Chapter IV…

Chapter IV

Two days afterward, Dionysius the Athenian called at the inn, and informed Aglais, Paulus, and Agatha, that after the banquet in the Mamurran palace at Formiæ, that evening, there was to be a great gathering of the witty, the noble, the fashionable, and the wise, and that he was charged to invite Aglais and her two children as friends of his.

Aglais declined the honor for herself and her daughter, but said she wished Paulus to go with Dionysius. Paulus, therefore, laid aside the outlandish costume in which he had travelled from Thessaly, and dressed himself with care in the fashion suitable to a young Roman of equestrian rank. Dionysius remained to join the family in their repast, which was virtually what we should in modern times call the early dinner, after which the two friends mounted Dion's chariot, and proceeded toward Formiæ at an easy pace, along the smooth pavement of the "queen of roads."

During the drive they had a conversation which was, for good reasons, very interesting to Paulus.

"A most capricious course," said Dionysius, "is your suit or claim running. In seeking to recover your family estates you prudently avoid at first bringing the holder into a court of law; for the judges might shrink from voiding a title which not only arises out of an express gift of Augustus, but is identical with the title under which half the land of Italy has been held since the battle of Philippi. Instead of an immediate lawsuit, therefore, you try a direct appeal to Augustus, offering to show him that at the very time when your father's estate was taken away he had just rendered the same services for which, had he been willing to accept it, he would, like so many others, have had a right to be endowed with a new estate, taken from some member of the defeated party. But Augustus refers you back to the courts, where, for the two reasons mentioned, you fear the result. But two other reasons might be added for fearing it still more: first, the present holder is dreaded on account of his political power and his station; Tiberius is the man who, by marrying the daughter of Agrippa Vipsanius, has come into possession of your property; secondly, wealth is necessary for the success of such a suit; wealth he has, and wealth you have not. The courts present, consequently, but small hopes; yet you fail to get Augustus to decide your case himself.

"Have I correctly stated the position of your affairs?"

"To a nicety," replied Paulus. "Had I interest at court, I should find justice there."

"In your case," said Dionysius, "interest at court would be equivalent to justice in the courts. As I took precisely this view of the business, and as Augustus has paid me such honor, and shown me such partiality as few have found with him for many years, it occurred to me that if I threw my unclaimed and unexpected interest into the same scale wherein your just demands already lay--"

"Ah kind and generous friend!" interrupted Paulus; "I understand."

"Not so kind, nor so generous," replied Dionysius, "to my friend Paulus, as I saw Paulus show himself to be the day before yesterday to a stranger and a slave. But hear me out. No sooner did I tell Augustus that I had a favor to ask of him, than he placed his hand on my mouth, and said, 'I like to hear you talk; but mine has been too busy a life to permit me to draw forth by properly opposing you the full force of your own opinions--OR THE TRUTH. The truth in these matters (not your affair, Paulus, but philosophy) is the only truth which can interest a man about to die. You must state these views in the presence of young, vigorous, and not preoccupied intellects. If you hold your own as well against what they can allege as against my objections, submit to me afterward your petition. One thing at a time.' This and the like, with the indomitable whim and obstinate waywardness of age, he has continued to fling at me, whenever I have renewed the attempt to state your case; and I have done so five or six times. Titus Livy and Quintus Haterius, whom I have consulted, advise me to take literally and in the spirit of downright business this curious caprice. Now, do you know, to-night is appointed for a sort of arena-fight? All the gladiatorial intellects of the west are to be arrayed to crush the fantastic theories and pretty delusions of a Greek, an Athenian. All motives chain me, all pledges prevent me; moreover, honor and truth, to say nothing, my friend, of your own personal future, interdict me from flight."

"Flight!" cried Paulus; "you fly?"

"Ah!" said Dionysius; "you know not all that I mean. You and I have been differently reared, yet in the same spirit. However, as you said, when at the risk of your own life you stood between oppression and an innocent young couple, the great Being whom we both expect will be pleased with a willing effort after what is right.

"But here we are at the gates of Formiæ. How the palace of the Mamurras glitters! How these narrow streets flare with torches! We must go at a walk. Charioteer, let the litters pass first. Yes, my friend, in the painful position in which I shall be forced to stand to-night, (and I blush beforehand, knowing my incompetence, my ignorance, and the intrinsic difficulty of what I am expected to do,) your future fortunes and the rights of your family are by a strange caprice made dependent upon the success with which I may be able to defend ideas of general and unchangeable value, beauty, and truth; ideas which it debases a man not to have, and exalts him to entertain; ideas which were always dear to the greatest minds that have preceded us, and which are reflected in every calm and pure soul, as the stars in fair, sweet lakes, although the putrid, slimy pool, and the waters tossed with storms, and an atmosphere darkened with clouds, may forbid the image, by intercepting the heavenly light or defacing the earthly mirror."

While Dionysius thus informed Paulus of the singular and close connection which had arisen between the future prospects of his mother, his sister, and himself, as well as the establishment of their rights, and the success with which Dionysius might this night be able to make good his philosophical doctrines against the wits, the orators, and the sophists of the Augustan court, at the same moment Tiberius was conversing upon the same subject with Domitius Afer and Antistius Labio in a room of the Mamurran palace.

"Just," said he, in continuation of a conversation previously commenced, "as if a person's claim to an estate could be rendered either better or worse by the style of his horsemanship!"

Here Domitius Afer laughed heartily, and showed his admiration of Cæsar's wit. Labio, a saturnine, laborious man, son of one of the assassins of Julius Cæsar, and author of numberless works, preserved a grim, unsmiling air, as he observed,

"A man may ride over an estate, and over all its hedges and ditches; but he must be no bad rider if he can jump his horse into a title to become its proprietor."

"Nevertheless, the infatuation of Augustus for the Greek friend of the claimant is such that if the Athenian acquits himself successfully to-night in the Mæcenas-like criticisms and Plato-like discussions which are, I suspect, to vary our entertainments, he will next suffer the golden-tongued youth to state the case of Paulus Lepidus Æmilius. The effect at which you must aim is to make a fool of the Athenian; and you are the men to do it. Refute every thing he says, ridicule him, cover him with confusion; make him the gibe of the whole court, the derision of the brilliant circle assembling here to-night. Put an end to his influence. We want no more mind-battles in Italy. I set dogs upon a dog. Arouse all your attention. Bend all your energies. Let the stranger retire from among us in disgrace."

That night, the most brilliant company which could then be culled out of the human race was assembled in the central impluvium of the Mamurran palace and its arcades. Lamps, hanging from the festoons of creeping plants which adorned and connected the porphyry pillars of the colonnades, mingled their gleam with the light of the moon and stars. The variety of rays, of shadows, and of coloring which were thus sprinkled over the flowers, the leaves, the walls and pillars, the faces, figures, and dresses, produced a scene which a painter could better render than words can. The central fountain was smitten into a sorcery of tints, as it shed into a large basin of green marble the drooping sheaf of waters, of which the materials were perpetually changing, and the form and outlines perfectly maintained, or instantly and perpetually renewed.

The Emperor, and the Cæsars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with the famous authors we have already more than once mentioned, Livy, and Lucius Varius, and Velleius Paterculus were present. Ælius Sejanus, the prefect of the Prætorians; Cneius Piso, the gambler; Plancina, his rich wife; Lucius Piso, his brother, governor of Rome; with many persons who then sparkled in the court orbits, but whose names have perished out of human memory; and Julia, the emperor's daughter, Tiberius's new wife; and Agrippina Vipsania, lately his wife; and Agrippina Julia, daughter of the former, sister of the latter, wife of Germanicus, and mother of Caligula; and Livia, the aged wife of Augustus himself, all appeared among the guests. Chairs and couches had been placed here and there. Augustus and the ladies we have mentioned were seated, some just within, others just without one of the arcades, between two of its columns, so that the moonlight fell upon some heads, the lamplight upon others; and a wayward, dubious mixture of both upon the golden tresses of Agrippina Julia, and of a beautiful young girl near her, on whom Domitius Afer, the celebrated orator, was gazing with admiration. But she, when she at last observed his glance, fixed upon him such a look of combined scorn and amazement that the advocate winced and became livid. She was destined, one day, to be the subject of his fatal eloquence, and to appease by nothing less than her execution the vindictive vanity of the orator, because she had spurned the ambitious love of the man.

Tacitus alludes to the poor Claudia Pulchra's brief tale. Quintus Haterius, whose Shakespeare-like variety of mind and bewitching eloquence had, as Ben Jonson implies in a comparison already cited by us, few rivals, was seated not far from Augustus. Next sat Livy. Antistius Labio and his rival Domitius Afer, who now occupied the place and fame in the forum from which Haterius on account of his age had withdrawn, stood leaning against a pillar, each with his arms folded. Both these persons, as well as Livy and Haterius, wore the toga; Sejanus, the scarlet paludamentum. The other male guests--except Tiberius, whose dark purple robe was conspicuous, and Germanicus, who was dressed in the costume of a commander-in-chief--wore a species of large tunic, called lacerna, which (contrary to the taste of the emperor, and despite of his frequently expressed disapproval) had become fashionable. The story mentioned by Suetonius is well known. One day Augustus, seeing numbers of the people wearing the lacerna, asked indignantly, in a line of Virgil's, could these be Romans, "Romanos rerum dominos, GENTEMQUE TOGATAM," and ordered the ædiles to admit none but toga-wearers into either the forum or the circus. But this was many years before the evening with which we are now engaged.

Among the groups collected in the Mamurran palace were representatives of the three great arts, in mastering which the highest education of classic antiquity was exhausted; we mean the arts of politics, of public speaking, and of strategy--government, eloquence, and war. They were all represented, each of them had its proper image in the groups we have described. As those pursuits constituted the favorite intellectual sphere, and comprehended all the fields of ambition, to be eminent in any one of them was to succeed in life, and to be adopted into that class of society of which so many distinguished members were entertained in the Formian palace on the night at which our tale has arrived.

If a man excelled, like Julius Cæsar, in all the three arts named, he could revolutionize the world. The mechanic arts, the fine arts, philosophy, physical science, mathematics, attracted individual votaries indeed; but were neglected by the ambition of a few, as well as by the indolence of many.

The mention of physical studies recalls Strabo, the geographer, who was among the guests this evening at the palace.

Many others who were there we need not enumerate; but some will claim a word and a glance. When Dionysius arrived, and introduced Paulus to the aged knight, Mamurra, the company was already numerous. Mamurra patted Paulus on the shoulder, and said, although the other day in the road he had not at once recalled old times, he remembered Paulus's brave father very well at the battle of Philippi; and that he, Mamurra, had seen him and Agrippa Vipsanius together, rallying the wing which Mark Antony had broken, and that he himself had charged with the cavalry to help him. This speech was very gracious, and our hero, who well knew it to be true, blushed with pride and pleasure. While the glow of this natural and honorable emotion was still coloring his young face, as he bowed to Mamurra, the latter took him by the arm, and said in a low voice,

"Come, let an old soldier present the son of a former comrade, whose life was honorable, and whose memory is glorious, to the master for whom they both fought with equal zeal, although unequal fortune."

Augustus returned Paulus's low salutation with a faint yet not unkindly smile, and then looked with a sort of sleepy steadiness at Tiberius, who heard Mamurra's words, and whose face was apparently flaming with a dark red rage. Near Tiberius, who now threw himself upon the cushions of a couch plated with gold, just opposite the chair which Augustus had selected, stood a tall, regular-featured, Brahmin-like man, in Asiatic dress, and next to this individual, Sejanus, with his usual air of supercilious composure, yet intent watchfulness.

The couch we have mentioned was long and large, and two ladies, one old, the other young, were already sitting at the further end of it. The first was Antonia, the mother of Germanicus, the second was Agrippina Julia, his wife. Just in front of them, upon a low stool, sat the son of the latter, Caius Caligula, with his eyes yet bandaged, as the reader will not be surprised to hear; while at his side, fidgeting with large, red, lubberly hands, stood a big, loutish, heavy-looking boy, who was considerably the senior of that dear child. This was no other than Claudius, the fourth of the Cæsarian dynasty, (or the fifth, if Julius Cæsar be accounted the first,) reserved, against his will, to mount the throne of the world amid panic and horror, that day when Caligula shall be hacked to pieces by Cassius Chærias, in the theatre of the palace at Rome.

Thus, three future rulers of mankind, destined to bear dire sceptres in dark and evil days, were around the white hairs of Augustus Cæsar to-night.

As Paulus stepped backward after Augustus's languid but not unkindly reception of him, Dionysius, who was just behind, moved quickly and gracefully out of his way, and Claudius, the big, loutish lad, being impelled thereto by the nature of him, shuffled forward so as to come in collision with Paulus.

"Monster!" exclaimed Antonia, ashamed of her son's awkwardness; "if I wanted to prove any one void of all mind, I would call him more stupid than you!"[286]

Paulus glided into the background, saying with a bow and a smile, "My fault!"

He now found himself in the immediate neighborhood of that eastern group which his young sister had described as presenting themselves one morning at the entrance of the bower in the inn garden, when she was there listening to the strange conversation of Plancina; we mean Queen Berenice and her daughter Herodias, and her son Herod Agrippa.

They all three fixed their gaze upon him with that unabashed, hardy manner peculiar to the family, and Paulus was beginning to feel uncomfortable in their vicinity and under their scrutiny, when Germanicus Cæsar approached, and complimenting him upon his brilliant exploit two evenings before, asked him whether he would like to join the expedition which was to start next day to drive the Germans from the north-east of Italy?

If he would, Germanicus offered to mount him splendidly, and keep him near his own person, and make him the bearer of orders to the generals; in modern phrase, give him a place on the staff. Paulus thanked the commander-in-chief briefly and respectfully, and asked to be allowed to wait till noon next day before giving a more definite answer than that he should rejoice to accept the gracious offer; his mother and sister had no protector except himself, and he should not like to leave them, without first hearing what they said. Germanicus assented.

During the short conversation of which this was the substance, Germanicus had moved slowly up the gravel-walk; and Paulus of course attended him, listening and answering, not sorry besides to put some space between himself and the unpleasant Jewish group. By the time they had finished speaking they had arrived opposite the couch where Tiberius, Antonia, and Agrippina were seated, with Germanicus's child, Caligula, as we have described, occupying a low stool in front of his mother Agrippina. Close by, leaning against a pillar, stood a youth in the uniform of a centurion who had a most determined, thoughtful countenance.

On the approach of Germanicus, he briskly quitted his lounging attitude to salute his commander.

"Young knight," said Germanicus to Paulus, "let me make you acquainted with as brave a youth, I think, as can be found in all the Roman legions; this is Cassius Chærias."

"Who, father," asked the shrill voice of the child Caligula, "is the brave youth, do you say?"

"Cassius Chærias."

"Are you so brave?" persisted the impudent child, shoving up his bandage impatiently, and disclosing a truly disfigured and malicious little face.

"I can't see you, or what you are like. But I think I could make you afraid if I was emperor."

The man destined hereafter to deliver mankind from the boundless profligacy, the wicked oppression, and the insane, raging, incredible cruelties of which it was daily the miserable victim by killing Caligula the emperor, looked steadily at Caligula the child, and said not a word.

"I should like to feel your sword, whether it is heavy," pursued the child. "Give it me." And he started to his feet.

"Silence! pert baby," said Germanicus, pushing him back into his place.

"It seems to me," said Augustus, looking round, and there was an instantaneous hush of general conversation as he did so; "that we have represented around us Europe, Asia, and Africa. Young Herod and his friends may count for Asia."

"You," added Augustus, addressing the tall, Brahmin-like man who stood near Tiberius, "come from Egypt, do you not?"

"Mighty emperor," returned the other in measured and sepulchral tones, "I come from the land where great Babylon once was the seat of empire."

No sooner had this man opened his mouth than the observant Sejanus started.

Approaching his mouth to the other's ear, he whispered,

"I have heard your voice before; you are--?"

"I am," replied the other, composedly eyeing his questioner, "Thrasyllus Magus--Thrasyllus, the student of the stars."

Sejanus smiled, twisted his moustache in his white fingers, and asked,

"Are you sure that you are not the god Hermes? and that you do not sometimes ride of nights, with your horse's hoofs wrapped in cloth?"

It was now the other's turn to start.

"Do you suppose," pursued Sejanus, still in a whisper, "that I had not every stable in Formiæ searched the night you played that trick on the road? I know my master Tiberius's taste for divination and the various deep things you practice. You, then, are the oracle who reveals to him the decrees of fate?"

The exchange of further remarks between these worthy men was here suspended; for Augustus again spoke amid general attention.

"I think," said he, "that we should all now be glad to hear Dionysius the Athenian." An eager hum of assent and approval arose from the jaded and sated, but inquisitive and critical society around.

"There are in your philosophy," continued Augustus, "two leading principles, my Athenian, in support of which I am both curious and anxious to hear you advance some solid and convincing reasons. You despise, as Cicero despised it, the notion of a plurality of gods. You affirm there is only one. You say that a god who could begin to be a god, or begin at all, can be no god; and that the true King of all kings, is the giver of whatever exists, and the recipient of nothing. That he is without a body, a pure and holy intelligence. That as every thing else is his work, there never were, and never will be, and never could be, any limits either of his power or of his knowledge. At the same time, you reject the notion, adopted in some Greek systems, that he is the soul of the visible universe, and this universe his body; affirming him to be antecedent to and independent of all things, and all other things to be absolutely dependent upon him.

"Is it not so?"

"Yes," answered Dionysius; "such is my assured conviction."

"This, then," said Augustus, "is the first question upon which I wish to hear you; and the second is, whether that force or principle within each of us which thinks, reflects, reasons, and is conscious of itself, will perish at our death, or will live beyond it, and is of such a nature that it will never perish, as Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, and many other illustrious men and very great thinkers have so ardently contended."

"Ah!" said Dionysius, in a voice indescribably sweet and thrilling, while all turned their eyes toward him; "unless that God himself assist me, I shall be quite unequal to the task you impose upon me, Augustus. I am not worthy to treat the subject upon which you desire me to speak. You are aware that many learned persons in our Europe expect, and for a long time have expected, some divine being to appear one day among men. I see the able governor of Rome, Lucius Piso. None will accuse Piso of credulity, none suppose him a weaver of idle fancies, or a dreamer of gratuitous reveries. An able administrator, an accomplished man of the world, and, if he will pardon me, more inclined to be too sarcastic than too indulgent, he, nevertheless, despises not this expectation. Our learned friend Strabo, whom I see near me, will tell you moreover how it prevails, and has from immemorial times prevailed, in various and often perverted forms, yet with an underlying essence of permanent identity, among the innumerable nations which make some thirty languages resound through the immense expanses of Asia. But Domitius Afer desires to interrupt me."

Afer said,

"I do not discern how this ancient and mysterious expectation which floats vaguely through the traditions of all mankind, and in a more definite shape forms the groundwork for the whole religion of the Jewish nation, can be at all connected either with the immortality of the thinking principle inside of us, or with the question whether there is one supreme, absolute, and eternal God who made this universe."

"All I would have added," replied Dionysius, "in regard to that expectation was, that after the appearance of this universal benefactor, many sublime ideas which hitherto only the strongest intellects have entertained, will probably become familiar to the meanest--common to all.

"I pass to the two questions which Augustus desires to hear argued; and, first, let me collect the opinions of this brilliant company; I will then compare them with mine. What does Antistius Labio think?"

"I should have to invent a term to express my notion," said Labio. "I think all things are but emanations from, and return to, the same being. What might be called pantheism, if we coined a word from the language of your country, best explains, I fancy, the phenomena of the universe. Every thing is growth and decay; but as decay furnishes larger growth, every thing is growth at last and in the total sum."

"Is this growth of all things under any general control?" asked Dionysius.

"Each thing," replied Labio, "is under the control of its own nature, which evidently it cannot change, and every inferior thing besides is under the control of any superior thing with which it may come into relations. Thus what is active is superior as such to what is passive; it is more excellent and a higher force to act upon, or sway, or change, or move, or form, than to be acted upon, moved, or modified. The mind of an architect, for instance, is a higher force than the dead weight of the inert stones from which he builds a palace."

"Then you hold that some things have force, and that there are greater and smaller forces?" asked Dionysius.

"Undoubtedly," said Labio.

"Which is more excellent," asked Dionysius, "a force which can move itself, or a force which, in order to exist, must be set in motion by another?"

"This last," said Labio, "is only the first prolonged; it is but a continuation, an effect."

"And an effect," pursued the Greek, "is inferior, as such, to what controls it; and inferior also in its very nature to that which requires no cause?"

"Certainly," returned Labio; "I am not so dull as to gainsay that."

"Now favor me with your attention," returned the Athenian; "I want you to extricate me from a dilemma. Either every thing which possesses force has received its force from something else; or there is something which possesses force, and which never received this force from any thing else, and which, therefore, has possessed it from all eternity. Which of these two alternatives do you select?"

Labio paused, and by this time the whole of that strangely mixed society was listening with the keenest relish and the most genuine interest to the conversation.

"I see whither you tend," replied Labio, "but I do not believe in that universal ruler and original mind, or first force, which you think to demonstrate. All things go in circles, and serially. Every force which exists has been derived from some other; and each in its turn continues the movement, or communicates the impact."

"Prettily expressed," remarked Velleius Paterculus.

"I beg Augustus," said the Athenian, "to mark and remember Labio's words. Every thing which has force has received its force from something else. Do you say every thing, Labio, without exception?"

"Yes, every thing," said Labio. "I conceive the chain to be endless."

"But not having, good Labio," replied the Athenian, "goes before receiving. I cannot, and you cannot, receive that which we have already. In order to say that we receive any thing, we must first be without it--must we not? The state of not having, I repeat, precedes the act of receiving. Does any person deny this? Does Labio?"

No one here spoke.

"Then," said the Athenian, "in maintaining that every thing which possesses force has received that force from something else, Labio necessarily maintains that every thing which possesses force was first without it. I therefore perceive there must have been a time when nothing possessed any force whatever. The very first thing which possessed any, received it; but whence? For, at that time, there was nothing to give it. What says Labio? Is pantheism silent?"

"I wish to hear more," said Labio; "I will answer you afterward."

A momentary smile, like a passing gleam, lit up the faces of those around, as the Athenian, looking toward Domitius Afer, requested him the next to favor the company with his opinion upon the two momentous questions propounded by Augustus.

"I need not, like Labio, coin a term from the Greek," said Afer, "to describe my system. I am a materialist. I believe nothing save what my senses attest. They show me neither God nor soul; and I am determined never to accept any other criterion."

"Are you quite sure," asked Dionysius, "that you are thus determined? I should like to shake such a determination."

"You'll fail," replied Afer, smiling. "Which of your senses, then, has attested to you that very determination? Can you see, taste, smell, hear, or touch it? And yet you tell us you are sure of it. If so, you can believe in, and be sure of, something which has never been submitted to the criterion which alone you admit."

"A determination is not a thing," said Afer hastily, and with a little confusion.

"Was Julius Cæsar a thing?" persisted Dionysius; "because if you believe that Julius Cæsar existed, having heard of him and read of him, your senses of hearing and seeing do not attest to you in this case the existence of Julius Cæsar, but simply the affirmations of others that he has existed. My hearing attests to me that Strabo says he has been in Spain; and this, if there were no other reason, would satisfy me that Spain exists; yet it is Strabo whom I hear. I do not hear Spain."

Augustus clapped his hands gently, and laughed. Domitius Afer, with visible anger, exclaimed,

"I mean, that I will take nothing but upon proof. Prove that the soul is immortal; prove that one supreme God exists. Every thing which a reasonable man believes ought to be demonstrated."

"I hope," said Dionysius, "to prove those two truths to your satisfaction. But as you say that all we believe ought to be demonstrated, I will first offer you a demonstration, that it is impossible to demonstrate every thing. To prove any proposition, you require a second; and to prove the second, in its turn, you require a third; and it is upon this third, if you admit it, that the demonstration of the first depends. But if you had fifty propositions, or any number, in the chain, what proves the last of them?"

"Another yet," said Afer.

"But," said the Greek, "either you come to a last, or you never come to a last. If you never come to a last proposition, you never finish your proof; you leave it uncompleted; it remains still no proof at all; you have not performed what you undertook. And if you do come to a final proposition, which is supported by no other, what supports it?"

There was a little start of pleasure in the company at the sudden and clear closes to which the Athenian was, each and every time, bringing what seemed likely to have grown into intricate and long disquisitions.

"My object, Augustus," pursued Dion, "was to show that we are all so made that we feel compelled to believe much more than we can prove. Otherwise, our knowledge would be confined within narrow limits indeed. He who knows no more than he can demonstrate, knows but little. May I now ask the distinguished orators, Montanus and Capito, for their theories respecting the questions which interest us so much to-night?"

Quintus Haterius prevented any answer to this appeal. "The eloquent and learned thinker," said he--"who will yet, I have no doubt, be the ornament of the Athenian Areopagus--has placed me, and, I think, many others near me, completely on his side, in what has hitherto passed. Young as he is, he has made us feel the masterful facility with which he is able to throw light upon errors placed where truth ought to stand. The operation is highly amusing; we could pass a long evening in watching it repeated against any number of antagonists. But come, Dionysius, reverse the process; take your own ground; maintain it; raise there your system like your castle; and let those assail it, if they please, whom your aggressive genius on the contrary turns to assail."

"Haterius is right," said Augustus. "I could assist at any number of these collisions; but they take a form which presents your mind to us, my Athenian, as a hunter and conqueror rather than a founder."

"But I am no founder," replied the youth, earnestly and modestly; "and I aspire to nothing of the kind. The fact is merely and simply this: After much study I have arrived at the conviction--first, that there is one absolutely perfect and eternal Being who governs the universe; and, next, that what thinks within each of us never will die. Since you desire to hear the reasons which have brought me to these conclusions, I cannot decline to state one or two of them at least--though this place, this occasion, and this dazzling company befit the subject far less, I fear, than if a few studious friends discussed it, sitting under the starry sky, on some quiet, unfrequented shore."

"Now we shall hear Plato," said Tiberius, with something almost like a sneer.

"Pardon me," said Dionysius, "Plato may speak for himself. You have him to read; why should I repeat him? Those who miss Plato's meaning in his own pages would miss it in my commentary."

Julia uttered a taunting laugh, as she glanced at her new husband Tiberius, whom she always treated with scorn.

"You remember, Augustus," Dionysius continued, "that a few minutes ago, Antistius Labio, in answering one of my questions, stated that a force which could move itself was more excellent, as such, than one which required to be set in motion by another, as the mind of the architect, said he, is superior to the stones from which he builds a palace. Labio then very justly added, in reply to another question, that what was moved only by the force of something else possessed no proper force of its own, its force being but a continuation of the first, an effect of the impact. He finally assented, when I showed that it is impossible that every thing without exception which possesses force should have received it, because not having goes before receiving, and because this is only another mode of saying that every thing without exception was once devoid of force. If a particular being has received the force it possesses, that particular being must once have been without it; and if all beings without exception who possess force have received it, they likewise without exception must all, in the same manner, have first been without it, a supposed state during which no force at all existed anywhere. That any being should ever acquire force, when there was nowhere any force for it to acquire, would be an unsatisfactory philosophy."

"There has, perhaps, been," said Tiberius, "an eternal chain of these forces transmitting themselves onward."

"If," said the Athenian, "you admit the existence of any one being who possesses a force which he never received from another, that being is evidently eternal. But to say that a being has received its force, is to say that its force has had a beginning; and to say that any thing begins, is to say that once it was not. A chain of forces all received is, therefore, a chain of forces all begun--is it not? Now, if they have all begun, they have all had something prior to them. But nothing can be prior to what is eternal; such a chain or series, therefore, cannot itself be eternal."

"No link is eternal," said Tiberius; "but all the links of the chain together may surely be so."

The Athenian looked round with a smile at Tiberius, and said, "If all the forces which exist now, and all those which ever existed in the universe, without exception, have been received from something else, what is that something else beyond all the forces of the universe? They would all without exception have begun. To say this of them, is merely to say that they were all non-existent once; and this without exception. In other words, the whole chain, even with all its links taken together, is short of eternal. If so, it has been preceded either by blank nothing, or by some being who has a force not thus received, a force which is his own inherently and absolutely, as I maintain. Tell me of a chain, the top of which recedes beyond our ken, that the lowest link depends on the next to it, and this on the third, I understand you; but if I ask what suspends the whole chain, with all its links taken together, it is no answer to say that the links are so numerous and the chain is so long that it requires nothing but itself to keep it in suspension. The longer it is, the greater must be the necessity of the ultimate grasp, and the stronger must that grasp be; and observe, it must be truly ultimate, otherwise you have not solved the difficulty; nay, the suspending force must be distinct from and beyond the chain itself, or you do not account for the suspension. But I will put all this past a cavil. What I said respecting proofs to Domitius Afer, I say respecting causes to Tiberius Cæsar. No one denies that various forces are operating in the universe. Now, of two things, one: Either there is a first force, acting and moving by its own freedom, which; being antecedent to all other forces, not only must be independent of them all, but can alone have produced them all; or else there is in the universe no force which has not some other antecedent to it. This last proposition is easily shown to be an absurdity; for to say that every force has a force antecedent to it, is the same as to say that all forces have another force antecedent to them; in other words, that, over and above all things of a given class, there is another thing of that class. Can there be more than the whole? Can there be another thing of a certain kind, beyond all things of that kind? Besides every force, is there yet another force? If any one is here who would say so, I wait to hear him."

No one said a word.

"Then remark the conclusion," pursued Dionysius. "It is a self-contradiction to contend that there can be one thing more of a class than all things of that class; therefore there is not, and cannot be, a force antecedent to every force in the universe; therefore there is, and must be, in the universe, a force which is the first force, a force which has not and could not have any other antecedent to it. Now this force, being the first, could be controlled by no other; by its action every other must have been produced, and under its control every other must lie."

"Do not you contradict yourself?" inquired Afer; "you show there cannot be a force antecedent to all forces, and still you conclude that there is."

"There cannot," said Dionysius, "be a force antecedent to all forces, because this would be one more of a class beyond all of a class. But there may be the first of the class, before which no other was; and this is what I have demonstrated to exist. That first force is antecedent, not to all, but to all others; there you stop; there is none antecedent to Him. As he is the first force, all things must have come from him. He made and built this universe; it is his imperial palace. You have asked me to prove that one eternal and omnipotent God lives. I have now given you an argument which I am by no means afraid, in this, or any other assembly, to call a demonstration. And it is but one out of a great many."

A low murmur of spontaneous plaudits and frank assent ran round that luxurious, but highly cultivated, appreciative, and brilliant company; and one voice a little too loud was heard exclaiming,

"It is as clear as the light of day, dear Dion!"

All eyes turned in one direction, and Paulus, whose feelings of admiration and sympathy had thus betrayed him, blushed scarlet as he withdrew behind the stately form of Germanicus, who looked round at him smiling, half in amusement, half in kindness.

"I do think it a demonstration indeed," said Augustus, musing gravely.

"How strangely must that stupendous Being," said Strabo, the geographer, "deem of a world which has come so completely to forget and ignore him!"

"Your reasoning," resumed Augustus, "differs much, as you said it would, from Plato's. Plato is too subtle for our Roman taste."

"So is he," said Dionysius, "too subtle, and, I think, too hesitating, for the taste of most men everywhere. I admire his genius, but I disclaim many of his theories, and am not a disciple of his school."

"Of what school are you?"

"I am dissatisfied with every school," replied the future convert of St. Paul, blushing. "But I am quite certain that there is only one God, and that he is eternal and all-perfect.

"What I have said, I have said because I believe it; not in order to play at mental swords with these eloquent and gifted men, whom I honor. There is, if we would look for it, a reflection of this great Being in our minds like that of a star in water; but the water must be undisturbed, or the light wavers and is broken. We see many beings, greater and smaller. Now, who can doubt that, where there are greater and smaller, there must be a greatest? Each one of us is conscious and certain of three things: first, that he himself has not existed from all eternity; secondly, each of us feels that he did not make his own mind; and thirdly, that he could not make another mind. Now, the mind who made ours must be superior to any thing contained in what he thus made; therefore, although we can conceive a being of whose power, knowledge, and perfection we discern no possible limit, this very conception must be inferior to its object. There must exist outside of our mind some being greater still than the greatest of which we can form any intellectual idea, however boundless. The lead fused in a mould cannot be greater in its outlines than the mould which presents the form. Again, no person will contend that the sublime and the absurd are one and the same thing--that the terms are convertible. But yet, if an absolutely perfect and sovereign being did not exist, the conception which we form of such a being, instead of constituting the highest heaven of sublimity to which our thoughts can soar, would constitute the lowest depth of absurdity into which they could sink."

A little pause followed.

"Do you, then," said Afer, with a subtle smile, "introduce to us the novel doctrine, that whatever is sublime must therefore be true?"

"If I said yes," replied Dionysius, "and I am not a little tempted, you would succeed in drawing me aside into a very long and darkling road. But I have advanced nothing to that effect. My inference depended not on assuming that every thing which is sublime must be true, but on the supposition that nothing which is absurd could be sublime."

"Quite so," remarked Haterius; "and was there not another inference dormant in what you said?"

"There was," said Dionysius; "but it looks like subtilizing to wake it and give it wings; and, as I am a Greek, I fear--I--in short, I have tried to confine myself to the plainest and broadest reasonings."

"Fear not," said Germanicus; "learned Greece, you know, has conquered her fierce vanquishers."

Tiberius gnawed his under-lip; and the Lady Plancina, glancing at him and then at her husband Cneius Piso, who was listening attentive but ill at ease, exclaimed,

"Enervated them, you mean!"

Germanicus threw back his head, smiled, and remarked, "To-morrow the legions are going forth to try against the Germans whether the Roman heart beats as of old; what was the further inference, Athenian?"

"Since there must," said Dion, "where greater and smaller beings exist, be a greatest, we can all try to form some conception of him. Now, this conception must fall short of his real greatness. Why? Because as I have demonstrated that this being is the first force, from which all others in the universe, including our minds, must have come, no idea contained in our minds can be greater than the very power which made those minds themselves. But, apart from this demonstration, every one of us can say, a being may exist so great as to be incapable of non-existence. Such a being is conceivable; it is his non-existence which then, by the very supposition, is inconceivable. Now, if there be something the non-existence of which would be inconceivable, while of the being himself you possess a notion, thinking of him as, for example, and terming him, the first force, eternal, boundless--giver of all, recipient of naught--the certainty of his existence is established already for the heart; for that faculty which precedes demonstration in accepting truth--for remember I have shown, and I have proved, that we are so made as to be compelled to believe far more than any of us can ever demonstrate."

"This, then," said Augustus, "is the dim image of which you spoke; the reflection of the star in water?"

"Yes, emperor," replied Dionysius; "but not always dim; the deepest and the purest of all the lights which that water reflects. Often it reflects no image, however; and often it reflects but clouds and storms. To say you truly conceive a thing, is to say you are certain of it in the way you conceive it. If you conceive any thing to be certain, you possess the certainty of it. You may be certain that a thing is _un_certain; in other words, you have arrived at a clear notion of its uncertainty. To conceive the contingency of an object, is to possess the positive idea that it is contingent. To conceive a necessary being, is to have the clear idea not simply that he is, but that he must be. He could not be conceived at all, he could not even be an object of thought, as both necessary and non-existent. All conceivable objects, except one, are conceived as either possible or actual. But that one alone is conceived as necessary, and, therefore, necessarily actual. Either a necessary being is not conceivable--and which of us, I should like to know, cannot sit down and indulge in the conception?--or, if he be so much as conceivable, then his reign is recognized, because far more than his existence is involved--I mean the impossibility of his non-existence."

"Are all the dreams," said Domitius Afer, "of a poet's imagination truths because they are conceptions?"

A few moments of silence followed, and Paulus Æmilius looked at his friend with an expression of terror which he had not exhibited in his own contest with the Sejan horse.

"When the poet," replied Dionysius, "imagines what might have been, he believes it might have been, and asks you to believe no more; but he would be shocked if you believed less; would be shocked if you told him he was depicting not that which had not been, for this he cheerfully professes, but that which could not ever be supposed. What I say here," added the Athenian, "belongs to a different and somewhat higher plane of thought. The impossibility to suppose non-existent an infinitely perfect being, who, on the other hand, is himself found not impossible to suppose, ought to bring home to the heart the fact that he lives. To be able, in the first place, to conceive him existing, and straightway thereafter to feel an utter inability to form even the conception of his non-existence, because it is only as the necessary being and first force that we can think of him at all, are a handwriting upon the porch of every human soul. He lives, I say it rejoicing, an eternal, necessary, and personal reality; the very conception of him would be an impossibility if his existence were not a fact; yes, and far more than a fact, a primeval truth and a primordial necessity."

As the Athenian thus spoke in a clear and firm voice, which seemed to grow more musical the more it was raised and exerted, Augustus stood up and paced to and fro a few steps on the gravel walk of the impluvium, with his hands behind him and his eyes cast down. All who had been sitting rose at the same time, except Livia, Julia, Antonia, and the two Agrippinas.

"This," whispered Tiberius in Afer's ear, "is not much like failure, or derision, or disgrace for the Greek."

"My predecessor, Julius Cæsar," said Augustus at length, looking round as he stood still, "was the best astronomer and mathematician of his age--we have his calendar now to record it; the best engineer of his age--look at his bridge over the Rhine; the best orator, except one, to whom Rome perhaps ever listened; a most charming talker and companion on any subject; a very great and simple writer; as great a general probably as ever lived; a consummate politician; a keen, wary, swift, yet profound thinker at all times; a man whose intellect was one vast sphere of light; and yet I remember well in what anxiety and curiosity he lived respecting the power which governs the universe, and with what minute and even frivolous precautions he was forever trying to propitiate a good award for his various undertakings; how he muttered charms, whether he was ascending his chariot or descending, or mounting his horse or dismounting--in short, at every turn. Evidently it is not the brightest intellects, or the most perfectly educated, which are the most disposed to scout and scorn such ideas as we have just heard from Dionysius; it is precisely they who are prepared to ponder them the most."

"Julius Cæsar," said Tiberius, "thought, I suspect, pretty much as a great many others do, that this is a very dark, difficult subject; and that we cannot expect to come to any certain conclusions."

"Not to many conclusions," said Dionysius; "that much I fully grant. But two or three broad and general truths are attainable by means of reasonings as close, secure, and irresistible as any in geometry. One such proof--and pray do not forget that I said it was only one out of many--making clear the fact that a single eternal God reigns over all things, I have laid before Augustus and this company already. My last remarks, however, were not disputations, but were only intended to show how those conceptions--to tear which from the mind would be to tear the heat from fire and the rays from light--tend exactly to that conclusion which I had first established by a rigorous demonstration."

"Would not some call your inference from those conceptions themselves a demonstration also?" asked Germanicus.

"I think," replied the Athenian, "that all would so call it if we had but time to examine it thoroughly. There are three other complete lines of argument, however, each of them as interesting as a poem; but so abstruse that I will not travel along them. I will merely show the gates which open into these three ascents of the glorious mountain. It could, then, be demonstrated, first, that all things are objects of mind or of knowledge, somewhere; secondly, that all things undergo some action, or are objects of power, somewhere; thirdly, that all things are loved and cared for somewhere; and this as forming one whole work or production that is, in their relations with each other. Now, the knowledge, the power, and the love (or care) in question can belong only to that first force of whom I speak; and I distinctly affirm, Augustus, that I believe I should be quite able, not to prove by probable reasons merely, but to demonstrate positively and absolutely, the existence of one omnipotent God, by three distinct arguments, starting from the three points I have here mentioned. Yet I pass by those golden gates with a wistful glance at them, and no more."

"It is the horn gates, you know," said Labio, smiling, "which open to the true dreams."

"Ah! poor Virgil!" said Augustus, first with a smile, and then with a long, heart-felt sigh. "I wish he could have heard you, my Athenian."

"The natures of things," said the Athenian, "and the number of individuals are known and counted somewhere; the attraction of physical things is weighed in a balance somewhere, and all things are maintained in their order by limits, and protected in their relations by a measured mark, somewhere. But as I have forbidden myself this vast and difficult field, I will turn elsewhere."

"Before you turn elsewhere," exclaimed Antistius Labio, "I would fain test by a single question the soundness of the principle from which you will draw no deductions; you say all things undergo some action. Does not this imply the actual presence of some force in or upon all things?"

"It is not to be denied," answered the Athenian.

"What force," asked Labio, "is actually present in or upon inert matter?"

"The force of cohesion," replied the Athenian; "and, moreover, the force of weight, which I take to be only the same force with wider intervals ordained for its operation."

A dead pause of an instant or two followed, and was broken by Herod Agrippa, who was a person bad indeed and odious, but of great acuteness and natural abilities, exclaiming "The Athenian reminds me of the number, weight, and measure of our holy books."

"It is there, indeed, I found them," said Dionysius.

"You mentioned," observed Augustus, after musing a few seconds, "that the demonstration you gave us a while ago of a single eternal God was only one out of many. I do not want many more, nor several more; but one more, might gluttony ask of hospitality? We roam the halls of a great intellectual fortress and mental palace to-night, superior to the palace of the Mamurras."

"Has it such an impluvium, Augustus?" chuckled the old knight, caressing his white moustache.

"The impluvium," said Dionysius, "is that part of the palace where the light of heaven falls. But the palace, Augustus, I take to be the sublime theme; my poor mind is only its beggarly porter and ostiarius. Suppose, then, there were only two beings in all the universe, one more excellent than the other, which of them would have preceded the other?"

No one replied.

"If the inferior be the senior," pursued the Greek, "by so much as the superior afterward came to excel him, by so much that superior must have obtained his perfections from nothing whatever, from blank nonentity; because the inferior, by the very supposition, (ex hypothesi,) had them not to bestow."

"The superior being," answered Augustus, "must therefore be the elder."

"You speak justly, Augustus," said the Athenian. "Therefore the less perfect could never exist, if the more perfect had not first existed. The existence, then, of imperfect beings proves the prior existence of one all-perfect being, self-dependent, from whom the endowments of the others must unquestionably have been derived."

"Cannot things grow?" asked Labio.

"Growth is feeding," answered Dion; "growth is accretion, assimilation, condensation in one form of many scattered elements. Growth is possible, first, if we have a seed, that is, an organism capable, when fed, of filling out proportions defined beforehand; and, secondly, if we have the food by which it is sustained. But who defines the proportions? Who ordained the form? Who formed the seed? Who supplies the air, the light, the food? Would a seed grow of its own energy if not sown in fostering earth, or placed in fostering air and light--in short, if not fed by the proper natural juices? Would it grow if starved of air, earth, light--thrown back upon its sole self? Is not growth necessarily stimulated from without?"

"Growth is a complicated and manifold operation," said Augustus, "implying evidently a whole world previously set systematically in motion."

"Whence, Labio," asked the Athenian, "comes your seed that will grow?"

"From a plant," replied Labio.

"Whence the plant?" pursued the Greek.

"From a seed."

"Which was first?" asked Dion.

"The plant."

"Then that plant, at least, never came from a seed," said Dionysius. "Whence came it?"

"The seed was first," said Labio.

"Then that seed," said Dionysius, "never came from a plant. Whence came it?"

There was a laugh, in which not only Labio, but even Tiberius joined.

"No," said Dionysius; "whatever the power which traced out beforehand the limits and proportions which the seed, by growing or feeding, is to fill; whatever the power which surrounds that seed, or other organism, with the manifold conditions for its development, that power must be something more perfect and excellent than the elements which it thus dispenses and controls; and the existence of these less perfect things would have been impossible, had not the other existed first. Thus, ascending the scale of beings, from the less to the more excellent, the simple fact that each exists, proves that a being superior to it must somewhere else be found, and that the superior was in existence first; until we reach that self-existent, all-perfect, eternal being whose life accounts for a universe which his power governs, and which without him would have been an impossibility.

"Without him imperfect things could never have obtained existence, and could not keep it for an instant; and without recognizing him they cannot be explained. This, Augustus, is the second demonstration for which you have asked me. I have just touched, in passing, the porches which led to three others. A sixth could be derived from the nature of free force. No force is real which is not free. The force of a ball flung through the air, is really the force of something else, not of the ball; a hand imparted it; that hand was moved by the mind. In the mind at last, and there alone, the force becomes real, because there alone it is free. All the forces of nature could be shown to be thus communicated, or derivative; and the question, where do they originate? would ultimately bring us to some mind, some intelligence. That intelligence is God."

"Could not all the forces of the universe be blind and mechanical?" said Afer.

"If so, they would none of them be free," said the Athenian.

"Well, be it so," said Afer.

"If not free," persisted the Greek, "they are compulsory; if compulsory, who compels them? I say, God. You would have to say, nothing; which is very like having nothing to say."

A clamor of merriment followed this, and Dionysius had to wait until it subsided.

"I am only showing," he resumed, "where and how the proof could be found. A seventh demonstration can be derived from the moral law. To deny God, or to misdescribe him, would necessitate the denial of any difference between good and evil, between virtue and vice. It would be a little long, but very easy to establish this; far easier than it was to make intelligible the two proofs which I have already submitted to you. I have said enough, however. This brilliant assemblage perceives that the belief in one sovereign and omnipotent mind is not a vain reverie for which nothing substantial can be advanced; but a truth demonstrable, which neither human wit nor human wisdom can shake from its everlasting foundations."

"I wonder," said Strabo, "whether this being, of whose knowledge and power there are no limits, is also mild and compassionate."

Dionysius was buried in thought for a short time, and then said,

"Pray favor me with your attention for a few moments. Love draws nigh to its object; hatred draws away from its object, which it never approaches except in order to destroy it. But the non-existent cannot be destroyed; therefore the non-existent never could draw hatred toward it. Hatred would say, those things are non-existent which I should hate, and which I would destroy if they existed; therefore let them continue non-existent. But this sovereign being is antecedent to all things; in his mind alone could they have had any existence before he created them. If, then, he drew near them, so to speak, approached them, called them out of nothing into his own palace, the palace of being, love alone could have led him. Therefore, by the most rigorous reasoning, it is evident that creation is inexplicable except as an act of love. It is more an act of love than even preservation and protection. This omnipotent being, then, must be love in perpetual action; love in universal action, boundless and everlasting love."

"Certainly yours is a grand philosophy," said Augustus.

"This sublime being," pursued Dionysius, "is, and cannot but be, an infinite mind; he is boundless knowledge, boundless power, and boundless goodness. The mere continuance from day to day of this universe--"

Here the Athenian suddenly stopped and looked round.

"Why, were the most beneficent human being that ever lived," exclaimed he, "able by a word to cast the universe into destruction; were it in his power to say, at any moment of wrath or disappointment, that the sun should not rise on the morrow, mankind would fall into a chronic frensy of terror."

"If," cried a shrill voice--that of the child Caligula--"if the sun shines and one cannot see, it is no use! I know what I would do with the sun to-morrow morning, unless I recover the use of my eyes."

"What?" asked Dionysius.

"I'd blow it out!" cried the dear boy, tearing off his bandage, stamping his feet, and turning toward his interrogator a face neither beautiful in feature nor mild in expression.

"The sun is in good keeping," said the Athenian.

Augustus turned, after a short, brooding look at Caligula, to Haterius, and said,

"What think you, my Quintus? Has our Athenian made good his theories?"

"He has presented them like rocks of adamant," responded Haterius. "Dionysius has convinced me perfectly that the universe has been produced and is governed by the great being of whom he has so earnestly and so luminously spoken."

"Yet one word with you, young philosopher," said Antistius Labio, sending a glance all round the circle, and finally contemplating intently the broad, candid brow and kindly blue eyes of the Athenian; "one word! You remarked that you could prove all things to be cared for and loved somewhere. You afterward mentioned that the care or love in question could be exercised by none save the stupendous king-spirit whose existence, I confess, you almost persuade me to believe. But now solve me a difficulty. You have alluded to the moral law. You maintain, although this has not been a subject of our debate to-night, the immortality of our souls. Finally--none can forget it--you hinted that there could be no morality, no difference between right and wrong, virtue and vice, were there not one sovereign God. Does this mean, or does it not, that morality is that which pleases his eternal and therefore unchanging views?"

"Ah!" said Dionysius, "I perceive your drift. You land me amid real enigmas. But go on; I answer honestly--Yes."

"Then," pursued Labio, "if the ghost within us be immortal, it will be happy after death, provided it shall have pleased this being, and miserable should it have offended him."

"Yes."

"Now, Augustus," persisted Labio, "what would you think of the justice of a monarch who proclaimed rewards for conforming with his will, and punishments for thwarting it, but at the same time would not make it known what his will was, nor afford any protection to those who might be desirous of giving it effect?

"Can Dionysius of Athens or any body else tell us what are the special desires of this great being in our regard? Does he imagine that unlettered, mechanical, toiling men have either understandings or the leisure to arrive at the conclusions which his own splendid intellect has attained? Then why is there not some authoritative teacher sent down among men from heaven?"

Dionysius answered not. Labio continued,

"I speak roughly and plainly. I transfix him with his own principles. He is too honest not to feel the force of what I say. He cannot reply. Mark next: we live but a short while in this world; and if we be immortal, our state here is downright contemptible in importance compared with that which has to come; and yet he tells us that this contemptible point of time, this mere dot of existence, is to determine our lot for everlasting ages, and he that says this proclaims the being whose existence he certainly has demonstrated to be the very principle of love itself. Yet this being who will establish our destinies according as we please him, tells us not how to do it."

Again the Athenian refrained from breaking the expectant silence which ensued.

"Would not one imagine," said Strabo, "that the most particular instructions would be given to us how to regulate a conduct upon which so much depends?"

"Yes," observed Labio; "and not instructions alone, but instructors, to whom occasional reference would be always possible."

All eyes turned toward Dionysius. He blushed, hesitated, and at last said,

"You only echo thoughts long familiar to my mind. I cannot answer; I am not capable of solving these difficulties. Time is not completed. I think, like the Sibyls, that some special light is yet to come down from heaven."

Here the conversation ended.

Half an hour afterward, Dionysius, who had begged to be excused for that night from entering upon the second of the two doctrines which he had been challenged to sustain, was walking part of the way with Paulus toward the Inn of the Hundredth Milestone, along the fretwork of light which was shed upon the Appian Road by the moon and stars through the leaves of the chestnut-trees.

"I feel confident, Paulus," said he, "that Augustus will restore your family estates; and should you accept the liberal offer of Germanicus Cæsar, and depart upon this German expedition to-morrow morning, I will watch your interests while you are absent."

"I know it well, generous friend," replied the other youth; "and I do hope my mother will not object to my going. Only think, I may come back a military tribune! Only think!"

"Yes," said Dion, "and enter that great castle which glitters yonder in the moonlight as proprietor."

"If so, will you not," said Paulus, "come and stay with us?"

"That is an engagement," said the Athenian, "provided some day you will all pay me a return visit at Athens."

"We'll exchange the tessera hospitalis on it," exclaimed Paulus.

Thus they parted on the moonlit road, Dionysius returning to Formiæ, and Paulus walking onward with long, rapid strides.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTE:

[286] "Mater Antonia portentum eum hominis dictabat; nec absolutum à naturâ, sed tantum inchoatum; ac si quem socordiæ argueret, stultiorem aiebat filio suo Claudio." Sueton. in Claud. s. 3.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES.

BY HENRI LASSERRE.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

I. INTRODUCTION

The full and complete history of the remarkable apparition of Lourdes is now, for the first time, presented to the English-speaking Catholic public. Mr. Lawlor has given an abridgment of M. Lasserre's narrative, with some interesting additions from other sources, in his charming volume, Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees and Landes. A short sketch of the history of the events at Lourdes has also been given in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, of Dublin. In this country the Ave Maria is now engaged in republishing Mr. Lawlor's sketch of the history. We trust our readers will thank us for placing before them the full and authentic history of M. Lasserre, a work which has received the favorable notice of the most competent judges, and has been honored by a brief of felicitation from the Holy Father. The author, who was himself one of the subjects of the miraculous efficacy of the water of the fountain of Lourdes, has spared no pains to make his work perfectly satisfactory. The evidence, which he has collected and arranged with consummate care and skill, leaves nothing to be desired in respect to the proof of the reality and the supernatural character of the events related. The charm of his style, the subtle and powerful irony which he employs with so much effect against the sceptics who deny the possibility of any sort of supernatural incidents, and the vivacity of his descriptions, make his work extremely pleasant and profitable reading. Our devout Catholic readers will find great delight in perusing M. Lasserre's narrative; and others, although they may receive it with a smile of incredulity, and perhaps favor us with a few witticisms in respect to its contents, will find it to be, as the French sceptics have found it, a very tough subject for any thing like serious and reasonable refutation.--EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

I.

The little town of Lourdes is situated in the department of the Upper Pyrenees, at the entrance to the seven vales of Lavedan, and between the low hills that sink into the plain of Tarbes and the steeper ranges which grow into the Grande Montagne. Its houses, built irregularly on a natural terrace, are grouped, in almost absolute disorder, around the base of a rocky spur, on the summit of which the formidable castle sits like an eyrie. Along the base of the cliff, on the side opposite the town, the Gave dashes boisterously through groves of alder, ash, and poplar, and, pausing at numerous dykes, turns the equally sonorous machinery of several mills. The hum of the driving-wheels and the jar of the rattling stones mingle with the music of the winds and the splash of the rushing water.

The Gave is formed by several torrents from the upper valleys, which spring from the glaciers, whose spotless snow covers the barren sides of the Haute Montagne. The principal tributary comes from the cascade of Gavarnie, which falls from one of those peaks never scaled by man. Leaving on its right the town, the castle, and, with one exception, all the mills of Lourdes, the Gave hastens toward Pau, which it passes with all speed, to throw itself into the Adour, and thence into the sea.

In the neighborhood of Lourdes, the country which skirts the Gave is by turns wild and savage, and fair and smiling. Blooming meadows, cultivated fields, woodland, and barren cliffs are alternately presented to the gaze. Here are fertile plains and smiling landscapes, the highway of Pau, never without its wagons, horsemen, and pedestrian travellers; yonder, the giant mountains and their awful solitudes.

The castle of Lourdes, almost impregnable before the invention of artillery, was formerly the key of the Pyrenees. Tradition says that Charlemagne, warring with the infidels, was unable to carry this stronghold. Scarcely had he determined to raise the siege, when an eagle seated itself on the highest tower of the citadel, and let fall a large fish which it had caught up from some neighboring lake. Either because it happened on the day when the holy church prescribes abstinence from flesh-meat, or because the fish was at that time the popular symbol of Christianity, the infidel commander, Mirat, saw in this fact a prodigy, and, demanding instruction, was converted to the true faith. This conversion was all that was necessary to bring his castle into the hands of Christendom. Nevertheless, the Saracen stipulated, as says the chronicler, "that in becoming the knight of Our Lady, the Mother of God, his lands, both for himself and his descendants, should be free from every worldly fief, and should belong to her alone."

The arms of the town still bear, in testimony of this extraordinary fact, the eagle and the fish. Lourdes carries, on a red field, three golden towers, pointed with sable, on a silver rock; the middle tower is higher than the others, and is surmounted by a black spread eagle, limbed with gold, holding in his beak a silver trout.

During the middle ages, the castle of Lourdes was an object of terror to the surrounding country. At one time in the name of the English, at another in that of the Counts of Bigorre, it was occupied by robber chieftains, who cared for little besides themselves, and who plundered the inhabitants of the plain for forty or fifty leagues around. They even had the audacity, it is said, to seize goods and men at the very gates of Montpellier, and then to retreat, like birds of prey, to their inaccessible abode.

In the eighteenth century, the castle of Lourdes became a state-prison. It was the Bastille of the Pyrenees. The revolution opened the gates of this prison to three or four persons, confined there by the arbitrary command of despotism, and in return peopled it with several hundred criminals of quite another description. A contemporary writer has copied from the jailer's record the offences for which the prisoners had been immured. Besides the name of each prisoner, the specifications of the crime are thus formulated: "Unpatriotic.--Refusing to give the kiss of peace to citizen N---- before the altar of our country.--Busybody.--Drunkard.--Indifferent about the revolution.--Hypocritical character, reserved in his opinions.--Lying character.--A peace-loving miser.--Indifferent toward the revolution," etc., etc.[287]

We may thus see what reason the revolution had to complain of the arbitrary conduct of kings, and also how it changed the frightful despotism of the monarchy into a reign of peace, toleration, and perfect liberty.

The empire still retained the fortress of Lourdes as a state-prison, and this character it kept until the return of the Bourbons. After the restoration, the terrible castle of the middle ages naturally became a place of less importance, garrisoned by a company of infantry.

II.

The tower still remains the key of the Pyrenees, but in a very different way from what it was formerly. Lourdes is at the junction of the roads to the various watering-places. In going to Barèges, to Saint-Sauveur, to Cauterets, to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, or from Cauterets or Pau to Luchon, in any case, one must pass through Lourdes. During the fashionable season, countless diligences, employed in the service of the baths, stop at the Hotel de la Poste. Generally they allow the travellers sufficient time to dine, to visit the castle, and to admire the country, before passing on.

Thus from the constant visits of bathers and tourists from all parts of Europe, this little town has been brought to quite an advanced state of civilization.

In 1858, the earliest date of our story, the Parisian journals were regularly received at Lourdes. The Revue des Deux-Mondes counted there many subscribers. The inns and cafés presented their guests with three numbers of the Siècle, that of the latest date and the two preceding ones. The bourgeoisie and clergy divided their patronage between the Journal des Débats, the Presse, Moniteur, Univers and Union.

Lourdes had a club, a printing-house, and a journal. The sous préfet was at Argelès; but the sorrow which the inhabitants of Lourdes showed for the absence of this functionary was tempered by the joy of possessing the Tribunal de première instance, that is, three judges, a president, a procureur impérial, and a deputy. Around this brilliant centre revolved as inferior satellites, a justice of the peace, a commissary of police, six constables, and seven gendarmes, one of whom was invested with the rank of corporal. Inside of the town we find a hospital and a prison; and circumstances sometimes come to pass, as we shall have occasion to state, in which independent spirits, nourished with the sound and humane doctrines of the Siècle, think that criminals should be put into the hospital and the sick into the jail. But these gentlemen of such extraordinary reasoning powers are not in exclusive possession at the bar of Lourdes and in the medical profession; men of great learning and high distinction are to be met--remarkable minds and impartial observers of facts--such as are not always to be found in more important cities.

Mountaineers are generally endowed with strong and practical good sense; and the people of this neighborhood, almost unmixed with foreign blood, excel in this respect. Scarcely one place in France could be cited where the schools are better attended than at Lourdes. There is hardly a boy who does not for several years go to lay-teachers or to the institution of the "Brothers;" hardly a little girl who does not complete the course of instruction at the school of the Sisters of Nevers. Far better taught than the mechanics of most of our cities, the people of Lourdes still preserve the simplicity of rural life. They have warm veins and southern heads, but upright hearts and a perfect morality. They are honest, religious, and not over-inclined to novelties.

Certain local institutions, dating back to forgotten times, contribute toward maintaining this happy state of things. The people of these regions, long before the pretended discoveries of modern progress, had learned and practised, under the shadow of the church, those ideas of union and prudence which have given rise to our mutual aid societies. Such associations have for centuries existed and worked at Lourdes. They date from the middle ages; they have survived the revolution, and philanthropists would long since have made them famous, if they had not drawn their vitality from religion, and if they were not called to-day, as in the fifteenth century, "confraternities."

"Nearly all the people," says M. de Lagrèze, "enter these pious and benevolent associations. The mechanics, whom the title of brotherhood thus unites, place their labor under heavenly patronage, and exchange with one another assistance in work and the succors of Christian charity. The common alms-box receives a weekly offering from the stout and healthy artisan, to return it at some future day when the charitable hands can no longer earn wages."

On the death of a laborer the association pays the funeral expenses and accompanies the body to its resting-place.

"Each confraternity except two, who share the high altar between them, has a particular chapel, whose name it takes, and which it supports by the collection made every Sunday. The confraternity of Notre Dames des Grâces is made up of farmers, tillers of the soil; that of Notre Dame de Monsarrat, of masons; that of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, of slaters; that of St. Anne, of carpenters; that of St. Lucy, of tailors and dress-makers; that of the Ascension, of quarry-workers; that of the Blessed Sacrament, of church-wardens; that of St. James and St. John, of all who have received either of these names in holy baptism."

The women are likewise divided Into similar religious associations. One of them, "the Congregation of Children of Mary," has a special character. It is also a society for mutual aid and encouragement, but in relation to spiritual things. To enter this congregation, although it is merely an association of persons living in the secular state, and not a religious society, a young person must give evidence that she possesses a well-tried steadiness of character. The young girls look forward to it for a long time before they reach the proper age for admission. The members of the congregation are bound never to put themselves in danger by frequenting worldly festivities where the religious spirit is lost, nor to adopt eccentric fashions, but to be exact in attending the meetings and instructions on Sunday. It is an honor to belong to this association, a disgrace to be excluded from it. And the amount of good which it has done in maintaining public morality and preparing good mothers of families, is truly incalculable. In many dioceses, confraternities have been founded on the same plan and after this model.

This part of the country has ever shown great devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Her sanctuaries are numerous throughout the Pyrenees from Piétat or Garaison to Bétharram. All the altars of the church of Lourdes have been dedicated under the invocation of the Mother of God.

III.

Such was Lourdes ten years ago.

The railway did not pass through it; indeed, no one then dreamed that it ever would. A much more direct route seemed to be marked out in advance for the line through the Pyrenees.

The entire town and fortress are situated, as we have said, on the right bank of the Gave, which, prevented from going north by the rocky foundation of the castle, turns at a right angle to the west. An old bridge, built at some distance above the first houses communicates with the plains, meadows, forests, and mountains of the left bank.

On this side of the stream, below the bridge, and nearly opposite the castle, an aqueduct conducts much of the water of the Gave into a large canal. The latter rejoins the main stream at the distance of one kilometre below, after having passed along the base of the cliffs of Massabielle. The long island thus formed by the Gave and by the canal is a large and fertile meadow. In the neighborhood it is called l'Ile du Châlet, or more briefly, le Châlet. The mill of Sâvy is the only one on the left bank, and is built across the canal, thus serving as a bridge. This mill and le Châlet belong to a citizen of Lourdes, M. de Laffite. In 1858, as wild a place as could be found in the neighborhood of the thriving little town, which we have described, was at the foot of these cliffs of Massabielle, where the mill-race rejoins the Gave. A few paces from the junction, on the banks of the river, the steep rock is pierced at its base by three irregular excavations, fantastically arranged, and communicating like the pores of a huge sponge. The singularity of these excavations renders them difficult to be described. The first and largest is on a level with the ground. It resembles a trader's booth, or a kiln roughly built, and cut vertically in two, thus forming a half dome. The entrance, formed into a distorted arch, is about four metres in height. The breadth of the grotto, a little less than its depth, is from twelve to fifteen metres. From this entrance the rocky roof lowers and narrows on the right and left.

Above and to the right of the spectator, are found two openings in the rock, which seem like adjoining caves. Seen from without, the principal one of these openings has an oval form, and is about the size of an ordinary house window or niche in a church wall. It pierces the rock above, and at a depth of two metres divides, descending on one side to the interior of the grotto and ascending on the other toward the outside of the rock, where its orifice forms the second cave of which we have spoken, which is of use to let in light upon the others. An eglantine growing from a cleft in the rock extends its long branches around the base of this orifice, in the form of a niche. At the foot of this system of caves, so easy to comprehend to one who looks upon it, but complicated enough for one who tries to give merely a word-sketch, the water of the canal rushes over a chaos of enormous stones to meet the Gave, a few steps farther on. The grotto, then, is close by the lower point of the Ile du Châlet, formed, as we have said, by the Gave and the canal. The caverns are called the Grotte de Massabielle, from the cliffs in which they are situated. "Massabielle" signifies in the patois of the place, "old cliffs." On the river banks, below, a steep and uncultivated slope, belonging to the commune, extends for some distance. Here the swineherds of Lourdes frequently bring their animals to feed. When a storm arises, these poor people shelter themselves in the grotto, as do likewise a few fishermen who cast their lines in the Gave. Like other caves of this kind, the rock is dry in ordinary weather, and slightly damp in times of rain. But this dampness and dripping of the rainy season can be noticed only on the right side of the entrance. This is the side on which the storms always beat, driven by the west wind; and the phenomena here take place which can be noticed on the honey-combed walls of stone houses, similarly exposed, and built with bad mortar. The left side and floor, however, are always as dry as the walls of a parlor. The accidental dampness of the west side even sets off the dryness of the other parts of the grotto.

Above this triple cavern the cliffs of Massabielle rise almost into peaks, draped with masses of ivy and boxwood, and folds of heather and moss. Tangled briers, hazel shoots, eglantines, and a few trees, whose branches the winds often break, have struck root in clefts of the rock, wherever the crumbling mountain has produced or the wings of the storm have borne a few handfuls of soil. The eternal Sower, whose invisible hand fills with stars and planets the immensity of space, who has drawn from nothing the ground which we tread, and its plants and animals, the Creator of the millions of men who people the earth, and the myriads of angels who dwell in heaven, this God, whose wealth and power know no bounds, takes care that no atom shall be lost in the vast regions of his handiwork. He leaves barren no spot which is capable of producing any thing. Throughout the extent of our globe, countless germs float in the air, covering the earth with verdure, where there seemed before no chance of life for even a single herb, or tuft of moss. Thus, O Divine Sower! thy graces, like invisible but fruitful motes, float about and rest upon our souls. And, if we are barren, it is because we present hearts harder and more arid than the rocky and the beaten highway, or covered with tangled thorns that prevent the up-growing of thy heavenly seed.

IV.

It was requisite to the ensuing narrative to describe first the scene where its events took place. But it is of no less importance to point out in advance that profound moral truth, which is the starting-point from which this history begins, in the course of which, as we shall see, God manifested his power in a visible manner. These reflections will, moreover, delay only for an instant the commencement of our narrative.

Every one has noticed the striking contrasts presented by the various conditions of men who live on this earth, where wicked and good, rich and needy, are mingled together, and where a thin wall often separates the hovel from the palace. On one side are all the pleasures of life, softly arranged in the midst of rare delicacies, comfort, and the elegance of luxury; on the other, the horrors of want, cold, hunger, sickness, and all the sad train of human woes. For the former, adulation, joyous visits, charming friendships. For the latter, indifference, loneliness, and neglect. Whether it fears the importunity of his spoken or his mute appeals, or shrinks from the rebuke of his wretched nakedness, the world avoids the poor man, and makes its arrangements without regard to him. The rich form an exclusive circle, which they call "good society," and they regard as unworthy of serious attention the existence of those secondary but "indispensable" beings. When they hire the services of one of the latter--even when they are good people and accustomed to succor the needy--it is always in a patronizing way. They never use, in this case, the language and tone which they apply to one of their own kind. Except a few rare Christians, no one treats the poor man as an equal and a brother. Except the saint--alas! too rare in these days--who follows out the idea of looking upon the wretched as representing Christ! In the world, properly so called, the vast world, the poor are absolutely forsaken. Weighed down beneath the burden of toil and care, despised and abandoned, does it not seem as if they were cursed by their Maker? And, yet, it is just the contrary; they are the best beloved of the Father. While the world has been pronounced accursed by the infallible word of Christ, on the other hand, the poor, the suffering, the humble, are God's "good society." "Ye are my friends," he has said to them in his Gospel. He has done more; he has identified himself with them. "What you have done to the least of these, you have done also to me."

Moreover, when the Son of God came upon the earth, he chose to be born, and to live and die, among the poor, and to be a poor man. From the poor he selected his apostles and his principal disciples, the first-born of his church. And, in the long history of that same church, it is upon the poor that he lavishes his greatest spiritual favors. In every age, and with few exceptions, apparitions, visions, and particular revelations have been the privilege of those whom the world disdains. When, in his wisdom, God sees fit to manifest himself sensibly to men, by these mysterious phenomena, he descends into the dwellings of his servants and particular friends. And mark why he prefers the houses of the poor and humble. Two thousand years have only served to verify that saying of the apostle, "The weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong." (1 Cor. i. 27.)

The facts which we are about to state will perhaps furnish further proof of this truth.

V.

In 1858, the eleventh of February opened the week of profane rejoicing which from time immemorial has preceded the austerities of Lent. It was the Jeudi-Gras, or Thursday before Quinquagesima. The weather was cold and slightly overcast, but very calm. The clouds hung motionless in the heavens; there was no breeze abroad; and the atmosphere was perfectly still. At times a few drops of rain fell from the skies. This day is celebrated by special privilege in the diocese of Tarbes as the feast of the illustrious shepherdess of France, St. Genevieve.[288]

Eleven o'clock in the morning had already sounded from the church tower of Lourdes.

While all the neighborhood was preparing for the festivities, one family of poor people who lived as tenants of a miserable dwelling in the Rue des Petits-Fossés, had not even enough wood to cook their scanty dinner. The father, still a young man, was by trade a miller, and had for some time endeavored to run a little mill which he had leased on one of the streamlets that go to make up the Gave. But his business exacted advances, the people being accustomed to have their wheat ground on credit; and the poor miller had been forced to give the mill back to the firm, and his labor, instead of putting him in better circumstances, had only helped to throw him into utter poverty. Waiting for brighter days, he labored--not at his own place, for he had no property, not even a small garden--but at various places belonging to his neighbors, who employed him occasionally as a day laborer. His name was François Soubirous, and he was married to a faithful wife, Louise Castérot, who was a good Christian, and kept up his courage by loving sympathy. They had four children: two daughters, the elder of whom was fourteen years of age; and two boys, still quite young, the smaller being scarcely four years old.

For fifteen days only, had their older daughter, a puny child from infancy, lived with them. This is the little girl who is to play an important part in this narrative, and we have carefully studied all the details and particulars of her life. At the time of her birth, her mother, being ill, was unable to nurse the child, and she was consequently sent to the neighboring village of Bartrès. Here the infant remained after being weaned. Louise Soubirous, having become a mother for the second time, would have been kept at home by the care of two children and hindered from going out to daily service or to the fields, which, however, would not be the case if her care were limited to one. Accordingly the parents left their first-born at Bartrès. They paid for her support, sometimes in money, more often in kind, five francs a month.

When the little girl grew old enough to be useful, and the question arose as to bringing her home, the good peasants who had reared her found themselves attached to her, and, considering her as one of their own, no longer charged her parents any thing, and employed her to tend their sheep. Thus she grew up in her adopted family, passing her days in solitude on the lonely hill-tops, where her humble flock grazed.

Of prayers she knew none except the rosary. Whether her foster-mother had recommended it to her, or whether it was the dictate of her pure and innocent heart, she kept up the hourly practice of reciting this prayer of the simple. Then she amused herself with those natural playthings which kind providence furnishes for the children of the poor, and with which they are more content than their richer cousins with costly toys. She played with the pebbles, piling up miniature castles, with the flowers which she culled on every side, with the water of the brooklet, where she launched and followed great fleets of leaf-boats; besides, she had her pets among the flock. "Of all my lambs," she said, "there is one that I prefer to all the rest." "And which is it?" asked somebody. "The one that I most love is the smallest one." And she delighted in fondling and caressing it. She herself was among children like her own darling in the flock. Although she was already fourteen years old, she seemed no more than eleven or twelve. Without being rendered infirm, she was subject to asthmatic affections, which at times caused her great pain. She bore her ills patiently and accepted her physical sufferings with that resignation which seems so difficult to the rich, but to the needy so very natural.

In this innocent and silent school the poor shepherdess learned that which the world knows not; the simplicity of soul which pleases the heart of God. Far from every impure influence, conversing with the Blessed Virgin Mary, passing her time in crowning her with prayers and telling her chaplet, this little maid preserved that absolute purity and baptismal innocence which the breath of the world so easily tarnishes, even in the best. Such was this childish soul, bright and calm as the unknown lakes which lie hidden among lofty mountains and silently reflect the splendors of heaven. "Blessed are the clean of heart," says the Gospel; "for they shall see God."

These great gifts are concealed treasures, and the humility which possesses them is often unconscious of their presence. The little girl of fourteen years charmed all who happened to approach her, and yet she was entirely unaware of it. She considered herself as the least and most backward of her age. Indeed, she did not know how to read or write. Moreover, she was an entire stranger to the French tongue, and knew only her own poor patois of the Pyrenees. She had never learned the catechism, and in this respect her ignorance was extraordinary. The Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles' Creed, and Glory be to the Father, which make up the chaplet, constituted the sum of her religious knowledge. Hence it is unnecessary to add that she had not yet made her first communion. It was to prepare her for this, that the Soubirous determined to bring her home, in spite of their poverty, and send her to the catechetical instructions at Lourdes.

She had now been for two weeks under her father's roof. Alarmed by her asthma and her frail appearance, her mother watched over her with particular care. While the other children went barefoot in their sabots, (wooden shoes,) she was provided with stockings; and while her sister and brothers went freely out of doors, she was constantly employed in the house. The child, accustomed to the open air, would very gladly have gone out into it.

The day, then, was Jeudi-Gras, eleven o'clock had struck, and these poor people had no wood to cook their dinner.

"Go, and gather some sticks by the Gave or on the common," said the mother to Marie, her second daughter.

Here, as in many other places, the poor have a sort of customary right to glean the dried branches which the wind blows from the trees in the commune, and to the driftwood which the torrent leaves among the pebbles on its bank.

Marie put on her sabots. The eldest child, of whom we have been speaking, the little shepherdess of Bartrès, looked wistfully at her sister.

"Let me go, too?" she finally asked of her mother. "I will carry my little bundle of sticks."

"No," replied Louise Soubirous, "you have a cough, and you will catch more cold."

A little girl from a neighboring house, named Jeanne Abadie, about fifteen years of age, having come in during this conversation, was likewise preparing to go for wood. All joined in importuning, and the mother allowed herself to be persuaded.

The child at once covered her head with her kerchief, tied on one side, as is the custom among peasants of the south. This did not appear sufficient to her mother.

"Put on your capulet," said the latter. The capulet is a graceful garment worn by the dwellers in the Pyrenees. It is at once a hood and a mantle, made of very stout cloth, sometimes white as fleece, sometimes of a bright scarlet color; it covers the head and falls over the shoulders to the waist. In cold or stormy weather, the women use it to wrap their neck and arms, and, when the garment is too warm, they fold it up in a square and wear it as a cap upon their heads. The capulet of the little shepherdess of Bartrès was white.

VI.

The three children left the town, and crossing the bridge, reached the left bank of the Gave. They passed the mill of M. de Laffite and entered the Chalêt, gathering here and there sticks for their little fagots. They walked down the river's course, the delicate child following at some distance her stronger companions. Less fortunate than they, she had not yet found any thing, and her apron was empty, while her sister and Jeanne had begun to load themselves with twigs and chips.

Clad in a black gown, well worn and patched, her pale countenance inclosed in the fold of the capulet which fell over her shoulders, and her feet protected by a large pair of sabots, she wore an air of grace and rustic innocence which appealed more to the heart than to the senses. She was still quite small for her age. Although her childish features had been touched by the sun, they had not lost their natural delicacy. Her fine black hair scarcely appeared from beneath her kerchief. Her brow, open to the air, was free from any line or wrinkle. Under her arching eyebrows, her eyes of brown, in her softer than blue, had a deep and tranquil beauty whose clearness no evil passion had ever disturbed. Hers was the "single" eye of which the Gospel speaks. Her mouth, wonderfully expressive, revealed the habitual tenderness of her soul and pity for every kind of suffering. Her whole appearance, while it pleased, also possessed that extraordinary power of attraction exerted by lofty minds. And what was it that gave this secret power to a child so poor, so ignorant, clothed in tatters? It was the greatest and rarest of possessions, the majesty of innocence.

We have not yet told her name. She had for her patron a great and holy doctor of the church, whose genius was especially sheltered under the protection of the Mother of God, the author of the Memorare, the illustrious St. Bernard. Following a fashion which has its charms, his great name, given to this humble peasant, had taken a childish and rustic form. The little maid bore a title as gracious and as pretty as herself. She was called Bernadette.

She followed her sister and companion through the fields that belong to the mill, and sought, but vainly, among the grass and shrubbery for some bits of wood to warm their family hearth. So Ruth or Noemi might have appeared, going to glean in the harvest-fields of Booz.

VII.

Straying in this manner, the three little girls reached the lower end of the Châlet opposite the triple cave, the grotto of Massabielle, which we have endeavored to describe. They were separated from it only by the mill-race, which bathes the foot of the cliffs, and whose current is usually very strong. To-day, however, the mill of Sâvy has stopped work, and the small quantity of water which leaks into the aqueduct makes but a slender stream, very easy to wade. The fallen branches of various trees lie thick among the rocks in this lonely and ordinarily inaccessible place. Rejoiced at this discovery, bustling and active as Martha, Jeanne and Marie took off their sabots, and in an instant were across the stream.

"The water is very cold," they cried as they hastily put on their wooden shoes.

It was the month of February, and these mountain torrents, fresh from the glacial snows, are always icy cold.

Bernadette, less alert or less eager, tarrying behind, was still on the nearer side of the stream. It was a more serious undertaking for her to cross. She wore stockings, while Jeanne and Marie had only to take off their sabots, in order to wade. Even before the exclamation of her companions, she feared the cold of the water.

"Throw in a couple of large stones," she cried, "so that I may go over without getting wet."

The two little girls, already engaged in making up a pair of fagots, did not wish to lose time by turning from their task.

"Do as we have done," said Jeanne, "take off your shoes."

Bernadette resigned herself, and, seated on a large stone, began to do as she was bid.

It was about noon; the Angelus was about to sound from all the belfries of the Pyrenees.

VIII.

She was in the act of drawing off her first stocking, when she heard near her a shock like a blast of wind, bursting with irresistible force upon the fields. She thought it was a sudden storm, and instinctively looked behind her. To her great surprise, the poplars which border the Gave were perfectly motionless. Not even the slightest breeze stirred their boughs.

"I must be dreaming," she said, and, still thinking of the noise, she could not believe that she had heard it. She turned again to her stocking. At this instant the impetuous roar of this unknown wind was heard again. Bernadette raised her glance, and uttered, or would have uttered, a loud cry, but it died upon her lips. Her limbs trembled and gave way. Astounded by what she saw, and as if shrinking from it, she fell upon her knees.

A vision of surpassing wonder was before her eyes. The child's story, the countless inquiries to which she has since been subjected by thousands of active and shrewd investigators, have brought out all the details, and enabled us to trace each line of the general appearance of that wonderful being who met at this moment the ravished glance of Bernadette.

IX.

Above the grotto, before which Marie and Jeanne, busily employed and bent toward the ground, were gathering sticks, in the rude niche formed by the rock, surrounded by a heavenly glory, stood a lady of matchless beauty.

The ineffable radiance which floated around her did not hurt the eyes, like the brightness of the sun. On the contrary, this aureole of soft and gentle light irresistibly attracted the glance, which it seemed to relieve and fill with pleasure. It was like the gleam of the morning-star. But there was nothing vague or misty about the apparition. It had not the shifting contour of a fantastic vision; it was a reality, a human body, which to the eye seemed palpable as our own flesh, and which resembled the figure of an ordinary human person in all respects, except that it was surrounded by a luminous halo, and was radiant with celestial beauty. The lady was of medium height. She looked very youthful, like one who had attained her twentieth year, without losing any of the tender delicacy of girlhood, which usually fades so soon. This beauty bore in her countenance the impress of everlasting durability. Moreover, in her features the heavenly lines blended, without disturbing their mutual harmony, the peculiar charms of the four seasons of human life. The innocent candor of the child, the spotless purity of the virgin, the calm tenderness of the loftiest maternity, a wisdom surpassing the lore of centuries, blended together without effacing each other, in this wonderful and youthful countenance. To whom shall we liken her in this sinful world, where the rays of beauty are scattered, broken, or discolored, and seldom reach us without some impure mixture? Every image, every comparison would only abase this unspeakable type. No majesty, no excellence, no simplicity here below could ever give us an idea whereby we might better understand it. It is not with the lamps of earth that we can light up the stars of heaven.

The regularity and ideal beauty of these features surpassed all description. It could only be said that their oval curve was of infinite grace, that the eyes were blue and of a tenderness that sank through the heart of the beholder to its very depths. The lips wore an expression of heavenly goodness and mildness. The brow was like the seat of the highest wisdom; that wisdom which combines universal knowledge with boundless virtue.

Her garments were of an unknown fabric, woven in the mysterious looms which serve to robe the lily of the valley; for they were white as the stainless mountain snows, and yet more splendid than the raiment of Solomon in all his glory. The vesture, long and trailing in chaste folds, revealed her virginal feet, which lightly pressed the broad branch of eglantine, and on each of which blossomed the golden mystical rose.

From her waist a sky-blue cincture, loosely tied, hung, in long bands, to the instep of her foot. Behind, and enveloping in its fulness her arms and shoulders, a white veil descended from her head to the hem of her robes. No ring, no necklace, no diadem or gem; none of those ornaments were there that human vanity loves to parade. A chaplet, whose drops of milky white slid on a golden cord, hung from her hands, fervently clasped together. The beads glided through her fingers. Yet the lips of this Queen of Virgins remained motionless. Instead of reciting the rosary, she was, perhaps, listening to the eternal echo in her own heart of that first Ave! and the deep murmur of invocation ever rising from this earth of ours. Each bead was undoubtedly a shower of heavenly graces that fell upon souls like the liquid diamonds into the chalice of the flower.

She kept silence; but later, her own words and the miraculous facts which we shall have to record, were to attest that she was truly the Immaculate Virgin, the sinless and stainless among women, Mary, the Mother of God.

This wonderful apparition looked upon Bernadette, who, as we have seen, shrinking and speechless, had fallen upon her knees.

X.

The child, in her first movement of fear, had instinctively seized her rosary; and, holding it in her hands, endeavored to make the sign of the cross. But she trembled so violently as to render this impossible. "Fear not," said Jesus to his disciples, when he came walking on the waves of the sea of Tiberias. The look and smile of the Blessed Virgin appeared to say the same thing to this frightened little shepherdess.

With a sweet, grave gesture, which seemed like a benediction to earth and heaven, she, as if to encourage the child, made the sign of the cross. And the hand of Bernadette, raised, as it were, by her hand who is called the Help of Christians, repeated the sacred sign.

"Fear not, it is I," Jesus said to his disciples.

The child felt no more fear. Astonished, charmed, scarcely trusting her senses, and wiping her eyes, whose glance was riveted by the heavenly vision, no longer knowing what to think, she humbly recited her rosary: "I believe in God"--"Hail, Mary! full of grace!"

When she had finished saying the last "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," the bright Virgin suddenly disappeared, reëntering that eternal paradise, the dwelling of the Holy Trinity, whence she had come.

Bernadette felt like one who has suddenly fallen from a great height. She stared vacantly around. The Gave still flowed on, moaning over the pebbles and broken rocks; but the noise seemed to her more sorrowful than before; the waters themselves seemed more gloomy, the landscape and sunlight less bright than formerly. In front the cliffs of Massabielle extended, and beneath them her companions were still engaged in collecting the sticks of wood. Above the grotto were still the niche and the arch of eglantine; but nothing unusual appeared there; no trace remained of the celestial visitor. They were no longer the gate of heaven.

The scene which we have just related must have lasted for a quarter of an hour; not that Bernadette was conscious of the lapse of time; but it may be measured by the circumstance that she had been able to recite five decades of the rosary.

Completely restored to herself, Bernadette finished removing her shoes and stockings, and rejoined her companions. Absorbed by what she had seen, she did not dread the cold of the water. All her childish powers were concentrated in recalling the facts of this strange apparition.

Jeanne and Marie had seen her fall upon her knees and betake herself to prayer; but as this, thank God, is not a rare occurrence with these mountaineers, and as they were occupied at their task, they had paid no further attention.

Bernadette was surprised at the perfect calmness which her sister and Jeanne evinced. They had just finished their work and, entering the grotto, began to play as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

"Have you seen nothing?" asked the child.

They then noticed that she seemed disturbed and agitated. "No," they replied; "have you seen any thing?"

Was it that Bernadette feared to tell what filled her soul, for fear of profanation? Did she wish to enjoy it in silence? Or was she restrained by a bashful timidity? Nevertheless, she did obey that instinct which prompts humble souls to conceal as a treasure the special graces with which God favors them.

"If you have seen nothing," said she, "I have nothing to tell you."

The little fagots were bound up. The three children began to retrace the road to Lourdes. But Bernadette could not conceal her trouble. On the way, Marie and Jeanne teased her, to find out what she had seen.

The little shepherdess yielded to their entreaties and their promise of eternal secrecy.

"I saw," she began, "something dressed in white." And she went on to describe her marvellous vision. "This is what I saw," said she in conclusion; "but do not, for the world, say anything about it."

Marie and Jeanne did not doubt a syllable. The soul in its first innocence is naturally believing. Doubt is not the besetting sin of childhood. And even were they disposed to be sceptical, the earnest accents of Bernadette, still agitated and full of what she had seen, would have irresistibly led them to believe. Marie and Jeanne did not doubt, but they were frightened. The children of the poor are naturally timid. Nor is it strange, since sufferings come to them from every side.

"It is, perhaps, something that will do us harm," said they. "Let us never go there again, Bernadette."

Scarcely had the confidants of the little shepherdess reached the house, when the secret fairly boiled over. Marie told it all to her mother. "What is all this stuff, Bernadette, that your sister has been telling me?" The little girl repeated her story. Marie Soubirous shrugged her shoulders.

"You have been deceived, child. It was nothing at all. You thought that you saw something, but you did not. This is all fancy and imagination."

Bernadette still adhered to her story.

"At any rate," said her mother, "never go near that place again. I forbid it."

This prohibition wounded Bernadette to the heart. For, ever since the apparition had vanished, she had felt the greatest desire to see it once more.

Nevertheless, she was resigned, and said nothing.

XI.

Two days, Friday and Saturday, passed. The extraordinary event was continually present to the mind of Bernadette, and became the absorbing topic of conversation with her sister Marie, with Jeanne, and a few other children. Bernadette still bore in her mind the memory of this heavenly vision; and a passion--if one may use a word so profane to designate so pure a sentiment in a heart so innocent and girlish--a burning desire to see again this incomparable lady had taken possession of her soul. This name of "lady" was the one which they naturally used in their rustic language.

Whenever she was asked if this apparition resembled any one celebrated in the place for beauty, she shook her head and said sweetly, "Not at all. This does not give the faintest idea of her. She is of a beauty impossible to express."

She longed to see her once more. The other children were divided between fear and curiosity.

XII.

On Sunday morning, the sun rose brightly; the weather was beautiful. The open winter in the valleys of the Pyrenees frequently has days which equal spring.

On returning from mass, Bernadette begged Marie and Jeanne and two or three other children to insist with her mother and persuade her to take off the prohibition and permit them to return to the cliffs of Massabielle.

"Perhaps it may be some wicked thing," said the children.

Bernadette answered that she was not afraid, for it had such a wonderfully kind face.

"At all events," replied the children, who, better taught than the poor shepherdess of Bartrès, knew something of the catechism--"at all events, we must throw some holy water at it. If it comes from the devil, it will go away. Say to it, 'If you come from God, approach! If you come from the devil, be off!'"

This is not the precise formula for exorcism; but these little theologians of Lourdes could not have reasoned better in this matter, if they had been doctors of the Sorbonne.

It was therefore decided, in this juvenile council, that one of them should carry the holy water. A certain feeling of apprehension had stolen over Bernadette on account of this talk. Nevertheless it only remained to obtain permission.

The children assembled after dinner to ask for it. The mother was still unwilling to remove the prohibition, alleging that the Gave ran close to the cliffs of Massabielle, and that there might be danger; that the hour for vespers was near at hand, and that they ought not to run the risk of being late; and that the whole story was pure childish prattle, etc. But every body knows what a regiment of children can do. All promised to be careful, to be quick, etc., and the matter ended by the mother's yielding.

The little band went to the church, and there prayed for some time. One of Bernadette's companions had provided a small bottle. It was now filled with holy water.

On arriving at the grotto, nothing was to be seen.

"Let us pray," said Bernadette, "and recite the rosary."

The children knelt and began the rosary, each to herself.

Suddenly the face of Bernadette appeared to be transfigured. Extraordinary emotion was manifested on her features, and her countenance seemed to shine with heavenly light.

With feet resting upon the rock, clad as formerly, the marvellous apparition again stood before her.

"Look! look!" she cried, "there it is!"

Alas! the vision of the other children was not miraculously cleared from the film which hides glorified bodies from our sight. The little girls saw nothing but the lonely rock and the branches of eglantine, which descended to the foot of that mysterious niche, where Bernadette contemplated an unknown being. The features of Bernadette wore an expression that made it impossible to doubt that she really saw something. One of the children placed the bottle of holy water in her hands. Then, Bernadette, remembering what she had promised, arose and sprinkled the wonderful lady, who stood in the niche before her.

"If you come from God, approach!" said the little girl. And, at her words, the Blessed Virgin advanced close to the edge of the rock. She seemed to smile at the precautions of Bernadette, and, at the sacred name of God, her face shone even brighter than before.

"If you come from God, approach!" repeated Bernadette. But, seeing the heavenly goodness and love of her glorious visitor, she felt her heart sink when about to add, "If you come from the devil, go away!" These words, which had been dictated to her, seemed monstrous in the presence of this incomparable being; and they fled from her thoughts without mounting to her lips. She prostrated herself again, and continued to recite her rosary, to which the Blessed Virgin seemed to listen, telling also her own. At the end of her prayer, the apparition vanished.

XIII.

Returning to Lourdes, Bernadette was full of joy. She rehearsed in the secrecy of her heart these extraordinary scenes. Her companions felt a sort of terror in her presence. The transfiguration of the countenance of Bernadette had convinced them of the reality of the supernatural vision. And every thing that surpasses nature brings with it a sense of awe. "Let not the Lord speak to us lest we die," said the Jews of the Old Testament.

"We are afraid, Bernadette. Never go to that place again. Perhaps what you have seen will do us mischief." So said the timid companions of the little seer.

According to their promise, the children returned in time for vespers. When they were over, numbers of people came out to walk and enjoy the last rays of the sun, so delightful on these fine winter days. The story of the little girls was told among various groups of walkers, and passed from mouth to mouth. Thus it was that the rumor of these strange things began to spread in the town. The report, which at first had agitated only a humble band of children, increased like a tide-wave, and reached every fireside. Quarry-workers, (very numerous at this place,) tailors, laboring-men, peasants, servants, waiting-maids, and other poor people conversed about this matter, some believing, some denying, others openly scoffing at, and many exaggerating, the facts of this rumored apparition. With one or two exceptions, the bourgeoisie did not pay the least attention to all this talk. Strange to say, the father and mother of Bernadette, while they confided fully in her sincerity, regarded the apparition as an illusion.

"She is only a child," they said. "She thinks she has seen something; but she has seen nothing. It is only the imagination of a little girl." Nevertheless, the extraordinary precision of Bernadette's recital startled them. At times, won by the earnest accents of their daughter, they felt their incredulity shaken. And while they desired that she should not revisit the grotto, they did not dare to forbid her. She did not do so, however, until Thursday.

XIV.

During the first days of the week, several persons came to see the Soubirous, in order to question Bernadette. Her answers were brief and exact. She might be laboring under a delusion, but it was only necessary to see her to know that she was in good faith. Her perfect simplicity, her innocent age, her tone of earnestness, all contributed to give her words a force which carried conviction. All who visited her were entirely satisfied of her veracity, and persuaded that something extraordinary had happened at the cliffs of Massabielle.

The statement, nevertheless, of an ignorant little girl could not suffice to establish firmly an event so entirely out of the ordinary course of things. There must be other proofs besides the word of a child.

But what was this apparition, supposing it to have been real? Was it an angel of light, or a spirit from the abyss? Was it not some suffering soul, wandering and seeking prayers? Might it not have been so-and-so or so-and-so, who, but recently dead in the odor of sanctity, had appeared to manifest the glory of the life to come? Faith and superstition each proposed their hypotheses.

Did the mournful ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday help to incline a certain lady and a young girl of Lourdes to one of these solutions? Did they see in the shining whiteness of the garments which the apparition wore, some likeness to a shroud or some sign of a ghost? We know not. The young girl was named Antoinette Peyret, and was a member of the society of the Children of Mary; the other was Mme. Millet.[289]

"It is undoubtedly some soul from Purgatory, who implores us to have masses offered up for it." So they thought; and they went to see Bernadette.

"Ask this lady who she is, and what she wishes," said they. "Get her to explain it to you; or, if you cannot understand, let her put it in writing."

Bernadette, who felt a keen desire to return to the grotto, obtained from her parents a new permission; and the following morning, Thursday, February the 18th, about six o'clock, at daybreak, and after having heard mass at half-past five, she, together with Antoinette Peyret and Mme. Millet, turned her steps in the direction of the grotto.

XV.

The repairs in the mill of M. de Laffite had been completed, and the canal which moved the machinery had been opened to the current; so that it was impossible to reach the end of their journey by the old way of the Châlet. They were obliged to ascend the side of the Espélugues, choosing a steep path which led to the forest of Lourdes; then to descend by a break-neck route to the grotto, over crags, and the steep, loose soil of Massabielle.

In the face of these unforeseen difficulties, the two companions of Bernadette were somewhat dismayed. But she, on the contrary, even then trembled with an eager desire to reach their destination. It seemed as if an invisible power sustained and endowed her with unwonted energy. She, usually so frail and weak, felt at that moment stout and strong. Her steps became so rapid as they began the ascent, that Antoinette and Mme. Millet, though both were strong and in perfect health, had a good task to keep up with her. The asthma, which usually hindered her from running, seemed to have left her for the time being. On reaching the summit, she was neither tired nor out of breath. Although her companions were perspiring and panting, her face was perfectly calm. She descended the cliffs, which she thus traversed for the first time, with the same ease and agility, feeling conscious that an invisible power guided and sustained her. Over these steep and sharp declivities, among slippery stones, hanging over the abyss, her step was as bold and firm as if walking upon the highway. Mme. Millet and Antoinette did not endeavor to follow at the same gait. They descended slowly, and with the precaution required by so perilous a way.

Consequently, Bernadette arrived at the grotto some minutes before them. She prostrated herself and began reciting her chaplet, earnestly regarding the niche, still empty and embowered by the entwining boughs of the eglantine.

Suddenly she uttered a cry. The well-known light of the aureole shone from the depths of the cave; she heard a voice calling her.

The wonderful apparition was again visible a few steps above her. The lovely Virgin turned toward the child her face lit up with eternal beauty, and with her hand beckoned her to approach.

At this moment, after surmounting a thousand and one difficulties, the two companions of Bernadette, Antoinette and Mme. Millet, reached the spot. They saw the features of the child transfigured with ecstasy. She heard and saw them.

"She is there!" the girl cried, "she beckons me to draw near!"

"Ask if she is annoyed because we are here with you. If so, we will go away."

Bernadette looked at the Blessed Virgin, invisible to all save herself. Then she turned toward her companions. "You may remain," she answered.

The two women knelt beside the child and lighted a blessed taper, which they had brought with them. It was, beyond doubt, the first time that such a light had ever shone in this savage place. This simple act, which seemed to inaugurate a sanctuary, had in itself a mysterious solemnity.

This visible sign of adoration, this humble flame lighted by two poor women, on the supposition that the apparition was divine, was never more to be extinguished but to brighten daily, and to grow with the lapse of years. The breath of incredulity was to exhaust itself against it in vain efforts. The storm of persecution was to arise; but this flame, lit by the devotion of the people, was to point for ever toward the throne of God. While these rustic hands lighted the first illumination in this strange grotto where a child was praying, the east had changed its color from gray to gold and purple, and the sun had begun to flood the world with light and to peep over the highest crest of the mountains.

Bernadette, in ecstasy, contemplated a cloudless beauty. "Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te:" Thou art all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot in thee.

Her companions spoke to her again.

"Go toward her, if she makes a sign. Go, ask her who she is, and why she comes here?... Is she a soul from purgatory that needs our prayers, or wishes us to have masses offered up for her?... Ask her to write on this paper what she desires. We are willing to do any thing she wishes--all that is needful for her rest."

The little seer took the paper, ink, and paper, which were given her and advanced toward the apparition, whose maternal glance brightened on seeing her draw near. Nevertheless, at each step that Bernadette made, the apparition receded into the interior of the cave. The child lost sight of it for a moment, and it went under the arch of the lower grotto. There, just above her and much nearer at hand, she saw the Blessed Virgin shining in the opening of the niche.

Bernadette held in her hand the objects which had been given her; she stood on tiptoe to reach the height of the supernatural being. Her two companions advanced to hear, if possible, the conversation which was about to take place. But Bernadette, without turning, and as if obeying a gesture of the vision, signed to them not to approach. Abashed, they withdrew.

"My Lady," said the child, "if you have any thing to tell me, will you not please write what you wish?"

The heavenly Virgin smiled at this naïve request. Her lips parted and she spoke:

"What I have to tell you I do not need to write. Only do me the favor to come here every day for two weeks."

"I promise to do so!" said Bernadette.

The Blessed Virgin smiled again and made a gesture of satisfaction, showing her full confidence in the word of this poor little peasant of fourteen years. She knew that the little shepherdess of Bartrès was pure as one of those little ones whose golden heads Jesus loved to caress, saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

To the promise of Bernadette, she replied by a solemn engagement:

"And I for my part promise to make you happy, not in this world, but in the next."

To the child who accorded her a few days, she promised, in return, eternity.

Bernadette, without losing sight of the apparition, returned to her companions.

Following her glance, she noticed the eyes of the Blessed Virgin resting kindly and for some time on Antoinette Peyret, who was unmarried and a member of the Confraternity of the Children of Mary.

Bernadette told them what she had seen.

"She is looking at you now," said the child to Antoinette.

The latter was filled with pleasure by these words and always recalled them with joy.

"Ask," said they, "if she is willing to have us accompany you hither during the fortnight."

Bernadette addressed the apparition.

"They may come with you," answered the Blessed Virgin, "and also any other persons. I desire to see every body here."

Saying these words, she disappeared, leaving behind her that brilliant light with which she was surrounded, and which slowly melted away.

In this instance, as in others, the child noticed something which seemed a rule with regard to the aureole which always surrounded the Blessed Virgin.

"When the vision appears," said she, in her own language, "I see first the light and then the 'Lady;' when it disappears, the 'Lady' first vanishes and afterward the light."

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[287] Bascle de Lagrèze, Conseiller à la Cour Impérial de Pau, Chronique de la Ville et du Chateau de Lourdes.

[288] The Ordo of the diocese of Tarbes for 1858, Feb. 12, contains the rubric, Sanctæ Genovefæ, (Proprium Tarbense.)

[289] These two persons are still living. Unless the contrary be expressly stated, all those named in the course of this work are still alive, and can be questioned. We would urge our readers to examine and verify all our assertions.--THE AUTHOR.

THE "PARADISE LOST" OF ST. AVITUS.

The indebtedness of Milton to Andreini for the conception of Paradise Lost, is proved not only by internal evidence, but by the ascertained fact that the English poet was well acquainted with the work of the Italian. Another poet of merit, centuries before, had produced a noble work on the subject, with which we may suppose, from Milton's classical and theological learning, he was familiar, though no proof exists that he had read it. We refer to the three poems of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, The Creation, Original Sin, and The Judgment of God, which form a triad, or a poem in three parts. Its resemblance to Paradise Lost, in general idea and in some important details, is very striking, and a curious fact in literature. These, with other works of the author, were published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though written long before.

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, born about the middle of the fifth century, was of a senatorial family in Auvergne. He became bishop A.D. 490, dying in 525. His part in the church of Gaul was active and important, as he was chief among the orthodox bishops of the east and south of Gaul, and Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians. In the struggle to maintain the true faith against the Arians, St. Avitus had to contend not only against theological adversaries, but the civil power. In the year 499 he held a conference at Lyons with some Arian bishops, in the presence of King Gondebald; and he influenced King Sigismund to return to the true belief.

He was the most distinguished among all the Christian poets from the sixth to the eighth century, and only the obscurity of the age can account for the oblivion into which his works have fallen. It is true that his poetry abounds in labored comparisons and artificial antitheses; but in treating of sacred subjects he adheres to the scriptural simplicity, and though living much nearer to the days of paganism than Milton, has nothing like his mythological allusions and ornaments. He wrote a hundred letters on his own times, besides homilies and treatises. His six poems are in hexameter verse. They are, The Creation, (De Initio Mundi,) Original Sin, (De Originali Peccato,) The Judgment of God, (De Sententia Dei,) The Deluge, (De Diluvio Mundi,) The Passage of the Red Sea, (De Transitu Maris Rubri,) and In Praise of Virginity, (De Consolatoria Laude Castitatis, etc.) The first three constitute what may be called the Paradise Lost of St. Avitus.

In the Creation, the peculiar features of the descriptive poetry of the sixth century appear, resembling the school founded by the Abbé Delille; elaborate beyond good taste, dissecting and anatomizing in details. This is almost painfully shown in the account of the creation of man, in which the anatomical particulars are minute and scientific to the utter destruction of the picturesque. Then comes the description of paradise, which is in curious analogy to Milton's. We translate part of it:

"Beyond the Indies, where the world begins, Where, it is said, the confines meet of earth And heaven, there spreads an elevated plain To mortals inaccessible, inclosed By barriers everlasting since for sin Adam was cast out from that happy home. There never change of seasons brings the frost; There summer yields not place to winter's reign; And while elsewhere the circle of the year Brings stifling heat, or fields with crisp ice bound, There bides eternal spring. Tumultuous winds Come not, and clouds forsake skies always pure. No need of rains; the ever genial soil With warm, sweet moisture of its own, keeps fresh Its vivid verdure; herbs and foliage live Fadeless, their vigor drawn from their own sap, Mingling their leaves with blossoms. Annual fruits There ripen every month; the lily's sheen The sunbeams taint not, nor the violet's blue; The fresh rose never fades; the laden boughs Shed odoriferous balm; the gentle breeze Skimming the woods, with softest murmur stirs The leaves and flowers, thence wafting sweet perfume. Clear founts gush out from their pellucid source, And polished gems have not their flashing lustre. Along the crystal's margin emeralds gleam, With varied hues of every jewel's sheen The world holds rich, enamelling the sands, And glistening in the meads like diadems."

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I. 211-257

The Latin is as follows:

"Ergo ubi transmissis mundi caput incipit Indis, Quo perhibent terram confinia jungere cœlo, Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arca Permanet, æterno conclusus limite, postquam Decidit expulsus primævi criminis auctor, Atque reis digne felici a sede revulsis, Cœlestes hæc sancta capit nunc aula ministros, Non hic alterni succedit temporis unquam Bruma, nec æstivi redeunt post frigora soles, Excelsus calidum cum reddit circulus annum, Vel densante gelu canescunt arva pruinis. Hic ver assiduum cœli clementia servat; Turbidus Auster abest, semperque sub ære sudo Nubila diffugiunt jugi cessura sereno. Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres, Sed contenta suo dotantur germina rore. Perpetuo viret omne solum, terræque tepentis Blanda nitet facies; stant semper collibus herbæ, Arboribusque comæ; quæ cum se flore frequenti Diffundunt, celeri confortant germina succo. Nam quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno; Menstrua maturo dant illic tempora fructu. Lilia perlucent nullo flaccentia sole, Nec tactus violat violas, roseumque ruborem Servans perpetuo suffundit gratia vultu. Sic cum desit hiems, nec torrida ferveat æstas, Fructibus autumnus, ver floribus occupat annum. Hic quæ donari mentitur fama Sabæsis Cinnama nascuntur, vivax quæ colligit ales, Natali cum fine perit, nidoque perusta Succedens sibimet quæsita morte resurgit; Nec contenta suo tantum semel ordine nasci; Longa veternosi renovatur corporis ætas, Incensamque levant exordia crebra senectam, Illic desudans fragrantia balsama ramus Perpetuum promit pingui de stipite fluxum. Tum si forte levis movit spiramina ventus, Flatibus exiguis, lenique impulsa susurro, Dives silva tremit foliis, ac flora salubri, Qui sparsus late maves dispensat odores. Hic fons perspicuo resplendens gurgita surgit. Talis in argento non fulget gratia, tantam Nec crystalla trahunt nitido defrigore lucem. Margine riparum virides micuere lapilli, Et quas miratur mundi jactantia gemmas, Illis saxa jacent; varios dant arva colores, Et naturali campos diademate pingunt."

The parallel passage of Milton runs thus:

"Thus was this place, A happy rural seat of various view; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm, Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste. Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose; Another side, umbrageous grots and caves Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan Knit with the graces and the hours in dance, Led on th' eternal spring."

Paradise Lost, iv. 246, etc.

The Nile, according to religious traditions, was one of the four rivers of paradise. In his description of its fertilizing inundation, St. Avitus paints, in a poetical figure, the view presented in after-years:

"When, swollen, the river overflows its banks, Strewing the plains with dark slime, fertile then The soil with calm skies and terrestrial rain; Then Memphis in the midst of a vast lake Appears, and o'er their fields submerged in crafts The laborers sail. The flood's decree sweeps forth All boundaries, equalizing all, and stays The season's labors. Joyful sees the shepherd His meadows swallowed, and from foreign seas Strange shoals of fish where erst his herds were fed. Then, when the waters have espoused the earth, Impregnating its gems, the Nile recedes, Calls back its scattered waters, and the lake, Once more a river, to its bed returns, Its floods encompassed in the ancient dyke."

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I. 266-281

We give also the original:

"Nam quoties tumido perrumpit flumine ripas Alveus, et nigris campos perinundat arenis, Ubertas taxatur aqua, cœloque vacante Terrestrem pluviam diffusus porrigit annis. Tunc inclusa latet lato sub gurgite Memphis, Et super absentis possessor navigat agros. Terminus omnis abest, æquatur judice fluctu Annua suspendens contectus jurgia limes. Gramina nota videt lactus subsidere pastor, Inque pecorum viridantis jugere campi Succedunt nantes aliena per æquora pisces. Ast postquam largo fecundans germina potu Lympha maritavit sitientis viscera terræ, Regraditur Nilus, sparsasque recolligit undas: Fit fluvius pereunte lacu; tum redditur alveo Pristina riparum conclusis fluctibus obex," etc.

An analogous phenomenon--far more vast and terrible--the descent of the waters of the upper firmament, and the overflow of earthly floods, is described by St. Avitus in his poem on The Deluge.

In the second part of the triad, Original Sin, the sacred traditions are implicitly followed; something is to be found of Andreini's conception of the prince of hell preserving in the demon the grandeur of the angel, carrying into the pit of evil the traces of a heavenly nature. The Satan of St. Avitus is not the devil of mere traditions, odious, hideous, malignant, with no elevation of feeling. He retains some traits of his first estate and a certain moral grandeur. Nevertheless the conception lacks the sublimity of Andreini's and Milton's, presenting none of those fierce conflicts of the soul, those appalling contrasts, which are so effective. It has, however, originality and energy, forcibly impressing the reader.

Satan, first entering paradise, and perceiving Adam and Eve, is thus portrayed:

"When he beheld the new-created pair In their fair home, their happy sinless life, Under God's laws the sovereigns of the earth, With tranquil joy surveying all around In peace their sway confessing--jealous rage Like lightning raised a tempest in his soul; Like to volcanic fires his fury burned. Too recent his great loss; hurled down from heaven, Down to the infernal pit, and with him fallen The troop who shared his fate! The agony, The shame of such defeat, with added pangs And horror, rose afresh, when he beheld Those happy ones; and full of bitter grief, Envy, despite, he poured his anger forth. Ah! woe is me; this new world sprung to life, This odious race the offspring of our ruin! Woe! Heaven was mine; from heaven I am expelled, This dust of earth to angels' pomp succeeding! Frail clay, to fair form moulded, will usurp The power, the sovereignty torn from our hands, To him transferred! Yet not of all despoiled, Some power we hold, some evil we can do. Be it done without delay! I yearn for strife! I long to meet these foes; yea, now to meet them, In their simplicity, which knows as yet Naught of deceit; naught but the things they see, Which leaves them shieldless. Easier the task To tempt them and mislead, while thus alone, Ere they have thrown a vast posterity Into the eternity of ages!--No-- We will not suffer any thing immortal To rise from earth! Let us destroy the race Here in its source! Oh! that its chiefs defeat May be the seed of death! Life's principle Give rise to pangs of death! all struck in one! The root cut and the tree for ever prone! Such consolation in my fall is mine; If I must never more ascend to heaven, At least its portals shall be closed 'gainst these! The misery I suffer is less keen Knowing these creatures lost by a like fall; If they, accomplices in my destruction, Become companions in my punishment, Sharing with us the flames I now discern Prepared for us! But to allure them on, I, who have fallen, must show them the same road, That the same pride which drove me out of heaven May chase man from the bounds of paradise. He spoke, and heaving a deep sigh, was silent."

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II. 60-117

The Latin is as follows:

"Vidit ut iste novos homines in sede quieta Ducere felicem nullo discrimine vitam, Lege sub accepta Domino famularier orbis, Subjectisque frui placida inter gaudia rebus; Commovit subitum zeli scintilla vaporem, Excrevitque calens in sæva incendia livor. Vicinus tunc forte fuit, quo concidit alto, Lapsus, et innexam traxit per prona catervam. Hoc recolens, casumque premens in corde recentem, Plus doluit periisse sibi quod possidet alter. Tunc mixtus cum felle pudor sic pectore questus Explicat, et tali suspiria voce relaxat. Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma, Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina! Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc arce reje Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori. Cœlum terra tenet, vili compage levata Regnat humus, nobisque perit translata potestas. Non tamen in totum periit; pars magna retentat Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi, Nec differre juvat; jam nunc certamine blando Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos Simplicitas ignara dolos, ad tela patebit. Et melius soli capientur fraude, priusquam Fecundam mittant æterna in sæcula prolem, Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est; Fons generis pereat, capitis dejectio victi Semen mortis erit; pariat discrimina lethi Vitæ principium; cuncti feriantur in uno; Non faciet vivum radix occisa cacumen. Hæc mihi dejecto tandem solatia restant. Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere cœlos, His quoque claudentur," etc.

Thus Milton's Satan:

"O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold! Into our room of bliss thus high advanced Creatures of other mould; earth-born perhaps, Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue With wonder, and could love, so lively shines In them divine resemblance, and such grace The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured. Ah gentle pair! ye little think how nigh Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe! More woe the more you taste is now of joy; Happy, but for so happy ill secured Long to continue, and this high seat your heaven Ill fenced for heaven to keep out such a foe As now is entered; yet no purposed foe To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn, Though I unpitied; league with you I seek, And mutual amity, so strait, so close, That I with you must dwell, or you with me Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please, Like this fair paradise, your sense; yet such Accept your Maker's work; he gave it me, Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold, To entertain you two, her widest gates, And send forth all her kings; there will be room, Not like these narrow limits, to receive Your numerous offspring; if no better place, Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged. And should I at your harmless innocence Melt as I do, yet public reason just, Honor and empire with revenge enlarged, By conquering this new world, compel me now To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."

Milton's Paradise Lost, iv. 358-392.

More elevated, impassioned, and complex are the feelings of Milton's Satan, more eloquent his expression; yet the simple energy, the menacing concentration of the arch-fiend painted by St. Avitus, has a powerful effect.

The third book exhibits the despair of Adam and Eve after the fall; the coming of the divine Judge; his sentence, and their expulsion from paradise. Where Milton represents Adam as giving way to indignation against Eve, St. Avitus causes him to rage against the Creator himself.

"Adam thus saw himself condemned: his guilt By inquiry made manifest. Yet not In humble suppliance did he sue for mercy: Nor with deep penitence, and tears, and prayers, And self-accusing, shamed confession, plead For the remission of his punishment; Fallen, miserable, no pity he invoked. With lifted front, with anger flushed, his pride Broke forth in clamorous reproach. 'Twas then To bring my ruin that the woman was given To be my helpmeet! That which from thy hand, Creator! was received as best of blessings-- She--overcome herself--has conquered me With counsels sinister! prevailed with me To take the fruit she had already tasted; She is the source of evil; from her came The sin, beguiling me too credulous; And thou, Lord, thou didst teach me to believe her By giving her to be my own in marriage, With sweet ties joining us! Ah! if my life, Lonely at first, had so continued--happy! If I had never known this fatal union, The yoke of such companionship! These words Of Adam the divine Creator heard, And thus severely spoke to desolate Eve; Woman, why hast thou in thy fall drawn down Thy wretched spouse? Deceived, and then deceiving, Instead of standing in thy guilt alone, Why sought'st thou to dethrone the higher reason Of this thy husband? And the woman, full Of shame and sorrow, daring not to raise Her face with conscious blushes all suffused, Answered: The serpent did beguile me; he Persuaded me to taste the fruit forbidden."

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