley where the brook rippled over the pebbles in its bed, where the mountain sides rose up abruptly, where the moss hung from the old oaks, where Klingenberg plucked the tender beard of the young professor of history, took place the meditated attack of the doctor on the poison of materialism which was destroying the body and soul of Richard.

Slowly and carefully the doctor advanced, as against an enemy who will defend his position to the last. But how was he astonished when, upon being attacked, Frank showed no disposition to defend that most highly-vaunted doctrine of modern science--materialism. This was almost as puzzling to the doctor as the eternity of matter. Tired of skirmishing, the doctor set to work to close with the enemy and strike him down.

"I have looked only cursorily at the writings of the materialists; you have studied them carefully; and you will oblige me much if you would give me the foundation on which the whole structure of materialism rests."

"The materialistic system is very simple," answered Frank. "Materialists reject all existence that is not sensibly perceptible. They deny the existence of invisible and supersensible things. There is no spirit in man or anywhere else. Matter alone exists, because matter alone manifests its existence."

"I understand. The materialist will only be convinced by seeing and feeling. As a spirit is neither spiritual nor tangible, then there is none. Is it not so, friend Richard?"

"You have included in one sentence the whole of materialism," said Frank coolly.

"I cannot understand," said Klingenberg hesitatingly, "how the materialists can make assertions which are untenable to the commonest understandings. Why, thought can neither be seen nor felt; yet it is an existence."

"Thought is a function of the brain."

"Then it is incomprehensible how the sensible can beget the supersensible. How matter--the brain--can produce the immaterial, the spiritual."

Richard was silent.

"At every step in materialism I meet insurmountable difficulties," continued the doctor. "I know perfectly the organization of the human body, as well as the function and purpose of each part. The physician knows the purpose of the lungs, heart, kidneys, and stomach, and all the noble and ignoble parts of the body. But no physician knows the origin of the activity of the organism. The blood stops, the pulse no longer beats, the lungs, kidneys, nerves, and all the rest cease their functions. The man is dead. Why? Because the activity, the movement, the force is gone. What then is this vivifying force? In what does it consist? What color, what taste, what form has it? No physician knows. The vivifying principle is invisible, intangible, perfectly immaterial. Yet it exists. Therefore the fundamental dogma of materialism is false. There are existences which can neither be felt, tasted, nor seen."

"The vivifying principle is also in animals," said Richard.

"Certainly; and in them also intangible and mysterious. Materialism cannot even stand before animal life; for even there the vivifying principle is an immaterial existence."

"The materialist stumbles at the existence of human spirit, because he cannot get a conception of it."

"How could this be possible?" cried the doctor. "The conception is a picture in the mind, an apprehension of the senses. Spiritual being is as unapproachable by the senses as the vivifying principle, of which also man can form no conception. To deny existence because you cannot have a conception of it, is foolish. The blind would have the same right to deny the existence of colors, or the deaf that of music. And who can have a conception of good, of eternity, of justice, of virtue? No one. These are existences that do not fall under the senses. To be logical, the materialist must conclude that there is nothing good, nothing noble, no justice; for we have not yet seen nor felt nor smelt these things. Virtuous actions we can, of course, see; but these actions are not the cause but the consequence, not the thing working but the thing wrought. As these actions will convince every thinking man of the existence of virtue and justice, so must the workings of the spirit prove its existence."

"Precisely," replied Frank. "Materialism only surprises and captivates one like a dream of the night. It vanishes the moment it is seen. I read the works of Vogt and Büchner only for diversion; my object was perfectly gained."

"You read for diversion! What did you wish to forget?"

"Dark clouds that lowered over my mind."

"Have you secrets that I, your old friend and well-meaning adviser, should not know?"

Frank was confused; but his great respect for the doctor forced him to be candid.

"You know my views of women. When I tell you that Angela, the well-known Angel of Salingen, has torn these opinions up by the roots, you will not need further explanation."

"You found Angela what I told you? I am glad," said Klingenberg. And his disputative countenance changed to a pleasant expression. "I suspected that the Angel of Salingen made a deep impression on you. I did not guess; I read it in large characters on your cheeks. Have you made an avowal?"

"No; it will never come to that."

"Why not? Are you ashamed to confess that you love a beautiful young lady? That is childish and simple. There is no place here for shame. You want a noble, virtuous wife. You have Angela in view. Woo her; do not be a bashful boy."

"Bashfulness might be overcome, but not the conviction that I am unworthy of her."

"Unworthy! Why, then? Shall I praise you? Shall I exhibit your noble qualities, and convince you why you are worth more than any young man that I know? You have not Angela's religious tone; but the strong influence of the wife on the husband is well known. In two or three years I shall not recognize in the ultramontane Richard Frank the former materialist." And the doctor laughed heartily.

"It is questionable," said the young man, "whether Angela's inclination corresponds to mine."

"The talk of every true lover," said the doctor pleasantly. "Pluck the stars of Bethlehem, like Faust's Grethe, with the refrain, 'She loves, she loves not--she loves.' But you are no bashful maiden; you are a man. Propose to her. Angela's answer will show you clearly how she feels."

The doctor was scarcely in his room when Richard's father entered.

"All as you foretold," said Klingenberg. "Your son is cured of his hatred of women by Angela. The materialistic studies were not in earnest; they were only a shield held up against the coming passion. The love question is so absorbing, and the sentiment so strong, that Richard left me near Frankenhöhe to hasten over there. I expect from your sound sense that you will place no obstacles in the way of your son's happiness."

"I regret," said Frank coldly, "that I cannot be of the same opinion with you and Richard in this affair."

"Make your son unhappy?" said Klingenberg. "Do you consider the possible consequences of your opposition?"

"What do you understand by possible consequences?"

"Melancholy, madness, suicide, frequently come from this. I leave to-morrow, and I hope to take with me the assurance that you will sacrifice your prejudice to the happiness of Richard."

* * * * *

Among the numerous inhabitants of Siegwart's yard was a hen with a hopeful progeny. The little chicks were very lively. They ran about after insects till the call of the happy mother brought them to her. Escaped from the shell some few days before, they had instead of feathers delicate white down, so that the pretty little creatures looked as though they had been rolled in cotton. They had black, quick eyes, and yellow feet and bills. If a hawk flew in the air and the mother gave a cry, the little ones knew exactly what it meant, and ran under the protecting wings of the mother from the hawk, although they had never seen one--had never studied in natural history the danger of the enemy. If danger were near, she called, and immediately they were under her wings. The whole brood now stopped under the lindens. The little ones rested comfortably near the warm body of the mother. Now here, now there, their little heads would pop out between the feathers. One smart little chirper, whose ambition indicated that he would be the future cock of the walk, undertook to stand on the back of the hen and pick the heads of the others as they appeared through the feathers.

Angela came under the lindens, carrying a vessel of water and some crumbs in her apron for the little ones. She strewed the crumbs on the ground, and the old hen announced dinner. The little ones set to work very awkwardly. The old hen had to break the crumbs smaller between her bill. Angela took one of the chickens in her hand and fondled it, and carried it into the house. The hen went to the vessel to drink and the whole brood followed. It happened that the one that stood on her back fell into the water, and cried loudly; for it found that it had got into a strange element of which it had no more idea than Vogt and Büchner of the form of a spirit. At this critical moment Frank came through the yard. He saw it fluttering about in the water, and stopped. The old hen went clucking anxiously about the vessel. And although she could without difficulty have taken the chicken out with her bill, yet she did not do it. Richard observed this with great interest; but showed no desire to save the little creature, which at the last gasp floated like a bunch of cotton on the water.

Angela may have heard the noise of the hen, for she appeared at the door. She saw Frank standing near the lindens looking into the vessel. At the same time she noticed the danger of one of her little darlings, and hastened out. She took the body from the water and held it sadly in her hands.

"It is dead, the little dear," said she sadly. "You could have saved it, Herr Frank, and you did not do it." She looked at Frank, and forgot immediately, on seeing him, the object of her regrets. The young man stood before her so dejected, so depressed and sad, that it touched her heart. She knew what darkened his soul. She knew his painful struggle, his great danger, and she could have given her life to save him. She was moved, tears came into her eyes, and she hastened into the house.

Siegwart was reading the paper when his daughter hastened in such an unusual way through the room and disappeared.

This astonished him.

"What is the matter, Angela?" he exclaimed.

There was no answer. He was about to go after her when Frank entered.

"I can give you some curious news of the assessor," said the proprietor after some careless conversation. "The man is terribly enraged against me and full of bad designs. The reason of this anger is known to you." And he added, "Angela is in the next room, and she must know nothing of his proposal."

Frank nodded assent.

"About ten paces from the last house in Salingen," continued Siegwart, "I have had a pile of dirt thrown up. It was now and then sprinkled with slops, to make manure of it. Herr Hamm has made the discovery that the slops smell bad; that it annoys the inhabitants of the next house; and he has ordered it to be removed."

Richard shook his head disapprovingly.

"Perhaps Herr Hamm will come to the conclusion that, in the interest of the noses, all like piles must be removed from Salingen."

"But that is not all," said Siegwart. "It has been discovered that the common good forbids my keeping fowls, because my residence is surrounded by fields and vineyards, where the fowls do great damage. The Herr Assessor has had the goodness, accompanied by the guards, to examine personally the amount of destruction. So I have got instructions either to keep my fowls confined or to make away with them."

"Mean and contemptible!" said Frank.

Angela came into the room. Her countenance was smiling and clear as ever; but her swollen eyes did not escape Richard's observation. She greeted the guest, and sat down in her accustomed place near the window. Scarcely had she done this, when Frank stood up, went toward her, and knelt down before the astonished girl.

"Miss, I have greatly offended you, and beg your pardon."

Siegwart looked on in surprise--now at his daughter, who was perplexed; now at the kneeling young man.

"For God's sake! Herr Frank, arise," said the confused Angela. She was about to leave the seat, but he caught her hand and gently replaced her.

"If I may approach so near to you, my present position is the proper one. Hear me! I have deeply offended you. I could with ease have saved a creature that was dear to you, and I did not do it. My conduct has brought tears to your eyes--hurt your feelings. When you went away to regain your composure, and to show your offender a serene, reconciled countenance, it made my fault more distressing. Forgive me; do not consider me hard and heartless, but see in me an unfortunate who forgets himself in musing."

She looked into Frank's handsome face as he knelt before her, in such sadness, lowering his eyes like a guilty boy, and smiled sweetly.

"I will forgive you, Herr Frank, on one condition."

"Only speak. I am prepared for any penance."

"The condition is, that you burn those godless books that make you doubt about the noblest things in man, and that you buy no more."

"I vow fulfilment, and assure you that the design of those books, which you rightly call godless, is recognized by me as a crime against the dignity of man--and condemned."

"This rejoices no one more than me," said she with a tremulous voice.

He stood up, bowed, and returned to his former place.

"But, my dear neighbor, how did this singular affair happen?" said the proprietor.

Frank told him about the death of the chicken.

"The love of the hen for her chickens is remarkable. She protects them with her wings and warns them of danger, which she knows by instinct. How easy would it have been for the hen to have taken the young one from the water with her bill--the same bill with which she broke their food and gave it to them. But she did not do it, because it is strange to her nature. This case is another striking proof that animals act neither with understanding nor reflection. Acts beyond their instinct are impossible to them. This would not be the case, if they had souls."

* * * * *

The old servant stood with an empty basket before the library of the son, as he had stood before that of the father. Büchner, Vogt, and Czolbe fell into the fire. Jacob shook his head and regretted the beautiful binding; but the evil spirits between the covers he willingly consigned to the flames.

* * * * *

Again the cars stopped at the station; again the two gentlemen stood at the open window of the car to receive their returning friends. The travellers took a carriage and drove through the street.

"Baron Linden has indeed gone headlong into misery," said Lutz humorously. "Eight days ago the young pair swore eternal fidelity. It was signed and sealed. Until to-day no one could know that they were on the brink of misery."

Richard remembered his remark on the former occasion, and wondered at his sudden change of opinion.

"I wish them all happiness," said he.

"Amen!" answered Lutz. "Richard, however, considers happiness in matrimony possible. So we may hope that he will not always remain a bachelor. How is the Angel of Salingen? Have you seen her since that encounter with the steer?"

"The angel is well," said Richard, avoiding the glance of his friend.

"What do you mean by the 'Angel of Salingen'?" said the father.

"Thereby I understand the unmarried daughter of Herr Siegwart, of Salingen, named Angela, who richly deserves to be called the 'Angel of Salingen.'"

Frank knit his brows darkly and drummed on his knees.

"And the encounter with the steer?" continued he.

The professor related the occurrence.

"Ah! you did not tell me anything of that," said the father, turning to Frank. "An act of such great courage deserves to be mentioned."

The carriage passed into the court of a stately mansion. The servant sprang from his seat and opened the carriage-door. The professor looked at his watch.

"Herr Frank, will you allow your coachman to drive me to the university? I must be at my post in ten minutes. I cannot go on foot in that time."

"With pleasure, Herr Professor."

"Richard," said the other friend, "shall we meet at the opera to-night?"

"Scarcely. I must to-day enter upon my usual business."

"Come, if possible. The evening promises great amusement, for the celebrated Santinilli dances."

The accustomed routine of business began for Richard. He sat in the counting-room and worked with his habitual punctuality. Nevertheless invidious spirits lured him toward Salingen, so that the figures danced before his eyes, words had no meaning, and he was often lost in day-dreams. The watchful father had observed this, and was perplexed.

Richard's plan of studies also underwent a change. He left the house regularly at half-past five and returned at half-past six. The father, desiring to know what this meant, set the faithful Jacob on the watch.

"Herr Richard," reported the spy, "hears mass at the Capuchins."

Frank drummed a march on his knees.

"So, so!" he hummed. "The ultramontanes understand proselytizing. They have turned the head of my son. If I live long enough, I may yet see him turn Capuchin, build a cloister, and go about begging."

When Herr Frank entered the counting-room, he found his son busy at work. He stood up and greeted his father.

"I have observed, Richard," he began after a time, "that you go out early every morning. What does it mean?"

"I have imposed upon myself the obligation of hearing mass every morning."

"How did you come to take that singular obligation upon yourself?"

"From the conviction that religion is no empty idea, but a power that can give peace and consolation in all conditions of life."

"It is evident that you have breathed ultramontane air. This church-going is not forbidden--but no trifling or fanatical nonsense."

"It is my constant care, father, to give you no cause of uneasiness."

"I am rejoiced at this, my son; but I must observe that a certain gloomy, reserved manner of yours disturbs me. Your conduct is exemplary, your industry praiseworthy, your habits regular; but you keep yourself too much shut up; you do not give evening parties any more. You do not visit the concert-hall or theatre. This is wrong; we should enjoy life, and not move about like dreamers."

"I have no taste for amusements," answered Richard. "However, if you think a change would be good, I beg you to permit me to take a run out to Frankenhöhe for a couple of days."

"And why to Frankenhöhe? I do not know any amusement there for you."

"I have planted a small vineyard, as you know, and I would like to see how the Burgundies thrive."

Herr Frank was not in a hurry to give the permission. He thought and drummed.

"You can go," he said resignedly. "I hope the mountain air will cheer you up."

* * * * *

Herr Siegwart had remarked the same symptoms in his daughter that Herr Frank had in his son; but Angela did not give way to discontent. She was always the same obedient daughter. The poor and sick of Salingen could not complain of neglect. But she was frequently absent-minded, gave wrong answers to questions, and sought solitude. If Frank was mentioned, she revived; the least circumstance connected with him was interesting to her. Her sharp-sighted father soon discovered the inmost thoughts and feelings of his daughter. He thought of Herr Frank's ill-humor toward him, and was disposed to regret the hour that Richard entered his house.

* * * * *

The Burgundies at Frankenhöhe were scarcely looked at. The young man hastened to Salingen. He found the landscape changed in a few weeks. The fields had clothed themselves in yellow. The wheat-stalks bent gracefully under their load. Everywhere industrious crowds were in the fields. The stalks fell beneath the reapers. Men bound the sheaves. Wagons stood here and there. The sheaves were raised into picturesque stacks. The sun beamed down hot, and the sweltering weather wrote on the foreheads of the men, "Adam, in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread."

In the proprietor's house all was still. The old cook sat beneath the lindens, and with spectacles on her nose tried to mend a stocking which she held in her hand. She arose and smiled on Richard's approach.

"They are all in the fields. We have much work, Herr Frank. The grain is ripe, and we have already gathered fifty wagon-loads. I am glad to see you looking so much better. The family will also be glad. They think a great deal of you--particularly Herr Siegwart."

"Give them many kind greetings from me. I will come back in the evening."

"Off so soon? Will you not say good-day to Miss Angela? She is in the garden. Shall I call her?"

"No," said he after a moment's reflection; "I will go into the garden myself."

After unlatching the gate, he would have turned back, for he became nervous and embarrassed.

Angela sat in the arbor; her embroidery-frame leaned against the table, and she was busily working. As she heard the creaking of footsteps on the walk, she looked up and blushed. Frank raised his hat, and when the young woman stood up before him in beauty and loveliness, his nervousness increased, and he would gladly have escaped; but his spirit was in the fetters of a strange power, and necessity supplied him with a few appropriate remarks.

"I heard that the family were absent; but I did not wish to go away without saluting you, Miss Angela."

She observed the bashful manner of the young man, and said kindly, "I am glad to see you again, Herr Frank," and invited him to sit down. He looked about for a seat; but as there was none, he had to sit on the same bench with her.

"Do you remain long at Frankenhöhe?"

"Only to-day and to-morrow. Work requires dispatch, and old custom has so bound me to my occupation that the knowledge of work to be done makes me feel uneasy."

"Do you work every day regularly in the counting-room?"

"I am punctual to the hours, for the work demands regularity and order. There are every day some hours for recreation."

"And what is the most pleasant recreation for you?"

"Music and painting. I like them the best. But of late," he added hesitatingly, "unavoidable thoughts press on me, and many hours of recreation pass in useless dreaming."

Angela thought of his former mental troubles and looked anxiously in his eyes.

"Now, you have promised me," she said softly, "to forget all those things in those bad books that disturbed your mind."

"The fulfilment of no duty was lighter or more pleasant to me than to keep my promise to you, Angela."

His voice trembled. She leaned over her work and her cheeks glowed. The delicate fingers went astray; but Frank did not notice that the colors in the embroidery were getting into confusion. There was a long pause. Then Frank remembered the doctor's final admonition, "Be not like a bashful boy; put aside all false shame and speak your mind;" and he took courage.

"I have no right to ask what disturbs and depresses you," said she, in a scarcely audible voice and without moving her head.

"It is you who have the best right, Angela! You have not only saved my life, but also my better convictions. You have purified my views, and influenced my course of life. I was deeply in error, and you have shown me the only way that leads to peace. This I see more clearly every day. The church is no longer a strange, but an attractive place to me. All this you have done without design. I tell you this because I think you sympathize with me."

He paused; but the declaration of his love hovered on his lips.

"You have not deceived yourself as to my sympathy," she answered. "The discovery that one so insignificant as myself has any influence with you makes me glad."

"O Angela! you are not insignificant in my eyes. You are more than all else on earth to me!" he cried. "You are the object of my love, of my waking dreams. If you could give me your hand before the altar in fidelity and love, my dearest wishes would be realized."

She slowly raised her head, her modest countenance glowed in a virginal blush, and her eyes, which met Richard's anxious look, were filled with tears. She lowered her head, and laid her hand in that of the young man. He folded her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and kissed her forehead. The swallows flew about the arbor, twittered noisily, and threatened the robber who was trying to take away their friend. The sparrows, through the leaves of the vines, looked with wonder at the table where Angela's head rested on the breast of her affianced.

They arose.

"We cannot keep this from our parents, Richard. My parents esteem you. Their blessing will not be wanting to our union."

Suddenly she paused, and stood silent and pale, as though filled with a sudden fear. Richard anxiously inquired the cause.

"You know your father's opinion of us," she said, disturbed.

"Do not be troubled about that. Father will not object to my arrangements. But even if he does, I am of age, and no power shall separate me from you."

"No, Richard; no! I love you as my life; but without your father's consent, our union wants a great blessing. Speak to him in love; beg him, beseech him, but do not annoy him on account of your selfishness."

"So it shall be. Your advice is good and noble. As long as this difficulty exists, I am uneasy. I will therefore go back. Speak to your parents; give them my kind greeting, and tell them how proud I shall feel to be acknowledged as their son." He again folded her in his arms and hastened away.

The old cook still sat under the lindens, and the stocking lost many a stitch as Frank, with a joyous countenance, passed her without speaking, without having noticed her. She shook wonderingly her old gray head.

Angela sat in the arbor. Her work lay idly on the table. With a countenance full of sweetness she went to her room, and knelt and prayed.

* * * * *

Herr Frank looked up astonished, as Richard, late in the evening, entered his chamber.

"Excuse me, father," said he joyfully and earnestly; "something has happened of great importance to me, and of great interest to you. I could not delay an explanation, even at the risk of depriving you of an hour's sleep."

"Well, well! I am really interested," said Herr Frank, as he threw himself back on the sofa. "Your explanation must be something extraordinary, for I have never seen you thus before. What is it, then?"

"For a right understanding of my position, it is necessary to go back to that May-day on which we went to Frankenhöhe. Your displeasure at my well-grounded aversion to women you will remember."

With childish simplicity he related the whole course of his inner life and trials at Frankenhöhe. He described the deep impression Angela had made upon him. He took out his diary and read his observations, his stubborn adherence to his prejudices, and the victory of a virtuous maiden over them. The father listened with the greatest attention. He admired the depth of his son's mind and the noble struggle of conviction against the powerful influence of error. But when Richard made known what had passed between himself and Angela, Herr Frank's countenance changed.

"I have told you all," said Richard, "with that openness which a son owes to his father. From the disposition and character of Angela, as you have heard them, you must have learned to respect her, and have been convinced that she and I will be happy. Therefore, father, I beg your consent and blessing on our union."

He arose and was about to kneel, when Herr Frank stopped him.

"Slowly, my son. With the exception of what happened to-day, I am pleased with your conduct. You have convinced yourself of the injustice of your opinion of women. You have found a noble woman. I am willing to believe that Angela is a magnificent and faultless creature, although she have an ultramontane father. But my consent to your union with Siegwart's daughter you will never receive. Now, Richard, you can without trouble find a woman that will suit you, and who is as beautiful and as noble-minded as the Angel of Salingen."

"May I ask the reason of your refusal, father?"

"There are many reasons. First, I do not like the ultramontane spirit of the Siegwart family. Angela is educated in this spirit. You would be bound to a wife whose narrow views would be an intolerable burden."

"Pardon, father! The extracts from my diary informed you that I have examined this ultramontane spirit very carefully, and that I was forced at last to correct my opinions of the ultramontanes--to reject an unjust prejudice."

"The stained glass of passion has beguiled you into ultramontane sentiments; and further, remember that Siegwart is personally objectionable to me." And he spoke of the failure of the factory through Angela's father.

"Herr Siegwart has told me of that enterprise, and, at the same time, gave me the reasons that induced him to prevent its realization. He showed the demoralizing effects of factories. He showed that the inhabitants of that neighborhood support themselves by farming; that the religious sentiment of the country people is endangered by Sunday labor and other evil influences that accompany manufacturing."

"And you approved of this narrow-mindedness of the ultramontane?" cried Frank.

"Siegwart's conduct is free from narrow-mindedness. You yourself have often said that faith and religion had much to fear from modern manufactories. If Siegwart has made great sacrifices, if he has interfered against his own interest in favor of faith and morality, he deserves great respect for it."

"Has it gone so far? Do you openly take part with the ultramontane against your father?"

"I take no part; I express frankly my views," answered Richard tranquilly.

"The views of father and son are very different, and we may thank your intercourse with the ultramontanes for it."

"Your acquaintance, father, with that excellent family is very desirable. You would soon be convinced that you ought to respect them."

"I do not desire their acquaintance. It is near midnight; go to rest, and forget the hasty step of to-day."

"I will never regret what has taken place with forethought and reflection," answered Richard firmly. "I again ask your consent to the happiness of your son."

"No, no! Once for all--never!" cried Frank hastily.

The son became excited. He was about to fly into a passion, and to show his father that he was not going to follow blind authority like an inexperienced child, when he thought of what Angela said, "Speak to your father in love;" and his rising anger subsided.

"You know, father," he said hesitatingly, "that my age permits me to choose a wife without reference to your will. As the consent is withheld without valid reasons, I might do without it. But Angela has urgently requested me not to act against your will, and I have promised to comply with her wishes."

"Angela appears to have more sense than you. So she requested this promise from you? I esteem the young lady for this sentiment, although she be a child of Siegwart, who shall never have my son for a son-in-law."

The young man arose.

"It only remains for me to declare," said he calmly, "that to Angela, and to her alone, shall I ever belong in love and fidelity. If you persevere in your refusal, I here tell you, on my honor, I shall never choose another wife."

He made a bow and left the room. It was long past midnight, and Herr Frank was still sitting on the sofa, drumming on his knees and shaking his head.

"An accursed piece of business!" said he. "I know he will not break his word of honor under any circumstances. I know his stubborn head. But this Siegwart, this clerical ultramontane fellow--it is incompatible; mental progress and middle-age darkness, spiritual enlightenment and stark confessionalism--it won't do. Angela certainly is not her father. She is an innocent country creature; does not wear crinoline, dresses in blue like a bluebell, has not a dainty stomach, and has no toilette nonsense. The nuns, together with perverted views of the world, may, perhaps, have taught her many principles that adorn an honorable woman; but--but--" And Herr Frank threw himself back grumbling on the sofa.

On the following day Richard wrote Angela a warm, impassioned letter. The vow of eternal love and fidelity was repeated. In conclusion, he spoke of his father's refusal, but assured her that his consent would yet be given.

Many weeks passed. The letters of the lovers came and went regularly and without interruption. She wrote that her parents had not hesitated a moment to give their consent. In her letters Richard admired her tender feeling, her dove-like innocence and pure love. He was firm in his conviction that she would make him happy, would be his loadstar through life. He read her letters hundreds of times, and these readings were his only recreation. He spoke not another word about the matter to his father. He kept away from all society. He devoted himself to his calling, and endeavored to purify his heart in the spirit of religion, that he might approach nearer to an equality with Angela. The father observed him carefully, and was daily more and more convinced that a spiritual change was coming over his son. Murmuringly he endured the church-going, and vexedly he shook his head at Richard's composure and perseverance, which he knew time would not change. The more quietly the son endured, the more disquieted Herr Frank became. "Sacrifice your prejudices to your son's happiness," he heard the doctor saying; and he felt ashamed when he thought of this advice.

"What cannot be cured must be endured," he was accustomed to say for some days, as often as he went into his room. "The queer fellow makes it uncomfortable for me; this cannot continue; days and years pass away. I am growing old, and the house of Frank must not die out."

One morning he gave Richard charge of the establishment. "I have important business," said he. "I will be back to-morrow."

The father smiled significantly as he said this. Richard heard from the coachman that Herr Frank took a ticket for the station near Frankenhöhe. He knew the great importance to him of this visit, and prayed God earnestly to move his father's heart favorably. His uneasiness increased hourly, and rendered all work impossible. He walked up and down the counting-room like a man who feared bankruptcy, and expected every moment the decision on which depended his happiness for life. He went into the hall where the desks of the clerks stood in long rows. He went to the desks, looked at the writing of the clerks, and knew not what he did, where he went, or where he stood.

The next day Herr Frank returned. Richard was called to the library, where his father received him with a face never more happy or contented.

"I have visited your bride," he began, "because I had a curiosity to know personally the one who has converted my son to sound views of womankind. I am perfectly satisfied with your taste, and also with myself; for I have become reconciled with Siegwart, and find that he is as willing to live with his neighbors in harmony as in discord. You now have my blessing on your union. The marriage can take place when you please; only it would please me if it came off as soon as possible."

Richard stood speechless with emotion, which so overcame him that tears burst from his eyes. He embraced his father, kissed him tenderly, and murmured his thanks.

"That will do, Richard," said Herr Frank, much affected. "Your happiness moves me. May it last long. And I do not doubt it will; for Angela is truly a woman the like of whom I have never met. Her character is as clear and transparent as crystal; and her eyes possess such power, and her smile such loveliness, that I fear for my freedom when she is once in the house."

* * * * *

Crisp, cold weather. The December winds sweep gustily through the streets of the city, driving the well-clad wanderer before them and sporting with the weather-vanes. A carriage stops before the door of the Director Schlagbein. Professor Lutz steps out and directs the driver to await him.

Emil Schlagbein, Richard's unhappy married friend, had moved his easy-chair near the stove and leaned his head against its back. He looked as though despair had seized him and thrown him into it. Hasty steps were heard in the ante-room, and Lutz stood before him.

"Still in your working-clothes, Emil? Up! the tea-table of the Angel of Salingen awaits us."

"Pardon me; my head is confused, my heart is sad; grief wastes my life away."

"War--always war; never peace!" said Lutz. "I fear, Emil, that all the fault is not with your wife. You are too sensitive, too particular about principles. Man must tolerate, and not be niggardly in compliance. Take old Frank as a model. With Angela entered ultramontanism into his house. Frank lives in peace with this spirit--even on friendly terms. Angela reads him pious stories from the legends of the saints. He goes with her to church, where he listens with attention to the word of God. He hears mass as devoutly as a Capuchin; not to say any thing of Richard, who runs a race with Angela for the prize of piety. Could you not also make some sacrifice to the whims of your wife?"

"Angela and Ida--day and night!" said the director bitterly. "The two Franks make no sacrifice to female whims. They appreciate her exalted views, they admire her purity, her unspeakable modesty, her shining virtues. The two Franks acted reasonably when they adopted the principles that produced such a woman. Angela never speaks to her husband in defiance and bad temper. If clouds gather in the matrimonial heaven, she dissipates them with the breath of love. Is the sacrifice of a wish wanted? Angela makes it. Is her pure feeling offended by Richard's faults? She kisses them away and raises him to her level. My wife--is she not just the opposite in every thing? Is she not quick-tempered, bitter, loveless, extravagant, and stiff-necked? Has she a look--I will not say of love--but even of respect for me? Do not all her thoughts and acts look to the pleasures of the toilette, the opera, balls, and concerts? O my poor children! who grow up without a mother, in the hands of domestics. How is any concession possible here? Must not my position, my self-respect, the last remnant of manly dignity go to the wall?"

"Your case is lamentable, friend! Your principles and those of your wife do not agree. Concession to the utmost point of duty, joined with prudent reform in many things, may, perhaps, bring back harmony and a good understanding between you. You praise Angela: follow her example. She abominates the air of the theatre. The opera-glasses of the young men levelled at her offend her deeply, and bring to her angelic countenance the blush of shame. Her fine religious feeling is offended at many words, gestures, and dances which a pious Christian woman should not hear and see. Yet she goes to the opera because Richard wishes it. Her husband will at last observe this heroism of love, and sacrifice the opera to it. What Angela cannot obtain by prayers and representations, she gains by the all-conquering weapons of love. In like manner and for a like object yield to your wife. She is, at least, not a firebrand. Love must overcome her stubbornness."

Schlagbein shook his head sadly.

"A father cannot do what is inconsistent with paternal duty," said he. "Shall I join in the course of my wife? Whither does this course lead? To the destruction of all family ties, to financial bankruptcy--to dishonor. For home my wife has no mind, no understanding. My means she throws carelessly into the bottomless pit of pleasure-seeking and love of dress. She does not think of the future of her children. Every day brings to her new desires for prodigality. If her wishes are fulfilled, ruin is unavoidable. If they are not fulfilled, she sits ill-humored and obstinate in her room, and leaves the care of the house to her domestics, and the children to the nurses. How often have I consented to her vain desire for show, only to see her extravagant wishes thereby increased. She is without reason."

The unfortunate man's head sunk upon his breast. Lutz stood still without uttering a word.

"Yes, Angela is a noble woman," continued Emil, "she is the spirit of order, the angel of peace and love. Just hear Richard's father. He revels in enthusiasm about her. 'My Richard is the happiest man in the world,' said he to me lately. 'I myself must be thankful to him for his prudent choice. Abounding in every thing, my house was empty and desolate before Angela came; but now every thing shines in the sun of her orderly housekeeping, of her tender care. Although served with fidelity, I have been until the present almost neglected. But now that the angel hovers over me, observes my every want, and with her smile lights my old age, I am perfectly happy.' Has my wife a single characteristic of this noble woman?"

"Angela is unapproachable in the little arts that win the heart and drive away melancholy," said Lutz. "A few weeks ago, Herr Frank came home one day from the counting-room all out of sorts. He sat silently in his easy-chair drumming on his knee. Angela noticed his ill-humor. She sought to dissipate it--to cheer him; but she did not succeed. She then arose, and, going to him, said with unspeakable affection, 'Father, may I play and sing for you the "Lied der Kapelle?"' Herr Frank looked in her face, and smiled as he replied, 'Yes, my angel.' When her sweet voice resounded in the next room in beautiful accord with the accompaniment, which she played most feelingly, the old man revived and joined in her song with his trembling bass."

"How often we have twitted Richard with his views of modern women," said Emil. "It was his cool judgment, perhaps, that saved him from a misfortune like mine."

Just then a carriage stopped before the house. Emil went uneasily to the window, and Lutz followed him. Bandboxes and trunks were taken from the house. The professor looked inquiringly at his friend, whose hand appeared to tremble as it rested on the window-glass.

"What does this mean, Emil?"

"My wife is going to her aunt's for an indefinite time. She leaves me to enjoy the pleasures of Christmas alone. The children also remain here; they might be in her way."

The professor pitied his unhappy friend.

"Emil," said he, almost angrily, "it is for you to determine how a man should act in regard to the freaks and caprices of his wife. But you should not steep yourself in gall, even though your wife turn into a river of bitterness. Drive away sadness and be happy. Do not let your present humor rob you of every thing. Forget what you cannot change."

A beautiful woman approached the carriage. Schlagbein turned away from the sight. Lutz observed the departing wife and mother. She did not look up at the window where her husband was. She got into the carriage without even saying farewell. She sat in the midst of bandboxes, surrounded by finery and tinsel; and as the wheels rolled over the pavement, the director groaned in his chair.

"A happy journey to you, Xantippe!" cried the angry professor. "Emil, be a man. Dress yourself; forget at the Angel of Salingen's your domestic devil."

Schlagbein moved his head disconsolately.

"What have the wretched to do in the home of the happy? There I shall only see more clearly that I suffer and am miserable."

Lutz, out of humor, threw himself into the carriage. With knitted brows he buried himself in one of its corners. That professional head was perplexed with a question which ordinary men would have quickly seen through, and settled. Frank's happiness and Schlagbein's misery stood as two irrefutable facts before the mind of the professor. Now came the question, Why this happiness, why this misery? The dashing Ida he had known for years; also her enlightened views of life, and her flexible principles, perfectly conformable to the spirit of progress. Whence, then, the dissoluteness of her desires, the bitterness of her humor, the heartlessness of the wife, the callousness of the mother?

The professor continued his musing. He gave a scrutinizing glance at the marriages of all his acquaintances. Everywhere he found a clouded sky, and, in the semi-darkness, lightning and thunder. Only one marriage stood before him bright and clear in the sunlight of happiness, in the raiment of peace, and that was ultramontane. That ultramontane principles had produced this happiness and peace, the professor's industrious mind saw with clearness. He raised his head and said solemnly, "Marriage is an image of religion. It proceeds from the lips of God, and is perfected at the altar. The marriage duties are children of the religious sentiment, fetters of the divine law. Ida was faithful and true so long as it agreed with the longings of her heart. But with the cooling of affection died love and fidelity. She recognizes no religious duty, because she has progressed to liberty and independence. From this follows with striking clearness the incompatibility of Christian marriage with the spirit of the age. Marriage will be a thing of the past as soon as intellectual maturity conquers in the contest with religion. Sound sense, liberty of emotion and inclination will supplant the terrible marriage yoke."

The professor paused and examined his conclusion. It smiled upon him like a true child of nature. It clothed itself in motley flesh, and passed through green meadows and shady forests. It pointed encouragingly to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, long in possession of intellectual maturity. Sensual marriages, intended to last only for weeks or months, danced around the professor. Cannibal hordes, who extended to him their brotherly paws and claws, pressed about him. In astonishment, he contemplated his conclusion; it made beastly grimaces, knavish and jeering, and he dashed into fragments the provoking mockery.

In strong contrast to the animal kingdom, stood before him again the Christian marriage. He cunningly tried to give his new conclusion human shape; but here the carriage stopped, and the speculation vanished before the clear light in the house of the "Angel of Salingen."

THE LETTER OF MR. E. S. FFOULKES.

The religious controversies of the last three centuries have given birth to many new and strange things, but scarcely to any thing more wonderful than the letter of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes to Archbishop Manning, entitled The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed. It is hard to discern the precise mental condition of the author, or the temper with which he writes; while the whole letter is a bundle of misstatements and misunderstandings, calculated to produce an impression only upon the ignorant or prejudiced reader. It has been used in this country as an argument against the Catholic Church by the advance-guard of Episcopalians, whose sparse ranks are daily depleted by conversions to Rome. It has more than once happened that individuals even in high position have proved unfaithful, and we know of one or two converts to the church for whom the yoke of Christ proved too heavy. Nothing is more natural than to hold up these examples to the doubtful and the wavering as warnings. "Here is one who has tried the Roman communion and found it oppressive to his heart, or irreconcilable with his views of Christianity. Hesitate long before you take the step which he found occasion to regret." Such a warning is not without effect upon minds so tempted and anxious as are those of Protestants, when, called by conscience, they forsake the associations of childhood and accept for the first time, in the spirit of obedience, a religion which God has revealed to faith alone. We have known some to be deterred from the great step by such warnings, which are purely personal, and hardly merit the name of arguments. For surely individual experiences are not to be taken as the basis of any reasoning. They are good only as far as the person concerned may be deemed an infallible criterion of right or wrong. Every one is liable to mistake or positive error, and while there have been a few dissatisfied Catholics, and a very few concerts who have regretted the step they took, there have been many more who have daily found new cause to thank God for the peace they have experienced in the old faith. If the testimony of individuals is to be taken, we have the preponderance of argument in our favor. Defections from our ranks will never even approximate to an equality in moral weight with the accessions, nor ever furnish any plausible objection against the invincible demonstration of the authority of the church. We do not deny that difficulties may be raised which it may require time and patience to remove, nor that there are oftentimes trials which prove the sincerity of every individual believer. But there are no logical objections to the claims of an authority which professes to be divine, and gives to the honest mind just grounds for its high pretensions. The defection of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes, or of many others like him, is in itself no argument whatever, and cannot be taken as any thing conclusive against us, any more than can the treason of Judas Iscariot. If he, or any other adversary, will try in a manly way to confute the arguments by which we substantiate our position, let us listen with patience and candor, and give to his reasonings the attention which they merit. Has Mr. Ffoulkes done this in the letter before us, and what answer shall Catholics make to his attack? The full and complete replies which have been made to his pamphlet in England may not have reached many here whom his assertions have surprised, and therefore it may be well to give room in these pages to a brief discussion of the charges which he makes against the Catholic Church.

They resolve themselves into the following:

1. The pope allowed the civil power to make an alteration in the creed--a thing distinctly forbidden by the Fourth General Council.

2. The pope afterward altered the creed on his own authority.

3. He made use of the forged Isidorian decretals to build up a power which he did not possess in earlier ages.

4. He even inspired the Crusades for the purpose of putting down the patriarchal sees of the east and exalting his own dignity, thus showing himself to be a man of blood.

5. The fruits of faith, on the testimony of Mr. Ffoulkes's experience, are greater in the Anglican Church than they are in the Catholic communion; therefore the former is more truly a church than the latter.

The inferences to be drawn from these charges, if they could be substantiated, would be, that the pope has been very wicked, and has made himself liable to excommunication, and that the see of Rome is to blame for all the divisions of the church. This produces a sad ecclesiastical dilemma; for if the supreme pontiff be excommunicated, who will take his place, and where shall we find the true body of Christ?

"Rome," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "has abundantly proved, during the last thousand years, that she can be a negligent, hesitating, fickle, self-seeking, hypocritical guide to others, even where the faith is concerned."

Let us examine these fearful charges, one by one, and then perhaps we may have time to notice some singular assertions which are scattered through the letter, though they have nothing to do with the main argument.

1. "The Fourth General Council set forth a creed in which the perfect doctrine was taught concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then it decreed that it was lawful for nobody to propose or teach others another faith. Those who should dare to do it, if bishops or clergy, were to be deposed; if laymen, to be anathematized." Now, in violation of this canon, one King Reccared, in Spain, in the year 589, did ignorantly or wilfully put the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son into the Nicene Creed, and sing the addition in his private chapel. After him it appears that Charlemagne committed the same offence, and the pope, though he objected to the proceeding, did not stop it. The conclusion, therefore, is that, even though this doctrine be true, the civil power, or "the crown in council," defined it; and secondly, that the Roman pontiff is worthy of deposition because he winked at this disobedience to a decree of the oecumenical council. We consider this whole charge as rather trivial, and as already answered by the words of Mr. Ffoulkes himself. He admits that the popes, while always defending the doctrine as true, did not approve the addition to the creed in the way in which it took place. It was, however, an expression of an orthodox dogma which came spontaneously from the people and bishops, in which they were seconded by their rulers. The papal objection to the movement was manifestly on the ground that additions to the creed should come from the proper authority, and that the precedent of Reccared was dangerous in practice. To say that the civil power was the tribunal which settled this doctrine, is to say something supremely ridiculous, when the very words of the objector show that the whole movement came from the ecclesiastical body. Catholics believe that the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son was always a part of the deposit of faith, and that its expression in the symbols of the church was only the confession of a dogma ever at least implicitly professed. When the head of the church by his supreme authority placed this doctrine in the creed--which he had, according to our belief, an undoubted right to do--he did not sanction the action of Reccared or Charlemagne, although he certainly gave his infallible approval to the dogma. We think this proceeding of the "crown in council" a very harmless one. Would that Elizabeth had been as innocent in regard to the church which she established!

It seems, then, that the pope did not allow the thing of which our objector complains, and so charge the first falls to the ground.

2. "The Roman pontiff, however, did himself alter the creed, and thus break the canon of the Council of Ephesus." We admit the gravamen of this accusation. The pope did, in answer to the wish of the great majority of the Christian world, place the "Filioque" in the Nicene symbol, or sanction its insertion. But three questions arise, the reply to which will settle very clearly the whole difficulty. What is the true meaning of the Ephesine canon to which Mr. Ffoulkes so often refers? Is the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son a true doctrine? Did the pontiff go beyond his authority in allowing its introduction into the creed?

In the first place, we find that our objector has put a singular and most impossible construction upon the seventh canon of the Council of Ephesus, which forms the one string upon which he harps with such a dissonant monotony. He interprets that canon to forbid any after definitions of faith, and to altogether abdicate the infallibility of the church. In his view the Council of Chalcedon takes up the same theme, and virtually renounces for all time the power which Christ left on earth to teach and decide in questions of doctrine. It is evident to any sane person that the church could not have thus renounced its own gifts, and practically voted itself out of existence. And facts beyond all question prove that such an idea never entered into the heads of the fathers of Ephesus or Chalcedon. The Roman pontiff, as the head of the Catholic Church, and the councils which have been assembled under his direction, have ever dealt with heresy as did the first five councils, and have even made, as time rendered it necessary, fresh definitions of faith. By Mr. Ffoulkes's construction of the canons, the popes and all the western bishops have been deposed and excommunicated since the Fifth General Council.[147]

The simple truth is, that the Ephesine canon only forbade any one to bring in a faith contrary to the one already defined, and never dreamed of denying the office of the church to do for future ages what the Ecclesia docens was then doing for its own times. The words of the council are, "It shall be lawful for no one to put forth another faith than that defined by the Fathers of Nice," "Alteram fidem nemini licere proferre, præter definitam a Sanctis Patribus qui in Nicæâ cum Sancto Spiritu congregati fuerunt." Any person not bewildered by religious eccentricities can easily see that this canon, in the first place, only refers to any denial of the creed of Nice; and, secondly, that it has in view the actions of private individuals, and in no way that of the church collectively or its supreme ruler. Mr. Ffoulkes then harps upon the creations of his own fancy, and the legitimate consequence of his conclusions is the annihilation of the whole ecclesiastical body, and the reductio ad absurdum.

But is the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son true or false, according to authorities which even our objector considers adequate? Those who are best acquainted with patristic theology tell us that this doctrine was always taught by both eastern and western fathers, though the mode of expression might differ. The Greeks afterward misunderstood the Latin "Filioque" as if in the act of spiration the Father and the Son were as two distinct principles. The Latins, however, objected to the preposition "per," as if in the eternal act the Son were only an instrument or canal. The dogma that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle, and in one action, was unquestionably the belief of the early church. Pope Hormisdas, A.D. 521, seventy years before the conversion of Reccared, thus writes to the emperor, "It is known to all that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son under one substance of the Deity." The same doctrine is clearly stated in the synodical epistle of St. Cyril of Alexandria. There is no necessity in this place to refer to other authorities, which are very numerous. The Roman pontiff, acting, as Catholics believe, in his capacity as the head of the church, allowed this dogma to be confessed in the Constantinopolitan creed; and afterward the Synod of Florence, at which Greek bishops were present, solemnly defined it. The action in this matter of the holy see is very simply stated. It is hard to say at what precise time the "Filioque" was first inserted in the symbol of faith. It seems to have been used in Spain in the time of Reccared, and thence to have passed into Germany, Gaul, and Italy. The objection of the pope to its introduction in the first instance was, that it was done by private individuals and without authority. Thus, St. Leo III., while commanding the doctrine to be taught, orders its ejection from the creed only on this ground. So much is taught us by Mr. Ffoulkes himself. At last, when its use became general and was demanded by the consent of all, Benedict VIII. gave to it his supreme sanction.

The question now arises, if the Roman pontiff exceeded his authority in this action? By the testimony of fathers and councils, we are certain that he only sanctioned the confession of a doctrine received by the early church, and solemnly defined by later days as a part of the original deposit of faith, and as contained in the revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Had he the right thus to act in controversies of faith? If he had not, then not in this instance alone, but in many others has he gone beyond the bounds of his authority, and objectors might as well find fault with every pope from St. Peter down as to weary themselves over a single fact of history. The popes have always claimed the right thus to act, and the Christian world has yielded it to them, and Catholics believe that they have it from Christ. According to the Catholic doctrine, the papacy is essential to the constitution of the church. There could no more be a church without the pope than a man without ahead. Writers like Mr. Ffoulkes do not seem to comprehend this, and so, taking for granted that which should be proved, indulge in much self-complacency. We pass on, then, to examine whether the Roman pontiffs owe any of the power which they exercised to the forged decretals of Isidore.

3. It is now pretty well settled that the Isidorian collection of canons had their origin in France, and not at Rome, and that they were framed not in the interest of the holy see, whose powers were unquestioned, but in the interest of the bishops. The decretals of the popes and of the oecumenical councils formed the canon law of the church; and the first code of canons which received any kind of official sanction at Rome was that of Dionysius in the sixth century. Whenever the need of a new rule was felt, the pontiffs legislated by their decretals, the originals of which were preserved in the papal archives. That these decretals had full authority, appears by the epistles of Celestine I. and Leo the Great, and from the preface of Dionysius to his collection. The false decretals of Isidore began to be circulated about the year 853, and at first attracted little attention. Pope Nicholas I., in a letter to Hincmar of Rheims, A.D. 863, commanded that "no one should dare to pronounce a judgment except in accordance with the canons of Nicæa, and of the other councils, and in agreement with the decrees of the Roman pontiffs Siricius, Innocent, Zosimus, Celestine, Boniface, Leo, Hilary, Gregory, and others, saving in all things the rights of the apostolic see."

He makes no reference to the decretals of Isidore, which were then gaining acceptance, and certainly never thought of basing his authority upon them. These decretals may be reduced to three classes: first, the genuine canons or decrees of popes; second, those which were substantially genuine; third, those which were wholly spurious. "This last class," says the American Cyclopædia, "only contained what already existed. The evil done by this forgery was to history and erudition, and not to the discipline of the church." They were in accordance with the recognized ecclesiastical system, and good counterfeits of the true decretals. It was not wonderful, therefore, that they should have gradually come into use, as a genuine collection of the early code of the church. For two centuries after their first appearance, they remained neglected by the popes, and apparently unknown to them. With the exception of one or two quotations by Hadrian II. and Stephen IV., no one of the pontiffs referred to them before the middle of the eleventh century. After this period, when they were generally received, and no doubt was entertained of their authenticity, the popes began to quote them with the same freedom as was used in the case of the Hadrianic collection.

We remark, therefore, that the forgery was neither favored nor patronized by the Roman pontiffs; and secondly, that the false decretals gave to the pope no power which he did not already possess, and that by universal consent. For the proof of the latter assertion we need only cite one or two authorities.

In the first place, one must be endowed with a marvellous credulity to believe that a private collection of canons could have had the power to convert the bishop of Rome from a pastor of a particular city or country into the ruler of the whole church, the possessor of prerogatives before unknown to the Christian world. And the marvel is increased when we consider that this great change must have taken place without any protest by the patriarchs or councils who were thus called upon to pay obedience to a new ecclesiastical superior. He that can believe this can believe any thing, no matter how absurd it may be. The truth is, that the false decretals could not have obtained so easy acceptance and universal recognition if they had not been in accordance with the received doctrine and constitution of the church.

In the second place, the careful study of the earlier oecumenical councils will persuade any honest mind that the papal supremacy was firmly established in the heart of Christendom. The Synod of Sardica solemnly acknowledged the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff; and in so doing it did not constitute any new order of things, but simply recognized a fact of divine institution. No council ever pretended to give any power to the apostolic see, but simply to enunciate, as belonging to the very constitution of the church, the rights and dignity given to St. Peter and his successors from Christ. Four hundred years before the forgery of the decretals, Innocent I. writes, in accordance with the canon law of his age, "If weighty matters come to be discussed, (causæ majores,) they are to be referred to the apostolic see after the judgment of the bishops, according as the synod has established and the holy custom requires." In thus claiming the prerogatives of the Roman see the pontiffs are all of one accord from the earliest day. The code of Justinian declares, "We do not allow that any thing which concerns the affairs of the church should pass unreferred to his blessedness the Roman pontiff, for he is the head of all the holy priests of God." Thus, Gelasius in his decree at the Council of Rome, 494, says, "The holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church was placed over all the churches by no synod, but obtained the primacy by the voice of our Lord and Saviour himself." "No one ever," says Boniface I., "attempted to lift up his hand against the apostolic greatness, from whose judgment there is no appeal whatever." The Eighth General Council (869) defined the supremacy of the Roman see in the strongest terms, and the formula of Pope Hormisdas was signed by the Greek bishops and patriarchs. In this formula it is distinctly stated that "in the apostolic see the true faith is ever preserved immaculate," and that "they who consent not to this see are separate from the communion of the Catholic Church." The formula also quotes the words of our Lord, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." The Greek schism, however, required the reassertion of this doctrine, and it was accordingly defined as of faith in the Fourth Lateran Council, a.d. 1215; again in the second of Lyons, A.D. 1274, and again in the Council of Florence, A.D. 1439. The language of this latter synod is,

"We define that the apostolic see and the Roman pontiff hold the primacy in the whole world, and that the Roman pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of Peter, our Lord Jesus Christ gave full power to feed, rule, and govern the whole church, as is contained in the acts of the oecumenical councils and the sacred canons."

In this definition the Greeks, who were represented at this synod, fully concurred.[148] The year following, the Patriarch Metrophanes, by an evangelical letter, announced to the whole oriental world the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches, mentioning at the same time the doctrines defined in the decree of reconciliation. The singular charges made by Mr. Ffoulkes against the Council of Florence and Pope Eugenius merit perhaps a brief notice. He denies the regularity of the council, and accuses the pope of every kind of duplicity to control and beguile the Greek bishops. In reply to these accusations it may be well to state what we admit and what we deny. We admit that the act of the twenty-fifth session of Basle, which named Florence as the place of assembly, was not passed by the majority of the votes, but by the minority. We admit that the pope chose an Italian city, and that he guaranteed to the eastern bishops a safe-conduct home. We deny that he exceeded the bounds of his authority or acted with any cunning or duplicity toward the Greeks, who were anxious to promote a reunion, and especially desirous to meet the Latin bishops at the very place which the papal legates designated. The minority of the Council of Basle comprised the best and most influential prelates, while the majority was composed chiefly of simple country priests, and of servants of the bishops, who had been admitted into the congregations with the right of voting. It is also Catholic doctrine that the pope, who alone has the power to call an oecumenical council, has the right to transfer it, when called, from one place to another. The reason why Florence was chosen is evident enough to any honest reader of history. There was no "barter of temporal and spiritual gains" between the pope and the emperor. The eastern bishops signed the decrees with perfect willingness, and no constraint was used with them. Even before the interview between them at the council many of them had pressed the emperor to act in this matter of reunion, and went so far as to declare that, should he refuse to take part, they would assume the responsibility themselves. There is nothing which Eugenius did which any pontiff would not have done, who, under the circumstances which surrounded him, felt called to seek the peace and salvation of the eastern churches. All attempts to injure the credit or authority of the Council of Florence prove unavailing to any one who receives facts as they are, without color of prejudice.

4. It is, however, time to notice what Mr. Ffoulkes asserts in regard to the Crusades. The pontiff who, according to him, had built up an authority upon forged decretals, sought by means of the Crusades to "complete by force the ecclesiastical aggrandizement of the papacy." "He attempted to subjugate the churches of the east to that of Rome in the way opposed to the canons, and this was exactly what he completed on the capture of Constantinople." The answer to this charge, as far as the animus of the pope was concerned, has already been made. We have shown how Innocent III. had no need to build up a power which he already possessed, and which his predecessors for centuries had claimed and exercised. Then it is simply untrue that the popes had any idea of subjugating the eastern churches in the encouragement which they gave to the Crusades. Let Mr. Ffoulkes refute himself. In his Christendom's Divisions he acknowledges that "for two hundred years the east had been calling upon the west for assistance, and that the principal actors in these wars advocated a great cause, and one of the holiest struggles ever undertaken in self-defence." There was only one reason why the Christian arms were turned against Constantinople, and that was the necessity of protecting the Crusaders against treachery and destruction by Greek perfidy. "There was a growing feeling in Europe," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "that the Greeks were at the bottom of all the misfortunes of the Latins in the east." Of Conrad's army sixty thousand fell beneath the swords of the Mussulmans through the treason of the Greek guides. The emperor made every effort to ensnare the formidable army of Louis VII., and forced the third Crusade, at great loss, to get to the Holy Land by sea. Barbarossa could hardly save his soldiers from the insidious artifices which were plotted against him. But let the historian Gibbon, whose judgment is certainly not partial to the Latins, decide the matter:

"It was secretly and perhaps tacitly resolved," he says, "by the prince and people (Greek) to destroy, or at least to discourage the pilgrims by every species of injury and oppression, and their want of prudence and discipline continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The western monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and a fair market in the country of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oath and hostages, and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with three marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every engagement was violated by treachery and injustice, and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greek historian who has dared to prefer truth to his country. Instead of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were closely barred against the Crusaders, and the scanty pittance of food was let down from the walls.... In every step of their march they were stopped or misled; the governors had private orders to fortify the passes and break down the bridges against them; the stragglers were pillaged and murdered; the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience, and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests."

As far as Innocent III. is concerned, it is evident from his letters that he was wholly averse to the capture of Constantinople, and that he accepted the establishment of the new empire only as a means of securing the soil which had been hallowed by the footsteps of our Lord. And when he appointed Thomas Morosini in the place of John Lamater, who had deserted his see, he only used his supreme authority as the head of the church.

"Innocent," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "was no lawless invader of the rights of others, but rather one of the most eminent and exact canonists that ever adorned the chair of Peter; and if he took the loftiest views of the prerogatives of his see, it was because he believed them to be thoroughly consonant with law and equity."

We think our objector must have been driven for argument, and somewhat demented, when he sought the Crusades for witnesses against the authority and conceded rights of the Roman pontiff.

5. Now comes the conclusion, which is not contained in the premises, but which, as the ex cathedra assertion of Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes, has all the value of his personal experience. He joined the Catholic Church some years ago, and has not yet formally renounced it, as far as we know, although he has incurred an ipso facto excommunication by obstinately sustaining heretical propositions and refusing submission to the judgment of the holy see. He went often to confession and communion until he was refused permission to receive the sacraments. He does not tell the world that he purposes to leave us, though he does say that he ought never to have abandoned the English Church, whose memories still expand his heart. He charges the pope with being an usurper by many means of fraud, and he even seems to deny any patriarchal jurisdiction in England. Being a judge of the operations of the Holy Spirit, he finds that converts do not become any more pious by their submission to Rome, and to his mind the Protestant parsonage is "the perfect ideal of practical Christianity." To illustrate what a peculiar mind he has, we will only add, as a piece of curious information, that he draws conclusions from what the Council of Trent did not do. "Luther was excommunicated, but the Confession of Augsburg has not been yet anathematized." "Queen Elizabeth was deposed, but the council deliberately abstained from affirming that the bishops consecrated in her reign were no bishops." "Even the Thirty-nine Articles escaped censure." "Anglican orders, if they have not been recognized in practice, have never been declared invalid; still less have the grounds of their invalidity been set forth." Our readers who know any thing of ecclesiastical history may judge whether Mr. Ffoulkes is sane or not. What else did the Council of Trent do but condemn the peculiar tenets of Augsburg, and the doctrines contained in the Thirty-nine Articles? Can any thing be plainer than this? How have Anglican orders been passed over in silence, or even delicately handled? Every child who reads the Catholic catechism knows that holy order is a sacrament that cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. Yet in every instance where an Anglican minister has been advanced to any order of the clergy, ordination has been given, as to a mere layman, and that without any condition whatever. Such has been the invariable practice of the church, and this upon the highest authority, so that it has passed into a universal rule. "Anglican orders," he says, "have never been declared invalid; still less have the grounds of their invalidity been set forth." We will quote him a decision of the Holy Office and a decree of the pope, bearing date April 17th, 1704. As he has found so many things which are substantially untrue, why did he not find this decree before he ventured to publish his letter? We give as nearly a literal translation as possible:

"In the general Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, held in the apostolical palace at St. Peter's, in the presence of our most holy lord, Clement XI., by divine providence pope, and the most eminent and reverend lords, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, the aforesaid memorial having been read, our most holy lord, the aforesaid pope, having heard the sentiments of the same eminent personages, decreed that the petitioner, John Clement Gordon, be promoted from the commencement to all, even the holy orders, and the priesthood; and that, as he has not been fortified by the sacrament of confirmation, he be confirmed."

Dr. Gordon was the Anglican bishop of Galloway. He went to Rome, and was there received into the communion of the church. The whole question of his orders was carefully examined, and the above is the conclusion of the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff. "The grounds of the invalidity of English orders have never been set forth," says Mr. Ffoulkes. Let us still further quote the petition in the case of Dr. Gordon:

"It cannot be granted that they (the Anglican bishops) have received the ministry from Catholics, since no evidence is produced of successive ordination. Without this, there remains no vestige of consecration with these heretics, besides a ministry derived from the people or a lay-prince. Moreover, supposing even that some one of them had received, by means of legitimate succession, the episcopal ordination and consecration, (which, however, is by no means proved,) still, their orders must now be pronounced invalid through the defect of matter, form, and due intention."

We presume the argument in this case will have little weight with our objector or his friends; but we trust no one will say again that Rome has never pronounced a judgment on the question of Anglican orders. Still, after the letter we are reviewing, as well as many things we have seen and heard in the ritualistic quarter, we can never be taken by surprise again. Should they tell us that the pope is excommunicated by his own decree, it will not ruffle our peace; for in the Protestant religion each man is an infallible pontiff, whose decisions go beyond the domain of faith, and rule in the field of history and science. "If facts are not to our liking in the past, let us rewrite them, and make a history to suit ourselves," is the language of their acts.

We are not disposed to battle with the personalities of Mr. Ffoulkes. Perhaps he has an improper standard by which to determine the degrees of sanctity; and this is likely to be the case if the "English parsonage with its surroundings" is the norm of perfection. Where men are as mere men, we put one against another, and set forth the hundreds of converts in our own day with their experience against Mr. E. S. Ffoulkes and one or two others. Hundreds can testify that they have seen more of real piety and true devotion in the Catholic Church than they had ever dreamed possible before they knew the only mother of saints. Words are of little value, and assertions can be bandied about from one mouth to another. Deeds are the test--deeds of self-denial, patience, and unselfish charity.

As for the sincerity of those who are seeking the truth, and are in fervor at the first sight of the Catholic faith, we have only to say that so long as they are obedient to the heavenly voice which calls every honest heart to the one home of holiness, it is well with their souls. When the crisis comes, and the hour when action must decide the forward or backward march of the intellect, moved and enlightened by grace, then is God chosen for ever, or renounced. Then grace may linger around the heart which it loved, and only slowly withdraw, leaving still the attractions of nature, and the good gifts which are only for time, and bear no fruit in eternity. We would not dare to judge where grace ends and nature begins, for both orders are singularly blended in this scene of probation. But one thing we do know--God is true, though every man be a liar. He cannot fail us; his revelation cannot pass away into a fable. "The pillar and ground of the truth" standeth firm. And notwithstanding Mr. Ffoulkes's convictions, we are not afraid to trust our good works to the judgment of mankind. Tares are mixed with the wheat; the net of Peter incloses good and bad fishes, and scandals must be found even in the house of God; but nevertheless, in quiet and unostentatious beauty the true spouse of Christ is ever bringing forth fruits which, though unappreciated on earth, shall bloom beyond the skies in the sunlight of God's presence. Sacrifice is a law of Catholic piety which takes its type from Calvary and its inspiration from the Sacred Heart. We live in a different atmosphere from our Protestant brethren, and self-denial is second nature to us; self-denial practised so spontaneously that the effort and the trial are hidden in the graciousness of the Christian life. No sect, and no individuals, with some rare exceptions, have caught the spirit of our religion, which makes heroic virtue easy, and hides real sanctity in many hearts that beat only for God. If Mr. Ffoulkes did not find that perfect rest for his intellect and his heart which he expected in the Catholic Church, the reason of this is, that he never submitted himself unreservedly to her supreme and infallible authority and guidance. Humility and obedience are the touchstone of true Catholic virtue, and in both these qualities his writings and conduct show him to be singularly wanting. We wish for him a better mind, and the grace of a genuine conversion, and we trust that he may yet repair the grievous wrong he has done to religion by his unfilial and rebellious conduct toward our holy mother the Catholic Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[147] This dilemma is nothing at all in Mr. Ffoulkes's eyes. He has recently published a pamphlet in which he proposes to the Council of the Vatican, as a conundrum, the question whether the whole western church is under an anathema.--ED. CATHOLIC WORLD.

[148] The definition was drawn up by the prelates of the Greek Synod, which sat separately until the act of union had been consummated.--ED. CATHOLIC WORLD.

THE HISTORY OF THE IRISH LAND TENURE.

Those who are not well acquainted with the condition of things in Ireland might easily suppose that the existence of the odious Established Church was the main cause of the dissatisfaction of the Irish people, and that they would, consequently, be satisfied with its disestablishment. This, however, is an error. The main grievance of the Irish people remains unredressed. There is still in the relation of landlord and tenant in that country a very prolific source of future difficulty. So far only as the payment of tithes subtracted from the scant earnings of the peasantry, the church establishment could be called an infringement on the rights of property; but its existence was looked upon rather as an encroachment upon abstract justice than as a source of material oppression. The evils of the land tenure, however, which had their origin many centuries ago, and which time has somewhat modified, but not obliterated, are of a far more serious and practical nature. The landlord, by every test which can be applied, has a legal right to his estates; yet the situation weighs heavily upon the tenant, and prostrates the country. Laws which should compel a proprietor to dispose of his property would be regarded as tending to agrarianism, and as an infringement upon private rights; but no country can be prosperous, or its people happy, while the great body of the population is dependent upon the power and caprice of a few landed monopolists. As the record of the past in this connection is an interesting one--a long story, dating still further back than the reign of Henry II., and the latter part of the twelfth century--we will review it briefly for the benefit of those who have never studied carefully or have forgotten the great wrong which for centuries has oppressed the Irish race.

In ancient times, in addition to the four grand divisions of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, there was another, the property of the paramount sovereign. As there does not appear to have been any rule of precedence, however, among the four kings, except that of their ability to repress their rivals by force of arms, the territory must have been very frequently in debate. These several kingdoms were subdivided into a large number of principalities, each inhabited by a distinct sept, and governed by its own chieftain, called a carfinny, or toparch. These petty chiefs were in their own dominions independent; they created laws, administered justice, made war or peace, and so long as they did not encroach upon the privileges of their superior sovereign, were unmolested and unquestioned. They were elective too; and in this respect the primitive institutions of Ireland were founded upon that execrable system which has distracted and destroyed every kingdom in which it has been attempted. The choice of toparchs was limited, however, by the laws of tanistry to noble families; and the tanist was always selected upon the accession and during the lifetime of the ruling toparch. Under such a system intrigue and conflict between the septs, and between individuals of the same sept, must have been perpetual; and it is easy to see that the conditions were prepared which would make eventual subjugation by foreign arms an easy task.

But we now come to a still more obnoxious feature of the institutions of Ireland under the Milesian rule; and it will be no relief to the miseries entailed upon this unfortunate island, that the same peculiarity, modified in other countries, existed very generally during the feudal ages. The property in each district was regarded as the common possession of the entire sept, but the distribution of the shares was intrusted to the toparch. The people themselves had absolutely no property in the soil; that right belonged exclusively to the chief, and tenants were removed whenever it suited his convenience or caprice. There were many causes that could lead to change. The death of the old toparch and the accession of a new one, the addition of new members to the sept, or the death of those already in the occupancy of a piece of soil, were some of the many causes that made the land tenure very precarious; and the custom of inheritance by gavelkind, which differed from the system of England and Wales, is thought to have perpetuated the evil. Females were excluded, and no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The common people were divided into freemen and betages. The former had the privilege of changing their sept; but the latter were common property with the soil, and transferred with it in every deed or sale. Under a liberal government, and by the aid of a good administration, the people of Ireland might have been, in the course of seven hundred years, completely extricated from this situation; but, as we shall see in the sequel, it has been the policy of the Norman nobility in that country, if not of the English government itself, to maintain as far as possible the original condition of things. Such were the institutions of Ireland at the beginning of the ninth century, when the Danish monarch Turgesius overran the entire island, and subjugated the inhabitants to his authority. His dominion was of short duration, however; for at the battle of Clontarf, fought on Good-Friday, A.D. 1014, the celebrated Brien Boiroimhe gave him a permanent leave of absence from the five provinces, and a limited monarchy in the seaports. But the factions inherent in the Irish system of government at that time placed the national independence at the mercy of a foreign aggressor, and the ambition of the Norman element in England soon marked the island as a prize worthy an adventure at arms.

The immediate cause of the invasion was the act of young Dermod McMurchaid, King of Leinster, who ran off with the beautiful Devorghal, wife of O'Rourke, and princess of Breffny. Having, by reason of this outrage, been driven from his kingdom, he invited Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, and Robert Fitzstephen, to his assistance. Thus the dissensions among the Irish princes opened the way for the adventure of the Norman noblemen. A few hundred Norman cavaliers, followed by comparatively a handful of infantry, were sufficient to secure a permanent footing, an event most singular when we take into consideration the military record which those people have made since that period. But the Irish have always shown a capacity to fight better in any other cause than their own. True, the Norman adventurers from England did not succeed immediately in the subjugation of the entire island. Their dominion was limited to a small area; but they found and used those elements of discord among the native rulers which made their situation impregnable against those who still cherished the idea of freedom and independence. The Irish were worsted in every considerable conflict; not so much, perhaps, through the superiority of their adversaries as by reason of their own disunion.

The new rulers endeavored only to consolidate their power, and made no effort for the reformation of existing institutions. If they found a large proportion of the inhabitants in a condition akin to serfdom, there was certainly no motive why they should desire to change the situation. It only gave them more personal consideration and power. Hence, we find that Strongbow and his associates had hardly established themselves in their new dominions before they strove to perpetuate the old customs of tenure and descent. The distinction between the new settlers and the natives was carefully preserved; and the benefit of English laws permitted only to Normans, to the citizens of seaport towns,--who were still, it is to be presumed, in great part Danes--and to a few who had received charters of denization as a matter of personal favor. Five septs only, say the historians, were received within the English pale, and the rest were all accounted aliens or enemies, who, even down to the reign of Elizabeth, had no rights which an Englishman was bound to respect.

The Great Charter, wrested from King John, and confirmed by Henry III., did not benefit Ireland. English laws and jurisprudence were extended over those portions of the island known as the English pale, and during the reign of King John the lands subject to the crown were divided into counties, sheriffs appointed, and supreme courts of law established in Dublin. But these improvements were made rather as a convenience for the English than for the protection of the native inhabitants. During the reign of Edward I., we read that Lord De Clare, connected by marriage with the Geraldines, then the most powerful Norman house in Ireland, was granted extensive domains in Thomond. No regard was paid to the rights of native possessors in this transfer, and though a war, in which the new proprietor was defeated by O'Brien, an Irish chieftain, was the result, no considerable advantages seem to have been derived from the conflict. At the close of the century, we are told that all hopes of independence were resigned, and eight thousand marks offered to the king for the rights of British subjects. No doubt the cupidity of the monarch would have been gratified by so profitable a disposal of privileges, but the favor was not granted by reason of the opposition of the local aristocracy. At the first constitutional parliament, summoned in 1295 by Sir John Wogan, several judicious acts are said to have been passed; but we are unable to see in what manner they operated in favor of the native inhabitants. After the war caused by the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, in the year 1315, the exaction of "coyne and livery" by the impoverished barons first appears, and the method of supporting an army by quartering it on the people was instituted. During a period of active hostilities, and upon the territory of an enemy, such an expedient may be pardonable; but in a country regulated by what was nominally a domestic government it would be hard to perpetrate an act of grosser tyranny.

To afford an idea of the situation of the native inhabitants at this period, we will instance the statute of Kilkenny, passed in the year 1367, by a parliament summoned by the Duke of Clarence. This precious bit of legal wisdom provides that marriage, fosterage, or gossipred with the Irish, or submission to the Irish law, should be regarded as high treason, and punished accordingly. This fosterage or gossipred, of which the English legislators were so fearful, was the practice, traditional among the Irish, of allowing the children of the nobility to be nursed by the wives of the peasantry; and the custom was thought to encourage a sentiment of reciprocal kindness between the lower and the higher orders of the population. The statute also declared that if any man of English descent should adopt an Irish name, be guilty of speaking the Irish language, or follow any of the customs of the country, he should forfeit his estate, or give security for better conduct. It made penal the act of presenting an Irishman to any benefice, or his reception into any monastery. It also forbade the entertainment of any native bard, minstrel, or story-teller; or the granting of permission for an Irish horse to graze in the pasture of a loyal English subject. To such a degree had risen the follies of the dominant race in Ireland in the last half of the fourteenth century.

During the reign of Henry VII. we begin to witness that struggle between the Anglo-Irish nobility and the crown which, in the end, without improving the condition of the masses, was the means of breaking down many noble houses, and still further adding to the distresses of the country. In the parliament of 1494, the act known as Poyning's law was passed. Its enactment was secured by Sir Edward Poyning, lord-deputy of the island, and its purpose was to prevent the assembling of an Irish parliament without the consent of the king. It is easy to see in such an act, however wise it might have been considered, the dawn of fresh conflicts of authority.

During the life of Queen Mary, we have an instance of what fearful infamy could be perpetrated under the system of the Irish land tenure. The septs of O'More and O'Carroll, two chiefs who, under a previous reign, had been arrested, thrown into prison, and left there to perish, claimed that their lands could not be justly forfeited through the offence of their toparchs; but that the ground was the property of the clans, and inalienable save through their own acts. An army was the only response to this reasonable claim, and the inhabitants were forcibly ejected. But not this only. The butcheries that signalized the act were such as to make the event infamous in history; and, in the language of a native historian, "the fires of the burning huts were slaked in the blood of the inhabitants." O'Fally and Leix, the territory occupied by the unfortunate septs, were converted into King's and Queen's counties, and the principal towns were called Philipstown and Maryborough, in commemoration of the queen and her husband. This transaction was one of the first fruits of the coming supremacy of the crown over the local aristocracy.

We now come to the reign of Elizabeth, a woman celebrated alike for her capacity and her vices; and such was her force of character, and the consummate ability of her rule, that she has impressed her policy upon the history of Ireland more deeply than any other sovereign. We have not the space to attempt to follow the incidents of this turbulent period; but must be satisfied with a short statement of the policy of Elizabeth as it seems to have been developed in her measures. When the queen was cautioned against the turbulent and designing character of O'Neill, an Irish chief, and Earl of Tyrone, she is said to have replied that she did not care for his rebellion, as it would give her possession of more lands with which to reward her faithful servants. Historians have endeavored to explain away the meaning of this expression, by attributing it to a desire to silence the enemies of the Irish nobleman; but since, from the beginning to the end of her reign, the history of Ireland proves that she acted as though determined to better the instruction, we have to conclude that in a spirit of levity she had inadvertently unmasked her deliberate policy. From first to last it is only a story of rebellions provoked for the purpose of destroying some Irish nobleman, that an English sycophant might be put in possession of his estates.

The reign of James I., which began in 1603, is regarded by English historians as favorable to Ireland; but how, it is difficult to understand. In some respects the regulations of this king were perhaps advantageous. The introduction of English law over the entire island, the abolition of tanistry and gavelkind, and the more general institution of courts of justice, had public sentiment been healthy, might have eventuated in great advantages; but the spirit of religious persecution, which was now becoming implacable, served to keep alive the animosity of the races, and all improvement was more theoretic than real. Previous to this time, patents for English tenure had been granted only to great lords and chieftains; while their vassals, still retaining their own laws and customs, owed no direct allegiance to the crown. Under the new regulation, estates were to descend by the course of common law, and the people were placed within its operation; but they had really no more interest in the soil than formerly. The king was merely substituted for the toparchs, and while the chiefs were humiliated, their subjects were not made more independent. The land held in demesne by the chieftain was all that was left under his absolute control, but his tenants were subject to an annual rent.

Another project, which originated in the fertile brain of Queen Elizabeth, we believe, but which was not successfully executed until the reign of James I., deserves especial notice. This was a plan for driving out the native settlers, that their places might be filled by adventurers from England. Six counties out of the thirty-two into which Ireland was then divided were appropriated for carrying out the experiment, and cut up into portions of one thousand, fifteen hundred, and two thousand acres each. The largest of these estates were for undertakers and servitors of the crown, consisting of great officers of state, and rich adventurers from England; those of the second-class were for servants of the crown in Ireland, and might be peopled by either English or Irish tenants; and those of the third were for natives of the province, when it suited the undertakers to permit them to cultivate the soil. This scheme of cruelty was followed by another, of a still more atrocious character--the search after defective titles. In the long period of civil commotions which preceded the reign of James I., it is to be presumed that many were occupying lands for which they could not show a very clear claim. If the crown could get possession of property through the simple loss of the proof on the part of the occupant that he was entitled to his inheritance, a source of great public profit would be opened out. Eighty-two thousand five hundred acres were by this means apportioned to English settlers, and the national exchequer was correspondingly enriched. Yet in spite of such transactions as these, the reign of King James has been pronounced a happy one for Ireland!

At the time of the accession of Charles I., Ireland was treated simply as a conquered province, not as an integral portion of the British empire, and its inhabitants still looked upon as aliens and enemies. They had no rights which the officers sent by royal authority, and controlled by cupidity, were obliged to respect, and the very desire for the possession of a piece of land inherited by a proprietor of native descent was sufficient reason for an act of attainder for treason or a search after defective titles. To such an extent was this latter species of iniquity carried that, during the first years of the reign of Charles I., and under the administration of Stafford as lord-deputy, more than a quarter of a million of acres were wrested from the real proprietors, and transferred to the hands of English adventurers. Even jurors who sat upon the causes in dispute were imprisoned, and excessive fines imposed, if they refused compliance with the wishes of the king's lieutenant.

Under these circumstances, it was only natural that the Irish should look about for some means of redress. Property was becoming daily less secure; for the successful practice of this species of plunder was a continual encouragement to fresh outrage; and there was no estimate of the degree to which the injury might be carried. But the remedies proposed in the beginning were peaceful. The lords and gentry met together and drew up a bill of rights, and offered to pay a large sum of money for the royal assent. This measure, known as the Charter of Graces, by one of its provisions proposed to limit the title of the king in lands to sixty years. Changes also were asked in the penal code, and a clause was inserted forbidding the lord-deputy, during his term of office, from coming in possession of land either by purchase or confiscation. The demands were in every respect temperate, and nothing more was asked than a reasonable security for private property, and such privileges as the dignity and self-respect of the subject would require. The king, when the charter was first presented for his signature, was inclined to look upon its provisions with favor; but through the influence, it is said, of Lord Strafford, he was induced to withhold his approval. But while this subject was agitating with alternate hopes and fears the minds of the Irish people, a new measure, or rather an extension of the old system, was planned by the lord-deputy. The success of the English colonization scheme, undertaken in Ulster during the reign of James I., had opened the way for still another attempt at dispossessing the native population of their lands; and Connaught was selected as the next field for operations. This second experiment would probably have proved as successful as the first, if the inevitable fruit of so much tyranny had not come to its maturity.

The uprising of the Irish population in 1641 occurred under more favorable auspices than any previous one, and had they made a united effort for absolute independence, England could not have resisted the forces which were brought into the field against her. But the confederates, as the Irish party was called, were composed of elements too much at variance among themselves to meet with permanent success. The Anglo-Irish inhabitants, or those of English descent, who were looking simply to the security of their property, and exemption from the tyranny of local officers, had no bond of union with the native Irish, who sought the complete recovery of their lost liberties and the rehabilitation of their ancient institutions. Here was a cause for faction which their enemies readily understood, and by which they as readily profited. The Anglo-Irish were afraid of the resumption of power by the descendants of the native chieftains, and it was natural that they should seek to avoid such a result. Nevertheless, led by officers whose exile from their country in former years had been the means of raising them to eminence in the armies of France, Spain, and Germany, the confederates were very successful, and obtained possession of almost the entire island. The peasantry came down from the mountains, whither they had been driven years before to give place to the English colonists, and, without bloodshed, again took peaceable possession of their lost domains. Owen O'Niel, an officer who had done eminent service on the continent, was the ruling spirit of the movement, and it was through his management and address that the confederacy was enabled to maintain such formidable proportions. But the various incidents of that struggle, prolonged through several years, and ending finally during the dictatorship of Cromwell, belong rather to history than to such an article as this, and we must restrict our attention to the results that followed upon the triumph of the English arms.

The troops that Cromwell had brought into Ireland were the most puritanical of his entire army. He had probably at this period begun to indulge in regal aspirations; and hence he desired the removal from England of the more ultra republican and radical of his followers. It is likewise probable that he selected this class of men because their religious fanaticism would make them more zealous in the cause. In the final settlement of the country, as Ulster and Connaught were already the property of the colonists, and not subject to confiscation, the two remaining provinces of Munster and Leinster had to satisfy the claims of the army, and were accordingly portioned out to the followers of Cromwell. The property of the lords and gentry who had joined the confederation was ruthlessly confiscated. The peasantry who had survived the long war were reduced to a state akin to slavery, and many indeed, by order of Cromwell, were sold in the Barbadoes, and in other dependencies of Great Britain. About 200,000 people in all, it is estimated, left the island, of whom 40,000 entered the various armies of continental Europe. These comprised all classes; as to the peasantry who remained, some estimate may be formed of their privileges when we state that they were forbidden to leave their parishes, or to assemble together for public worship, or for any other purpose whatever. The Cromwellian soldiers of every grade, from privates to commanding officers, had taken possession of the estates; and these were the new lords to whom allegiance was due, and by whom it was most rigidly exacted.

But the commonwealth was already crumbling to pieces. The death of Cromwell, and the dissatisfaction caused by a government which was aristocratic and despotic without being regal, soon paved the way for the accession of Charles II., and revived the hopes of those who had been unjustly deprived of their estates at the close of the war. From first to last the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederates claimed that they had been contending for Charles I., and only against his enemies and the parliament. Of the fact that they had desired simply protection, and had been more loyal than disloyal to the throne, there was abundant evidence; and it was to be presumed that the new king would look with more favor upon their claims than upon those of their opponents. To the end of recovering their property, therefore, they began to petition the king in great numbers. That there might be a semblance of justice, a court of claims was established for the ostensible purpose of adjudication. But it was soon evident that there was no intention of dispossessing the new proprietors; and when it was found that, without the most gross and palpable violations of right, it would be impossible frequently not to decide in favor of the former occupants of the confiscated estates, the court was adjourned, and was never allowed to hold another session. Many thousands, by this act, were irretrievably ruined. The Duke of Ormond, prominent throughout the rebellion, played an important part, to the disadvantage of his countrymen, in these transactions, and added enormously to his own estates. At the beginning of the rebellion his property had been about nine tenths encumbered; but by securing an act transferring all encumbrances to the king, and then obtaining a release from his obligations in that quarter, he freed himself from all his difficulties.

When James II. ascended the English throne, about two thirds of the private property of Ireland appears to have been in dispute. The dispossessed proprietors were still clamoring for their rights, and the Cromwellian settlers and the colonists were as sturdily adhering to their claims, and ready at any time to defend their new possessions by either legitimate or illegitimate means. The reign of James from the beginning was weak. The trifling rebellions in Scotland and England which disturbed the first years of his authority were easily quelled, it is true; but he seems to have been intoxicated by his success, and led to the support of measures which were not advised by either prudence or good judgment. The spirit of religious intolerance was at this time most active and implacable. It had been many years since the separation of the English Church from the Catholic authority, and the time might have been thought propitious for something like a recognition of equality between religious bodies; but James endeavored to promote the interest of Catholicity with a zeal that was not to be tolerated by the Protestant bigotry of the day, and many of his acts gave great offence. Of this character was the appointment of the Earl of Tyrconnel, a Roman Catholic, first to the command of the Irish army, and afterward to the government of Ireland itself. The Protestant inhabitants of that country, who knew by what a doubtful claim they held their estates, could not fail of taking the alarm and looking forward to the day when there would be an attempt made to dispossess them of the disputed property. The event proved, indeed, that their fears were not groundless. The act of settlement, the measure upon which the Protestant proprietors depended for the possession of their lands, became immediately the subject in debate; and it was soon evident that its repeal was intended. To comprehend fully the magnitude of such an undertaking, it will be necessary to glance at the situation of the island at this period, and see to what an extent the inhabitants of the country had been plundered of their property. The whole number of acres of land in Ireland was estimated at above 10,400,000, and of this amount 3,000,000 acres were unproductive. This would leave about 7,000,000 acres of arable and pasture land, and 5,000,000 of these, during the reign of Charles I., were still in the hands of Catholic proprietors. Then followed the revolution with the irruption of Cromwell's followers. The situation became greatly changed. At the time of the passage of the act of settlement, only about 800,000 acres remained in the hands of Catholic proprietors. Of the remainder, 800,000 acres were under the control of the government, but leased to Protestants, and 3,300,000 had gone to reward the prowess of the Protector's soldiers. This property had now been in the hands of its present occupants, or absentee landlords, for nearly forty years. To repeal the act which settled all this broad inheritance upon the adventurers was undoubtedly the intention of James; and although this was not the only charge which the British aristocracy and people made against their unpopular sovereign, it was a powerful influence in the train of events that seated the Prince of Orange on the English throne.

Exiled from London, the unfortunate James fled to Dublin. The Irish parliament of 1689, which was summoned by his authority, besides repudiating the jurisdiction of the English courts of law and of the English parliament, and proclaiming the independence of the Irish legislature, repealed the act of settlement; but, as the event proved, these acts were the mere mockery of regal and legislative enactments, and were not productive of even a temporary advantage to his adherents. The Prince of Orange, now recognized as King William of England, came in person to Ireland, and the two kings confronted each other at the battle of the Boyne. History has told the story of the discomfiture and inglorious flight of James, and of the prolonged and desperate struggle which the Irish afterward maintained against their adversaries; until finally the treaty of Limerick confirmed and strengthened the English in their possessions. Some concessions were made to the Irish, it is true, but they were of a character that affected religion more than the tenure of property; and at the final settlement, we are told, only 233,106 acres of land remained in the hands of Catholic proprietors.

This was the last great event that influenced to a considerable degree the tenure of property in Ireland. After a struggle of about five hundred years, we find the island completely at the feet of the conquerors, and the descendants of the native inhabitants with no inheritance, or next to none, upon their own territory. We might have heightened the picture by recounting the assassinations and butcheries of the various wars, the outrages of military government, and the refined cruelties of religious persecution; but these things did not enter into the purpose of this article, and we have confined ourselves to simple statements of facts in their relation to the tenure of property. We have endeavored to trace the means by which the great bulk of the real estate on the island has been transferred from those whose descent entitled them to a proprietary interest in the soil to a class of foreign and frequently absentee landlords, who manifest no interest in the country or the people save by the annual collection of their tenant dues. It cannot have failed to impress the reader that the purpose of the English government, from the beginning, has been to crush out and destroy as far as practicable the native inhabitants, and to supply their place with a foreign population. To this end only could have been designed the various colonization schemes that distinguished the reigns of James I. and Charles II.; the different edicts of expulsion, and the readiness with which the English government has always advanced the wishes of those who contemplated a voluntary expatriation from their native country. But in despite of all this, the proportional native population of the island has steadily increased, while in both Great Britain and America the Irish people have become a formidable power. Their complaints and demands for redress of grievances can no longer be passed by in silent contempt. The land question must be settled upon some basis that will not merely place the Irish peasantry upon the footing of an independent tenantry, but will enable every laborer to look forward to the eventual possession of a portion of the soil, that thus a fitting stimulus and reward may be offered to thrift and industry.

AT THE CHURCH DOOR.

A lovely afternoon in September was drawing to its close; the shadows were long upon the pavement, and a gentle breeze brought the fragrance of heliotrope and late roses over the wall from a garden adjoining a handsome house in the old and well-known town of N----. The hall-door opened and shut behind a young woman who walked rather wearily down the steps and along the street. It was evident that she was not thinking of the sun, nor the breeze, nor the sweet breath of the flowers; she looked neither to the right nor to the left, and yet her steps seemed listless and without an aim.

Her dress was plain, plain almost to poverty, and without the slightest attempt at ornament, yet it would have been impossible to pass her without notice. She was tall and graceful, and her features were very handsome; but that was not what would have attracted your attention; there was a something which told she was a lady--not perhaps in the truest meaning of the word, as it may be applied to a servant-girl or an apple-woman whose instincts are refined and Christian; but you felt that she was well-born and well-bred, and that her tastes were such as would not well accord with her coarse dress and shabby bonnet. True, if you had been a close observer, you might have seen that her boots were very pretty, her gloves of the best kid, very fresh and unworn at the finger-tips, and it might have surprised you to see that on her ungloved hand sparkled a splendid ruby. But enough for exterior description; the face, though so fair, was clouded and preoccupied, and as she walked she drew a letter from her pocket and glanced at its contents.

"He appoints seven o'clock to meet me," she said to herself, "on the stone seat outside the Catholic church. A strange place to choose! I wish it had been somewhere else! Yet why should I care? What is that church to me more than another? And soon I shall give my promise that it shall be less than every other. It is a kind offer, a generous offer; but I will not exchange you"--here she gave a contemptuous twitch to her dress--"for a better till my wedding day. He and every one shall see that I consider myself his equal, even in these shabby clothes. O dear me! how tired I am! How that wretched child insisted on playing discords with the pedal! I will not go home, it is so far; but rest somewhere, and think how I can accept him most graciously. I might as well sit on the stone seat here outside the church; the shade of that tree looks inviting."

Agnes--for that was the name of the girl whose reverie we have put into words for the benefit of our readers--had come to the pretty church where Mr. Redfern had appointed to meet her. She sat down on the bench outside, and we will take this opportunity to tell who she was and why she waited there.

Agnes Deblois was the only child of Catholic parents; they were wealthy, and as she was their idol, she was surrounded with friends, comforts, and pleasures; with every thing, in short, that makes life bright and beautiful. She had been carefully instructed and trained in her religion by her excellent and fond mother; and it was a great misfortune to her when this pious lady died, leaving her daughter, at the age of seventeen, to the care of a father who was a negligent and unpractical Catholic. Agnes was devoted to her father, and, influenced by his example and by the ridicule of her worldly friends, she allowed herself gradually to abandon her habits of piety and the duties of her religion. After three years, during which Agnes had been engrossed by the engagements and excitements of life "in society," her father also died; when it was discovered not only that he had lived beyond his means, but that he was even largely in debt. By selling house, silver, and estate, Agnes was enabled to satisfy all the creditors, and, finding herself almost without a dollar, she looked around for her friends, whose protestations of devotion she recalled, and to whose sympathy she naturally turned. But she was shocked at the change she found even in those of whose fidelity she had felt sure.

She was offered assistance, it was true, and even a home, yet with a coldness and constraint which showed she was considered in the light of a burden. From being almost crushed by the grief of her bereavement, her spirit rose as the bitterness of her situation became apparent, and she very soon resolved to be indebted to no one either for home or for bread. Her education had been thorough and superior; for music she had a rare talent, and she found it easy to obtain as many pupils as her strength would allow her to attend to. She threw herself into her new duties with an ardor which arose from wounded pride, but which was destined to grow cool as the irksomeness of the daily routine and unloveliness of the continual presence of poverty wore upon her. It was hateful to her to be poor; to wear clothes which, however neat and even pretty she might make them, must still be plain and cheap. So she gave up all attempt at ornament, and took a bitter pleasure in wearing what was coarsest and most unattractive for her dress, though allowing herself, as she was able, what was best in such small articles as gloves, and still wearing the handsome jewels she had preserved from her former life. For this she was greatly blamed, and even reproved by those who called themselves her friends, and who were scandalized at the bad taste of wearing dresses which a beggar might despise with ornaments which, it must be confessed, were handsomer than their own; but Agnes paid no attention, and went on her own difficult and joyless path.

Formerly she had neglected her religion from carelessness and human respect; now she kept away from church because she was always tired and always sad, and because she no longer cared for the faith of her mother and of her own happy childhood. But now a wonderful thing had happened to her. She had come to this beautiful and fashionable place in the summer because her pupils were there, and because, as she took pleasure in saying, she wanted their money, and at the house of the richest and proudest of them all she had seen Mr. Redfern, a man of immense wealth, who had noticed her, found opportunities of paying her attentions, and now had asked her to marry him. She had his letter in her pocket, and she took it out once more as she sat outside the church, and read a passage from it:

"The only thing I ask of you is this: that you will give up, now and for ever, all interest in the Romish Church."

"A needless request," she said, and laughed as she said it, while her heart gave a leap as she thought of herself at the head of Mr. Redfern's handsome house, sitting in state behind his high-stepping grays, or receiving the keys from the hands of the obsequious housekeeper.

A very old woman passed her and entered the church, bowing herself low as she crossed the sacred threshold. Agnes watched her.

"I wonder if it is a pretty church inside? I think I have heard that it is pretty."

Feeling impatient at the slowly passing time, she rose and walked through the door, and up the middle aisle. There were no doors to the pews, and seeing one that was cushioned, she entered it, sat down, and leaning back, looked carelessly round her.

It was indeed a pretty church; the softened sunbeams streamed through the stained glass of the Gothic windows, and fell in purple and gold lights on the stone floor, flickering as the old elms outside moved gently to and fro in the west wind. She saw the old woman she had before noticed, kneeling before a picture, then leaving it with many bows and courtesies, and going to another. What was she about? Oh! she was saying the stations. Agnes remembered the stations--those fourteen grievous steps in the Passion of our Lord from his trial in Pilate's house to his burial in the sepulchre, at the close of his three hours' agony on the cross.

"Poor old thing! how her back must ache. Why does she do it? Why, she is crying, wiping her eyes with her apron, and lifting her hands to heaven! Is that for her own sorrows, or those of her Saviour?"

Agnes was interested; she sat up and looked about her.

"There are two little children coming up the aisle. Do see them bob up and down and cross themselves! Oh! now they are saying their prayers."

Why should Agnes see them indistinctly? Why impatiently brush something from her eyes? Ah! the picture of her childish days rose before her, and she was for a moment once more a little child....

What nonsense! She had other things to think of now. She would have a purple satin dress just the color of that pretty light on the floor. It was fading away; it must be near sunset. At that moment came from a choir of sweet young voices:

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!"

She turned and saw the children practising for their Sunday-school Mass, led by an excellent tenor; and leaning her head on her hand, she listened; for so she thought the angelic choirs must sound.

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!"

She knew what those words meant. Had she not often sung them herself in days long past? Those dear old days!

Disturbed by a slight noise, Agnes glanced around; she saw an old and venerable-looking man with gray hair, whose long black dress fell to his feet, come up the side aisle and enter a confessional, round which silently gathered a few women, kneeling till their turns should come. A vague fear took possession of her heart, and she quickly rose to leave the church; but something stopped her, and she stood as if riveted to the earth.

What was it? Only a light, a feeble flame, which shone in a vase hanging before the high altar. She had not noticed it before, the sun had been so bright; but it was there all the time, and would be there when she had turned her back upon it. Whose presence did the light reveal? Who was it that waited day and night upon that holy altar? Alone, unknown, forgotten--yes, and betrayed.

She uttered no sound; but her heart gave a great cry as she fell upon her knees.

"Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!" Those innocent voices still prolonged the hymn, though what was their need of mercy compared with hers? But the thought came to her that perhaps those invocations of God's mercy by the little lambs of his fold would ascend in his sight not for them, but for her, for the strayed sheep; and thinking thus, she felt herself comforted. Kneeling motionless with her head bowed on her hands, she did not pray, nor weep, but only saw.

She saw herself a little child robed in white, one of a band of many little ones, with her shining veil, a true marriage garment, receiving at the altar for the first time her God and Saviour.

She saw herself again, still a child, but older, kneeling again to receive the bishop's hand on her forehead, and hearing the sacred words, Signo te signo crucis. Confirmo te chrismate salutis.[149]

She saw her mother lying pale and faint, but with eyes full of light and peace, and heard those dying words, "My only child, remember that he who is ashamed of the Son of Man here, of him will He be ashamed before His Father in heaven. Remember that, and remember your best Friend." Who was that Friend?

She saw herself not once, but many, many times, blushing at the name of her faith, hearing it despised and turned into ridicule; at last denying it and becoming a scoffer herself. Whom had she denied and despised?

She thought of the friends who had deserted her, and the answer came, "Because I have deserted my best Friend."

She remembered her weary labors and thankless efforts, and a voice replied, "But my yoke is sweet, and my burden light."

She said to herself, "But there is one who has offered me enough to pay for all I have lost;" and once more the Holy Ghost spoke to her heart, "Come unto me, you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you."

That was meant for her; that was what she wanted for her weary, troubled soul. "For the life is more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment."

The voices of the children were silent as she once more rose and looked about her. There was no one kneeling at the altar now; shadows had fallen deeply upon the pavement; she was alone in the church. No! for yonder at the window stood the priest, holding his breviary up high to catch the fading light. What was he waiting for? Who was it that waited long, long hours in that holy tribunal of penance for the straying, lost sheep to come back to the fold? Her every question was answered, and, urged by an impulse she could not resist, she rose and hurried to the confessional, thinking as she cast an imploring glance toward the priest, "Will he see me? Will he come and save me?"

She knelt trembling, scarcely daring to breathe, till she heard his step approaching, and in a moment the long unheard, yet strangely familiar words, "Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis tuis, ut rite confitearis omnia peccata tua."[150]

"Well, my child?"

Well may we let the curtain drop, not to penetrate that sacred confidence. O poor soul! thou art safe. There are hymns of joy and thanksgiving ascending to the eternal Father; for we know "there is joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."

FOOTNOTES:

[149] "I sign thee with the sign of the cross. I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation."

[150] "May the Lord be in thy heart and on thy lips, that thou mayst truly and humbly confess thy sins."

* * * * *

Half an hour later, as the clock struck seven, Mr. Redfern stood at the church door, and asked an old woman whom, with beads in hand, he met hobbling out, if she had seen a young lady waiting there.

"No," she answered readily; "but there was a beautiful lady inside, on her knees before the holy Mother of God. Bless her sweet face!"

With a terrible fear in his heart, he entered the church, and stood beside a form bowed before the altar dedicated to the Immaculate Mother. He touched her arm, and Agnes raised her face, suffused with happy tears, yet smiling. She looked at him bewildered--for she had forgotten all about him--as he said, in a whisper,

"Have you lost your senses? Come with me. I want to speak to you."

She rose obediently and followed him to the door. The tall tree-tops waved in the breeze, and the young moon stood in the sky. She was still silent, motionless, and he said in a hoarse voice, that trembled in spite of his efforts to control it, "Are you coming with me?"

"No," she answered, "I must go back; I cannot leave It yet."

"What do you mean? I came for an answer to my letter. Have you read it?"

She made a strong effort, and replied, "Yes, I read it; but I have found peace and my faith again, and I forgot that you were coming. O Mr. Redfern! for years I have been ashamed of the Son of God; but I did not remember, till to-day, that he would be ashamed of me before his Father. How could I bear that? But now he has forgiven me, and made me happy, oh! so happy. I must go back to him." And she looked at the door.

Mr. Redfern stood speechless for a moment. "I could not have a papist wife," he said slowly. "So this is my answer, is it?"

But Agnes had already turned away, and in a moment more was kneeling again beneath that faithful light, forgetting all but her love and gratitude; and as the lamps were lighted in the choir, the children's glad and rapturous voices chanted,

"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis."

THE CHAPEL.

On the outskirts of the city, where the poor and outcast dwell, Is a humble little chapel, in its tower a sweet-voiced bell; And beside its simple altar, with a smile serene and mild, Stands a rudely-sculptured image of the Virgin and her Child.

In the early, dewy mornings, when the grass-grown walks are bright, When beyond the chimneys glimmer the far mountain-tops with light, Here a crowd of poor and lowly to the dust their heads incline, As the chalice of salvation is uplifted o'er the shrine.

Yonder, in the great cathedral, oriel tints the banners stain, On the purple and the mitre slanting down the pictured pane; And the statues high in niches, and the chanting of the choir, All art's mighty inspirations to the tired heart say, "Aspire!"

Here heaven's pure white light streams inward; here through open windows sweet Blow the fresh airs on the wild flowers at the Virgin Mother's feet, And sweet, silvery, girlish voices sweetly chant a simple strain, Such as shepherds might have chanted on the old Chaldean plain.

Often when my heart grows restless, burdened with earth's cares, and sore, Come I to this humble chapel, kneel down on the wooden floor; Those poor ragged outcasts round me, praying side by side with them, Wondrously I seem drawn nearer to the crib of Bethlehem.

These pale faces, seamed and weary, seeking solace here, and peace, Speak more eloquent a language than the olden seers of Greece; More than Plato taught when round him stood the Athenians rapt and dumb; More of wisdom than e'er echoed through the groves of Tusculum.

The poor lives and poor endeavors of these toilers of the sod Teach life's grand and noble lessons--patience, faith, and trust in God; And the weight of earth falls from me, for I hear a soft voice thrill, And my heart lies down in quiet as it whispers, "Peace, be still!"

CONSTANTINA E. BROOKS.

THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE SPECIES.[151]

III.

No alleged factor of evolution is so capable of arresting the attention of a physiologist as correlation of growth. To this law we have before often incidentally alluded. But as we conceive that it furnishes strong confirmation of our views, it behooves us to extend to it a somewhat more lengthy treatment.

The current impression is, that every authenticated instance of variation is so much added to the probabilities of the evolution of the species; and that the refutation of Darwinism is rendered difficult just in proportion to the number of proofs of variability. It is natural, then, that Darwin should accord prominence to those factors which play a part in inducing modification. Conspicuous among these factors is correlation, the nearest approximation to a law of all the colligations of facts involved in Darwinism.

Correlation is a bond, nexus, or connection subsisting between different growths. Owing to it, a modification seldom arises in any portion of the organism without involving a corresponding change in another part. It is often not a little difficult to determine which part first varies and induces the modification of the other. Frequently, characters simultaneously vary, and are apparently affected by some distinct cause. Correlation is an important subject for Darwin; for, owing to its operation, varieties seldom differ from each other by a single character alone. He declares that "all the parts of the organism are, to a certain extent, connected or correlated together," and that "of all the laws governing variability, that of correlation is the most important." Parts, however, differ greatly with respect to the strength of their connection. In some parts, the tie is ever manifesting itself; in others, it is seldom traceable. Each character, when developed, tends to stimulate the development of others. But, owing to adversity of conditions, or to being systematically suppressed by man, these correlated growths lose all ability to respond to this stimulus, and, in consequence, fail to develop.

We intended to adduce quite a number of facts from Darwin, in order to enable our readers clearly to understand the precise nature of correlation. But want of space forces us to change our mind. We do this with less reluctance, when we consider that those for whom this article is more especially written have already familiarized themselves with those facts.

All the phenomena of correlation show increase of growth corresponding to increase, and decrease corresponding to decrease. Now, the antithesis to correlation is compensation or balancement of growth. This alleged law, as applied to species under nature, was propounded by Goethe and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. It implies that the development of any one part is attended with the reduction or starvation of some other part. Not a little diversity of opinion exists respecting the validity of this law. Darwin inclines to believe that compensation occasionally occurs, but conceives that its importance has been overestimated.

We, however, are of opinion that there is really no such law. That correlation obtains, there is not the slightest doubt. The instances of correlation are innumerable; and every one of them is a disproof of the doctrine of compensation of growth. For the law of correlation is totally incompatible with the law of economy of growth. The latter, according to the hypothesis, makes decrease correspond to increase, and increase to decrease. The former entails the reverse. Both laws, then, cannot stand. One must, of necessity, fall. One must negative the other. Unquestionably, the stronger law is correlation. This law none can invalidate. It follows thence that there is no such law as that of compensation of growth.

The reader is now naturally desirous to know how we explain away the alleged cases of economy of growth. The explanation is, that they are merely manifestations of correlation. The reduction of the given parts is consequent, not, as alleged, upon the building up of some other parts, but upon the suppression or reduction of correlated parts. Strong confirmation of this view is given by the fact that seeming compensation of growth is more observable under nature than under domestication. As development under nature is slow and occasional, we would expect to find, upon the theory of Goethe and St. Hilaire, very few instances of apparent balancement of growth. On the contrary, the instances are most numerous; which fact is strictly in accordance with our hypothesis. For where we find the conditions entailing the reduction of many parts, there must we also find the reduction of other parts, induced by correlation. These parts, then, being in close proximity with characters which neither the conditions nor correlation have affected, their suppression is naturally referred to compensation of growth. Under domestication, however, development is carried on rapidly and to a great extent. A very large number of characters is selected and developed. Here, then, we should look for the most striking manifestations of compensation of growth. But it is a fact, of which the significance is at once apparent, that, instead of meeting with the fulfilment of our expectations, the converse thrusts itself most obtrusively upon our attention. Nature here is most prodigal; giving growth for growth, and meeting the development of one feature with the corresponding development of another. The cases illustrating apparent balancement of growth are here exceptional. They bear a very insignificant proportion to those under nature. Hence we conclude that the law of compensation of growth never obtains, that its apparent manifestations are really due to the operation of the law of correlation.

But there are two classes of cases of which correlation is not an interpretation. The first is the instances in which the tie of correlation is in a measure broken by man's selection of one part, and by his systematic suppression of another. Darwin refers to these when he declares it "scarcely possible in most cases to distinguish between the supposed effects of such compensation of growth, and the effects of long-continued selection, which may at the same time lead to the augmentation of one part and the diminution of another."

The following is an example of the second class of cases: The Polish fowl is distinguished by the possession of a crest of feathers on the head. In consequence of its development, there arises a protuberance on the skull. This is due to correlation. But in the cock, the skull is so perforated with small holes that at any point a pin may be sunk to the brain. This is adduced as an instance of compensation of growth. But a rational explanation may readily be assigned. Darwin has shown that the crest of feathers is abnormal in the male, that it normally belongs to the female. The feature has been gained by the male by the somewhat mysterious law of the transmission of secondary sexual characters. The economy of growth may then be considered as abnormal, and may reasonably be attributed to the character not completely harmonizing with its fellows.

The facts of correlation meet with an exhaustive treatment at the hands of Darwin. Herbert Spencer, however, almost totally ignores them. Although they are seemingly most striking exemplifications of evolution, he passes with only an occasional incidental notice. What we conceive to be Mr. Spencer's reason for thus ignoring them, we will venture to give further on. But, while Darwin extends to the facts of correlation a full recognition, he is by no means over-desirous to ascertain their cause. Correlation is another of those laws which it pleases Darwin to consider as ultimate.

Now, the supposition that the correlated part has arisen by evolution, involves the absurd conclusion that a centre of growth normally preëxists without a relative arrangement of parts. And on the evolution hypothesis, we are forced to believe that an evolved part is correlated to another part not yet in existence; that all the parts of the organism anticipate, as it were, the birth of the new feature, and so adjust themselves as to become immediately susceptible to its influence; and that, while the previous coördination of parts is destroyed, owing to the influence of the new-born feature ramifying throughout the whole organization, the organism is capable of immediately effecting a re-coördination. To assume for any organism such powers as these, is virtual hylozoism. The only escape for him who admits the evolution of variations, is to adopt the explanation furnished by the Duke of Argyll--that correlations are the direct manifestations of design.

This interpretation of the teleologist precludes all further argument. We, of course, concur in design. But we do not deem ourselves therefore bound to take for granted the validity of every argument adduced in proof thereof. We conceive that design can be proved by incontrovertible evidence, and that it can be shown to manifest itself in conformity to laws not merely empirical.

As for the ultra-evolutionist, if he were to cease regarding correlation as an ultimate fact, and if he were to employ himself in placing an interpretation upon it, he would perceive that the tie of correlation is strongly suggestive of reversion, and that its phenomena completely negative the hypothesis of evolution.

On the hypothesis of reversion, correlation is perfectly explicable. The supposition of reversion necessarily involves the conclusion that all the features of the species coexisted in each individual, saving, of course, the characters peculiar to the opposite sex. The perfect organism, then, is a balance of all the parts. The parts are correlated to each other with respect to centres, and these centres are correlated to each other with respect to the axis or the aggregate. All the parts are mutually dependent. When a part is reduced, it tends to involve the reduction of its corresponding part. The centre of the parts is then weakened, and this weakening entails the weakening of the other centres, to which this center is correlated. The loss or suppression of even one part, then, manifestly disturbs the physiological balance--destroys the coördination of the parts. Under nature, many parts have been lost or reduced, and these have entailed the loss or reduction of others. When, under domestication, characters develop, owing to selection and favorable conditions, they concur with the different centres of growth to effect a return to the balance, and, in consequence, the correlated parts arise and assume their primordial relations to their correlatives and to the aggregate. When all the parts are developed, by correlation and otherwise, there result an equilibrium and a consequent perfect coördination. Correlation is the inseparable concomitant of coördination. Each implies the other. And this is the reason, we apprehend, why correlation is barely noticed by Mr. Spencer. He feared, we surmise, that a lengthy philosophical treatment of the subject would suggest the conception that correlated growth necessarily implied previously imperfect coördination.

In order to facilitate the reader's conception of our meaning, it may be well to adduce an analogy. Analogies between organic and inorganic nature, the advocates of evolution ever delight in. And as that of the crystal has found especial favor in their sight, we will venture to use it. As we conceive that there are laws governing the organism, which are sui generis, we would request our readers to regard the analogy only as an illustration of our views, and not in the light of an argument.

In crystallization, the initial force involved in the deposition of the first molecule determines the form and shape of the crystal. This molecule is correlated, as it were, to the aggregate to be formed. It controls the whole formative process, with a view to the shape eventually to be attained. Otherwise, how are we to account for the due tempering and modification of the forces implied in the deposition of each of the atoms of the accretion? From the first, there must of necessity be but one normal process. But this correlation between the first molecule and the aggregate is not the correlation which we wish particularly to illustrate. The crystal having been fully formed, a couple of edges are truncated. The crystal is then placed in a solution similar to that in which it was formed. Now, the absence of these edges implies an abnormal distribution of the forces. This is manifest; for correlation, directly with the corresponding edges and indirectly with the aggregate, leads to the reproduction of the lost parts--a fact manifestly implying previously imperfect coördination, and a present equilibrium of all the parts, or due coördination. The parts reproduced assume their previous relations, and effect a return to the balance impaired by their truncation. It is hence clear that correlation implies coördination, and that coördination implies correlation. Correlation, then, is a necessary corollary from the hypothesis of due coördination, or proportionate development. It will be seen that, while it receives a clear, consistent, and rational interpretation upon the theory of reversion, it carries with it implications at variance with the hypothesis of evolution.

As our knowledge of crystallography is that of an amateur, these views respecting crystallization may be open to modification; though we are assured that they are not so in essentials.

The analogy of the crystal most happily illustrates our views of correlation. With equal felicity it illustrates the opposing views of the evolutionist and the reversionist, respecting the main points in the controversy.

Suppose three crystals, similar in shape, to have been formed in a solution. The truncation of six of the edges of each has, in some manner or other, been effected. With these edges thus reduced, the crystals are found by a person anxious to prove the theory of evolution. He places them in solutions similar to those in which they were formed. The development of the lost edges then ensues. But, instead of allowing them all to develop, only a single edge in each crystal is suffered to reproduce itself; and this edge is in each crystal a different one. This is done in order to render the crystals as unlike as possible. Practically, however, this would be not a little difficult to effect. Our friend, imbued with the inquiring spirit of the age, now seeks to ascertain the cause of the growth of the edges. In his observation of the phenomena of crystallization, he has noticed that the growth of an edge is often due to reproduction. But this fact he now finds it convenient to forget. He at last affects to believe himself forced to conclude that the growth of the edges is an ultimate fact; and, at the same time, refers the phenomenon to evolution, an explanation which has the strong recommendation of being a mere re-statement of the phenomenon to be explained. He next observes that, in each crystal, a new angle develops in correspondence with the angle first developed. This gives him two characters peculiar to each crystal. Recognizing a new factor in the induced development of the last angle, he propounds the law of correlation, and affirms that it concurs with and subserves evolution. The three crystals, originally alike, are now widely distinct. These varieties of crystals, exclaims our friend with the proud and patronizing smile of conscious superiority, present differences almost equally great with those displayed by species. Given, then, an indefinite number of hours and the requisite conditions, and all the species of crystals can be shown to evolve one from another. You cannot assume a limit to the development of parts, otherwise than gratuitously. There cannot possibly be any such thing as the immutability of the species; for individuals vary, and the species is composed of those individuals. This argument of our friend cannot be invalidated, if we concede that the growth of the edges forming the peculiarities of the varieties is new growth, is evolution, and that it is not reproduction. But it is obvious that it is reproduction, or reversion back to the state which existed previous to the truncation of the edges. It is equally obvious that correlation, or the growth of the last edge in correspondence with that of the former, is merely a return to more perfect coördination. It is also manifest to every physicist, that the absence from each crystal of the four edges which constitute the peculiar characters of the other varieties implies an imperfect coördination of the remaining parts. In other words, their absence involves a departure from a state of chemical integrity. For there can be a normal distribution of the forces of a crystal only when all the angles and parts are present, and proportionately developed. The views of the evolutionist are therefore wholly erroneous. For the principles of physics preclude the possibility of the normal existence of more than one variety. The existence of a plurality of varieties of a species implies disproportionate development of some of the parts. With crystals, however, varieties may normally exist when their differences are merely those of size. But the only way in which the relations of the parts can normally be changed is by a totally new distribution of the forces; which would involve complete dissolution, a modification of the force originally implied in the deposition of the first molecule, and reintegration. Now, just as, in a crystal, the loss of any part involves a departure from a state of chemical integrity, so, in an organism, the reduction, suppression, or disproportionate development of any part involves a departure from a state of physiological integrity. In the perfect type alone are the relations of the different parts perfect. The only way in which these relations could be normally changed, is by complete dissolution and new creation.

Not a little prejudice exists against a perfect type. This prejudice is, in a measure, justifiable, owing to the vague and gratuitous manner in which the perfect type has been assumed. But it cannot reasonably be extended to the perfect type which we here assume. This, of ours, is an individual in which all the characters of the species are fully and proportionately developed. It is no Platonic idea; we assume it to prove it; and it is no more metaphysical than the assumption for a crystal of a specific shape, which, owing to perturbations of the forces of the solution, it has been incapable of attaining.

In "A Theory of Population," propounded in The Westminster Review for April, 1852, Mr. Herbert Spencer defines life as "the coördination of actions." This definition is, equally with his others, exceedingly felicitous in every respect but one. It is not a definition of life, as it purports to be, but merely a definition of the conditions of life. In a note on page 74 of his Principles of Biology, wherein he repels the imputation of being a disciple of Comte, he declares that the conditions constitute existence. Recognizing the fact that the onus probandi rests upon him, he presents phenomena in an aspect which at first gives not a little plausibility to his view. But these phenomena derive all their significance from the circumstance that Mr. Spencer's readers concur in the conception of the evolution of variations. When this conception is demurred to, his arguments lose all their force. The theory of reversion negatives the validity of his premises; and the hypothesis of the conditions constituting existence is then sustained by no proof greater than that of gratuitous assertion.

But, whatever may be the diversity of opinion respecting the truth of Mr. Spencer's definition of life, there is none, at least between him and us, on the subject that "the coördination of actions" is a definition of the conditions of life. On this point both he and we are fully agreed. His belief that the definition is more than that which we concede, is a matter immaterial in connection with the argument immediately to be adduced. We wish now to observe which theory consists more with the definition, the theory of evolution or that of reversion.

The coördination of actions is the attribute which characterizes all organisms. All the parts of each organism must work in concert. "If one of them does too much or too little--that is, if the coördination be imperfect--the life is disturbed; and if one of them ceases to act--that is, if the coördination be destroyed--the life is destroyed." These remarks of Mr. Spencer more particularly refer to the vegetative system; but, as he shows, they are, with little modification, applicable to the animal system. He says:

"How completely the several attributes of animal life come within the definition, we shall see on going through them seriatim.

"Thus, strength results from the coördination of actions; for it is produced by the simultaneous contraction of many muscles, and many fibres of each muscle; and the strength is great in proportion to the number of these acting together; that is, in proportion to the coördination. Swiftness, also, depending partly on strength, but requiring, also, the rapid alternation of movements, equally comes under the expression; seeing that, other things equal, the more quickly sequent actions can be made to follow each other, the more completely are they coördinated. So, too, is it with agility; the power of a chamois to spring from crag to crag implies accurate coördination in the movements of different muscles, and a due subordination of them to the perceptions."

On page 61 of his Principles of Biology, he further assures us "that arrest of coördination is death, and that imperfect coördination is disease."

A superficial view of Mr. Spencer's definition would involve the inference that, upon the evolution hypothesis, only one of two things is possible. Either there is an ever-continuing imperfect coördination, or there is an always perfect coördination. As parts subserve actions, the perfect coördination of the latter must be dependent upon the perfect coördination of the former. Now, evolution implies a constant change. In fact, according to the hypothesis, constant change is the only normal state. The variation of parts, then, would entail their imperfect coördination, and, consequently, the imperfect coördination of their actions; for the only conceivable way in which the imperfect coördination of actions is possible, is by a change in the parts subserving those actions. As variations, then, are ever occurring, imperfect coördination must always exist.

The following is the alternative view. The evolutionist might assume an ability in each organism to effect, on the occurrence of each variation, a re-coördination. This view manifestly admits only of perfect coördination. But the advocate of evolution may avoid these absurd conclusions by affirming, as he has tacitly done, that, while the organism is capable of coördinating any number of characters, imperfect coördination may ensue by a too sudden change in any part or parts. This is the issue which we desired to produce, the decision of which will, we conceive, legitimately preclude further argument. The question is, Is the organism capable of coördinating any number of characters? or, are all the characters of the species alone susceptible of coördination? The reader will perceive that the latter is a mere recurrence of our proposition that the proportionate development of all the parts is necessary to perfection, and that the absence of any part is deleterious to the organism. If we prove this, we shall have completely disproved the evolution hypothesis.

There is a fact adduced by Darwin which places the validity of our theory beyond all doubt, and which is, at the same time, grossly at variance with the conception of evolution. The fact to which we allude is, that good results from crossing. Observing this result, Darwin propounds a general law of nature, that all organic beings are benefited by an occasional cross. This law he employs as a somewhat important factor of evolution, and essays to harmonize it with his theory. In this attempt he succeeds. But mere congruity with a law is no proof of the validity of a theory, where that law is only an empirical one. Of this every person conversant with science is aware. It is equally well known, however, that when a theory is shown to accord with a law; to furnish an explanation of it; and to resolve it into a higher law, thus changing it from an empirical into a derivative law; proof conclusive and incontrovertible has been adduced. If the reader has not already mentally anticipated our argument, it remains for us to prove that the theory of reversion fulfils these requirements.

Our theory manifestly implies that the more proportionate the development, the greater is the approach to perfection. It also implies that the more characters of the species there are in each variety, the nearer is the approximation to perfect coördination. It is apparent at a glance, then, that crossing furnishes a crucial test of the truth of our views. For most varieties are distinguished from each other by the possession of positive features. The presence of the peculiar character of one variety, of course, implies its absence in the others. Each variety possesses a character or characters which the others lack, and lacks what the others peculiarly possess. When, then, two such varieties cross, good must of necessity accrue to their offspring. For, in the formation of the latter, each variety supplies a deficiency of the other. Could a reason be more obvious? or could proof of a view be more conclusive? So conclusive is it, we conceive, that were any other result consequent on crossing, such a circumstance would be at variance with our theory.

Of the fact that good results from crossing, not a doubt can reasonably be entertained. Darwin, so far from questioning the fact, is its most strenuous advocate. But upon his conception, it is crossing per se which produces the favorable effects. In other words, this is another of Darwin's ultimate laws. Being purely empirical, the general law of nature which he assumes, fails utterly to explain the cause of the variations in the quantity of the effects. The crossing of pigeons, for instance, is attended by the greatest gain in constitutional vigor, while comparatively little good results from the crossing of the varieties of the horse, sheep, or cow. On our doctrine, the explanation is clear. The many widely distinct varieties of the pigeon necessarily imply great disproportionate development of each. They are, then, extremely susceptible of improvement. The races of the horse, sheep, and cow, on the other hand, approximate, as we have seen, to proportionate development. There is, therefore, much less room for improvement. Strikingly in harmony with this interpretation is the fact that, with pigeons, the more highly bred the crossed varieties are, the greater is the gain from a cross. Equally congruous is the fact that the more highly bred the breeds of the horse, cow, and sheep are, the less is the gain. The reason is, careful and select breeding produces increased divergence of character with pigeons; but with horses, sheep, and cattle it induces increased convergence. The former become widely distinct, while the latter converge in character. All the characters are developed in each variety of the latter; but in the former different characters are developed in different varieties. While, then, coördination in the horse, sheep, and cow advances toward perfection, coördination in the pigeon is rendered more imperfect by careful breeding. Each variety of the pigeon possesses a character which, when joined with those of another variety, will entail a great advance toward due coördination. This concurrence is effected by crossing, and the result is, as one would be led to expect upon our doctrine, great beneficial effects. With the horse, sheep, and cow the effects of a cross between varieties are less marked, owing to less imperfect previous coördination.

In noting the advantage accruing to crossed offspring, we have particularly referred to gain in constitutional vigor. We have occasion now to speak of gain in fertility. Seeing that hybrids--the product of a cross between species--are invariably sterile, it is clear that, if the conception that varieties are incipient species is a valid one, we are bound to expect that the more marked, distinct, and widely divergent varieties are, the greater will be their sterility. The mere circumstance that such an effect is not observable, goes far to invalidate the conception. What, then, must the inference be when an effect diametrically opposite to that necessitated by the conception is shown to result--when increased fertility is seen to follow crossing, and when this increased fertility is observed to be directly proportionate to divergence of character? Such results would, we apprehend, negative completely the hypothesis of evolution, and would conclusively confirm our view, that the beneficial effects are owing to the disproportionate development which a multiplicity of widely distinct varieties necessarily implies. These results we have, and they are indisputable. For the fact that crossing induces increased fertility, and that this increased fertility is directly proportionate to divergence of character, is so well known that it is scarcely necessary to adduce proofs from Darwin in support of it. But that the least shadow of a doubt may not remain, we will quote a few of Darwin's remarks on the subject.

Constant reference to crossing may be found in any portion of his late work. But a somewhat lengthy chapter is devoted exclusively to this subject and to close interbreeding. In the conclusion of this chapter (p. 142, vol. ii.) he says:

"In the early part of this chapter it was shown that the crossing of distinct forms, whether closely or distantly allied, gives increased size and constitutional vigor, and, except in the case of crossed species, increased fertility to the offspring. The evidence rests on the universal testimony of breeders.... Although animals of pure blood will obviously be deteriorated by crossing, as far as their characteristic qualities are concerned, there seems to be no exception to the rule that advantages of the kind just mentioned are thus gained even when there has not been any previous close interbreeding. The rule applies to all animals, even to cattle and sheep, which can long resist breeding in-and-in between the nearest blood relations. It applies to individuals of the same sub-variety, but of distinct families, to varieties or races, to sub-species, as well as to quite distinct species.

"In this latter case, however, while size, vigor, precocity, and hardiness are, with rare exceptions, gained, fertility, in a greater or less degree, is lost; but the gain cannot be exclusively attributed to the principle of compensation; for there is no close parallelism between the increased size and vigor of the offspring and their sterility. Moreover, it has been clearly proved that mongrels which are perfectly fertile gain these same advantages, as well as sterile hybrids."

On page 174, he reiterates these statements, which place the subject of increased fertility beyond all doubt.

Now, it is clear that Darwin's being necessitated particularly to note that the rule that advantage results from crossing obtains even in the cases of cattle and sheep, implies that comparatively little good accrues to the offspring from the crossing of the breeds of either of those animals. This shows, as the varieties of the sheep and cow are convergent in character, that the less divergent the varieties the less is the good attendant on crossing. The converse, that the more divergent the varieties the greater the good, is plainly seen in the case of the pigeon, of which the varieties are manifestly and confessedly the most divergent. The following assertions are unequivocal proof of our view:

"All the domestic races pair readily together, and, what is equally important, their mongrel offspring are perfectly fertile. To ascertain this fact, I made many experiments, which are given in the note below; and recently Mr. Tegetmeier has made similar experiments with the same result. The accurate Neumeister asserts that when dovecots are crossed with pigeons of any other breed the mongrels are extremely fertile and hardy. MM. Boitard and Corbie affirm, after their great experience, that with crossed pigeons, the more distinct the breeds, the more productive are their mongrel offspring." (Page 236, vol i., American edition.)

Mere mention of crossing in connection with our theory would, we conceive, suffice. But if any doubts have been entertained of the conclusiveness of the proofs furnished by the law, or of the competency of the theory of reversion to account for the good resulting from crossing, they are now surely dissipated by the evidence adduced from Darwin. The law of crossing which we propound is no ultimate law. It fulfils every requirement of a derivative law. The good which flows from crossing varies in degree in different animals, as is well known. This is quite explicable upon our theory; and the amount of good accruing to the offspring from the union of two given varieties, is even susceptible of prevision. Crossing per se does not produce the increased good; it is attributable to the lack of full and proportionate development. Of course, for increased good to result, each of the crossed animals must contribute to the formation of the offspring a part or parts which the other lacks. We have, then, given what Darwin's law, being purely empirical, is utterly incompetent to do--a rational and consistent interpretation of the variations in the quantity of the effects. Logic requires no greater proofs of a theory than those which we have here adduced.

Darwin has informed us, in his late invaluable work, that crossing induces the appearance of new characters. Great stress is laid upon this fact by several writers, and some of them, among whom Pallas is conspicuous, have even gone so far as to ascribe variability exclusively to crossing. The theory of reversion furnishes a rational explanation of the appearance of these characters. We do not allude merely to the fact that their reversion is more probable than their evolution; for Darwin inclines to this opinion rather than to the contrary one. On page 264, vol. ii., after demurring to the conception that variability is solely induced by crossing, he says:

"Nevertheless, it is probable that the crossing of two forms, when one or both have long been domesticated or cultivated, adds to the variability of the offspring, independently of the commingling of the characters derived from the two parent forms; and this implies that new characters actually arise. But we must not forget the facts advanced in the thirteenth chapter, which clearly prove that the act of crossing often leads to the reappearance or reversion of long-lost characters; and in most cases, it would be impossible to distinguish between the reappearance of ancient characters and the first appearance of new characters. Practically, whether new or old, they would be new to the breed in which they reappeared."

But there is another factor subserving evolution, to which we particularly allude. This is correlation, which we have seen reason to conclude exists, not only between different growths, but also between different centres of growth. Now, when a cross ensues, the offspring generally acquires from each parent a character or characters which the other lacks. The union of these characters strengthens the centres to which they are joined, and also all the centres of which the related parts are developed. By correlation, the centre to which these centres are most closely allied becomes more firmly established. The more firm establishment of this centre, then, induces the development of its formerly connected parts. These parts are the characters consequent upon crossing.

If, as we maintain, the proofs furnished by crossing are conclusive, then the phenomena of close interbreeding must be proofs amounting to demonstration. For the law of close interbreeding, which is the converse of that of crossing, also holds good; is, if possible, more in accordance with the theory of reversion; is also susceptible of resolution into the law of proportionate development; and, being a derivative law upon our theory, fully accounts for all the variations in the quantity of the effects. The different data, moreover, esteemed so mutually inconsistent, of those who concur in and of those who demur to Darwin's law of close interbreeding, can be shown, by the light furnished by the hypothesis of proportionate development, to be perfectly congruous. If we can prove, then, that our law of close interbreeding, founded upon the facts furnished by Darwin, is capable of all this, we shall have fulfilled our promise to place our theory beyond the reach of cavil.

As has been more than once asserted, our views necessitate the conclusion that a multiplicity of divergent varieties implies the loss in each of what constitute the peculiar characteristics of the others. The circumstance that some few varieties are distinguished by the possession of negative features, but slightly modifies this conclusion. Now, it is clear to the comprehension of every one who is likely to have followed us this far, that, as the loss of any part or character is deleterious, the pairing of the members of a variety would tend to aggravate the evil consequent on the absence of the peculiar characters of the other varieties.

Quite in harmony with this view is the following assertion, one of a vast number of a similar kind made by Darwin: "The consequences of close interbreeding, carried on for too long a time, are, as is generally believed, loss of size, constitutional vigor, and fertility, sometimes accompanied by a tendency to malformation." (Page 115, vol. ii.)

Now, according to our theory, the evil effects of close interbreeding must be proportionate to the divergence of character; or, rather, to the disproportionate development which divergence involves. Darwin admits that different species of animals are differently affected by the same degree of interbreeding. Among species of which the varieties are divergent, the pigeon and fowl are preëminently conspicuous. Here, then, we must look for the greatest evil effects from the interbreeding of the members of the varieties. The facts fail not to realize our anticipations. No writers have expressed so strong a conviction of the impossibility of long-continued interbreeding as Sir J. Sebright and Andrew Knight, who have paid the most attention to the breeding of the fowl and pigeon. Darwin gives us, as the result of his wide experience and extensive research, the following opinion:

"Evidence of the evil effects of close interbreeding can most readily be acquired in the case of animals, such as fowls, pigeons, etc., which propagate quickly, and, from being kept in the same place, are exposed to the same conditions. Now, I have inquired of very many breeders of these birds, and I have hitherto not met with a single man who was not thoroughly convinced that an occasional cross with another strain of the same sub-variety was absolutely necessary. Most breeders of highly improved or fancy birds value their own strain, and are most unwilling, at the risk, in their opinion, of deterioration, to make a cross. The purchase of a first-rate bird of another strain is expensive, and exchanges are troublesome; yet all breeders, as far as I can hear, excepting those who keep large stocks at different places for the sake of crossing, are driven after a time to take this step." (P. 117, vol. ii.)

And again, on page 125, he says: "With pigeons, breeders are unanimous, as previously stated, that it is absolutely indispensable, notwithstanding the trouble and expense thus caused, occasionally to cross their much-prized birds with individuals of another strain, but belonging, of course, to the same variety." He then dwells at some length upon the great delicacy of constitution entailed by the close interbreeding of nearly-related pigeons, and mentions a circumstance for which the reason is at once obvious upon our theory. He says, "It deserves notice that, when large size is one of the desired characters, as with pouters, the evil effects of close interbreeding are much sooner perceived than when small birds, such as short-faced tumblers, are desired."

"In the case of the fowl," says Darwin, "a whole array of authorities could be given against too close interbreeding." (P. 124, vol. ii.) Following this assertion is mention of the great sterility of bantams, induced by close interbreeding. He assures us that he has seen silver bantams almost as barren as hybrids. The Sebright bantam is destitute of hackles and sickle tail-feathers. This involves disproportionate development; and that the evil is attributable to this, Darwin virtually admits when he says, on page 101, that the loss of fertility is to be ascribed "either to long-continued, close interbreeding, or to an innate tendency to sterility correlated with the absence of hackles and sickle tail-feathers."

Of all the phenomena attendant upon close interbreeding, we know of none which so strikingly confirms our view as the following curious case. It is a most delicate exemplification of our doctrine. "Mr. Hewitt says that with these bantams the sterility of the male stands, with rare exceptions, in the closest relation with their loss of certain secondary male characters;" he adds, "I have noticed, as a general rule, that even the slightest deviation from feminine character in the tail of the male Sebright--say the elongation by only half an inch of the two principal tail-feathers--brings with it improved probability of increased fertility." (Pp. 124.) The full significance of this singular fact the reader will at once appreciate. For the cause of the phenomenon is obvious. The increased probability of fertility, consequent on the growth of the secondary sexual characters, is owing to the induced return to proportionate development.

Darwin says, "There is reason to believe, and this was the opinion of that most experienced observer, Sir J. Sebright, that the evil effects of close interbreeding may be checked by the related individuals being separated during a few generations and exposed to different conditions of life." (Pp. 115.) Now, different conditions are, as we have seen, favorable to the development of different parts. Exposure, then, to conditions other than those to which their brothers are subjected, would lead to the growth or strengthening of certain parts in the separated animals. Interbreeding between members of the two lots of animals would, in consequence, be equivalent to crossing. The check to the evil effects is to be attributed to a slight dissimilarity of structure.

These quotations from Darwin place beyond doubt the fact that the greatest evil effects flow from the close interbreeding of fowls and pigeons. It now remains for us to show that, in animals which are comparatively proportionately developed, the evil effects are very small. It must be observed that it does not rest with us to show a total absence of evil. For no animals are, in all respects, proportionately developed. Our very ability to discriminate between different breeds necessarily implies the disproportionate development of all but one of them; that is, when their differences are not merely those of size. With cows, want of proportion is often caused by blind conformity in certain breeds to certain standards. Thus, when a breed acquires a reputation, all its points are faithfully preserved, as if the preservation intact of the existing condition of all the features was a sine qua non of the animal's good quality; and this occurs even when some of the features are shockingly out of proportion, or greatly reduced. If one breed were fully and proportionately developed, the others could be distinguished from it only by negative features.

Of the close interbreeding of the cow Darwin says:

"With cattle there can be no doubt that extremely close interbreeding may be long carried on, advantageously with respect to external characters and with no manifestly apparent evil as far as constitution is concerned. The same remark is applicable to sheep. Whether these animals have been rendered less susceptible than others to this evil, in order to permit them to live in herds--a habit which leads the old and vigorous males to expel all intruders, and in consequence often to pair with their own daughters--I will not pretend to decide. The case of Bakewell's longhorns, which were closely interbred for a long period, has often been quoted; yet Youatt says the breed 'had acquired a delicacy of constitution inconsistent with common management,' and 'the propagation of the species was not always certain.' But the shorthorns offer the most striking case of close interbreeding; for instance, the famous bull Favorite (who was himself the offspring of a half-brother and sister from Foljambe) was matched with his own daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter; so that the produce of this last union, or the great-great-granddaughter, had fifteen sixteenths, or 93.75 per cent, of the blood of Favorite in her reins. This cow was matched with the bull Wellington, having 62.5 per cent of Favorite blood in his veins, and produced Clarissa; Clarissa was matched with the bull Lancaster, having 68.75 of the same blood, and she yielded valuable offspring. Nevertheless, Collings, who reared these animals, and was a strong advocate for close interbreeding, once crossed his stock with a Galloway, and the cows from this cross realized the highest prices. Bates's herd was esteemed the most celebrated in the world. For thirteen years he bred most closely in-and-in; but during the next seventeen years, though he had the most exalted notion of the value of his own stock, he thrice infused fresh blood into his herd; it is said that he did this, not to improve the form of his animals, but on account of their lessened fertility. Mr. Bates's own view, as given by a celebrated breeder, was, that 'to breed in-and-in from a bad stock was ruin and devastation; yet that the practice may be safely allowed within certain limits when the parents so related are descended from first-rate animals.' We thus see that there has been extremely close interbreeding with shorthorns; but Nathusius, after the most careful study of their pedigrees, says that he can find no instance of a breeder who has strictly followed this practice during his whole life. From this study and his own experience, he concludes that close interbreeding is necessary to ennoble the stock; but that in effecting this the greatest care is necessary on account of the tendency to infertility and weakness. It may be added that another high authority asserts that many more calves are born cripples from shorthorns than from any other and less closely interbred races of cattle." (Pp. 117, 118, vol. ii.)

This last phenomenon is doubtless due to correlation between the legs and the small development of the horns.

Now, these remarks of Mr. Darwin unequivocally show that extremely long-continued close interbreeding is possible with cattle. They also acquaint us with the fact that, although this may long be carried on, evil at length begins to manifest itself. This is easily explained. A small want of proportion in the animals interbred entails evil, but evil too small in amount to be capable of manifesting itself at once. But continued exacerbations, consequent on frequent pairing with related individuals possessing an evil identical in kind, so augments the evil as eventually to involve its display.

If further proof of the possibility of the long-continued interbreeding of cattle is needed, it may be found on page 44 of The Westminster Review for July, 1863. This review is the stronghold of Darwinism. The writer of the article to which we refer says, that "Dr. Child gives the pedigree of the celebrated bull Comet and of some other animals, bred with a degree of closeness such as no one who has not studied the subject would believe possible. In one of these cases, the same animal appears as the sire in four successive generations." So striking is the pedigree of Comet, that the writer cannot refrain from inserting it.

The sheep is another animal in which there is an approximation to proportionate development. Let us see, then, if our doctrine equally obtains in this case. Before going further, we may request the reader to call to mind Darwin's assurance that his remark, "that extremely close interbreeding may be long carried on with cattle," is equally applicable to sheep.

On page 119, vol. ii., he remarks that,

"With sheep there has often been long-continued close interbreeding within the limits of the same flock; but whether the nearest relations have been matched so frequently as in the case of shorthorn cattle, I do not know. The Messrs. Brown, during fifty years, have never infused fresh blood into their excellent flock of Leicesters. Since 1810, Mr. Barford has acted on the same principle with the Foscote flock. He asserts that half a century of experience has convinced him that when two nearly-related individuals are quite sound in constitution, in-and-in breeding does not induce degeneracy; but he adds that he 'does not pride himself on breeding from the nearest affinities.' In France, the Naz flock has been bred for sixty years without the introduction of a single strange ram."

In connection with this subject The Westminster Review says that,

"M. Beaudouin, in a memoir to be found in the Comptes Rendus of August 5th, 1862, gives some very interesting particulars of a flock of merino sheep bred in-and-in, for a period of two and twenty years, without a single cross, and with perfectly successful results, there being no sign of decreased fertility, and the breed having in other respects improved."

Of all animals, the horse is manifestly the most proportionately developed. In him all the parts maintain, to a great extent, the due proportions. Our doctrine, then, leads us to expect that, in this case, little evil results from close interbreeding. We would be greatly surprised that the horse was not the most striking instance of the possibility of long-continued in-and-in breeding, were we not conscious of the fact that a great portion of the evil eventually resulting from close interbreeding is attributable to augmentation of the diseases to which the horse is singularly susceptible. The following is the only evidence we shall adduce in the case of the horse; but it "is clear and decisive":

"Mr. J. H. Walsh, well known, under the nom de plume of Stonehenge, as an authority upon sporting matters, says distinctly, in his recent work, that nearly all our thorough-bred horses are bred in-and-in." (Vide West. Rev. for July, 1863, p. 44.)

"Writers upon sporting matters are pretty generally agreed that no horse either bears fatigue so well or recovers from its effects so soon as the thorough-bred, and it is a subject upon which such writers are the best of all authorities. Thus, 'Nimrod' concludes a comparison between the thorough-bred and the half-bred hunter in the following words: 'As for his powers of endurance under equal sufferings, they doubtless would exceed those of the 'cock-tail,' and being by his nature what is termed a better doer in the stable, he is sooner at his work again than the others. Indeed, there is scarcely a limit to the work of full-bred hunters of good form and constitution and temper; and yet these, as we have seen, are almost all close bred." (Ibid. p. 45.)

The mention of "good form" is a fact of significance; for the current conception of symmetry is, in the case of the horse, a safer criterion of proportionate development than in the case of any other animal.

In all the discussions on close interbreeding, no case meets with such frequent mention as that of the pig. Those who endeavor to gainsay the conclusion that evil is attendant on in-and-in breeding, signally fail to invalidate the fact that pigs die out altogether after being bred in-and-in for several generations. Those persons are the exceptions, however, who consider the fact as questionable. On page 121, vol. ii., Darwin says, "With pigs there is more unanimity among breeders on the evil effects of close interbreeding than, perhaps, with any other large animal." He then gives quite a number of facts, which we will not quote, as they are indisputable.

Close interbreeding being attended, in pigs, by evil effects is, at first sight, at variance with our doctrine. For, not only does utility guide the selection of pigs, but they are, as Darwin has informed us, the most striking instance of convergence of character. We have seen the greatest evil effects of in-and-in breeding in those species in which selection is guided by fancy, and of which the varieties were the most divergent in character. A superficial consideration, then, would lead one to expect that, where the converse obtained--where utility was the motive in selection, and where the varieties were convergent in character--interbreeding would entail little or no evil effects. But the incongruity between the facts and the doctrine is only apparent, not real. There is presence of evil effects, because, in this case, the motive of utility and convergence of character also involve disproportionate development. Disproportionate development is the only never-failing criterion. In our last article we showed that, while divergence of character is solely caused by disproportionate development, convergence of character may be induced by either proportionate or disproportionate development. We further showed that the pig's convergence of character is caused by disproportionate development, and that the pig has many characters either wholly or partially suppressed. Its coat of bristles is greatly diminished, and its tusks are wholly reduced. Owing to a misguided policy, its legs are of the smallest possible size, and, by correlation, the front of the head is remarkably short and concave. Being, then, thus disproportionately developed, the pig, of all large animals, must be, upon our doctrine, the most susceptible of evil from close interbreeding. Allow the legs to be of proportionate size, and a marked decrease in the evil entailed by interbreeding will be observable. So impressed are we with the idea of the truth of our doctrine, that we will stake its validity upon the result, confident that, in doing so, we venture nothing.

That the cause assigned for the lessened fertility and delicacy of constitution of pigs is a true one, is placed beyond all doubt by the fact that, with those members of the species of which but little care is taken, there is comparatively very little evil entailed by close interbreeding. The reason lies in the circumstance that, in these animals, the legs are far more proportionately developed than in well-bred pigs; and that there is absent the shortness and concavity of the front of the head. The more well-bred the animals, the greater are the injurious effects of in-and-in breeding. This fact needs not proof; it is too well known. Care in breeding pigs almost invariably induces the small development of the legs and of the front of the head. A case somewhat analogous is presented by the fowl and pigeon. With them, the more careful the selection, the greater are the evil effects of interbreeding. With cattle, sheep, and horses, however, good breeding is a condition sine qua non of their exemption from the evil generally consequent on close interbreeding. Why care should be attended by different results in different species, is at first not clear. But this is the explanation. In fowls and pigeons, care in the formation of varieties induces greater disproportionate development by augmenting the divergence of character. In cattle, sheep, and horses, on the contrary, care, by inducing greater convergence, causes increased proportionate development. This convergence, be it remembered, is attributable to a cause other than that which creates the convergence of character of the breeds of well-bred pigs.

We incline to believe that the extremely small amount of evil attendant on reduced size never manifests itself by close interbreeding. That some evil, though inappreciably small, does result from reduced size, may reasonably be inferred from the fact that, where animals disproportionately developed are crossed, increase in size follows, and that, where those animals are closely interbred, decrease in size results.

We are assured that there are cases in which crossing, instead of resulting in good, induces evil effects. Darwin says he has not met with any well-established case, with animals, in which this occurs. Now, our theory contemplates such evil effects under the following circumstances. The varieties crossed must each be distinguished from other varieties by a negative feature. In addition to this, they must lack features in common. The evil resulting would then be attributable to the same cause which induces the evil consequent on close interbreeding.

It is now clear that these phenomena of crossing and close interbreeding tell a tale the direct converse and refutation of that which Darwin would have us believe. They are manifestly, grossly, absolutely, and irreconcilably at variance with the doctrine of evolution. They show conclusively that no divergence of character is normally possible; that all the characters of the species are alone susceptible of perfect coördination; that the exclusive possession of any positive character by any variety is to the detriment of the other varieties; that the possession of any negative feature is deleterious to the organism; and that there can normally exist but one variety--the perfect type, that variety in which all the positive features are fully and proportionately developed. These conclusions cannot be gainsaid; for they irresistibly force themselves upon one by observation of the phenomena of crossing and close interbreeding, furnished by Darwin.

We have now propounded a counter-theory and a refutation of Darwinism. In doing so, we have introduced no new factors. We have used only those with which Darwin has furnished us. There are, however, three factors recognized by Darwin which we have eliminated. These are an innate tendency in organisms to vary, evolution, and the law of compensation of growth. Of these, the first is confessedly unscientific; the second, irrespective of the well-founded doubt as to whether it obtains or not, must share in the same discredit which is accorded to the first; and the third is viewed with distrust even by Darwin himself. The factors, however, which we have retained must be conceded to be immeasurably more amenable to the canons of scientific research, upon the theory of reversion, than when they are adduced to subserve the hypothesis of evolution. In our treatment of them they have fulfilled the highest requirements of logic. Take, for example, the four principal laws involved in the controversy--variation, correlation, crossing, and close interbreeding. These we found ultimate or empirical laws, and left them derivative laws. The law of variation we resolved into the law of reversion; and the laws of correlation, crossing, and close interbreeding we resolved into the law of proportionate development. Now, it is not possible for a theory to be capable of all this, and yet to be false. If the laws upon which we based our theory were merely empirical, a doubt of its validity might reasonably be entertained. But, as the case stands, it cannot.

But--may exclaim a tyro who affects a love for science, and whose conception of biology is limited to protoplasm and cells--assuming that the hypothesis of reversion is vastly more conformable to the phenomena of variation than the hypothesis of evolution, yet your theory fails to supply the greatest requirement of biologic science. It fails to satisfy our yearnings after a knowledge of the development of the species. Darwin starts with cells, the lowest congregations of organic matter. Because he does this his theory is, at least philosophically, the more scientific.

But, even in this respect, our theory is more philosophical than that of Darwin. Darwin assumes three or four cells, and intrusts spontaneity or chance with the development of the species. We assume, not "a myriad supernatural impulses" going to the formation of each species, not the creation of each species in its maturity, but one cell alone for each species, (or, perhaps, one cell for each sex of each species.) For evidence of the fact that the assumption of a multiplicity of cells is more philosophical than the assumption of only three or four, we appeal to an article in the North American Review for October, 1868, entitled "Philosophical Biology," of which the writer is a professed Darwinian, and to G. H. Lewes's articles in the Fortnightly Review. Given, then, these cells, we intrust the development of the species, not to spontaneity or chance, but to the operation of laws similar to those obtaining in the crystal. The forces implied in the creation, formation, or existence of each cell determine, as in the case of the crystal, the whole form and structure of the species. The process of development is that predetermined, from which no departure is normally possible. Time, however, is an unimportant element. This kind of evolution of the species we concede. That which we deny is the evolution of the species one from another.

In conclusion, we cannot refrain from stating that our views are quite consistent with a high admiration of the great ingenuity and vast research displayed by Mr. Darwin. His desire to be frank and candid none can gainsay. For the ability of Mr. Spencer, who is somewhat less candid, but immeasurably more so than the petty retailers of his conceptions, we have the deepest respect. His exquisitely constructed mind we ever delight to study. Both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer have rendered great services to the cause of science. And we must in candor admit that the British "infidels" generally present their theories in a form which admits of their eventual confirmation, or their eventual refutation. As we are confident that their refutation will follow whenever they are really at variance with religion, we anticipate with pleasure many a warm but amicable controversy within the next half-century.

FOOTNOTE:

[151] In the definition of a species, propounded in the last article, there occurred two mistakes. "Character" should have been characters; and the semicolon immediately following should have been absent.

BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.

The English parliament having lately occupied itself in discussing a measure of the utmost importance to the Catholics of the United Kingdom, and to Irish Catholics in particular--the abolition of the Established Church supremacy, the time seems very opportune for reviewing the conduct of British premiers for the last century and a half in reference to Catholics. The subject, we think, cannot fail to interest our readers, whether they be natives of this soil of freedom, or whether they have emigrated from an isle where freedom was, during long ages, unknown, and have sought on this side of the Atlantic that liberty, prosperity, and peace from which in Ireland they were cruelly debarred.

Though the revolution of 1688 filled the breasts of Catholics with dismay, and the ruin of their cause seemed complete, when the arms of William of Orange prevailed at the Boyne and at Limerick, yet their situation was not so forlorn nor were their prospects so hopeless as might have been expected. Many circumstances alleviated their misery; and, stormy as was the landscape spread before their eyes, glimpses were ever and anon afforded them of that tranquil and sunny horizon into which, after so many toils and conflicts, wounds and tears, they now seem to be entering. Every premier since the revolution down to the present time has done something, directly or indirectly, conducive to their interests, and calculated to raise them to equal privileges with the rest of their fellow-countrymen, if not to restore them to their long lost ascendency.

William III. was decidedly averse to persecution, and whether from coldness or kindness of disposition, he could never be induced by any of his counsellors to trample on the liberty of one portion of his subjects in order merely to please another portion. There was, indeed, one act of his reign,[152] of which we shall speak more particularly when we arrive at Lord North's ministry, that pressed very heavily on English and Irish Catholics; but of this act, which was never carried fully into execution, the nation became weary in eighty years, and William's consent to it was given very unwillingly. The known moderation of his own views was probably one reason why the pope (Alexander VIII.) did not disdain to give him his moral support in the league against France, and to be secretly, though not openly, one of the alliance formed against ambition and encroachments which the states of Europe in general felt to be intolerable. When his approval of the Declaration of Indulgence was sought by James II., in 1687, he had answered that he and the princess must protest against it, as exceeding the king's lawful prerogative, and as being dangerous to the Protestant ascendency, because it admitted Catholics to offices of trust; but he added that "they were not persecutors. They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well as Protestant dissenters relieved, in a proper manner, from all penal statutes. They should with pleasure see Protestant dissenters admitted in a proper manner to civil office. But at that point their highnesses must stop."[153] Such being William's sentiments, it is much to be regretted that he did not firmly resist the persecutive act which disgraces his reign, and which, far from mitigating the penal statutes in force against Catholics, made them more severe, and stood in direct contrast to his well-known and often expressed convictions.

[154]But not only was King William himself favorable to Catholic liberties, nearly one half of the Lords, the Commons, and the people in general, were Jacobites, or inclined to Jacobitism. Many of the great measures which decided the course of the English government in a Protestant and anti-Stuart direction were passed by extremely small majorities, and not a few of those who held offices of the highest trust in William's government, who commanded his armies and fleets, and sat by him at the council-board, were privately negotiating with King James and receiving the nightly visits of messengers from St. Germain. Such were Russell, Godolphin, and Marlborough; and when men so high in the state were thus striving to serve two masters, those Catholics who became aware of their intrigues could not but cherish bright hopes that the day of their own redemption was drawing nigh. During the reign of Queen Anne these hopes rose yet higher. She had a brother who claimed the throne of England, and she desired that he might be her successor. There were few at the time who knew the inmost thoughts of her heart; but it was evident to all that she leaned to the Jacobites; and when statesmen like Oxford and Bolingbroke, and a bishop like Atterbury, stood high in her favor, it was manifest to Catholics that her royal mind turned wistfully toward the Catholic dynasty. The rigorous measures which had been passed against Catholics in her predecessor's reign remained, for the most part, a dead letter during hers. Anne herself was no bigot; and if the country had not been kept in constant alarm by a threatened Stuart rising, the Catholic population would have enjoyed great tranquillity and considerable freedom. In 1714, we find Lord Bolingbroke writing that the Catholics enjoy as much quiet as any others of the queen's subjects.[155] But this assertion, it must be admitted, loses part of its credit when we remember that the oppressive measures enacted at various times under William and Mary were followed by several fresh refinements of cruelty in the reign of Anne.[156]

When the peaceful accession of the Elector of Hanover to the throne of England darkened the prospects of the Jacobites, and suggested to them the adoption of desperate steps as the only remedy for their disappointment, the government was sorely tempted to subject all Catholics to rigorous laws, and to render existing statutes still more severe. To this temptation, however, happily, it did not yield except in one or two instances. The mind of Sir Robert Walpole was neither persecutive nor narrow. He had, shortly before Queen Anne's demise, opposed the odious Schism Act, by which every tutor and schoolmaster in Great Britain was compelled to receive the sacrament in the Established Church, obtain a license from the Protestant bishop, and pledge himself in writing to conform to the state religion.[157] In speaking, as he did, against this measure, Walpole was battling for the religious liberty of Catholics as well as of other dissenters from the Anglican communion, and was doing all that lay in his power to promote education among them.

His associate in and out of office, General, afterward Earl, Stanhope, who also became premier in his turn, was a man of most honorable feelings and enlarged views. During his tenure of power he not merely endeavored to repeal the Schism Bill, the Test Act, and the Bill against Occasional Conformity, but he had designs of a higher order. Though Catholics had favored the Scottish insurrection in 1715, though Protestant antipathy to them was at its height, though the popes and the Catholic courts of Europe in general supported the designs of the Stuarts, though "Papists" were proscribed by common consent, and even the genius and very moderate Catholicism of Pope could scarce save him from opprobrium on account of his religion, Lord Stanhope, to his immortal honor, undertook the cause of the persecuted remnant, and formed the design of repealing, or at least greatly mitigating, the penal laws in force against them. A paper which he wrote on the subject was placed in the hands of leading English Catholics. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Waldegrave were disposed to accept the conditions, provided they obtained the sanction of the pope.[158] But a variety of causes prevented the scheme from being carried into effect; and premature death carried off the only man who would, at that period, have had the least chance of success in a matter so difficult, unpopular, and benevolent. Lord Stanhope's offer of indulgence to Catholics, on condition only of their swearing allegiance to the reigning family, was an admirable precedent, and his descendant, the historian of England from the Peace of Utrecht to 1783, calls it, very properly, the earliest germ of Roman Catholic emancipation.

The Earl of Sunderland also, who was premier in 1718, concurred with Stanhope in his schemes for religious liberty, though he was not equally sanguine in his hopes. He believed that any attempt to get rid of the Test Act--in other words, to admit dissenters and Catholics to places under government--would be ruinous to all their liberal designs. He therefore prevailed on Stanhope to abate some of his demands, and a bill for the relief of non-conformists was carried by the ministry through both houses, after several important clauses had been struck out. Sir Robert Walpole unfortunately opposed the bill which, on a former occasion, he had supported in principle. Though a great man, a sound statesman, a true patriot, he had his littlenesses. He did not rise above his age. He was one thing in office, and another out of office. He had a passion for governing, and was not over-scrupulous in the means he took for attaining power. Expediency was often his law, and principle was set aside. Hence, when Sunderland and Stanhope were dead, and he once more took the helm of the ship of state, he laid a heavy tax on the estates of Catholics, on the ground of their having cost the nation so much by fomenting the rebellion of 1715.[159] The disaffection they then manifested was the cause also why, in 1716, they were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to enlist in the king's service.

But these enactments were of a temporary nature, called forth by a special circumstance, and not of sufficient moment to disprove the assertion that, under the prime ministers of George I., the political and social condition of English Catholics was rendered more hopeful. Yet in saying this we do not forget that the statute-book remained unpurged,[160] and exhibited even some additional defilement. But it is not always by law-books that we can judge of a nation's condition. Its acts are often better than its laws, and it mends its ways long before it improves its statutes. It was so for a long period with Great Britain as regards her dealings with Catholics, and if it had been otherwise, scarcely a remnant of the chosen people would have remained to bear witness to the ancient faith. Sir Robert Walpole inclined in his heart to lenient measures, and would have done more to promote religious liberty if he had not fallen among a stiff-necked generation, to whom retaliation and oppression came as things of course. His efforts to relieve the Quakers from prosecution and imprisonment for refusing to pay tithes and church rates, and to substitute for these a levy by distress on their goods, sufficiently proves his aversion to the oppressive policy which Gibson, the Bishop of London, and many of his lawn-sleeved brethren, wished to pursue.

Little alteration took place in the condition of Catholics during the premierships of Carteret, Pelham, and Newcastle. They were few in number, except in the southern and western provinces of Ireland, where they comprised the great body of the laboring classes. In England, on the contrary, they had scarcely any hold on the lower orders, but numbered among their people many peers, country gentlemen, and other educated persons. The alarm they occasioned was incredible, considering the poverty of their chapels, and the scanty numbers by whom these were frequented. The most wicked and absurd doctrines were ascribed to them, nor was any falsehood respecting them too glaring to obtain credit with the prejudiced multitude. The rising of 1745 brought them more than ever into disrepute, and their enemies saw with fierce joy their bones whitening on Temple Bar and Tower Hill. The butchery of the Duke of Cumberland was accounted lenient when exercised against Catholics; and if the government had drenched the scaffolds with more blood of Highland chiefs, it would probably have been applauded by a crowd of Protestant zealots. But Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, were neither cruel nor fanatical; and the effort made by the former to ameliorate the condition of the Jews, though frustrated by the intolerance of the times, proved that his leanings, at least, were in favor of religious and political equality. Deserted as he was in this matter by his timid and shuffling brother, hooted at and cried down as an enemy of Christianity because he was averse to persecuting the forlorn and helpless Jews, we may judge how hopeless would have been any attempt to plead the rights of Catholics, and how prudence itself demanded that the redress of their wrongs should be postponed to a more convenient season. The Whigs of George II.'s reign did what they could in their favor, and it was little indeed, by paving the way for future concessions.

While Chatham, with his fiery genius, was holding the reins of government, in concert successively with the dukes of Devonshire, of Newcastle, and of Grafton; while Bute enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, and incurred in an equal degree the odium of the people; while Grenville goaded the American colonists into revolt, and Rockingham vainly endeavored to heal the wounds which his predecessor had inflicted on them; little was thought, and still less was said, in parliament about the emancipation of Catholics. Yet many of the events which occurred, many of the political gladiators who acquired for themselves such renown in the arena of public life, were preparing the way for this happy consummation in the fulness of time. Every blow that was struck for freedom was a gain to the Catholic cause; every check that was put on the arbitrary power of the king or the parliament was in effect a loosening of their bonds. When Chatham declaimed against the use of general warrants, and Wilkes waged war single-handed with the crown, the cabinet, and the commons; when Burke and Rockingham, no less than Chatham, denounced the injustice of the Stamp Act, and the fratricidal cruelty of the war by which it was in principle to be enforced, the arguments by which they clove down menaces, boasts, and blatant sophistry availed more or less against every thing that could be pleaded in support of the bondage and degradation to which Catholics were subjected. Edmund Burke was the burning and shining light of the Rockingham administration. It was scarcely possible for the premier to overrate his importance as an ally. He had the most philosophical mind of any statesman of his age; and the fact of his being chattered against as a wild Irishman and a concealed papist by the Duke of Newcastle, proved that the despised and the detested Catholics of Ireland were likely to find a friend in him. He was more than a great man; he represented a principle. He never shifted his ground, though he sometimes changed his front. He always pleaded for order, and "a manly, moral, regulated liberty." In the outset of his political career, the tide of human thought was setting in new directions. America was declaring her independence; the Wealth of Nations was laying the foundation of political economy; Wesley and Whitefield were stirring up a dormant spirit of sincere though misguided religion in mines, factories, fields, and wolds; Hargreaves's spinning-jenny was well at work; Arkwright's patent had been issued some years; Crompton's mule was seen coming into play; Brindley's canal from the Trent to the Mersey was being cut; and Watt was preparing his third model of the steam-engine. Powerful solvents of old systems were applied, and active germs of new ones sprang up on every side. It was a time, therefore, when thoughtful men were accessible to new ideas, when they would listen to arguments so new, so strange, so extravagant, (for such they had once thought them,) as those which Burke advanced in favor of religious toleration, and of the persecuted Irish. Year after year his convictions gathered strength, till at last "the god within him" burst forth, and he denounced the penal code of Protestant England as "A system full of coherence and consistency; well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."[161] As the secretary, the friend, the adviser and colleague of Lord Rockingham, Edmund Burke had some influence in abating the rigor of enactments against "papists;" and though the Rev. James Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for his life at the Old Bailey for saying mass, so late as the year 1769, yet the spirit of persecution sensibly declined after the fifth year of George III.'s reign. It was rarely, and at long intervals, that it ventured to display itself in the English parliament; and in 1774, the first decided step toward toleration was taken by that prejudiced body. The Catholics of Canada were allowed by law to enjoy free exercise of their religion, subject to the king's supremacy.[162]

Only four years passed before this concession was followed by another of far greater importance and extent.

It was under the ministry of Lord North, and with his concurrence, that Sir George Savile, in 1788, introduced a bill to repeal the atrocious enactments extorted from William of Orange by a relentless parliament. The bigots of his day had often repeated the false reports of Jacobites, who affirmed that William was in secret a favorer of their religion; but now that eighty years had rolled by, the representatives of the nation in parliament, though not the people themselves, were sensible of the injustice their forefathers had wrought, and were willing to make reparation for it. It was already a marvellous change that had come over the minds of the thinking part of the nation; and it is pleasing to reflect that Sir George Savile's healing measure encountered little opposition. The penal statutes which his bill repealed had not, generally speaking, been put into execution, but in some instances they had; and Sir George declared himself cognizant of cases in which Catholics were not merely living in terror, but were obliged to bribe informers not to betray them, in consequence of the powers which the law conferred. Thurlow, the attorney-general, supported the bill, and so did Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland. The only whisper of opposition came from a Whig bishop of Peterborough, named Hinchcliffe. By this repeal the priests were secured from persecution, schoolmasters were permitted to teach, Catholics were enabled to purchase and to inherit estates, and many other happy exemptions from pain and penalty were granted to them.[163] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters,[164] called the repeal "the restoration of popery," and "expected soon to see Capuchins trampling about, and Jesuits in high places."

It is needless to recount the excesses which followed this measure. The Lord George Gordon riots are too well known even here to require more than an allusion to be made to them. Gibbon, the historian, was an eye-witness of the scene, and he says, in memorable words, that "the month of June, 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism, which I supposed to be extinct, but which actually subsists in Great Britain perhaps beyond any other country in Europe." Impelled by these frantic disturbances, the parliament condescended to explain Sir George Savile's bill to the people, and to show that, though intended to relieve "papists," it was not meant to encourage "popery."

The coalition ministry, under the Duke of Portland, did not last long enough for Fox, its most distinguished and philanthropic member, to propose measures for the relief of Catholics. But his great rival, Pitt, during his long tenure of office, had means of befriending them which he did not altogether neglect. The Toleration Act[165] received the royal assent in 1791, and many of its provisions did credit to William Pitt's wisdom and humanity. It removed penalties still attached by law to the celebration of Catholic worship, and relieved tutors, schoolmasters, barristers, and peers from some degrading restrictions. Pitt would willingly have gone further, much further. He would gladly have fulfilled the promises made to some of the leaders of the Irish people, and would have cemented the union of England and Ireland by admitting Catholics to a share of political power and by providing a state endowment of the Catholic priesthood. He even resigned his post as premier in 1801 because he found it impossible to obtain the consent of the purblind, bigoted old king to the measures he had planned for the peace of Ireland. It would have been better for his fame if he had persevered in his good intentions. That he did not do so, is a stain on his memory which posterity, however lenient, cannot wash out. His honor was involved in completing the union with Ireland by Catholic emancipation. This he not only failed to do, but, out of regard to his sovereign, he promised in writing that he would never again moot the question, and that he would oppose its being agitated to the day of his death. This was carrying loyalty too far. It prevailed against justice. It cancelled personal honor. An engagement is sacred; and if Pitt had observed his, he would have stood higher in the esteem of thinking men, without driving George III. into lunacy or to Hanover. Considering all the circumstances, we cannot feel surprised at his setting it aside; but we regret that he did not hold to it firmly. Faith in political leaders would then have been more easy, and public virtue less a sham. When the strength of Pitt superseded the weakness of Addington, and the great statesman found himself again prime minister, his tongue was tied in reference to Catholic claims. Nay, even his rival, Fox, when he came once more into office, refrained from advocating emancipation out of deference to the king's weakness and tendency to madness. Indeed, the Grenville ministry, called usually "All the Talents," broke up at last on the question of removing Catholic disabilities, as that of Pitt had done in the year 1801. A puny and pitiable concession had been made to Irish Catholic soldiers in 1793. They had been allowed by law to rise in the army to the rank of colonel, in case of their serving in Ireland. Lord Sidmouth and Chancellor Erskine were opposed to Catholic emancipation, yet even they were willing in their boundless generosity to extend this privilege to officers serving in England. The king was alarmed at the proposal, and wrote to Lord Spenser, declaring that it should never gain his consent. It would remove a restriction on Roman Catholics, and it was only part of a system to which he was unchangeably averse. But when two days had passed, his majesty thought better of it. He would not thwart his ministers for such a trifle. He yielded the point, and then discovered than he had been deceived by the liberal members of the cabinet, and that they actually intended to put Catholics and dissenters on exactly the same footing as members of the Anglican church in the army, and to exact from them merely an oath of allegiance. The bill for the purpose had, in fact, been submitted to him, but, being blind, he had let it pass without proper scrutiny. His ministers always affirmed that, if he had been misled, it was not through their fault or intention. The afflicted old man was greatly disturbed by what he heard on the subject from Lord Sidmouth, and he became still more indignant when the bill was fathered on him, introduced into parliament by Lord Howick, (afterward Lord Grey,) opposed stoutly by Mr. Perceval, and read for the first time. He resolved in secret to rid himself of ministers whom he regarded as dangerous and false. He informed them that the bill in question would never be signed by him, that it must be withdrawn, and that he should be satisfied with nothing less than an explicit assurance and promise that no such measures in future should be proposed. This "All the Talents" refused to give, and the king, on hearing that their answer was final, said, "Then I must look about me."[166]

Though the Duke of Portland became prime minister in 1807 with the express intention of defending the sovereign against importunity in favor of Catholics, it is worthy of remark that the College of Maynooth was endowed during his premiership; and this is only one illustration of the remarkable fact which we are endeavoring to exhibit--that the Catholic cause in England has progressed in England under every government since the revolution of 1688, in spite of penal statutes, obstacles, and resistance of king, lords, commons or people.

Mr. Perceval, who succeeded the Duke of Portland in 1809, is described by Madden as "a stupid lawyer, without character or practice, noted only for his bigotry."

There was little done for Catholics in his time; but about two months after he had been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, Lord Wellesley moved that the Catholic claims should be considered.

The cabinet of Lord Liverpool was formed on the basis of neutrality as regards the Catholic question; in other words, its members were allowed to advocate or oppose emancipation, just as they thought fit. Canning and Castlereagh were its friends; Lord Eldon was its bitterest opponent. The premier himself invariably spoke against it, but he was not virulent. His hostility to it arose from the conviction that Protestant ascendency was the real and proper basis of the British constitution, as revised under William III. To alter that basis was, in his eyes, to effect a revolution; and he predicted, in 1812 and in 1825, that if emancipation were granted, either the Protestant church in Ireland would be disestablished or the Roman Catholic Church there would be established by law. Events have proved, happily, that he was not altogether wrong.

The period of the Liverpool administration was, of course, a dreary one for Catholics. The efforts of Grattan, Wellesley, Sir Henry Parnell, Plunkett, and Canning to obtain for them some redress, ended for the most part in cruel disappointment. Yet in 1817 the government introduced a bill, which passed both houses, opening to them the army and navy, and thus generously bestowed on them the privilege of shedding their blood in the service of their oppressors. By annual acts of indemnity, also, Catholic officers were relieved from the penalty of not taking the oaths of supremacy.

In 1824, Lord Liverpool had so far relaxed his opposition to Catholic claims that he spoke in favor of Lord Lansdowne's two bills for giving the elective franchise to English as it had been given to Irish Catholics, and for throwing open to them magistracies and other inferior offices, besides allowing the Duke of Norfolk to execute his hereditary office of earl marshal. The bills were rejected, but the duke's claim was allowed. In 1826, just two years before his death, Lord Liverpool submitted to the king an important paper, in which he reminded his majesty that the cabinet he had framed in 1812 regarded emancipation from the first as an open question, and declared that he could not now be a party to any other arrangement. He humbly suggested that the king should advert to the actual state of the opinions of public men in the two houses of parliament, particularly of those in the House of Commons, upon the Roman Catholic question, and that he should seriously consider whether it would not be at least as impracticable as in 1812 to form an administration upon the exclusively Protestant principle. Thus Lord Liverpool himself, and his neutral or divided cabinet, prepared the way for emancipation in the year after his death.

Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool in 1827. He had long advocated the redress of Catholic wrongs. It was not his fault that Ireland was duped by the union. It had been his desire and intention that emancipation should seal and complete that measure. He could scarcely venture to speak of it, however, except in vague terms; for the smallest allusion to it on his part would have been sure to call down upon him the vengeance of the treasury benches. Yet he did allude to it in January and April, 1799, and thirteen years after, when, speaking of the Catholic claims, he declared that "expectations had been held out, the disappointment of which involved the moral guilt of an absolute breach of faith."

"Does history," asks Goldwin Smith, in discussing the wrongs of Ireland--"does history afford a parallel to that agony of seven centuries which has not yet reached its close? But England is the favorite of Heaven; and when she commits oppression, it will not recoil on the oppressor!"

If Canning's life had been spared, there is no doubt that he would have signalized his tenure of office by the completion, in some measure at least, of the designs of the Catholic Association. This body, formed by O'Connell in 1823, had infused new life and hope into Irish patriotism. Disappointed and betrayed as the people of Ireland had been by one statesman after another, they could not but expect something from Canning's hands, especially when they saw him rise in April, 1822, and move for leave to bring in a bill which should relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the Act 30 of Charles II., with regard to the right of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. His brilliant and beautiful speech was crowned with a certain success. His motion was carried by a majority of five; but Peel opposed the measure, and the Lords rejected it by a majority of forty-two. Their policy in such matters has always been one of obstruction. They declined to let noblemen so noble and so pacific, and of families so ancient, as the Dukes of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Petre, and Lord Stourton, sit beside them in their chambers as peers of the realm.

After this failure, Canning's zeal in the Catholic cause is said to have declined; but he doubtless felt his impotence, and waited only till a more favorable opportunity of serving the Catholic interests should arrive.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] 11 and 12 William III., c. 4. Madden's Penal Statutes against Roman Catholics, pages 229, 232, 233.

[153] Macaulay, Hist. of England, chap. vii., ann. 1687.

[154] Ibid. chap. xvii.

[155] To Mr. Prior, Jan. 30th, 1714.

[156] 10 Anne c. 2. 12 St. 2, c. 14.

[157] Earl Stanhope, Hist. of England, vol. 1. p. 81.

[158] Craggs to Stanhope, June 30th, 1719.

[159] 9 George I., c. 18.

[160] Madden's Penal Statutes, p. 238.

[161] Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792.

[162] 14 George III. c. 35, § 5.

[163] 18 George III., c. 60.

[164] To Rev. Mr. Cole, May 21, 1778.

[165] 31 George III., c. 32.

[166] English Premiers. No. xii. Month, 1867.

CHESS.

I.

It is rather difficult for the spectator at a game of chess (who is not himself a player) to comprehend the pleasure of it, and to believe that those two grave, silent individuals are not only seeking but actually finding amusement and recreation.

Yet no game is more beautiful in its appointments; beautiful in the mathematical precision of its moves; beautiful in its colored, carved, and varied pieces; intellectually beautiful in its very quietude--in the power with which it represses every manifestation of hope or disappointment, in its wordless intensity of thought.

Other games come in some degree within the scope of the most humble capacity; but chess, royal chess, loftier in its requirements, demands the most noble. It has attractions all-absorbing and fascinating as well as profitable unto wisdom; but they stand fully revealed to him only who can widely plan and steadily execute; whose circumspection is never beguiled and whose caution never sleepeth; who is elated not overmuch by success nor despondent under disasters; who keepeth his own counsel and can baffle an opponent's penetration; whose well-schooled eye gives no clue, by a glance, to his intended victim, and whose well-trained finger never hovers in irresolution. Behold the requirements of chess!

It has been justly called in olden English The Royalle Game; for not only is a king its hero, but it has afforded amusement to kings and warriors through many a past age, and in countries widely distant from each other.

The origin of the game of chess is still an unsettled question. Like some of the oriental monarchs, it might write itself "brother to the sun and moon"--so ancient is its pedigree. Some writers have proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that it was chess which enlivened the tedium of the Greeks encamped about the walls of Troy, and that its inventor was Palamedes, son of Nauplius, King of Euboea. Who can doubt the inventive genius of Palamedes after all the tales told of him?--tales we learn once and then forget. I repeat one. When the Greek heroes were gathering for the mighty Trojan conflict, Palamedes, himself a warrior, was sent to Ithaca, to summon Achilles and Odysseus to join them. The latter, desirous of evading the call, feigned himself insane, and Palamedes, to test his truthfulness, seized his infant child and laid it before him in a furrow which he was ploughing. Odysseus paused, raised the child, and removed it, thus giving evidence of his sanity. Who after this can doubt the inventive powers of Palamedes or his historian, and who can say that either might not have invented chess?

In a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Harleian collection, in the British Museum, is a drawing in which two warriors are represented, evidently Greeks, with a chess-board between them, engaged in play. The author of the MS. traces the game back to Odysseus, and concludes that one of these chiefs is intended for him.

In the great Egyptian collection of the British Museum, specimens are preserved of a kind of chess-men taken from a tomb of one of the Pharaohs, which prove that they had a game similar if not identical with our chess; and some hieroglyphics on the ruins of Luxor, Thebes, and Palmyra have been interpreted as indicating such a game.

Caxton, who printed a Boke of Chesse in 1474, quoting from some other writers, gives a wonderful story, showing that it was devised in the reign of Evil-Merodach, King of Babylon, by a philosopher "whyche was named in Caldee Exerses, and in Greke Philemetor." The Greek cognomen of the philosopher leads somewhat to the belief of such a possibility.

Chaucer, without any proof, gives us in rhyme another candidate for the glory--Athalus. He describes, in a sort of dream, a visionary opponent, Fortune--

"At chesse with me she gan to pleye With hir fals draughtes dyverse, She staale on me and toke my ferz, (now queen.) And when I saugh my ferz awaye, Alas, I kouthe no longer pleye. With a powne errante, allas I Ful craftier to pleye she was Than Athalus, who made the game First of the chesse, so was hys name."[167]

A repetition of half the assertions and conjectures on this subject would fill volumes; indeed, volumes have been written on it; for no other thing of pure amusement has ever enlisted in its cause so many learned commentators of all tongues and nations, who unite, however, upon two points--its remote antiquity and its mighty renown.

The most reliable account of the origin of the game is, without doubt, that given by Sir William Jones. His high official rank for many years under the English government in India, and his familiarity with oriental languages, gave him opportunities for oriental research beyond almost any other writer. He asserts, as the result of his inquiries, that it was invented by the Hindoos, and from them (according to a universal Persian tradition) it was brought, in the sixth century, to Persia. Its next step was to Arabia, and from thence it was carried by the Saracenic conquest of Spain to western Europe. He found no mention of it in the classic writings of the Brahmins, although (he continues) they say confidently that Sanscrit books on chess exist.

Who the gifted individual was from whose brain emanated such an ingenious complication of mathematics and strategy, disguised under the mask of amusement, we shall perhaps never know. He might well have exclaimed with Horace,

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius."

But alas! the name of the builder is lost; or perhaps a future Layard, in exhuming the splendors of some ancient city, may find a record on some crumbling stone of the inventor of chess.

To an indefinite number of persons the honor is at present ascribed, evidently in mere conjecture, as in the following extract translated from a Chinese annal on chess; but it has an interest, in showing the antiquity of the game and the high esteem in which it was held:

"Three hundred and seventy-nine years after the time of Confucius, or 1965 years ago," says the annal, "Hung Cochu, King of Kiangnan, sent an expedition into the Shense country, under command of a mandarin named Hansing, to conquer it. After one campaign, the soldiers went into winter quarters, and they grew homesick and wanted to return. Then Hansing invented the game of chess. They were well pleased. In the spring they took the field again, and soon added the rich country of Shense to the kingdom of Kiangnan."

It is more likely that Hansing only taught the soldiers what he had himself learned elsewhere; but Shense is still the name of a northern province of China, and Chinese soldiers still play chess.

For the name of the game also, as well as its origin, we rely most on Sir W. Jones, who traced it to Chaturlinga, signifying in eastern dialect certain parts of an army; and in his time the Malays still called it Chatur.

The whole vocabulary of chess--the only sound which breaks the monotonous silence of the game, is the little word check; and it is a singular fact, remarked by Mr. F. W. Cronhelm, that, however varied the names of the pieces in different languages, yet the Italians, French, English, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, Poles, and Russians all give the king warning in the same word--check! Somebody traces it to sheik, the title of a high ruler in the Arabian dynasty, and supposes that they so named the principal piece, which we call king; hence when the adversary placed him in danger, he called out to him "sheik!" or, as we say, "check!" This is certainly plausible; for mat in Arabic, as also in some dialects of Persia and India, signifies to kill, to slay; hence comes "sheik-mat," king-slain, or the modern "check-mate."

FOOTNOTE:

[167] Bell's Chaucer, vol. vi.

II.

It may be supposed, then, following the dates of Sir W. Jones, that the game of chess made its entrance into Arabia in her most glorious era; and it is easy to believe that a recreation so purely intellectual, so entirely reliant on skill and removed from chance, and which called into action all the higher powers of mind, would speedily find favor with the refined and cultivated Arabians in the golden days of her history. It is easy to picture Haroun-al-Raschid, who "never built a mosque without attaching to it a school," and who taught his subjects that "the most noble homage of a creature is to cultivate the faculties bestowed on him by his Creator"--it is easy to imagine him seeking relaxation from the cares of government in a game of chess; and not he alone--but that, from the universal diffusion of learning and refinement among the people, under him and his immediate successors, it would meet universal acceptance, and be engrafted, as it were, on their nationality. And thus we find it was; and so entirely adopted that it was the most cherished pleasure which they carried with them to (what was to them) the far-off land of Spain.

To the Arabians then, the west of Europe, at least, if not the whole of it, is indebted for chess; and it is pleasant to believe that its present perfections may have been wrought out by some modifications of it, in those famous old universities and schools of learning which history tells us were scattered over every land where the Arabians held sway, but more especially over Arabia proper.

Chess, looked upon in this connection, wears a mantle of romance; there is a spell upon it of that departed glory! It is redolent of orange-groves, and jasmines, and thickets of roses; of sculptured halls, and gorgeous tapestry, and marble pavements; of learned men and beautiful women. All around it in that land breathed an impassioned poetry and an enchaining eloquence; the language of passion, and inspired thoughts, and bold imagery, of whose power to sway mankind our rule-bound brains can form no conception.

It speaks to us of the days when Bagdad was the gathering-place, under Al-Mamoun, (Mahomet-aben-Amer,) of the wise men of all nations; when her universities and schools of science were the boast of her rulers; when long trains of camels were daily seen entering her gates laden with precious manuscripts for her libraries; when medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, counted among her citizens their most renowned professors, and when all these sciences were made accessible to the people by colleges and academies in every town. Nor were Bassora, Kaffa, Samarcand, and numerous other cities much less famous; Alexandria possessed more than twenty schools for philosophy alone; and Fez and Larace held in their immense libraries works of rare value nowhere else to be found. In every department of science and art they seem to have labored with success. They had dictionaries, geographical, critical, and biographical; the universal history of the world by Aboul-Feda, and the great historical dictionary of Prince Abdel Malek. Al-Assacher wrote commentaries on the first inventors of the arts; and Al-Gazel, a learned work on Arabian antiquities. Nor were their researches confined to the schools; after forty years of travel in studying mineralogy, Abou-ryan-al-Byrony produced his treatise on precious stones--rich in facts and observations. With equal zeal, at a later period, Aben-al-Beither traversed the mountains and plains of Europe, the sands of Africa, and the most remote countries of Asia, to gather every thing rare and worthy of record in the vegetable and animal world. Chemistry they applied to the arts of life; and Al-Farabi, who spoke seventy languages, spent his life in making a compend of all known sciences in one immense encyclopædia.

They had invented gunpowder although the honor is often falsely given to a German chemist--and they were familiar with the compass, long before either was named in Europe; and our sciences of calculation are indebted to them for numerals. The mass of their poetry and fiction exceeds that of all other nations put together. One, at least, we all know; for who cannot recall many--yes, how many happy hours of boyhood, beguiled with the gorgeous impossibilities of Arabian Nights?

Amidst all these royal students, these accomplished scholars, the chess-board had its place; it was the pleasure, the recreation--the field whereon wit encountered wit in sharp and pleasant tilt. And while from all that land the light of science has departed; while the glories of the past are, with the mass of its people, not even a tradition, travellers tell us that, after the day's journeying is done, the dusky Arab "spreads out on the ground a checkered cloth, and plays on it a game similar to our chess."

III.

Although Spain, and the adjacent nations through her, received chess from Arabia, the game not only existed but was wide-spread in the north of Europe at a period so early (and under a slight modification) that we are led to believe they derived it from some other source. Indeed, nothing would seem more likely than that some of the many tribes who were constantly migrating thither from Asia would carry it with them. Major C. F. de Jaenish, a Russian writer, is of opinion that Russia received it direct from the east through her ancient conquerors, the Moguls; and in proof of this, he notes two pieces changed in the chess of southern Europe, but retained in their original form in Russia. These are, first, the commander of the army, or biser, called in Persia ferz; and second, the elephant, called in Russia, Slone. But it doubtless existed in Russia long before the Moguls held sway, which was not until the thirteenth century; and long before that time there are records of it as an amusement among the Northmen of the neighboring kingdoms. Besides this, in the ninth century the descendants of Ruric the Norman, who then ruled Russia, had extended their conquests to the Black Sea, and, in the language of the old historian, "greatly infested its waters;" one of them had even married the sister of the Greek emperor. It is, therefore, more than probable that through some of these channels chess was introduced into the northern part of Europe at a very early date.

It may have been carried thither by those maritime marauders, called the sea-kings, even before it was heard of in Spain. The first movement of the Arabians against Spain is generally fixed in the year seven hundred and ten; when Taric-ben-Zeyed, with some galleys disguised as merchantmen, cruised along the coasts of Andalusia and Lusitania, to see what temptation the Christian land offered to the followers of the prophet. That his survey was satisfactory, we know by what followed. But long before this, the Northmen in their ships had made themselves famous and feared. An Icelandic chronicle tells us "they were on every sea, and more numerous on water than on land." In the eighth and ninth centuries, they were to be found not only repeatedly ravaging England, Scotland, and Ireland, but sailing up the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone; they had pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nantes, and Tours; and laid waste Provence and Dauphiny. More than once they landed in Spain; and they had coasted the Mediterranean, to the terror of Greece and Italy. These expeditions were always predatory; and they may not only have acquired in their Mediterranean voyages some hints of the game of chess, but chess-men and chess-boards may have made a trifle in the booty with which they always returned laden to their northern homes.

Mons. Mallet, the antiquarian, in seeking to account for the great quantity of foreign coin found about that time in the northern kingdoms, thinks it less probable that it was the honest gains of commerce than "relics of the plunder collected by these ravagers." In like manner, perhaps, they appropriated chess. In whatever way obtained, it must have been to them particularly attractive; for what was it but that for which they lived--battle and victory? Nothing could have been better adapted, in the long nights of their northern winters, both to divert them from that restlessness which seems to have possessed the whole of their existence not spent in the tumults of war and the chase, or in preparations for them--and also as a pastime at their frequent and magnificent feasts; occasions upon which they infused into it their own fierce and vindictive spirit, for we know that their chess games ended very frequently not in the check-mate of the king, but in breaking each other's heads with the chess-board. Some such instances on record are tragic and revolting. Similar manners extended along the middle ages. An old writer thus explains the feud which existed between Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane:

"At one of the festivals at the court of Charlemagne, the emperor's son Charles, and Bauduin, son of Ogier, went to play together. They took a chess-board and sat down to play for pastime. They arranged their chess-men on the board. The emperor's son first moved his pawn, and young Bauduin moved his aufin, (bishop.) Then Charles thought to press him very hard, and he moves his knight upon the other aufin. The one moves forward and the other backward so long that Bauduin said mate to him in the corner. Then the young prince was furious at his defeat, and not only assailed the son of Ogier with the most insulting language, but seized the chess-board and dealt him such a violent blow on his forehead that he split his head and scattered his brains on the floor!"

King John of England, in his youth, at the court of his father Henry II., played sometimes with Fulk Fitz Warine, a lad like himself, and as often it ended in a quarrel. A curious old history of the Fitz Warines gives the following story:

"Young Fulk was bred at the court of King Henry, and was much beloved by all his sons except John; for he used often to quarrel with John. It happened that John and Fulk were sitting all alone in a chamber playing at chess. John took the chess-board and hit Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt hurt, raised his foot and struck John so that his head went against the wall, and he grew weak and faint. Fulk was in consternation, but he was glad they were alone. Then he rubbed John's ears, and he recovered and went to the king his father to complain."

His majesty bestowed upon him little sympathy, for he punished him for being quarrelsome. Considering that John began the affray, this might pass for justice; but he did not forget the matter when he came to the throne. Fulk was the famous outlaw.

In many old manuscripts incidental mention is made of chess as a favorite amusement for heroes. When Regner Lodbrog, the warrior-poet, was killed, the messenger who carried the news to his sons found two of them--Sigued (snake-eye) and Hurtish (the bold)--playing chess; the third one, Biorn, was mending his lance. Regner Lodbrog died about the close of the eighth century.

Snorro Sturleson relates that, in 1028, Canute, King of Denmark, rode to Roskild to visit Earl Ulft, the husband of his sister. The king was very dull and scarcely spoke, and to enliven him, Earl Ulft proposed a game of chess. So they sat down to it, and played until Ulft took a knight; this the king would not allow.

"Are you a coward?" he exclaimed.

"You did not call me coward when I shielded you in battle," replied the earl; but for this reminder he lost his head.

An early metrical romance tells us that when Witikind, king of the pagan Saxons, received information that Charlemagne was marching on his dominions, the messenger found him in his palace at Tremoigne, playing chess with Escorsaus de Lutise; and his queen, Sebile, who also understood the game, was looking on. Witikind was so indignant at the news that he "seized the chess-board and smashed it to pieces, and his face grew as red as a cherry."

There is a droll story told of a kindred spirit of more modern date. A choleric Scottish nobleman, a former Earl of Stair, frequently played with a friend of his, Colonel Stewart. Not contented with bestowing very expressive invectives on the colonel's occasional superior play, he sometimes, when goaded by a check-mate, flung at his head any object possible within reach; so at last the colonel, for prudence' sake, when about to make his last move, always rose hastily and retreating behind some door, called out, "Check-mate, my lord!"

While the general manners of an age are gathered from its grave historians, we can learn them more in detail from its romances. In all the early romances left to us, wherever chess is mentioned--and it is constantly introduced as a pastime of knights, princes, and courtly dames--it is almost always an occasion or implement of some fierce dispute.

In the romance of Quatre fils d'Aymon, the agents of Regnault go to arrest Richard, Duke of Normandy, and find him playing chess. The result is thus quaintly told in an old English version, printed by Copeland.

"When Duke Richarde saw these sergeauntes hed him by the arm, he helde in his hande a lady of ivery, wherewith he would have given mate to Younet. Then he withdrew his arm, and gave to one of the sergeauntes such a stroke with it into the forehead that he made him tumble over and over at his feete; and then he tooke a rooke and smote another withal upon his head, so that he all to-brost it to the brayne."

In the romance of Parise la Duchesse, her young son, brought up at the court of Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to some of the nobles, and four of them conspire to murder him. In order to accomplish their object with safety to themselves, they invite him to play chess with them in a retired cellar. "Hughes," said they, "will you come with us to play at chess? For you can teach us chess and dice; for certainly you know the games better than we do." Hughes seemed suspicious of their advances, and it was not until they promised him to avoid all disputes that he accepted their invitation. He began to play with the son of Duke Granier; but while he in kindness was about showing them in what manner to move, they drew their knives upon him, and outrageously insulted him. He killed the foremost of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing the chess-board for a weapon, for he was unarmed, he "brained the other three with it."

In Spain and Italy, about the same time, the game is mentioned under more gentle guise. An interesting letter is preserved, written by Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Pope Alexander II., who was elected pope in 1061. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling with a bishop of Florence, when,

"having arrived at a hotel, I withdrew into the cell of a priest, while he remained with a crowd of travellers in the spacious house. In the morning I was informed by my servant that the bishop had been playing chess; which information like an arrow pierced my heart. At a convenient hour I sent for him, and said, in a tone of reproof, 'The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready for the offender.' 'Let the fault be proved,' said he, 'and penance shall not be refused.' 'Was it well,' I rejoined, 'was it worthy of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity of chess-play, and defile the hands and tongue which ought to be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you aware that, by the canonical law, bishops who are dice-players are ordered to be deposed?' He, however, making himself a shield of defence from the difference of names, said that dice was one thing, and chess another; consequently, that the canon only forbade dice, but tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, 'Chess is not named in the text, but the general term of dice comprehends both games; wherefore, since dice is forbidden and chess is not named, it follows without doubt that both are equally condemned.'"

It is safe to conclude from this that the cardinal himself was not familiar with the game.

Females are represented on many illuminated manuscripts, as well as in early romances, as playing chess together or with knights. In one called Blonde of Oxford, Jean, a young French nobleman, comes to England and enters the household service of the Earl of Oxford. It was a part of Jean's duty to attend on the Lady Blonde, daughter of the earl, and serve her at table; after dinner, he goes hawking and hunting with them, and also teaches the ladies French. "Then he entertains the Ladye Blonde, and teaches her chess, and he often says check and mate to her."

Similar scenes are in Ipomydon, as in the following quoted by Strutt:

"When theye had dyned, as you saye, Lords and ladys yede to playe, Some to tables, some to chesse, And other gamys more or less."

"The writers immediately after the conquest," says a distinguished antiquarian, "speak of the Saxons as playing at chess; and pretend that they learned the game of the Danes. Gaimar, who gives an interesting story of the deceit practised on King Edgar (A.D. 973) by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady and her noble father passing the day at chess." (Wright.)

Such examples might be multiplied to tediousness; but one more notice of it among the Northmen is worth giving, because it is found in one of the grandest of modern epics, by the Swedish poet, Tegner, founded on events in the life of one of their most renowned heroes--The Legend of Frithiof.

The fortunes of the valiant Frithiof, who was the son of a thane, seem to have been ruled by his love for the fair Ingeborn, daughter of a king, and the scorn with which her two brothers spurned his proposal for her hand. A day of retaliation, however, soon came. Helgé and Halfdan, the brothers, were threatened by a neighboring foe, and sent to Frithiof--certainly with a sublime forgetfulness of what had passed--to ask his aid. When the messenger arrived, he was playing chess with his friend, Bjorn, the Bear. Frithiof refuses very decidedly. His heart still pines for Ingeborn; and, like a true Viking, he betakes himself for consolation to the sea, which he vows shall be "his home in life and his grave in death." The chess-board beside which Frithiof doubtless forgot his griefs for a brief space is described as magnificent--

"Beside a chess-board's checkered frame Frithiof and Bjorn pursued their game; Silver was each alternate plane, And each alternate plane of gold."[168]

Perhaps some reader will be glad to learn that, after a few years, "he is weary of sea-fights and of hewing men in twain," and returns home to marry Ingeborn.

Such was one of the early chess-players.

FOOTNOTE:

[168] Strong's Translation.

IV.

It is remarkable in the history of chess how very trifling the variations which have ever been made in it. The lapse of time, which has swept away cities and their inhabitants, which has so blotted from human speech the words of those who once held converse around it that their inscriptions on stone are unintelligible, has left it almost unaltered.

Coming close to that domestic life of nations of which chess made one pleasure, what has not changed? Modes of dress, construction of dwellings, fashions of entertainment--all have had their mutations. Yet the game, as far back as the earliest accounts of it, has been almost literally such as we see it. One feature has always marked it, chess; there has always been a sovereign to be attacked and defended, and inferior pieces to accomplish these ends in combination, yet by different means. The board of sixty-four squares has also almost invariably been maintained.

Two pieces were modified when it passed from Arabia to Spain, or rather, from the Saracen to the Christian. In Arabia and Persia, there was no female on the board; what we call "queen" was, with them, "vizier or counsellor," and called pherz, ferz, or fers. This was retained in Europe until about the eleventh century, when it was supplanted by our queen. But wherefore a queen? We shall see.

Several events combined to make this period the age of poetry and of a peculiar deference to womankind. It will be remembered that in the eleventh century, 1095, was preached the first Crusade, a thing of romance and poetry itself. However different the motives which actuated that crowd of nobles and warriors who joined in creating the mighty army whose advance-guard was led by the monk Peter, to all appearance each one was a hero. Country and kingdom, home and love, happiness of wife or maiden, was the sacrifice professedly offered at the shrine of a holy enthusiasm enkindled by faith. Every earthly interest, every tie of affection, all consideration of self, was to be accounted nothing, compared with the sacred obligations involved in the expedition.

The means of expressing all these delicate sentiments and deep emotions, and furthermore of expressing them in poetry, was happily opened to them at this era in the language of the troubadours--the Langue d'Oc. The polish which poetry had received from the Arabians in Spain had elevated it to an art, and made it so attractive to the more refined classes that the highest born, even kings and princes, did not think it beneath them to cultivate it; and he added greatly to his renown who had qualified himself to express in it the two ruling passions of his soul--his martial ardor and his devotion to his ladye-love. Every knight, almost, was a troubadour, and the homage rendered to woman seems almost fabulous. A French writer says of this period:

"Love had assumed a new character.... It was not more tender and passionate than among the Romans; but it was more respectful, and something of a mystery was mingled with its sentiment. Women were considered rather as angelic beings than as dependents and inferiors. The task of serving and protecting them was considered honorable, as though they were the representatives of the divinity upon earth; and to this worship was added an ardor of feeling, passion, and desire, peculiar to the people of the south, and the expression of which was borrowed from the Arabians."[169]

Woman was not slow in extending her influence to more prosaic matters than Les Cours d'Amour and the inspirations of poetry; and history furnishes an abundance of examples where female interference was permitted and female decision respected in the gravest affairs of life. After Alphonso VI. of Castile had driven the Moors from Toledo, he granted to such of them as chose to return the use of a cathedral to serve as a mosque; but, says history, "he soon broke his promise, and deprived them of it, at the instigation of and in order to please his wife."

Who, then, but a woman could have routed the grand-vizier from the chess-board and taken his place?

The other piece altered is the bishop, which of course was not so called by the orientals. This piece with the Arabians and Persians was represented by an elephant, and named pil or phil. In southern Europe, the name was modified into alfil and aufin, and is found so in old writers; but at a very early period the bishop seems to have been generally adopted. In northern Europe, it was not so; the Russians and Swedes still retain the elephant. What we now call castle, and sometimes rook, was also called by the Saracens roc, and by the Persians rokh, signifying champion or foot-soldier, and shaped accordingly. This form is seen in some ancient chess-men in the British Museum, supposed to be of Icelandic manufacture; the Icelanders called this piece hrokr. These chess-men, many in number and carved in ivory--that is, the tusk of the walrus--were found in the year 1831, on the coast of the Isle of Lewes, and are referred by antiquaries back to the twelfth century. They are the remnants of seven or eight distinct sets, and are therefore supposed to have belonged to some dealer who was shipwrecked there. The carving on them, and the costumes, bear traces of being Scandinavian. The king is in a sitting posture, crowned, and has a sword in his hand, which he rests crossing his lap; the queen also is crowned, and holds a drinking-horn, such as the northern women used in serving mead and ale to their guests; one of them represents a bishop with mitre and crozier; the knights are on horseback, and are covered with armor; and here is the roc of the Saracens in its original form, a kind of foot-soldier, in place of the castle--which, however, is yet called rook. The remainder are pawns. Thus they are nearly identical with any set of modern chess-men, although fabricated more than seven hundred years ago.

The largest king in this collection, in his sitting posture, is more than four inches in height and near seven in circumference. The other pieces are smaller, but correspond. The chess-board which accommodated such pieces must have been a formidable weapon in a strong hand, and quite likely to "break heads and scatter brains."

Many old books are to be found in public and private libraries which contain descriptions of chess-men, rules for playing, etc. In the twelfth century, such a manual was composed by some devotee of the game in Latin verse. A little later, a volume was written in Latin by Jacques de Cessolas; it was translated into French by Jean de Vigny, and entitled Moralization of Chess. It may be seen in English in Caxton's Boke of Chesse, published in London, 1474.

Damiano, a Portuguese, in the fifteenth century compiled a book of directions for playing, with examples of eighty-eight games.

A little volume, very amusing in its quaint old English, was published in London in the reign of Elizabeth; it is dedicated to Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the celebrated Earl of Leicester. It is entitled, The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts, reviewed with Instructions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well. Lately translated out of Italian into French, and now set forthe in Englishe by James Rowbotham.

In it, among many other things, the author describes the chess-men:

"As for the fashion of the pieces, that is according to the fantasie of the workeman, which maketh them after this manner. Some make them lyke men, whereof the kynge is the highest, and the queene (which some name amasone or ladye) is the next, bothe two crowned. The bishoppes some name alphins, some fooles, and some princes, lyke as also they are next unto the kynge and queene, other some cal them archers, and they are fashioned accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The knights some cal horsemen, and they are men on horsebacke. The rookes some call elephantes, cariynge towres upon their backes, and men within the towres. The paunes some cal fote-men, as they are souldiours on fote, cariynge some of them pykes, and other some javelyns and targets. Other makers of cheast-men make them other fashions, but use thereof wyll cause perfect knowledge."

Such has chess been through times past; it numbers still among its votaries the noble and the learned; and it is advocated by some of them with an enthusiasm surely never surpassed in the days long, long gone by in its oriental home.

It has floated down to us from those days like a leaf on some broad stream beneath whose waves mightier things have sunk.

FOOTNOTE:

[169] Sismondi, Lit. of Troubadours.

THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

The nineteenth century is still adding to the catalogue of important events, for which it will be memorable in future histories. Men still live who looked on Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson, who ventured on the first railway train, and who smiled incredulously at the folly of Morse stretching iron wires on poles along the country between cities a day's journey apart, and pretending thus to transmit messages between them with the velocity of electricity. The humble river steamboat has developed into the gigantic ocean steamer, that heeds not the winds and bids defiance to the waves. Lines of railway intersect continents, and cross from ocean to ocean. Telegraph wires spread their network over every civilized land, and, boldly plunging into ocean depths, aim to girdle the earth. The cotton-gin has revolutionized the habits of nations and the commerce of the world, and the sewing-machine is bringing the change into every household. This wondrous increase of travel and commerce among nations has given birth to international exhibitions of art and industry as gorgeous as the visions of the Arabian story-teller. In the Suez Canal, this century has succeeded where antiquity failed; and in the Mont Cenis tunnel, soon to be finished, it is accomplishing what past ages never dreamed of attempting.

Science, too, contributes her wonders. The sun and the stars and the nebulæ are yielding their secrets; chemistry boasts of her unexpected conquests; and the earth is giving forth its pages of geological lore, fragmentary as yet, and somewhat confused, ofttimes undecipherable, often wrongly read by men, but still presenting to us a kingdom of knowledge unknown a century ago.

In the political and social sphere this century has been equally marked. Vast wars and bloody revolutions ushered it in. Wars and revolutions have marked every decade of its progress. Empires and kingdoms have been thrown down. Others have been established instead, and have perished in their turn. The strong have grown weak, and the weak have become powerful. And to-day, the nations of the civilized world feel that they stand on the thin crust of a volcano, that trembles under our feet, and that may at any time burst forth, in other revolutions and wars, in which arms of precision, titanic artillery, and iron-clad vessels shall play a part never yet witnessed by men.

In the moral and religious world, too, there is equal excitement and confusion. Novel principles are proposed, advocated, and pushed to their extreme and most violent consequences. Nothing in government, in morals, or in religion is left unassailed. There is an incessant war against God, against truth and virtue, and against every principle that would withstand the passions, or the interests, or the caprices of men. And the press, which in its wondrous development has kept full pace with every other art, is ever busy bringing to every household, to old and young alike, sometimes words of truth and goodness, but a thousand times oftener and more actively lessons of immorality, discontent, disorder, and irreligion.

In looking at the world, as it is now, so rapidly moving on, with its vast energies and untiring activity, its ever-increasing commerce, its intense worship of luxury, its oblivion of principle, its grasping after wealth, its restlessness and craving for change for change's sake, one feels like the traveller who crosses the Alps by that late feat of modern engineering, the Mont Cenis Fell Railway. The wondrous scenery of mountain and valley charms you. You are amazed at the boldness which conceived, and the skill which executed the work. You rejoice, as you are borne rapidly on, in the luxuriously-cushioned seat and well-warmed railway compartment, over the steep road you remember well to have travelled, years ago, so slowly and painfully. But amid all this pleasure, you cannot shut out the thought that perhaps the very rumbling and jarring of the train may set in motion the vast field of freshly-fallen snow that lies so lightly on the steep side of the peak rising above you, on the right or the left, and bring it down as an irresistible avalanche, overwhelming road and train, and casting the shattered cars and mangled passengers down to the masses of rock and ice that lie in the gorge a thousand yards below.

We glory in our rapid advance in arts, science, and civilization. We feel ourselves borne rapidly and joyously forward in a career of progress. But we cannot shut out entirely a sense of danger. In many countries, society is mined by revolutionary combinations, active and vigilant, watching for any favorable opportunity, and ever ready to take advantage of it. In the universal questioning of every thing and of every principle, the minds of the masses have become excited, have lost in great part, or are fast losing, those fixed and hallowed principles of justice and truth which are absolutely necessary for correct judgment and prudent action. They are ripe for any plan to be proposed, even if its only attraction be its novelty. And they may easily become a mighty engine of brute, unthinking power, in the hands of any one bold enough to seize the control, and skilful enough to guide them for a time. Might now makes right. The world is ruled on the theory of accomplished facts. Peace itself must stand armed cap-à-pie. No one knows into what horrors the death of one individual might, any month, throw hundreds of millions of men.

Has all sense of right and justice faded from the minds of men? Must our progress be marred by this ever-increasing danger. Is there no voice to be raised, no authority to come forth to meet this emergency of the world?

God gave revelation to mankind, teaching the world truth and justice, charity and every virtue, and imparting to man, in his weakness, strength to struggle against and overcome his own passions and the temptations from without. To his church, the pillar and ground of truth, Christ committed the duty of teaching all nations all things whatsoever he had taught, and promised to be with her, in the discharge of this duty, all days even to the consummation of the world. In its fulfilment she must meet opposition, trials, scandals, and difficulties of every sort. But the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.

Many a struggle has she gone through, in the eighteen centuries of her existence; and incalculable are the benefits the world owes to her, even by the confession of her enemies.

While she ever and always teaches the unchangeable truths and precepts given by her Divine Founder, she is ready to accept and bless what she finds of good among men, and labors to eliminate what is evil. From Greece she took what was pure in poetry and the fine arts, and true in philosophy. From Rome she gathered what was just and good in her admirable jurisprudence. Yet, even in the face of bitter persecution, she failed not to denounce immorality, however decked in classic verse; atheism and impiety, however clothed in words of seeming intellectual wisdom; and cruel tyranny, however upheld by power and authority, or made sacred by antiquity and the prejudices or manners of a people. In after times, under the debauched and luxurious rule of the Byzantine emperors, and still later, When the northern barbarians had overrun western Europe and destroyed all government, her powerful influence was felt. Hers was the only voice which could reach and in some measure control the fierce men who sat on thrones they had built with the sword, or could bring peace and the consolations of religion to the hovel of the poor and oppressed. She checked immorality and injustice and taught obedience to law. No one will now contest the truth, that it is to her the modern world owes what knowledge we have of the olden classic civilization. But for her, it would be as dead to us as that of Assyria is to the wild Arabs who pitch their tents on the mounds of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad. To her it owes those grand principles of law and justice, of stable government and individual rights, of holy marriage, and of arts and science, which go to constitute civilization. The church of Christ cannot be wanting in any emergency of men. It is her office to establish order where else chaos would reign.

Hence it is that in this present crisis, this time of so much good and so much evil, so many hopes and such great danger, she renews and increases her efforts, as of old, that what is good may be increased and confirmed, what is evil may be diminished or eliminated. She devotes to the work her most solemn and effective mode of action--an oecumenical council.

Assuredly no more remarkable event has occurred in this nineteenth century than the meeting of this Oecumenical Council of the Vatican, formally opened in Rome on December 8th last, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The civilized world seems conscious of its importance. Catholics and Protestants, believers and infidels, all treat of it, some with full faith and earnest hope, some with a dim sense of reverence, some with curiosity, and some with hatred. But none can ignore or despise it. The books that have been published, the stream of pamphlets in every language that is flooding Europe, the countless articles of every character in countless newspapers of every hue--all bear witness to the universal interest in an assembly so extraordinary in its character, and destined to wield so great a moral influence.

Men are struck with wonder at this singular and hitherto unprecedented representation of the whole world. The number of members is in itself large. There were present at the opening session, 5 cardinal bishops, 36 cardinal priests, 8 cardinal deacons, 9 patriarchs, 4 primates, 124 archbishops, 481 bishops, 6 abbots with quasi-episcopal jurisdiction, 22 mitred abbots, and 29 superiors of religious orders; in all, 719 of the 1050, or thereabouts, who would have the right to enter. Many dioceses in the world are vacant, the venerable bishops of others are too aged to travel so far, some are detained by illness and will come later, and some, to their regret, are detained by the special circumstances of their own dioceses. None of those under the Czar of Russia have come. His Tartar policy threw them into dungeons, where some died. Those that lived he sent to Siberia, some for their religion, some for being Poles. But among the bishops here every other nation of Europe has a full and strong representation. Besides all these, there are also forty-nine from the United States, eighteen or twenty from Canada and the British possessions of North America, and over forty from Mexico and the various states of South America. The eastern and the western shores of Africa have sent several; two have come from British Africa, at the south, and quite a number--among them a Coptic bishop from Egypt--represent the dioceses along the Mediterranean shores of Africa. All the ancient oriental rites of the church have patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops in the council; India, Thibet, China, Japan itself, Australia, New Zealand, and the isles of the Pacific are fully represented. Never before in the history of the world was there seen such a gathering of prelates from the uttermost parts of the earth. And the members who compose the council deserve individually special attention. They are chosen men, holding in their several homes posts of dignity, responsibility, and authority. The Catholic Church is in one aspect eminently democratic. She will take into the roll of her clergy men of every rank and station. She asks not what was their condition or their lineage. If a clergyman possess piety, learning, zeal, and administrative ability, the door is open for his preferment, even to her highest offices. If Pius IX. is noble born, his predecessor, Gregory XVI., was the son of a poor village baker, and owed his earliest education, and his entrance into the sanctuary, to the gratuitous kindness of a good monk, who was attracted by the bright eyes and intelligent look of the modest little boy, as he used to carry around to customers the loaves his father had baked. So too of these bishops. Some may be of lordly, or noble, or princely lineage. Others were born in humble, thatched cottages. Here they are equal. Some have doffed the ermine, some have quitted the bar, others left the army, where their names are still mentioned with praise and soldierly pride by their old companions in arms. Some have given up to younger brothers wealth and titles, that they might freely devote themselves to God's holy work. Some, filled with apostolic zeal, have given up friends and home and country to go to distant lands to preach Christ and him crucified; and some have been honored with chains and imprisonment and stripes for Christ's sake. They all pursued a long career of preparatory studies, they were afterward tried by long years of practice in the ministry, and have finally been chosen as qualified for their important and responsible positions. Differing, as they do, in language and nationalities and human feelings and prejudices, they have all the same faith, the same zeal, and have all come together at the summons of their common father. They all gather around the chair of Peter.

Well may the world look with wonder at such an assembly as this, containing so much of learning, such strength of character, such personal worth, wielding so much power over the minds and consciences of men, possessing such an intimate, practical knowledge of the whole world, of the good and the bad in it, and of the needs of men--an assembly every member of which has learned, by years of ministerial duty, to read, as no others can, the heart of man, and where all have come together with the same earnest purpose, and in the same singleness of heart, to confer candidly and frankly with each other, in order, with the aid and light of heavenly grace, to determine on such measures as shall best promote the glory of God, the interests of religion, and the spread of truth and virtue among men. Even to the man of the world, not to say to the Christian, can any thing be nobler or more worthy of respect than such a meeting? Must not every honest heart rejoice in the effort they will make, and wish them success?

But to the Catholic this oecumenical council has a higher character. We know that the church was founded not by man, but by Christ himself; that she stands, not by human learning or human wisdom and prudence, but by the power of God; that Christ is ever with her, that he has sent his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to abide with her for ever, to teach her all truth, to recall to her mind all things whatsoever he taught, and that so she is to us the pillar and ground of truth. We look back and see that in all the great emergencies of Christian truth, or rather emergencies of the world, it has been her custom to call together her bishops in councils like this. Thus, when Arianism arose, and the minds of simple men were thrown into confusion and perplexity concerning the divinity of the Saviour by the wily quotations of Scripture and the plausible teachings of error, the Council of Nice declared clearly and emphatically the original doctrine of the divinity of the Son; and guarded it by establishing the consecrated terms in which thenceforth Christian lips should express it. So, too, when Nestorius and Eutyches, and other later heresiarchs arose, other councils were held, solemnly setting forth the original doctrines received and held by the church, and pointing out and condemning the opposite errors. So, too, in the sixteenth century the Council of Trent met and gave to the world a full and clear statement of the Catholic doctrine of justification, so violently assailed by Luther and his followers and companions--a doctrine, by the way, which no small portion of those non-Catholics who still retain a belief in an actual divine revelation, now receive substantially and admit to be the only doctrine on that head reconcilable with reason and common sense.

So, too, in this nineteenth century, amid the confusing uncertainties of men, and the discordant clashing of opinions in the world, we turn with reverent hope, with fullest confidence in the words of the Saviour, and with grateful hearts and willing minds, to this first Oecumenical Council of the Vatican. We recognize in it the same authority which spoke at Nice, at Ephesus, and at Chalcedon, at Constantinople, at Lyons, and at the Lateran, and in Trent. We await the words of its teaching and its precepts of discipline. For it will speak with authority. "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us."

Our readers are no doubt familiar with the chief antecedents of the council. It was in his address to the bishops assembled in Rome in June, 1867, to celebrate the centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom, that the Holy Father made the first public and official announcement of what had been for a short time before mooted and considered in private. It was his desire, at as early a day as circumstances would allow, to convene the bishops of the Catholic world in an oecumenical council. The prelates present, about five hundred in number, expressed their gratification and cordial assent. The attacks of the Garibaldians in November, 1867, if successful, would probably have frustrated the design. But under divine Providence it signally failed. Some thought that the bull of convocation would appear in December, 1867. But it was not published until the midsummer of 1868, and the council was summoned for December 8th, 1869. It was a solemn work. All felt that a most important day was approaching in the history of the church. Throughout the world, ever since, in every church and religious house, as often as the priest ascended the altar to celebrate the divine mysteries, or those vowed to the Lord assembled to sing his praises, petitions were offered unceasingly that God would bless the council, and give to the prelates such light and grace as would lead them to speak and act for his greater glory and the welfare of souls. As months rolled on and the time approached, clergy and faithful throughout the world united with redoubled fervor in triduums, novenas, and suitable religious exercises to obtain this special favor from Heaven.

In order that when the prelates should come, they might not be detained too long from their dioceses attending the council--as was the case at Trent--it was deemed advisable to establish preparatory committees of chosen theologians to study maturely such questions as it was thought would probably come up or be proposed in the council. In Rome, the centre of theological learning, there were eminent theologians in abundance from whom to choose. But it was felt that something more was needed. To erudition must be added an intimate knowledge of the modes of thought and the practical needs of the various nations; something which books alone cannot give. Hence, eminent theologians from France, Germany, England, Ireland, and other countries were invited, and sent to Rome as representative men of their respective countries. From the United States, the Very Rev. Dr. Corcoran, of Charleston, South Carolina, whom our bishops had learned to appreciate as secretary to our Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, was chosen for this purpose, and came to Rome fifteen months ago. The choice was a most happy one. He has won the esteem and respect of all by his simple and quiet dignity of manner, the vastness of his learning, and, more than all, by his sound judgment and practical good sense. I believe he stands in the council as one of the theologians to the pope. Five committees, thus formed of Roman and foreign theologians, each under the presidency of a cardinal, have for nearly a year and a half been engaged in an exhaustive study of the subjects most likely to come up. Their dissertations and essays on such points have been printed for the private use of the bishops, and being up to the day, must be of great use, and will naturally aid much in expediting business.

Other material preparations were necessary. The sessions of the council were to be held in the north arm of the Transept of St. Peter's--that which stretches toward the Vatican Palace. The place assigned had to be fitted up with appropriate decorations and suitable furniture. Other places were to be prepared for the general congregations--committees of the whole, as they would be termed in the United States--and for particular congregations, or special committees. Beyond this, many of the bishops who would desire to attend would be too poor to pay the exorbitant rates which landlords here and elsewhere know how to ask when a city is crowded--as Rome would be--perhaps might be too poor to pay any thing. Such should be the guests of the Holy Father. He would provide for them. This was obviously the case with many of the Italian bishops. The kingdom of Italy has seized and turned over to the national treasury all ecclesiastical property, promising, as a partial compensation instead, to pay the clergy a stated stipend from the government. As might be expected from persons capable of committing such wholesale and barefaced robbery, the promise, in too many instances, has never been kept. I apprehend that the vast majority of the clergy of Italy are now managing to feed, clothe, and lodge themselves on an average of twenty cents a day. The number of such bishops from Italy, with others from the East, and from distant and very poor missions, may amount to one hundred and fifty or two hundred.

All this would cost money, and the pope himself, stripped of four fifths of the territory of the States of the Church, but not stripped, as yet, of the old public debt, the interest of which he is struggling to meet punctually, is poor. The earnest Catholics of every country knew his condition and poured in contributions for this purpose. Last autumn the papers announced that all due preparations were being actively pushed forward.

In October, bishops began to arrive. The first comers were from the East, who had set out early. In their countries men travel slowly, and time is not so precious. Perhaps, too, some thought they might be as long on the journey as their records and traditions said their predecessors had been four hundred years ago, when they came to the Council of Florence. The European and western bishops were better acquainted with the speed of railways and steamers, and began to pour in only in the latter portion of November. By the 1st of December, fully five hundred had arrived, and the week that followed saw two hundred more come in. Every courtesy was shown them. As a train crossed the frontier into the Pontifical States, an officer ascertained the names of all the bishops, telegraphed the information to Rome, and, on their arrival, they found other officials ready to welcome them, and to escort them in carriages to their several destinations. Their baggage, too, was exempt from custom-house inspection. This, however, was a favor scarcely confined to the Pontifical States. In more than one instance, bishops have passed from the United States, through England, France, and (strange contrast to 1867) even through Northern Italy, without having their trunks once opened. It were to be wished that the annoying and now useless system of passports were done away with. It has scarcely any advantage save that of giving fees to consuls and employees.

On December 2d, the Holy Father delivered to the bishops then in Rome, assembled in the Sixtine chapel, an allocution in preparation for the council; and they received printed copies of an apostolical letter, dated November 27th, settling some matters for the good order of the council, and the dispatch of business. Chapter i. reiterates the laws of the church, and enjoins on all the duty of living piously, and of carefully maintaining an exemplary demeanor. Chapter ii. declares the full liberty of each bishop to propose any matter which he thinks of importance. But that all things may be done in order, and without unnecessary confusion, and consequent delay of other matters, such propositions must be submitted in writing, must be supported by some show of reason, must be of a character to concern more than one or two dioceses only, and must not run counter to the constant sense and inviolable traditions of the church. A special committee shall be appointed by the pope to receive such propositions, and to consider whether they fulfil the required conditions, to report to the pope. The committee has since been appointed. The Archbishop of Baltimore is a member of it. Chapter iii. charges all to keep silence on the matters under discussion. The council will hardly be as leaky as Congress, and our readers will do well to pay little or no attention to the thousand and one reports that will be circulated in the newspapers.[170]

Chapter iv. declares that the seats shall be occupied according to grades of the hierarchy, and seniority of promotion. Other chapters set forth the officials, secretaries, notaries, masters of ceremonies, etc.--a matter of obvious necessity under the circumstances; establish six general committees, the members of which are to be elected by ballot; and make known some points of order to be observed in the religious exercises of the public sessions and the general congregations; and finally enjoin on the bishops attending the council to remain until the close of it, forbidding any one to depart before such close, save with regular leave of absence, duly applied for and obtained.

With a copy of this letter the bishops also received pamphlets containing the forms of prayers to be used, and a detailed account of the ceremonial to be followed, all based on or extracted from the ceremonial of the ancient councils.

For the people little preparation had been made, or indeed could be made in the church. St. Peter's has no pews; you will not find even benches or chairs. On grand occasions, when the pope is celebrant, seats are placed in the arms of the transept, capable of holding six or eight thousand persons, who are admitted by ticket, and must come in the proper costume. They are chiefly occupied by ladies. But on this occasion one half of this space was required for the council. On the other hand, Rome would be full, and it was felt that not one twentieth of those who would desire, and indeed who would ordinarily be entitled to receive tickets for such reserved seats, could be accommodated. The gordian knot was cut by dispensing with reserved seats altogether, and leaving full play to the democratic principle of first come, first served.

On Tuesday, Rome was in commotion, and given over to the mercies of free-trade in lodgings. Householders were waylaying strangers, striving to let their apartments at the highest possible rates. Strangers were wandering about seeking apartments which they might obtain on the lowest possible terms. Purchases were briskly made in preparation for the morrow. Everywhere, all day long, in carriages and on foot, and in all the different costumes of their several nations, might be seen bishops and priests passing to and fro, visiting the churches and the shrines of martyrs, or seeking out some friend of their youth, whom they had not seen, perhaps, for twenty-five or forty years, but who, they were told, had just arrived in Rome.

At noon precisely, the booming of the great bell of St. Peter's came over the Campus Martius and the seven hills of Rome. Instantly the thousand bells of the three hundred churches of the Eternal City answered in one united clamorous peal; and the cannon of St. Angelo, and the heavier metal of the new Aventine Fort, chimed in with the deep bass of a grand national salute. And thus, for an hour, was heralded the near approach of the great day. Again at nightfall the salute was repeated.

The morning of December 8th dawned--the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, and the day fixed for opening the council. A third repetition of the uproarious yet thrilling salutation awaked the sluggards, if there were any. We say if there were any; for although the clouds were hanging low and heavy, and the air was filled with mist, and at times the rain poured down, all Rome was astir. By five A.M., the murmur of voices and the tramping of pedestrians filled every street, and soon the rolling of carriages over the hard pavements sounded like distant thunder. By six A.M., tens of thousands were wending their way, despite the weather, to St. Peter's; and by seven, every eligible portion of the floor of the vast basilica was crowded. At half-past seven, the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops began to gather in the Vatican Palace, where they robed, putting on white copes and mitres, and then passed to the great hall at the front, and immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Here the masters of ceremony assigned to each one his proper place, and they awaited the coming of the sovereign pontiff.

Punctual to the moment, he appeared. All knelt in prayer. In a clear and sonorous voice he intoned the Veni Creator Spiritus. The choir took up the strain, the bishops arose, and commenced to move in procession back to the Vatican Palace, through the ducal hall, down the unequalled Scala Regia, and into the vestibule of St. Peter's. Along the line the voice of chanting was heard. Without, the air was filled again with the sound of bells and the booming of cannon.

It was not like the grand processions on which Rome delights to look every year. The young orphan boys, with their snow-white dresses and angel faces, the various religious orders, Capuchins, Franciscans, Minor Observantists, Conventuals, Carmelites, Augustinians, Cistercians, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Canons Regular, in their varied and picturesque dresses, did not walk in it. There were no confraternities with their huge crosses, no groups of clergy from the many parish churches, no chapters of the ancient basilicas with their tent-like canopies and tolling bells. These appeared not in the ranks; but delegates from all of them formed lines on either side, between which, as guards, the prelates marched two and two, each one attended by his chaplain. It was a procession such as the world has seen but once before, and that six hundred years ago, at the Second Council of Lyons. First came the cross, surrounded with burning lights and clouds of incense from the censers, and a group of ecclesiastics attached to the Vatican and to St. Peter's. On came the long white line of mitred abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, patriarchs, and cardinals, slowly moving, joining in the chanted hymn, or else with subdued voices reciting psalms and prayers. The hall, the grand stairway, and the vestibule were packed by thousands who despaired of being able to enter the church, and hoped at least to look on the procession. All eyes seemed to scrutinize the line of prelates with reverent curiosity. Some in the line had not yet lost the smoothness of their cheeks. They had not yet closed their eighth lustre. The great majority had passed the half-century of life. Labors, cares, and study had brought furrows to many a brow and many a cheek; gray hairs had come, often prematurely; but the firm step told of still unexhausted strength. Their faces, full of intellect and decision, told of long and sturdy labor in the vineyard; you felt they could still bear the heat of the day and the brunt of labor. Many of them, too, far more than the younger ones, were aged and venerable prelates, who, like the rest, had come at the summons of the chief pastor. But when they should have borne their testimony to the faith in this council, they would soon say, Nunc dimittis.

It was a glorious line. The spectators, of every nation, looked to recognize the bishops each of his own land. They pointed out and whispered to each other the names of those who had won for themselves a world-wide reputation in the church, and looked with special attention on the oriental prelates, scattered here and there through the line, robed, not like those of the Latin rite, in unadorned white copes and white linen mitres, but in richly ornamented chasubles or copes of oriental fashion, glittering with gold and precious stones and bright colors, and wearing on their heads tiaras radiant with gems. On they passed, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Persians, Syrians, Hungarians, Spanish and Copt, Irish and French, Scotch and Brazilian, Mexican and English, American and Chinese, Canadian and South American and Australian; abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs.

Next came the cardinals--the senate of the church. If before you saw the strength of the church, here you looked on the embodiment of intelligence and wisdom, in the most venerable body in the world. Spotless purity of life, brilliant talents, long study, a longer experience of men and affairs in a series of responsible offices worthily filled--a thorough devotion of all their powers to the interests of religion, have led them to this dignity--Antonelli, Bilio, Bonnechose, Cullen, Schwartzenberg, Hohenlohe, Barnabo, Pitra, Patrizi--every one seemed worthy of, and to receive, special homage as they slowly moved on.

But even they were forgotten as the Holy Father approached. Surrounded by his chaplains and attendants, by Swiss guards in their picturesque costume, designed, it is said, with an eye to effect, by Michael Angelo himself, and by the Roman noble guard in their richest uniforms, he came borne, according to the old Roman custom which has come down from the times of the republic, in a curule chair, such as ediles and senators were borne in; such as that which the convert Senator Pudens appropriated to the Apostle St. Peter, which he and many of his successors used, and which is still preserved with care and veneration in St. Peter's. Pius IX. is, we believe, really eighty-one years of age. He is still robust, wonderfully so for that age. His countenance beams still with that paternal benevolence which has such power to charm. None ever looked on him without feeling it. No one, Catholic or Protestant, Israelite, Turk, or infidel, ever left his presence without carrying away a sense of reverence, and sweet memories of a blessing received. All knelt as he was borne by, blessing them on either side. In his train followed other attendants and the superiors of religious orders, who enter the council, but are not privileged to wear mitres. Conspicuous among them was the thin, ascetic, fleshless form of the superior-general of the Jesuits, in black--the little black pope, as they call him in Rome.

Meanwhile the head of the procession has long since reached the grand portals of the Basilica. From the door to the central line of the transept is about four hundred feet, and the nave of the church is about ninety-five feet wide. All this space is crowded with people standing so jammed together that there is not room to kneel, if one wished. Back on either side, under the broad arches, and into the side aisles, the vast mass of humanity extends. The bases of the columns and piers are seen to rise to the level of their heads, and, guided by this measure, the eye, for once, catches at a glance the immense proportions of this gigantic building. The partition which cuts off a portion of the transept for the special use of the council is not seen from the nave, and the church stands before you in all the grandeur of its architecture, unchanged for better or for worse by those vast masses of drapery and those lines of galloon, and the hundreds of immense chandeliers which sometimes are placed here to adorn it. To the Roman eye, familiar with every detail of the building, such an adornment may be pleasing as a change. But strangers love to see St. Peter's as they see it now, in its own native beauty and majesty. The eye loves to pass from the noble columns and the statues of pure Carrara to the unfading mosaics, the variegated marbles of the walls and piers, the ornaments in sculptured relief, the richly-wrought capitals, the vast line of cornice of classic accuracy, and the lofty arched ceiling, one hundred and fifty feet and more overhead, profusely decorated with panelling, roses, and richest gilding. It travels on to the main altar with its hundred ever-burning lamps around the tomb of the great apostle of Rome, and the spiral columns and canopy of bronze which rise full ninety feet above it. And hundreds of feet further away, in the western apsis, you catch a view of the bronze statues of the four great doctors of the church, who support the identical chair of St. Peter, and of the circular window of stained glass through which the Holy Dove seems to pour in a stream of golden light, giving life and heavenly beauty to that other flood which pours down into the church from the lofty dome.

Guards had kept free for the procession a passage-way through the crowd, from the door to the main altar. Up this lane the bishops walked with uncovered heads, for the blessed sacrament was exposed on the altar. Kneeling a moment in adoration, they arose, and, turning to the right, passed into the space set aside and prepared for the council hall. To each one, as he entered, his proper place was assigned by the masters of ceremony. The greater part were so placed, when a fuller burst of the choir told us that the Holy Father had reached the portals of the church, had been received by the chapter of canons, and was entering. He left the curule chair and doffed his mitre; for a greater than he is here enthroned, and even the pope must walk with uncovered head. He, and the cardinals with him, knelt at the main altar as the bishops had done, and waited until the last strophe of the hymn, Veni Sancte Spiritus, was finished by the choir. He arose, chanted the versicle and prayer to the Holy Ghost, and then, preceded by the cardinals, also entered the council hall. They passed each to his proper place, the pontiff to a prie Dieu prepared for him in the middle, to await the commencement of the high mass.

We have said that this council hall occupies nearly all of the northern arm of the great transept. That arm alone is over two hundred feet long, and ninety-five feet broad. Its northern extremity is a semi-circular apsis, and midway of its length it is crossed by the northern aisle of the church, which opens into it by a lofty and wide arch on either side. These arches are now closed at the top by temporary partition walls. In front--that is, on the south, toward the main altar and nave--another partition wall, perhaps fifty feet high, shuts the hall off from the main body of the building. All these walls are exquisitely colored, so as to correspond even in minute details with the decorations and color of the marbles of the church. In the last-named wall is a large doorway, fully twenty feet wide, through which the prelates and cardinals and the pontiff have passed in. It is open now, (though when necessary it can be closed,) and you may look in and see the interior arrangement. In the further extremity, the semi-circular apsis, a number of steps rise to a platform, in the middle of which other steps lead to the throne of the pontiff, surmounted by a canopy with hanging drapery. On either hand, elevated one step less, are placed the cardinals, before each one a kneeling-stand, which may be changed into a writing-desk. Before the cardinals, and a little lower, sit the patriarchs. Down either side of the hall, for the full length, run seven rows of benches with high backs. The front row is on the floor, the others rising as they recede, so that the last one next the wall is about the same level with the platform. In the middle, about one fifth of the way from the door, with its face toward the pope and the bishops, and its back toward the door stands a temporary altar prepared for the mass, with which every public session and every general congregation will commence. Here and there, on the floor, are seats and tables for the use of the secretaries, notaries, stenographers, and other officials. Of the altar we need not speak. It is simple though rich in materials, and without accessory ornamentation, which would take up space and impede the view. The platform is covered, as is the floor, with Brussels carpeting. The seats of the cardinals are covered with red damask; those of the patriarchs with purple. The seats of the bishops are covered with Brussels tapestry of a greenish hue. They are roomy. Each bishop uses the back of the seat before him as a prie Dieu when he kneels. Should he at other times wish to write, there is a table hinged to it in front of him, which he may raise up and render firm by a movable support. When he is done, he simply moves back the support and lets down the table to its former position. All is simple, yet very satisfactory. There is, near at hand, a refreshment room, and, indeed, every convenience that is needed. The artistic decorations of the hall also deserve attention. They are not many, but are excellent and appropriate, and were prepared, of course, for this occasion. Over the doorway, as you are about to enter from the church, there is a majestic painting of the Saviour enthroned in the clouds, holding the Gospel open in his left hand, while the right is stretched forth in command to the apostles. Underneath is the inscription, "GO, TEACH ALL NATIONS. I AM WITH YOU ALL DAYS, EVEN TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD." In the interior of the hall, over the seat of the pope, is a painting of the Descent of the Holy Ghost. On either side are the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, and the Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, and of Trent. Higher up are large medallion paintings of the twenty-two popes who called or presided personally or by legates over the various oecumenical councils of the church; while higher still are colossal figures of the four great doctors of the church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom. All the seats we have mentioned are for the prelates and officials. There are several galleries opening through the wall rather than projecting forward. On the left of the pope, as he is seated, is one for the singers of the Sistine chapel. On his right is another, to be occupied by sovereigns and members of royal families. The Empress of Austria, the Queen of Würtemberg, and the King of Naples were present at the opening. Another much larger one, on the side of the singers, is for the diplomatic corps. It was filled with ambassadors in their state uniforms, with full display of jewelled decorations. Two other similar galleries are for the theologians.

The council hall, as we have described it, is about two hundred feet long and nearly one hundred feet broad. The ceiling above is that of the transept; like that of the nave, arched, panelled, and decorated with gilding, and is one hundred and fifty feet above you. The seemingly low partition wall in front shuts out the view of the lower portions of the church, but you have a full view of the upper half of the columns and piers, with their statues and decorations, and of the cornice and lofty-arched ceiling, and above all, of the magnificent dome, with its mosaics of the evangelists and the angelic host. You see and feel all the time that you are in St. Peter's. But there are drawbacks. The size of the hall, the height of the ceiling, and, perhaps more than either, this want of disconnection from the church, render it impossible for any but the strongest voices with eminently clear enunciation to fill it and be understood. Weak, and even moderate voices, are simply inaudible to the majority. As things are now arranged, discussion would seem impossible, and already there is talk of changes which may have to be indicated in our next article. But let us return to the pope and the bishops, whom we left awaiting the commencement of the pontifical high mass. This should have been celebrated by Cardinal Mattei, the dean of the body. But his age and infirmities are too great to permit so great an exertion. Accordingly, the next in rank, Cardinal Patrizi, took his place, and was the celebrant. The pontiff approached the altar with him, recited the Judica and the Confiteor, and then retired to his own seat, and the cardinal ascended to the altar and continued the mass. The music was that of Palestrina, executed by the papal choir as they alone can sing, and without any instrumental accompaniment. Such voices as theirs need none. Just before the last gospel, a portable pulpit was brought out near the altar; Mgr. Passavalli, Archbishop of Iconium, ascended it, wearing cope and mitre, and preached the introductory sermon. It was in Latin--the language of the council--and occupied just forty minutes. It has since been published, and the reader will not fail to recognize and admire the eloquence and fervor of his thoughts and the elegance of his Latinity. But no pages can give an idea of the clear, ringing voice, the musical Italian intonations, and the dignified and impressive, almost impassioned gesture of the truly eloquent Capuchin. The sermon over, the pope gave the solemn blessing, the Gospel of St. John was recited, and the mass was over.

The altar being now clear, the attendants brought in a rich, throne-like stand, and placed it on the altar in the centre. Monsignor Fessler, secretary of the council, attended by his assistant, brought in procession a large book of the Gospels, elegantly bound, and reverently placed it on the throne. It was the place due to the inspired record of the life and teachings of our divine Lord--a ceremony touching and most appropriate at the opening of a council of his followers, assembled in his name, to declare and vindicate his teaching, and promote and carry out the commission he gave them.

The Holy Father then assumed his full pontifical robes. The cardinals and all the prelates, in their proper order, then approached, one by one, to pay him homage, kissing his hand or the stole he wore. Their numbers made it a long ceremony. It told of the union of all with the head of the church.

This over, all knelt while the pontiff chanted the sublime prayer, Adsumus, Domine. Solemn and subdued were the chanted amens of the entire assembly.

Four chanters next intoned the litany of the saints in the well-known varying minor strains of Gregorian chant. Most impressive were the responses made by the united voices of the fathers. But when, at the proper time, the pope rose to his feet, and, holding the cross of his authority in his left hand, replaced the chanters, and raising his streaming eyes to heaven, and in his own majestic and sonorous tones, trembling just enough to tell how deeply his great heart was moved, thrice prayed our divine Lord to bless, to preserve, to consecrate this council, tears flowed from many an eye. All were intensely moved, and not bishops alone, but the crowds of clergy outside, and thousands of the laity, joined, again and again, in the response, Te rogamus, audi nos. Then, if never before, St. Peter's was filled with the mighty volume of sound. Back it came to us from arch and chapel, from aisle and lofty nave and transept, Te rogamus, audi nos. We seemed to hear it murmured even from the aerial dome, as if the angels repeated the words as they bore the petition to heaven, Te rogamus, audi nos.

The chanters resumed, the litany was terminated, and the pope recited the prayers that follow it. Cardinal Borromeo then, acting as deacon, chanted the Gospel taken from Luke x., narrating the mission of the disciples. He used the volume that had been enthroned on the altar. When he concluded, the volume was carried back as before, and reverently replaced on the throne. The assembly were seated, and the Holy Father, himself seated and wearing his mitre, delivered a discourse or allocution full, as all his discourses are, of unction, and replete with the thoughts and words of divine inspiration.

At the conclusion of this discourse all knelt, and the Holy Father again intoned the Veni Creator Spiritus. The choir took it up, and the members of the council responded in the alternate strophes. The pope sang the versicles and prayer that follow it, and all again were seated.

The secretary now mounted the pulpit and read aloud the first proposed decree, "That this Holy Vatican Council be, and is now opened." The fathers all answered, Placet; the pope gave his sanction; the formal decree was passed and proclaimed, and the notaries instructed to make an official record of it.

A second decree was similarly proposed, voted, and sanctioned, fixing the second public session for the festival of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1870. The first general congregation was announced for Friday, December 10th, in the same hall of the council.

This closed the proceedings of the first public session, which necessarily were purely formal. The Holy Father arose and intoned the solemn Te Deum of thanksgiving. The choir--the unrivalled one of the Sixtine chapel--took up the strain, intertwining the melody with subdued but artistic harmonies. The assembled bishops, the clergy without, thousands of the laity, familiar from childhood with the varying strains of its Gregorian chant, responded with one accord, in the second verse of the grand old Ambrosian hymn. The choir sang the third verse as before, the crowd responded with the fourth, and so on they alternated to the end. It is impossible to tell in words the thrilling power of such a union of voices. It moved, overcame, subdued one. It was impossible to resist it if you would. Tears came unbidden to the eye, and the lip quivered as you instinctively united your voice to that of the multitude. No one sought to make himself heard, all united in those subdued, thrilling tones in which the heart speaks. Catholic and Protestant all felt it. Even the infidel for the time believed, and, bowing his head, joined in this praise and thanksgiving to God.

At half-past two, the Te Deum was finished, and the services closed. The Holy Father unrobed, and withdrew with his attendants. But it was past three ere all the bishops could issue from the hall and leave the church. The crowds looked on as they slowly departed, their own numbers long remaining seemingly undiminished. Many could not tear themselves away from the hallowed spot. The shades of evening found hundreds still lingering there, contemplating the place where they had seen the hierarchy of the church gathered around the chief pastor, or kneeling in prayer at the tomb of the great apostle to whom our Lord said, "On this rock I will build my church."

Since the day of the opening session, two general congregations have been held. The chief work has been to organize and elect members for the various committees. Where all are desirous of having the best men on these committees, the bishops seem to consider it well to proceed slowly, until they gain an acquaintance with each other, which will enable them to act with greater knowledge. Meanwhile they are evidently studying up the matters before them. What those subjects are, no one outside their body appears as yet to know. They are remarkably reticent, and so far have not been "interviewed" by newspaper reporters.

It is thought the council must last several months. But at the present stage not even the prelates themselves can form more than a vague conjecture on this head. It may be that a month will throw light on the subject. In that case, we may be able to speak more definitely in our next article on the council.

ROME, Dec. 15, 1869.

FOOTNOTE:

[170] An example has just come under our notice. The special correspondent of the London Times, writing from Rome on the 8th of December, has a long story of a mysterious bull prepared to be promulgated on the 8th, in the grand ceremony, and secretly confided only to a trusty few. Somehow, within twenty-four hours of the time appointed, that is, on the 7th of December, some bishops got wind of it beforehand, and so great a storm of opposition arose that the bull was kept back, perhaps suppressed. The writer actually got sight of a copy, and makes an extract. This was taking a little too much rope. For the extract is from this apostolic letter, which was dated November 27th, was soon after printed, was distributed on December 2d, to all the bishops then in Rome--further copies of which were carefully supplied to the bishops arriving later; and which is in full force, regulating the procedure of the council, not only without a murmur, but to the perfect satisfaction of all the prelates. A "special correspondent" of the Times, who had retired from business after years of service, defined the chief qualification of such a correspondent to be, the ability to write frankly and boldly about persons and things as if he knew every thing about them, even though, as was generally the case, he knew nothing at all. For doing this acceptably, he would get £600 a year, and travelling expenses paid.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

The renowned Captain Dugald Dalgetty, that redoubtable man of war, orthodoxy, and provant, firmly held and was known occasionally to express the opinion that Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was the Lion of the North and the bulwark of Protestantism. In so far as the 'bulwark' was concerned, that clever soldado merely reflected the estimate of the Swedish hero held by the contemporary Protestant world--an estimate still clung to by the same world of the nineteenth century. That opinion and that estimate have lately received fatal injury in the house of their friends. For thus has it come about. Catholic historians have never hesitated to state that the facts bore them out in claiming that the governing motive of Gustavus Adolphus in taking the important part he did in the Thirty Years' War, was not religious enthusiasm, nor even a religious motive; but on the contrary one that was far from possessing any greater elevation than self-interest and political advantage. So thought and wrote Hurter and other Catholic authors. Of course these authors were not listened to in the Protestant world any more than were vindications of Mary, Queen of Scots, until they began to come from Protestant pens. But in the course of a few succeeding years no less than four distinguished Protestant historians--Klopp, Barthold, Leo, and Gfrörer, (who afterward became a Catholic,) fully confirmed all that Hurter had advanced. And now, within the past three months we have a new historical work on Gustavus Adolphus, from the pen of another Protestant--Professor G. Droysen--an eminent name in German literature--which certainly appears to place the question of motive on the part of the king of Sweden beyond further controversy. Professor Droysen's work is written not so much as a biography as with special reference to the political necessities and ambition of the Swedish king when he interfered in the German struggle, and is written, also, mainly with materials from the Swedish archives. The result of Professor Droysen's research is not only to more than confirm the position assumed by Hurter, but to leave no room for serious discussion. Professor Droysen expressly denies that the interference of Gustavus Adolphus in the affairs of Germany was in favor of the liberty of conscience and religion, and he quite as explicitly asserts that motives purely political decided and even forced him to put forward those pretexts.

* * * * *

Aux Incrédules et aux Croyants. L'Athée redevenu Chrétien. Ouvrage posthume de M. Delauro Dubez, Conseiller à la Cour de Montpellier. Paris, 1869. The author was judge of the court of appeals at Montpellier, and until his sixty-fourth year lived an irreligious life. His conversion was the result of reflection, and he wrote this book solely for the sake of one of his relatives who had refused to read any thing favorable to Christianity. The work is preceded by an opinion of Rev. M. Foulquier, Superior of the Seminary of Rodez, and by a letter from a Polish officer brought back to the Catholic faith by its perusal.

* * * * *

A late number of the Theologisches Literaturblatt, published at Bonn, contains an excellent review by Professor Aberle of Tübingen of a remarkable work on the year of our Saviour's birth--Das Geburtsjahr Christi. Geschichtlich-Chronologische Untersuchungen von A. M. Zumpt. The same number also has an admirable notice, by Professor Hefele, of Kampschulte's new work on Calvin, Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf.

* * * * *

San Tommaso, Aristotele, e Dante, ovvexo della prima filosofia Italiana. Firenze, 1869. In 4to. The Marquis Palermo in this work shows philosophy and science traversing the middle ages under the protection of the clergy, and particularly of St. Thomas. He specially dwells upon the purely Christian character of the philosophy set forth by Dante in his divine comedy.

* * * * *

Le Monde et l'Homme Primitif selon la Bible, par Monseigneur Meignan, Evêque de Chalons sur Marne. The right reverend author expresses the opinion that, in our day, one of the causes of the weakening of faith in divine revelation is certainly the false idea formed of the Bible in connection with the sciences. In this respect times have greatly changed, and opinion has passed from one extreme to the other. Formerly, no important discovery was made without seeking to confirm its truth by Scripture testimony. The support of a text, of a word, was then necessary, even if they had to be slightly wrested from their received acceptation. Galileo undertook to prove his theory by Bible texts badly interpreted. But the contrary course now prevails to such an extent that there exists almost an affectation of contradicting the Scriptures. The author takes up the six days of the Mosaic account of the creation, the six days being six indeterminate periods of time--illustrating each day with modern scientific views of the unity of the human race, the primitive unity of language, Chaldean and Egyptian chronology, etc. On the unity of the human race the right reverend author insists with some emphasis--as indeed he well may, recognizing in it, as we all must, the well-established doctrine of the Catholic Church--and takes occasion to address himself specially to Americans of the United States on the subject of the man of dusky hue. "Let us not forget," he says, "that he is a child of the same God, a descendant of Adam, having the same faculties, the same soul, the same heart; that the unity of the human species has made him our equal, and the Gospel our brother." The work evidences great research and learning, especially on the subject of the primitive unity of language, where the author shows entire familiarity with all the results of modern treatise and investigation from Bopp down to Ewald and Delitsch.

* * * * *

We are aware that Bohemian and Hungarian literature has but few attractions for the very great majority of readers in the United States. Nevertheless, it may not be uninteresting to note that in Bohemia, as in Hungary, there exists a general awakening of interest in their respective national literatures. In both these countries many talented authors are coming into notice, who confine their literary labors to their mother tongue. Palacky in Bohemia has lately won high praise as a historian, even in Germany and France. Besides his History of Bohemia, he has lately written several works on the historical period of John Huss.

Of these the most important is Palacky's Documenta mag. Joannis Hus vitam, doctrinam, causam spectantia. Divided into four parts, the first includes all the letters of Huss in Latin and in Tcheck, the latter accompanied by a Latin translation by Professor Kviezala; the second part gives the trial of Huss; the third, an account of his trial and death by a contemporary, Peter Mladenowicz; and the fourth, the largest, all the documents relative to the religious controversies of Bohemia from 1403 to 1418. In all cases the Tcheck documents are accompanied by Latin translations. While on the subject of Bohemian literature, it may be well to mention that the best general work upon it is that of M. Hanusch,[171] late librarian of the University of Prague. For the bibliography of the literature, the most complete work is that of Jungmann, written in Tcheck. For literature proper, the best is perhaps that of Sabina, which, however, only comes down to the seventeenth century. Sabina's work may be said to be completed by that of M. Sembera--Histoire de la langue et de la littérature Tcheque, the third edition of which is lately published at Vienna.

FOOTNOTE:

[171] Quellenkunde und Bibliographie der boehmische-slavonischen Literatur-Geschichte.

* * * * *

On the subject of baptism, or baptismal water, Dr. Heino Pfaffenschmid publishes a work[172] in which he undertakes to show that baptism was a custom of both Jewish and pagan rites before the introduction of Christianity.

FOOTNOTE:

[172] Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus, etc.

* * * * *

We see announced a work by Dr. J. H. Tomassen on the age of the human race, Enthüllungen aus der Urgeschichte; oder, Existirt das Menschengeschlecht nur 6000 Jahre? There is a slight dash of charlatanism in the title, calculated to make one suspicious of the book.

* * * * *

Professor Döllinger, of Munich, has in press a new work, entitled, The Religious Sects of the Middle Ages.

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The Chronology of the Roman Pontiffs during the last three Centuries, by Professor Lipsius, of Kiel, is announced as nearly ready for publication.

* * * * *

Volumes xiii. xiv. and xv. of the reprint of the continuation of the Histoire Littéraire de France, commenced by the Benedictines, are lately published by Palmé, Paris.

* * * * *

The following important works are announced as soon to appear: Volume xviii. of the reprint of the Annales Ecclesiastici of Cardinal Baronius, issued under the direction of Father Theiner. The first volume of a magnificent edition of the Bible, printed at Rome, at the expense of the Propaganda. This edition reproduces textually, with a fac-simile, the famous Codex Vaticanus. The present volume contains the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. The fifth volume, containing the New Testament, was printed last year.

* * * * *

The work of Cardinal Jacobatius, entitled De Concilio, is also in press at Rome, and will be printed as an introduction to the great work forming a collection of all the councils.

* * * * *

A decided success in historic literature is the latest work on Calvin and his times,[173] by F. W. Kampschulte, professor of history at the University of Bonn. The first of its three volumes has appeared, and meets with almost universal approbation. The author appears to have spared no labor, and has brought to light fresh and valuable authorities. The manuscripts, mostly for the first time used, far out-number the printed works referred to. Heretofore, the archives of Geneva have been considered sufficient to furnish material for a life of Calvin. But Professor Kampschulte rightly judged that, in view of the intimate connection between Geneva and Berne during Calvin's life, the archives of the latter city must be rich in documents for his purpose. A similar reason induced him to visit Strasburg, and both places yielded largely in fresh and important matter. For Calvin's correspondence, previous historians have contented themselves with Beza's edition of the Epistolæ et Responsa Calvini, or with Bonnet's collection. Professor Kampschulte, with indefatigable research, has succeeded in gathering a large number of Calvin's letters, heretofore unpublished, which he found scattered in every direction. In this he was greatly aided by MM. Reuss, Cunitz, and Baum, of Strasburg, who for many years past have been making a collection of the letters of Calvin for a new edition of the Epistolæ in the Corpus Reformatorum. With a liberality deserving all praise, these scholars generously placed all this valuable material at Professor Kampschulte's disposition.

Dr. J. B. Abbeloos, professor at the Seminary of Mechlin, assisted by Canon Lamy, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Louvain, is preparing for publication an important historical and literary monument, of which a small portion only has heretofore been printed. It is the great Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebreus, Primate of the Oriental Jacobites. The first part of this work was edited in 1788 at Leipsic, by two well-known oriental scholars, Brusis and Kirsch. The second and third parts contain the Ecclesiastical History, and present, as to the beginnings of Christianity in the East and on the history of the first four ages of the church, a number of valuable details not elsewhere to be found. The distinguished Assemanni (Oriental Bible, vol. ii. p. 312) says that the ecclesiastical history of Bar Hebreus admirably sets forth the religious history of the Nestorians and of the Jacobites, which is entirely unknown to the Greeks and Latins.

FOOTNOTE:

[173] Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf. Leipzig. 8vo, 493 pp.

* * * * *

Ever since the period of the fatal and futile attempt of certain unbelieving astronomers to foist the Zodiac of Denderah upon the Christian scientific world, infidel and rationalistic writers have never allowed an occasion to pass to seek to elevate or praise old pagan manners and systems of morality. The more remote their field of disquisition, the more positive are they. This attempted rehabilitation of ancient systems most remarkable for their profound immorality is thoroughly defeated by M. François Lenormant in his lately published Manuel d'histoire Ancienne de l'Orient, 3 vols., avec un atlas de 24 cartes. His exposition of ancient paganism is thorough and learned. M. Lenormant's father was a co-laborer of Champollion, and he has a European reputation as an oriental scholar. The work here announced was, in the form of an essay, previously crowned by the French Academy.

* * * * *

The third and last volume of Möhler's History of the Church, edited by the Rev. Father Gams, has appeared in Germany, and a French translation of the same by the Abbé Belot at Paris. Wherever it was practicable, F. Gams has filled voids left by Möhler with review articles, written by Möhler on the same subject. Möhler has given special attention to the study of Protestantism, and is convinced that the "judgments passed on the condition of the church during the century anterior to the reform itself, greatly need reforming." He refutes with great force the erroneous opinions of men, either ignorant of the past or willingly blind, who have attributed to Luther the honor of bringing the Bible to the light of day. Nothing can be more false. Immense works on the Bible were produced during the middle ages, and, rapidly following the discovery of printing, numerous translations made their appearance. From 1460 to the first version of Luther in 1521 there were printed in Germany at least sixteen Bibles in High German and five in Low German. Up to 1524, there were nine editions in France, not counting those of Italy, the first of which appeared in 1471.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ROMAN INDEX AND ITS LATE PROCEEDINGS. A Second Letter, etc. By E. S. Ffoulkes. American edition. Pott & Amery.

After the publication of Mr. Ffoulkes's letter, entitled, The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed? he was refused the sacraments, as it was perfectly plain he must be according to the certain rules of moral theology by which priests are guided. Archbishop Manning submitted the letter to the examination of four theologians, who, separately and without mutual consultation, gave in their opinion that it was heretical. The archbishop, with the greatest delicacy and kindness, began to treat with Mr. Ffoulkes, for the purpose of inducing him to make a sufficient retractation, in order that he might repair the scandal he had given and be restored to the enjoyment of his privileges as a member of the church. On the 22d of March, 1869, Mr. Ffoulkes submitted the following letter to the archbishop:

"Having learned from my bishop that a pamphlet, lately published by me, entitled, The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed? has been examined, and pronounced by him to be heretical, I desire hereby to submit myself to that judgment, and to express my sorrow that I should in any thing have erred from the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith. Although I trust I have not intentionally erred from the truth, nor wilfully opposed myself to the divine authority of the church, nevertheless I am well aware how easily I may have done so. I therefore hereby, without reserve, retract all and every thing that I have written, there or elsewhere, which is contrary to what the church has defined as of faith.

"Having learned also from him that scandal, offence, and pain have been given by my writings, and especially by the pamphlet above named, to the faithful; and that the same pamphlet has been used by those who are separate from the Catholic and Roman Church as an excuse or argument for not submitting to its divine authority, I hereby desire to explain myself categorically on two points in particular, the most likely to have caused such results of any that occurred to me, from not having been brought out as prominently there as they might have been, but on which it never was my intention that my meaning should be ambiguous.

"1. Whatever I may or may not have been called upon to profess fourteen years ago myself, I nevertheless believe, and believe heartily, in the inerrancy, by perpetual assistance of the Holy Ghost in all ages, of the one Catholic Church in communion with the pope, and of which the pope is head by divine right, 'in fidei ac morum disciplinâ tradendâ,' as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches. And 2, as regards matter of fact, my own personal investigations enable me to affirm the verdict of history to be, that the see of Rome, as such, has been preserved in all ages from upholding or embracing heresy. I say this more particularly with reference to the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost, on which I fear my meaning may have been misapprehended. Therefore, negatively, should I have ever seemed to say or imply that the true church has ever ceased to be one visibly, or that the see of Rome was not constituted its centre of unity upon earth, so that communion with the one should be the indispensable condition of participating in the unity of the other, I hereby declare my heartfelt sorrow at having, in any of my writings, so expressed myself on these points as to have offended any or misled any by seeming to say or imply, in language injurious to the Holy See, what I never meant to assert, and hereby repudiate.

"And as the best reparation now in my power, I willingly undertake that this explicit declaration of mine shall be printed and distributed gratuitously by my publisher, and appended as a fly-leaf to all copies of my pamphlet, of which the copyright is not in my own hands, and other published works of mine that may hereafter be sold, should it be desired. Lastly, I freely, and from my heart, renew my assent to what follows, taken from the profession of Pope Pius IV.: 'I acknowledge the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ.'" (Pages 37, 38.)

On the 18th of December, 1868, a work, entitled Christendom's Divisions, by the same author, had been placed on the Index, and, on the 26th of March, the letter was placed there likewise. The archbishop made some further suggestions to Mr. Ffoulkes on the 2d of May, which he accepted, and, on the 4th, wrote to Mr. F., "I have received with sincere pleasure the declaration as last amended, and I trust it will complete what I have daily prayed may be accomplished." On the 17th of May, Mr. F. wrote to a clergyman of the Church of England, "I would be excommunicated a dozen times a day sooner than retract my pamphlet; and Archbishop Manning, to his credit let it be said, never proposed any such thing. What he proposed, however, I rejected; and substituted for it a declaration of my own, which is merely justificatory.[174] This, slightly altered, he has since accepted; so that my part is over." This letter was made known by the person who received it, and came to the knowledge of Archbishop Manning, who requested Mr. F. to obtain the letter and hand it over to him, a request which the latter gentleman considered as insulting to his "English feelings," and refused. He himself writes to the archbishop, and to the public also, (p. 43,) "Your grace was apprehensive lest this loose statement of a well-known tale-bearer, duly reported to Rome, should give rise to your being inhibited from accepting my declaration. Though I thought this extremely probable, I contented myself with assuring your grace, by letter, that, if the individual in question had reported me to have said, 'I would rather be excommunicated than retract, (sic,)'[175] he had either misrepresented me wilfully, or stated what was not the fact. My English feelings would not allow me to do more." The archbishop may certainly be excused for not accepting this statement, since the Anglican clergyman had read the first paragraph of the letter to the person designated, we hope unjustly, as a "well-known busybody," and had communicated its contents to several other persons "in strict confidence." The archbishop had communicated Mr. F.'s retractation or justification to the Congregation of the Index, and, on the 6th of August, a letter from Mgr. Nardi to the archbishop was read to Mr. F., in which his document was pronounced insufficient, particularly because not containing an expression of submission to the decree of the sacred congregation. A general form of retractation of every thing which the congregation had condemned in his writings, and of submission to its judgment, was sketched out for his guidance in preparing a proper statement, and he was informed that when such a declaration had been sent to Rome and accepted, no public notice would be taken of it except to append to the censure in the Index the words, auctor laudabiliter se subjecit--the author has submitted in a laudable manner. Mr. F. refused to make this submission, and was, accordingly, notified by the archbishop that he could not be admitted to the sacraments. Mr. F. also notified his grace that if any official sentence was pronounced upon him, he should appeal to the civil tribunal. At the conclusion of his pamphlet he says, respecting the "arbitrary sentence of a foreign court," "Please God, I shall live to contribute my quota toward being the death of the system from which it proceeds.... Please God, one of two things--for which I shall continue to labor through life--either that Christianity and Rome may become convertible terms, which it is my sincere wish that they should be; or else that fresh halting-places for sober, ordinary Christians, between Rome and infidelity, maybe developed amongst us, and new life be vouchsafed to those which exist already." Finally says Mr. F., in his last paragraph, "All we of the west are lying under more than one solemn anathema of more than one pope, speaking as head of the church--if popes have ever spoken as heads of the church--for having changed a syllable in the creed authorized by the Fourth Council."

This is Mr. F.'s case. It is evident that he became a member of the Catholic Church under a great misapprehension of her doctrine and law, and has never been any thing more than an Anglican. He is disposed to blame those who received him; but it is plain that they had no reason for suspecting that his misconception of the obvious meaning of the profession he made of submission to the Roman Church was so fundamental, and that he has only his own confused state of mind to blame for it. He has never really believed in the ever-living, supreme, infallible authority of the church, or had any other principle than the Protestant one to guide him. Hence, he has bewildered and lost himself in a maze of historical difficulties which he is unable to understand or remove. His letters are the most conclusive proof possible that the bogus Catholicity of unionists is fit only to complicate instead of solving the controversies among Christians. It shows the necessity of the most explicit teaching of the principle of infallible authority in all its practical applications, and proves that it is only by fully understanding and submitting to the doctrinal supremacy of the Roman pontiff as the vicar of Christ we can have any sufficient and certain criterion by which to distinguish genuine from spurious Catholicity.

One other point remains to be noticed. Mr. F.'s complaint that the sacred congregation violated its own rule, by failing to give him notice of the errors in his writings and the opportunity of explaining himself and making corrections. This is a mistake on his part. When erroneous statements are found in the works of a Catholic author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy, he receives this notification, and, in any case, when a book is placed on the Index merely on account of some particular errors, the phrase donec corrigatur is added. Mr. F. is not an author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy. His writings are thoroughly unsound and mischievous. There was no occasion to cite him for a formal hearing or defence of himself, since the whole question was in reference to his writings, which speak for themselves. The only thing necessary for a judgment was an examination of his books, and that they were not hastily condemned is evident from the fact that the censure was pronounced three years after they were published. M. Renan has just as much reason to demand a hearing as Mr. Ffoulkes.

FOOTNOTES:

[174] The italics are our own.--ED. C. W.

[175] This sic is Mr. Ffoulkes's; what it means is known only to himself and heaven.--ED. C. W.

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ACROSS AMERICA AND ASIA. By Raphael Pumpelly, Professor in Harvard University, and sometime Mining Engineer in the service of the Chinese and Japanese Governments. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1870.

Mr. Pumpelly has given in this volume an account, some parts of which are interesting even to fascination, of a five years' journey round the world, by way of Arizona, California, Japan, China, Tartary, and Siberia, whence he returned across Europe and the Atlantic to New York. His accounts of what fell immediately under his own observation during his travels are no doubt accurate, and give an excellent idea of the natural features of the regions and people through which he passed--particularly of the former; for the author's profession and tastes made him observe nature closely, and detect and describe things which an ordinary traveller would have left unnoticed. His description of the plateau of Central Asia is specially striking and valuable, and the strictly scientific information contained in this as in the other parts of his work important; but he has, of course, treated purely professional subjects more fully elsewhere.

The work is interspersed with historical sketches and political essays, some of which perhaps are not without value; but the egregious blunders made in the account of the expulsion of Christianity from Japan, on page 97, would lead one to suspect that the author has not always been duly careful in collecting his information. He seems to profess to be a Christian, as he speaks in one place of "our Lord's sermon on the mount;" but was evidently much impressed by what he saw of Buddhism, from the practices of which he wisely says that "western ritualism, and much of the superstition on which it is based," (p. 166,) is derived. The same idea is brought in on page 383. Other forms of heathenism also impressed him favorably, and he thinks well of the Mohammedans, judging from what he says of those at Kazan; but this admiration for, and fascination by every thing except the truth is not unusual among men without faith.

He could not, of course, avoid noticing the failure of Protestant missions, whose converts he regards as hypocrites, influenced solely by the hope of soup, and frequently shows an appreciation of the genius, devotedness, and success of Catholic missionaries.

The author appears to be a man of undaunted courage, great humanity, and a high sense of both honor and morality. His exposure of the villainous conduct of white men toward the Indians in our own country, and the dark races of Asia, deserves our cordial thanks. His remarks on the question of the effect of Sclavonian advancement in the old world and Chinese immigration in the new, on the destinies of the coming age, are fitted to awaken many deep and anxious thoughts. The chapter on Japanese art by Mr. John La Farge is worthy of that accomplished artist. On the whole, with the exceptions above noted, this is one of the best books which has appeared from the American press.

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THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL. By Janus. Authorized translation from the German. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

This is not a book which can be reviewed as to its contents in a critical notice, or in any thing less than a volume. It goes over the entire field of the relation of the papacy to the church, considered historically, and is a work of some show of learning. We cannot, therefore, touch on the question of its intrinsic truth or falsity at present, but simply on the point of its orthodoxy, as judged by the criterion according to which doctrine is to be judged by the canons actually making the law of the Catholic Church at the present moment. According to this criterion, it is heretical, and therefore to be rejected by every Catholic, as much as Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, or Guettée's Papacy Schismatic. The review of this last-named book in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for July and August, 1867, written by one of the ablest of our contributors, will furnish ad interim a sufficient refutation of the anti-Catholic principles on which it rests. We cite a few passages in proof of the statement we have made. In the preface it is stated that the book is "a protest, based on history, against a menacing future, against the programme of a powerful coalition." This "programme" means the whole preparatory work of the body of theologians summoned to Rome by the pope to prepare for the council. Again, that "a great and searching reformation of the church is necessary and inevitable." Speaking of those who follow the teaching of the supreme pontiff in all things as their authoritative rule, the authors say, "While in outward communion with them, we are inwardly separated by a great gulf from those," etc. "The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in its train." They say that there has been a development "of the primacy into the papacy, a transformation more than a development, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other." These extracts prove the attitude of open rebellion against the pontifical authority assumed by the authors. The following shows their utter defiance of the authority of the Council of the Vatican:

"An oecumenical assembly of the church can have no existence, properly speaking, in presence of an ordinarius ordinariorum (equivalent to bishop of bishops) and infallible teacher of faith.... Bishops who have been obliged to swear 'to maintain, defend, increase, and advance the rights, honors, privileges, and authority of their lord the pope'--and every bishop takes this oath--cannot regard themselves, or be regarded by the Christian world, as free members of a free council; natural justice and equity require that. These men neither will nor can be held responsible for decisions or omissions which do not depend on them.

"With abundant reason were the two demands urged throughout half Europe in the sixteenth century, in the negotiations about the council--first, that it should not be held in Rome, or even in Italy; and, secondly, that the bishops should be absolved from their oath of obedience. The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in Italy, but in Rome itself; and already has it been announced that, as the sixth Lateran council, it will adhere faithfully to the fifth. That is quite enough--it means this, that whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free council. Theologians and canonists declare that without complete freedom the decisions of a council are not binding, and the assembly is only a pseudo-synod. Its decrees may have to be corrected." (Pp. 343-345.)

Such is the harsh, dissonant cry of discord which interrupts the harmonious accord of voices from all the world, rising in responsive welcome to the call of the vicar of Christ, summoning together the whole church around the tomb of the apostles. Naturally, it gives great delight to the enemies of the church, who see no hope for their cause except in dissension among her own rulers and members, and who welcome these faithless Catholics, applaud them, and disseminate their writings, as allies of their own within our camp. Their rejoicing, however, is premature. The number banded together in this clique is extremely small. Neither Mgr. Maret, Mgr. Dupanloup, or the so-called Liberal Catholics, represented by Le Correspondant, hold the extreme opinions of Janus, which has been placed on the Index in company with Mr. Ffoulkes's productions. Gallicans and liberals acknowledge the supreme authority of the Council of the Vatican, and will readily give up any private opinions which may be condemned by its judgment. Although the disciples of Bossuet's school maintain that the papal decretals do not become irreformible until they have received the at least tacit assent of the bishops, yet they admit their binding and obligatory force over all the faithful and over each bishop, taken singly, as soon as legally promulgated. All the pontifical decretals which are proposed as dogmatic judgments by the Roman Church have received at least the tacit assent of the bishops, and are, therefore, now irreformible, even by a council, on Gallican principles.

Janus is in open rebellion against the authority of these decretals, and against the Council of the Vatican itself. The persons concerned in its publication, and all ecclesiastics who share their sentiments, will be interdicted from all exercise of sacerdotal functions in the church, and excluded from her communion, unless they retract their heresy and submit to the authority of the council, or else hide themselves under the cloak of anonymous secrecy. The only importance which brochures of this sort have, comes from the supposed fact that their authors maintain a tenable position in the Catholic Church. When they are cut off from her communion, as they certainly will be if they prove contumacious, they mix with the great mass of unbelievers, and are of no account. We have had a succession of these traitors, from Judas to Gavazzi, and it is quite probable that the Council of the Vatican will prove the occasion of a certain number of apostasies. The departure from her outward communion of those who have already lost the faith is, however, an advantage rather than an injury to the church, and the places of these deserters will be better filled by the new converts who will be gained.

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LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. By George Ticknor Curtis, one of his literary executors. Volume I. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 90, 92, and 94 Grand street. 1870.

Among the numerous regrets caused by the death of Edward Everett, many felt a disappointment because he had not added to our literature and to his own memoir of Mr. Webster a complete biography of that distinguished statesman. As far as we can judge from the present volume of Mr. Curtis's work, there is little cause, however, to regret that the task of writing it should have devolved on him. Its typography and paper deserve special praise; while the elegant yet modest appearance of the book is in harmony with the dignity of its subject, the style of the author, and the taste of that portion of the community who will constitute its most attentive readers.

The story of Mr. Webster's rustic boyhood, of the fireside legends of Indian and British warfare, whence he drew the patriotism of his riper years, the history of his struggle with poverty, and of the warm ties which bound him to his elder brother, are all told in a vividly interesting manner, and will recall similar scenes to the mind of many a reader. The successful career at school and college of the poorly-clad, sensitive lad, developing gradually into his splendid manhood and growing daily in the esteem of all is also graphically portrayed. In his habits of toil and deep study we see the foundations of that solidity of character, that grasp of intellect, which gave to his eloquence its commanding force, and to many of his forensic efforts their present character of legal authority.

The rising generation will admire the record of Mr. Webster's entrance into public life, and the independence, integrity, and loyalty which marked his course therein. From his youth he seemed to know of no other policy than right. Though party lines are nowadays more sharply defined than in his time, we think this broad and true American spirit is still the surest guide to lasting political influence. And the young politician who will place patriotism and devotion to principle before private ambition will secure the highest triumph for both, and need never fear the lash of party despotism.

In the present state of political affairs, which proves in so many ways and on so many points the correctness of Mr. Webster's views, and the deep, far-seeing genius of his statesmanship, we heartily approve the moderation and historical calmness with which Mr. Curtis records the exciting scenes of the "nullification" and "expunging" times, and also Mr. Webster's views on the hushing up of discussion on the abolition petitions of '36 and '37.

We have evidences, in portions of his correspondence brought into the work, of the true place which Mr. Webster assigned to principles, and of his contempt for openly immoral men. Writing to Mr. Ticknor in 1830, he says of a certain eminent literary character, whose sins have not been left to disappear with his ashes:

"Many excellent reasons are given for his being a bad husband, the sum of which is that he was a very bad man. I confess, I was rejoiced then, I am rejoiced now, that he was driven out of England by public scorn; for his vices were not in his passions, but in his principles."

On the whole, there are few biographies of public men more healthful to the moral system of the reader than that of Mr. Webster. We see his acknowledgment of true principles, and if in his private life he at any time afterward lost sight of them, this weakness has not the sanction of his genius, but stands condemned by it.

As an orator, his natural powers rank him with Demosthenes, with Chatham, with O'Connell. The legal profession will look upon him as one of its lights and ornaments. And all who love America will honor in him one whose heart beat in unison with the mighty pulse of this nation. We venture to hope that the rest of the work will equal the present volume, and that it will be read by every intelligent young man in the United States.

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MISSALE ROMANUM. Tours Edition. Royal quarto. 1869. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Bros.

This is a very fine edition of the Roman Missal. It is carefully bound in morocco, tastefully ornamented, and opens easily. The page is pleasant to the eye, the type being large and clear, and the paper very good. All the recent masses will be found at their proper places in this edition, which is in itself both a convenience and recommendation. At the commencement of the canon there is a very good steel-plate engraving of the Crucifixion. We recommend this missal to the notice of the reverend clergy and members of altar societies.

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THE HISTORY OF ROME. By Theodor Mommsen. Translated by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, D.D. With a preface by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz. New edition, in four volumes. Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

This is a philosophical history. It is difficult to do justice to the depth and accuracy of the erudition it displays. The style is also singularly happy--especially for a translation. We accept the author's facts, but not all his theories. Some of the latter would account for certain religious beliefs and practices by ignoring, on the one hand, primitive tradition, and attributing, on the other, to peoples but just emerging from barbarism the sublimest poesy and the keenest wisdom. Rationalism will never succeed in accounting for what was true in the religions of Greece and Rome, any more than for Christianity. The great philosophical historian of our age is Professor Leo, of Halle, whose account of Rome is especially admirable. Those who read German will probably find in Leo and Mommsen, together with Niebuhr, all they need to know of the principles, constitution, origin, and historical development of pagan Rome. For a correct and condensed narrative of events, Cantu's Universal History is the best.

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WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE: A REFORM AGAINST NATURE. By Horace Bushnell. New York: Scribner & Co. 1869. 12mo, pp. 184.

We agree with Dr. Bushnell, as our readers are aware, in opposing female suffrage and eligibility as repugnant to the law of God, the natural relations of the sexes, and the interests of the family, of society, and indeed of woman herself; but in the course of his essay he uses so many weak arguments, and concedes so much to the women's rights folks, that his conclusions, though just, are not well sustained, and are not likely to carry conviction to the minds of those women who aspire to be men. We do not believe the lot of woman in society as it is can be truly said to be harder than that of men. The curse of our age is its femineity, its want of manliness, its sentimentalism, and its pruriency; and it could only be aggravated by female suffrage and eligibility. "The reigns of queens," said a queen of France to a duchess of Burgundy, "are conceded to be more successful than those of kings." "True," responded the duchess; "but it is because queens follow the counsel of men, and kings the counsel of women." The age, or what is called the age, needs reforming, we grant; for it has been formed by Protestantism, which is simply in principle a resuscitation of gentilism; but not more for woman than for man, and reformed it cannot be without faith in the doctrine and obedience to the commands of the church of God.

The modern economical and industrial system, which enriches the few at the expense of the many, and which is boasted as the grand achievement of modern progress, is the source of most of the evils which our political and social reformers seek to redress. This system, which sees in man only an instrument of producing, distributing, and consuming the material goods of this life, and takes no account of the divine sovereignty, or of man's moral and spiritual wants, we are quite willing to concede is a natural product of the Reformation. It creates wants beyond its power to satisfy, tastes and habits of life which demand for their gratification great wealth, and great wealth can be the lot of only the few. It creates a large class of men and women, especially of women, for whom it does and can make no provision, and who suffer just in proportion to their cultivated and refined habits and tastes. The system is in fault, is based on the false principle that the more wants you can stimulate or develop in a man or a woman the better. Hence, it creates a large class who are ill at ease, misplaced, discontented, and maddened by wants that they cannot satisfy, and prepared to be not reformers, but revolutionists.

There is no way of curing the evil, which was as great in ancient Greece and Rome as it is in modern Britain or America, but by returning to the Christian principle of self-denial, and following the admonition of our Lord, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things shall be added unto you." Would you make a man happy, study not to increase his possessions, but to diminish his desires. While material riches are held up as the supreme good, and poverty is treated as a disgrace, if not as a crime, there is no remedy for individual, domestic, or social evils, as the history of all heathen nations amply proves. Let the poor be held in honor as our Lord and his church held them, let voluntary poverty for Christ's sake be counted highly meritorious, and the evils our radicals feel, and our women's rights people complain of, will soon disappear, and woman will find her proper place, and man his. No political or social revolution is needed; none will do any good; all that is needed is to substitute the Christian economy for the pagan that now governs modern society.

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NIDWORTH AND HIS THREE MAGIC WANDS. By E. Prentiss. Boston: Roberts Bros.

A beautiful allegorical story, the moral of which is that riches and knowledge are worthless if not accompanied by the love of your neighbor. Brotherly love is the great lesson of this little volume, without which no one can be happy, and with which every one may be happy, even though one's home be only a cabin. It is the best book of the kind we have read in a long time, and should be placed in the hands of the ambitious youth of our country, whose God seems to be riches and unlimited power.

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BIBLE ANIMALS: Being a Description of every living Creature mentioned in the Scriptures, from the Ape to the Coral. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., etc. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. Pp. 652.

This book merits unqualified praise. It is so complete that it will probably become the standard authority upon this branch of biblical literature. Indeed, it appears almost to exhaust the subject; so that, although the work was written more especially to aid biblical students, yet the scientific exactness of Mr. Wood's explanations and descriptions will make the volume extremely valuable to all who are interested in natural history. The identification of the animals and birds mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is particularly useful. Many of the words used in the ordinary translations do not really designate the creatures that are intended. Mr. Wood seems to have brought good sense and great fairness to this difficult portion of his task. Where he is unable to decide with probability, he is not ashamed to say that he "is lost in uncertainty, and at the best can only offer conjectures." But this uncertainty refers principally to the smaller and less conspicuous species. The larger animals and birds are nearly all identified with tolerable certainty. The illustrations of the volume are numerous and finely executed. They are mostly taken from living animals, while the accessory details have been obtained from Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and from the photographs and drawings of modern travellers. In every respect the book offers a rich and varied treat to those who feel an interest in knowing something of the land and the people which our divine Saviour chose for his own.

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ART THOUGHTS: The Experiences and Observations of an American Amateur in Europe. By James Jackson Jarves. 12mo, pp. 379. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

Mr. Jarves is one of the few American writers on art whose works are worth reading and preserving. He has devoted to the subject the study and travel of many years, and has gathered one of the finest collections of genuine masters ever brought to this country. To a certain extent, his verdict upon painting and sculpture is entitled to the greatest weight; for it is founded upon intelligent study and a natural artistic appreciation. For the antique and the modern schools we may cheerfully accept him as a guide; but in the great realm of Christian art, which lies glorious and beautiful between these two extremes, he is but a blind leader of the blind--a pagan of the nineteenth century, unable to comprehend true religious inspiration, or to feel the artistic value of religious symbolism; and for whom much of the sublimity of the Renaissance, as well as the ruder but sincere and often eloquent art of the earlier Christian period, is therefore covered with an impenetrable veil. It is one of the canons of Mr. Jarves's criticism that every species of asceticism, either in life or in art, is a violation of nature and of truth. That is false art, therefore, which deals with representations of physical suffering, and the Apollo is a nobler subject than the crucified Saviour. What a wealth of spiritual beauty is shut out by this sensual conception, we need not stop to say. It is no wonder that, with such views, Mr. Jarves, while he admires the enraptured saints of Fra Angelico, cannot feel the divine pathos and sublimity of Michael Angelo's "Pieta." It is no wonder that he believes that "every religion in the form of a creed restricts and narrows art;" that he hates the Roman Church for its inculcation of the virtue of self-mortification; denounces our worship as rank idolatry of the most degrading kind; and can hardly speak with decent moderation his contempt for the crucifix and his detestation of the uncomfortable doctrine of eternal punishment. To Catholics, indeed, almost every page of his book conveys offence, and the blasphemy of some passages is too horrible for quotation.

The book is manufactured with due regard to magnificence of exterior, and many typographical niceties appropriate to a work on the fine arts. There is so much care, in fact, evident in its print and binding that we have a right to complain of there not being a little more, and especially to protest against the constant disfigurement of proper names--partly through the fault of the author, and partly through insufficient proof-reading. "Giusti," for instance, is printed "Guisti," "Giuliano" appears as "Guliano" and "Giulano," never, we believe, in its proper form. We have also "Guliana," and "Lucca" della Robbia uniformly, instead of "Luca." St. Simeon Stylites is called sometimes "St. Stylus," (which is nonsense,) and sometimes "St. Simone;" and sometimes, we may add, "that filthy fanatic." The union of Italian forms of common Christian names, like Simone and Francesco, with the English prefix "St.," is another common fault. For the words "King Ca_u_daules," "So_u_briquet," and "Casa" as the Italian for "thing," we must hold the proof-readers alone to blame.

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AMONG THE TREES: A Journal of Walks in the Woods, and Flower-Hunting through Field and by Brook. By Mary Lorimer. Sq. 8vo, pp. 153. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

This is a pleasant, readable, feminine sort of book, written by an ardent and intelligent lover of nature, and quite equal to inspiring almost any body with more or less enthusiasm for the pursuit to which it is devoted. The writer catalogues minutely the botanical charms of all the different seasons--midwinter as well as the depth of summer; describes the flowers of each month, and tells where to look for them; and gives practical instructions for making miniature conservatories of wild flowers, and doing various other pretty things such as young ladies delight in. The book is written for the latitude of New York. Excellent wood-cuts accompany the text, and the paper and binding are suitable for the holiday season.

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CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. Lectures delivered during Advent, by the Rev. Thomas S. Preston. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1870.

This volume is by far the most original and the best in every respect of several excellent volumes by the reverend author. The style and method of treating the subject remind us of Archbishop Manning. The discourses here published were preached to overflowing congregations, on the Sunday evenings during the last Advent. They develop a most important and interesting line of argument, not frequently handled, but likely to be most useful to the best class of Protestants. They are intended to show how those doctrines of the church and sacraments which are distinctively Catholic flow necessarily from the doctrines of original justice, the fall, the incarnation and redemption. They address, therefore, directly, and in the most conclusive manner, those Protestants who are called orthodox or evangelical, in common parlance. They cannot be too strongly recommended to those persons who believe in the true divinity of Jesus Christ and seek to know his doctrine and law. Pious Catholics, also, will derive great instruction and edification from this volume. It is published in the neatest and most attractive form, and is especially to be welcomed at a moment when so much glittering but counterfeit coin is in circulation.

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SADLIER'S CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO, for the year of our Lord, 1870. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1870.

We are pleased to see that our suggestion of last year, with regard to the binding of the Almanac, has been acted upon this year; and we now have a work we can at least open without tearing it to pieces. We would suggest other improvements--in the matter of better paper, more margin on the page, less advertisements, and a little more correctness in names and places in next year's issue--all of which would be a great improvement on the present volume, which is in some points superior to former ones.

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HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. By K. R. Hagenbach, D.D. Translated by the Rev. I. F. Hurst, D.D. 2 vols. New York: Scribner.

This author, who is a moderately orthodox Protestant, is well acquainted with German Protestantism, and his work will therefore be useful to those who wish to study the phases of that rapidly dissolving view of Christianity.

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THE LIFE, PASSION, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Being an Abridged Harmony of the Four Gospels in the Words of the Sacred Text. Edited by the Rev. Henry Formby. With an entirely new series of engravings on wood, from designs by C. Clasen, D. Nolen, and others. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870.

Fr. Formby is well known as a writer of great taste and remarkable skill in preparing books for children and grown people who require reading that is easily understood. His pictorial series has long been popular in England, and will now be republished, with the author's permission, by the Catholic Publication Society. The present volume is the first of the series. It is a continuous narrative taken from all the four Gospels, according to the Rhemish version, judiciously compiled according to the best harmonies, and abridged in such a way as to simplify without curtailing in any important respect the history. The illustrations are numerous and spirited, and, with one or two exceptions, are pleasing. The book is a charming one, as well as one most useful and important for children. Nothing can be more suitable, also, for good, plain Catholics, who ought by all means to be familiar with the Gospel history, and who will find this arrangement of it much better for their use than the Gospels themselves read separately. This book ought to be in every Catholic family, day-school, and Sunday-school, and to be circulated by the ten thousand.

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THE LIBRARY OF GOOD EXAMPLE. In twelve volumes. New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

This series is mainly composed of tales, etc., already before the public in manifold guises. Hence an enumeration of the titles of the several volumes, or a review of their contents, would be to our readers "a thrice-told tale." We will only say that, in our opinion, although they are admirably adapted for the perusal of children, the temper, at least of the juvenile reader, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," will not be improved by the discovery that, in expending his pocket-money for the Library of Good Example, he has, for the third time, in some instances, purchased the same book. In one respect, however, this series is an improvement on its predecessors--it is not illustrated.

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CONCILIEN GESCHICHTE. Hefele. Vol. vii. Part I. Council of Constance. 1869.

This part of the learned bishop's great work is especially interesting at the present moment, on account of the pretence raised by a certain number of persons that the Council of Constance was, in all its sessions, oecumenical. It is, besides this temporary interest, of lasting and intrinsic importance, for reasons well known to every scholar. Dr. Hefele not only gives us a learned and accurate historical work, but also a graphic picture of the intensely exciting and interesting events of the great Council of Constance. We cite the author's concluding sentence on the authority of the decrees of the council: "That (Eugenius IV.) intended to exclude the decrees of Constance respecting the superiority of general councils over the pope from his approbation is indubitable. In accordance with this, and according to modern law, which declares the papal approbation of general councils necessary in order to make them such, there can be no doubt that (a) all the decrees of Constance, which are not prejudicial to the papacy, are to be considered oecumenical; on the other hand, that (b) all which infringe against the jus, the dignitas, and præeminentia of the apostolic see, are to be considered as reprobated." This is in harmony with the sentiment of all the soundest canonists and theologians, namely, that which excludes the Council of Constance from the number of the councils strictly called oecumenical, and relegates it to a second class of general councils some of whose decrees are rejected and others approved.

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THE STATUS OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY IN THE UNITED STATES. Bishop McQuaid!--Father O'Flaherty!--The Imbroglio in the Diocess of Rochester.

This vile anonymous pamphlet, printed without any publisher's name and signed, "Priests of the Diocese of Rochester," is a disgrace to its authors, especially if they are really priests. A publication of this kind, which is in itself a grievous offence, cannot claim even a hearing for any thing it may contain. If any priests of the diocese of Rochester have so far lost all sense of sacerdotal duty as to put forth this pamphlet, taking advantage of their bishop's absence, it is evident that a little more application of ecclesiastical discipline in that diocese will prove salutary.

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THE BYRNES OF GLENGOULAH. A True Tale. By Alice Nolan. New York: P. O'Shea.

SALLY CAVANAGH; OR, THE UNTENANTED GRAVES. A Tale of Tipperary. By Charles J. Kickham. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

The foul wrongs to which the existing laws between landlord and tenant expose the peasantry of Ireland are made the ground-work of both these stories of Irish life. While these wrongs are familiar to all, so also are their sad effects, as narrated in the volumes before us. Of these, the former is undoubtedly more racy of the soil; though the latter, we think, will leave a more pleasing impression on the reader. The great fault with Miss Nolan is a talent for exaggeration; her favorites are always right; their enemies are ever harsh in word, cruel in act, and villainous in appearance. The landlord's victims are almost too ethereal for humanity--only a little less than angels; he and his myrmidons too diabolical for fiends.

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GREAT MYSTERIES AND LITTLE PLAGUES. By John Neal. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

The author proves that he has fully studied his subject, and that his title-page, though rather mysterious, is still most expressive and true. He shows by nearly three hundred anecdotes that children are really great mysteries and little plagues. His fairy story of "Goody Gracious! and the Forget-me-not" is the very model of a fairy story--plenty of imagination without going into the impossible and improbable.

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ACTA EX IIS DECERPTA QUÆ APUD SANCTAM SEDEM GERUNTUR, etc. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This is a fac-simile reprint of the Roman edition. It is a work of the greatest utility to ecclesiastics. We noticed some errors of the press, which suggests the remark that the proofs should invariably be carefully revised by a clergyman.

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P. Donahoe, Boston, announces for early publication, Life Pictures of the Passion of Christ, translated from the German of Dr. Veith, by Rev. Father Noethen; The Our Father, translated from the German of the same author; The Monks of the West, by the Count Montalembert, and a Life of Pius IX.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From P. O'Shea, New York, The Key of Heaven; or, A Manual of Prayer. With the approbation of the Most Rev. John McCloskey, D.D., Archbishop of New York. Revised, corrected, and improved. 1869. Pp. 532.

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From J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO., New York: Scottish University Addresses by Mill, Froude, Carlyle. Paper.

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From E. CUMMISKEY, Philadelphia: Considerations upon Christian Truths and Christian Duties; digested into Meditations for every day in the year. By Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner. New edition. 1 vol. 12mo. Controversy between Rev. Messrs. Hughes and Breckinridge on the subject, "Is the Protestant Religion the Religion of Christ?" Sixth edition. 1 vol. 12mo.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 60.--MARCH, 1870.

CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY.[176]

That evangelical romancer, M. Merle d'Aubigné, not long since published a discourse having for title, Jean Calvin, un des Fondateurs des Libertés Modernes, or "John Calvin, one of the Founders of Modern Liberty." The discourse, as the Abbé Martin says, is of no importance; but the title is significant. It claims for the Genevan reformer the merit of being one of the founders of liberty in modern society. Mr. Bancroft in his History of the United States does the same. A Lutheran might with equal truth claim as much for Luther, a Scottish Presbyterian as much for John Knox, and an Anglican as much for Henry VIII. and the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. Nearly all Protestant and anti-Catholic writers assume, as an indisputable maxim, that liberty was born of the Reformation. All your Protestant and liberal journals assert it, and the ignorant multitude believe it. Whoever contradicts it is denounced as an ultramontanist, a tool of the clergy, or a Jesuit, and, of course, is silenced. Protestant nations enjoy, even with many Catholics, the prestige of being free nations; and all Catholic nations are set down as despotic, and, owing to the influence of the church, as deadly hostile to every kind of liberty, religious, political, civil, and individual. Protestantism and liberty, or Catholicity and despotism, is adopted as the formula of the convictions of this enlightened age.

This alleged connection of Protestantism and liberty, and of Catholicity and despotism, the Abbé Martin maintains, is what gives to Protestant missions in old Catholic nations the principal part of their success in unmaking Catholics. The Protestant missionaries, seconded by all the liberal journals, proclaim their Protestantism as the liberator of nations, as that which emancipates the people from political despotism, and the mind from spiritual thraldom. The great argument used in this country against the church is her alleged hostility to liberty, and the certainty, if she once gained the ascendency here, she would destroy our free institutions, and reduce the nation to political and spiritual slavery. Such is the allegation; such the argument.

Now, every man who knows anything of history knows that the reverse of what is here alleged is true. The church has, undoubtedly, always opposed lawlessness, and set her face against revolutions for either king or people; but she has never favored slavery or despotism, and has always favored that orderly liberty, the only true liberty, which consists in the reign of law, instead of passion, caprice, or arbitrary will. She has always and everywhere insisted that the laws should be just and supreme, alike for ruler and ruled. She has sometimes submitted to despotic authority, but she has never approved it, or recognized it as legitimate; and when a courtier monk preached before Philip II. of Spain that the king is absolute, and may do whatever he wills, the Spanish Inquisition arraigned him for his false doctrine, and compelled him to retract it publicly from the same pulpit from which he had preached it.

The fact is, not that liberty was born of or with the Reformation, but that the Reformation itself was born of absolute monarchy, despotism, or Cæsarism, revived and confirmed at the epoch of its birth. Prior to the Reformation, which marked the triumph of Cæsarism over feudalism, there was, no doubt, much barbarism in Christian Europe; but there was no absolutism. A reminiscence of Græco-Roman imperialism remained, indeed, and was cherished by the civil lawyers or legists, whose maxim was, Quod placuit principi, legis habet vigorem; but absolutism never succeeded in getting itself established. The German emperors, especially the Hohenstauffen, Cæsarists in principle as well as in name, attempted to revive the Roman empire, but did not succeed. Power was divided. There were free cities and communes that governed themselves as veritable republics under the guardianship, nominal rather than real, of a suzerain. The royal power was limited by the great vassals of the crown, and the authority of these in turn was limited by the lesser nobles, by the estates, and by the laws, and usages which had the force of laws. What characterizes the middle ages is the spirit of liberty. Few men in our time have better understood the middle ages, save as to the action of the church, than Sir Walter Scott, who, if a romancer, was also something more and better. He says in his Anne of Geierstein:

"We may remind our readers that, in all feudalized countries, (that is to say, in almost all Europe during the middle ages,) an ardent spirit of liberty pervaded the constitution; and the only fault that could be found was, that the privileges and freedom for which the great vassals contended did not sufficiently descend to the lower orders of society, or extend protection to those most likely to need it. The two first ranks in the state, the nobles and the clergy, enjoyed high and important privileges, and even the third estate, or citizens, had this immunity in peculiar, that no new duties, customs, or taxes of any kind could be exacted from them save by their own consent."

The fault Sir Walter mentions was not peculiar to the middle ages, and is not less in European countries to-day than it was then. The representatives or delegates of the cities and communes constituted the third estate, and sat in the assembly of the estates as early as the reign of Philip the Fair. If the rural population were not represented in the estates, they were not forgotten. The church had received that population as either slaves or serfs. She had succeeded in completely abolishing slavery in all continental Europe before the fifteenth century, and had made much progress toward putting an end to serfage. The enslaved populations were emancipated in nearly all Catholic Europe before the Reformation, and in the early part of the seventeenth century the French courts decided that "a slave could not breathe the air of France." The maxim of the English courts was plagiarized from the French judges. There may be a question whether the European peasant has gained much since the middle ages; whether his increased wants have not more than kept pace with his increased means of supply; and as for protection, they who most need it never find it under any political régime. The most cruel and heartless landlords could not have been more cruel and heartless than are your cotton-mills and mammoth moneyed corporations, especially when Mammon was not exclusively worshipped.

But be all this as it may, this much is certain: that during the feudal ages there was, under the influence and untiring exertions of the pope and the monastic orders, a constant social amelioration of society going on, and the whole tendency of those marvellous ages, so little understood, and so foully belied, was toward the establishment in every nation of a well-ordered liberty, under the safeguard of the church, and of Christian or Christianized traditions and manners. The fifteenth century came, and brought with it not only the revival of pagan literature, but of pagan politics, which gave to the secular order a predominance over the spiritual, as we have explained in previous articles. The unhappy residence of the popes at Avignon, that "Babylonian captivity," as it has been called, and the great schism of the west, which followed it, in the fourteenth century, had served much to diminish the splendor and to weaken the political power of the papacy. This, coupled with the secular development of the age, and the pagan revival, gave a chance for Cæsarism to raise its head, and for the sovereigns to declare themselves absolute, and responsible to God alone for their exercise of power. The feudal constitution of Europe was crushed, and the pagan empire took its place. Not only the emperor and the mightiest kings, but the pettiest sovereign duke or count became a Cæsar in his own dominions.

At this moment, just as Cæsarism was on the point of winning the victory, the Reformation broke out, not in behalf of the old liberties, but to help abolish them and secure to Cæsar his triumph. So far from founding or even aiding liberty, it interrupted its progress, and gave the movement in its favor, which had from the seventh century been going on, a false and fatal direction. The originators of the Reformation may have been simply heterodox theologians; but they could not sustain themselves without the aid of the princes, and that aid could be obtained only by ministering to their love of power, and submitting to their supremacy alike in spirituals and temporals. The princes that favored the Reformation became each in his own principality absolute prince and pontifex maximus. The prince protects the reformers, and uses his civil and military power to crush their enemies, and to extirpate the old religion from his dominions. Dependent on him, and sustained only as upheld by him, the Reformation was impotent to restrain his arbitrary power. The reformed religion, like gentilism, of which it was in fact only a revival, assumed at once the character of a national religion; and the reformed church was absorbed by the state, and became one of its functions, an instrument of police, which must always be the fate of a national religion.

But the Protestant nations not only helped on Cæsarism, which was the spirit of the age, but they gave up or were despoiled of their old liberties, which they had long possessed and enjoyed under the benign protection of the church. England saw her parliament practically annulled, and the prince governing, under Henry VIII., his daughter Elizabeth, and the first two Stuarts, as a Byzantine Basileus or an oriental despot; and it cost her a century of insurrections, revolutions, and civil wars to recover some portion of the political and civil freedom of which the Reformation had despoiled her. Even the Abbé Martin seems to forget that from 1639 to 1746 England was in a state as unsettled as France has been since 1789. She has not even yet recovered all her old liberties. She has, indeed, depressed the crown to exalt the aristocracy of birth or wealth, and is now entering upon a fearful struggle between aristocracy and democracy, most likely to end either in reviving the pagan republic, or in establishing once more the absolute authority of the crown.

The author very justly maintains that Protestantism has not created liberty, and that it has arrested or falsified it. He recalls that,

"At the breaking out of Protestantism slavery had entirely disappeared, and serfage or villenage, the transition state from slavery to complete liberty, was gradually disappearing, and giving place to free labor and domestic servants. The third estate was everywhere constituted, and nowhere had it more life and vigor than in the neighborhood of the churches and monasteries. This emancipation was the work of the Catholic Church, and never had a more signal service been rendered to liberty. The basis of all liberties, I say not of modern but of Christian liberties, was laid.

"Impartial history testifies that Protestantism has not accelerated this movement in behalf of liberty, but has arrested it. A few facts, gathered at random from the immense number that might be adduced, will sufficiently prove this assertion.

"'In Denmark,' says Berthold, 'the peasant was reduced to serfage as a dog.' The nobility profited by the reform, not only to appropriate to themselves the greater part of the goods of the church, but also the free goods of the peasant.

"'The corvées,' says Allen, the best historian of Denmark, 'were arbitrarily multiplied; the peasants were treated as serfs. It happened frequently that the children of the preachers and sacristans themselves were reduced to serfage. In 1804--mark the late date--personal liberty was granted for the first time to twenty thousand families of serfs. Sweden and Norway fared no better. In Mecklenburg, the oppression of the peasants, who had no one to defend their rights since they had lost the effective and vigilant protection of the Catholic clergy, followed immediately the triumph of the Reformation. At the diet of 1607, they were declared simple tenants at will--colons--who must yield up to the landlords, on their demand, even the lands which they had possessed from time immemorial. Their personal liberty was suppressed by the ordinances of 1633, 1648, and 1654. They sought to escape from this intolerable servitude by flight. The emigration was large. But the severest punishments, the lash, the carcan, even death, could not arrest it, nor prevent the depopulation of the fields. The lot of those miserable creatures hardly differed from that of negro slaves. The only difference was, that the masters were prohibited from separating families, and selling the members to the highest bidder at public auction; but they eluded it by trading off their serfs as horses and cows. Serfage was abolished in Mecklenburg only in 1820.

"The introduction of the Reform into Pomerania gave birth there to all the horrors of slavery. The ordinance of 1616 decreed that all peasants are serfs without any rights.... The ministers were required to denounce the fugitive serf from the pulpit. People are astonished to-day at the emigration from Germany, which nearly doubles that from Ireland. May not the cause be found in that old state of things, which, though recently abolished, has left but too many traces of its existence?

"A single fact will enable us to judge of the magnitude of the evil in Prussia. Under Frederick II., the contemporary and friend of Voltaire, who labored so energetically to make of his infant kingdom an immense barrack, the soldiers themselves, the support and instrument of his power, when discharged, returned to the common lot of serfs, after having fought his battles and won his victories. They were subjected anew to their landlords; and not only they, but also their wives, their widows, and their children, even though born in a state of freedom....

"Calvinism has not produced so sad results of the same kind. Less hierarchical in its nature than Lutheranism, and having taken its rise in Geneva, a free state, it has preserved something of its original constitution. Thus it has prevailed generally in countries organized under a republican form; in France, even, it aspired to a federation. But the liberty it has found, rather than created, it turns into an odious tyranny. It has, above all, no respect for individual liberty. The system which Calvin established at Geneva was even surpassed by that of John Knox in Scotland. The ecclesiastical domination over the faithful, and the inquisition into all their doings, were frightful. Every detail of private life could be brought before the presbyterial forum; nobody could feel himself safe. Espionage and domestic accusation were the soul of the system. The secrets of the family were scrutinized and inventoried; and the terrible arm of excommunication struck without relaxation and without mercy. Woe to him who fell under its blows; for him there was no social right. Will it be believed? The Puritans of England, who, to escape oppression and death, free, and masters of a virgin territory, became only the more rigorous, and their communities in North America were even more exclusive and tyrannical than those of their brethren in Europe." (Pp. 326-330.)

The author is too lenient toward Calvinism. It had, indeed, no partiality for monarchy, and just as little for democracy. What it aimed at was an aristocracy of the saints. Only those in grace could be freemen or exercise any authority in the community. The church was composed of the saints alone; and hence, in the colony of Massachusetts, only church members could be selectmen, or magistrates, or vote in elections. Church members had equal rights indeed; but those who were not church members had no rights at all, political, civil, or individual, and no social standing. The church members themselves covenanted to watch over each other, which meant, practically, that every member was to act as a spy upon every other member; and hence that cautiousness in speech, that fear of a mouchard in every neighbor, and that obsequiousness to public opinion, which marks not a few of the descendants of the New England Puritans even to this day. The rights of man in relation to his brother man were undreamed of, and for individual liberty there was no respect whatever. The individual was subject to the congregation, ruled by the pastor and elders or deacons, themselves ruled by two or three venerable spinsters. Calvinism sought, in fact, to govern society, minus celibacy, as a monastery, by converting the evangelical counsels into inflexible laws, and without the assistance of the grace of vocation. We shall never forget the odious tyranny to which Calvinism subjected our own boyhood. Life for us was stern, gloomy, hedged round with terror. We did not dare listen to the joyous song of a bird, nor to inhale the fragrance of an opening flower. Whatever gave pleasure was to be eschewed, and the most innocent pleasures were to be accounted deadly sins. We cannot even now, in our old age, think of our own Calvinistic childhood, which was by no means exceptional, without a shudder.

Thus far the author has spoken of individual liberty, which is the most essential of all, and without which civil and political liberty is a vain mockery. He asserts and proves, as we have seen, that Protestantism has not given to individual liberty a new development, but has arrested it. Well, was it more favorable to political liberty? We have answered this question already, but we cannot forbear citing the author's own reply:

"At the epoch of the outbreak of Protestantism, Christendom was advancing with rapid strides toward the practice of the largest liberty. For centuries the Italian republics had pushed liberty almost to license. They were, no doubt, often disorderly and turbulent; but they were full of sap, overflowing with life and activity, which availed for Italy a power and a glory which she seeks in vain from a factitious unity. Switzerland, by the energy of her patriotism and the wisdom of her government, won the admiration of the whole world. Flanders and the northern provinces of Spain watched with jealous susceptibility over their proud and noble independence; England had her Magna Charta, the basis of the strong constitution which has given her security in the midst of modern political and social convulsions; the cities and communes of France and Germany administered freely their own affairs, as small republics under the guardianship, often more nominal than real, of some few suzerains. The guilds or corporations of the mechanics and tradesmen enjoyed rights the most extended. Power was nowhere despotic, and, though not restrained by scientific and uniform rules, it encountered everywhere a counterpoise to its authority and obstacles to its arbitrary will. Christian monarchy, that creation of the church, unknown in antiquity, approached maturity, and there was room to hope that it would found liberty without opening the door to license, and without having recourse to that enormous centralization which has only too often become a necessity. Catholic theology, always liberal, in the true sense of the word, inclined more to the rights of the people than to the rights of the sovereign. It knew not yet that right divine of kings as it was understood under Louis XIV., a diminutive pagan Cæsarism, which, as we shall show further on, held more strictly than is commonly believed from the principles which the Renaissance and Protestantism caused to prevail." (Pp. 330-332.)

We remark here that the Christian monarchy of which the learned abbé speaks existed in the doctrines of the theologians and in the efforts of the church, rather than in the actual order. There were Christian monarchs or sovereigns, like St. Henry of Germany, St. Ferdinand of Spain, and St. Louis of France; but there was nowhere, that we have been able to discover, a Christian monarchy. The feudal monarchy was of barbarian origin, and was a development of the chief of the tribe or clan. Side by side with this, constantly struggling with it for the mastership of society, was Græco-Roman imperialism, or briefly, Cæsarism, favored by the whole body of the legists, and always opposed by the church, though not always by churchmen become statesmen and courtiers. This pagan Cæsarism, which concentrates in the hands of the prince absolute authority in both temporals and spirituals, survived the fall of the Roman empire, and never for a moment ceased to struggle to recover the mastership; and it was it that was in question in the long struggle between the pope and the emperor. Defeated in the last of the Hohenstauffen, it revived in every petty prince in Christendom. It drove the popes from Rome into the exile of Avignon, and caused the great western schism. Still, the church was for a time able to prevent its complete success. But in 1453 came the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the dispersion of the Greek scholars through the west; and the revival of pagan politics and literature served to reinforce Cæsarism, to weaken the influence of the church, and to give birth to the Protestant Reformation--at bottom nothing more nor less than a revival of the pagan order, against which the church from her birth had struggled.

The movement of which Protestantism was one of the results dates from a period before Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, from the revival in the fifteenth century, and the successful struggle of Cæsarism against feudalism and the church. Protestantism may have prevented the development of a Christian monarchy; but it was itself a child of Cæsarism. The movement against feudalism, and for the concentration of power in the hands of the monarch, as well as for great centralized states, preceded the birth of Protestantism. Louis XI. in France, Maximilian I. in Germany, Henry VII. of England, the Cardinal Ximenes in Spain, and the de' Medici in Italy, all labored for the centralization of power, and paved the way for the revival and triumph in their respective countries of pagan Cæsarism. The Abbé Martin's statements are correct only in case we count Protestantism, under its social and political aspects, as the continuation and development of the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, or the centralization of power, and against the liberties secured by feudalism.

We are no admirers of feudalism; but we hold it better than the Græco-Roman imperialism it supplanted, or the absolute monarchy which succeeded it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of which Bossuet was a conspicuous defender. The Reformation aided the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, by bringing to its support an open rebellion against the papal authority and the faith of the church, and secured it the victory. Cæsarism followed it immediately, not only in the nations that accepted the new religion, but also, to a great extent, in the nations that remained Catholic. On the first point the author asks:

"Who does not know that Lutheranism depended solely on the princes and nobles to overcome and despoil the church, and to triumph over the resistance of the people? Through gratitude, and through necessity, it surrendered itself and the people to the discretionary authority of the princes. In all countries where it became predominant, absolute power prevailed.

"As the result of the revolution in 1661, Frederic III. of Denmark and his successors were declared absolute monarchs. The royal law of 1665 attests that the king was required to take no oath, was under no obligation whatever; but had plenary authority to do whatever he pleased. In Sweden, the violent and surreptitious establishment of Protestantism was done in the interest of royalty and nobility, and, moreover, raised up an antagonism between these two powers which produced a series of revolutions in that country unrivalled in any other European state. But royalty finally triumphed. The estates, in 1680, declared that the king is bound to no form of government. In 1682, they declared it an absurdity to pretend that he was bound by statutes and ordinances to consult, before acting, the estates; whence it follows that the will of the king was the supreme law. 'After that,' says Geijer, the classic historian of Sweden, 'all was interpreted to the advantage of the omnipotence of one alone. The estates were no longer called the estates of the realm, but the estates of his majesty. In 1693, the unlimited absolutism of royalty became the law; the king was free to govern according to his good pleasure, without any responsibility.'

"It would be too long to follow the introduction of the same régime as the consequence of the Reformation into the several states and principalities of Germany, in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, the duchies of Hanover and Brunswick, Brandenburg and Saxony. Everywhere the introduction of the new religion was followed by an augmentation of the power of the prince and nobles, and everywhere the prince finally succeeded in absorbing the power of the nobility. Prussia affords us a striking example of this result. Under the reign of the Elector Frederick William, from 1640 to 1688, the arbitrary and absolute power of the prince was developed according to a regular plan. The General Diet after 1665 ceased to be convoked. Crushing taxes were imposed without the consent and against the protests of the estates, and collected by the military; and so heavy were they, that multitudes of peasants, despoiled of their goods, were driven to brigandage for a living. A great number sought refuge in Poland, and nobles even deserted a country that devoured their children. Lands which were taxed beyond the value of their produce were abandoned, and suffered to run to waste. The country was oppressed by an unprecedented tyranny. Prussia, according to the expression of Stenzel, was in the way of becoming one of those Asiatic countries in which despotism stifles the growth of whatever is beautiful or noble." (Pp. 332-334.)

We have already spoken of the effects of the introduction of Protestantism into England and Scotland. Calvinism, the author considers, caused less grave and less durable damage to liberty; yet it was not less tyrannical by nature, only it was less monarchical. "At Geneva it confiscated all the ancient franchises to the profit of the oligarchy it established, and it was not owing to it that in Holland the stadtholder did not become absolute." Protestant historians are perfectly well aware of these facts, and from time to time they concede them; and yet the best of them continue to assert the impudent falsehood, that Protestantism has created and sustained modern liberty, individual, civil, and political--not, indeed, because it has done so, but because they think it would have been much in its favor if it had.

The other point, that Protestantism is in great measure responsible for the establishment or partial establishment of the pagan monarchy, or Cæsarism, in Catholic nations, we have shown in our previous articles on the work before us; yet we cite the following from the author:

"It is not simply in countries in which it triumphed that the Protestant Reformation has given to liberty a retrograde movement; it has reacted in a most fatal, though generally in an imperceptible, manner on Catholic governments themselves. It was, at its first appearance, a terrible temptation to the princes and sovereigns of Europe. It broke that firm independence of the Catholic clergy which had for so many ages repressed the tyrannical aspirations of secular governments; it gave up the rich spoils of the church to them, reversed their parts, and after having placed the priest, the representative of heaven, at the mercy of the powers of earth, it constituted the prince the master and director of consciences. What could be more seductive? An obstacle to overcome, almost a yoke to break, independence to conquer, vast riches to appropriate, the empire of souls to place by the side of the empire of bodies, the ideal of a power veritably sovereign; is it not the dream of every man who feels himself at the head of a nation? Princes and sovereigns yielded to the temptation. They were, besides, already prepared for it, by the received theories of legists or civil lawyers, inherited from the pagan state; by the ideas propagated by the Renaissance and by the Machiavelian lessons then taught in all the courts of Europe; and if all did not accept Protestantism, it was far less due to their personal repulsion than to the decided opposition of their people. But the new ideal of power germinated in their minds. On the other hand, the church, weakened and her very existence threatened, saw herself reduced to the necessity of relying on them for support against the armed violence of the Reformation. She must purchase their protection, and could do it only at the expense of her independence. In various places she abandoned to them the nomination of bishops and the collation of benefices, giving by this sacrifice, rigorously exacted by circumstances, and by this abandonment of her rights, which afterward proved so fatal, a sufficient satisfaction for the moment to the secret reason which inclined them to Protestantism. She loosened a prey to them, in order not to be devoured herself. Their hunger thus appeased, they consented to sustain her, but without having a common cause with her.

"Profiting adroitly by their position, the sovereigns passed rapidly from the part of defenders of the church to that of guardians and masters, and while respecting the essence of the spiritual power, they labored to subordinate the church and the exercise of her authority to the surveillance of the state. Not content with excluding all control of the church over their own acts, all interventions of the spiritual authority in civil and political affairs, they sought, after the example of the Protestant princes, to penetrate the interior of the church, and make themselves pontiffs; and if we cannot say that they completely succeeded, we cannot any more say that they wholly failed. What is certain is, that thenceforward they ceased to find any serious obstacle in the Catholic clergy or their chief to their designs, and that the legists, imbued with the maxims of the Roman law, and for a long time hostile to the church, coming to their aid, absolute royalty, without much difficulty, prevailed. The indirect influence of Protestantism was there.

"Even the Catholic clergy themselves contributed to this fatal evolution. Whether moved by gratitude, by a monarchical impulse, or, in fine, by necessity, they accepted, at least in the civil and political order, the new pretensions, and acknowledged the new rights of those sovereigns who, in espousing the Catholic religion, had saved it from the greatest danger it had as yet run. Influenced by the tendency of the times, Catholic theologians, especially in France, deserted the highways of the political theology of the middle ages, and proclaimed not only the divine origin of power, but the divine right of the king, his dependence on God alone, and the passive obedience of the people. The idea of the Christian monarchy was perverted, and in Catholic as in Protestant countries it inclined to Cæsarism. The church was the principal victim of this political transformation; she was all but smothered in the cruel embraces of Catholic monarchs, when God himself delivered her by the blow which was intended to extinguish her--the French Revolution. When that revolution broke out, the work of the Renaissance and of the Reform seemed accomplished. Except in England, Holland, and some microscopic Swiss republics, Catholic for the most part, absolutism reigned everywhere. Is it not, then, the strangest falsification of history to attribute to Protestantism the initiation of modern liberty?" (Pp. 339-341.)

Unhappily, Protestants will pay little heed to the fact that the loss of liberty in Catholic nations was due either to Protestantism or to the movement of which Protestantism was simply a development. There can be no reasonable doubt that but for Protestantism the church would have been able to check and roll back the powerful movement for the revival of Cæsarism, which had commenced in the fifteenth century, and have prevented the growth of absolute monarchy in a single Catholic state. The Protestant rebellion so weakened her external power, and detached from her so large a portion of the populations of Europe, that she was no longer able to restrain the absolutist tendencies of all European sovereigns. The sovereigns themselves, almost without exception, were inclined to the movement--were, in fact, its chief supporters; and if they did not all join it, it was because they were held back by their people, whose faith in the old religion was too strong to be given up at the pleasure of their princes, not because they had personally any devotion or attachment to her faith. The French court and most of the higher French nobility openly or secretly favored Protestantism till the conversion of Henry IV.; and even that monarch had formed a league with the Protestant princes, and was preparing for a war against the Catholic powers of Europe, at the very moment he was assassinated. His policy was adopted and carried out under his successors by Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, who repressed Protestantism in the interior, but supported it everywhere else. That France remained Catholic, was owing to the concessions made by the pope to her sovereigns, and to the firmness of the French people under the lead of the noble Guises, so calumniated by almost all modern French writers.

Yet the abbé expresses himself too strongly. The triumph of absolutism was never so complete in Catholic as in Protestant nations. In Protestant nations, the sovereigns united both the political and the spiritual powers, as under Greek and Roman gentilism, absorbed the church, and made religion a function of the state. In Catholic nations, although royalty interfered beyond measure in ecclesiastical affairs, the two powers remained distinct, and the church retained, at least in principle, her autonomy, however circumscribed and circumvented in its exercise. This is evident from the concordats she conceded to the sovereigns, and the diplomatic relations of Catholic powers with the holy see. Throughout all her humiliations, the church asserted and maintained, in principle, her independence. In all Protestant countries, the state legislated for the Protestant church; it nowhere treated with it as a separate power, and held, and could hold, no diplomatic relations with it. In all Protestant nations, the church became national and local; but in all Catholic nations she continued to be Catholic, and was always and everywhere some restraint on the absolute power of the sovereign, as both Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. learned by experience, and hence their discreditable quarrels with the holy see, and the imprisonment of the holy father by the latter. Lord Molesworth remarked in 1792, as cited by the author from Döllinger's Church and Churches, that, "in the Roman Catholic religion, with the supreme head of the church at Rome, there is a principle of opposition to unlimited political power. It is not the same with the Lutheran [he might have added the Anglican] clergy, who depend on the crown as their spiritual and temporal superior." This principle opposes the unlimited power of the people no less than of the monarch, and hence the sects all agree, now that the age tends to democratic absolutism, in opposing the church in the name of the people; for Protestantism has the same absolutist instincts always and everywhere.

The author, we think, exaggerates the adoption by the Catholic clergy, even in France, of absolutism in politics. Bossuet, who was a French courtier as well as a Catholic bishop, as tutor to the dauphin, went, no doubt, as far in asserting the divine right of kings, and passive obedience, as the Anglican divines under the Stuarts; and some of the clergy, yielding to court influence and the spirit of the age, followed him; but the noble Fénélon, in no respect his inferior as a theologian, differed from him, held, with the great body of Catholic theologians in all ages, that power is a trust for the public good, and that kings are responsible to the nation for their exercise of it. It was his anti-absolutist doctrine, not his few inaccurate expressions on the doctrine of pure love, in his Maxims of the Saints, that caused him to be stripped of his charges at court, and exiled to his diocese of Cambray. Nor is it true, as the abbé insinuates, that the pope sanctioned the absolutist doctrines which prevailed in France or elsewhere in the seventeenth century. The four articles, dictated by the government, slightly modified by Bossuet, and accepted by a small minority of the French bishops, which contain the very essence of absolutism, were no sooner published by order of the king, and commanded to be taught in all the theological seminaries, and to be conformed to by all the professors and clergy of the realm, than the pope condemned them, annulled the order of the king, and finally compelled him to withdraw it, or at least to pledge himself that he would do so. The pope never failed to assert, and, as far as he could, to cause to be respected, the rights of the church--that is to say, the rights of God, which are the only solid basis of the rights of man.

Every theologian knows that, prior to the rise of Protestantism, and even for a considerable time afterward, Catholic political theology bears no trace of the absolutism taught by Bossuet, and which he had borrowed from contemporary Protestantism. It is worthy of remark that nowhere were the first acts of the French Revolution hailed with more joy than at Rome with the pope and cardinals, and it found no warmer, firmer, or more disinterested supporters than the French clergy as a body, whose representatives were the first to join the Tiers-Etats. Afterward, when the revolution run into horrible excesses, put forth doctrines subversive of all religion, and even of society itself, assumed the right to legislate on spiritual matters, and showed that it only transferred absolutism from the king to the mob, there was undoubtedly a reaction against it in the minds of the pope and clergy, as there was in the minds of all men not incapable of profiting by experience, and who could not prefer license to orderly liberty. The salvation of religion and society made it the duty of the church to sustain with all her power the sovereigns in their efforts to repress the revolutionary spirit, and to restore and maintain social peace and order.

It is this fact, stripped of its reasons, and its real nature misunderstood or misrepresented, that has given rise to the pretence that the church opposes, while Protestantism, which is leagued, if not identical, with the revolution, favors liberty. Protestants never, that we are aware, put forth any pretence of the sort prior to 1792. Up to the moment of this reaction against the French revolution, the contrary charge had been made, and the church condemned for being hostile to the rights of sovereigns, and it was in reply to the speech of Cardinal Duperron, in the states-general in France in 1614, in favor of the rights of the nation and the church against the irresponsibility of the crown, that James I. of England wrote his Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings. History as written by Protestants is composed of disjointed facts, misplaced and misrepresented, whenever it is not pure invention.

The author is not quite exact in saying absolutism reigned everywhere at the breaking out of the French revolution, except in England, Holland, and the Swiss cantons. The United States had won their independence and adopted their federal constitution before that event, and certainly the American republic was not founded on the principle of the omnipotence of the state or of the people. It revived neither pagan imperialism nor pagan republicanism, and was in its fundamental principles more nearly a Christian republic than the world had hitherto seen.

It would seem, as the great mass of the American people were Protestants, and the more influential portion of them intensely Protestant, of the Calvinistic type, that the American republic should be held as an exception to the assertion that Protestantism resulted everywhere in the establishment of absolutism. But it is in reality no exception. It had no existence at the epoch of the Reformation, and Protestantism had no hand in founding it. It was founded by Providence, and the principles which form its basis were derived by the English colonists, not from Protestantism, but from the old constitution of England in Catholic times, and which, though suppressed by the ruling classes, never ceased to live in the traditions of the English people. The revolution in the seventeenth century in England was the struggle of the English people to recover their old rights, of which Protestant royalty and nobility had deprived them. Royalty and nobility did not emigrate; they remained at home, and there were in the Anglo-American colonies no materials from which either could be constructed. The great principle of the Puritans, that the church is independent of the state and superior to it, or that the state has no authority to legislate in religious matters, not even in non-essentials, was a Catholic principle, for which the popes, in their long struggles with the secular power, had uniformly contended. It is the vital principle of liberty; for it interposes the rights of God, represented by the church, as the limits of the rights of the state. The Puritans had asserted this principle in their own defence against the Protestant king and parliament of England, which assumed plenary authority in spirituals as well as in temporals. It was not Protestantism that developed this great principle of all just liberty, and opposed to all absolutism; it was the old Catholic principle, always and everywhere asserted by the Catholic Church.

But taking the Bible, especially the Old Testament, interpreted by a fallible authority, as their criterion of the rights of God, as represented by their Puritan church, the Puritans failed not in asserting, but in applying the principle, and established, in practice, as we have seen, a most odious tyranny. They misapplied the principle, which can be rightly applied only by the Catholic Church. Their Protestantism misled them, and perverted the truth they retained, as was universally the case with Calvinists. It is easy to see now why Protestantism deserves no credit for founding American liberty. It was not of Protestant origin, and we may add Protestantism is busy at work to destroy it, or at least shows itself impotent to sustain it.

The true basis of American liberty is in the assertion of the rights of God, represented by the church, or by religion, as bounding or limiting the power of the state, whether imperial or popular. But under Protestant influences, the rights of God are resolved into the rights of man, and the Christian republic becomes simply a humanitarian republic, which can offer no solid foundation for liberty of any sort. The rights of man are no more sacred and inviolable than the rights of the prince or the state. It is only when the rights of man are resolved into the rights of God in and over man, that they are sacred and inviolable, or inalienable. But the American people have ceased so to resolve them, if, indeed, they ever did it, and recognize no more ultimate basis for liberty than humanity itself. If, as many of them do, they insist on religion as necessary to the maintenance of liberty, it is only as an external prop or support, not as its logical basis, or root, out of which it grows, and from which it derives all its sap and vigor.

No humanitarian republic is or can be a free republic, because, though it recognizes the people as the state, and establishes universal suffrage and eligibility, it has nothing but humanity, nothing above the people, to limit or restrict their power as the state. The people are humanity in the concrete, and a humanitarian republic therefore simply transfers the absolutism from the monarch to the people, and substitutes democratic Cæsarism for monarchical Cæsarism, the pagan republic for the pagan empire. Absolutism is absolutism, whether predicated of the one or of the many. We in the United States are rapidly losing sight of the Catholic principle retained by the Puritans, and rushing into democratic absolutism; we assert the omnipotence of the will of the people, and treat constitutions as simply self-imposed restrictions, which bind no longer than the people will. Demagogues, politicians, and statesmen tell the people that their will is supreme; and vainly would he seek their suffrages who should deny it. The opposition to the extension of the church in this country grows precisely out of the well-known fact, that she does not emanate from the people, is not subject to the will of the people, and would restrict their omnipotence--an opposition that proves that she, not Protestantism, is the defender of liberty. Certainly, if she were to become predominant here, she would soon put an end to the absolutism of the state, sustained by all our leading journals, and reëstablish the Christian republic, in place of the humanitarian or pagan republic, to which we are pushed by the Protestant spirit of the age, the veritable Welt-Geist, or prince of this world, as all Protestant movements amply prove.

The abbé shows a strict alliance between contemporary Protestantism and the revolution, or revolutionary movements in all European nations. With these revolutionary movements we have the authority of the chief magistrate of the Union for saying the American people generally sympathize. We lend, at least, all our moral support to these movements wherever we see them. They owe their origin, in fact, to Protestantism; and, so far at least as they are confined to Catholic nations, are fomented and encouraged by Protestant emissaries and Protestant associations and contributions; yet these movements are, under the name of liberty, purely humanitarian, and their success would simply substitute the absolutism of the people for the absolutism of the monarch--democratic Cæsarism, or rather, demagogic Cæsarism, for imperial Cæsarism. In the sixteenth century, the sovereigns embraced or inclined to the Reformation, because it removed the restraints that the church imposed on their absolute power and arbitrary will; demagogues and revolutionists in the nineteenth century glorify it, because it removes all restrictions on the will of the people as the state. In each case the church is opposed to it, and for the same reason, because she asserts the rights of God as the basis of the rights of man; and, as their divinely constituted guardian and representative, interposes them as a limit to the absolute power of the state, whether monarchical or democratic, the only security possible for the reign of justice, of just laws, and therefore of real liberty, individual, civil, and political.

There is no doubt that Protestantism, since the culmination of monarchical absolutism in the seventeenth century, has agitated for the revival of what it calls liberty, but what we call the humanitarian or pagan republic. The people moved by it have, no doubt, supposed they were marching toward real liberty; but they have nowhere gained it, and have only removed the day of its acquisition. Under its influence we have smothered the principle of liberty, and lost most of the guarantees which Providence gave us in the outset. We have lost not only the principle of liberty, but also its correlative, the principle of authority; and have no basis for either freedom or government, for the basis of neither can be found in humanity. Great Britain, to a certain extent, has popularized her administration; but through all her changes of dynasties and constitutions, she has never ceased to assert the omnipotence of the state as the state, supreme in spirituals as in temporals. On the continent, the revolution, attempted in the name of humanity, has nowhere founded liberty. Its momentary success in France from 1792 to 1795, inclusive, is universally recognized as the Reign of Terror, when religion was suppressed and virtue was punished as a crime. France, after a century of revolutions, is not as free to-day as she was even under her old monarchical institutions. The French are just now trying anew the experiment of parliamentary government which the Anglo-maniacs consider only as another name for liberty; but whether the experiment succeeds or fails, liberty will gain nothing; for the parliamentary government is as absolute as the personal government of Napoleon III., and most likely will have even less regard for the rights of God. The one no more than the other will recognize the spiritual power as a restriction on the power of the temporal.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the spirit of the age was for the revival of pagan imperialism; the spirit of the age is now, and has been since the middle of the last century, the pagan republic; but there is just as little liberty under the one as under the other, or, if any difference, there is less under pagan republicanism than under pagan imperialism; for the Roman empire was really an improvement on the Roman republic. Under the one the monarch is the state; under the other the people or the ruling classes are the state; and under both the state is alike supreme, and acknowledges no limit to its power. The republican party is now, here and in all Europe, as hostile to the church as were the sovereigns in the sixteenth century, and for the same reason. The party knows perfectly well that it is impossible for her to approve any form of absolutism in the state. Having decided that the humanitarian republic it seeks to establish, and to which the spirit of the age tends, is liberty, it holds, and public opinion sustains it, that its success depends on sweeping her away, and destroying all religion that does not emanate from the people, or that claims to be a power independent of the state, and authorized to declare the law for the people instead of receiving it from them. Because she resists the madmen of this party, and seeks to save herself and society, they denounce her as opposed to liberty, as the upholder of despots and despotism, as at war with the spirit of the age, and the bitter enemy of modern civilization. "If," said the accusers of our Lord to the Roman procurator, "thou lettest this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." "If," said the reformers in the sixteenth century, "thou sparest the pope or the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the king;" "if," say their children in this nineteenth century, "thou upholdest the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the sovereign people, and false to liberty;" and the nineteenth century believeth them. We disbelieve them, and believe the Lord, who hath bought us with his own precious blood and made us free.

These madmen are animated and carried away by the spirit of the age, and suppose all the time that they are battling for liberty against its most dangerous enemies. They carry the people with them, and induce them to crucify their God as a malefactor. What is to restrain them? The strong arm of power? That were only to establish the reign of force. Reason? What can reason do with madmen, or against the multitude blinded by false lights and moved onward by an unreasoning passion? The intelligence of the age? Are they not carried away by the age, and is it not from the very madness of the age that they need to be saved? When the very light in the age is darkness, how great must be its darkness! It is only a power that draws its light from a source of light above the light of the age, and acts with a wisdom and strength that is above the people, above the world, that can restrain them and convert them into freemen.

If there is any truth in history, or any reliance to be placed on the inductions of reason, the author has amply proved, in opposition to the pretensions of Protestants and revolutionists, that society under the direction and influences of the Catholic Church marches steadily toward a true and regular liberty--a liberty which is grounded in the rights of God, and therefore secures the rights of man. He has also proved conclusively, as experience itself proves, that just in proportion as the influence of the church in society is weakened, liberty disappears, and absolutism, either of king or people, advances. He has shown that the Reformation, instead of founding or aiding liberty, has interrupted it, and prevented the development of the germs of free institutions deposited in society during the much-maligned and little-understood middle ages. Protestantism, even when, as in our own time, professing to labor for liberty, only falsifies it, and interposes insurmountable obstacles to its realization. Protestantism--and we have studied it both as a Protestant and as a Catholic--is made up of false pretences; is, as Carlyle would say, an unveracity, and loses not only the eternal world, but also this present world. The Divine Thought after which the universe is created and governed is one and catholic, and the law by which we gain our final end is one and holy; and without obedience to it there is no good possible, here or hereafter, either for society or for the individual. The present can have its fulfilment only in the future, and the temporal has its origin, medium, and end only in the spiritual, and finds its true support as its true law only in the one eternal law of God, the universal Lawgiver, declared and applied by the one Holy Catholic Church, which he himself has instituted for that purpose, and which is his body, which he animates, and in which he dwells, teaches, and governs.

It remains for us to consider the respective relations of Protestantism and Catholicity to religious liberty, or the freedom of conscience.

FOOTNOTE:

[176] De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme. Par M. l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

VI.

George Holston was wandering thoughtfully back and forward in his writing-room, in a listless way, unusual in a man of his active temperament. An ardent sight-seer, a student of the politics of all countries, a visitor of every kind of institution for the amelioration of every kind of difficulty he gave little time to lounging. Pausing at last before one of the windows looking out on the garden, his attention became fixed, and an expression at once of displeasure and of amusement came over his face.

Under the tree sat Lady Sackvil, half reclining on a garden chair; before her stood Vane, answering her indifferent words with eager interest, his expressive face full of enthusiasm. Whatever his arguments were, they took effect, to judge by the change which gradually mastered her; rousing her from the careless posture to one of attention, drawing her eyes from the flower she had been idly pulling to pieces, to meet his earnest gaze. Whatever the question might be, he had conquered, and was gazing at her beautiful upturned face with a look of enchantment.

"Confound it!" muttered George. "What would I give to banish her to the coast of Guinea this very moment! Enough to evangelize the natives, if money would do it." He resumed his desultory walk and his meditations. "That idiot is going to destruction for the lack of something to do. No more in love with her than I am; just idleness and a love of excitement."

Going to his desk, he took out a letter written in copying-ink, and bearing date of three weeks back.

"I've scotched the snake, at least, with this," he said aloud, and sat down to a re-perusal of the epistle. It was as follows:

"DEAR EVANS: I see by the newspapers that three officers of the U. S. A. have been appointed to visit the Crimea, and study the position and progress of affairs in the French and English armies. You will oblige me extremely by going to General Scott, on receipt of this, and asking him, in my name, to obtain a fourth appointment in the person of Captain Vane, of the --th Cavalry, U. S. A., subject to Vane's approval. For several reasons, too long to explain, I do not mention this plan to him before writing; but I have no doubt that he will jump at the proposal when it comes. The general and the secretary of war will need no explanations. They know that Vane has been on the sick-list for wounds received in frontier service, and they are much interested in him and his family; therefore no apologies are necessary for making the proposal.

"Vane is a constant and serious student of military matters, and no man is more likely than he to make a good use of such an opportunity.

"If objections are made on the grounds of extra pay, you may say that no such increase is necessary, as Captain Vane has a large private fortune.

"Hoping soon to have a chance to reciprocate the kindness I ask of you, my dear Evans, I am

"Yours always truly,

"GEORGE HOLSTON."

George put away the letter and went to the window.

"If I had asked his leave before doing this, he would have been too weak to grant it, hampered as he is by this renewal of old associations. By the time the appointment gets here, he will be thankful to find some way of escape from his own folly open to him. A fool he is--a traitor he is not."

Then, casting a glance out of the window, as he passed before it to take down a volume from a bookcase, he said softly, "Poor Mary! the truest, noblest woman that ever married an idiot!"

George Holston might well say "poor Mary!" He had not been the only witness of the interview in the garden. This was the day of Mrs. Vane's first visit to the primo piano since her illness. She had come in a young mother's glory, bringing little Georgina in her christening dress to see her godmother. While Mrs. Holston was tending the baby, Mary stood at the window, playing with a curtain-tassel and watching her husband and Lady Sackvil. She saw him give Amelia the oleander she pulled to pieces, saw her grow eager and interested as he talked to her, stood transfixed to see the intensity with which he followed up his advantage; and then, suddenly recollecting herself, turned away, thinking bitterly, "I will not spy upon him."

"What is the matter, dear?" asked Mrs. Holston anxiously. "You were looking so well when you came in, and now you are as white as a handkerchief. Are you faint? Debby, ring the bell, and I will send for some wine."

"Oh! please not," said Mary, putting her hand to her head. "I'm well enough, only so very tired. This is my first visit, you know," she added, laughing faintly, "and the excitement is too much for me. I will leave the baby with you, and nurse can bring her to me when you are tired of her. No, don't come, Debby; I shall be better for resting a little while."

And lying quietly on the couch in her own room, the bitter conviction came to her, that what she had seen that day stung her so deeply only because it confirmed doubts crushed out of sight. Doubts? Certainty it was now, that she was no longer her husband's chosen companion. Startled by his anger when her first groundless jealousy betrayed itself on the day of Lady Sackvil's arrival, she had smothered every succeeding pang. Her uneasiness had come from no lack of kindness on her husband's part. He had been, if possible, more attentive during her illness than she had expected. But to her, who had been his exclusive confidant, the one chosen sympathizer in all hopes and projects, the charm had gone. It was evident that he needed more excitement than her companionship afforded, that he came to her from a sense of duty, not for pleasure. She had been too loyal to question or doubt until this afternoon, when an accident had given the proofs she would have refused to seek. Now she was too clear-sighted to withhold belief. Lady Sackvil stood between her and her husband.

She was too completely stunned, too grieved and wounded, to look beyond the present shock, to question the hopelessness of her situation. Above the couch hung an ivory crucifix yellow with age. Nicholas had found it in some curiosity-shop near the Rialto, and brought it to her. She took it down and looked at it, not only reverently but curiously, wondering whose agony it had soothed; if ever any one had pressed it to a heart so wronged and tortured as hers; if it were yellowed by the tears shed upon it, as well as by age. "You will be yellow as gold before my eyes have cried themselves out," she thought, and longed for the relief of tears. Her thoughts were so thick, so hopelessly thick and inextricable! Afraid of revealing her sufferings if she should go to dinner, she went to bed with a furious headache. The baby, sharing its mother's discomposure, wept and wailed, as babies always do when quiet is most desirable. Nicholas dined alone, spent an hour in his wife's room in the kindest manner, putting cold water on her head, and ice to her heart at the same moment. At last, believing her to be asleep, he went down to spend the evening with the Holstons; leaving her to be regaled with distant sounds of playing and singing, and to be racked by the conviction that a trial had fallen upon her with which she was utterly incapable of coping.

A night-light burned in the corner of the room, giving a faint suggestion of surrounding objects. Through the half-open nursery-door came the sound of Deborah lulling the baby to sleep with old songs and moral axioms. There was something soothing in the half-light and subdued tones which tended to restore the quivering nerves to their balance. Mary sat up in bed and tried to collect her ideas. What was the first thing to be done? The exact reverse of what she had done that evening, at all events. She had made the baby fretful, and driven Nicholas into the very temptation she most dreaded for him.

The first and immediate step to be taken was to conquer the nervous prostration which bound her. All was now quiet in the nursery. She rang her hand-bell softly, bringing Deborah to the nursery-door with the inseparable roll of violet-perfumed flannel in her arms.

"Put baby down by me, nurse, and give me some valerian; there's a good soul."

Then she lay down to contemplate the baby and let the sedative work. Her thoughts turned to a few words of fatherly advice from her old friend, Padre Giulio, when she had mentioned with bitter self-upbraiding in confession, two months before, her momentary paroxysm of jealousy. "In five cases out of ten," he had said, "an injured wife holds her fate in her own hands. She must prove to her husband that she is better worth loving than any other woman in the world. She should speak of her wrongs to no one if she can possibly bear them in silence. Each confidant of these delicate matters may become a new obstacle to reconciliation. Loyalty is most important between married persons. So much for jealous wives, my daughter; and God grant that you may never have occasion to remember what I have said!" And now the occasion had come!

"O God!" she prayed, "make me very lovely in his eyes. I don't ask it for vanity's sake, but for his honor and mine. I thank you, from the depths of my heart, that it is best for him and for me, and for your divine glory, that he should love me more than any other creature. But accomplish this, dear Lord, by making him love you best of all." Then she fell asleep, lulled by the soft breathing of the sleeping infant.

She was waked by hearing Nicholas come gently into the room.

"I am sorry I roused you," he said. "But I longed to know if you were relieved."

"I am much better," she answered cordially. "Thank you for coming to inquire. Have you had a pleasant evening?"

"Quite pleasant," he replied absently. "Did the piano disturb you?"

"Only just at first. I got through the evening very comfortably, and expect to be bright and well by to-morrow. Kiss me, darling."

"Good night, Mary. God bless you!"

When he had left her, she took the ancient crucifix again in her hands, and kissed the five wounds silently. There is no better prayer. It is the prayer of conquered self; the acceptance of our sufferings in union with those of Christ.

"I must get well and be his second guardian angel," she said.

Vane spent half the night in studying and reading. Once he said out loud, "God help me through it!" Then came the thought, "How dare I ask for help, when I myself have sought temptation? Oh! if Mary would only get well and be my better self once more. What did she say once about the inefficacy of vicarious goodness?"

VII.

"May I come in?" asked Mary at the door of Lady Sackvil's music-room.

"By all means. I am going to play something for George and Flossy that will fascinate your maternal fancy." And with the little boy and girl on either side, she played the Scenes from Childhood, with little paraphrases of explanation full of merriment or pathos, as the case might be. The children were bewitched. Mary looked at her lovely face, her tasteful dress, her graceful though rather large hands, moving on the piano as in a native element; she listened to her exquisitely sympathetic playing, to her charming talk with the children, and a sense of despair came over her.

"How can I win him back?" she thought. "O God! it is so hard to bear, just because I am not handsome or clever. Surely my love, my fidelity must be more beautiful than her beauty, if he could only see clearly. It is useless for me to compete with this exquisite creature on any natural grounds. And yet, how strange it all is! I don't suppose he is the most attractive man in existence; and yet, it would no more occur to me to measure him with other men than if he were an archangel."

Lady Sackvil was singing now--little songs for children, by Taubert, cradle songs, and Volkslieder. George and Flossy were twins, and this was their birthday. "Aunt Milly" was as much bent on fascinating her juvenile audience as any prima donna in a royal theatre. She had not much voice; but her singing had the same sympathetic quality which made her playing delight every one, learned or unlearned. Those who were incapable of appreciating her sound musical training, her clever interpretation of the best compositions, her freedom from mannerism, whether pedantry or sentimentality, could derive pleasure from her delicious touch and the indefinable grace of her playing.

After a while Mrs. Holston and Captain Vane joined the audience. Mary glanced involuntarily at Lady Sackvil, and saw a rosy flush suffuse cheek and brow and neck. She passed on from song to song without leaving the piano; but she was singing for grown people now, and the children felt it. Mary made a sign to them to come to her, and gave them the presents she had prepared for the great day so long anticipated. Mere trifles they were--a suit of doll's furs for Flossy, a box of colored crayons for George--but it was quite enough to restore the birthday equanimity.

Vane had noticed the little scene, and Mary saw his eyes rest upon her with a tenderness she had missed for many weeks. When Lady Sackvil stopped singing, he rose rather abruptly and returned her greeting with a certain coldness. Then turning to his wife, he said, "I have been looking for you everywhere. Can you come up-stairs with me now?"

Mary was nearer happiness than she had thought to be again. At least he was trying to do right.

VIII.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

I wonder what sin is? Some people would say I ought to know; but I do not. We are born with inclinations, affections, passions which disappear or develop according to circumstances. We are not to be praised if they disappear; we are not to be blamed if they develop. Religionists make sins and virtues to suit themselves, and form thereon a moral code. If they really believe in a merciful, thoughtful Creator, a tender Redeemer, who has lived to exemplify these virtues and died to atone for these sins, of course they do right to bow to his will. I do not believe there is a God who interests himself in our virtues or vices, so-called. I know that I myself am the creature of necessity, and I mean to prove this for my own satisfaction by a review of my career.

I was educated by my poor Aunt Louisa, who taught me to call myself a Catholic and behave like a pagan. Was that my fault? She never, to my knowledge, acted from a disinterested motive. She never taught me to obey any thing but my own will--except hers, when our wills crossed. This was very seldom; for we, both of us, wanted simply the greatest amount of worldly enjoyment that was to be had, for asking, in my case, and scheming, in hers. Was that my fault? I loved Nicholas Vane, who was a tyrant. Just when his tyranny weighed too heavily to be borne, Lord Sackvil appeared. He suited me. His position corresponded to the dreams my aunt had nursed in me from childhood. Circumstances conquered me. Vane accused me of flirting, and broke off our private engagement. Aunt Louisa besought me to accept an offer which would realize her fondest hopes for me. I yielded, and married Sackvil, and never dreamed of regretting the step. He was the kindest and most indulgent of husbands, and sympathized with all my tastes. But here again any religious tendencies I might have had remained unnourished. Educated a Catholic, he never practised his religion. People think me obstinate; on the contrary, I am led completely by others--when it suits me. What of that? How could it be otherwise, with my training? I am the victim of circumstances. As I had no children, Sackvil House passed to a distant relation of my husband. I was left singularly alone in the world. My one near relative living in Venice, I naturally came to her, after leading a wandering life in Germany for two years. Who should be living in the same house and on terms of closest intimacy with my sister's family but Captain Vane? Was that my fault? I did not know the fact. Flora knows nothing of our engagement; indeed, no one knew of it except Aunt Louisa, and, probably, George Holston. I fully intended to cultivate Mrs. Vane intimately. In the first place, however, she is not inclined to intimacy. Though very young, she has a reserve and independence of character which would make friendship a matter of slow growth with her. In the second place, she has been ill or ailing ever since I came here. Is that my fault? Is it my fault that at thirty I am prettier than ever before in my life; that I have a trick of fascinating people; that I play and sing like--like--like a fallen angel? This is conceit, or pride, or vanity, I suppose. No, it is not. It is a recognition of facts. If I were ugly or unattractive, I should recognize the fact and poison myself. Is it my fault that Vane is morally weak, as the term goes? That is to say, that his personal wishes weigh more heavily upon him than the force of tradition? Is it my fault that, with the energy, the ambition, and the intellectual tastes of a man, I am bound by worldly maxims within limits which restrict all growth except spiritual growth?

I wonder what would make a Christian of me? This one experience--hypothetical, of course: the sight, the close, intimate perception of a purely disinterested soul; of one who, tested in the sorest manner, should act according to principles formed in a time of peace and security. I am a pagan from having seen people behave like pagans, no matter what they professed. The antidote must be adapted to the poison. Is a cure to be desired? I imagine not. A Christian life would entail great discomfort; for be it known that if ever I am a Christian I will be a genuine one. My difficulties are not metaphysical. I could just as easily believe one thing as another; indeed, the more the better, if there is any believing to be done. I am inclined to suppose that the Catholic Church will have the honor to reclaim me, if ever I am reclaimed. It is the oldest, widest, strongest, and it demands more of its adherents than any other church. Besides, if ever I find my disinterested Christian, it will probably be in the Catholic Church--a soul bred upon works of supererogation and a thirst after perfection.

IX.

Mary was reading in her morning room when Lady Sackvil was announced. "Ask her to come in here," she said with her lips; and in her heart prayed, "Help me to do and say the right thing."

Lady Sackvil came in very softly, seeing the little basket-cradle with drawn curtains beside the mother's chair, and said in a low tone, "Thank you very much for admitting me to your own room."

"We need not speak low," Mary said; "poor little Georgina has had to learn to sleep under all circumstances. I knew it was useless to try to make Captain Vane whisper, and I wanted him to come here freely when the child was with me; so I have made her a philosopher early in life, superior to outward influences."

"She will be the first person that ever was superior to circumstances, I fancy," remarked Lady Sackvil; and added after a moment's pause, "my belief is, that our characters are completely controlled by outward influences. They have regulated mine, I know."

Mary took up a stole she was embroidering in bullion, and arranged the sewing materials accurately before answering. Amelia's mere presence irritated her, and the off-hand manner in which her ladyship settled questions aroused in her a spirit of opposition. It was in an unruffled tone, however, that she answered, "Of course they have a great deal to do with the formation of character; but not every thing. I used to hear a good deal of talk on the subject in my father's library. An intimate friend of his was a necessitarian--that's the term, is it not?--and used to bring forward many clever arguments in support of his theory."

"And convinced you?" asked Amelia with interest.

"Not at all. He worried me a good deal at first. I remember that he generally chose Sunday evenings for the discussion, and Sunday evening has ever since been uncomfortably associated in my mind with necessity and free-will."

"I cannot fancy on what grounds his opinion could be combated," said Lady Sackvil.

"Neither did I at first. It is easier to argue in favor of necessity than of free-will. The theory rests upon tangible facts, evident even to superficial observers. The truth rests largely upon supernatural facts, too subtle to be fully appreciated except through personal experience."

"May I ask how you satisfied yourself?" asked Amelia with the faintest shade of contempt in her voice. She was feeling "out of sorts," and controversy suited the mood of the moment better than ordinary conversation.

Mary renewed the gold thread in her needle and the patience in her soul, and then answered, "By reading the lives of the saints, and especially of holy penitents. I became satisfied that even if ordinary souls are controlled by circumstances, (though even that point I did not concede,) the development of the saints has often been not only independent of circumstances, but inconsistent with them. Women, enslaved by vanity or passion, breaking through every bond and trampling on temptation to embrace a life of penance at which flesh trembles! Men, enthralled by false philosophy, becoming little children in faith and simplicity! I knew that this could not be the result of circumstances. Then carrying the investigation into my own moral experience, I found that even I could be noble under the same circumstances where I had been petty. I do not attempt to speak philosophically. I argue from practical facts."

"If I placed much faith in the lives of saints, perhaps we might think alike," answered Amelia; "but most of them are quite mythical, no doubt."

"The lives of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and many more are as well authenticated as the Norman conquest," Mary said; "and those whose careers are most mysterious experienced nothing which is incomprehensible to any one who studies interior life, and knows the capacities of his own soul for receiving supernatural graces."

"The capacities of my soul are extremely limited, I think," replied Lady Sackvil. "Like you, I found my impressions on practical facts, not on metaphysics; so that our argument is at an end, I suppose."

"Apparently," said Mary good-humoredly. "I've not heard the piano lately. Why is that?"

"I am tired to death of playing," said Lady Sackvil; "at times it is an unutterable bore. For a composer it is, of course, different. The exercise of the creative faculty must be simply rapture; but mere interpretation palls frightfully at times."

"Is there no new music to interest you?"

"Very seldom. I am familiar with the whole range of musical literature. Don't look at me as if I were a wonder. It's no great thing for a well-trained musician to say. Musical literature, as compared with the world of books, is very limited. The present age is idle and unproductive; and so there come times when I shut the piano and feel that my 'occupation's gone.'"

She rose, and going gently to the cradle, knelt down beside it to watch the sleeping child. A tenderness came over her face, before so full of weariness and pain.

"I would have been a different woman if I had been a mother," she said, looking up at Mary with tears in her eyes. "Love of children and vanity are the only traits I have," she added, smiling sadly.

Mary made no answer, but looked at the tossed, selfish, whimsical being before her with an interest she had not felt hitherto.

"Isn't it heavenly sweet to have a child?" asked Amelia; "to hold that creature close to you, and feel that it is your own as your heart is your own?"

"Yes, it is heavenly sweet," answered Mary, bending over the baby, who just then opened her violet eyes. The mother took the little creature into her arms and kissed her softly. "It is heavenly sweet," she repeated.

Lady Sackvil drew down her veil and rose to go. "Good-by," she said huskily. "Don't think that I usually make such eccentric morning calls." And was gone before Mary could ring for a servant to open the door.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CHURCH MUSIC.

III.

We have one question to ask of such of our readers who have taken the trouble to read our former articles on the subject of church music. Is it not a false tradition that the music in our churches exhibits the character of a musical concert performed during Mass, or replacing the office of Vespers? One thing is certain--it is a Protestant tradition, an Anglo-Saxon Protestant tradition. Although we owe the "classical masses" chiefly to German and Italian composers, the style of the performance, the matériel of the choir, and the choir-gallery are the offspring of the "chapel" and the "conventicle." It has doubtless been observed that we have been arguing for a twofold reform in this matter: firstly, in the music, and secondly, in its performance. We use the word reform in its proper sense, and desire by our remarks to call our brethren back to the old paths of the Holy Church, not to introduce some new fashion in doctrine or devotion. We would renovate, not innovate. We have been too long deprived of that spiritual food which is so abundantly supplied by the sacred offices of the Church. Protestantism has given us nothing but husks to eat, and we confess to being hungry. By the defection of England and the greater part of Germany, we were robbed of our holy sanctuaries, and in our poverty have been forced to content ourselves with buildings to which, indeed, we give the name of churches, but which are nothing better than convenient shelters for an altar crowded to its very steps by the people. The new-fangled doctrine drove out our monks, and perverted the devout clerics who once filled the stalls of real choirs, and whose duty and glory it was to sing the divine office. When the novel worship that replaced the Holy Sacrifice built new tabernacles for its meagre and unmeaning rites, it invented the singing-gallery and the modern choir, all-sufficing, we acknowledge, for the Anglican "common prayer," and "worship" after the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and other such modes, but wholly out of place in a Catholic church, and totally inadequate for the holy offices of our religion.

Surely there is no one who will not heartily agree with us that we need a thorough reform, in this respect, in our church architecture. We build chapels, but not churches. The place for the altar is in the Choir, an inclosure specially set apart for the sacred ministers and the singers, who at the public functions form one officiating body. We have followed the example of Protestants, and made use of the pencil of the Protestant architect; and the result is, that if the gates of hell ever incited another "glorious reformation," like that of the sixteenth century, the new reformers would have the advantage over the first in finding churches not only ready made, but admirably adapted to their requirements, the change of altar into pulpit, should the new doctrine need such an appurtenance in its meeting-houses, being a matter of small expense. They would not be put to their wits to know what to do with our choirs "of mysterious depth," as of yore, but would find an appropriate gallery for their hired singers, already fitted up, with its abominable rood-screen of green curtains over the doorways. We have heard our holy rites and ceremonies nicknamed as the "rags of popery." What has Protestantism done but to rend the "rags" into tatters?

Nor are we ready to admit the poverty of our resources as a full justification of our imitation of Protestant service in the style of our sacred music and its performance. Throughout the continent of Europe, where Protestant influences have not been at work, there are countless country churches of small size, but not one is without its sanctuary choir; and the people would as soon think of putting their robed priests into dress-coat and pantaloons as of banishing their surpliced chanters from the sanctuary, and erecting a choir-gallery behind their backs. We bring no railing accusation. We deprecate that style of argument which is successful only in provoking opposition; but are endeavoring, with no end in view save the glory of God and the honor of religion, to put in a plain light the causes of our departure from the common authorized usages of the church; usages to which the want of conformity will always be the measure of the loss of faith and devotion.

Our controversialists have been arguing against the false doctrines of Protestantism, and have done their work in a masterly and effective manner. If ever there was a dead doctrine awaiting burial, it is Protestantism. Now let us turn our attention to its false traditions, possessing more vitality because they have obtained a sort of parasitical subsistence through our partial admission of their encroachments. We mean that the "choir-gallery" is, both in its entity and object, a parasite of Protestant tradition clinging to our holy temples, disfiguring their fair proportions and spiritually cramping the growth of liturgical devotion, destroying its charm, and stifling its inspirations.

We propose to get rid of this piece of uncatholic tradition; to locate the singers in the place prescribed by the ritual, and abolish the musical concert. We desire to see the distinct decrees of the Church carried out to the letter, which require the divine office to be sung, as well as the Mass to be said, in the sanctuary, before the people, and not behind them. We have already alluded to the efforts made in England to bring this matter into perfect conformity with the ritual. His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster has forbidden any new church to be opened unless there is provision made for a sanctuary choir; and the cardinal vicar, in his instruction of November 18th, 1856, after administering a severe reprimand for the want of observance of regulations made in former instructions, prescribes, among other things, that galleries for singers shall not be placed over the doors of churches. Evidently the good cardinal has not only studied rubrics, but the science of acoustics as well. An elevated gallery near the ceiling is a wretched place for singers, and not much better for an organ. Ask any organ-builder whether he would not much prefer placing his instrument on the floor of the church, to hiding it away in some loft or second-story alcove in a tower. The impropriety is so glaring, and the arrangement is at once so incongruous and unartistic, that we deem further discussion on this point useless. The able writer in The Dublin Review, whom we have already quoted, very pertinently remarks:

"In this respect we have been equally out of harmony with ecclesiastical tradition and practice; and if we are to save ourselves from disappointment with our choristers, we must make up our minds to give them the advantage of all the sacred associations which that system provides. In other words, we must substitute a proper choral arrangement in connection with the sanctuary for that now prevailing, and with which so many abuses are unhappily connected. There need, we think, be no practical difficulty about this, and we would suggest it as a matter worthy of serious consideration by our clergy and Catholic architects who are about to build or restore churches. The time is surely gone by for the stereotyped plan of an east end with an altar under a large window, flanked by a smaller altar on either side, involving, besides other inconveniences, the impossibility of making any provision for the proper choral arrangements. Several instances might be adduced of churches recently erected in which the beautiful and convenient feature of side altars has been introduced, thus allowing the choir to occupy their proper place--the organ, of course, being placed at the side, and ample space being still left for the sanctuary proper. We should say that, even in cases where boys cannot be at once procured for the choir, it is very unadvisable to plan a building in such a way as to preclude a proper arrangement afterward."

Have we any objections to urge against coming into harmony with ecclesiastical tradition and practice in this matter? A friend at our side urges one, doubtless in the mind of many of our readers: Then you would banish all female voices from our choirs?

We will allow a much better authority than ourselves to answer for us. The following extract is from a decree of the Provincial Synod of Holland, held at Utrecht, and highly commended by the Holy Father:

"In the same way as the object of church music is quite frustrated when it is of such a character as only to gratify the ears with vain pleasures, so, too, the dignity of divine worship is not preserved unless the singers also are such as to beseem the church. Women's voices are not admitted by ecclesiastical usage into the choir of singers, since the rules of divine worship and the dignity of ecclesiastical music evidently require their exclusion. For in the same way as they are withheld from all share in the ministry of the holy liturgy, so also every thing effeminate ought to be quite excluded from church singing; and hence the presence of women in an ecclesiastical choir is opposed to the very sense of the faithful. Therefore, we decree and order that women be altogether excluded from the choir of singers, unless in the churches or chapels of nuns. And if hereafter, in violation of this injunction of this Provincial Synod, women be employed in any church as singers or organists, let the rectors of those churches be aware that they will have to render a most strict account to the ordinary for such an infraction of the law." (Syn. Prov. Ultrajectan., tit. 5, cap. 6.)

And again:

"The tradition of the church in excluding women from choirs is so universal and inflexible that it is not easy to understand how it should have been so widely forgotten in this country. I can only conceive that the confusion of all things under the penal laws, the shattered and informal state of the church in England after its emancipation, our poverty, not only of money, but of culture to do better; and, finally, the force of custom in rendering us insensible to many anomalies, have been the real causes of our ever admitting, and of our so long passively tolerating, so visible a deviation from the tradition and mind of the Church. It is strange that you should have to argue a case which the Church has decided." (Letter of Archbishop Manning to Canon Oakeley.)

The argument of the very reverend canon, to which his grace alludes, contains much that would interest our readers, but our space does not permit us to give it entire. We cannot refrain, however, from making a short quotation:

"That a choir of male voices is actually that provision for the solemn celebration of divine worship which the Church contemplates, to the exclusion of every other, is, I think, a fact which cannot reasonably be disputed. The Church no more recognizes female choristers than female sacristans, though she may tolerate either in case of necessity. The single exception to the rule is in convents, for obvious reasons. According to the ancient arrangement of churches, the choir is immediately connected with the sanctuary; and those who take part in it are most appropriately habited as clerics. The circumstances of modern times have led to some deviation from this practice, so far as it depends upon the architectural arrangements of our churches; but even where the choir is detached from the sanctuary, the ancient and universal rule of the Church which excludes females (probably in accordance with apostolical tradition) from taking, any active and ministerial part in divine worship, is still rigidly observed. Not only in Rome, but in countries which retain certain national peculiarities in the sacred administration of the Church, such as France and Belgium, the practice of employing females in the musical department of divine worship is, I believe, unknown. It is almost entirely confined to those countries, such as Great Britain, parts of Germany, and the United States of America, in which Protestantism prevails and produces a certain impression on the outward aspect even of the Church herself. In our own country the type of the ancient worship, which has been innovated on among ourselves, is preserved in the national cathedrals, in which the large endowments derived from Catholic munificence enable the present usurpers to represent the true ecclesiastical form of the choral service with a facility which is denied to those to whom it belongs by undisputed inheritance. Meanwhile, this type had till recently suffered considerable decay among ourselves. Dethroned from our rightful position, we had in this, as in other far more important respects, fallen in with the ways of the sects around us. But the revival of the ecclesiastical spirit which has come in with the events of the last few years, has brought home to us some of the anomalies which had grown up in the day of our depression, while increased communication with the continent has tended to bring our external worship into more and more of union with general practice. It is hardly necessary to observe that the admission of females into the church choir is absolutely fatal to the retention of the proper cathedral type of worship, while in parish churches it is sometimes productive of obvious evils, and even in the best regulated administrations is adverse to the spirit which should animate every part of divine worship, and especially one so intimately connected with its dignified celebration as that of the choir."

It will be observed that our judgment about the influences of Protestant tradition upon our church music has not been made unadvisedly.

In Germany, female singers were introduced into the churches for no better reason, that we can discover, than to exhibit the musical talent of its great masters. These compositions were not written to supply any want for such music felt in the churches, but at the instance and under the patronage of nobles and princes, who vied with each other in giving grand sacred musical feasts in their private chapels, as gourmands pride themselves on giving costly and recherché dinners to show off the science of their chef de cuisine. If we imagine that these musical masses were gotten up to excite greater devotion in the gay and worldly courtiers, we are much mistaken. It was, in fact, a nice little bit of cheap luxury, it being less expensive to keep a private chapel and entertain a private chaplain, than to support an opera-house with its company of artists, scene-shifters, and hangers-on.

Composers themselves have sought to obtain at least a general permission for the singing of their masses from the ecclesiastical authorities, but have invariably been met with a polite expression of regret that such application had been presented, as it was entirely out of the power, etc., etc. Rossini petitioned the present pope for permission to include females in church choirs, but of course without success. The report of his own funeral obsequies shows that more thought was given to enjoy a rare musical entertainment than to pray for his soul:

"The church bore the appearance of a concert-room or theatre. People came in with their hats on, talking and laughing. After each piece of music was sung, their bravos were barely restrained, and more than once applauding cries seemed about to break forth. The majority of the congregation, forgetting both the altar and the corpse of the deceased, turned their faces toward the tribune of the singers, talking in a loud voice, and using their opera-glasses; and this at the very moment of the elevation, when the soldiers who served as a guard of honor, at the command of their officer, were falling on their knees. This scandal was deplored not only by religious persons, but even by the true friends of art, because it served once more to prove that such musical solemnities, in this age and in this country, are incompatible with the respect due to the sanctity of churches."

If we might venture to offer a word in justification of the wisdom of the Church in thus wholly excluding women from the ritual offices of religion, we would say that she "knows what is in man;" she perfectly well understands all the effects of exterior influences upon the human mind and heart; that the female voice, when highly cultivated or sweet-toned, is alluring and sensual, (we do not mean in a bad sense,) and when naturally poor or passé, is equally repelling and disagreeable. The first cannot be said of the voices of men; nor the second, unless it be in attempts to execute music beyond their compass, or when they distort its sense or expression by vanity or affectation.

Canon Oakeley shall sum up for us what we have to say on this head:

"Together with the name of 'chapels,' which it may be hoped we are in the way to renounce once for all, let us divest ourselves of all that smacks of the chapel and dissenting system--the pews, the pew-openers, the female sacristans, and the female choristers. One of the principal lessons taught us by our great cardinal was the duty of asserting in all judicious ways the dignity of our true position; and this we can do only by ridding ourselves of sectarian habits, down even to the very fringes of our garment, and associating ourselves in spirit, and in that which forms so especial a test of the ecclesiastical spirit, the external worship of the Church, with the most approved practice of Catholic countries."

Having made up our minds to tear down our Protestant singing-gallery, and to make use only of male voices in the singing of Mass and Vespers, we shall not fear for the decision of the question, What kind of music is to be selected? The Gregorian chant, that "grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual music of the Church," will defy all competition. When half the labor and expense has been bestowed upon the true music of the sanctuary as is now lavished on our florid concert music, then will be said to-day what Pope Benedict XIV. said so long ago, "The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind, in comparison with the sweetness of the church chant."

But the other question, and a very practical one, yet remains: How shall we procure and hold proper singers for such music as is proposed, and for such a place as the sacred inclosure about the altar? We answer, in the first place, we have already some men singers with voices of good compass and power, who at present sing up-stairs beside the organ.

"What!" exclaims the friend at our elbow; "bring our present choir down into the sanctuary? How many priests, do you think, would do that?"

We reply to him, that, if the present choir-singers are fit and proper persons to be associated with the sacred ministers in the celebration of the divine mysteries, they are just as worthy at one end of the church as at the other; and if they are unworthy for any reason, they ought not to be allowed to take that part, or exercise that office of dignity in any nook or corner of our sacred temples. This capital point, the personal worthiness as well as the vocal capabilities of our choir-singers, has, it must be confessed, not been so rigidly insisted on in general as it might have been. Nothing appears to our minds more shockingly incongruous than a mixed chorus of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews singing the Credo. We remember hearing a fine Tantum Ergo sung as a solo at benediction by a Jewess. Think of it, a Jewess singing,

"Et antiquum documentum Novo cedat ritui"!

and, in the presence of what she believed to be only a piece of bread, adding,

"Præstet fides supplementum Sensuum defectui"!

We like the language of the Bishop of Langres. In a late pastoral on this subject, he says,

"The function of which we speak (singer) is one that deserves respect for its sanctity. For many centuries it was reserved to clerics; and when, afterward, laymen were admitted to assist, it was required that they should, from their good conduct, be worthy to represent the congregation of God's people, and take the lead in this part of their worship; and, above all, it was required that they should understand the dignity of the trust committed to them, and should neglect no preparation necessary to acquit themselves respectably. These laymen hold in the Lord's house the first place after its consecrated ministers; and they should not be allowed to continue in it unless they showed themselves the zealous auxiliaries of the priest who takes the lead in the name of the Church."

If we adhered to the character of the music desired by the Church, we should never be obliged to look elsewhere than to Catholics--to those who will sing from the heart as well as with the lips--for worthy auxiliaries of the priest in this devout and sacred office.

This leads us to consider the selection and the training of competent and worthy singers. We are aware that the destruction of the Protestant singing-gallery, the restoration of the choir, and adoption of the Gregorian music is not so simple a matter of choice with the pastors of churches that it can be effected at once by an order issued to the organist, and the provision of cassocks and surplices for as many men as can be paid to wear them and sing the music which befits such clerically-habited chanters. Such singers as we ought to have for our holy offices are not to be had to-morrow, even for money. Nor, even supposing such worthy persons, possessing proper vocal acquirements, were to be had by paying for them, would they be able to sing our sacred music in a style that would be even tolerable. Gregorian chant is not easy of execution, as some imagine. It needs not only good vocal culture to render its musical phrases with precision, but also no small amount of intellectual and moral training to give its true expression.

We say, good vocal culture. By which we must not be understood to mean that finished vocalization which distinguishes the professional opera-singer, or those few amateurs whose voices of natural sweetness and power have received first-class cultivation. All Gregorian music is included within an octave and a half, with rare exceptions. Great compass is therefore not required. The first requisite is the ability to modulate the different phrases with distinctness and facility. There are few men or boys who could not be taught in a short time to acquire this primary qualification of the choir-singer. On this head there is little or no difficulty. But as every one who can read English is not able to give a proper reading of Shakespeare, so not every one who can sing the gamut or its intervals is able to sing the phrases of Gregorian chant. The reader of Shakespeare needs practice in tone, in inflection, in the art of speaking with sublimity, with pathos, with joy, etc. Then he must study the works of the great poet, must master his style, and with much painstaking and oft-repeated rehearsals learn to imitate the various characters, their mode of behavior, and peculiarity of utterance. The holy melodies of the Church possess an admirable variety of religious expression, and share with all her rites and ceremonies in that sacred dramatic form which clothes them with such remarkable spiritual power and beauty. It is plain, therefore, that the singer must not only understand what he is singing, but must make a study of the different phrases, in order to discover their true expression.

But besides all this intellectual attention to and appreciation of the chant, the slightest reflection will show one that a certain degree of moral training is equally requisite. The capital point always to be kept in mind is that the music of the Church is her divine prayer. The devout soul, though endowed with a voice of only medium capacity, will render these prayerful melodies with far greater effect than a first-class artist who sings only from the lips, while his heart remains unmoved by the words and the song. We are all conscious of the different effect produced upon us by the chanting of the Preface and the Pater by different priests. As a few simple words preached to us by a priest of an interior and devout life will go deeper into our souls, and bring forth greater spiritual fruit, than the most brilliant oratory from one of less religious mind, so a devout singer will give to his song a nameless charm, and edify those who listen to him far more than one who is his superior in musical attainments, but inferior to him in piety. It is Father Lallemant, we think, who said, "An interior man will make more impression on hearts by a single word animated by the Spirit of God, than another by a whole discourse which has cost him much labor, and in which he has exhausted all his powers of reasoning."

Our argument, therefore, for the restoration of the church music, and the banishment of concert music, implies the restoration, as well, of the church singer, and the close of our engagement with the concert artists, or the more wretched substitute of concert amateurs. We are sure that in every congregation in this country it would be possible to find a sufficient number of men and boys, possessing all the necessary qualifications, intellectual, moral, and vocal, for the decent and edifying singing of the church offices, who might be prepared after a few weeks' instruction for the duties of the chorister. We may be permitted to add, that our opinion is not mere theory, but based upon the observation and experience of many years in the practical duties of the ministry, during which the direction of the music has generally fallen to our care. If we are not able to refer our readers to a practical illustration of what we assert, it is simply because we also, as we said before, have been straitened and hampered by this incubus of Protestant tradition. Until we can get rid of this, we can do nothing. Until the people, at present profoundly ignorant on this head, learn what constitutes a Catholic choir and where it ought to be located in the church, we shall never be able to get any thing but concert music. They must learn that the present order of things prevalent among us is abnormal, unrecognized by the ritual, and quite as foreign to the Catholic standard as would be the preaching of a priest from the pulpit in a citizen's dress. We may be obedient to the strict law of the Church which forbids female singers in choir, and find a sufficient number of men and boys to take their places, who will scramble into the organ-gallery, and, under cover of the curtains, talk, laugh, chew tobacco, eat candy, draw caricatures on the walls and on the covers of the singing-books, and sit with crossed legs and chairs tilted backward even during the elevation and benediction--all this we will get as of old; but, until the gallery comes down, until the singers are properly vested, and marched with proper ecclesiastical decorum into the sanctuary, or to such a place as near to it as the present inconvenient arrangement of our modern churches will permit, we shall never get a church choir.

This is our first point: let us have male singers who will understand from the dress and deportment they assume, for the time being, as well as from the position they occupy in the church, that their office as a church singer is a sacred one, of high character, and worthy of special respect as being associated officially with the priestly celebrations at the altar. No sooner shall we have succeeded in teaching the people this true Catholic tradition, than our youth will at once look upon the function of choir-singer as an enviable position, and the effort to make themselves worthy to be thus associated with the clergy in the divine offices will necessarily do much toward elevating their moral tone, and inspiring a devout Catholic spirit. We shall, very probably, not obtain all we desire at a first trial. Many of those whom we may select will likely disappoint us. This is in the nature of things. It is not every one who is selected as a student for the priesthood that proves to have a vocation. For ourselves, we apprehend little difficulty if our own purpose be well determined, and we give to the whole subject of church music a little serious study and reflection.

As to the source from which our churches are to obtain a regular supply of choristers, we frankly speak our mind, and say that the Catholic choir system would appear to involve necessarily the formation of what is known in France as the maitrise, or choir-school, in which are admitted boys of good moral character possessing sufficient vocal capability, and of a grade of intelligence to render it worth while to bestow upon them a more refined education than they might obtain in the ordinary school. This special education given in the choir-school tends not only to improve and elevate the character of the boys, but fits them as well to attain a better position in life than they could have hoped for without it. But this is a subject we can afford to defer to future consideration.

Supposing that we have come to the determination to conform our church music at once to the true standard, how shall we procure the necessary choristers? Let us see what we need. For large churches, or what are large churches to us, there should be at least four trained voices of men--two tenors and two baritones; and not less than twelve boys. These, equally divided on either side of the sanctuary, would make a better double chorus than might at first be supposed. The boys can be had for the asking; but the four men will not easily be obtained without a reasonable salary. The advertisement for them should, of course, conclude with the warning, "None but practical Catholics need apply." We do not propose to put the cassock and surplice upon persons whose very appearance in that garb would disedify the people.

For this choir we need a competent teacher. Advertise for him, and it is not unlikely we shall find such a one, or one who will quickly fit himself for that office, in one of the four hired singers. We do not hesitate to say that, even in this great city of New York, there are at present very few music teachers who are fully competent to teach the proper method of chanting the Vesper psalms alone, not to speak of those other important portions of the divine offices whose expression is more difficult to render. But there is no want that is not quickly met with the supply. If we want such a teacher, and are willing to pay him, then the subject of the church chant will at once engage the attention and study of professors of music whose business it is to teach. At this moment it is generally understood (and not without reason) by all organists and directors of choirs that our Catholic churches need performers and teachers who can come recommended as well versed in "the masses," as they are called.

As a consequence, these gentlemen devote all their energies to the study and practice of such compositions, and to the science of directing a mixed chorus. We do the musical profession the justice of believing its taste to be quite at variance with the taste of the public it serves; and, although we are prepared to see our choir-director shrug his shoulders and return us a wondering look when we propose our reformation to him, still, when we shall have given him to understand that we ourselves know what we want, and are prepared to count the cost, we feel assured that he will readily come into our views, and enter upon this new field of musical culture with more zest than he has hitherto shown in the conduct of music, for the most part, despicable even in his own eyes. We will engage him to produce church music in first-class church style. We will aid him by causing an organ of sufficient size to be erected near the choristers in the vicinity of the sanctuary. Should he crave for a larger chorus, we will seek out a number of young men, from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, whom we have in our eye, whose interest will not fail of being excited in this subject to which we give our pastoral solicitude, and whose social and moral character we feel assured will be benefited by being associated with our regular choir as volunteers. If we might be permitted the use of an expressive vulgarism, we would say that our young men, as a class, are "spoiling" for some church work. How many would not feel both honored and gratified by an invitation to labor with us in renovating and restoring the grand offices of the Church to their pristine order and sublime harmony! We manage to associate together a few of our young men in various confraternities and associations, and drive a few more into the ranks of the society of St. Vincent de Paul; but the greater number, upon whom depend the future esprit of our church in this country, and upon whose attachment to all that concerns the dignity and devout character of our religious services hang the fortunes of our faith, are left unnoticed and unemployed. We propose this subject of the reformation of church music to them as a labor of love and true Catholic devotion, worthy of their hearty coöperation, and tending to their own intellectual refinement and moral elevation. We are not wholly unacquainted with the souls of this class of our brethren in the faith, and will answer for the response that will be made to our sentiments by any Catholic young man whose eye may chance to fall on these lines.

Now as to the matter of proper church music-books. Speaking as one who has been made wise through suffering, we rejoice at the prospect of seeing all our "Catholic choir-books," "Morning and Evening services," and such trash, bundled up and sent to the paper-makers. We are at liberty to state that, while the present Oecumenical Council may allude only incidentally to the subject of church music, by confirming the ancient canons made in regard to it, the Congregation of Rites is already preparing an authorized version of the Roman Gradual and Vesperal, and that his Holiness will issue a brief in which he will strongly exhort all the bishops to adopt it. As soon as this desire of the head of the Church shall have been brought home to us in the proper way, those whose hands are waiting direction will lose no time in preparing an edition of this work in musical notation, and harmonized for the use of organists, an imperative need for the great majority of our players and singers, to whom the learning of the plain chant scale and clefs would be a labor equal to that of acquiring the knowledge of a foreign language. Our choir-boys, and the generation of choristers who shall succeed them, can be taught the plain chant notation from the first, and will find it much simpler, and more expressive in typography, than the modern musical scale, with its varied keys in flats and sharps.

A word as to the comparative cost of the authorized church music and the concert music which now replaces it. It will be seen that we have advised the engagement of four professional singers, and the services of a special teacher both for them and the chorus of boys. This teacher, in most cases, would be one of the four salaried choristers or the organist. It will be seen at once, by those interested, that even in the beginning we shall not be put to any greater expense than we are already at for our music. In the matter of music-books there will be an immense saving for those churches which possess a large chorus. We ourselves own a musical library which has cost us several thousands of dollars; and to tell the honest truth, not one half of it is of the least practical use even with the present liberty we enjoy (?) of singing what we please. A set of Graduals and Vesperals, with a suitably harmonized version for the use of the organist, will suffice under our new and better régime.

We cannot close this portion of our remarks without calling attention to the great boon which this wholesome musical reform will prove to country churches. In our large cities, we have been able to perform in our churches music which is a tolerable imitation of the same style of harmony as given at the opera and on the boards of the concert-hall to paying audiences. As a rule, we have not charged any price of admission to our ecclesiastical concert offices, and our second-rate performances have therefore been justly treated with great leniency by the critics. But as you leave the city and enter churches in our small towns and country villages, you hear an imitation of the city fashion which is no longer tolerable. One must have advanced far into the spiritual ways of devout contemplation to endure the horrible cacophony without suffering indescribable tortures of soul. Then again, there are numberless village churches where never a sound of music, profane or religious, is heard. Yet, if these muse-abandoned people were disabused of their ignorant belief that our popular florid music is the only music possible or fit for the Catholic Church, and learned that, even if too poor to purchase an organ, they could have with a little study and practice all the music for the divine offices executed in a devout and decent style, it would not be long until the invariable low Mass on all Sundays and festivals, and the recitation of the Rosary in lieu of Vespers, would be a rare exception, instead of being, as it is now, not far from the rule. As an example, we confess extraordinary, of the gross ignorance of our country people concerning church music, we remember being told by a Catholic woman who had never been out of her own little village, that one reason why she was certain of the falsehood of the Protestant religion was because they had music and singing in their churches!

We do not expect to see our suggestions or opinions accepted without question or criticism. We are fully aware that we have been arguing in the face of inexperience and deep-seated prejudice. We console ourselves, however, with the thought that what we have decried as abnormal, irregular, and inadequate for the music of the Church, is in itself so inconsistent, incomplete, and disordered, that it does not deserve even the name of a system. Based upon a false principle, the amusement of an audience, it will ever fail of recognition or encouragement at the hands of the holy Church, whose sole object proposed in all her divine functions is prayer. The faithful come to church to pray. A church ought by its very form and interior dispositions surround the worshippers with an atmosphere of prayer. It ought to feel like a holy place; and nothing about it should smack of the theatre, or the halls of assembly for secular purposes. All that is presented to the gaze of the faithful in these sanctuaries of God, whether it be the ceremonies associated with the Holy Sacrifice and other offices, or the statues, pictures, and decorations which meet the eye, ought to be of such a character as to excite the spirit of prayer. All this we understand full well. Why, then, are we so dull of hearing that we cannot also distinguish the accents of prayer from the sounds which speak of war, of love, of the dance, of jocularity, and, for those who have ears to hear, of the grossest sensuality? Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that our people wish to hear what is popularly styled "fine music" in church. It is a very great mistake. They not only frequent the church services in the special intention to pass the time there in prayer, but also heartily desire to have their weary, world-tossed souls helped by decorously performed ceremonies, by good, earnest preaching, and by devout, prayerful music, in awakening in their hearts true religious emotion and thoughts of heavenly things.

This is our sole plea for reform in our music, it being, without doubt, also the "mind" of the Church. She is in no sense opposed to secular music, any more than she is to secular painting, sculpture, and architecture, unless they be debased and made to minister to base passions. She who sanctifies all that is true and noble in human nature is far from discouraging or condemning the legitimate expression of those arts which can exert so much power in the instruction, elevation, and refinement of the intellect and heart. But none so wise as she to detect their weakness, and warn society against the moral evils which result from their prostitution to the service of the devil. One of the destructive faults justly charged against modern art, and notably of music, is its misapplication. A want of harmony in the relation of an art to the nature and object of the thing to be expressed or illustrated by it, is the signal for its own enervation and the corruption of what it should purify and strengthen; which is the teaching alike of philosophy and experience.

"A tale out of time," says the wise man, "is like music in mourning;" and the converse of the proverb, is equally true--

"The sweetest strains of music Do but jar upon the soul, and set The very teeth on edge, if but the heart Hath not a mind to hear it."

Whence our conclusion. In the house of God, whose "house shall be called the house of prayer," no other song must be heard but the song of prayer, that melody consecrated to all that we have that is highest and holiest, which lifts the soul above the frivolities and sensualities of this world and of time, and transports it in spirit into the regions of the heavenly, and before the throne of the majesty of the Eternal.

THE IRON MASK.

This subject, so inexhaustible, so interesting on account of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds it, has again been brought to our notice by some recent discoveries. Whether they amount to any thing or not, remains to be seen; but they are at least singular, and may stimulate the curiosity of the erudite, and even that of simple amateurs.

A young writer, M. Maurice Topin, so says a contemporary French paper, who has obtained a prize of six hundred dollars from the French Academy for his beautiful book, entitled, L'Europe et les Bourbons sous Louis XIV., has been diving into old papers among the public archives, and says he has at last found out the true name of the unfortunate prisoner of the Iron Mask.

Following the advice of his uncle, M. Mignet, he has addressed a letter to the President of the Academy of Moral and Political Science, in which he incloses his secret--sealed, however--and says it must not be unsealed without his order.

So some day soon, perhaps, we shall solve the enigma that has perplexed the world for over two centuries.

A monk has lately died, too, somewhere in a French monastery, leaving papers testifying that he was the true Iron Mask. Some say he was deranged. Perhaps so; and perhaps we would rather such might have been the case. A real bona fide, two-hundred-year-old mystery must not succumb to this practical age of would-be common sense. We could never find such another, so we must content ourselves with reviving old facts and eliciting further researches.

* * * * *

He who was called, under the reign of Louis XIV., The Man with the Iron Mask, was not permitted to wear so pretty a covering as that which preserved the complexion of the Empress Poppée; and the painters who have represented him with a sort of lowered visor, a rampart of iron on his face, have made a great mistake.

The unknown prisoner, to whom nobody approached, and nobody spoke, wore a mask of velvet.

The question is not decided upon what he wore on his way from the Isle Ste. Marguerite to the Bastille. Some say his chin was inclosed in a network of steel, to permit him to eat, while the upper part of his face was concealed in the mask of iron.

But this is a mystery, and his early training no less so.

He had been incarcerated a long time at Pignerol, the château of which had served for a prison of state, and since 1632 had belonged to France. The inhabitants still show a large dismantled tower that overlooks the town, and give the tradition concerning the Iron Mask and Fouquet, who were here confined.

They showed the chamber in 1818 that these poor victims inhabited.

* * * * *

After the taking of the Bastille, indications of the Iron Mask were sought for among the registers of this place of detention; but the largest book of records was sadly torn, and the folio numbered one hundred and twenty, coinciding with the year 1698, the epoch of the incarceration of the prisoner, had been taken away.

Later, a leaf was discovered among the papers of a former governor, and here it is, as historians have given it to us:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Names and qualities | Date of their | Book. Page. | Motive of their | | of prisoners. | entrance. | | detention. | |---------------------+---------------+-------------+-----------------| | Former prisoner of | 18th of | Du Junca, | Never known. | | Pignerol, obliged | September, | vol. 37. | | | to wear a velvet | 1698, at | | | | mask; his name or | 3 o'clock | | | | quality never | in the | | | | known. | afternoon. | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

The date of the entrance of the Iron Mask into the Bastille is preserved at present in the library of the arsenal; and we read:

"Thursday, the 18th of September, 1698, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Monsieur de St. Mars, governor of the Bastille, arrived for the first time from the Isles of Ste. Marguerite and Honorat, bringing with him, in his own litter, an old prisoner he had guarded at Pignerol. His name was not given; he wore a velvet mask; and was first placed in the tower of the Bayimère to await the night, when I was to conduct him myself, at nine P.M., into the tower of the Bertandière, to the third-story room which, by order of M. St. Mars, I had completely furnished for his reception. In conducting him to the said room, I was accompanied by M. Rosarges, who was to serve and guard the prisoner at the government expense."

Here let me state that Du Junca was not a surname given to the prisoner, but the name of the lieutenant of the king at the Bastille. The prisoner was called Marchiali.

* * * * *

The young historian who pretends to have discovered the true name of the Iron Mask has, without doubt, studied all the evidences up to the time of Voltaire, who also knew more than he was willing to impart.

He knew the story of the silver plate connected with the Isle Ste. Marguerite, whose governor was charged by Louis XIV. in person not to permit the prisoner to communicate with any one.

St. Mars waited on him himself, and took the dishes from the cooks at the door of the apartment, so that no one ever saw the face of the captive.

One day the Iron Mask threw a silver plate out of the window into the water-course beneath. A fisherman picked it up and brought it back to the governor.

"Have you read what is written on the bottom of this silver plate?" asked the governor.

"No, sir," replied the fisherman; "I cannot read."

This reply saved the poor man, who doubtless would have paid with his liberty, and even his life, for the possession of the terrible secret, if he had been sufficiently educated to have discovered it.

* * * * *

Another historian, the Abbé Papon, does not believe that the governor said to the fisherman, "Go; you are happy in not being able to read!" He states that, instead of a silver plate, the mysterious prisoner used a white shirt, covered from one end to the other with the written history of his life.

"I had," said he, "the curiosity to enter the chamber of the unfortunate man. It was lighted only by a window to the north, inclosed in a thick wall and cased by three gratings of iron placed at equal distances. This window overlooked the sea. I found in the citadel an officer of the French company, about sixty-nine years old. He told me that his father had often told him in secret that a watchman one day perceived under the window of the prisoner something white floating on the water.... It was a very fine shirt, plaited with negligence, and upon which the prisoner had written from one end to the other.

"The watchman took means to recover it, and carried it to M. de St. Mars, the governor of the Isle Ste. Marguerite.

"He protested that he had read nothing; but two days afterward he was found dead in his bed."

It is said that the Regent of Orleans left the secret of the name of the Iron Mask with his daughter. We give what he related to her, this authority being a pretended governor of the interesting captive. His account may be found in the archives of the English government:

"The unfortunate prince that I raised and guarded," said he, "until the end of my days, was born the 6th of September, 1638, at eight o'clock in the evening, during the supper of the king, Louis XIII. His brother, now reigning, Louis XIV., had been born in the morning at twelve o'clock, during the dinner hour of his father; but as the birth of the first child was splendid and brilliant, that of his brother was most sad and carefully concealed; for the king, advised by the midwife that the queen would bring forth a second child, caused to remain in her chamber the chancellor of France, the midwife, the first almoner, the confessor of the queen, and myself, to be witnesses of what might happen, and of what he would do, if this child should be born alive."

* * * * *

Actors have for many years studied carefully the costume of The Man with the Iron Mask and he who played in the drama by this name, M. Lockroy, is still alive. He personated the prisoner, and was clothed in black velvet, with black stockings and buckled shoes. He wore the double mask of velvet with steel springs over his lips.

In this piece, that all Paris went to see, Chilly represented Louis XIII.; Delaistre, M. de St. Mars; and Ligier, who was afterward the Duke of Gloucester and the Louis XI. of Casimir Delavigne, took the part of the protector of the unfortunate recluse.

Again, under another name--The Prisoner of the Bastille--the same story has been dramatized, and fresh interest added by an imaginary conversation between the captive and Louis XIV.

* * * * *

It is easily seen that the most general opinion of the Iron Mask considered him the twin-brother of Louis XIV., kept out of the way for fear of future trouble and collision in the government of France.

Some authors affirm, too, that he must have been deformed, his face distorted, or with some physical infirmity that it was necessary to conceal.

Others have thought that the brother of Louis XIV., being born the last, was the elder by right, if the opinion of physicians and legislators is to be consulted; and that the tenderness inspired by the first born of the two brothers occasioned the act of ostracism, which history has sought in vain for a hundred years to elucidate.

* * * * *

In 1837, there appeared a remarkable dissertation on the Iron Mask, by M. Paul Lacroix. He says that he who bore the name of Marchiali during his lifetime was not the twin-brother of Louis XIV., and not even a son born clandestinely of the queen, but the superintendent, Fouquet himself.

But the Iron Mask has in turn been believed to be Fouquet, Marchiali, Arwediks, and other people who disappeared about that time.

He, however, who was called Marchiali, and who entered the Bastille the 18th of September, 1698, died there suddenly the 19th of November, 1703.

Very singular precautions were taken after his decease.

The body and face were mutilated, and every thing composing his furniture was burned; even the doors and windows of his bedroom. The silver he used was melted. The walls of his apartment were scraped and re-whitened.

He was buried the 20th of November, 1703, in the Church of St. Paul, under the name of Marchiali.

Time has not given the answer to this lugubrious enigma, and we fear M. Maurice Topin has failed to solve it.

But let us give him his meed of praise for having consecrated his nights to seeking for documents, comparing dates, and confronting the evidence of the most celebrated writers on the subject.

Honor to the brave historian whom the night of time does not intimidate, and who is willing to grope among the shades of the past for what is hidden, and above all a secret of the state!

Among all the victims of the old régimes, The Man with the Iron Mask was the most interesting.

This popular story was in every mouth the day of the taking of the Bastille.

If he had lived until 1789, would it have been a pretender to the crown, or simply a suspected prisoner, that the people would have delivered?

We wait for M. Topin to answer.

ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH.

In dreams no longer, but revealed to sight, Comes o'er us, like a vision after death, That shrine of tenderest worship--that delight Of loftiest contemplation--Nazareth.

Fair-throned as when creation's King and Queen Abode within its walls, it looks around As scorning time and change; though these have been The ruthless masters of its hallowed ground.

Still smiling as of old, it catches still As fresh a morning; basks in such a noon; Hears evening's voice as sweetly softly thrill; In glory sleeps beneath a gushing moon.

Still looms the Mountain of Precipitation In sadness o'er a vale serene and bright, As when the Saviour foiled his frenzied nation, Who fain had cast him headlong from the height.

And see upon the slope the very gate Where--spot to kiss!--a lowly footstep fell, As daily passed the Maid Immaculate To fill her pitcher yonder at the well.

That well! where mirrored shone the loveliest face That ever woman wore! 'Tis there--the same! Though hating Christ and Juda's banished race, The Moslems honor there the Virgin's name.

Give thanks, my soul! give thanks that thou hast seen. Make Nazareth all a well of grace; and pray To keep its taste within thee--which has been The strength of saints. Drink deep, and go thy way.

B. D. H.

THE GREEK SCHISM

The Eastern Church has for the Catholic an attraction which centuries of separation have not been able to overcome. We look on its glories as our own, and we deplore its misfortunes as of our own household. We have a common faith, the same sacraments, the same sacrifice, essentially the same devotional practices. Between us stands the barrier of a schism which has lasted for centuries. It is of this schism, its origin, its history, that we propose to treat in this article.

To understand clearly the causes that precipitated so large and flourishing a portion of the church into a deadly schism, it is necessary to consider the relations of the bishops of Constantinople to Rome and the other great patriarchal sees, from the time when Constantine the Great placed the capital of his empire on the shores of the Bosphorus. The Bishop of Byzantium was then a suffragan of the Metropolitan of Heraclea. But when, with the presence of the emperor, the splendor and the reality of the capital had been transferred to the new Rome, the bishops of Byzantium became very important personages. They were, in fact, the ordinary medium of communication between the emperor and the other prelates of the Eastern Church. Not content with the great influence naturally arising from their vicinity to the court, they desired a style and title suitable, as they thought, to the dignity of the city of their residence. The second general council (A.D. 381) gratified their wishes by a canon which decreed that the bishops of Constantinople, because it was the new Rome, should have precedence over all other prelates, after the Bishop of Rome. But this council has been held to be general only in its dogmatic definitions, since, as St. Gregory the Great[177] says, "The Roman Church neither has received nor accepted of its decrees or acts, with the exception of its definitions against Macedonius." In point of fact, it was a local synod, neither convoked nor presided over by the holy see, and has been called oecumenical only on account of the subsequent approbation of its dogmatic decrees by the same supreme authority. Its canon about the dignity of the Bishop of Constantinople thus fell to the ground. Pope Boniface I. (A.D. 418-422) insisted on the observance of the order of dignity between the great sees established by the Council of Nice, according to which Alexandria held the second, and Antioch the third place. The same rule was adopted by Xystus III. and other pontiffs. However, the powerful prelates of the imperial city did not relinquish their ambitious views. The general council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) passed two canons, by which it permitted any cleric who felt himself aggrieved to appeal to the see of "the imperial city, Constantinople;" and besides, enacted the celebrated twenty-eighth canon in which the unfortunate principle that afterward led to schism was more openly avowed. Having cited the canon of the first council of Constantinople, it reaffirms it. "Since the fathers have justly granted privileges to the see of ancient Rome, because it was the imperial city, for the same reason the fathers of the second general council granted equal privileges to the episcopal throne of new Rome, rightly judging that the city which is honored by the imperial presence and the senate, and enjoys equal privileges with old Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be equally distinguished, retaining, however, the second place;" and then confers ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the Bishop of Constantinople over the dioceses in Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, and those that might afterward be "erected among the barbarians." The fathers, however, petitioned St. Leo the Great for the approval of this regulation, alleging the good of religion as their motive. But that great pontiff promptly "annulled their action by the authority of St. Peter," as contrary to the canon of Nice, remarking at the same time that ecclesiastical questions were not regulated on the same plan as secular affairs, and that the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be satisfied with the imperial privileges of his city, without disturbing church discipline, and invading the long-acknowledged rights of others. The obnoxious canon is not to be found in the most ancient and best collections, though, in practice, the bishops of Constantinople always availed themselves of the privileges it attempted to grant them.

This uncanonical usurpation gave rise to a serious controversy toward the end of the century. Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, relying on the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, interfered in the election and consecration of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. He was also accused and convicted of favoring the Eutychian heretics. For these causes he was condemned and deposed by Pope Felix III. (A.D. 484.) The oriental bishops continued, however, to retain his name in the commemoration at mass, (sacris diptychis,) and the popes, on this account, refused to communicate with them, until the pontificate of Hormisdas, when they submitted to the holy see, erased the obnoxious name from the sacred records, and subscribed a formula of faith, in which they professed their agreement with the synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, condemned Acacius and others by name, acknowledged all the dogmatic epistles of St. Leo, and declared that in the apostolic see is to be found "the true and entire fulness of the Christian religion," and that those "who did not agree with the apostolic see were separated from the communion of the Catholic Church."

After this happy termination, with one exception, no serious difficulty on disciplinary questions occurred between the two sees until the time of Photius. Heresies, indeed, arose in the Eastern Church; but both parties appealed to Rome, and the Catholic prelates and people always accepted her judgment as final. The exception to which we allude occurred under the pontificate of Pelagius II. and St. Gregory the Great, and affords a striking instance of the different spirit that animated old and new Rome. In the year of our Lord 583, John, surnamed The Faster, was called to the see of Constantinople. Gregory, patriarch of Antioch, being accused of grave crimes, the Bishop of Constantinople convoked a synod of the whole east, and in his letters of convocation assumed the title of oecumenical, or universal, patriarch. Pope Pelagius II. promptly condemned both the usurpation of jurisdiction over the see of Antioch and the newly-assumed title, especially as John pretended to convoke a general council, thus trenching upon the rights of the apostolic see. The controversy continued under St. Gregory the Great, who exhorted the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch to resist this invasion of the rightful dignity of their sees. He refused for himself the high-sounding title, though it had been given to his predecessors by the great council of Chalcedon, choosing the humbler designation of servant of the servants of God, which has ever since been used by the Roman pontiffs in their official documents. Cyriacus, the immediate successor of The Faster, continued to claim the obnoxious title, until he was prohibited to do so by the Emperor Phocas. But, as all Phocas's decrees were annulled by Heraclius, the bishops of Constantinople resumed the offensive usage. It is to be remarked, however, that they always gave an explanation of the title, which showed that they did not intend to infringe on the primatial rights of the Roman see. They disclaimed any really universal jurisdiction, claiming, at most, authority over the whole east. Insufficient as such an explanation was justly held to be by the popes, it shows that even the ambitious prelates of Constantinople, greedy as they were of high titles and extended jurisdiction, never, in the early ages, dared to place themselves on an equality with the bishops of old Rome, the successors of St. Peter in the government of the universal church.

From these facts, it is also evident that the real cause of dissensions between Rome and Constantinople was not, as alleged by Protestant historians, following the lead of Mosheim, the ambition of the pontiffs of Rome, who were striving for mastery over the whole church, while the bishops of Constantinople were contending for the rightful independence of the eastern portion thereof. The supremacy of the Roman see was recognized by every general council before the election of Photius, and all of them were held in the east, composed of eastern bishops, and guided by eastern ideas and influence. The very canons which attempted to give high dignity to Constantinople, acknowledged the primacy of Rome, and asked only the second place for the capital of the eastern empire while that of Chalcedon was formally submitted to St. Leo, and his approbation asked for it. When the most illustrious prelate that ever governed New Rome, St. John Chrysostom, was unjustly treated, he appealed as a matter of right to Pope Innocent I., and his appeal was sustained. When heresy arose in the east, the orthodox bishops of Constantinople always submitted to the judgment of the holy see, and sat in councils over which its legates presided. The history of the Nestorian, Eutychian, Monothelite, and Iconoclast heresies affords the most indubitable proofs that the Eastern Church, including that of Constantinople, always admitted the supreme teaching and governing authority of the see of St. Peter.

At the same time, it is plain that a spirit was growing up which a bold, ambitious man might easily use to divide the unity of the church. The second general council affirmed a fatal principle when it wished to give Constantinople the second place among the great sees, because it was the new Rome. This principle was more fully and offensively developed in the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. It appeared to imply that the secular dignity of Rome was the cause of its ecclesiastical primacy, which should, consequently, follow the imperial court. Not, indeed, that the fathers of either council would have admitted such a consequence. They recognized the divinely established primacy of the Roman see; but they wished to gratify the emperor of the day, and to second the desires of the powerful prelates of the imperial city, to whom many of them were doubtless indebted for substantial favors. But, unwittingly, they planted the germ of schism, which at the appointed time produced its terrible fruit. This is the reason why the pontiffs always opposed the uncanonical pretensions of the prelates of Constantinople; they defended not their own, for they were not attacked, but the rights of the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and jealously guarded against encroachments, which they saw too well were only the forerunners of greater and more fatal usurpations. The result, deplorable as it has been, only confirms the accuracy of their foresight, and justifies their honest, fearless, incorruptible resistance.

The responsibility of the fatal step to formal schism rests upon the celebrated Photius. In the year 857, St. Ignatius had been Patriarch of Constantinople for a little more than a decade. Of austere virtue and firm character, he detested vice, and feared not to denounce it even in high places. The then reigning emperor, Michael III., is compared by Gibbon to Nero and Heliogabalus. "Like Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel.... The most skilful charioteers obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and, while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the cold and stately reserve of his predecessors." After saying that he was intemperate, licentious, and sanguinary, the historian adds: "But the most extraordinary feature in the character of Michael is the profane mockery of the religion of his country.... A buffoon of the court was invested in the robes of the patriarch; his twelve metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments; they used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and, in their bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious spectacles concealed from the city. On the day of a solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at the head of his clergy, and, by their licentious shouts and obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian procession." While this promising youth was thus enjoying himself with sumptuous banquets, fast horses, and degrading shows, his uncle, the Cæsar Bardas, was the real emperor. He, too, though a man of talents and application to business, was of depraved morals, and was at length excommunicated by St. Ignatius, because he had dismissed his wife, and attempted to marry his own daughter-in-law. From that moment the licentious Cæsar determined on the ruin of the patriarch. Toward the end of the year 857, the holy man was sent into exile and imprisoned in a monastery, where he positively refused to resign his episcopal dignity. A synod of bishops was held, who, through either fear or favor, deposed Ignatius, and elected Photius in his stead.[178]

If unhallowed ambition had not induced Photius to usurp high ecclesiastical dignity, his abilities, industry, learning, and hitherto blameless life might have obtained for him one of the most honorable places in the history of the Byzantine empire. But from the day when, disregarding all idea of right and of canonical restrictions, he forced himself into the sanctuary, his whole career was one of chicanery, fraud, injustice, and finally open schism. Even had the see of Constantinople been vacant, his election was null, because he was a layman, and it was strictly prohibited by the canons to elect laymen to the episcopal dignity. He himself reënacted these very canons, thereby practically condemning his own election. He held a high position in the imperial court, was captain of the guards, and principal secretary of the emperor, and his energy and acknowledged abilities might have obtained for him still higher honors. But he was dazzled by the splendor of the patriarchal throne, and ascended it by an irregular ordination. Within six days he received all the orders of the church, being consecrated bishop on Christmas day, A.D. 857. This hasty conferring of sacred orders was also against the canons. His consecrator was Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, who had been tried by St. Ignatius, found guilty of various grave crimes, and regularly deposed in a legitimate synod. It would be difficult to find an episcopal election and ordination marred by greater or more numerous irregularities.

Almost the first act of Photius was to recognize the primacy of the holy see. He sent legates to Pope Nicholas I., who were charged to inform the pontiff that Ignatius, worn out by age and disease, had voluntarily renounced the episcopal dignity, and retired to a monastery; and that Photius had been elected by all the metropolitans and the entire clergy, and forced by the emperor to accept the dignity; he also sent an orthodox profession of faith, hoping thus to deceive the pontiff. The emperor, too, sent his representative with a letter requesting the pope to send legates to Constantinople to restore discipline, and finally root out the Iconoclasts. But St. Nicholas was too clear-sighted to be caught by the wiles of the crafty Greek. He did, indeed, send legates; but charged them merely to examine into the case of Ignatius, report fully thereon to the apostolic see, and meanwhile to admit Photius to only lay communion. His objections to the proceedings at Constantinople were, first, that the deposition of St. Ignatius was one of the greater causes, which could not be determined unless by the supreme judgment of the holy see; and, secondly, that, at all events, the election of Photius, he having been at the time a mere layman, was uncanonical, and his consecration irregular. On both points he was fully sustained by ancient canons admitted in the eastern as well as in the western church. But he did not give a final judgment; he merely ordered his legates to make thorough inquiry into the facts, and report thereon to himself.

They, however, proved unfaithful to their high trust. As soon as they arrived at their destination, they were kept in honorable imprisonment for the space of one hundred days, during which they were allowed to see no one but the friends of Photius. Influenced partly by threats, partly by gifts, they at last consented to favor the cause of the usurper. He then called together a synod, (A.D. 861,) at which the legates presided. Photius read what he called the letters of the pope, but which were really documents mutilated and interpolated by his crafty hand. St. Ignatius was then brought before the synod, clad in the garb of a monk. He refused to be judged by men all in the interest of Photius, declared that he appealed to the pope, and quoted in his favor the fourth canon of the Council of Sardica, which especially recognizes the right of such appeal, and the precedent of St. John Chrysostom. But appeals to justice and law are lost on a packed synod as well as on a packed jury. False witnesses were introduced, who swore that he had not been legitimately elected, but owed his elevation to intrusion by the secular power; and on this charge, true enough as against Photius, he was deposed. One prelate spoke in his behalf, Theodulus of Ancyra, who was immediately wounded by a ruffian, and thus enabled with his blood to give testimony to the right. The ceremony of degradation then ensued; the venerable patriarch was clothed with the insignia of his order and dignity, and one by one these were taken off him by a deposed subdeacon who, at each act, exclaimed aloud, Indignus, (unworthy,) a word reëchoed by all present, even the legates of the apostolic see. He was then thrown into the sepulchral vault of Constantine Copronymus, tormented there in a most terrible manner, nearly starved to death, till, after two weeks, when he was more dead than alive, a minion of Photius, seizing his hand, forced him to scratch a cross on a sheet of paper. Over this cross the usurper wrote a formal acknowledgment of the justice of the sentence of the synod, and sent it to the emperor as the voluntary act of his victim. One result of this fraud was the liberation of the holy man, leave having been accorded to him to retire to his mother's property; but as he had reason to fear more violence, he left Constantinople in disguise, and took refuge in the islands of the Propontis, where he succeeded in baffling the pursuit of his heartless and unscrupulous enemies.

Meanwhile, he sent a trustworthy messenger to Rome to inform the supreme pontiff of the terrible injustice and indignities to which he had been subjected in the presence and with the approval of the legates of the holy see. These worthies returned, and informed the pope that Ignatius had been canonically deposed and Photius canonically installed. Photius also wrote a letter remarkable both for craftiness and elegance. It contained neither an offence against good style nor a word of truth. He regretted his elevation, deplored the burden imposed on his weak shoulders, expressed his desire to conform to the Roman discipline, and to govern with ecclesiastical firmness, and blended not unskilfully the arts of flattery and sophistry. But Nicholas was not to be deceived. He examined the acts of the false synod, found the fraud that had been committed, and, calling a council at Rome, restored Ignatius, deposed Photius, and one of the traitor legates, who publicly acknowledged his crime. As the other was absent, his case was put off until he could be heard in his defence. The pontiff wrote also to the emperor and Photius, announcing his action in the premises, addressing the latter merely as a layman. In a later synod, (A.D. 863,) having heard from the representative of St. Ignatius a full and well-authenticated account of all the iniquity of Photius, the pope deposed him from every grade of the sacred ministry, and interdicted him, under anathema, from which he was not to be absolved unless at the moment of death, from ever exercising any act of the same, or from in any way disturbing the legitimate patriarch, Ignatius. He also deposed all those who had been promoted by the usurper, as well as the second legate, who, by not appearing when cited, had added to his other crimes that of contumacy.

On hearing this news, Photius proceeded to the dire act of formal schism. He called a council, and formally excommunicated Pope Nicholas. Only one-and-twenty bishops followed him in his impious course. The rest cried out, "It is not just to pronounce sentence against the supreme and first pontiff, especially when it is an inferior who pronounces it." To support his action, he published a circular letter to the patriarchs and bishops of the East, in which he accused the Roman see and the Western Church of the following crimes: 1. that they abstained from flesh on Saturday; 2. that, during the first week of Lent, they used milk and cheese; 3. that the clergy in sacred orders observed celibacy; 4. that they reserved the right of conferring confirmation to bishops; 5. that, by a change in the symbol, they pretended that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father. No sensible reader but will smile at the first four charges; in relation to the fifth, we shall only observe here that, as first made by Photius, it did not allege a mere breach of discipline, it involved the crime of heresy. As thus proffered it cannot be, as it is not, now sustained by any orthodox Christian.

But the vices of the Emperor Michael brought upon him that punishment which has so often visited licentious sovereigns. A conspiracy was formed against him, and he was assassinated in his own palace, (A.D. 867.) The chief of the conspirators, Basil the Macedonian, ascended the vacant throne. No one can defend the crime of assassination; but the character of the new emperor has been painted in bright colors by the historian. Of course, Photius fell with his patron, and St. Ignatius was restored to his see. Both the emperor and patriarch hastened to notify St. Nicholas of this happy event. But that great and courageous pontiff had already been called to his reward. The messengers from Constantinople found Adrian II. in the chair of Peter. He congratulated them on the turn events had taken, and, in order fully to heal the schism of Photius, thought well to have a general council held at Constantinople. The emperor consented and made the necessary dispositions. The council was opened in the church of St. Sophia, on Oct. 5th, 869, held ten sessions, and ended on the last day of February following. The legates of the pope, Donatus, Bishop of Ostia, Stephen, Bishop of Nepè, and Marinus, deacon of the Roman Church, presided. Their names and legatine authority are always mentioned first in the acts. A high place of honor was given to the emperor, as protector of the church. The action of the council was in entire conformity with the instruction of the pope to his legates. Ignatius was declared legitimate patriarch, and Photius for ever deposed from any clerical order. He was, however, offered lay communion, on condition that he should retract and condemn, in writing, all the iniquitous acts of his usurpation. Proper measures were taken to remedy the confusion created by his long intrusion, and a profession of faith was published, as well as twenty-seven disciplinary canons. Photius was invited to appear in person; but he refused, denying the competency of the synod to try him. To say the least, it was as competent to try him as the one he had called to try Ignatius. The acts of the synod were subsequently confirmed by Pope Adrian, and it has always been admitted as universal by the church.

Thus, for the seventh time in the history of the church had a general council been held in the East, composed of eastern bishops, presided over by the legates of the apostolic see. At the first audience given by the emperor to the legates of Adrian II., the former said, "In the name of God, we beg that the work be strenuously carried on, that the scandals caused by the wickedness of Photius be dispelled, so that the long-wished-for unity and tranquillity be restored according to the decree of the most holy Pope Nicholas." To which they made answer, "For this have we come hither; for this purpose have we been sent hither; but we cannot receive any one of your eastern bishops into our council unless we shall have received from them a writing, according to a formula which we have taken from the archives of the apostolic see." And in the first session their demands were complied with. So that at the very time when we are told by Protestant writers that Photius was fighting for the rightful independence of the see of Constantinople, the supremacy of the see of Rome was admitted in a general synod by every eastern bishop that was not a creature of Photius.

The attempted schism had thus been vigorously repressed, and Photius lived ten years in exile. But he succeeded in gaining the esteem and the favor of the monarch by an expedient which has often before and since met with the same reward. Basil was of ignoble descent; Photius made out a genealogy by which he showed the family of the emperor to be an offshoot of the Arsacides, "the rivals of Rome, who had possessed the sceptre of the east for four hundred years." The acknowledged erudition of the author lent probability to the forgery; the pride of the monarch was flattered, and his gratitude awakened. On the death of St. Ignatius, (A.D. 877,) Photius was recalled to the see of Constantinople, and the emperor immediately sent ambassadors to Rome, begging the pontiff to acquiesce in the election. He declared that Photius had seen the error of his ways, that his present elevation would restore peace to the church, and that all the bishops, even those who had adhered to Ignatius, petitioned for his confirmation. John VIII., who then occupied the Roman see, judged it expedient to gratify this universal desire. He required, however, that Photius should in a public synod acknowledge the decrees of Popes Nicholas and Adrian, and the general council, beg pardon for the faults he had committed and the scandals he had given, be absolved from censure, and then, and not till then, be acknowledged as Bishop of Constantinople. He sent legates to execute this decree of mercy. But the pride of Photius would not brook submission, and he resorted to his old arts. Again the apostolic legates were corrupted or intimidated; again Photius mutilated the pope's letters; received in a numerous synod, from the legates themselves, the insignia of the patriarchal dignity; and without any opposition from them, if not with their consent, the eighth council was abrogated, and the acts of Popes Nicholas and Adrian condemned.

On their return to Rome, the legates, of course, reported that the injunctions of the pontiff had been strictly observed; but the pride of Photius betrayed them. In his letter he said he had fulfilled all the conditions save that of begging pardon, because he had done nothing to require pardon. This led John to an investigation which revealed to him how shamefully he had been disobeyed. He accordingly sent to Constantinople the same Marinus, who had been one of the legates to the general council, ordering him to rescind every thing that had been done against his mandate. This brave and intelligent man fully and faithfully performed his duty, and was imprisoned for thirty days; but as his constancy could not be overcome, he was allowed to return to Rome. Whereupon Pope John, "ascending the pulpit, taking the Gospel in his hands, in the hearing of the whole congregation, thus spake, 'Whoever doth not hold Photius condemned by the sentence of God, as the holy Popes Nicholas and Adrian, my predecessors, left him, let him be anathema.'" Photius, however, remained in possession as long as Basil lived. His son and successor, Leo the Philosopher, albeit educated by Photius, caused the sentence of the pontiffs to be executed. As the newly-elected prelate, Stephan, had been ordained deacon by Photius, a circumstance which rendered him irregular, a dispensation was prayed for from Rome. This was granted by Pope Formosus, with a saving clause that it should not be interpreted against the condemnation of Photius. Thus the schism was healed for a time. Photius died in a monastery, A.D. 891.

We have entered into these details to show on what grounds the origin of the Greek schism rests. It was not, we repeat it, a contest for supremacy. New Rome had never even claimed equality with the see of Peter. Its bishops had never asked but the second place. Could Photius have obtained the confirmation of his election from the pope, it is probable he never would have rushed into schism. It has been said that St. Nicholas was too harsh with him. But had the pontiff neglected to do justice to St. Ignatius, the very writers who now criticise him for severity, would have blamed him with culpable weakness. Indeed, John VIII. has met with such censure. But how did Photius repay his kindness? By fraud, by the grossest insult to his predecessors, and to an oecumenical council. It is useless to speak of the erudition of the usurper, or of his services to literature. These, great though they be, cannot palliate his crimes. The popes defended oppressed virtue and the canons of the church; Photius, having failed to deceive, seduce, or intimidate them, was driven to the desperate resort of schism. A sceptic like Gibbon may indeed scoff at the whole dispute; but he who believes that Christ established a church and appointed a certain form of government, must shudder as he reads of the fatal action of one man, who, to gratify his unhallowed ambition, began a schism which has ended in the ruin of some of the fairest portions of Christendom. It is all very well in the nineteenth century to talk of independent national churches; the idea was unheard of in the ninth. Else why did Photius so persistently endeavor to obtain the confirmation of his election from the pope? His own action condemns him; the whole history of the Greek Church condemns him; and the modern Greeks, who are such sticklers for antiquity, stand equally condemned.

The question of jurisdiction over Bulgaria has been magnified by some writers into a cause of the schism. But the fact that Ignatius is revered as a saint by the church, though up to the time of his death he defended the supposed rights of his see in this regard, shows that, important though the controversy doubtless was, it could not have caused a separation. The popes would, at most, have contented themselves with protesting against the usurpation, as they had done in other cases. The ancient Illyricum, of which Bulgaria is a part, undoubtedly belonged to the Roman patriarchate. So did Achaia. Both were transferred to that of Constantinople by a decree of the Iconoclast emperor, Leo the Isaurian, in revenge for the condemnation of his heresy by the holy see. And these historical facts have been alleged by the schismatic bishops of modern Greece to justify their forming themselves into a national church, independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Says one of their defenders, "An heretical emperor took away these dioceses from an orthodox pope to give them to a patriarch who was a heretic like himself."[179] The Bulgarian monarch sent, almost at the same time, ambassadors to the pope and to the Byzantine emperor, asking for missionaries to instruct himself and his people in the Christian faith. Those sent from Rome arrived first on the ground; but the secular influence of Constantinople was too great for them, and they were sent back. Of course, the popes protested against this outrage against--be it carefully observed--not their primatial, but their patriarchal rights; but there is no reason to suppose the controversy could have given rise to schism. The moderation of the pontiffs on such questions, recorded on every page of their history, is our warrant for this assertion. It was only when some primary law of the church was violated, some gross injustice against innocent persons committed, or their own supremacy defied, that they felt themselves obliged to resort to measures of the last severity.

Photius was finally deposed in the year 866. From that event for more than a century there was peace between old and new Rome. At length one of the family of the usurper, Sergius, was elevated to the see of Constantinople, (A.D. 988.) He held a council, excommunicated the popes, and erased their names from the sacred records. This outrage must never have reached the ears of the holy see. At least, we find no vestige of any action taken by the popes concerning it. Sergius was succeeded, in 1018, by Eustachius, who applied to Pope John XIX. for permission to adopt the title of oecumenical patriarch. The request being refused by the pontiff, his name was omitted from the diptychs by the indignant prelate. He was succeeded by Alexius, about whose attitude to the holy see we can discover nothing in the records of the age. In the year 1034, Michael Cerularius was made bishop of New Rome. Profane as well as sacred historians represent him as a proud, ambitious, and turbulent person. He determined formally to revive the schism inaugurated by Photius. His principal accomplices were Leo of Acrida, Metropolitan of Bulgaria, and one Nicholas, a monk. They issued a letter directed to John, Bishop of Trani, in southern Italy, giving their reasons why they no longer wished to hold communion with the Western Church, and addressed a letter of similar import to the patriarchs of the east. Most of these reasons are so puerile that in reading them one would be tempted to smile, were it not for the thought that they were used to create a deadly schism. Such were the charges: that the Latins used unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice; that they did not abstain from "strangled things and blood;" that their monks ate swine flesh; that their priests shaved off their beards; that they did not sing Alleluia during Lent; that they gave the pax before the communion at mass; that their bishops wore a ring. In the long arraignment there is but one accusation that the most prejudiced enemy of the holy see can call serious, namely, that of the addition of the filioque to the symbol. As to this, we shall content ourselves by relating afterward how it was met, and the controversy about it settled, in the Council of Florence.

St. Leo IX., who then occupied the holy see, having been made acquainted with the contents of the letter of Cerularius, wrote a long and able answer, in which he offered peace to all who were really lovers of peace, based, however, on the unity of the church and the primacy of the Roman see. Cerularius asked him to send legates to Constantinople to settle the pending difficulties. The pope acquiesced, and sent two cardinals, Humbert and Frederic, and the Archbishop of Amalfi. Cerularius not only refused to meet them, but endeavored to prevent them from celebrating the sacred mysteries in any of the churches of Constantinople. The legates having repeatedly warned him, were obliged to excommunicate him in the church of St. Sophia. He, in turn, excommunicated the Roman pontiff, and wrote letters to the patriarchs of the great eastern sees with the object of drawing them into the schism. The answer of the Patriarch of Antioch alone has been preserved. He defends the Latins from many of the charges raised by Cerularius, while he admits some to be true; but he refuses to join the wrong-headed bishop of New Rome in his schism.

Most historians date from this period the definitive separation of the Greek Church from that of Rome. It would be easy, however, to show that communication was occasionally kept up during the rest of the eleventh and a portion of the twelfth centuries. Practically, however, it may be said that Cerularius separated new and old Rome, especially as the Greeks ever after held to two points he had raised against the Western Church--the addition of filioque to the symbol, and the use of unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice.

There were, doubtless, other causes than these which rendered this great schism so easy of accomplishment. The ambition of the bishops of Constantinople led them to be always on the lookout for a plausible pretext for a quarrel with Rome. Then the Greeks felt deeply two great changes in Europe--the loss of their dominion in Italy, and the reëstablishment, as it is called, of the empire of the west, for both of which they chiefly blamed the popes. This feeling made them support without any very close examination the cause of the bishops of the imperial city. Then the memory of Photius was revered as one of the great names of New Rome. We must add, in conclusion, the universal effeminacy and corruption which has left an indelible stain upon the unworthy successors of Constantine and Theodosius, and given to their government the opprobrious but emphatic name of the Low Empire.

But no honest man, much less no churchman, can find in these causes any excuse or palliation for schism. Nor can such cause be found in the personal relations of either Photius or Cerularius with the holy see, much less in the earlier history of the church of Constantinople, as the facts collected from authentic documents related in these pages, we think, sufficiently show.

The popular hatred of the Greeks against the Latins was doubtless aggravated by the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. Yet it was the first sovereign of the restored Greek empire that opened negotiations for a reunion of the churches. It is not for us to decide whether Michael Palæologus was influenced by motives of interest or of religion; probably both had their weight with him. In answer to his application, Pope Clement IV. sent a profession of faith according to the ancient formula, promising to call a general council to cement the union, provided the Greeks would consent beforehand to accept and sign this profession. Gregory X. did call the council, (A.D. 1272) for the triple purpose of the union of the churches, aid to the Christians struggling in the Holy Land, and the reformation of discipline. He sent nuncios to the Greek emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, inviting them to the synod, and received a favorable answer from the former. The council was opened at Lyons on May 7th, 1274. There were five hundred bishops present; the pontiff presided in person. It lasted three months, and six sessions were held. At the third, the Greek representatives appeared. Solemn high mass was celebrated by the pope, at which the Credo was sung in Latin and Greek, the Greeks repeating thrice the words, "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son." At the next session were read the letters of the Greek emperor and prelates. Both contained most satisfactory statements of their faith in the primacy of the holy see by divine right over the whole church. The prelates, moreover, informed his holiness that, as the Patriarch Joseph had opposed the union, they had requested him to withdraw into a monastery, to await the result of the council, and that, if he should refuse to accept it, they would depose him and elect another patriarch. Then the representatives of the emperor, and those of the prelates, in the name of their principals, solemnly abjured the schism, acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman see, and took an oath never again to infringe on it. A synodical decree was passed defining the Catholic doctrine on the procession of the Holy Ghost, condemning those who deny that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, as well as those who assert that he proceeds from them as from two principles, not one principle. The Greeks were then dismissed with great honor, carrying with them congratulatory letters to the emperor and the prelates.

But this union did not last long. Palæologus did indeed cause Joseph to be deposed, and John Veccus to be elected to the see of Constantinople. He also endeavored to enforce the decree of union by severe penalties against the recusants, and a synod was celebrated by the patriarch, in which the union was accepted. But the clergy and the people obstinately opposed any communion with the Latins; the same feeling prevailed in the emperor's household; and at last he abandoned what he appears to have considered a hopeless task. He was excommunicated in 1281, by Pope Martin IV., for favoring heresy and schism. He, however, protested his sincerity, and on his death was refused Christian burial by his son and successor, Andronicus, for the part he had taken in the union of the churches. The schism was thus reopened, and the work of the Council of Lyons produced no further fruit.

But when the Turks had reduced the domain of the empire almost to the walls of Constantinople, the wily and faithless Greeks again turned their eyes westward, and offered reunion in the hope of obtaining succor. It were foreign to our purpose to trace the history of the controversy between Pope Eugenius IV. and the Council of Bâle. Suffice it to say, that, to facilitate the coming of the Greeks, who wished to meet in a city near the Adriatic, he transferred the council to Ferrara. On February 7th, 1438, the eastern fleet arrived at Venice, bearing the Emperor John Palæologus, Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, the proctors of the other eastern patriarchs, the Metropolitan of Russia, and a great number of metropolitans, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries of the Greek Church. They were received with extraordinary pomp and splendor. Thence they went to Ferrara, where they arrived in the beginning of March. The council opened on April 9th. A delay of four months was agreed on, to enable the bishops of the Western Church to take part in the proceedings. Meanwhile, informal conferences were held on the questions of purgatory, and the beatitude of the saints before the final day of judgment. It was easily shown that the differences between the two churches were merely verbal, and did not affect the dogma. The first solemn session was held on October 8th, which was followed by fifteen others in regular order. In December, the council was transferred to Florence, on account of the appearance of the plague at Ferrara. Nine sessions were held at Florence, at the end of which the act of union was solemnly adopted and promulgated.

There is scarcely any thing more interesting in the history of general councils than the records of the discussions so long and so ably carried on in this synod. It is a common supposition that the Latins resorted to bribery and threats, the Greeks to chicanery and bad faith, and thus an understanding was arrived at. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the acts of the synod prove. Point after point was discussed with marked ability on both sides, and with peculiar skill and pertinacity on the part of the Greeks. At last, all, with the exception of Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, yielded either to unanswerable arguments or to clear explanations, and then, all difficulties being removed, the union was agreed to. It is, of course, impossible in the brief space of an article to relate these discussions in detail. We shall briefly refer to the principal point in dispute.

This was the addition of filioque in the creed. The Latins insisted on separating from the beginning the two distinct points of dogma and discipline. They asked the Greeks, first, if they believed that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, as from one principle of spiration. They showed them that the fathers of the Greek, as well as those of the Latin church, had always taught this doctrine. There was a great deal of finessing on the part of the Greeks; they examined their own copies of the fathers, and found that they had been correctly quoted by the other side; and, at last, confessed that they had been wrong in accusing the Western Church of error. The disciplinary question was argued with a great deal of vigor. The Greeks, of course, alleged the celebrated canon of the Council of Ephesus, prohibiting any addition to the symbol. The Latin answer may be summed up thus: This canon prohibits any addition by private authority. But filioque was added by the authority of the head of the church. Again, the canon prohibits any addition contrary to the doctrine of the symbol; but this addition is an explanation and a complement of the doctrine of Nice, and the very words (and from the Son) have been taken from orthodox fathers. Lastly, the addition was not made lightly or without cause; but a real necessity existed for it. Finally, all the Greeks, but Mark of Ephesus, returned this answer: "We consent that you recite the addition to the symbol, and that it has been taken from the holy fathers; and we approve it, and are united with you; and we say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and cause."

This point being satisfactorily settled, the other mooted questions were soon adjusted, and on July 6th, 1439, the act of union was read in solemn session, in Latin by Cardinal Julian, and in Greek by Bessarion, Archbishop of Nice, who had been the leaders on either side in the discussion. It is in the name of "Eugenius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the consent of the most serene emperor, and of the other patriarchs." The pope, "with the approbation of the sacred universal Council of Florence," defines, first, the dogma of the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, as from one principle, and by one spiration; secondly, "that the explanatory words, and from the Son, were lawfully and reasonably added to the symbol, for the sake of declaring the truth, and by reason of imminent necessity;" thirdly, that both leavened and unleavened bread is lawful matter for the eucharist, and that priests must follow the rite of their own church--those of the western, that of the western; those of the eastern, that of the eastern; fourthly, the question of the different states of souls after death was settled according to the received doctrine which is now professed in the Catholic Church. We give the fifth section entire: "That the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff doth hold primacy over the whole earth, and that he is the successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and true vicar of Christ, and head of the whole church, and is the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of the blessed Peter, hath been delivered, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal church, as is contained in the acts of oecumenical councils and in the sacred canons." Lastly, the decree reorganizing the canonical order of patriarchs assigns the second place, after the Roman pontiff, to the patriarch of Constantinople, the third to the patriarch of Alexandria, the fourth to the patriarch of Antioch. A few more questions of minor importance were then proposed to the Greeks, to most of which they gave satisfactory replies, and soon afterward the emperor and his prelates returned home by way of Venice.

The difficulty about filioque has just been renewed by Mr. Ffoulkes, of England, in defence of some notion of his about a hybrid united, not one church. We scarcely think he will succeed in making good an objection which Bessarion and Mark of Ephesus failed to sustain. Any how, his thesis appears to be, not that any one "branch" of the church is entirely in the right, but that they are all partly in the wrong. Perhaps he thinks that to him, not to F. Hyacinthe, has the Lord given these sticks, to warm in his bosom, purify, and finally reunite. We must leave them to settle the question between themselves. But they ought to remember, with St. Jerome, that he who gathereth not with the pope, scattereth.

Great hopes were entertained that the union perfected after such long and free discussions would be lasting. But these were all disappointed. Of all the obscure questions connected with the Greek schism, the most obscure is how and when the compact of Florence was first violated in the east. It is certain that Metrophanes, elected Patriarch of Constantinople on the return of the Greek prelates, (as the Patriarch Joseph had died at Florence,) solemnly published the act of union.[180] His successor, Gregory, was equally devoted to the council, and before his elevation, defended its action against the attacks of Mark of Ephesus. This proud and turbulent man did not remain quiet under his defeat, but addressed most inflammatory letters to the orientals, making the vilest and most unfounded accusations, not only against the pope and the Latin bishops, but against his own colleagues. Though these were refuted by Gregory before mentioned, and by Joseph, Bishop of Mothon, they no doubt made a great impression on the prejudiced, nay, jaundiced oriental mind. Mark, however, did not dare to publish his attacks until after the death of John Palæologus, (A.D. 1448.)[181] A most extraordinary and shameful political intrigue appears to have come to the aid of the schismatical party. The Turk at this period was making his arrangements for the final attack on Constantinople. The only hope for the doomed city was in aid from the west. To prevent the sending of this seasonable aid, it was the obvious policy of the Mussulman to render void the union of Florence. Hence, in 1443, just ten years before the fall of New Rome, a synod was held at Jerusalem, composed entirely of bishops of sees under Turkish domination, among whom are numbered the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in which the act of union was declared impious. Metrophanes was adjudged to be an intruder into the see of Constantinople, and all ecclesiastics ordained by him were deposed, full power being given to the Metropolitan of Cæsarea to enforce this sentence in all dioceses under the jurisdiction of the council--that is, wherever the crescent had supplanted the cross.[182] Is it any wonder that, ten years after, the Turks were masters of the city of Constantine?

No one, not even a modern Greek, would attempt to maintain that the assemblage at Jerusalem was a legitimate council. The schismatics, however, allege a council said to have been held at Constantinople a year and a half after the Council of Florence, and after the death of John Palæologus, in which Metrophanes was deposed and the union rescinded. But there are two unfortunate anachronisms in this account. Metrophanes was certainly patriarch for three years after the council, and John Palæologus did not die until 1448, nine years after the act of union. One of the last acts of the expiring Greek empire was to send an ambassador to Pope Nicholas V. promising the exact and speedy fulfilment of the agreement entered into at Florence. We do not pretend to say that the greater portion of the clergy and people of Constantinople were not schismatics at heart; but this we can aver, that they were bound by the action of their bishops, in the free, open Council of Florence, and that this action has never been formally retracted by any legitimate council held in the East. And we commend this consideration to those Anglicans who sometimes, in their desire for a false union, seek to associate with Greek schismatics. These are condemned by the action of their fathers, an action never formally retracted, but merely opposed with a sullenness and hardness of heart not unlike that with which God visited Jerusalem before its destruction. While the Greeks were calling the Latins Azymites, and other opprobrious names, the minister of God's vengeance was approaching their gates; New Rome fell into infidel hands; and from the turret of St. Sophia, whose dome had so often resounded with excommunications of the vicar of Christ, the muezzin now invites the Moslem to prayer in the name of the false prophet. Photius and Cerularius aimed at making New Rome the spiritual superior of the city of Peter; instead, it has become the chief city of the deadly enemy of the Christian name.

This is a sad, sad story, and it is not in exultation or triumph that we pen these lines. While Mohammed II. was advancing his last lines, Pope Nicholas V. was making most strenuous efforts to succor the "fair but false" Greeks, and his successors never gave up their efforts to regain the city of Constantine until it was evident that there was no possibility of success.

The policy of Mohammed II. led him to spare a remnant of the inhabitants of the conquered city, and to permit to them the free exercise of their religion. But even in religious matters, he claimed the prerogatives of the sovereigns whom he had displaced.

"In the election and investiture of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, the Greeks beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius (the patriarch elect) the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence."[183]

And this degrading ceremony is continued to this day, each "oecumenical patriarch of New Rome" receiving solemn investiture at the hands of the Ottoman padisha.

The fall of Constantinople rendered certain the success of the schismatical party. The sultans detested the name, as they feared the influence, of the Roman pontiff; and it was plausibly argued that to avow union with him would be to insure their own destruction. The Catholic element, thus reduced to silence, gradually dwindled away; and the schism, though its abjuration at Florence remains in full force, again blighted the Greek Church.

As to hopes of reunion at the present day, "it is not for us to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in his own power." We can only hope and pray that light may at length dispel the darkness which has so long hung over the Eastern Church. Ottoman policy no longer requires the prolongation of the schism; its only real supporter is Russia. All the Greeks would have to do would be to sign the act of union of Florence. They can have no difficulty about the Council of Trent; for they have always condemned the errors it condemns. Protestantism has never found favor in their eyes. If the Council of the Vatican do not succeed in reuniting them, it will, it is confidently expected, at least renew the missionary spirit, and inaugurate a work which, respecting eastern susceptibilities, may bring the church of Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Chrysostom, and so many other great saints and doctors out of "darkness and the shadow of death," and put an end to a schism which commenced with the lawless ambition of Photius, was renewed by the satanic pride of Cerularius, and has had for chief support the perfidious policy, first of the degenerate Christian emperors, then of the victorious anti-Christian sultans of Constantinople.

FOOTNOTES:

[177] Epist. 34, lib. 7.

[178] Decline and Fall, ch. xlviii.

[179] See L'Eglise Orientale. Par Jacques Pitzipios. Rome: Propaganda Press. 1855. Part vi. p. 13. A work which gives most useful and interesting information on the state of the modern Greek Church.

[180] See Pitzipios, (Part ii. p. 47,) who gives a copy of one of the circular letters of the patriarch.

[181] Pitzipios, Part ii. pp. 55, 56, 57.

[182] Ibid., l. c. pp. 59, 60.

[183] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxviii.

THE CHRIST OF AUSFELDT.

We live in a sceptical age that laughs at what it calls the superstitions of the olden time; superstitions, if you will, but often most beautiful, particularly when viewed through the mists of time and change. It is a relief to come upon some living legend, so to speak, while travelling over the hard macadamized thoroughfare of our practical lives, and I shall never forget the pleasure I experienced in listening to the recital of a story of the olden time, told me by my gracious hostess at the village inn where I had been stopping for a few days while making a pedestrian tour through the southern part of Germany.

"Ach, mein Herr! and hast never heard the legend of the Christ of Ausfeldt?"

It stood, weather-beaten and worn, just where the solid piers set their mighty feet into the river; an old stone crucifix that seemed to have battled the storms of hundreds of years.

While pausing in my morning walk to gaze on it with a traveller's curiosity, something in the general characteristics of the figure attracted my attention; and examining it more closely, I immediately saw that it displayed greater evidence of artistic skill and execution than is generally manifested in wayside images. Too often they are but caricatures of that semblance which is the most holy and sacred of Christianity; but in the face of the Christ that looked down upon me from the stained and battered cross, I read an expression of patient suffering and God-like endurance that would have borne noble testimony to any sculptor.

Returning to the inn, a desire to discover something of the history rather of the sculptor than of the image prompted me to make inquiry of my good-natured landlady, who sat in the twilight just outside of the house door, knitting as only a German woman can.

From that "Ach, mein Herr!" I knew a story was coming; and knowing, likewise, that Frau Gretchen was a very princess in story-telling, I lighted my pipe, and, stretching myself on the wooden bench before the door, prepared to be either saddened, amused, or delighted, as the case might be.

Frau Gretchen laid down her stocking for a moment, smoothed the whitest of white aprons, and having looked toward the river, and then at the ruined castle that surmounted the hill beyond, resumed her knitting, and, heaving a gentle sigh began:

"More than three hundred years ago, and for hundreds of years before that time, there dwelt in that old castle yonder the noble lords of Ausfeldt. They were great warriors; mighty in stature and strength, and for generations on generations had been feared and hated by their vassals; for they were wicked as they were violent, and cruel as they were brave. Now, the women were all fair and gentle; for such was the power of the lords of Ausfeldt that it was ever given them to wed the flowers of the land; and it seemed that the good God made for them angel wives, so pure, and meek, and pious, and charitable were the ladies of Ausfeldt through centuries and centuries of time.

"Now, it fell out that Berthold, the reigning count, had been rescued from drowning by Arnold, a wood-carver of the town, whose skill in his craft was well known and much sought even from Alspach and Brauen. It was on a Good-Friday, and the grateful lord registered a vow to Heaven that he would commemorate his preservation by erecting an image of the Saviour crucified nigh to the spot where the waters had so nearly closed over him for ever.

"For in those days, mein Herr, although the great and mighty were fierce and cruel, faith was not dead in their hearts, as it is in these evil times of ours.

"Old Arnold of Ausfeldt, at his own beseeching, was deputed to essay his skill upon the Christ, and so well did he execute the task that his fame travelled far and wide. A large sum of money was promised him; but Berthold the master went off to the wars, and forgot, as men often do, his deliverer. Soon afterward old Arnold died and left all alone in the world his beautiful daughter, so fair and spotless that she was called 'the Lily of Ausfeldt.'

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