XXVII. CARL YORKE’S ORBIT

XXVII. CARL YORKE’S ORBIT

As Dick Rowan gained strength in those first days of convalescence, Edith perceived that he had changed toward her. The manifestations of this change were slight, she was not sure that he was himself conscious of them, but they were decided. It was not that he showed any unkindness, or even indifference, but his being seemed to be--scarcely yet revolving round, but--brooding round a new centre. He frequently became absorbed in contemplation, from which he recalled himself with difficulty, though always cheerfully. Not a tinge of pain marred the peaceful silence of his mood. It was like that exquisite pause we sometimes see in the weather, when, after a violent storm, the winds and blackness withdraw, and there comes an hour of tender, misty silence before the sunshine breaks forth. His eyes would turn upon her kindly, and, still looking, forget her, and she saw that something of more importance had usurped her image.

He was decided and self-reliant, too, in some things, and seemed rather displeased than grateful for too much solicitude on the part of others. He put aside entirely the usual sick-room inquiries. “I am getting well,” he said, “and need not count how often I stumble in learning to walk again. My miserable body has received attention enough. Let us forget it, now that we may.”

Edith began to read, in obedience to Father John, but the books she chose at first did not quite suit the listener. Even the St. Theresa and The Following of Christ, which she found on his shelves, did not seem to be what he wanted then. She brought some of her books, but could see that his own meditations were more agreeable to him.

“I do not like to find fault with a pious writer,” Dick said uneasily. “They are all good, but I have thought that some of them sometimes--” He broke off abruptly. “Edith, is there such a word as platitudinize?”

“I do not think that it is in the dictionary,” she replied, smiling.

“It is, then, an omission,” said Dick.

“Try the Gospels,” Father John said, when Edith told him her difficulty. “Different states of mind require different reading, just as different states of the body require different food and medicine. I frequently advise people, whom I find having a distaste for spiritual reading, to read the Gospels, and refresh their memory of all the events recorded there by the simply-told story. I always find that they return with delight and profit to the meditations of those holy souls whose lives have been spent in the study of these mysteries. These writers assume that the reader has freshly in his mind that of which they treat. You cannot meditate on a subject, nor follow clearly the meditations of another, when the facts are not familiar to your own mind.”

Edith read the Gospels, therefore, and was astonished at their effect on Dick. Either his perceptions had been sharpened during his illness, or some obstructions had been cleared away from the passage to his heart. This was not to him an old story, worn and deadened with much telling, and slipping past his hearing without leaving a trace, but a tragedy newly enacted, none of its edge gone, every circumstance as sharp as a thorn, tearing in the telling. While Edith read the story of the Lord as told by the four great witnesses, and added the outpourings of those fiery Epistles, the listener’s agitation was so great that she was often compelled to stop. At the chapters which related to the passion, Dick’s hands trembled and grew cold, and his head dropped back against the cushions of his chair. The Epistles of St. Paul stirred him especially.

“Now, Dick, if you don’t behave I won’t read you another word!” Edith exclaimed, one day, when he had started out of his chair, and begun to walk about.

He came back with a stumbling step, and seated himself, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

“I believe I shall have to postpone St. Paul till I am able to go out-doors,” he said breathlessly.

Observing his eyes frequently wander to the St. Ignatius, she remarked: “He looks as though he were present when our Lord was crucified, and could not forget the sight.”

“We were all present!” he exclaimed. “How can we forget it?”

Long and intimate as their acquaintance had been, Edith thought now that she had not known Dick Rowan well. She had praised, defended, and loved him with sisterly fondness, but always, involuntarily, almost unconsciously, from a higher plane than his. Now she looked up to him as her superior. But, in truth, she had know him well, and done him full justice. The difference now was that the full current of his nature was turned into a higher channel.

One day Hester sent the carriage to take Edith to see the family house, which was as complete as it could be before the arrival of the family. Hester herself was detained at home by company, but she sent a line: “Carl will be there, and the man who is putting up the curtains, and the woman who is cleaning the closet in your room. So you will not be lost, nor want for information.”

Edith had just begun her reading when the note was given to her. She handed it to Dick to read.

“That settles the question,” he said, holding out his hand for the book. “While you read to me yesterday, the thought occurred to me that I could do it for myself, and I meant that this should be your last reading. Go and take the air, Edith. You have been too much shut up. This is your last day but one with me as an invalid.”

She looked at him with a startled expression.

“Because,” he answered smilingly to her look, “to-morrow I drive out, the day after I shall sit down-stairs, and the next day I shall forget that I have ever been sick.”

He looked thoroughly contented and cheerful. There was no lurking sadness, nor reluctance to have her go. Dick was too transparent to hide it if there were. As well might the lake show a smooth surface while waves were rolling below. His soul had, indeed, always been more placid than his manner.

Before Edith had left the room, he was turning over the leaves of the book, a new one to him; and when she stepped into the carriage at the curbstone, he was so absorbed in reading as not to know that she was looking up at the window where he sat. The book rested on the wide arm of his chair, his elbow near it, the hand supporting his forehead. His hair had been cut off, and thus his full brow and finely shaped head were clearly displayed. His hands were beginning to look alive, his cheeks to get back their color. So he leaned and read, and she drove away.

She was going to meet Carl, and she was glad of it, though at Seaton she had thought that she must not see him again. The second thought had shown her how unnecessary and Quixotic this resolution had been, made in the first shock and confusion caused by Dick Rowan’s distress, and her own discovery of the depth of her own affection for Carl. She had since then put aside her own imagination and that of others, and examined her heart as it was, not as it might become under circumstances which she no longer expected to find herself in. She and Carl were nearly related by marriage, and he had been her teacher, and kind and delicate friend. She had lived in the same house with him seven years, a longer time than she had been associated intimately with Dick Rowan, and her intercourse with him had been such as to call out all that was most amiable in his character, and that at a time when her own mind was maturing, and capable of receiving its most profound impressions. She asked herself what the charm had been in her intercourse with him, and the answer was immediate: a quick and thorough sympathy in everything natural. For the supernatural, so careful had he been not to offend her conscience, and so highly had he appreciated religion in her, she had felt no sense of discordance, but only that he lacked a faith which she hoped and expected he would one day possess. Carl had never intruded his scepticism on her. What, she asked herself then, had she wished regarding him? and the answer was no more doubtful; she had wished to be his most confidential and sympathizing friend, and had shrunk with pain from the thought of any one coming nearer to his heart than herself, or as near. Even of these wishes she had been almost unconscious till others had forced them on her attention. Of Dick Rowan’s friendships she could never have been jealous, and she could never have suffered from them. Here she stopped, and set her Christian will and her maiden reserve as a firm barrier against her own imagination or the intrusive imaginations of others taking one step further. She was ready to fling her Honni soit qui mal y pense in the face of any evil speaker.

“Dick Rowan was a good friend to my childhood,” she said, “and protected me from all physical danger and insult, and petted me with childlike fondness; and I have been grateful to him beyond the point of duty, and to my own hurt. Carl Yorke helped to form my opening mind, and patiently and carefully strove to endow me with his own knowledge, and my debt to him is a still higher one. I have a right, when he is going away, to bid him a friendly good-by, and I should be ashamed of myself if I were afraid to!”

Carl stood in the door of his old home, and came down the steps, hat in hand, to assist her. She saw in his face that he felt doubtful whether his presence might not displease her.

“I am glad to see you, Carl,” she said cordially. “I could not believe that you meant to go away without bidding me farewell.”

“I would not have gone away without seeing you,” Carl replied quietly; and they went into the house together. His face had lighted at her greeting. Evidently he liked its frank kindliness, and the entire setting aside of all embarrassing recollections. He had been in the cruel position of a man who, with a high natural sense of honor, has suffered himself to be betrayed into an act which he cannot justify, and is ashamed to excuse. Silence was best.

Edith was delighted with the home-like look of everything in the house, and the good taste displayed in its arrangement.

“I can easily understand,” Carl said, “why you and my mother wished to have as little new furniture as possible. I think we all prefer that which has friendly or beautiful associations.”

He lead her to a portrait, conspicuously placed in the sitting-room.

“I hung dear Alice’s picture here,” he said, “because I thought that her place was in the family-circle.” He sighed. “It is astonishing how cruelly selfish men can sometimes be, without knowing it. Poor, dear Alice thought of me, and I thought of myself. Well, she is safe dead, with no more need of me, and I am left with an unfailing regret.”

Edith was grieved and touched by his self-reproach, and was about to say some comforting word, when he turned to her with a smile. “And I am committing again the same fault which I confess,” he said. “Edith comes out of a sick-room, weary and depressed, and I sadden instead of cheering her. Shall we look about the house?”

They went up-stairs, and he showed her the different chambers. “But we all concluded that you would prefer the one I used to have for my painting-room,” he said. “It is up another flight of stairs, but well repays you for the climbing. You are an early bird, and there you will have the morning sunshine. It is the largest chamber in the house, and has the best view. How do you like it?”

Edith exclaimed with delight. Nothing could have suited her better. Through the windows were visible a wide sweep of sky and a pretty city view. Inside, the room was large, charmingly irregular, with alcoves and niches, and the partial furnishing was fresh and of her own colors. Sea-green and white lace made it a home fit for a mermaid. It was evident that a good deal of care had been used in preparing the place for her.

“You are so kind!” she said rather tremulously.

He affected not to notice her emotion. “All I have done in this house has been a labor of love and delight,” he said, and led her to a picture which bore the mark of his own exquisite brush, the only picture on the walls. “This is to remember Carl by,” he said. “It is painted partly from nature, partly from a description of the scene. It is a glimpse into what was called the Kentucky Barrens.”

An opening in a forest of luxuriant beech, ash, and oak trees showed a level of rich green, profusely flower-sprinkled. The morning sky was of a pure blue, with thin flecks of white cloud, and everything was thickly laden with dew. The fringe of the picture glittered with light, but all the centre was overshadowed by a vast slanting canopy of messenger-pigeons, settling toward the earth. The sunlight on their glossy backs glanced off in brilliant azure reflections, looking as though a cataract of sapphires was flowing down the sky. Here and there, a ray of sunshine broke through the screen of their countless wings, and lit up a flower or bit of green. An oriole was perched on a twig in the foreground, and from the hanging nest close by, his mate pushed a pretty head and throat. Startled by the soft thunder of that winged host, they gazed out at it from the safe covert of their leafy home.

The two went down-stairs into the sitting-room again. “Now, I want to tell you all my plans,” Carl said.

They seated themselves, and he began: “I have thought best to make now the tour which I contemplated years ago. It must be now, or never, and I am not willing to relinquish it entirely. But I am not sorry that I was disappointed in going when I first thought of it, for I was not then prepared to derive the benefit from the journey which I now hope for. I should have gone then for pleasure and adventure; now I make a pilgrimage to gather knowledge. I tell you of this, Edith, but I have concluded not to tell my mother. It seems cruel, and there has been a struggle in my mind, but I cannot do otherwise. I well remember how hard it was to win her consent before, and I believe she was truly glad of our loss of wealth, since it kept me at home. If I should tell her now, the struggle would be renewed, and she would be ill. I am afraid, too, that I might be impatient with her, for I have no more time to throw away. So I shall let her suppose that I am going to make a short visit in England, which is true. Once there, she will not be disturbed at my going over to France for a few weeks. After France, Switzerland follows of course, Italy is next door, and the East is not far from Italy. I have always observed that, when a thing is done, my mother makes up her mind to it with fortitude; but, if it is left to her to decide on anything painful, she is unable to decide, and the suspense is terrible to her. My father knows that. When he really means to do a thing, he is prompt, and makes no talk about it. And, Edith, I shall not tell my sisters nor father, because it will seem more unkind if she is the only one who does not know, and it might compel them to practise evasion. I tell you alone, and I want you to promise me that, if my mother should begin to suspect, you will at once tell her all, and do what you can to quiet her.”

“I promise you, Carl,” Edith answered.

“You can also tell Mr. Rowan, if you have occasion to, if you wish to,” he said, looking at her attentively.

She merely bowed.

“I think that you will approve of my plans,” he went on with earnestness. “I have found what I believe to be my place and work in this vortex of the nineteenth century, and I wish to fill that place and do that work in the best manner I can. I have been offered a position as attaché at one of our embassies, but I am not ready for that yet. I am not fit for anything that I wish to do.”

Warming with his subject, Carl stood up, and leaned on a high chair-back opposite Edith while he talked. His face became animated, his manner had a charming cordiality and frankness. When his time should come for speaking or writing, or taking any part in the affairs of his country, he wished to be considered an authority, and to deserve that consideration. To that end, he must have more knowledge, not of courts, or camps, or books, though these were worth knowing, but of people as they live in their own homes, in their own lands, under laws strange to us. He wanted to know the world’s poor, and the world’s criminals, and the world’s saints, wherever he could find them. “You have observed, in drawing faces,” he said, “how one little line will alter the whole expression. It is the same with arguments. A great, loose, sophistical generalization may be as completely upset by one sharp little fact, as Goliath was by David. I want to have a sling full of those facts. A plain hard truth may be made attractive by a single beautiful illustration; and I wish to gather illustrations from the whole world. I hate a sour patriotism, and I would not think, nor speak, nor write narrowly on any subject.

“I can perceive, Edith, that we have much to learn in this country, and I wish to be first taught myself, then to do my part in helping to teach others. We need to learn that the order of society, as well as of the heavenly bodies, depends on a centripetal, no less than a centrifugal force. At present we are all flying off on tangents. We need to learn that there is beauty and dignity in obedience, as well as in independence. We should see that it is better for a people to be nobler than their laws, than for laws to be nobler than the people; and that the living constitution of a living nation is not found on any parchment, but is the national conscience brought to a focus. Why, Edith, those very persons who boast themselves the most on the glorious fathers of our country are, perhaps, the persons of whom those same fathers, could they behold them, would be most unutterably ashamed. I do not mean to be presumptuous, dear; but I see which way my influence should go, and I mean to do my best to make that influence great, first by leading an honest life, and next by polishing my weapons to the utmost. I am talking confusedly. I give you but a rough sketch of my design. Two years, I think, will be the limit of my stay. I am so well prepared by my studies that I shall lose no time, and I have every facility of access to all places I wish to visit. What do you say to it, Edith?”

“I say God-speed, with all my heart, Carl! Your aims are noble. I like to see you in earnest.”

“I am in earnest, dear,” he said. “I feel as a new planet might, that has been turning on its own centre without progress, and is all at once set spinning off on its orbit.”

In the momentary silence that followed, Edith went to a book-shelf filled with pamphlets, and looked them over. “O Carl!” she said brightly, “do you read these?”

They were the numbers of Brownson’s Review.

“I have read them more attentively than anything else,” he answered, “and learned more from them. An American best understands the American mind. Pure reason is, of course, cosmopolitan; but reason is seldom so pure but a colored ray of individual or national character intrudes; and I like to choose my color. I think,” he said, smiling, “that I have been quoting that Review to you. I leave them for my father to read.”

Edith’s eyes sparkled. “I thank God that you are on this track, Carl!” she said. “The first I ever read in this Review was an article on De Maistre, and it solved for me a great difficulty. The fragments of truth that I had seen in the mythologies of different nations, and the beautiful Christian sentiments I had found among the pagans, had been a stumbling-block to me; but, when I read that, all became plain. You make me very happy, dear Carl!”

“I do not think that I am pious,” he said, after a moment. “My mind is clear on the subject, but my heart is unmoved. I do not wonder at that, and I am not sure but I prefer it so; to have light pour over my mind till my heart melts underneath, rather than have a mind imperfectly illuminated, and a heart starting up at intervals in little evanescent flames, which die out again, and leave ashes. The former is light from heaven, the latter suggests the lucifer-match to me. As soon as the time shall come, which I calmly await, when I have a clearer realization of the necessity of baptism, I shall ask to be baptized. Till then, I wish my intellectual convictions to be getting acclimated. My sacrifice must be ready before I invoke upon it fire from heaven.”

“Oh! you remind me of St. John of the Cross,” Edith said. “He says, ‘Reason is but the candlestick to hold the light of faith.’”

“Precisely!” Carl replied. “Behold me, then, illuminated by a candlestick, instead of a candle, but--aware of that lack. A friend of mine, a convert, told me lately that he had always regretted having hurried into the church, and to the sacraments, as he did. He did not realize anything, but received supernatural favors like one in a dream. He said that, though he was sincere, and would have given his life for the faith that was in him, he was, for a long time, tormented by the habit of doubt. When, at length, that habit was broken, he used sometimes to long to receive baptism over again, or wished, at least, that his first communion had been postponed to the time of peace. A strong movement of the heart might, perhaps, have saved this trouble; but neither he nor I have been so favored.”

“And yet,” Edith said thoughtfully, “I should have supposed that the first conviction of truth would have moved your feelings. When my mind pointed that way, my heart followed quickly, and pretty soon took wings, and flew along by itself, and left my thoughts behind. I am not sure that I have any intellect in religion. I can think of reasons for everything, if I try, but it does not seem to me worth while, unless some one outside of the church wishes to know.”

“That is a woman’s way,” Carl said, pleased with her pretty earnestness. “A woman goes heart first, or her head and heart go hand in hand, and her finest mental power is the intellect of noble passions. A man goes head first, and his highest power is reason.”

The silvery bell of a clock warned them how long their interview had been. Edith rose. “I must say good-by to you for two years, then, Carl; but you have taken away the sting of parting. While you are on the road to truth, I am not afraid of any road for you on sea or land.”

She gave him her hand. Large, bright tears stood in her eyes.

“Dear Edith, good-by!” he said, and could not utter another word.

They went down the steps together. The carriage-door opened and closed, there was one last glance, and they lost sight of each other.

They parted with pain, yet not unwillingly; for duty and honor yet stood with hands clasped between to separate them. Dick Rowan’s pale face, as they had seen it that night sinking backward into the river, could be forgotten by neither.

When we have wronged a person, though it were unconsciously, we can no longer take the same delight in that pleasure which has given him pain. The pleasure may be no less dear to us, but the thought that it is to be reached only through the sufferings of one who has even a fancied claim on us makes renunciation seem almost preferable to possession.

THE DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

NO. III.

SOCIAL DUTIES.

Under this head we include duties toward certain classes or individuals who are dependent on the rich for their well-being and happiness. The rich furnish employment to those who live by labor. By their wealth, their knowledge, their power of various kinds, they set agoing and direct those great branches of human enterprise and industry in which the majority of persons in civilized society are the workmen. The welfare and happiness of the majority depend, therefore, in a great measure upon the right discharge of their duties by the minority, in whose hands the direction is placed. In order that these duties may be rightly discharged according to Christian principles, the small number who possess the largest portion of wealth and power must be stimulated and governed by the motive of true philanthropy, the love of their fellow-men, Christian charity. Those who are dependent need, on their part, the spirit of resignation to the will of God, contentment with their lot, respect and affection toward those who are in a superior position. Where this mutual charity, springing from Christian principles, does not exist in great strength, binding all classes together, sooner or later the rich will despise and oppress the poor; and the poor will hate the rich, biding their time to revolt against and destroy them. The rich ought, therefore, to devote all their thoughts and energies to such an administration of the trust committed to them as may produce the greatest possible amount of well-being and happiness among the dependent classes in society, and earn for themselves the respect, love, and gratitude of all.

We will now leave off generalizing, and descend to some particulars. Merchants and others in similar positions ought to take more interest than they do in the welfare and happiness of their clerks. Those who know something of the hardships, privations, and moral danger to which this class of young men are exposed in New York will not dispute the assertion we have made.[13] It may be extended to the corresponding class of young women. And we have here the opportunity of citing the example of a work undertaken by one of our merchants, which illustrates our thesis much better than pages of explanation. We refer to the great institution contrived, and now almost completed, by Mr. Stewart, which may be seen, and is worth being seen by every one, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Thirty-third Street. This princely undertaking is a sample of that benevolent and magnanimous effort in behalf of a numerous and interesting class of the employees of the rich which we are aiming to recommend.

The need of looking after the interests of those who are engaged in the harder and rougher kinds of labor is much more stringent. The tenements and daily surroundings of the laboring class of people in great cities, the many squalid discomforts and miseries which invest their lot in life, have been the frequent theme of those who, either from real or pretended philanthropy, concern themselves with social questions. Here again, we may cite the example of another princely merchant, Mr. Peabody, as an illustration of what might be undertaken and accomplished, if the whole body of wealthy men had the same spirit and would make similar efforts. The condition of the laboring class is too hard. They are too much neglected. It is not safe to leave them in this condition, and, more than this, it is not right to do so. Let us specify some particular instances of the ill-treatment or neglect of certain classes of workingmen. There are not a few who are most unreasonably and cruelly overworked both by day and by night, especially such as fill the most arduous kinds of employments about railroads. The life of the Southern negro slave was paradisaic, compared to that of the miserable drudges who work in the stables of our horse railways. The conductors and drivers of our city cars and omnibuses are worked to death on a pay so meagre that stealing has become a kind of recognized necessity of their situation. How can these men go to church on Sundays, approach the sacraments, or enjoy an innocent holiday? There is a wonderful amount of breath and ink expended in our enlightened city upon our religious rights and liberties. Yet the men who are employed to take care of the Central Park cannot find even a single half-hour on a Sunday morning to go to Mass.

Let any one who wishes to appreciate the blessing of living in this nineteenth century, in this land of light and liberty, and enjoying the fruits of that advanced civilization which communicates the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number, take a tour of the New England factories. He will there see spectacles to rejoice his heart, if he is both a wealthy and a righteous man, and cause him to exclaim: “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men, especially as these Irishmen, and that my wife and children are not like theirs!” The writer of these articles has had a long and extensive experience as a missionary among the Catholic population of the factory towns of New England. In almost every instance, the persons who have had charge of the factories have been extremely polite and obliging during the continuance of the missions. Often they have manifested an interest in their success, and have granted facilities to the operatives to attend the exercises. So, undoubtedly, has it been with the masters of slaves on the Southern plantations. These things cannot, however, make slavery to be freedom, or the condition of operatives in factories one that is fit to exist in a society which pretends to be Christian or civilized. There are plenty of kind-hearted, philanthropic men among New England capitalists. We do not suppose that all those who give so largely to foreign missions and Bible societies have either made their fortunes by selling opium and rum to the heathen, or are seeking merely to salve over a remorseful conscience and gain applause from men by their liberality. Yet even those who are conscientious and benevolent are carried along by a system which is bad and cruel. We do not mean that it is bad and cruel by accident merely. Many of its crimes and cruelties are purely accidental, and prove only the wickedness of particular persons. If a building is put up in such a slight manner that it falls and crushes hundreds, this is the crime of those particular persons who caused it to be built in such a manner. If the superintendent of a factory abuses his power to corrupt those who are under him, that is his own sin. But if the principles and laws of the system produce moral and physical misery independently of the individuals who carry it on, the system is essentially vicious. It is even the cause of the accidental and exceptional villanies which occur under it, because it tends to produce a cruel and tyrannical spirit.

The essential vice of the system lies in this. Capitalists seek to make exorbitant profits, without regard to anything but their own selfish interests. They care not for their operatives. These are, consequently, overworked, and employed at too tender an age, and to a great extent are underpaid. They are regarded and treated as working machines, and not as moral and religious beings. There is something repulsive, gloomy, and uncivilized about the aspect and surroundings of a factory or a factory town. The life which is led there has the most stern and sombre elements of the monastic institute, without the compensating charms and attractions. It has something also of the state-prison discipline, something of the poor-house, and a great deal of the Commune. There is a dismal and frightful regularity, like that of a treadmill, in the existence of the population of our factory towns of New England. Everything is arranged both in the mills and the boarding-houses with such clock-work regularity, and with such scanty allowance for any other functions of life except those which are physical, that the place would suit much better for a variety of apes with sufficient intelligence to work machines than for human beings. Sunday is free, it is true, thanks to the small amount of Christian law which still survives in our country. Catholics can therefore go to Mass and sermon, as they do in thousands, crowding the vast churches which they have built for themselves, in spite of the weariness of their week’s labor. But as for confession, it is made almost impossible, and without that they cannot enjoy the greatest of their Sunday privileges, holy communion. We will not enlarge on the obvious fact that the regular amount of work exacted is excessive. But what is to be said of those who take even more than the regular and excessive number of hours in the day from their overworked rational animals? At Manchester, N. H., during a mission in which the writer was engaged, the operatives of one factory were employed until half-past nine in the evening. Some of them, who made a desperate effort to snatch what they could of the advantages of the mission, complained to us that they were half-dead with fatigue, and too jaded to care whether they had souls or not. We asked if the extra hours of work were not voluntary. The answer was, that they were so in appearance and in pretence, but that they did not dare to refuse volunteering for extra work, for fear of being punished by the ill-will of their overseers, and even discharged at the first convenient opportunity.

At another New England town, West Rutland, Vermont, we found that for a considerable time the workmen in the marble quarries had been forced to take store-pay for their wages. All the land, the houses, the different branches of business, were in the hands or under the control of a few capitalists, who would not permit any of the Irish laborers to acquire property or gain a permanent and independent footing on the soil.

These are scattered instances, but they tell a great deal, and well-informed readers will know how to fill up the picture for themselves. Many persons engaged in the system of which we are speaking will admit its evils and hardships. They excuse themselves, however, by the plea that they can personally do nothing toward changing it for a better one. Private efforts, they say, would only injure those who made them, by enabling the merciless and unscrupulous to fill up the market and sweep up all the profits. Legislation, they say, is hopeless, because controlled by these very unscrupulous capitalists. Senator Wilson has made this assertion in regard to New York. He says it is controlled by what he calls a feudal moneyed aristocracy. Others would probably extend the observation to a much wider sphere than New York. We do not generally agree in opinion with Senator Wilson. But we agree with him most heartily in condemning and denouncing such a regime as this. Only, we would suggest that a more appropriate name for it would be, instead of feudal, FOODLE ARISTOCRACY. It is not only cruel, but despicable. Mammon was the “meanest spirit that fell,” and the worship of the golden calf is the most degrading of all idolatries.

The miserably poor, the helpless, the suffering, and even the morally degraded and vicious classes of the community have also their claims on the charity of the rich. We have no wish to deny that these claims are very generally acknowledged in modern society, and a great deal done to acquit them, both by organized and by individual liberality and effort. We occasionally see extraordinary instances of generous philanthropy towards one or another suffering class of men. Very lately, we have seen the Roosevelt Hospital opened, an extensive institution founded by one of the old Knickerbocker gentlemen of New York, who left $900,000, the bulk of his fortune, for this purpose. The miseries of our social system are nevertheless so vast and fearful that the remedies furnished by either public or private care are wholly inadequate. Perhaps many persons will say that they are remediless. There are those who look on the world and life with cold and merciless eyes. It is a struggle of animals for their selfish enjoyment. Let each one look out for himself, and the unlucky take their chance. When such persons are prosperous and powerful, they scorn and oppress the weaker individuals who are dependent on them. Knowing their own depravity, they believe in that of all other men. They are therefore perfectly pitiless toward their fellow-men. “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Others who are not cruel are sad and disheartened. Although they mourn over the appalling miseries of life, they look on them as the inevitable destiny of the human race, and do not believe it is possible to help them. The philosophy of the first class is diabolical, that of the second is unworthy of Christians. We do not mean that they err in respect to the point of fact that these miseries have always existed and will exist. But we do say that they err in ascribing them to the essential order of the world, to the constitution of society, to human destiny, and not to the wilful sins and negligences of men; they err in not believing that God has provided a remedy which on his part is sufficient and adequate for these miseries; and, therefore, they err practically, if they do not endeavor to apply that remedy as far as they can to those miseries with which they come in contact. Does one of these ask what hope there is of a fundamental reformation in society which will remedy the crying evils all benevolent persons see and deplore? We answer, that, with all its faults, the nineteenth century is really remarkable on account of the general interest which is felt in the improvement of the condition of the working and suffering classes. What is wanted is the knowledge and application of the right principles and means for accomplishing the result. Communism, secularism, and every kind of system which denies or ignores Christianity, is a remedy worse than the disease, which can only produce death. Imperfect or sectarian Christianity, although capable of producing partial and limited improvement, is too weak for the task which its more generous and enterprising professors exact from it, and endeavor to stimulate it to undertake. It is only the Catholic Church which is competent to such great and universal works. She alone has the wellspring of divine charity, and the supernatural agencies for distributing its health-giving, fructifying streams. Therefore, the hope of a thorough application of the divine remedy to the dreadful diseases of humanity is precisely commensurate with the hope of a return of the whole people of nominal Christendom to true Catholic Christianity.

Meanwhile, the duty of each individual is to do what he can for the benefit of those who are within the sphere of his own efforts or influence. Let him pay attention to his own dependents, and to the poor and suffering who are immediately around him. No one who has wealth, power, or influence of any kind will have any reason to complain that he lacks the opportunity of doing good to his fellow-men, if he is really desirous of doing it. Even if his position is altogether that of a private person, he can do his part, and that a good and noble one, in the general work of human redemption. If he has the power and the opportunity to act upon society, as a public man in a greater or lesser sphere, let him remember that he is a Christian, and act accordingly, and he will be doing precisely what those great and good men did in former times who were the creators and improvers of our Christian civilization.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] An incident has been related to the writer of this article, within a few days, which may serve as a sample of some of the grievances, and these not the worst, of this class of young men. Complaint was made to the head of a large house that the clerks were obliged to stand up during the whole day, and the reply was made that they must keep on standing if they died for it. One more fact which we have heard reported is worth recording: that in certain places, deduction is made from the wages of clerks for Christmas and New-Year’s Day. We cannot help wishing that a New York Douglas Jerrold may start up from behind some counter, or out of some comfortless sleeping-bunk, to do justice to this fruitful theme.

EASTER EVE.

The midnight chimes had just done ringing, and the old church was very still. All day long there had been comers and goers, and the altar had been wreathed, the stone church carpeted, the clustered pillars entwined with flowers and with evergreens. Round the altar, that stood among the carven stalls like a May-shrine in a dark forest-glade, was an amphitheatre of blossoming verdure; boys’ hands had piled up the lilies, the violets, the roses, the fuchsias; and monks’ hands had reared up the pyramid of palm, and ivory magnolia, and many-colored rhododendron beyond. The palms were golden, not green it is true, but they were very precious, and could not be spared to-day from the festive decoration, for they had come from Palestine, and only last Sunday had been offered to the church. An Eastern guest had walked in the procession on Palm Sunday, and had dedicated these lovely foreign boughs to the God of East and West alike.

Everything was ready for the early celebration of the Paschal Mass--even the golden chalice lay under its pall of satin upon the altar of sculptured cedar-wood. Perhaps the transverse timbers of the rare wood had not forgotten the time when the sea-breezes blew on them on Lebanon’s heights, and when the voice of the young crusader, Hugh of Devereux, had bidden them fall in the service of God and help to build him another sepulchre in a Christian land.

“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars!”

And now there was no one in the old church but the youngest chorister, Benignus, the nephew of the monk Cuthbert. The child was never happy save by the altar, and had no friend but Cuthbert, because he was of the blood of the lords of Devereux, and his poor betrayed mother was no more.

Midnight chimes are sweet, and the child had a weird passion for their sound, and would sit entranced while they slowly rang out an old well-known church-chant. But when they had done, and he thought there was silence, he heard a sound he knew not growing out of the chimes, but different from them, something graver than his childish companions’ prattle, something sweeter than the monks’ low tones, something that seemed like his own soul speaking to itself.

It came from the belfry, straight like an arrow of sound, and muffled itself in a faint echo among the flower-forest round the altar.

And presently he could make out the words:

“I have spoken to God, and offered him the last vows of dying Lent, and woven into song the speechless prayers breathed over and yet trembling on thy jewelled brim.”

And the child knew it was the angel of the bell who spoke.

And presently there rose a sound from the dim-robed altar, and the voice of the angel of the chalice made answer: “My cup is as a bell uplifted, with its song of joy hushed in the very words of God, and drowned in the flood of ruby light that quivers, living and sensitive, within my golden walls.”

“And my cup,” returned the voice of the bell, “is as a chalice inverted, with its saving wealth outpoured in strains that reach the human ken; endowed with a speaking, living tongue that can touch the human heart.”

“I speak of men to God, while my fragile stem bears the wondrous purple flower of the precious blood, and while I am reared aloft with the divine burden weighing on me, even as the cross was reared up high over Jerusalem’s walls.”

“And I speak of God to men while my brazen clangor is heard afar like the trumpets of Israel before the crumbling walls of Jericho.”

And here the soft breeze from the open lancet-windows rustled among the sweet-smelling shrubs around the altar’s base, and, as the night-wind passed over them, their voices seemed to be blended into its sighs, and to have found an interpreter in its fitful sound.

“We are children of many climes, and some of us are exiles in this land, but under this roof we are at home again, and at this festival none of us are strangers. We too, in all our variety, have scarce one blossom among us that is not a chalice or a bell; that holds not high its crimson cup towards heaven to receive the crystal dew, or hangs not its white or purple bell with golden tongue towards the unheeding earth. On the altar of green turf, on the swaying columns of interwoven boughs, on the storm-tossed belfries of vine-surrounded trees, in southern swamp or northern forest, in tropical wilderness or rosy-tinted orchard, everywhere is stamped the semblance of the church, with chalices upreared, with bells anxiously bent human-ward. O brothers of the altar and the tower, let us sing together the same hymn.”

And the child Benignus said softly to himself:

“O God! make my heart a chalice, and my lips a Christian bell.”

The voices of the flower-chorus spoke again, and the lilies of the valley sang a silver peal behind their grass-green curtains:

“Every day we die by thousands, but our seed is borne afar, and drops in some fair nook at last, beside a running brook or beneath a spreading beech, even as the last echo of the unwearied bell that knocks at some heart’s door, far away in the mountains of worldly care, and strikes a well-known, long-silent chord, and draws the exile back to the fruitful plains of God’s own church.”

The voice from the wind-rocked steeple came in swift and loving answer:

“Even so, my blossom-sisters, for to us the word was given to increase and multiply and fill the earth, and at every step bring forth fresh glory and conquer fresh realms for the God of our creation.” Then the living gems stirred again under the breath of the still midnight breeze, and the voice came forth anew as the royal cactus and the purple morning-glories flashed like sun-touched clouds in the dusky foliage:

“Every day our lives are drained and our treasures rifled to adorn with living beauty the banquets of great men, and to strew the halls of marble palaces, and yet every day, as the sun comes forth again, our parent stem is laden once more with exhaustless riches and a more abundant harvest of loveliness, even as the lavished treasures and the scattered wealth of the daily chalice are ever being shed without intermission from the altar into the hearts of thankless men.”

And the sweet low voice came back from the shrouded altar: “Yes, dear emblems of God’s loving prodigality, for hath he not said: ‘Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it shall return to thee‘’?”

The scarlet fuchsia shook its clusters of purple bells, planted on a blood-red cross, as if it would say to men that none could proclaim God save they proclaimed him from Calvary. The tall Nile lily, whose cup is as a spotless shroud wrapped round a golden nail, swayed in the night air as if whispering that the way to the resurrection lay across the instruments of the passion: the ivory-tinted roses, the first-born among their kind, whose clustering, half-blown buds made a sculptured reredos of living alabaster behind the altar-cross, wept tears of dew when the midnight breeze shook their curled petals, as if weeping like sinless virgins over the wrongs they knew only by name. A carpet of violets was spread below, the last offering of Lent, the fringes of the sweet pall of penance under whose folds the church spends her yearly vigil of reparation.

The heart of the child Benignus was breaking with joy and love, and he longed to be a flower himself, that he might sing the hymn the living grove had sung.

The voice of the angel of the bell answered his unspoken wish:

“Wish not that thou wert other than that thou art, for Jesus said, ‘Unless ye become even as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’”

And the flowers sighed, and gave forth a sweeter fragrance, because they longed to be little children, and could not.

Then Benignus wished he might be an angel, if he could not be a flower, and the voice from the altar sounded very softly, so low he thought no one could hear it but himself:

“This wish will I put into my cup, and when to-morrow dawns, and Jesus finds the first-fruits of this new Easter laid at his feet, thou shalt have thy answer.”

Then came a soft chorus of welcome and congratulation, breaking forth among the flowery worshippers, but the angel of the bell held his peace.

And in the morning, when the sun flung his golden curtains across the east window and crowned the saints and virgins thereon with richer gems than living monarchs wear, the Paschal procession came winding through All Hallow’s church, and no one missed the little chorister Benignus. But when his turn in the anthem came, a voice seemed to float from some unseen corner, and a shower of bell-like crystal tones rang in triumphant cadence to the very roof, and no one could tell if it were Benignus or an angel singing. The organ ceased, and the monk Cuthbert looked anxiously along the lines of white-robed choristers, but the child was not there. Still the voice sang on, and it seemed as if it floated now from the chalice on the altar to the distant belfry-tower, and then back again to the fragrant forest of exotics in the choir. And Cuthbert, looking up among the half-opened buds of the early roses that were piled up directly over the tabernacle, thought he saw one more lovely than the others just break gently from the frail green stem, and fall in showering petals around the pall-covered chalice, at the very minute the wondrous voice ceased in one long reverberating “Alleluia.”

Then Cuthbert knew who had been singing and where Benignus was, and he sang the “Gloria in Excelsis” as he had never done before.

But the angel of the bell was sad, because the child would have helped him to bear abroad the message of God’s truth to men.

THE TWENTY-FIRST CATHOLIC CONGRESS IN MAYENCE.

FROM DER KATHOLIK.

It is evident that we have reached a turning-point in the history of the world; that a crisis of terrible interest for the church, for Christian Europe, for peoples, and for nations, is at hand. It must, indeed, soon be decided whether Christianity shall continue to be, in the life of the nations, what from its very nature and design it is intended to be; whether it shall remain what it has been acknowledged to be since it overcame the heathenism of old, the light of the world, the supernatural leaven permeating all the relations of life, purifying and ennobling them; or whether it shall be cast out of public life as an illusion, and at most--and who knows how long even that?--be tolerated as a species of superstition. The nations--and especially the recently founded German Empire--must soon decide whether they shall accept as their basis the laws of eternal justice, whose root is in the holy and personal God, and in him alone; whether they will hold to that Christian civilization which reposes on the public recognition of Christianity, of the church as a divine institution not subject to the arbitrament of man; in fine, whether they will respect as sacred those prescriptive rights of mankind which every one must respect who believes in the divine government of the world--rights of which history is the evidence; or whether they will yield to the pressure of the revolution and of false science, throw Christianity and Christian civilization overboard, proclaim the present will of the dominant political powers or party the only and highest law of the state, and, having done this, to use their immense power to infuse this “modern” spirit and these “modern” principles into the life of the people, and force it on them by every means at their disposal, through legislation, government patronage, their system of public instruction, and the whole organization of society; in short, whether they will place naturalism and rationalism instead of Christianity, the vital principle of national and popular life, and thereby--no intelligent person can doubt it, for reason and experience conspire to teach it--hasten for the nations the inevitable catastrophe of which the burning of Paris was only a premonitory symptom.

And precisely at this fatal moment in the history of the world it is that, in Germany, a number of men, among them a few who have deserved well of the church, blinded to a degree which it seems hard to account for, have raised the standard of rebellion against their mother, the church, because the Œcumenical Council did not think fit to decide as they thought best, because it decided as it pleased the pastors of the church and the Holy Ghost. The foundation-stone of the church, laid by Christ himself, to preserve unity and love within it for ever, has become a stumbling-block to them. They have made shipwreck of the faith, and burst the bonds of love that held them in union with their brethren in the faith. Following the example of those who before them rebelled against the church, they call themselves defenders of the faith, while denying the very principle on which all faith reposes. Proclaiming human science the supreme authority in matters of religion, placing it above the highest authority in the church, above the Pope and the council, above the assent of the whole Catholic world, they have ceased to be servants of God and of his church; they have gone over to the rationalism and naturalism which are striving so hard to do away with Christianity entirely, and to constitute themselves in its place a new cosmopolitan religion.

The turpitude of their rebellion against the church is equalled only by that of the means which they have adopted to defend it and to spread its principles. Repeating the worst and most perfidious slanders of the past against the church, and giving them out as the result of science, they proclaim to the world that the Apostolic See has for a thousand years been the seat of well-concocted fraud and deceit, and that in the most sacred of matters; that the Catholic Church is dangerous both to the state and to morals; and that the decree solemnly proclaimed by the Œcumenical Council, that Christ will for ever preserve his visible representative on earth from all error in faith and morals--a belief which has always been the key-stone of Catholic faith, Catholic life, and Catholic practice--is a doctrine inimical to the rights of the state. Under these pretexts, they require the state to deprive the Catholic Church of its rights, and of the liberty which has been guaranteed to it by the state, and not to recognize the church represented by the bishops and the Pope, but themselves, who have renounced all allegiance to it, as the legal Catholic Church, the only one recognized and promised protection by the state. Moreover, they desire that those Catholics who have remained faithful to the church shall be looked upon as recreant to the state, accusing them of want of patriotism. Designating all those peoples embraced in the Catholic Church by the name of the Romanists, they, in the name of what they designate Germanism, demand their oppression and extirpation.

And, we are sorry to say, these attempts have not been without some success. Individual governments have been induced to take steps against the church which, a short time ago, it was supposed it would be impossible to take, and which the Catholics living under those governments did nothing to warrant.

During this condition of affairs, the one hundred and twentieth Catholic Congress met in the second week of September in Mayence, to give expression in no weak or ambiguous terms to their faith, and to their views on the condition of things; and they did it with that unanimity and certainty which Catholic faith alone can give--a faith neither anxious nor troubled with doubt, or weakened by the spirit of the age.

This they did by their resolutions on the Roman question, on the Vatican Council, and on the more recent opposition that has been made to its decrees--and rightly; for, in the Roman question, the question of all external Christian law and order reaches its culminating point, as do theirs the constitution of the church itself, and the whole of Catholic faith, in the decrees of the Vatican Council.

The occupation of Rome is simply robbery--a crime against the church, against every individual Catholic which nothing can justify, which no principle of international law can excuse or cover, which no prescription can make valid. The so-called guarantees made to the church by the Italian government can never be accepted, because they are based upon the false principle that the state alone has the right to declare under what conditions the church and its pastors shall exercise their functions as teachers, priests, and shepherds of the flock--functions which they exercise in virtue of the power conferred upon them by Jesus Christ himself; because these laws do not by any means guarantee to the Pope the free discharge of his supreme authority as chief pastor, and, moreover, because there is not the least security that these guarantees will be respected. The occupation of Rome and of the Quirinal is the culmination of the policy of the Italian revolution, and the success of that policy the disgrace of this age. That the governments of European nations have done nothing to defend the Pope is an injustice to their Catholic subjects, a violation of the law of nations, and paves the way, necessarily, to the violation of all law and the overthrow of all order. And this is why it is that Catholics must for ever discountenance all these acts, and oppose them by all legitimate means. And their opposition cannot be rightfully construed as insubordination to the powers that be, or as a want of patriotism on their part. On the contrary, Catholics may be sure that in so acting they will be doing their government and their country the greatest possible service. Such service has been rendered by the resolutions of the Catholic Congress in Mayence.

It was well that, at the first general meeting of the society after the occupation of Rome, its members should give expression to their thought on the wicked act by which, for the third time in this century, it was attempted to destroy the work founded by divine Providence since the christianizing of the world, in order to secure to the head of the church his liberty and the efficient discharge of the duties of his high office. Nor could the members of the society express themselves concerning this crime otherwise than in bold words of truth and justice--in words becoming an occasion when the interests of God and man are alike at stake--in words such as nature itself puts into the mouth of those who have been the victims of great injustice or great misfortune. Worldly policy may wait, and consider itself justified in waiting, to take account of circumstances; but for us Catholics there is but one thing to do when the question is simply this--whether Christ or Antichrist shall reign, namely, what the martyrs did under circumstances still more aggravating, what God himself has commanded us to do, what we see his representative on earth doing--to proclaim the truth to those in power before kings and peoples.

It was, if possible, yet more necessary that the Catholic Congress should make a public profession of its faith in the decrees of the Œcumenical Council of the Vatican, that it should raise its voice against those proceedings of the government which have no object but to hinder the Catholic Church in the declaration of its doctrines, and to lead or force Catholics into heresy. And on these points again the association, in its resolutions, speaks the truth, and expresses the Catholic view on them, in the plainest and most direct manner, without any show of diplomacy or of pedantry. We joyfully profess, say they, our faith in everything which the church requires, particularly in the infallibility of the Pope teaching the universal church, and in the very sense in which the Vatican Council has defined it, do we believe it. And we are convinced that the definition of this truth in our time is no evil, but the work of a kind and good Providence, intended to strengthen the church, to preserve unity, to reclaim the erring. We reject with horror the caricature of the doctrine of Papal infallibility which the opponents of the Vatican Council have drawn, and we repudiate the slander that this doctrine or any other article of our faith is in conflict with our duties as subjects of our government, or with the allegiance which we owe our fatherland. We protest against the course of those governments which have endeavored to hinder the propagation of Catholic doctrine within their territories, and to favor the opposition to the church by their protecting the rebellion against it. In this manner, they have overstepped the bounds of their rightful authority, infringed the rights of conscience of their Catholic subjects, and made themselves responsible before God for a host of evils. The political principles which have led to these things are in conflict with the law of God, in fact with all law and order, and can never be recognized by Catholics as right or just. Yet are we not without the hope that the governments which have been guilty of these things will at no distant future forsake the unholy path upon which they have entered.

But the members of the Catholic Congress did not confine themselves to professing the Catholic faith, to raising a protesting voice against the encroachments on their liberties and on their rights--rights which should be ever inviolate; they pointed out the fertile source from which have flown as well the most recent evils as the more ancient ones which have done so much injury to the Catholic life of Germany. The source of all these evils, past as well as present, is in a science grounded on false principles, and which appropriates to itself exclusively, but not with any show of reason, the name of German science. These evils can be healed only by the cultivation of real Catholic science in Germany, and the most recent events demand absolutely that the reign of such a science should be inaugurated at once. But so long as the ancient institutions founded for Catholic purposes ignore, for the most part, the object of their being; when they have gone over, to a great extent, to infidelity or to secular management, it is extremely important, both to pastors and people, that new seats of science, of education, of real science and Christian education, should be established.

Such are the principal resolutions of the Catholic Congress held during the present year. What these resolutions contain is only the echo and essence of the thought of the assembly expressed in the orations and sayings of the members--the deep, unanimous, and undoubted convictions of all. These same thoughts found expression also in their addresses to the Holy Father, to the Bishop of Ermeland, to the Bavarian Episcopate, to the Bishops of Switzerland, as well as to the defenders of the Catholic faith in Italy and Austria. But is it right to assume that the voice of all Catholic Germany has been heard, and is heard, in the voice of this general meeting of Catholics? True it is that they would entirely misunderstand the essence and the spirit of the principles of the members of those meetings who would invest their doings or their sayings as a society with any authority; but they would err no less grossly who would consider these meetings as mere party meetings, or as meaning nothing as merely the coming together of a few private individuals. From the very significance of this year’s meeting’s resolutions, it may not be amiss to examine the question somewhat more closely--how much importance is to be attached, what significance and authority such Catholic meetings may have.

These general meetings are nothing more than the coming together of believing Catholics. They do not assume to have any power or authority ecclesiastical or political. They have nothing in their own right that entitles them to be considered as possessed of such power or authority, nor have they a power of attorney of any kind to represent any one else in these meetings.

In the church no one has any power whatever except those to whom Christ has granted it, and only such power as he conferred upon them. But he has granted no power to any one in the church but to Peter and the apostles. On this account the Catholic Church recognizes no representatives, save only the pope and the bishops. There is no such thing among Catholics as lay-participation in the government of the church. Laymen have no power in church government that is theirs of right, and they in no manner take the place of or represent even the inferior clergy. Every tendency in that direction is heretical and schismatical.

The society in question, and all other societies of the same nature, have recognized, acted upon, this principle from the beginning. Being Catholics and wishing to remain Catholics, they have never interfered in the government of the church. On the contrary, they consider it their duty to show to others the example of the most religious submission to the Pope and the bishops in matters relating to faith and ecclesiastical discipline. They, therefore, represent no party in the church. The church wants no parties and recognizes no parties within its bosom. Following the church, the general meeting of Catholics negatives every division in the body of the church. Its only desire is to find itself always one with the church in all things, to be simply Catholic and nothing else.

There is no use in wasting words to show that the Catholic Congress and other Catholic societies claim no power of any kind whatever in the state. They neither represent a political party, nor do they belong to any, nor will they ever constitute themselves a political party in the state.

True, the members of the societies are very far removed, as they ought to be, from an unreasonable, unmanly, unchristian, and un-Catholic indifference in matters pertaining to the nation. They are by no means of opinion that it matters nothing to a Catholic to which party in the country he belongs. They believe firmly that it is the duty of Catholics, as well as their right, to watch over the rights of the church and of its members, and to defend them by the exercise of their political franchises. They do not, however, doubt that it is perfectly legitimate for Catholics, wherever they are, to organize themselves into a party for the exercise of their political rights. But as the political life of every individual Catholic is different from his religious life, and that, although he may be guided in his politics by the principles of Christianity, in like manner these associations of Catholics, inasmuch as they are Catholic, are something higher and broader than mere political associations. Their objects are not the political, but the religious and ecclesiastical rights of Catholics. This has been the universal understanding of the members of these associations from the very beginning of their organizations. These have been the principles which have always guided them, and which they have found it well to be guided by. These associations have never allowed themselves to forget these principles. They have never forgotten them, not even in times of the greatest political excitement. And in the last general meeting, the members of the association did not swerve from these principles by as much as a hair’s breadth.

And precisely because these associations have held to their principles as Catholics, to the very principles we have been mentioning above, are they entitled to attention. They manifest, in a manner that can be relied upon, the mind and conviction, the determination and feeling, of those who are true to the church and to the faith. It thus happens that this general meeting of Catholics has given expression to the thought and feeling of the Catholic clergy and Catholic people. And hence it is that those who would learn what Catholics think and feel on the stirring questions of the present must turn their attention to the resolutions of this Catholic Congress. There is unmistakable evidence that these general meetings express the feeling and ideas common to all Catholics. For twenty-three years they have enjoyed the complete confidence of the bishops of the church. The Holy Father and the bishops of Germany have never hesitated to bless and to approve the efforts of the Catholic association. This were impossible if these meetings did not give expression to the Catholic mind on the questions of the day, if there were any danger in them of a departure from the principles of the faith or of the church. Moreover, we may ask, Who are they that take part in these meetings? They are precisely those persons who with living faith partake of the sacraments, and are in habitual attendance at the services of the church, and in the life of the church generally. During the twenty-three years of their existence, these Catholic associations have in every German diocese and everywhere been one with the clergy on all subjects. Zealous and true Catholics of every social position have been largely represented in them. Hither have come the Catholic nobleman, the Catholic of the middle class, the Catholic peasant, the physician of souls--the priest himself sprung from the people--the Catholic savant, the teacher, author, and publicist. Here, too, have been represented those Catholic societies made up of those who really love the church. In short, in those societies are represented those even who are most despised and seldom represented anywhere else. The members of the Catholic Congress are not representatives of their individual opinions; they seek no worldly interest. It were more than folly for any one to come to those meetings with any such intention. Neither do these meetings represent any party on which they are dependent. They represent no majority or minority to whom they are responsible. Their faith and Catholic feeling it is that bring them to these meetings, and those they have in common with the hundreds and thousands from whose midst they come. There is a yet stronger argument to show that these general assemblies really represent the mind of all true Catholics. It is their unanimity on all questions bearing on religion and on the church--a mark which belongs to Catholics exclusively.

After all this, we feel ourselves warranted to say that these meetings express decidedly the feelings and convictions of those Catholics who are worthy of the name.

But these general assemblies not only give expression to the principles and sentiments of Catholics on the questions of the day, they also tend to keep Catholic life awake and active. And just here is the great use of Catholic societies. There never was a more senseless saying than this: “We need no special societies; our society is the Catholic Church.” Precisely because the Catholic Church is a divine and all-embracing society, the society of societies, does it from its inexhaustible fertility call forth from its own bosom, in all times, other smaller societies--societies calculated to meet the peculiar wants of the time. The life of Christian societies, of church societies, is, indeed, a standard by which Catholic life at any particular time or place may be measured. And in our own day, when the spirit of evil more than ever seeks the destruction of the church, mimicking it as he does after his own fashion--to leave the power which societies are calculated to wield entirely to the enemies of Christianity, to those governed exclusively by the spirit of the world, would be to be more than blind.

At the general meeting held at Düsseldorf, Dr. Marx agreed to take upon himself the difficult task of collecting the statistics of the Catholic societies of Germany. At the assembly held this year, he presented the results of his labors. His work is imperfect, it is true, but it is a foundation on which others may build. It embraces the statistics of most of the German dioceses, and of a number of those of Austria.

The amount of vitality in anything or anywhere cannot be made to appear in a table of statistics, and the best things often thrive in secret. Hence it is that the Catholic life of Germany is much greater than even these tables or any others would give one reason to believe. On the other hand, much that appears on paper in statistics of this kind is of no importance whatever, or of almost no importance. Yet the statistical tables before us demonstrate that numerous live Catholic associations, and of the most varied character, have arisen during the last twenty-three years, and that each general assembly has made itself felt--now in one place, now in another--furthering the creation of such local associations. Societies purely religious, such as brotherhoods, sodalities, congregations, are not at all or scarcely at all referred to in these tables. It was part of the plan of the work that they should be excluded from its tables. Yet they are of the very first importance to the life of the church. Well-conducted societies and sodalities for young people and of adults like those which, thanks be to God, are springing up on every side, and particularly in the Rhine lands, are the best nurseries of real Catholics. Rightly, therefore, do these general assemblies continue to commend such societies, as the general assembly did this year the “Society of Young Merchants,” which was so worthily represented at the meeting. Neither have our Christian social societies and associations been noticed in these tables. And for this reason, again, are we much richer in associations than we should suppose from these tables. On the other hand, these statistics combine with daily experience to show that we are yet only in the beginning of the development of this society-life; that, much as we have to be thankful for, the time has not yet come when we can repose upon our laurels. Rather must we work with all our strength, with inexhaustible patience and devotion at the establishment of Catholic societies. In many parts of Catholic Germany there are no, or scarcely any, Catholic societies, that is, live societies, while in others those which have been begun are now neglected. It is so convenient to allow things to go on in the old way, and so hard--for the most modest association demands some sacrifice on the part of individuals--to establish anything new. Yet a thing which in the great struggle between the church and Antichrist is one of the most powerful means of victory is really worth the highest sacrifice. Is it not time to see that all Christian men should organize themselves into societies, when infidels and free-thinkers so-called are organizing on every side to draw everything to themselves? Our indolence would be all the worse, all the more inexcusable, were we to yield the field to our adversaries, since we, whenever there is a question of real live associations, possess so great an advantage over every other body, not on account of our own merits, but because of the spirit and strength of Catholic Christendom. Let the world surpass us in material means, let it be far above us in its appeal to worldly interests; it is wasting the vital power of faith and Catholic love, which alone are able to establish and to develop associations possessed of real life--associations which can be productive of real good.

How true this is, is shown by the history of the Catholic association founded by the departed but never-to-be-forgotten Kolping. Based only on Catholic faith and relying for support on the very simplest of human means, it has during the past twenty-five years had a steady growth and accomplished untold good. And it will ever be so, so long as it holds to the simple Catholic principles of Kolping. To these associations of young people founded by Kolping others have been joined recently--associations in which the masters of these young people meet. To complete the good work, there is nothing now needed but similar societies for apprentices.

What Kolping did for young mechanics must, with suitable modifications, be now done for those of both sexes occupied in factories and other such establishments. This is the most important step that can be taken by Catholics, to solve certain social questions, and which can be solved only on Catholic principles. Indeed, the greatest social danger of the age is the dechristianization and demoralization of the laboring classes of mechanics and the employees in manufacturing establishments. This dechristianization and demoralization are, to a great extent, the cause of the wretchedness of these classes, and make that wretchedness, even under the most favorable circumstances, incurable. What enormous dimensions has this evil assumed under the, in part at least, so unnatural, social, and economic relations which modern liberal political economy has brought about! But even the evils resulting from this condition of affairs might be healed, if the laboring classes could be restored to Christianity. The Society of Young Mechanics, founded by Kolping, demonstrates that, even under the most unfavorable circumstances, the laboring classes can be redeemed from evil and reclaimed to right, provided they can be made to enter the atmosphere of Christianity in which the members of these societies live. Let us work unanimously and for the same object, and we shall see the number of Christian laborers increase. We shall see them living more and more in one another, associating with one another, and being strengthened by that association. When we have such men, and not before, it will be possible to make those associations really useful in the improvement of the material condition of the laboring classes. So long, indeed, as the laboring classes themselves remain unchristian and immoral, it will be impossible to do anything for their material improvement; for they will never be satisfied. Only by strengthening the spirit of Christianity in all classes of society can legislation itself be made Christian, and it will become Christian just in proportion as the several classes of society become Christian.

Let us now examine in brief the most important movements which the general assembly of this year has initiated toward the establishing of Catholic societies.

For a number of years, the principal subject that has engaged one section of the Catholic Congress is the Christian solution of the so-called social question. Through the efforts of the assembly, the question has been fairly brought before the clergy and the laity. The session of this year has, under this head, recommended the establishment of Christian social associations, the raising of helping funds, the encouragement of appropriate literature, the circulation of the Christian Social Journal, and the erection of dwellings for the laboring classes. They have pointed out how important it is to study on every hand the condition of the laboring classes, in order to discover the principles on which we must proceed, in order to legislate concerning labor and the laboring classes in a just and Christian manner.

The general assembly has, moreover, recommended the Catholic missionary associations in the most emphatic manner. Among these, the first place belongs to the Society of St. Francis Xavier for Foreign Missions, and the Society of St. Boniface.

Considering the terrible blows that have fallen upon France and upon Rome, it has become our duty to redouble our efforts in behalf of the missions to foreign parts, and in behalf of the Society of St. Francis Xavier; for on those efforts must depend, in a great measure, the permanency and spread of Catholic missions the world over. Unfortunately, the Society of St. Francis Xavier has gone backward rather than forward, in Germany, during the last ten years. In many places it has ceded to other societies. And yet it should not be so. The Society of St. Francis Xavier is and must remain the first and most important of all missionary associations. It embraces the missions to all parts of the world, and they all look to it for support. Even Germany has been helped by it more than by any other association; and now, although the Society of St. Boniface has extended so widely, it cannot be dispensed with. Therefore it is that all Catholics, and, above all, the clergy, who are always in all matters pertaining to Christianity the divinely appointed leaders of the people, should take the deepest interest in the Society of St. Francis Xavier. The Society of St. Boniface will suffer nothing from this. On the contrary, the more the Catholic spirit is strengthened, the more will this and every other Catholic society thrive. As truly as the church embraces the whole world, so truly can we not be real Catholics if we feel an interest only in the missions of our own country, but none in the missions to other parts of the world.

True it is that charity demands us to look first to the wants of those who are our nearest neighbors. And on this account the Society of St. Boniface cannot be too strongly recommended to our benevolence. The general meeting has done its duty in this matter. It has recommended the society in very earnest terms.

Besides these great societies, there are other smaller ones with special objects of charity in view--smaller, but by no means unimportant. The Society of the Holy Sepulchre is, independently of its religious object, the most powerful auxiliary of the missions in the East. The Society of St. Joseph is doing the work of the Society of St. Boniface among the large and exposed Catholic German population in large and foreign cities, and especially such cosmopolitan cities as Paris and London.

A work of the highest importance is to care for the emigrants to America. Here it is possible to do a great deal with little means. The Committee on Emigration, presided over by Prince von Isenburg, has placed its cards of recommendation at the disposal of all parish priests, in order that emigrants presenting those cards to the agents of the Catholic Emigration Society in America may receive proper advice and direction in their new homes, and--who would have imagined it?--those cards of recommendation have been used much less than one might rightfully expect.

How great is sometimes our ignorance or indifference concerning the interests of religion! It was, certainly, only right that the general assembly of this year should have approved the founding of an association, that of the Archangel Raphael, whose sole object it is, besides the saying of a few prayers for the success of this movement in behalf of the emigrants, to defray the heavy expenses of the same, and thus to relieve the president of the committee of that charge. We hear many exclaim just here, We have too many associations, too many meetings! We know very well that, when societies increase beyond measure, even when those societies are benevolent ones, there may be danger. But that there may be danger is no reason why we should not encourage the organization of such societies when they may be necessary or useful. We do not, however, wish to blame the taking of steps to prevent too great a competition of societies having charitable or other objects in view.

The Catholic Congress this year could not well help--as, indeed, all those which preceded it did--considering the school question. There can be no question that the anti-Christian party in the state is straining every nerve to do away, by means of legislation, with the right of Catholic parents to a Catholic education of their children in Catholic schools--with the right of the church to instruct her people in a Catholic manner, and to found institutions for that purpose. The members of the assembly spoke on these matters in no ambiguous terms, and took, besides, into consideration what they should do in case the state, siding with the liberalism of the day, should banish the Catholic religion, the Catholic Church, from the schools of the nation. Should this happen, there was nothing left but to appeal to the consciences of parents. It then became the duty of bishops to tell their people that it was not allowed them to send their children to unchristian schools. Liberty of education must be defended to the utmost, and every sacrifice made in order to give Catholic children opportunities for a Catholic education from the primary schools to the university. But the impression is not hereby intended to be conveyed that in this Catholics see the salvation of the church, of her children, and of the nation. No; they will always remind princes and states that it is their solemn duty to govern a Christian people in a Christian manner, and, leaving out of consideration the sacredness of the foundations and the right of the church to teach, to give their Catholic subjects Catholic schools--schools standing in proper relations with the church.

Yet, on account of the more universal questions, and the great contests which the church is waging for her most important possessions, for the independence and for the integrity of its faith, the school question, even at this meeting, was held somewhat in the background.

The general assembly was content with adopting a few resolutions, embodying the simple principles which must guide Catholics, should the state break with the church on the school question, and, violating the natural and prescriptive rights of Catholics, introduce a system of non-Catholic schools--principles not sufficiently recognized by even well-meaning Catholics. These resolutions are worded thus: “The monopoly of the school system by the state is an unwarranted restriction of liberty of conscience, and therefore to be opposed by all Catholics. Very many of the schools have notoriously been founded by Catholics, and it is only just that they should continue to accomplish those ends for which they are established. In these schools, and in all Catholic schools yet to be established, the Catholic Church must possess perfect and unrestricted liberty in its capacity as a teacher.” Thus, while the school question was not the most prominent before the general assembly, the words spoken at that meeting will not, we hope, be without beneficial results in the province of Catholic education.

All rights and liberties avail nothing in the end if Catholic education itself is not what it ought to be. And the great battle that is waging, that education may not be deprived of its Christian character, can be won by us only on condition that teachers and educators themselves, as well as parents and the clergy, understand precisely the full bearing of the question.

It was, therefore, a happy thought to unite teachers, clergy, and parents into one grand society, in order to further the great matter of Christian education--a matter on which our whole future for weal or woe depends. The association of teachers founded in Bavaria, approved by the bishops, embracing among its members many distinguished men, and directed by one evidently called by God to fill that very position, Ludwig Aner, has sought and is seeking to carry this thought into practice. The Catholic Congress held at Düsseldorf had already called attention to the importance of establishing similar societies elsewhere, only modified in their character by the different nature of place or other circumstances. The realization of this thought was a matter for the meeting at Mayence to consider more closely yet. There was here assembled a goodly number of educators and friends of youth from every part of Germany, among them a number of the most widely known teachers in the country; and they took occasion to most earnestly confer on this matter each day of the meeting. They gave a general plan, and threw out some very practical hints for the organization of Catholic educational associations.

We give them here with the hope that they may prove as fertile in blessings as did those thrown out on a former occasion, and which resulted in the Society of St. Boniface, and in the Catholic Association for Young Men, so often recommended by those meetings since.

The matter is one of at least as much importance, and the general plan of the organization of these societies at least as simple and practical. Here are the broad outlines of the plan: “The task of education, rendered more than ever before difficult on account of the times in which we live, and the school question, now everywhere looming into such immense proportions, render the foundation of Catholic educational institutions imperative.”

The Mayence Association of Teachers--pointing to the association already existing in Bavaria--suggests the following as the ground principles of the new associations:

I. The Catholic educational associations recognize as their foundation, first and last, the faith of the Catholic Church.

II. Excluding all party issues, their only object is the furtherance of the temporal and eternal welfare of youth.

III. The Catholic educational associations desire that the youth of the age should profit by all that the world has of good, and that in their education all that it has of evil should be avoided.

Therefore, they are ready to accept and to use all that there is of real worth in the educational systems of the age, all that can promote real progress.

IV. These associations consider the proper education of youth in the family, the schools, and later in life, that is, after the youth have left the schools, as their exclusive object.

Therefore is it that they accept as members, parents, teachers, the clergy, and all who, in any manner, are interested in the education of youth.

V. They recommend to these associations, 1. The defence and propagation of Catholic principles in education by word, writing, and action. 2. The defence of the rights of parents to the Christian education and Christian instruction of their children. 3. The improvement of the family education of children, of schools, and the providing of means for the continuance of education after children leave schools. 4. The furtherance of the interests of teachers, to support them in their efforts in the direction of education, and particularly to help to elevate their material and social position; the collecting of funds to aid in the education of teachers, and in the support of their widows. 5. The encouragement of literature bearing on the interests of education. 6. Founding and caring for educational institutions of all kinds--schools for children, boys, girls, apprentices, etc.

VI. The means for attaining the objects of these associations are, besides the means suggested by the very nature of our holy religion, 1. Periodicals; 2. Appropriate publications for teachers and for families; 3. The establishment of libraries and literary associations; 4. Co-operating with other associations--the pecuniary assistance needed in any case to be obtained by regular fees from the members, presents, etc.

VII. The getting up of particular by-laws to be left to the associations from each separate province, but the by-laws to be got up in such a manner that the above principles be not ignored.

The elevation of the tone and the support of the Catholic press must ever be one of the principal objects of all Catholic associations, and of the general meetings.

This year a great number of Catholic publishers and editors came together at this meeting. All the principal organs of the Catholic daily press were represented. The principal object gained was that they became acquainted with one another, which is the first step towards their understanding and appreciating one another.

As far as the press is concerned, we Catholics have nothing to do but to look at things just as they stand. It is certain that the unrestricted freedom of the press, which every one is ready to abuse, and which allows every one to constitute himself a teacher of the public, can be defended neither on principles of reason nor of faith. It is certain, too, that the rank growth of periodicals which has followed with all its attendant evils, and the heterogeneous character of the reading of a great many people, is a deplorable evil. But as, unfortunately, an unchristian press is guaranteed the fullest liberty and the evils that flow from that liberty, are widely spread, it becomes not only our privilege, but our solemn duty to combat the unchristian by a really Christian press--a matter on which the church and the head of the church have spoken in an unmistakable manner. Yes, it is absolutely necessary to call a Catholic journal into existence on every hand, and to spare no sacrifice to do so. The beginnings of the Catholic press have been everywhere small, and those who have interested themselves in it have everywhere had to contend with untold difficulties. This is true particularly of the larger journals, which, to enable them to compete with other journals, need support from other sources besides that derived from subscriptions and advertisements. It is certainly the duty of Catholics, out of pure love for God and for the church, to establish Catholic press associations, in order to provide means for the support of Catholic papers, just as the government and political parties find funds to support their own organs. The financial difficulties which the larger journals have to fear consist sometimes only in the apprehension of too great a competition on the part of smaller or other journals. There may be such a thing as a reprehensible competition, when, for example, as in the same locality attempts are made to found or establish new journals of the same nature as those already existing, when those already existing are sufficient to supply the demand. But, on the whole, we have by no means thus far enough Catholic papers. There was a time, and it is not yet entirely over, when Catholic Germany had very few papers among the daily press of the country. And almost every one of these few papers had an equal prospect, and it naturally enough seemed to be the ambition of the editor or proprietor of each to make his paper the central organ of the whole of Catholic Germany.

Naturally enough, too, those pecuniarily or otherwise interested in these journals looked with a rather jealous eye upon all attempts to found other Catholic journals. Whenever a new paper was established, the old ones lost a number of subscribers, and sometimes fears were entertained for the existence of the older papers themselves. But experience has shown that these fears were unfounded. Wherever and whenever a paper was properly managed and ably edited, it has contrived to live and to do well. Thus competition has, on the whole, worked advantageously rather than otherwise.

If we look at the matter closely, we will see that it is quite an abnormal state of affairs that Catholic Germany should possess so few of the larger political papers. Compared with the time when Catholics had no press at all, the existence of even one good paper through which they can give expression to their thoughts is a great blessing and a great gain; but that certainly does not enable them to give their voice that weight in the questions of the day to which it is entitled. Besides, it must be remembered that, if Catholics have not this class of papers, they will take periodicals which are not Catholic. Experience teaches, and it might be expected from the very nature of things that a paper can rarely obtain a very large circulation outside of the locality in which it is published. Outside of these bounds it will find only a few isolated subscribers. Hence it follows that every large city ought to have its own Catholic paper, one that will worthily represent it.

These papers outside of the place of their publication will thus find a number of subscribers--a number which will always depend upon the ability with which they are edited, the reliability of the views they advocate, and the interest which on other grounds they may awaken. We cannot, however, be satisfied with a so-called central organ, or with a small number of large papers. No, every large city should have its Catholic paper, and support it, cost what it may. We thank God that such papers have, during the past year, been established in many parts. That such a journal should be established in the capital of the new German Empire, at the seat of government, was an evident necessity; and it is one of the most pleasant events in the history of our time that a paper like the Germania should have in a short time taken its position as a first-class and widely circulated Catholic journal.

All our already existing Catholic journals, and all those to be hereafter established, instead of hindering, will help one another, and that from the very fact that they exist; for, the stronger the Catholic press becomes, the more the attention of the nation is called to it, the more secure must become the existence of each individual journal. Therefore, we hope that there will be no jealousy between those interested in different Catholic journals; that, on the contrary, they will help support one another at all times. Still more important is it to take a proper view of the smaller local press. It would be a great absurdity were Catholics to neglect the establishment of smaller Catholic journals lest they should interfere or compete with the larger ones. This competition is not dangerous; but it is dangerous to put no antagonist in the field to meet and to oppose the unchristian press in smaller places. The large journals can neither be paid for nor read by the vast majority of the inhabitants of such places--and does it not seem wrong to leave them, or the Catholics among them, to the evil influence of a press totally antagonistic to the faith? The establishment and support of such papers is not hard, and the financial difficulties which stand in the way of the larger papers for the larger cities are not to be here encountered. Wherever the matter of the establishment of such papers has been rightly taken in hand, it has proved successful. If the clergy only take the matter under advisement, they will find those willing and able to carry the matter through. It is not a very hard matter to purchase a press and find subscribers in such places. A feature which will contribute not a little to aid in the matter is the finding of the proper person to carry the papers around and to canvass for subscribers and advertisements. By being thus practical, Catholic men have established Catholic papers in localities where one might have despaired of ever establishing them; and not only have they been established, but they have succeeded. No matter what the condition of our press, it is far from being in a state to despair of. Oh! if the children of light were only as wise as the children of the world, we should witness wonders. It is true that evil makes its way in this world better than goodness does; but it is also true that goodness does not prosper, because those who represent it take the matter too lightly, or do not go about it as they should. More is often done for the worst cause than men are willing to do or to sacrifice for the best. A great deal has of late years been done for the local press, and we sincerely hope that a great deal more will be done and more universally, and need requires us not only to pray, but to act and make sacrifices.

Other proposals were made at the general meeting to carry out projects, which of course the general meeting itself could neither undertake nor perfect, as, for instance, the furtherance of this or that literary undertaking; yet these proposals are not without their use. They suggest something or call attention to something already existing. Thus, at the present general meeting the establishment of a journal as the organ for the various associations of young Catholics was recommended. The proposer of the resolution was informed that there already existed a journal of that character, and a very good one; that it was published by the associations of young Catholics in Austria, and edited in a very able manner, under the name of the Bund in Vienna; and the general meeting, therefore, recommended it for the purpose named. Many other things relating to the press were touched upon. We feel assured that the general meeting has done much for the Catholic press of the whole country.

We pass over many things bearing on Catholic charity, which ever engages anew the attention of the general meeting. We can only mention that the members of St. Vincent’s Association held a special meeting.

May the blessing of God, which has never failed the Catholic Congress, bless their efforts of this year!

FLEURANGE.

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’S STORY.”

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION.

PART FIRST.

THE OLD MANSION.

VII.

Fleurange’s education did not allow her to yield to her feelings without bringing herself to an account for them, and it was surprising she had thus unresistingly allowed herself to be swayed so long by a vague and unreasonable preoccupation. And could there be one more so than this about an unknown person--a stranger she had only had a glimpse of, with whom she had not exchanged a single word, and whom she would probably never behold again? This was the third time she had heard him spoken of since the day she saw him in her father’s studio, and each time she felt agitated and disturbed. When questioned by Dr. Leblanc, her first emotion was overpowered by surprise, and especially by the sad remembrances awakened. Afterwards, when Julian Steinberg mentioned Count George at the Christmas dinner, his name gave her a thrill, but she attributed this keen sensation to a natural interest in the hitherto unknown individual who purchased the picture which had played so important a rôle in her life. But this time the quickened pulsations of her heart and the ardent curiosity with which she listened to every word that was uttered were succeeded by a prolonged reverie which almost merited the name of madness. “Yes, Julian was right! That is really what he looks like!” she exclaimed aloud. And every hero with whom history, poetry, or old legends had peopled her imagination, passed one by one before her, but always under the same form. Then, as there is no hero without heroic feats, and no heroism without combats and perils, a series of terrible events succeeded each other in her waking dream--battles, shipwrecks, desperate enterprises, and dangers of all kinds, in which the same person was the chief actor, and in all these phantasmagoric adventures she saw herself enacting an inexplicable and indistinct part.

A whole hour passed thus, but the declining day recalled a habit contracted in childhood which changed the current of her thoughts and brought her to herself. It was sunset--in Italy, the hour of the Ave Maria. Fleurange never forgot it. Every evening at that hour, a short prayer rose from her heart to her lips.

Every one is aware of the power of association. We have all felt the influence of a tone, a flower, a perfume, and even things more trifling, in recalling a host of remembrances of which no one else could see the connection. What a natural and touching thought, then, to associate a holy memory with the hour that links day with night!--the hour of twilight, when the dazzling sunlight is fading away, work is suspended, and propitious leisure brings on long, sweet, and sometimes dangerous reveries! In such a case, it is not surprising the evening star becomes a safeguard. Has not the effect it had on Fleurange been experienced a thousand times by others?

A sudden clearness of perception, strength to prevail over all earthly phantoms, an aspiration towards heaven, an instantaneous revival of early impressions, an influx of salutary thoughts dispelling the confused, illusory ideas floating in her mind--such was the effect now produced by the remembrance indissolubly associated with that evening hour. She resolutely got up. Her attitude, that had been languishing, her look lost in space, were now transformed. She awoke to a sense of duty, and the feeling was not a transient one. What was this madness that had overpowered her? Putting this question to herself brought a blush of confusion to her face, and made her resolve to resist and overcome reveries so vain and absurd. And to this end she would cut them short. She reopened her note-book, and began by tearing out the page on which was the name but just written; then, with no further examination of her thoughts, even for the purpose of self-reproach, which would have been another way of prolonging them, she seated herself at her table, and took up a volume of Dante which lay there. She had promised Clement to mark some passages of the canto they read together the evening before, and to add some notes from her own memory. She at once set herself to work, and endeavored to give her whole mind to the occupation. It is often easier, we all know, to abstain from an act than to repress a thought. Perhaps the volition is at fault in the latter case; but Fleurange was so firmly resolved to obtain a victory of this kind that, at the end of half an hour’s effort to keep her mind on her work, she thought herself successful. She would have been more sure of herself had she foreseen all that was so soon to come to her aid, and banish from her mind for a long time all vain illusions, vague reveries, and especially all exclusive self-preoccupation.

It was quite dark when she rose from the table. She heard the clock strike, and felt ashamed of remaining so long in her room by herself, at a time she should have been unusually attentive to others. This was the last evening Clara would spend at home previous to her marriage, and it ended a period of unalloyed happiness in the Old Mansion. One place in the family was about to be vacated, a beloved form disappear, a cherished one cease to make part of their daily life. They would probably see each other again, but it would not be as before. The happiness of her who was to leave them would change its nature, but even her mother hoped she would be so happy as never to regret the paternal roof. Clara’s smiling face was grave and tearful to-day, as her tender glances wandered from her parents to her brothers and sisters, and lingered lovingly on the old walls she was about to leave. Julian was terrified by her melancholy appearance, but felt reassured when Clara, smiling and weeping at the same time, said to him naïvely:

“Julian, it is you that I love! To-morrow I shall leave them all for you, and I truly feel I never could give you up for them. Is not this enough?”

“No. If I do not see you calm and full of trust, I shall not enjoy my happiness.”

“My trust in you is boundless.”

“And yet you tremble, and your eyes are turned away.”

“Because the unknown happiness of a new life makes me anxious, and terrifies me in spite of myself.--I tremble, I acknowledge, but I do not hesitate. I am afraid, but I wish to be yours, and no fear would induce me to resume the past or repulse the future--for the future is you!”

It may surprise some to learn that this young girl, in speaking to her betrothed of their approaching union, expressed unawares the sentiments death inspires in those souls whose love extends beyond the grave, and who, triumphing over their weakness and limited knowledge, ardently long, in spite of their fears, for the eternal union that awaits them.

One of these beings, holy and gifted, being asked, as her life was ebbing away, what impression the prospect of death made on her, hesitated, and then replied:

“The impression that the thought of marriage produces on a young girl who loves, and yet trembles--who fears union, but desires it.”

Fleurange, when she left her chamber, went down to the gallery, where she expected to find her cousins, but it was empty. The preparations for the morrow caused an unusual disorder throughout the house, generally so quiet and well-ordered. Clara was doubtless with her mother, but where was Hilda? The latter, she knew, would have another sad farewell to utter the following day, and she reproached herself for having so long lost sight of this fact. She passed through the gallery and opened the door of the library, where she found her whom she was seeking. Ludwig Dornthal and Hansfelt were talking together, and near them Hilda, mute, pale, and motionless, was listening, without taking any part in the conversation that was going on before her.

Hansfelt was talking to this friend of his departure, and spoke as one who was never to return. He was apparently thinking of nothing but their long friendship, their youth passed together, and the end of their companionship, but his accents were profoundly melancholy, and all the harmony of his soul seemed disturbed.

Ludwig, however, was extremely agitated, and, while replying to his friend, looked attentively and anxiously, from time to time, at his daughter. Fleurange softly approached her; Hilda’s cold hand returned her pressure. “I am glad you have come,” she said in a low tone, “very glad.” Fleurange did not venture to make any reply, and scarcely looked at her, for fear of increasing her emotion by appearing to observe it. Seeing an open jewel-case lying on the table, she exclaimed--glad to find something to say: “What a beautiful bracelet!”

“It is a wedding present Hansfelt has just brought Clara,” said the professor.

“Yes, a wedding present, and a parting gift which Ludwig has allowed me to offer one of his daughters,” said Hansfelt. “As for the other,” continued he in a troubled tone, “the time for her wedding presents will doubtless soon come also, but the time for a parting gift has already arrived. Ludwig, in memory of the pleasant years during which I have seen her grow up, and as a souvenir of this last day, will you allow me to give Hilda this ring?”

The professor made no reply.

Hansfelt continued: “In truth, a departure like mine is so much like death, that it gives me a similar liberty to say anything. Hilda, why should I not acknowledge it to you now in his presence? It will do no harm. Well, you shall know, then, that the old poet, whose forehead is more wrinkled than your father’s, would perhaps be foolish enough to forget his age were he to remain near you. It is therefore well for him to go.”

He took the young girl’s icy hand in his. “If he were younger,” he continued, forcing himself to smile, “he might perhaps obtain the right to give you a different ring than this.”--He stopped alarmed. Hilda’s face had become frightfully pale, and she leaned her head against Fleurange’s shoulder. She seemed ready to faint.

“Hilda, good heavens!”

“Zounds, Karl,” cried the professor, rising abruptly. “You try my patience at last. Where are your wits?”

“Ludwig!”

“Yes, where, if you cannot see that you are yet young enough to force me to give you my daughter, if I would not behold her die with grief?”

“Ludwig!” repeated Hansfelt, quite beside himself.

“Of course I am displeased with her for her folly, and I am angry with you too, but I suppose I must forgive you both because--because she loves you.”

“Beware, beware! Ludwig,” said Hansfelt, growing pale. “There are hopes that prove fatal when blasted!”

“Come, now, you must not die yet, nor she either!” Then he tenderly folded his daughter in his arms, and, as she opened her eyes and looked around in confusion, he said in a low tone:

“Hilda, my child, I give my consent. May you be as happy as you desire. You have your father’s blessing.--Come, now,” said he to Fleurange, “let us go to your aunt, and leave them to make their own disclosures.”

VIII.

Madame Dornthal was affected but not surprised at hearing what had just taken place. She had never been deceived as to her daughter’s sentiments, and for a long time had endeavored to open her husband’s eyes. But he was incredulous, and persisted in declaring it was impossible for his friend, his contemporary, his “old Karl,” even to win the heart of a girl of twenty. “It is a mere fancy, which will pass away as soon as she meets a man of her own age who is worthy of her,” he obstinately repeated.

“Perhaps so, but that is the difficulty,” replied the sagacious, clear-sighted mother. “Between you and Hansfelt, Hilda has become accustomed to live in a rarer atmosphere than generally surrounds youth. Whether this is fortunate or unfortunate, I know not; but as long as I perceive only pure and noble sentiments in her heart, which I read like an open page, I do not feel I have a right to oppose them. Believe me, we must not think too much of our children’s happiness, and, above all, we must not plan for them to be happy according to our notions. The important thing, after all, is not for them to be as happy as possible, but to fully develop their worth. Let their souls, confided to us, bear all the fruit of which they are capable. Is not this the chief thing, Ludwig?”

The more worthy one is to hear such language, the less easy it is to reply, and this conversation, which took place the evening before, made Ludwig waver at the interview in the library, and drew from him unawares his consent.

“We shall now lose them both,” said the professor sadly.

“I should rather see them happy, as we are, than happy for our benefit,” courageously replied his wife, with a greater effort than she wished to appear.

All misunderstanding being now cleared away, and the consent of every one obtained, it was at once decided that Hansfelt’s departure should be delayed a fortnight, and at the end of that time he should go, but not alone! The last evening the two sisters spent together under the paternal roof became therefore, doubly memorable; but they were all calmer than might have been expected. The professor, in spite of the suggestions of his reason, in spite of the evident wisdom of his opinion and opposition, could not look at his daughter without feeling that the profound and tranquil joy which beamed from her eyes was permanent and satisfying, and the reflection of that joy on Hansfelt’s inspired brow and softened look involuntarily showed the secret of her affection for him.

“Well, my venerable Karl, it must be acknowledged you look quite youthful to-night!”

“How could it be otherwise? I was withering away, and now my freshness has returned; my life seemed hopeless, and now it is lit up. This resurrection, this new existence, is like the restoration of youth, and, more than that, it elevates and ennobles. If noblesse oblige, so does happiness, and what would I not do now to merit mine?”

The following day, the bright sun cast a brilliancy around the form of the young bride, which was declared a lucky omen, in addition to many others carefully noted by the superstitious affection of those who surrounded her.

The Mansion, as we have said, was very near the church, and the wedding procession was made on foot, to the great satisfaction of those who composed it, as well as of the curious spectators. Clara, crowned with myrtle and clad in white, was as lovely a bride as one could wish to see, but there was no less admiration for the two young girls who, followed by several others, two by two, walked immediately behind. It will be guessed they were Hilda, whose beauty was now radiant, and Fleurange, whose black hair and general appearance distinguished her from the rest. The latter, as she passed along, might have noticed more than one look, and heard more than one word, calculated to satisfy her vanity, but she was wholly occupied in observing all the details of the wedding array which surrounded her for the first time in her life. They found a great crowd in church, and as the cortége slowly approached the altar, Fleurange, casting her eyes around, suddenly met a friendly look, accompanied by a respectful salutation. She bowed slightly in return, but without recognizing the person who saluted her, though his face was familiar. Nor did she know the fresh young woman leaning on his arm. A few steps further on, and she recalled her travelling companion, and Wilhelm, her husband, who was her uncle’s clerk. It was he, she felt sure, and she eagerly turned to look at him. She even stopped. At that moment she heard Felix Dornthal’s name mentioned, followed by these words: “They say that is his intended who has just passed by.” Fleurange felt they were speaking of her, and she blushed with displeasure. Then she heard Wilhelm’s reply: “Would it might be so! She might, perhaps, yet save him from--” The rest escaped her as she was borne along by the throng. She did not see Wilhelm or his wife again, and for the present thought no more of this incident.

The ceremony, the return, and the wedding dinner, all passed off with joyful simplicity. At the end of the repast, Clara took off her myrtle wreath, and divided it among her young companions, wishing that they too, in their turn, might find good husbands, and a happiness equal to her own.

It was Hilda who was first honored in this distribution. This signified she would be married before the rest. She took the myrtle from her sister’s hand without any embarrassment, as if she were not ashamed to let others see she joyfully accepted the offering, and regarded it as more than a mere omen.

After Hilda, came Fleurange, and then all the others down to little Frida, who had joined them with several other companions of her age.

“In your turn, Gabrielle!” said Hilda, as Fleurange fastened the sprig of myrtle in her belt. “Your turn will soon come also to wear this crown.”

Fleurange shook her head, and replied with a seriousness she herself could not have accounted for: “That day will never come for me--no, never!”

“Why do you say so?” said Hilda, astonished.

“I do not know.” And then she laughed.

An hour after, she perceived the myrtle had fallen from her belt. She searched for it, having been charged by her cousin to wear it the remainder of the day, but she could not find it.

At nightfall the newly married couple left the Old Mansion, escorted over the threshold and down the steps by all the family, who, with kind wishes and congratulations, there bade them adieu with more affection than sadness, for they were not to be widely separated, or for any great length of time.

Clara’s father and mother accompanied her to her new home. It was a modest, pleasant house in one of the faubourgs of the city, which Julian, with loving interest, had been preparing more than a year for her who was now to take possession of it. Her parents took leave of her at the threshold. Madame Dornthal embraced her daughter, and, while clasping her in her arms, said: “Remember you are now beginning a new life. Continue to give us our share of your affection; but let nothing henceforth prevail over the love which is now your duty.”

“I shall merit a severe penalty,” said Julian, “if this duty ever becomes a burden--if she ever regrets the day she joined her lot to mine.”

The father and mother stood looking at them a moment as they paused at the entrance of the house. They observed the moved and respectful look of the bridegroom. They saw, too, the confiding glance of the bride amid her tears, and they left them without fear under the protection of God!

On their way homeward, the poor father, breaking the long silence, said: “Years hence, when she in her turn is separated from a child, she will understand all we have suffered to-day!”

“Yes, my Ludwig,” said Madame Dornthal, wiping away her tears; “and Heaven grant she may then have, like us, a stronger feeling in her heart than that of grief, which will enable her to bear it!”

They pressed each other’s hands. Never, even in the brightest days of their youth, had this old couple felt so tenderly, so closely united!

They found the Old Mansion brilliantly lighted up. The gallery and library, illuminated and ornamented with flowers and wreaths, were filled not only by the customary friends and relatives, but the two brothers’ whole circle of acquaintance in the city.

It was the custom at that time to end the wedding day with a soirée, but a delicate sentiment forbade the newly-married pair taking a part in the festivities, their happiness being considered too profound, too concentrated, to enjoy the noisy gaiety. But here, the unrestrained gaiety was natural, infectious, and wholly exempt from an ingredient too often found in the corrupting influences of society--a sad and fatal ingredient, which inspires ill-toned pleasantries whose effect is to excite smiles and blushes, and a gaiety as different from the other as the laughter of fiends from the smiles of angels! The gaiety here did not profane by a word, a glance, or even a smile, the end of the day which had witnessed a Christian espousal.

Felix Dornthal himself seemed less disposed to jest than usual. He was even grave, absent-minded, and gloomy to such a degree as to excite attention in the morning at church, where he arrived late, and at the wedding dinner, where, appointed to propose the health of the newly married pair, he acquitted himself of the duty with ease, but only to resume afterwards a complete silence. Family festivals were doubtless little to his taste, and perhaps it was ennui that produced so gloomy an aspect. Such, at least, was the supposition of his cousins, who, after declaring him disagreeable, left him to himself. He disappeared at the end of the repast, and now in these crowded rooms he alone was wanting. His absence, noticed by several persons, greatly excited his father’s impatience, who, to-day more than ever, ardently desired to witness before he died the marriage of his son. Illness had brought on the irritability of old age, and Heinrich Dornthal could no longer bear contradiction.

“Where can he be?” repeated he for the tenth time to his neighbor, who, with his look fastened on the door, seemed to share the uneasy expectation of the banker. At that instant Fleurange passed by. She stopped as she saw Wilhelm Müller again, at her uncle’s side. This time she recognized him at once, and, with the natural grace that gave a charm to her every movement, she approached and renewed her acquaintance with him. She learned in a few words that he had been absent, that his wife was restored to health, and had not forgotten her. Fleurange, in return, sent her many affectionate messages. Then she passed on, while her uncle, gazing at her, felt an increased regret, which she was as far from imagining as sympathizing with.

The piano was open. Several pieces had already been played with great success, and now all the younger members of the party were seized with the unanimous desire of dancing, which is so contagious, and in youth often a kind of necessary manifestation of joyousness. The Germans are all musicians, and Clement excelled. He at once divined the general feeling, and seized his violin. Hilda seated herself at the piano. Hansfelt took his place at her side, and the gaiety she fully participated in did not inspire her, like the rest, to leave her place. She was, therefore, in the best mood possible to acquit herself of the rôle which Clement with a glance assigned her in this improvised orchestra. The brother and sister struck up a waltz, and played with that skill, perfect time, and particular animation which, like the waltz itself, is peculiar to the German nation. In an instant there was universal animation.

Fleurange had occasionally danced with her cousins in the winter evenings, but she had never experienced, as on this occasion, the inspiriting effect of so much liveliness and so general an impulse. She involuntarily rose up with a desire to take a part in it, and at that very moment she heard these words addressed her: “Will you favor me with this waltz?”--an invitation so in accordance with the wish of the moment that she replied in the affirmative, and left the place before realizing it was her cousin Felix who was her partner. They danced around twice. Poor Heinrich Dornthal saw them sweep by, and uttered a joyful exclamation--the last that a feeling of hope or of paternal joy would ever draw from him again in this world!

Felix conducted Fleurange back to her seat. She was breathless, pale, and annoyed. While waltzing, he had uttered words she wished had never been said. Scarcely seated, her first impulse was to leave the spot where he stood, and even the room, but she could not. Felix’s hand, placed on hers, forced her to sit down again. Then Fleurange rose above her embarrassment. She comprehended that the time had come to be firm, calm, and decided--not a difficult thing when the heart and the will are perfectly in accord. That was the case in this instance, and Fleurange almost coolly awaited what her cousin had to say.

“I only beseech you for one word, Gabrielle,” said Felix, with more emotion and respect than usual--“one word, and, if you understood me, an answer.”

“I heard you,” said Fleurange.

“And understood?”

“Yes; and with regret, Felix.”

“Tell me plainly, Gabrielle, do you understand that I love you?”

Fleurange blushed and made no reply.

“That I love you to such a degree, my happiness, my future prospects, and my life are in your hands?” continued he vehemently. “And this is true, literally true.”

Fleurange frowned. “Do you wish to frighten me?” she said coldly, turning her large eyes toward him.

“No; I have told you the truth without thinking I could frighten you; but, since you ask the question, here is my sincere reply: Only promise to accept my hand, promise it through fear or love, terror or joy, I will be satisfied, and ask for no more.”

“Then,” said Fleurange slowly, “it is all the same to you whether I esteem or despise you, love or detest?”

“No woman can for ever detest a man who endeavors to win her love--when that man is her husband, and could be her master, but only wishes to be her slave.”

“There is great fatuity in your humility, Felix; but you are frank, and I wish to be so too. I shall never--mark my words--never be your wife!”

Felix turned pale, and his face assumed a frightful expression. “Take more time, Gabrielle,” said he--“take more time to think of it. But, first, listen to me. I am going to say something that may touch you more than a threat or a declaration--” He stopped an instant and then continued: “If you saw a man on the edge of a precipice, would you stretch forth a hand to save him?”

“What do you mean?” said Fleurange, affected in spite of herself, and suddenly recalling the words she heard that morning in the church.

“I ask if you would put out your hand to aid a man in such peril?” He had, in truth, found the means of making her hesitate, but it was only for a moment.

“You are speaking figuratively, I suppose,” said she at length; “and it is a question of a soul in peril, is it not?”

“A soul in peril? Yes,” replied Felix, with a bitter smile.

“Well, I tell you, in a danger of this kind, I would offer no assistance that would inevitably lead to my own destruction.”

Felix rose: “And is this your final decision?”

“Yes, Felix, a decision unhesitatingly made, but not without sorrow, if it afflicts you.”

His only reply was a loud laugh which made Fleurange shudder. She turned towards him, but there was no longer in his look the respect, or the sadness, or the emotion he had so recently shown. His face had resumed its habitual expression of irony and proud assurance.

“I thank you for your frankness, cousin. That is a trait I trust you will retain. It somewhat detracts from the charm you are endowed with, but it will preserve you from some of the dangers to which your eloquent glances expose you. Adieu!”

“Felix, give me your hand as a token you bear me no ill-will,” said Fleurange softly.

“Ill-will?” replied Felix. “Oh! be assured I am too good a player not to bear bad luck cheerfully. Besides, one is not always, and in everything, unfortunate. Certain defeats, they say, are pledges of victory. Come, Gabrielle, forget it all. Give me your hand, and wish me good luck.”

Before Fleurange could make any reply, he was gone. This conversation had been so rapid that the waltz was not yet ended. The noise, motion, and music, added to Fleurange’s agitation, made her dizzy. She went to an open window near the piano. At that moment the music ceased, and all resumed their places. Fleurange found herself nearly alone. Clement was still near, and, observing her, quickly laid down the violin he held in his hand.

“You are very pale. Are you ill?”

“No, no, let me go out. I only wish to take the air a moment.”

Clement cast a rapid glance around the room, and then followed her into the garden:

“You were dancing just now?”

“Yes, and I did wrong.”

“Your partner left you before the waltz was over?”

“Yes.”

Clement remained thoughtful a few moments, and then said: “Gabrielle, pardon me if I am indiscreet, but I wish I dared ask you one question.”

“What a preamble! Did we not agree to speak freely to each other?”

“Well, will you tell me why Felix went away?”

“Yes, Clement, and I think you will be surprised. He asked me to marry him. What do you think of that?”

“And you gave him his answer?”

“Assuredly. I said no, without hesitating.”

Clement started so abruptly that Fleurange looked at him with surprise. She saw an expression of joy on his countenance which he could not conceal.

“I see you are no fonder than I of our cousin,” she said, “and are delighted with his ill-success.”

“Delighted? No. Were he my worst enemy, I should pity him at such a moment; but I am very glad of--glad of--” Clement hesitated, contrary to his usual practice, which was to go straight to the point. “I am very glad of a decision,” said he at length, “which will dispense me from ever speaking of him again to you.”

“What would you have done if I had accepted him?”

“What I am glad not to be obliged to do.”

“Now you are talking enigmatically in your turn.”

“No; enigmas are intended to be guessed, and I beg you to forget what I have just said.”

It is uncertain what answer Fleurange was about to make Clement, who was less candid than usual, and therefore provoking, but at that instant she noticed a sprig of myrtle in the button-hole of his coat.

“What! you with myrtle?” she said. “I thought it was only worn by young maidens on such a day.”

Clement blushed, and snatched the myrtle from his coat: “It is yours, Gabrielle. Pardon me. I saw it fall from your girdle, and picked it up.”

“Mine? Indeed!”

“Yes; here, take it, unless,” said he, hesitating a little--“unless you will consent to give it back to me.”

“Very willingly, Clement; keep it as a gift from me. It is a good omen, they say, predicting a fair bride when your turn comes.”

Clement replaced the myrtle in his coat, and gravely said: “That day will never come for me; no, never!”

“Never; no, never! Oh! how strange!” cried Fleurange, in a tone that surprised Clement.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

What struck her as strange was that Clement, à propos of this piece of myrtle, had, without being aware of it, uttered precisely the same words she herself had said some hours before.

On the whole, this soirée she found so pleasant at its commencement, ended in a painful manner. She returned to her chamber less cheerful than she left it, but with the satisfaction of feeling she had had no difficulty throughout the day in banishing from her mind the fantastic image she had formed the evening before of Count George.

IX.

More than a fortnight had elapsed. Hilda was married and gone from the paternal roof. Clara and her husband were on their way to Italy, where they intended to remain till spring. Those who remained in the Old Mansion were suffering from the reaction that always follows the confusion and agitation of any event however pleasant--a reaction always depressing even when there is no real sadness in the heart. But this was not exactly the case with Fleurange. Her cousins were both married and happy. She loved them too sincerely not to rejoice at this, but it was not the less true that the house seemed to have grown more spacious, the table around which they gathered enlarged, the library immense, and the garden deserted. The least to be pitied was Fritz, who still had his brother, and was not so much affected by the change; but little Frida mourned for her sisters, and clung more than ever to Fleurange, whose talent for amusing and diverting children was again brought into exercise. Fleurange, on her part, greatly appreciated this distraction as a benefit. The child seldom left her cousin’s room, and they became almost inseparable. One day, while there as usual, Fleurange singing a long ballad in a low tone, and Frida listening with her head against her cousin’s shoulder, a knock at the door made them both start. And yet it was but a slight rap, that gave no cause for the alarm with which she put the child down and hastily ran to the door. She found her kind of presentiment justified.

It was Wilhelm Müller, Heinrich Dornthal’s clerk, who knocked. It was quite evident from the expression of his countenance and his agitated manner, as well as his unexpected appearance at such an hour, that something unusually sad had occurred.

“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he said hurriedly. “I was not looking for you; but M. Clement has gone out, and the professor also, they tell me. Do you know where they are to be found?”

“I do not know where Clement is, but my uncle and aunt are gone to M. Steinberg’s. They have charge of the garden during his absence.”

“Steinberg’s! It would take more than an hour to go there. What is to be done! What is to be done!”

“What has happened, Monsieur Wilhelm? For pity’s sake, tell me what misfortune has occurred.”

“Misfortune!” he replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “Ah! yes, mademoiselle, a great misfortune has befallen us--but I cannot stop an instant. Pray send for M. Ludwig with all possible speed, and tell him his brother--his brother is dying!”

“Dying!” cried Fleurange. “Uncle Heinrich! Oh! take me to see him while they are gone for his brother.”

“No, no, mademoiselle, you must not go. I cannot consent to it.”

Fleurange insisted, and had already left her room when she met Clement, who had just returned, and heard his uncle’s clerk was in search of him.

“Uncle Heinrich is dying!” exclaimed Fleurange, before he could ask a question. “Let us go to him instantly, Clement, while they are gone for your parents.” And she drew him toward the stairs. Meanwhile, Wilhelm approached and whispered a few words in Clement’s ear. The latter turned pale, but, instantly surmounting his violent emotion, he took Fleurange by the hand.

“Remain here,” he said. “You must not go. Believe me, you must not. When it is suitable, I will come for you.” And he led her back kindly, but firmly, into her chamber, and then went out, closing the door behind him. In less than two minutes the street door was heard to shut in its turn. Fleurange was left alone, or, at least, with only little Frida, who, frightened, was crying. She tried to soothe her, endeavoring at the same time to be calm herself, and patiently bear the torture of waiting anxiously, without the power of action.

It was about five o’clock when Wilhelm came to her door, and of course still light, as it was summer. But day declined, and night came on, finding Fleurange still waiting. Frida, after crying a long time, had gone to sleep in her arms. Fleurange, in spite of her usual activity, wished to remain where she was, that Clement might find her at once when he returned. She heard him order the carriage as he went out, and knew he had sent for his father and mother. She looked at the clock, and counted the hours. Not a third of the time was required to go to the faubourg, and yet they had not returned. They had evidently gone directly to the dying man’s house. And what was now taking place there? Why had Clement dissuaded her from going? She joined her hands in silent prayer: then began to listen again with a feverish and ever-increasing anxiety.

At last she heard the rumbling of a carriage. She softly placed the sleeping child on the bed, and was about to go down-stairs to meet her uncle and aunt, whom she supposed to have arrived. But before she had time, she heard Clement ascending the stairs in great haste. An instant more and he opened the door. Before she could ask the question on her lips, he said:

“Gabrielle, poor Uncle Heinrich is no more!” Then he added after a moment’s silence: “A dreadful shock caused his instantaneous death.”

“Ah! my heart told me I should hear sad news.”

“Yes, sad indeed,” said Clement. And in spite of himself he seemed for a moment suffocated by an emotion too violent to be surmounted.

Fleurange looked at him. There was something besides the shock and grief caused by this sudden death. “Clement, what else has happened? Tell me everything. Tell me at once, I implore you!”

“Yes, Gabrielle,” he said, making an effort to command his voice, usually so firm and mild. “Yes, I am going to tell you everything. I came on purpose to spare my poor father and mother this additional pain. Listen, or, rather, read this yourself!”

Fleurange with a trembling hand took the letter he offered her, and read as follows:

“FATHER: I have abused your confidence. Your name, which you allowed me to make use of, has hitherto enabled me to conceal my losses. With the hope of repairing them, I rashly aimed at an immense prize which chance seemed to offer me. Had I obtained it, all would have been saved. I have been unsuccessful. Ruin has fallen not only on us, but on all whose property is in our hands. Farewell, father, you will never see me again. Do not be afraid of my taking my own life. That would only be another base act. But there are lands where they who seek death can find it. I hope to have that good luck. May I speedily expiate what I can never repair! “FELIX.”

Fleurange silently clasped her hands. Pity mingled with the repugnance, now so well justified, with which Felix had always inspired her, and she could not utter a word. Clement continued:

“This letter, imprudently given to my unhappy uncle this morning, immediately brought on one of the attacks to which he was liable, and which (perhaps happily for him) has proved fatal. He had not time to realize the blow that had befallen him.”

Fleurange herself hardly comprehended its extent. “But where is Felix, then?” she said at length.

“He has been gone a fortnight.”

“A fortnight!” she exclaimed, with a painful remembrance of their last interview.

“He left the day after the soirée at the time of Clara’s marriage.”

“That evening,” she said with emotion, “he spoke of an abyss into which my hand would prevent him from falling. O God!” she continued with the greatest agitation, “could I really have saved him by consenting? Would the sacrifice of my life have prevented this terrible disaster?”

“No; the great stake he made that night was his sole resource against ruin. Why did he talk to you in such a manner? Was it through madness or perversity? It must have been madness, the unfortunate fellow loved you without doubt. I pity him, but--” Clement hesitated and then rapidly continued: “Listen to me, Gabrielle. I am going to tell you something it might be better to keep to myself, but I must justify myself and reassure you, and it cannot injure him now. I regarded Felix with contempt because,” and for a moment there was a flash in Clement’s eye--“because he wished to make me as despicable as himself, and once played the vile rôle of a tempter to me who was then but a boy--because he would, if he could, have drawn me after him into the path which to-day has ended so fatally. Therefore, cousin,” he continued with still more emotion, “had he succeeded in winning your hand, I should have felt it my duty to have warned you of his unworthiness, of which I was too well aware, for I have never forgotten you called me your brother. But I was reluctant to denounce him, and glad, oh! so glad, that evening, not to be obliged to do so--glad you were saved by your own self! And if I tell you all this now, it is to put an end to the fears you have just expressed.”

“And I am grateful to you for banishing them. But, Clement, tell me once more--here, in the presence of God, have I nothing to reproach myself with?”

“Nothing, on my honor, Gabrielle, believe me!”

Clement, as we have remarked, possessed great firmness of character, and a kind of premature wisdom which gave him great ascendency over others. When this trait is natural, it is manifest at an early age, and a day often suffices for its complete development. That day had arrived for Clement, and henceforth no one would ever dream of calling him a boy.

X.

Ruin!--a word at once positive and yet extremely vague--very plain in itself, and yet conveying the idea of a multitude of undefined consequences, often more alarming than actual misfortune, and sometimes suggesting chimerical hopes. And it has a deeper signification when it happens to a person unaccustomed to the calculations of material life, given up to thought and study, and moreover delivered from the necessity of exertion through long years of prosperous ease.

Such was the nature, and hitherto such the position, of Professor Ludwig Dornthal. Of all the misfortunes in the world, that which had now befallen him was the last he would have dreamed of, and he was less capable of comprehending it than of supporting it courageously. Besides, the word ruin may also be taken in a relative sense which mitigates its severity, and this was the way the professor regarded it. With only a faint idea of the extent of the catastrophe, he remained inactively expectant of something to partially remedy what merely related to his finances, being more preoccupied about his nephew’s shameful flight and its fatal consequence--the death of his brother.

Meanwhile, Clement, with the aid of Wilhelm Müller, examined the state of affairs with a promptitude and sagacity that greatly edified the honest and intelligent clerk who initiated him into this new business. Seeing him so quick of comprehension, so firm in decision and prompt in action, he exclaimed with despair in the midst of their frightful discoveries:

“Alas! alas! if your unfortunate cousin had only had your head on his shoulders!”

“My head! It is not equal to his,” responded Clement to one of his companions. “No, no, it is not that, but something else, he lacks. Why have not I, on the contrary, his capacity and wit! Then I might be capable of retrieving our fortunes, whereas my only talent is that of knowing how to endure poverty. Oh! if it threatened me alone, how little I should dread it!”

“Poverty!” interrupted Wilhelm. “But do you not understand all I have explained to you?”

“With respect to my uncle’s creditors?”

“Yes. Do you not see that the principal creditor, the first of all on the list, is M. Ludwig Dornthal, whose whole fortune nearly can be saved from shipwreck?”

“Yes, on condition of the ruin of the remainder.”

“But their claims are not equal to his: he was not his brother’s partner. He had only entrusted his property to him, like so many others.”

Clement made no reply. After a short silence he observed: “The entire renunciation of my father’s property would enable us to repay all the creditors without exception, would it not?”

“Yes, all.”

“Would there not be a single debt in this case?”

“No,” replied Wilhelm, smiling; “not a debt--not a penny.”

Clement again took up one of the papers on the table, and silently read it over once more with the most profound attention.

“Yes, it is really so,” said he rising. “Everything is plain now. I must leave you, Wilhelm. It is after four o’clock, and I am expected at home. I shall see you again this evening, and we will decide on some definite course of action.”

This conversation took place in a lower room of the banker’s house, which had been Wilhelm Müller’s office for many years. He pressed the young man’s hand, and Clement proceeded rapidly towards home.

It was their dinner hour, and his parents were waiting for him. The habits of the family had resumed their ordinary course. The sad routine of life is seldom interrupted more than a day even by the most overwhelming disaster, and this exterior regularity, however painful a contrast to the grief that has changed everything interiorly, helped restore calmness to the soul, and with calmness the courage and strength to act.

Clement was a quarter of an hour late. He went directly to the dining-room, knowing his father’s punctuality. As he supposed, the family were at dinner, and he took his place after some hasty words of apology at his entrance, and then fell into a profound silence.

The fine, spacious room in which they were was one of the pleasantest in the house. Rare old china lined the étagères, and the dark panels were relieved by old portraits, all original and of great value, and the most celebrated part of the professor’s collection. The open windows commanded a view of the garden. Verdure refreshed the eye, and the perfume of the flowers pervaded the room. The glass and silver reflected the rays of the sun, though there was a large awning before one of the windows. An air of quiet, opulent comfort everywhere reigned.

Clement look around. All these things, to which he was daily accustomed, now made a new impression on him. He noticed to-day the objects he often forgot to observe, but this examination did not have the effect of weaning him from his sad thoughts. On the contrary, it only increased them, and Clement was deeply plunged in gloomy reverie when he was aroused by his little sister’s voice:

“Papa,” said Frida, “we shall start for the sea-shore in a week, shall we not?”

“Yes, my child,” replied the professor.

“And then we shall go to see Hilda?”

“Yes, she expects us in a month.”

“And after that?”

“We shall return home. It will be time, I think, after two months‘’ absence.”

In fact, that was the longest time the professor had ever been absent from his cherished home.

These few words produced an expression of suffering on Clement’s face which he could not conceal. His mother observed it and questioned him with a look. But Clement turned his eyes away, and did not raise them again till the end of the silent meal, though he keenly felt another look besides his mother’s fastened on him.

“Clement, I have something to say to you,” said his mother as soon as dinner was over. He rose instantly, and followed her into the garden, but before leaving the room he said:

“Father, will you allow me a few minutes‘’ conversation with you afterwards? I have several things to tell you.”

“Yes, my dear son, I will wait for you.” And the professor turned towards the library, where he always spent an hour after dinner.

“Come, tell me everything now,” said Madame Dornthal, leading the way to a bench where they could not be seen from the house.

“Yes, mother, dear mother, it is to you I will refer a decision which my honor and my conscience tell me is required. You shall decide whether we ought to evade or submit to it.”

He began his account, and, while she was attentively listening without interrupting him once, laid before her the details, in all their reality, of the situation in which his uncle’s death and his cousin’s flight had left them.

Madame Dornthal, more accustomed to the practical details of life than her husband, had not shared his illusions. She was much better prepared than he for the sad consequences of a reverse of fortune, but had been far from anticipating its extent. They would be much less wealthy than before, have some privations to endure, and for a time be obliged to practise considerable economy; such had been the extent of her fears. But all this did not appear to so excellent a manager a trial beyond her strength. During the past week she had declared, as often as her husband, that the loss of money was the smallest part of the misfortune that had befallen them.

Now she realized that this loss was something real, something almost as appalling as death, for it involved the end of the life she had been accustomed to for twenty years--an end she must face and at once accept. And she was courageous enough not to hesitate. She embraced her son, and said:

“God be blessed for giving me a son like you! Yes, dear Clement, yes, you are right--a thousand times right.”

“Then you agree with me, mother, that the ruin of the Dornthals should not cause the ruin of any one else?”

“Yes, my child.”

“Our name must remain without reproach, and nobody in the world have a right to curse it?”

“Certainly, Clement, whatever be the consequence.”

“Whatever be the consequence!” repeated Clement firmly. “Thanks, dear mother. I must leave you. It is not my place, but yours, to inform my father.”

“Yes, Clement, it is my place.” She put back her son’s thick hair, and gazed silently at him for a moment with profound attention and emotion. Never had Clement’s eyes expressed more clearly than now the firmness, integrity, and energy of his nature.

“No!” thought she, “there is not among those who effect great things in the world, and leave behind them a glorious and illustrious name, a nobler or more courageous heart than yours, my son! God be praised! Your life will be blessed, even though your worth and all the faculties you possess remain hidden and for ever unknown but to him alone!”

Such were Madame Dornthal’s thoughts, as she gazed with maternal fondness into her son’s eyes, but she did not give them utterance. She pressed her lips once more to his brow, and placed her hand on his head as if in benediction. Clement in return kissed her hand with grave and tender respect. Then he rose and left the garden at once, and, soon after, the house.

He remained absent several hours. It was nearly nine o’clock when he returned. His mother was waiting in the entry for him, and opened the door when he rang. He was very pale, and held a pile of papers in his hand.

“Well,” said Madame Dornthal, “is everything arranged?”

“Yes, mother, everything! These papers only lack my father’s signature. He is willing to give it, is he not?”

“You cannot doubt it, I think.”

“No, but my poor father was so far from supposing--”

“Yes, that was it, I did not fear any hesitation on his part, but only the complete illusion he was under. I only dreaded the effect of surprise and the shock. O Clement! I know not what terror came over me from the frightful remembrance of the other day! My poor Ludwig!”

Madame Dornthal stopped a moment to brush away her tears, then smiled as she continued:

“But be easy, he knows everything now. He comprehends the state of affairs, and feels as we do. It is better, however, that I alone should see him this evening. Give me those papers. And you, my boy, see after your brother and sister. I have not had time to think of them. Ah! and Gabrielle, poor child, perhaps it would be well to look for her also and tell her all. We have nothing to conceal from any one, above all from her.”

Without awaiting a reply, Madame Dornthal abruptly left her son to rejoin her husband in the library, where she remained the rest of the evening.

THE LAST DAYS OF OISIN, THE BARD.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

IV.

OISIN’S QUESTION.

“O Patrick! taught by him, the Unknown, These questions answer ere I die:-- Why, when the trees at evening moan, Why must an old man sigh?

“No kinsmen of my stock are they, Though reared was I in sylvan cell: Love-whispers once they breathed: this day They mutter but ‘farewell.’

“What mean the floods? Of old they said, ‘Thus, thus, ye chiefs, ye clans, sweep on!’ They whiten still their rocky bed: Those chiefs and clans are gone.

“What Power is that which daily heaves O’er earth’s dark verge the rising sun, As large, the Druid, Alph, believes, As Tork or Maugerton?

“A woman once, in youthful flower, An infant laid upon my knee: What was it shook my heart that hour? I live--Where now is he?

“What thing is youth, which speeds so fast? What thing is life, which lags so long? Trapped, trapped we are by age at last, In a net of fraud and wrong!

“I cheated am by Eld--or cheat-- Heart-young as leaves in sun that bask: Is that fresh heart a counterfeit, Or this gray shape a mask?

“Some say ‘tis folly to be moved. ‘The dog, he dieth--why not thou?’ They lie! We loved! The ill reproved!-- Is Oscar nothing now?

“O Patrick of the crosier staff, The wondrous Book, the anthems slow! If thou the riddle know’st but half, Help those who nothing know!

“Who made the worlds? the Soul? Man’s race? The man that knoweth, he is Man! I, once a prince, will serve in place Clansman of that man’s clan!”

AFFIRMATIONS.

“Instead of considering the physical condition of a nation determining its moral character, we must always regard the moral as determining, as well as moulding and modifying, the physical.”

“As the divine modifies the moral, so the moral modifies the physical, or external.”

“In education all sight has been lost of the reality which is regeneration, and only when this is brought into the soul, will it be fit to receive the spirit.”

“As the body grows older, the mind grows younger, when the will conceives with the divine will in the permanent ground.”

“Christ is desirous to divorce the soul from Satan, and to do this he begins by making the soul uneasy.”

“There are thousands who have been taught to think from learning have yet to be taught to think from the living basis within the will that sustains the thinker.”

“Know thyself is a false maxim. Be whole--or one--and one with thy Lord.”

“Only does the Jesus spirit in the soul make the soul exhibit the divine essence.”

HOW THE CHURCH UNDERSTANDS AND UPHOLDS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.

FIRST ARTICLE.

AGES OF MARTYRDOM.

Women are receiving just now, at the hands of a certain class of agitators, a degree of attention which may be flattering to some, but which certainly is not only intrusive, but unnecessary with regard to many. They are told that their rights are trampled upon, that they must assert and defend themselves, and take their place in the great battle of life. Now, these exhortations have generally been met by copious references to all the undoubted precepts of old, which made the domestic life woman’s own sphere, and consecrated her the minister of all man’s comforts. This sphere of home duties is incontestably theirs; and what is more, while they can help man in his avocations, man, on the other hand, can scarcely help them in their own. But in addition to this, their inviolable territory which they intend never to abandon, let them boldly claim a share of man’s kingdom, and let them make good their claim. People have listened to many women and to a few men on the subject of the so-called “Women’s Rights:” let them listen with indulgence to one woman more, who comes claiming far greater things than they dream of, and yet showing that her claims are but long-established and real rights, recognized, defined, limited, and protected by an older code of jurisprudence, and a longer tradition of immemorial custom, than they have as yet been told of by the press or in the lecture-room.

The existence of woman is a fact: it is equally a fact that everything that exists has some work to do in the order of the universe. God himself, in a few simple words, stated what her work was: “Let us make him a help like unto himself” (Gen. ii. 18). The words indeed are so simple that they hardly arrest attention, yet in them lies the whole relation of woman to man. She is to be a help; but no restrictive detail is added, so that it is clearly open to her to help man intellectually, religiously, morally, as well as domestically. She is to be like unto him; that is, emphatically not masculine, not a creature that is a mere copy or reproduction of himself, but like unto him, that is, sufficiently like to understand him, sufficiently unlike to love him. Again, no precise relation in which she is to stand to man is defined: she may therefore be a help as a wife, mother, sister, in the domestic circle; she may be a help as a consecrated virgin, as an adviser, as an intercessor, in the religious order; she may be a help as a governor, a regent, a queen, in the political order: lastly, she may be a help as a friend and confidant in the social order.

Now, having seen that God distinctly gave woman a mission, as he has to every animate and inanimate creature, we must suppose that he has also provided her with the means of fulfilling it. We look around us to see how he has done so, and whether, when the means were at hand, woman used them to her own distinction and advantage. In one place and under one set of circumstances alone do we find that it was so, and this not by exception, but by rule. This place is the Catholic Church; these circumstances are her laws and her history. The reason why it remained for our times to form “women’s rights” associations, is simply that women’s wrongs have, under the influence of the Reformation, been so shamefully multiplied. The present movement is a reaction against the Protestant atmosphere of repression which has suffocated woman’s highest aspirations for three hundred years. The tribute unconsciously paid to the Catholic Church by the Anglican communities of monks and sisters is a proof of the wisdom of the old church in regard to its treatment of women. Sensitive, enthusiastic, earnest souls found themselves without the outward means of satisfying their craving after a more perfect life; others with superabundance of energy and devotion, with the gift of tending the sick or instructing the young, found themselves confined to the circle of their own unaided efforts and unorganized activity. They hailed “sisterhoods” as the newly opened gates of heaven, not knowing that sisterhoods were no new invention, but had their source in the very beginnings of the days of which the then unwritten Gospels became the after-history.

In a sermon recently delivered by one of the most popular preachers of New York, and reported in the columns of a widely-read journal, occur the following words, which are a singular corroboration of what we have just said: “There is nothing more dangerous than an educated community with nothing to do. There are thousands of educated women who do not work.... I do not wonder the bold, eagle-like natures fret in their limits and detest life, or that the great hearts dash themselves out in waste. There must be outlet for these immense forces, or society will go on getting worse and worse to the end.” A few days after these words were spoken, the following appeared in a letter referring to the attempt made by a woman to drop her vote in the ballot-box, at the New York City election of the 7th of November, 1871. She gives a lamentable account of woman’s world, as it has grown to be under the shade of Protestantism. “The condition of involuntary servitude is favorable to the cultivation of all the vices of secrecy and deceit. As women, we have been schooled in hypocrisy and duplicity, until our deep souls revolt against the oppression that so compels us to belie our sincere and earnest natures. The most docile wife has that latent fire in her heart which only needs the air of freedom to fan into a flame. Many seemingly contented wives would almost risk the salvation of their souls to make their masters feel for one day the humiliation they have endured uncomplainingly for years. If this is true of the favorites of fortune, what may not be said of the great crowd of women who rush into every folly, or are doomed to severest trial by stringent laws and the oppressive customs growing out of them--laws and customs that disfranchise them, prescribe their pleasures, limit their fields of labor, and curtail their wages, all on the plea of sex? We have, gentlemen, very generally arrived at the knowledge that sex is a crime punishable by law.” The writer of this subscribes herself “Mary Leland,” and is, no doubt, a fair representative of the indignant champions of indiscriminate equality between men and women. If the slumbering volcano she describes is really hidden beneath the frivolous life of ordinary women, what a fearful responsibility lies at the door of the system whose effect it is! This spirit of rebellion can only exist as a reaction against the forced inactivity of woman’s mind and will, and against the torpor induced by the delicate flattery of those who would make her a sultana, or the brutality of those who would fain turn her into a beast of burden. Both alike are forms of slavery; both alike are anti-Christian; both are contradictions against nature, and will inevitably bear their evil fruit. Since their true rights have been denied them by the spirit of the Reformation; since the education of their children is taken out of their hands by the state; since nothing but a savory meal and a pleasant face are expected from them--what wonder that the displaced pendulum of their mind should sway violently aside, and thus come in rude contact with the more arduous sphere of man?

But it is not our purpose to give a lecture on the abstract principles concerned in the question of the rights of women; facts speak more loudly and more convincingly than the most eloquent arguments, the most fascinating pleas: we aim only at giving a few of these facts to our sisters of the present day, and showing them how the church has ever regarded, and has long ago settled, the question now agitating them so painfully.

Our only difficulty is in the mass of evidence from which to make selections, the matter that is to serve us as a witness being simply the history of the church, and its abundance so rich that we hesitate which of the countless examples to draw forth for the admiration of woman-kind, and which to leave in undeserved oblivion. If we take a cursory glance at the infant church on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, we shall find woman already in a conspicuous and honorable position. It is a remarkable fact that no nation of antiquity, save the Jews, had any respect for the female sex, beyond that which included women in the possessions of their husbands and fathers, and consequently could make no difference between an insult to a virgin or a wife and a theft of any other precious chattel. The Jews--that is, the people whom God himself guided and taught, and whose laws were his immediate decrees--hedged in the chastity of women with the most stringent safeguards, and defended it by the severest penalties. They allowed women to inherit from their parents and perpetuate their own name, and to be preferred before the male relations, that is, the brothers or nephews of their father (Numb. xxvii. 8). Not only were the wives and daughters of the Israelites inviolable; their hired servants, whether Jew or Gentile, and their captives, were equally protected from the licentiousness of man. The Old Testament has numberless chapters consecrated to the praises of women, and to the precepts necessary for the education of their sex. In Genesis, chap. xxxiv., we find the sons of Jacob making war upon the Sichemites, to revenge the insult done to their sister Dina by the prince Sichem; in the Book of Judges, chap. xx., we read of a bloody and protracted war waged by the Israelites against one of their own tribes, the Benjaminites, to revenge the Levite’s wife, outraged by strange men in the town of Gabaa; in the Second Book of Kings, chap. xiii., we see how promptly and fearfully Absalom resented the wrong done to his sister Thamar by their brother Amnon. In the Book of Judith, we are astounded at seeing the high and solemn eulogium pronounced upon this valiant woman. She speaks to the elders of Bethulia as one having authority, yet, with such humility as befits even the most highly favored servant of God, she comforts them and bids them hope, so that they acknowledge that her words are true, and ask her to pray for them (chap. viii. 29). Her own prayer for guidance and success is full of wisdom, of poetry, of confidence in God and the right: her speech to Holofernes is conspicuous for tact, and the heathen general himself exclaims, “There is not such another woman upon earth ... in sense of words.” When the great deed is done and Judith returns to the besieged city, she sings a noble canticle, a true poem, full of grave beauty and deep meaning, and we are then told how highly she was honored by the high-priest Joachim, who came from Jerusalem, with all his elders, to see her and bless her. He calls her the “glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, and the honor of the people” (chap. xv. 10), and bestows upon her precious vessels from the spoils of the Assyrians. He does not forget to extol her chastity as intimately connected with her success; indeed, this praise seems to supersede the blessings with which she is hailed as a deliverer. When she died, the people publicly mourned for her seven days, and to the time of her death it is recorded that “she came forth with great glory on festival days.”

This is not the only instance where we find woman in a responsible and elevated position, surrounded by friends of high degree, vying with each other in bestowing upon her marks of esteem and respect. Later on we find Christian prelates acting the part of Joachim to some new Judith, some woman distinguished for piety and virtue, and whose influence or example is a powerful auxiliary of their own efforts.

Reverting for a few moments to the history of the Jews, we see how in numberless instances women were the instruments of grace and deliverance, how they were gifted, and how they were esteemed. Instead of a marriage that was nothing but a bargain such as was in use among heathen nations, the betrothal of Rebecca was a most grave and solemn ceremony, and the consent of the maiden was formally asked. Jacob had such a high idea of Rachel’s worth that he served her for fourteen years. When the walls of Jericho fell and the inhabitants were put to the sword, the woman Rahab was spared, together with all those who chose to take refuge in her house. The child Moses was rescued and educated by a woman, and his sister, Mary, was a great prophetess whose canticle has come down to us almost as a national hymn. Anna, the mother of Samuel, sang praises to God in language which the inspired writers thought worthy of transmitting to the perpetual remembrance of all generations; the Queen of Sheba was so enamored of wisdom and learning that she came a long and tedious journey to pay homage to the superior gifts of Solomon; Anna, the wife of Tobias, after her husband had lost his sight, earned the wherewithal for their humble home at “weaving-work” (Tob. ii. 19). Sara, the wife of the younger Tobias, prayed God in words that have always been incorporated in the sacred text. Mardochai said pointedly to Queen Esther, “Who knoweth whether thou art therefore come to the kingdom that thou mightest be ready at such a time as this?” and she answered by effectually interceding for her people, though, notwithstanding her regal position, it was only at the risk of her life that she could approach the king unbidden. Her prayer, like all the rest recorded in the Scriptures, is a poem in itself, and points to the true source whence all real courage springs, while it also hallows with religious feeling the deep patriotism peculiar to the Hebrew race. Later on, the mother of the Machabees showed such heroic fortitude under persecution that the Scriptures say of her that she “was to be admired above measure, and was worthy to be remembered by good men.”

Turning to the New Testament, we find woman in equally prominent positions, honored by the special notice of the Man-God himself, and materially aiding in the establishment of his church. Not to speak of the Mother of God, whose influence on the fate of woman has been simply paramount, and leaving aside the fact of his undoubted voluntary subjection to her, as well as that of her intercession, being the immediate occasion of his first public miracle and manifestation at Cana of Galilee--the place of woman in the Gospel history is one that may justly be the pride of her sex. The greater part of our Lord’s miracles were worked in favor of women, most often on their own persons, at other times on persons whom they held dearer than life. Of the first, witness the cure of the mother-in-law of Peter, of the woman healed of an issue of blood, of the daughter of the Chanaanitish woman, to whom Jesus said, “O woman, great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou wilt” (St. Matt. xv. 28); of the woman bowed down with an infirmity that had afflicted her for eighteen years; also the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Of the second, witness the restoring to the widow of Naim of her only son, whom Jesus raised to life “being moved with mercy towards her” (St. Luke vii. 13), and whom, when he had raised him, he “gave to his mother.” Lazarus, too, dear as he was personally to the Master, was yet raised to a new life chiefly through the prayers and the faith of his sisters, whose sorrow had touched the heart of the divine Saviour. Not only in temporal things, but much more in spiritual, did our Lord seek out women for their cure and salvation. He did not disdain to speak long and patiently with the woman of Samaria, and, instead of heralding his saving presence to her countrymen through his own disciples, he preferred to let her be his messenger. He proposed the modest almsgiving of the poor widow as a model of all true charity. He protected the woman taken in adultery against her pharisaical judges; he commended the woman Magdalen, and prophesied that, wherever the Gospel should be preached, there should her name be also remembered. When he was teaching the multitudes, it was a woman who cried out in touching boldness and pathetic directness of speech: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts that gave thee suck.” Again it was to women that he spoke when, on the path to Calvary, he turned, and said, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” Women followed him bravely when men deserted, betrayed, and denied him; women stood beneath his cross while his apostles were hiding in fear, and the solitary friend who never left him was the most woman-like of all his disciples. His last legacy on earth, the last precious thing on which he turned his thoughts, was a woman, and the first person to whom he appeared after his resurrection was also a woman. When the disciples were gathered together awaiting the coming of the Paraclete, a woman was among them: “The mother of Jesus,” as the Gospel says, was there.

Later on, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find women mentioned as most efficacious helpers in the work of the infant church. Tabitha, for instance, a “woman full of good works, and almsdeeds” (Acts ix. 36), and Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, a woman who accompanied St. Paul from Corinth to Ephesus, and there took Apollo, an eloquent and fervent man, and “expounded to him the way of the Lord more diligently” (Acts xviii. 26). Again, Lydia, a seller of purple, “one that worshipped God,” offered hospitality to St. Paul, and “constrained” him to dwell in her house (Acts xvi. 14, 15). St. Paul has been quoted and misquoted so often that one almost shrinks from appealing to his arguments and precepts; yet perhaps even here we may find something new to say, something to point out in a new light, something that the controversialists on the subject of Women’s Rights, on both sides, have, apparently at least, overlooked. We will not dwell on such portions of his Epistles as are always in the mouth of those who aim at relegating woman to an exclusively domestic sphere, but, on the contrary, we will point out words of his, honoring woman so highly that no law of modern times has been able to rival such deference, and no claim of strong-minded female associations would dare to lift itself to such importance. In his First Epistle to the Romans, chapter xvi., he says: “And I commend to you Phebe, our sister, who is in the ministry of the church ... that you receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that you assist her in whatsoever business she shall have need of you: for she also hath assisted many, and myself also.” Ministry, of course, stands for help, and is used here in its strict and original sense, as when the Gospel says of our Lord, “And angels came and ministered unto him,” and as when we say the ministrations of charity. Some persons, indeed, have affected to see in this text an implied permission for women to act as priests; common sense and the general tone of the Epistles are sufficiently explicit, however, to undeceive all such as do not on this head voluntarily deceive themselves. The same Epistle we have quoted goes on to say: “Salute Prisca [Priscilla] and Aquila [her husband], my helpers in Christ Jesus; who have for my life laid down their own necks; to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles; and the church which is in their house.” Observe how St. Paul speaks of them without distinction of sex as equally helpers, and how he even mentions the woman’s name first. Again he continues: “Salute Mary, who hath labored much among you ... salute Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympias, and all the saints that are with them.” We have no space for recalling the well-known precepts St. Paul gives concerning both the state of marriage and that of virginity; we would only indicate by a passing notice how truly liberal is his teaching, including both states as honorable, commanding neither marriage nor continence, and providing with minute foresight for each circumstance that human mutability can create. And in one of these, the case being the desertion by an unbelieving consort of the Christian yoke-fellow, he distinctly says: “If the unbeliever depart, let him depart; for a brother or sister is not under servitude in such cases; but God hath called us in peace” (1 Cor. vii. 15). The very custom of calling women “sisters,” universal in the early church, is a token of the respect that was paid them, and of the Christian equality which denied them no legitimate share in the spiritual and social life of man. St. Paul has traced out in one word the whole duty of man to woman when he said, “The elder women entreat as mothers, the younger as sisters, in all chastity” (1 Tim. v. 2). In the First Epistle to the Philippians, he says: “Help those women who have labored with me in the Gospel, ... and whose names are in the book of life.” St. John dedicated a whole Epistle, or letter, to the “Lady Elect and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth.... And now I beseech thee, lady, not as writing a new commandment, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.... Having more things to write to you, I would not by paper and ink, for I hope that I shall be with you, and speak face to face, that your joy may be full.” St. Peter, in his First Epistle, does not disdain to give counsel as to the outward dress of women, thus dignifying the subject through the symbolism he wishes it to express. And let not any one of our own times call these counsels either frivolous or interfering, for has not every sect that arose as a self-appointed reformer begun by the restraint on female apparel, typical of moral restraint over our passions and inclinations? Even now, in a mistaken and distorted interpretation of the significance of dress, have not the ultra-advocates of Woman’s Rights laid their “reforming” hands upon the current fashions?

When St. Peter came to Rome, the first house that received him was that of Pudens, a Roman senator, whose wife Priscilla, and whose daughters Pudentiana and Praxedes, became his first converts and his most powerful co-laborers. The two virgins, having become the heiresses of their parents and brothers, sold their vast estates, and gave the price to the suffering and persecuted among their brethren; and, though we read of hundreds of such cases among the women of the early church, we seldom find it so with the men, except in such families where the influence of some female relative resulted in this heroic renunciation. The palace of Pudentiana and Praxedes was converted into a church which for centuries has borne their name, and in which is shown as well the temporary receptacle and hiding-place, says time-honored tradition, of the bodies of the martyrs, carefully collected by these brave women. This church is the oldest in Rome, says a reliable authority, the Rev. Joachim Ventura, whom we shall often have reason to quote in these pages, and it is also the first among those giving titular rank to the order of cardinals.

Among the apostolic women whose names stand beside those of the great saints to whom the church owes her wide sway, St. Thecla has ever been foremost; St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. Epiphanius, and St. Methodius, bishops and fathers of the church, have vied with one another in extolling her constancy and her greatness. The last mentioned of these tells us, in his book the Banquet of Virgins, that she was well versed in secular philosophy, and in the various branches of polite literature; he also exceedingly commends her eloquence, and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse (Butler’s Lives of the Saints). Of the persecution she suffered at the hands of the young pagan to whom she had, before her conversion, been betrothed, we will not speak, neither will we touch upon her miraculous deliverance from the wild beasts to whom she had been thrown, further than to point out, however, that woman has shown more than masculine courage long before modern agitators began to accuse her of degeneracy and tameness. But the secret lay then, as it does now, in the teaching of a church that sees in her children only hierarchies of souls, and that looks upon the body as a mere form, determining respective duties, it is true, but certainly not conferring de jure on the possessors of such forms any superiority or difference of intellectual or moral capacity. A proof of this lies open to all in the fact that women’s names as well as men’s are incorporated in the text of the Mass, and are repeated every day with as much honor, before the altar of God. After the “Commemoration of the Dead,” and in the prayer beginning, “Nobis quoque peccatoribus,” the names of Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, are coupled with those of the apostles and martyrs John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, and Peter, that is, with some of the greatest saints whom even Protestants consent to admire. The church, too, shows her appreciation of the sex and its capabilities by the express words, often used in her liturgy, “devoto femineo sexu,” which, whether translated as usual, the “devout female sex,” or the “devoted,” seems equally honorable to woman and her special characteristics. Virgins and widows are mentioned by name in the prayers used in public on Good Friday, and immediately before them are named the seven orders of the priesthood. The mere fact of so many churches being dedicated to God under the special invocation of some female saint, often one whose history has become obscure and traditional from very remoteness, serves to illustrate the high respect of the Catholic Church for womanhood, and the perfect equality with which she looks upon both her sons and her daughters. The cathedral of Milan, one of the most renowned shrines in the world, is under the patronage of the virgin of whom we have just spoken, the proto-martyr, St. Thecla. The fathers of the church, following the example of St. Paul, call the help of faithful Christian women a ministry, and Ventura tells us that Origen, St. Chrysostom, and Haymon speak of “women having through their good offices deserved to attain to the glorious title of apostles, and having supplemented the work of the evangelists and apostles by their preaching in private houses, especially to persons of their own sex” (Ventura, La Donna Cattolica, vol. i. p. 279). It is related in the Breviarium Romanum, at the part appointed to be read on the 19th of May, that St. Pudentiana once presented ninety persons to St. Pius, Pope, to be baptized, all of them being perfectly instructed in the faith through her teaching alone. St. Martina, who was a deaconess (which answers to religious in the later church), converted and instructed many persons, principally women. The Breviarium honors her as the protectress of Rome. She has also a hymn specially set apart for her office in the Breviarium, and the church dedicated to her in Rome is the richest and most magnificent of those under the patronage of the martyrs. The house of Lucina, a noble Roman matron, was converted into a church, afterwards dedicated to the holy Pope Marcellus. Another church, now called San Lorenzo in Lucina, stands over the tomb which Lucina prepared for that saint. Priscilla, also a Roman lady of high lineage, the wife of the before-mentioned senator Pudens, gave her fortune and her land for a cemetery, to which her name was justly appended. Natalia, the wife of the martyr Adrian, after publicly exhorting her husband to be steadfast in the faith, boldly put on man’s attire to elude the order recently given that no Christian woman should be allowed to visit the prisoners. The Breviarium tells us that St. Justina, upon whom a famous magician named Cyprian had tried all manner of unhallowed arts, so far prevailed over him that she brought him to know the true God, and to abandon his idols and sorceries. But examples such as these of the intellectual influence of women upon their friends, and even upon strangers and enemies, would multiply under our hands into a volume, if we could stop to collect them all.

Martyrdom was, in the early ages, the almost inevitable end of zealous faith and active evangelization. St. Cecilia ranks among the most prominent of those who, strong with a supernatural strength, gladly gave up life, youth, health, and beauty, for the sake of principle. Let us put it in that form, for even now there are many who respect in the abstract a single-minded devotion to principle. This devotion would be essentially called manliness in our day; yet the women of the early church--some mere children in years, some threatened with what would make a woman waver in her determination far more than mere physical torture could, the loss of her honor, some again with natural diseases or weakness upon them--showed a superabundant amount of this very manliness. Cecilia has long been the patroness of music, and we read in her Acts that she employed both vocal and instrumental music in the service of the Most High, fitly using the most beautiful of arts to glorify Supreme Beauty. Her love for the Holy Scriptures was such that she often wore them on her bosom in the folds of her robe, and that long before the Canon of Scripture had been fixed, and before the Holy Book could have the world-wide reputation which the church has now bestowed upon it. Cecilia’s will, made in presence of Pope Urban, consisted in the giving of her palace for a church, and the distributing of her remaining wealth to the poor. Her death was heroic, and, as her life-blood was ebbing slowly from her, she only thought of converting her executioners. Oblivious of bodily pain, she exhorted them to throw off the yoke of idolatry, and succeeded so far as to cause them to exclaim, “It is only a God who could have created such a prodigy as his servant Cecilia!” The body of the martyr was interred in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, in a chapel hollowed out of the earth, and somewhat larger than the other chambers of the same catacomb: it was the sepulchre of the popes, and the placing of her body in this sepulchre was a mark of the extraordinary respect due to her generous munificence and her heroic courage. Thus has the old church, so truly called the “mother church,” always recognized and rewarded merit, whether in man or woman. Susannah, a relation both of Pope Caius and of the Emperor Diocletian, and daughter to Gabinius, a man as learned as he was noble, was another instance of how religion can reconcile profound instruction with deep piety, and unite both to beauty of person and grace of manner. She was learned, say her Acts, in philosophy, in literature, and in religion. The emperor sent one of his nobles, Claudius, Susannah’s own uncle, to entreat her to marry Maximinus Cæsar, Diocletian’s son. The noble and learned virgin not only refused the alliance, but, strengthened by the approbation of her Christian father and her other uncle, Pope Caius, who were present, spoke so eloquently that Claudius was converted to Christianity. The Acts of the Martyrs record his words in announcing this conversion to his wife: “It is chiefly my niece Susannah who has conquered me. I owe to the prayers of this young girl the happiness of having received God’s grace.” His wife, Prepedigna, and Maximus, his brother, were also won over by her influence, and the latter bears tribute equally to her wisdom, holiness, and her beauty. There could be but one end to such proceedings, a glorious end for all: her friends all suffered martyrdom before her, and she who had braved an emperor’s displeasure without a sign of so-called womanly weakness, met her death in secret with equal courage and joy.

Agnes, the maiden of twelve or thirteen years, is praised by Ambrose, a Christian priest, for her contempt of the jewels with which the son of Symphronius attempted to bribe her: she is also pictured as the very incarnation of youthful bravery, when with holy defiance she scorns the threat of her impure and cruel judge to send her to a place of ill-fame. This threat, often executed, was more than any other the touch-stone of their faith to the Christian virgins of antiquity, while their invariable deliverance from this danger was the reward of their unflinching denial of the power of the false gods, even in the face of this shameful threat. Death would seem a bridal, to judge by the loving alacrity with which these child-virgins ran to meet it. Who can say that the church does not admire and inculcate courage and self-respect in women, since half the martyrs defended their honor as well as their faith with the last drop of their blood?

St. Ambrose, speaking to his sister Marcellina of the martyr Sothera, in whose praises he is enthusiastic, says: “What need for me to seek for examples for thee, who hast been formed to holiness by thy martyred relative? [Sothera was their great-aunt.] ... Brought up thyself in the country, having no companion to set thee examples, no master to teach thee precepts, there were at hand no human means to teach thee what thou has learnt. Thou art no disciple, therefore--for there can be no disciple where there is no master--but the heiress of the virtues of thy ancestress. Let us speak of the example of our holy relative, for we priests have a nobility of our own, preferable to that which counts it an honor to have prefects and consuls among our forefathers: we have the nobility of faith, which cannot die.” These words of grave import are addressed to a woman, and the boast of holy ancestry they contain also refers to a woman. Agatha, the heroine of Catana, and Lucy, the martyr of Syracuse, both noble Sicilian maidens, speak the boldest language to their barbarous judges, and meet death as bravely as any man could face it for his country and his home.

Victoria, a lady of Abyssinia, in Africa, accused of being a Christian, and defended by her pagan brother, who swore she had been deluded into connivance with the Christians, vehemently contradicted him in open court. “I came here of my own accord,” she averred, “and neither Dativus nor any one else beguiled me; I can bring witnesses among my fellow-townspeople to the fact that I came simply because I knew there would be a gathering of our brethren here, under our priest Saturninus, and that the holy mysteries would be celebrated.” She persists when her brother excuses her again as being insane, and eagerly criminates herself in the eyes of the judge, till she succeeds in winning her crown. Forty-eight other martyrs, men and women, heroically suffer the same penalty, greatly comforted and encouraged by her dauntless attitude. At Thessalonica, a woman named Irene was apprehended, together with her five sisters, and was herself chiefly accused of having kept and concealed the books of Scripture, and other papers relating to the Christian religion. Dulcetius, the judge before whom she was brought, and who was president of Macedonia, could elicit from her nothing that could endanger any one but herself, her sisters having been tried and martyred upon the charge of refusing to eat meats consecrated to idols. Her firmness both in screening others and in avowing her eager care for the holy writings, not only gives us a high idea of her moral courage, but also of her intellectual interest in those scarce and valuable works. She suffered death for her dauntless custody of these treasures, and it is related that she sang psalms of praise while ascending the funeral pile.

St. Catherine of Alexandria is a most noted example of the erudition often attained and displayed by Christian women. At the age of eighteen, says the Breviarium Romanum, she outstripped in knowledge the most learned men of her day: Maximinus, who was both a libertine and a tyrant, was cruelly persecuting the Christians of Alexandria, and dishonoring the noble matrons of that city. Catherine boldly and publicly upbraided him, and forced him to listen to her arguments. Her Acts and the Greek Menology of the Emperor Basil affirm that she supported her thesis of Christianity against the arguments of forty of the ablest heathen philosophers, and so effectually confuted them that they preceded her in her martyrdom by declaring themselves Christians, and being forthwith condemned to be burned alive. Catherine, during her imprisonment, converted the wife of Maximinus, and the commander of his army, and further made such an impression upon the crowd assembled to witness her death that many became Christians on the spot. The interesting Church of San Clemente, in Rome, contains one chapel, the walls of which are covered with frescoes illustrative of each of these occurrences; this chapel is supposed to date from the fourth or fifth century, and is a mute witness to the honor with which the memory of the illustrious and learned maiden of Alexandria was, even at that early age, surrounded. Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says of her: “From this martyr’s uncommon erudition, ... and the use she made of it, she is chosen in the schools the patroness and model of Christian philosophers.” This is by no means the only instance of a woman being honored as patroness in the roads of learning or of art. Later on, we shall have occasion to speak of other saints equally distinguished for their talents and zeal for true philosophy. Butler says in a foot-note to the Life of St. Catherine: “The female sex is not less capable of the sublime sciences, nor less remarkable for liveliness of genius. Witness, among numberless instances in polite literature and in theology, the celebrated Venetian lady, Helen Lucretia Cornaro, doctress in theology at Padua in 1678, the wonder of her age for her skill in every branch of literature, and, still more, for the austerity of her life and her extraordinary piety.”

Most of the martyrs we have hitherto mentioned were virgins: among widows and widowed mothers, we find other heroines whom no bodily torture nor that more bitter anguish of witnessing their children’s sufferings could daunt or even cause to waver.

Symphorosa, a noble Roman matron, denounced by the astrologers of Rome to the Emperor Adrian, bravely confessed her faith in the presence of her seven sons, whom she thus encouraged to do the same. She spoke of herself as honored in being the widow and sister of martyrs, and utterly scorned the proposal to forsake the truth for which they had bled. Here is a foreshadowing of the times of mediæval chivalry, which were but the legitimate offshoot from such a moral atmosphere of pure chivalric heroism as enveloped the lives of the early Christians. Invincible strength and a courage that smiled in the face of death was with the children of the primitive church a point of honor, a family tradition, a hereditary legacy. Another widow and mother, Felicitas, suffered more cruelly yet than Symphorosa; for, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, she beheld her seven children butchered before her eyes, and never ceased exhorting them to constancy, while her mother’s heart and more natural feeling were suffering a sevenfold martyrdom. She followed her sons to death with fervent joy. St. Augustine was eloquent in her praise, and on one anniversary of her triumph called her death a “great spectacle offered to the eyes of faith,” and herself “more fruitful by reason of her many virtues than of her many children.” St. Gregory, the great father, exalted her by likening her example to a new and spiritual birth of the Saviour in each soul that she thus secured to God, according to the interpretation of the words of the Gospel: “He who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.”

Another St. Felicitas, a Christian slave and widow, with her mistress Perpetua, who had also lately lost her husband, suffered death in the amphitheatre of Tharbacium, near Carthage, in Africa, rather than give up what they knew to be divine truth. Felicitas was martyred a day or two after the premature birth in prison of her child, and, when brutally jeered by the guards at her inability to suffer the pains of childbirth in silence, answered in words that to this day furnish the key to all woman’s superiority as proved by the facts of church history: “It is I that suffer to-day, and nature is weak: to-morrow Jesus himself will suffer in me, and his grace will give my nature the strength it needs” (Acts of the Martyrs). Perpetua, her mistress, but also her sister in Christ (for in the church alone resides true equality), resisted the pleadings of her aged father and the mute appeals of her infant’s unprotected condition, and bore her sufferings as it is said the Spartan women knew how to bear theirs. But while the enduringness both of men and women was in Sparta only the artificial result of compulsory laws, and soon disappeared before the shameful voluptuousness that was natural to all heathen beliefs, that of Christians of both sexes made its mark through successive generations, and lives yet in our less hardy times, because it is intrinsic to the nature of a faith whose God had no more hospitable birthplace than a cold stable, and no better death-bed than a cross.

Blandina, the martyr of Lyons, is justly celebrated for her extraordinary constancy, and the Christians of Lyons who wrote a letter preserved to history by Eusebius, and addressed to their brethren of Asia and Phrygia, extol her as the soul of the heroic stand made by many of their number against idolatry. She was a slave, very young and very weak in health, says this letter, and yet even her executioners marvelled at her powers of endurance, exclaiming: One of the tortures she has suffered ought to have killed her, and she is alive yet after them all! Further on, she is likened to a bold athlete. Some of her companions having wavered, her example and exhortations recalled them to their duty, and Ponticus, a young boy, was the last to die under her eyes, encouraged and upheld by Blandina. Potamiana, another slave, who died in defence of her honor as well as her faith, chose a more lingering death than that to which she was condemned, rather than uncover herself in public, the judge consenting to this change not in pity, but in cruelty. Her executioner became her first convert; many other men likewise came to the faith through visions of this young and steadfast virgin.

We have mentioned women in every sphere and state of life, social and domestic, as endowed with confessedly heroic powers, and capable of attaining high and noble ends in the field of religion, of art, and of philosophy. One class of women, however, remains still to be noticed, and it is perhaps the greatest proof of the church’s universal and instinctive tenderness toward the sex, that among that unhappy class she alone has been able to make fruitful the call of God. The Catholic Church has set upon her altars and in her calendar the names of many illustrious penitents and anchorites, side by side with stainless virgins and matrons of unblemished fame. The Catholic Church alone can restore to fallen woman her rightful inheritance, and so efface the brand of sin that its shame shall be merged into a glory as pure as that of baptismal innocence. To take among the martyrs but one instance of this rehabilitation, let us see what history relates of Afra, the courtesan of Augsburg, in the Roman province of Rhetia, and the present kingdom of Bavaria. Afra was of noble birth, and had many slaves and possessions. She was converted by St. Narcissus, a Christian bishop who was fleeing from the persecution then raging in Gaul. Her household as well as her mother followed her example. She succeeded in concealing Narcissus and his deacon Felix for some time in her own house, and meanwhile diligently applied herself to making converts of her friends and former associates. Denounced in her turn a little later, and sneered at for the contradiction between her past and present life, she answers the judge boldly, admitting humbly that she is unworthy to be called a Christian, yet affirming that the threatened torments will cleanse and purify her body, while the proposed sacrifice to the gods would only further stain and disfigure her soul. Bound to a stake and burned with slow fire, her intrepidity only redoubles, and, having sinned through the weakness of undisciplined nature, she shows a more than manly courage through the new-born strength of grace.

With her, we close the few practical examples of the greatness of woman during the ages of martyrdom, but the spirit that made the martyrs did not die with the last of the canonized victims of the pagan persecutions. St. Jerome speaks of a “daily martyrdom, which consists not in the shedding of blood as a testimony, but in the devout and undefiled service of the mind” (De Laud. S. Paulæ). This we propose to illustrate in a subsequent article, giving historical instances of the actual honor paid in the church to learned, holy, and influential women, rather than entering into abstract controversy on the subject of what is and is not due to her sex. What we have already said in these pages will tend, please God, to remove prejudices, and at least clear the way for evidence still more appreciable by our ambitious non-Catholic sisters, namely, that which goes to show that not only in social and home life, but also in the wide sphere of statecraft and public influence, the church has marked out a noble margin for women’s genius.

THE PASSION.

Was ever tale of love like this? The wooing of the Spouse of blood: Who came to wed us to his bliss In those eternal years with God?

Those griefless years, those wantless years, He left them--counting loss for gain-- To taste the luxury of tears, And revel in the wine of pain!

’Twas sin had mixed the cup of woe From Adam passed to every lip: And none could shirk its brimming flow-- For some a draught, for all a sip:

Till Jesus came, athirst to save: Nor sucked content a sinless breast; But grasped the fatal cup, and gave That Mother half, then drained the rest.

Enough the milk without the wine. When first the new-born Infant smiled, ’Twas merit infinite, divine, To cleanse a thousand worlds defiled.

But we must take of both. And how Could love look on, nor rush to share? Or hear us moan: “Death’s darkness now: And Thou, at least, wast never there”?

And so he drank our Marah dry: Then filled the cup with wine of heaven. Who would not live--with him to die? Or not have sinned--when so forgiven?

Lent, 1872.

JANS VON STEUFLE’S DONKEY.

I.

Jans von Steufle was a happy man until he got that donkey. Now, you might think the donkey was left him as a legacy by some dear friend or rich relation, or that Jans found him in the highway some cold wintry night and took him home in pity, or the donkey might have strayed into Jans’ enclosure and refused to go out, but no such thing; Jans bought and paid for all his trouble in good silver coin.

Jans had some comforts, however to compensate: he had a good wife. Some say, “A good wife is a rare thing,” but you never hear that sneer in German-land, for German wives and German children are taught betimes to be good. Jans’ wife kept the house clean and the kettles bright; and made Sauerkraut,[14] and Wurst,[15] and delicious Rahmkäse[16]--ah! it would melt in your mouth--and had always such nicely browned Rinderbraten,[17] and delicate gedämpftes Fleisch,[18] and put vinegar in everything.

Then such beautiful patchwork Bettdecke[19] she stitched together, and such snowy Bettwäsche,[20] you would be floated off to dream of Arabian Nights just to sleep under them. And when her fingers had nothing particular to do, that is, when she walked about the house and garden a little just before supper-time, to see that every corner was clean, and everything in good order, and the pot-herbs coming up properly, or when she went down the lane to drive home the truant chickens and little ducks who were out on some juvenile frolic, did her ten fingers rest? Oh! no, then a thread of yarn came creeping out of her pocket, and click, click, went the needles, and such stockings! You might wear them to the North Pole, only they’d be too warm.

But her great genius and tact lay in garden-making. We do wrong to apply these words to her, for she understood neither, and Jans despised both; rather be it said that her industry was made most manifest when she betook herself (under Jans’ direction, of course) to digging and planting.

Jans had a pleasant way of imparting knowledge, and at the same time making himself comfortable. Seated on a wooden bench in some shaded gravel-walk near the scene of her rural operations, with a pipe in his mouth, he would sit patiently the long hot summer afternoon, directing the putting down of pea-sticks, the tying up of hop-vines, and apportioning off the territory to be allowed to the marauding pumpkins. Some people profess to discover a striking resemblance between the human family and the great family of animals each to each, and they even run a parallel between them in physiognomy; but in a garden the similitude is perfect. No one who cultivates a garden for very love of it but what unconsciously invests his community there with a sort of intelligent existence. They are well-behaved or troublesome; in good health or pining under little ailments. Here a hardy native pushes his way to upper air, heedless alike of deluge or drought, while that other one from some far-away country, like any discontented foreigner, finds nothing to its taste, but must be sheltered, and watered, and gives a deal of trouble. Some are orderly and upright; others are inclined to crooked ways, and seldom amend until tied to a stake. The roots generally stay underground until they are wanted, while some, like the bold, conceited turnips, climb to the surface when not more than half-grown, and bask in the sunlight as if they were roses. The vine tribe care as little as human climbers whom they crush down in their aspiring efforts; onward they trail and take possession, reckless of those who have a better right. Many a pretty little plant have those green vines tyrannized over! As for flowers, we call them modest, bold, gaudy, retiring, even in common speech; and many a habit and inclination do they exhibit to a humble admirer which has never been entered in scientific books. Yes, a garden is a community of wonderful creations, where each one has its peculiarities, and yet each one conforms in a certain degree to the type of its family.

With such loving eyes did Jans and his gute Frau look on their flower-beds and their edibles; and such like matters did they often discourse about, when the spading and raking for the day were done, and she sat on the bench by his side knitting, knitting.

It is doubtful, however, whether they would have noticed matters quite so particularly, not having been educated to abstractions, comparisons, generalizations, and such like metaphysical flights, had not their attention been directed to them occasionally by a third member of their family, the very learned Herr von Heine.

Now, Jans in his efforts at amassing riches had neglected no honest means of success. Consequently, when their two children had both married well and gone to live in distant cities, and he found himself with a spare room in his house, he looked about for a tenant. Then mein herr (as he was called for brevity’s sake) presented himself, and, as his testimonials for respectability and prompt pay were satisfactory, he was soon established in the pretty little chamber with its white curtains, its patchwork bedspread, and a floor so well scrubbed you might have eaten off of it. He somewhat marred the beauty of the spot by an importation of certain odd things which he professed to consider indispensable. There was a regiment of ragged-looking old leather books, and some well-worn coats and dingy dressing-gowns, not to mention an assortment of pipes and tobacco jars and old boots, and a few warlike weapons which stuck out in a protecting way from the top of his book-shelves.

Mein herr was just now direct from the Collegienhaus[21] of the famous University at Königsberg, where he had been giving short lectures and receiving long pay, and being, therefore, on good terms with himself and the world in general, he resolved to rusticate in some secluded spot for the summer, and renovate his faculties for the next winter’s campaign.

No place could be more quiet or better suited for his purpose than his present abode. Here he could spin all kinds of cobweb theories hour after hour, with not a sound to ripple the air and demolish them, for neither Jans nor his wife ever intruded into his apartment. It was only in the soft summer evening twilight that he made his descent to the garden, and indulged in a brief social intercourse with his host and hostess. Indeed, he came almost as regularly as the sun set. His tall, straight figure enveloped in a long black sort of ecclesiastical gown, a jaunty cap on his head, with its tassel hanging down behind, a meerschaum in hand which he was bound to finish before he should retire, behold Mein Herr von Heine!--the embodiment of profound and extended erudition out for a little recreation. Mein herr was always welcome. Pleasant enough was the discourse they all held as he slowly walked up and down the gravel-walk, or took a seat beside them, especially when the subject was farm-matters; and mutually profitable was the exchange between theory and practice; many a pleasant laugh they had, too; and as to the gute Frau, she listened and smiled, and occasionally put in a modest little word, this being, according to her best belief, the extent of “woman’s rights.”

They were sitting thus one June evening, when Jans laid aside his pipe, and said, in his usual deliberate way:

“I think I’ll buy a horse, or a donkey, or a dog-cart, or something, to take all these cabbages to market.”

“Buy a donkey by all means,” said mein herr, “for a donkey, that is an ass, is classical. They are famous in sacred as well as in profane literature. No animal has always been so much the companion of man as the donkey, no one more valuable. An ox and an ass are what we are warned in the commandments not to covet, showing their universality in the days of Moses, besides being what any man in his senses would be most likely to covet. Asses are repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament. Every one has heard of Balaam’s ass, who was so much wiser than his master. I have often noted the great injustice done to that ass. Balaam bestowed on him three very decided beatings; and although he was fully convinced afterwards that they were entirely undeserved, we have no record that he made the least apology or expressed the least regret. Now, even a donkey deserves justice. Asses have pervaded all ranks in life. There was Debbora the prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth; in the Canticle, where she addresses the brave princes of Israel, she adjures them as ‘you that ride upon fair asses, and sit in judgment, and walk in the way’; on the other hand, Job predicts woe to him ‘who hath driven away the ass of the fatherless.’ Certainly, asses were everywhere. When the wealth of Abraham was counted, he-asses and she-asses made a part of it; and when he was about to ascend the mountain to sacrifice his son Isaac, we are told that ‘he arose and saddled his ass.’ Then there was Abdon, eight years a judge of Israel, who had forty sons and thirty grandsons, ‘all mounted on seventy asses,’ are the words of history. Then there was the Levite of Mount Ephraim--ah! I forget his name--his wife left him and went to stay four months with her father in Bethlehem Juda, and when he went to bring her back, he took with him ‘a servant and two asses,’ one doubtless for her use. Then the jaw-bone of the ass made famous by Samson is well known, I mean the jaw-bone he wielded at Ramathlechi, when he put his thousand enemies to flight. Some of these animals possess virtues worthy of our own imitation; they have displayed oftentimes very great intelligence, and affection for those they serve; as in the case of a certain old prophet who went forth from Juda to Bethel to denounce Jeroboam, and, being misled and turned from his duty by a pretended friend, was killed by the way on his return home; his ass was found standing patient and watchful by the side of his dead master.”

Thus discoursed mein herr; his colloquial efforts were apt to be rather prolix and oratorical, but this was to be ascribed to his profession as lecturer; he was so much accustomed, when he had unearthed an idea, to follow it up and make the most of it--a sort of intellectual fox-chase.

Failing to keep pace with him over such extended and erudite ground, Jans had, nevertheless, a dim notion that it was something to own even one donkey, so he said:

“To-morrow I will buy a donkey.”

“Ah! yes,” said the Frau von Steufle, “and next market-day we will go with a donkey.”

“You will be wise to buy a donkey,” repeated mein herr, “for now I call to mind that Sancho Panza had one whose labors, as he tells us, half-supported his family. I am reminded, also, that the great Cervantes himself rode an ass, as he relates, on a pleasant journey from Equivias with two of his friends. They heard some one clattering up from behind and calling to them to stop, and when he at length overtook them it proved to be a student, who was mounted on an animal of the same sort; he no sooner learned their names than he flung himself off of his ass, says Cervantes, whilst his cloak-bag tumbled on one side, and his portmanteau on the other, and he hastened to express his admiration of the great author of Don Quixote.”[22]

Just at this point both meerschaum and pipe had given forth their last whiff, and the knitting-work had arrived at the middle of a needle; and as the great matter under discussion, the purchase, was considered as wisely decided in the affirmative, they mutually exchanged a kind “Gute Nacht” with the inevitable “Schlafen Sie wohl!”[23]

II.

The day after the above conversation, Jans left his home for a little business in a distant city, and several more elapsed before he returned with his purchase.

Oh! vain boast when Jans von Steufle declared, “To-morrow I will buy a donkey.”

What is a donkey? In one phase of his character, he is the very personification of the stoical philosophy of the ancients; the type of that perfect indifference to all sublunary mutations to which Zeno vainly strives to elevate humankind; patient and enduring under any amount of rain, hail, snow, and sleet that can pour down on him, and any amount of luggage that can be piled upon him; totally, indifferent, in the road he travels, as to its length, direction, hostelries, or hardships, and satisfied, as far as food and sleep are concerned, with the smallest quantity and the poorest quality.

This was Jans’ idea of a donkey, but it was not what he got for his money; he got a little gray beast, with a shaggy hide, a large head, long ears, and a temper.

It was quite dark when Jackey with a boy astride him arrived from the place of his last abode; so he was quietly taken to the comfortable quarters prepared for him not far from brindle-cow, and particular introductions to him were deferred until the next morning.

The next morning ushered in market-day. The edibles had all been gathered in and nicely washed the night before; the flowers also had been culled and tastefully arranged in beautiful bouquets--some small for sweet little love tokens; some larger to decorate the tables and mantel-shelves of those people who are unhappily forced to dwell always among the bricks and mortar of the town, who paid large prices for them, and took them thankfully, as their very minute share of all the glorious and beautiful works of the Creator which are spread around life in the country. Others, again, were tied together in tall pyramid-like forms, the apex a pure white lily or perhaps a white rose, and spreading down from that to the base in blossoms that mingled all the colors of the rainbow. These were destined for the grand altar of the great church; for there were always pious souls in the town ready to expend their good groschen and thalers in adornments for the sanctuary. Very skilful are the fingers of German wives, and great their taste in making up all these tempting little articles of merchandise; and as they lay waiting in the Wohnzimmer[24] of the Von Steufle dwelling-house, you might have thought the whole garden had moved for a departure.

Breakfast was disposed of early, and immediately after it Jackey was brought out for his first load.

“He has good points,” said the learned herr, after taking a leisurely survey.

Jans knew not much about points, but he knew how to put a good load on his back, and this he now proceeded to do.

“Much discretion is necessary in purchasing a donkey,” observed the Herr von Heine--“much discrimination; wisdom and foolishness are so much alike on a cursory view. A demure aspect may represent either; and, then, a staid, dignified manner may proceed from lack of ideas, nay, even absolute stupidity, as well as from profound thought. In dealing with an animal which exhibits these traits, great penetration is called for, or you will be deceived. Then, there is a brightness of the eye, nothing vicious. Ah! I think your animal has it, a sort of exuberance of spirit, a repressed strength which can accomplish deeds almost incredible when opportunity offers. You seldom see this in pictures of the donkey race; painters seem to think it necessary to represent them dull and imbecile, which is far from being correct.”

Mein herr paused, but his friends were both too busy to reply, so he was only met by a “Freilich, mein Herr”[25] from Jans, and a smiling “Ja Wohl”[26] from his helpmate. In German-land, social life has no sharp points and corners to prick and scratch. All is polished and polite, and such a little acknowledgment of attention to a speaker could never be neglected. It was sufficient encouragement for the herr, and he proceeded. He was so accustomed to vibrate between his study and his lecture-room, that to be quite silent or to have all the talking to himself had become most natural to him, so, as we have said, he proceeded.

“Painting recalls to me Polygnotus, mentioned, I think, by Pausanias, yet I’m not quite certain. He was an Athenian painter of great celebrity, and one of his works was an allegorical picture, in which unavailing labor was symbolized by a man twisting a rope which an ass nibbles in pieces as fast as he advanced. These allegorical pictures are pleasant studies, and it is truly surprising to compare all the different interpretations of them by all the different people, who call the same object by totally different names, and of course draw from the entire composition very different conclusions. Things are generally contradictory to themselves as well as to other things, especially when viewed in that dim light which I would call, if I may be allowed an original expression, the mist of ages. We may cite for this Silenus. He is the only heathen god depicted on an ass. Now, the morals and manners of Silenus are very well known, and his association with this quadruped is complimentary to it or not, according to the view taken. It may be a panegyric on a patient, sure-footed, philosophical animal, who could put aside personal feeling in choosing his company, and bear his bibulous rider in safety when he was totally unable to walk. Or was Silenus an immortal in disgrace--degraded from horse, tiger, lion, panther, not to mention chariots and wings, all that gods and men delight in, and doomed to the indignity of donkey-back? If the latter, certainly the creature rose superior to his situation in the end; his voice must have been tremendous! In battle between the gods and giants, when Silenus rode in among them, it was his sonorous bray that threw the giant ranks in confusion and actually put them to flight. He was well rewarded for this service, for justice is in the sky if not on earth. He was exalted to the constellations. Search the star-lighted sky for Cancer, and you will find in it the once humble Asellus of Silenus.

“Midæ aures, the asinine appendages which the king was forced to accept so unwillingly on Mount Tmolus (a proper reproof to captious criticism),

‘Induiturque aures lente gradientis aselli,’[27]

were evidently a compliment to the quadruped; for certainly Apollo meant them for an improvement on his own, which had so signally failed him.”

Here mein herr came to a decided stop necessarily, for the donkey was at last loaded, and such a load! Nothing but a donkey could have stood under it, much less walk! It was cabbages this side, potatoes that side, cauliflowers in the middle. Then salad laid on loose; then celery stuck in endwise; then great bunches of sage and savory and thyme, and herbs for the soup, Petersilie and der Rettig. All these, hung on everywhere, made Jack so fragrant that his coming could be known long before he was in sight. Lastly, was a delicate little basket of eggs, engaged long ago by a dainty customer, swinging easily, so as not to break, under all.

As Jack was pretty nearly buried out of sight under the substantials of trade, the Frau von Steufle took the flowers for her share, and she was equally well laden. She could only be said to resemble an immense walking bouquet, with a pleasant, happy face peering out from its midst. Truly, the two were worth seeing. As for Jans, his great responsibility was load enough for him, and so, with good wishes and great expectations, they departed.

The Herr von Heine was alone all that long summer day. It was rather a pleasant variety at first. Solitude has charms about it. He wandered through the house, and explored every nook in the garden, and went a long way over the grass to look at the pigs; he fed the chickens and even patted the cow. The old cat seemed to think it incumbent on her to show him the premises. At all events, she escorted him hither and thither, now turning somersaults in front of him, now flying up a tree to take a bird’s-eye view of him, or perhaps to show him there were some feats not to be learned in books; then down again, in a sentimental sort of humor rubbing her head and ears against him, under his very steps; she quite disturbed his equilibrium.

The large house-dog, or, rather, yard-dog, for there he lived, looked on with a more suspicious air, as if he should like to be informed what this new state of things meant; and after returning the learned Herr von Heine’s proferred intimacy with the slightest possible wag of his tail, he walked off to attend to his own business.

Perhaps mein herr added a trifle that holiday to his stock of knowledge. He had evidently descended from his pedestal of dignity, and he enjoyed it vastly; besides, he had often introduced such things in an illustrative or figurative manner to his classes, and it was as well to make himself familiar with their surroundings.

But it was getting late now, the sun had set, twilight deepened into darkness, or rather moonlight. Where could the three be staying? Jans and his good wife were always home from market long before this hour, even when each carried a load with a barrow to wheel by turns!

He walked down to the road-way, and gazed long and anxiously into the distance. No signs of them yet! Where could they be? He returned to the house, and, ascending to his chamber, selected from among his books a volume in Latin by the renowned Cornelius Agrippa. He turned to the last chapter, “Ad Encomium Asini Digressio.”[28] He felt an intense interest at this moment in asses. It was possible some of their peculiarities had escaped his knowledge; he desired to ascertain. But he failed, under the peculiar circumstances, to fix his attention, so he laid the book aside, and returned to the regions below; to his solitary stroll up and down the gravel-walk, with an occasional pause for a long and anxious survey of the road. Even his meerschaum was forgotten or uncared for.

“But Time is faithful to his trust: Only await, thou pining dust.”

Time, which does so much, at length brought them home. To his great relief, the trio reappeared, and, creeping slowly along, turned from the road into the gravel-walk and reached the house, all three evidently depressed in spirits.

III.

Jackey had been turned loose in the paddock on his return, not for good behavior; and he alternated there between nibbling the grass as assiduously as if he had engaged to mow the whole before next daylight, and standing still with his head thrust down and fixed, as motionless as if he had been carved out of stone.

“A singular animal truly,” said mein herr to himself as he looked down from his chamber window. “He reminds me--”

Here a summons to supper interrupted the reminiscence; and, when they were all revived with the delicious hot coffee and cream which the Frau von Steufle knew so well how to mix, Jans entered on his adventures as follows:

“I thought a donkey was a great traveller, and very careful and mindful, and to be trusted, and good on bad roads, and could eat what a donkey ought to eat, and not steal what was not meant for him.”

“Of course,” said the Herr von Heine; “you are right, he is a great traveller. I tried one myself on the Alps, that is, I began the Alps on a donkey; most people begin the Alps on a donkey, next a mule, then on foot, if they try Mont Blanc. I well remember the last view I took of the Jungfrau and its avalanches from the Wengern Alps. At the Hospice of St. Bernard I took a comfortable meal from the good monks, and then on foot and mule-back I mounted by way of Martigny and Tête Noire to Chamouni. In Egypt there is nothing like a donkey for the desert; when I was at Cairo (that was in my student life), many a pleasant morning I started out on a donkey, and spent the day among the ruins about there. Great climbers they are, so obedient and sure-footed. The little white donkeys of Egypt are beauties, long silky hair; the pashas value them highly. Certainly the ass is a traveller; the wild asses of Syria are fleet as the wind. Then, what would Rome be without donkeys? or any part of Italy, for that matter? Along the coasts, the bay of Naples, Mount Vesuvius, now over sand and stones and lava, and volcanic ashes fetlock-deep, now to explore pleasant fields, and woody paths, and old highways, always picking his way so carefully up and down steep places, by some path of his own you fail to see--why, you may ride on one to the very verge of a precipice, and take your view from his back, as safely as if you crept there on hands and knees! Oh! yes, they are great travellers, though sometimes slow.”

“Very slow is Jackey,” responded his owner, “so slow that a good part of the time he stood still.”

“Possible?” queried mein herr. “Perhaps his load was rather--but yet, you can hardly overload a donkey. Why, in Rome they are perfect moving heaps of fagots, hay, fruit, old clothes, mats, brooms, and brushes, and everything, in fact, that is salable and movable, with a dirty, swarthy peasant striding beside him as driver, or, it may be, a boy; but, no, I should say they are always driven by a mob of boys. I hold that the most gregarious of all animals is the human biped in its youth; and if I were called upon for a centre-piece, with most power to collect around it these juvenile swarms of the genus homo, I should name a Roman donkey. Before him, behind him, a body-guard on each side, all sizes, in all sorts of garments, or, rather, in all degrees of nudity, shouting, yelling, laughing, talking, and each one using all his powers to increase the speed of the poor little beast--there you have a Roman donkey! I have been told of a scene in Rome. A little ass whose panniers were two good-sized baskets of eggs; it was about Easter time, when eggs are valuable. To hasten him, his driver, a tall, ragged peasant, struck him smartly, which offended him. He stood still a moment, then deliberately laid himself down, and rolled over. The peals of laughter which greeted the donkey as he arose, daubed and dripping with the yellow semi-liquid, the bewailings of his owner, all together were worth seeing. In no place in Europe are they as poorly fed and as much abused as by the lower classes in Paris; truly they are miserable-looking wretches there, bony, sulky, dirty. I have often wished to apply to the back of the ragged, screaming boy-driver the stick with which he was cudgelling his poor donkey. Monsieur Chateaubriand says he would gladly be the advocate of certain creatures, works of God, despised by men, and ‘en première ligne,’ says he, ‘figuereraient l’âne et le chat.’

“The heavy-laden ass is a verity in ancient lore; even its name is used to express hardship and endurance; as from the Greek word ὄνος, an ass, is supposed to be derived the Latin onus, signifying a burden.”

Mein herr made a pause, he was evidently lapsing into the delusion that he was in his Collegienhaus, lecturing on donkeys. The gentle frau recalled his wandering wits by observing, in a low, sad voice:

“Oh! he shook so many things off; all lost; he shook half his load off in the creek!”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the herr, “is it possible! that was not to be expected of him. Many classical writers mention loading the ass, but I cannot recall a single instance where he unloaded himself in a creek!

“Horace, it is true, refers to what might be a little sulkiness under a heavy load, when he represents himself as a sort of discontented donkey under the infliction of some of his troublesome friends:

‘Demitto auriculas ut iniquæ mentis asellus Quum gravius dorso, subiit onus.’[29]

“Then, the poor creature has been at times imposed on in a manner which might excuse resentment. In ancient Rome, for instance, on sacred days all labor was forbidden, with the exception of some certain kinds considered necessary.

‘Quippe etiam festis quædam exercere diebus Fas et jura sinunt.’[30]

“The works allowed were setting traps for birds which were hurtful, ordering the trenches which irrigated the fields, and some few others of like kind. To the rustics, permission was granted to carry their farm produce to market on sacred days, and they also might bring a load back. This was allowed them in order that this business might not interrupt them on working-days. Now, a load with them necessarily demanded an ass; consequently the ass knew no sacred day, no day of rest from his burdens, and such loads, Mynheer von Steufle!

‘Sæpe oleo tardi costas agitator aselli Vilibus aut oneras pomis; lapidemque revertans Incusum,’ etc.[31]

“Oil, cheap fruits, millstones, black pitch! Ah! mein lieber Freund what a load! I hardly believe they prefer thistles to grass, as some say, but they will subsist on one-third of what is required by a horse under all this labor.”

Jans looked at him ruefully and incredulous:

“Some may--some of them may--but I count Jack two horses at the least. He must have been eating all night, for he had enough put before him; and to-day, why, you’d think he hadn’t seen a corn-husk in a month. He ate apples and cauliflowers, and a peck of peas, and--and--”

The Frau von Steufle supplemented the catalogue of enormities.

“All my roses, thorns and all, and Katrina von Dyke’s beautiful tulips that she had just sold, and my tallest bouquet, the one that was engaged for the grand altar. O dear! what will they do? Then he chewed up a nice bonnet, and he overset the things! Dear me, so much mischief! Ah me!”

“Yes, yes,” said Jans, “it is well to say, ah me! Look at the bills that will come in to-morrow!”

“Truly,” said the herr in a tone of commiseration, “it is surprising. It was not to be expected! Yet we must look at the best of it. Horace says:

‘Nemo adeo ferus est, ut nom mitiscere possit Si modo culturæ patientem commodet aurem.’”[32]

“I know not what that may mean, Mein Herr von Heine,” said Jans, “nor do I know the Herr Horace; but I wish, if he wants a donkey, he would take mine. I wish he had him.”

The herr was silenced.

Morning came, and with it a heavy bill to Jans von Steufle for damages done by a certain donkey, who did kick, bite, tear, trample on, and devour a long list of things belonging to a long list of persons.

Evening came, and with it came a lad, halter in hand, which he quietly knotted round Jackey’s neck, and led him away, looking as solemn and as amiable as when he first arrived.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Sourkrout.

[15] Sausage.

[16] Cream-cheese.

[17] Roast-beef.

[18] Stewed meat.

[19] Bed-quilts.

[20] Bed-linen.

[21] The hall where lectures are mostly delivered.

[22] See preface to Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda: A Romance, the last work of Cervantes, and left unfinished at his death.

[23] “May you sleep well!”

[24] Common sitting-room.

[25] “Assuredly, sir.”

[26] “Ah! yes.”

[27] “And he puts on the ears of an ass quietly moving along.”

[28] “A Digression in Praise of an Ass.”

[29] “I let down my ears as a young ass of stubborn mind when he has taken a burden too heavy for his back.”

[30] “Since even on festive days, right and the laws allow us to do certain things.”

[31] “Often the driver loads the sides of the slow ass with oil or cheap fruit, and bringing back the wrought stone,” etc.

[32] “No one is so savage that he cannot be tamed if he will lend an ear to instruction.”

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE MISSION OF THE BARBARIANS.

“Our clock strikes when there is a change from hour to hour; but no hammer in the horologe of time peals through the universe when there is a change from era to era.”[33] So writes Mr. Carlyle in one of his powerful essays; and he is correct. As gradually and as silently as childhood passes into youth, and youth into manhood, and manhood again into old age, so does a nation and the world itself pass from one era into another. But if the signal of such a change is not heard sounding through the world, the moment of the transition is foreknown and has been preordained by God, under whose eye all agents throughout the universe are ever acting out their parts. Men are sometimes taken by surprise, but God never. Men are often mistaken in their calculations of the action of natural forces, but it cannot be so with God. A revolution brews like an angry storm, all in silence; and bursts; and a nation is shivered into fragments. Men are amazed; they have made a false reckoning; but the storm has brewed under the eye of God, and gathered its hidden forces, and burst at the very moment that God allowed it, and the havoc has been done up to the time which he has marked out. This is the expression of a great Catholic principle of history which it is well, especially in this age of godless theories, to keep constantly before our minds. We are about to endeavor to show how powerfully the truth of this great historical principle is brought out in that part of history to which our subject refers, for it is well said by Cesare Cantu in his Storia Universale,[34] “If ever history was manifested as a visible order of Providence, it was in these times.”

As we pass from the fourth into the fifth century, we come into a new era of the history of the church. The fourth age was one of mental strife; it was an age of great minds. The enemy of the church in the time of the persecutions had been brute force; now it was power of intellect. But God always has his champions ready. In the persecutions, they were the martyrs; in the fourth age, they were the Athanasiuses and the Ambroses. But in the fifth age the men of God’s choice are of another type. They are men out of the darkness, savages of the forest, wild dwellers amid the ice-mountains and the swamps. They have known no civilizing influences; they are nature’s children, and hardy as the rock and granite. They have reason, it is true; but it does not guide them on their strange, savage mission. They are all driven on by an instinct that is irresistible.

The words of Alaric are the expression of the feelings of all those wild warriors. As the Gothic leader is marching towards Rome at the head of his army, a solitary goes out from his grotto to arrest him in his course. “No,” replies Alaric, “a mysterious voice within me says: March on, go and sack Rome.” So we are told by Socrates[35] and Sozomen[36] in their histories. Thus, then, they go to their stupendous work of destruction. That work is characterized by blood, and smoke, and the crash of falling cities. The age is one of chaos. Never before since the world began were there such wild ruin and devastation; never such terrible levelling to the ground of human grandeur; never such savage smashing up of the monuments of luxury and worldly greatness. It would, indeed, be difficult to describe adequately what is so confused and so chaotic. When the storm-clouds have gathered and overshadowed us with darkness, when the lightning-fires flame through the sky and scathe the forest-trees, and the blinding raindrops drive in fury through the air, can we see any order in it all? Can we draw lines and mark out clearly the different elements of the storm? No. It is only when the storm is spent and the air becomes clear again that the eye can discern what havoc has been done. The giant oak has been cleft by the storm-spirit’s fiery sword; the lofty tower has been hurled down from its stately height; the rocks have been split, and the earth’s surface torn up, as by the bursting of some mighty engine of war. So it would be difficult to describe, with anything like clearness of method, the mighty storm which burst upon the Roman Empire in the fifth century. However long we pore over the pages of Paul Orosius or Salvian, we still rise from our study with bewildered brain. God lets loose his wild messengers of wrath, and they do their savage work in their own savage way. We can see no order in it--to our eye there is none. We hear the wailing cries of despair, and the frenzied howls of the conquering barbarians, and the loud re-echoing crashes of the falling empire. But it is only when the smoke has cleared off and the dust has subsided that we can form any idea of the ruin and devastation which have been accomplished. If our task, then, were mainly to draw an accurate and true picture, we should fail. But it is rather to give a view of a period of history from a Catholic philosophical standpoint: it is to show, as far as we can, the action of God on human affairs. It will be necessary, then, first to point out what the mission of the Roman Empire was--a mission to build up: and then the causes which prepared the way for the mission of the barbarians--a mission of sweeping destruction.

At the time when the Son of God came down upon earth, the Roman Empire was at the height of its splendor and power. Never in the history of the world had there been an empire in every way so wonderful. Never before had there been a power so mighty and all-embracing in its dominion. All that had been great and brilliant in the civilization of the empires of old had come down to Rome, and had undergone a boundless development there. This truth is powerfully put forth in the words of the first professor of the philosophy of history at the Catholic University of Ireland. We will quote his words: “The Empire of Augustus,” he says, “inherited the whole civilization of the ancient world. Whatever political and social knowledge, whatever moral or intellectual truth, whatever useful or elegant arts the enterprising race of Japheth had acquired, preserved, and accumulated in the long course of centuries since the beginning of history, had descended without a break to Rome, with the dominion of all the countries washed by the Mediterranean. For her the wisdom of Egypt and all the East had been stored up; for her Pythagoras and Thales, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and all the schools besides of Grecian philosophy suggested by these names, had thought; for her Zoroaster, as well as Solon and Lycurgus, legislated; for her Alexander conquered, the races which he subdued forming but a portion of her empire. Every city in the ears of whose youth the Poems of Homer were familiar as household words, owned her sway. Her magistrates, from the Northern Sea to the confines of Arabia, issued their decrees in the language of empire--the Latin tongue; while, as men of letters, they spoke and wrote in Greek. For her Carthage had risen, founded colonies, discovered distant coasts, set up a world-wide trade, and then fallen, leaving her the empire of Africa and the West, with the lessons of a long experience. Not only so, but likewise Spain, Gaul, and all the frontier provinces from the Alps to the mouth of the Danube, spent in her service their strength and skill; supplied her armies with their bravest youths; gave to her senate and her knights their choicest minds. The vigor of new, and the culture of long-polished, races were alike employed in the vast fabric of her power. In fact, every science and art, all human thought, experience, and discovery had poured their treasure in one stream into the bosom of that society which, after forty-four years of undisputed rule, Augustus had consolidated into a new system of government, and bequeathed to the charge of Tiberius.”[37]

This passage from Mr. Allies is like a brilliant flash of light thrown on Rome’s greatness; but yet it only gives us a glimpse. It would take us long to form to ourselves an adequate idea of this greatest of empires. We should have to make long journeys through her extensive provinces, measure her vast cities, march along her grand roads, and, after we had journeyed over all the civilized world of those days, we should still be within the circuit of the mighty empire. Her sway extended over the three then known continents: “Gaul and Spain, Britain and North Africa, Switzerland and the greater part of Austria, Turkey in Europe, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, formed but single limbs of her mighty body.”[38]

It is wonderful, again, to think of what Pliny calls the “immensa Romanæ pacis majestas.” The inconceivable majesty of Rome in the time of peace was, perhaps, more overpowering than anything else about her. Having a boundlessness of empire such as we have described, containing within her circuit a population, according to Gibbon, of 120,000,000, looking round from her throne of supreme authority, and claiming all as her own that was visible to the eye of civilization, she could stretch forth her sceptre over all this immeasurable area and over these countless peoples, and hold all in submission and peace. We cannot, then, be surprised that Rome ruled over the nations as a goddess; that divine power and majesty were believed to belong to her. Her sway was felt from the Rhine and the Danube to the deserts of Africa, from utmost Spain to the Euphrates, like an ubiquitous presence. Her eye of authority reached from one extremity of the world to the other, and she had her 340,000 men stationed on the frontiers, looking with watchful ken into the vast unknown solitudes beyond, and ever ready to hurl back the savage hordes of external foes, if perchance they stepped forward for a moment from their native darkness. Very few forces were needed to preserve internal order. That same Gaul which in 1860 required 626,000 armed men to preserve internal order and for external security in time of peace, had a garrison of only 1,200 men in the days of old Rome.[39] Well then may Pliny and the old Roman authors speak with such admiration of the “immensa Romanæ pacis majestas.” Nothing had ever been seen on the earth so imposing and so grand. No empire had ever existed with such a boundless sway, such wonderful internal organization, such a union of strength, such compactness of power, and such an awe-inspiring name. And at the time of Augustus there was no sign of decay or deterioration. Rome was, on the contrary, rising higher and higher in cultivation and refinement. We may here quote the words of Tertullian in his treatise De Anima; they give us a vivid and beautiful picture of the Roman Empire of his day. “The world itself,” he says, “is opened up, and becomes from day to day more civilized, and increases the sum of human enjoyment. Every place is reached, is become known, is full of business. Solitudes, famous of old, have changed their aspects under the richest cultivation. The plough has levelled forests, and the beasts that prey on man have given place to those that serve him. Corn waves on the sea-shore, rocks are opened out into roads; marshes are drained, cities are more numerous now than villages in former times. The island has lost its savageness, and the cliff its desolation. Houses spring up everywhere, and men to dwell in them. On all sides are government and life.” And so we might go on indefinitely, describing Rome’s power, and riches, and civilization, and never succeed in giving an idea equal to the great reality. Then, as we think of all this, we are led to ask ourselves, How is this mighty empire ever to fall? Other empires, we know, rose and fell, but at their highest point of greatness they could not be compared to the Empire of Rome. All that they had of might and majesty and durability Rome has, and immeasurably more. Men have not known how to qualify her power, nor how to designate her except by calling her “Eternal Rome.” Where, then, can another power come from that shall be able to cope with her? She looked as durable as the very firmament which God had set on immovable pillars, more lasting than the rock-built earth on which she had grown and developed for nearly a thousand years. Her existence was inconceivable before she began to be; her ceasing to exist was as inconceivable afterwards. It seemed as if to destroy her would be to split the earth itself on which she was based, or to shiver the universe, which she seemed to embrace in her mighty arms. Of her capital itself a great living writer says: “Look at the Palatine Hill, penetrated, traversed, cased with brick-work, till it appears a work of man, not of nature; run your eye along the cliffs from Ostia to Terracina, covered with the débris of masonry; gaze around the bay of Baiæ, whose rocks have been made to serve as the foundations and the walls of palaces; and in those mere remains, lasting to this day, you will have a type of the moral and political strength of the establishments of Rome. Think of the aqueducts making for the imperial city for miles across the plain; think of the straight roads stretching off again from that one centre to the ends of the earth; consider that vast territory round about it, strewn to this day with countless ruins; follow in your mind its suburbs, extending along its roads for as much, at least in some directions, as forty miles; and number up its continuous mass of population, amounting, as grave authors say, to almost six million; and answer the question, How was Rome ever to be got rid of? Why was it not to progress? Why was it not to progress for ever? Where was that ancient civilization to end?”[40] After looking at Rome with a human eye, this is the way we should speak; these are questions we should ask. To the human eye, Rome was based on everlasting foundations, and was to be immortal. There was no power--there could be no power sufficiently mighty to move her from her seat. But looking at her from the standpoint of the great Catholic principles of history, we shall use language very different. We shall say that Rome, however mighty and well based, will last no longer than serves the wise designs of God’s providence. He raised her up, as he has raised other empires, for a mission; when that mission is fulfilled, he will say to her, “Perish,” and she will wither away and gradually die, or, if so be his pleasure, she will be swept, as by the fury of a storm, from the face of the earth. It was the latter judgment that actually fell upon her, and we have to see in the course of this essay with what terrible reality it was carried out.

Mighty as Rome was, so was she intended for a mighty mission. She had subdued the world, and the world was at her feet. Her great highways cut through her immense empire in every direction. By these broad roads the riches of the provinces were carried to her bosom, and by these roads went forth her legions to guard the distant frontier. She had given her own language to the various races which she had bent under her sway, so that her word of command was understood and obeyed in every part of her wide empire. At this point, then, in the course of her history, God had determined to appear, in visible form, on the scene of human events. When the world was thus at peace, and under the sway of this mightiest of empires, the Prince of Peace came on earth. Circumstances never could have been more favorable for the establishment of his kingdom. It strikes us, then, here at once, that the evident mission of the Roman Empire was to prepare the way for Christianity. In spite of the opposition of pagan gods; in spite of sensual passions and human pride, the Crucified will have Rome, as has been long ago preordained, for the seat of his own wonderful empire. Thence his missionaries will go forth, like Rome’s own conquering legions, but unto still more glorious conquests than they. The broad Roman roads will rejoice more under the footsteps of these new conquerors than ever they did in days before under the tramp of warlike battalions returning booty-laden to the great capital. Everything is ready for the prosecution of these new conquests. The provinces are at peace and ready to receive these Heaven-sent messengers. Men seem to be waiting for some voice that shall be heard sounding through the world telling them to lay down their swords for ever, to forget their strifes, and that they are all brothers. Such a voice is now to be heard. The language of Rome has made itself universal in order that it may be the organ of a universal religion. When the first revelation was made, the language of the human race was one; so was it necessary that, when a new revelation was about to be given to men, they should be brought back again to unity of language, in order that revelation might be universally received, and be transmitted to future ages. The great Roman conquerors had no thought, whilst they went forth to conquest with their countless warriors, full of ideas of human glory and lust of booty, that they were the simple instruments of him who was ruling in the heavens, and whom they knew not. But so it was. And we see how God’s designs were carried out. We see, in course of time, the aged fisherman, from the Galilean Lake, wending his way toward the great Roman capital. As he walks along the Via Appia with his scrip and staff, he is the symbol of simplicity and human weakness. But mark you well that old way-worn form. There walks the first of the great race of Popes. He represents no contemptible power, that weak-looking wayfarer. He bears with him a secret source of strength which will give him courage against all obstacles. Though he looks so mean in his Jewish garb, yet he is a conqueror such as the world has not yet seen. He has no legends at his back, no surroundings of earthly might to make the world tremble before him. But he bears with him something mightier than Roman armies, and far more irresistible: it is the Cross of Jesus Christ. March on, old man, to the great city that is called the mistress of nations and omnipotent. Fear not; thou shalt subdue her with thy poor wooden cross, and plant in her midst thy everlasting throne. Yea, of a truth, the throne which that old man shall establish there shall be the first immovable throne which the world has ever seen. The throne of Cambyses has passed away; the throne of Alexander has crumbled to dust; and the throne of the Roman Cæsars will soon be buried in the wreck of barbarian invasion. But the throne of the fisherman will stand firm where he planted it, whilst everything around perishes and crumbles away. Nations and kings will mistake it for a human thing, and they will, in their blind rage, rush against it to overturn it; but they will dash themselves to pieces in the collision, and they will be seen lying around in scattered fragments, whilst that throne itself still remains immovable. So, then, the fisherman, conscious of his great mission, enters into the mighty city which God had been preparing for him those long ages. That was a solemn moment for the world, though the world knew it not. Other conquerors enter into the capitals of kingdoms with great pomp and a mighty array of armed men; and perhaps their hold upon the subdued cities is of short duration. The tide of human affairs quickly changes, and perhaps the conquerors themselves are in their turn the conquered and the captive. But this meek old man has no armed force to awe men into submission. He is the centre of no pageant. He walks on his way in silence. He has nothing but his staff and his scrip and his little wooden cross, which in reality is his sceptre. But he enters Rome to take a lasting possession of it. Not all the world in arms will ever again be able to make a permanent conquest of that city. A mystery will henceforth hang about it for ever. It will always look like a city of the past, and yet it will hold within it the life of all peoples and nations to come. By degrees, other kings shall leave it altogether to Peter and his successors, as if scared away by the mysterious presence of Christ’s vicar. And if, in the course of ages, men dream like Rienzi of the great days of ancient Rome, and long to see the old pagan prestige of the city brought back, and then come with their mailed hands and strike the mysterious power that God has established there, their mailed hands shall wither, and they will fall back stricken by Heaven in their turn, as Oza was in past days for his irreverence.

When, then, Peter had taken possession of his city, the rapid spread of Christianity began. Here was the throne of the head of the church established in the very centre of civilization and of the Western World. We cannot think that Romulus and his wild robber-followers had any profound design in fixing the site of their city on those seven hills. No; but God had. It is remarkable that Rome seems built to be even naturally and physically the centre of the world. “Nothing,” says Father Lacordaire, “is isolated in things; the body, the soul, divine grace, everything is united; all is harmonious. The body of man is not that of the irrational animal; the configuration of a country intended for one destiny is not the same as that of a country appointed to another destiny, and the general form of our globe is as full of reason as of mystery.”[41] The ancients seem to have had a traditional knowledge of this; hence it was that, when they built their cities, they made a deep and religious study of the spot which was chosen as the site. Looking, then, first at Italy, we see that God formed it for a great purpose. It is curious to remark how Asia, Africa, and Europe are united, as it were, together by the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, which also opens toward the West to allow the vessels of all nations to sail to the American continent. Into this central Mediterranean Sea, Italy shoots out its long length. On its northern side it is strongly guarded by ridges of mountains, and seems thus designed to be defended from Europe, whilst it is its heart. Almost in the centre of this Italian peninsula, more to the south than the north, and more westward than eastward, Rome is seated. She is built on seven hills, and by the borders of the Tiber, whose yellow waters roll sluggishly along between banks bare and uninteresting, and destitute of that green verdure which gives such a charm to the rivers of our own country. At a distance of six leagues eastward rises the dark line of the Apennines; looking westward, you may catch a view from some elevated spot of the bright-glancing waters of the Mediterranean; northward rises the isolated Soracte, towering up like a mighty giant, and seeming to stand as guardian of the plain. Directing your gaze southward, your eye falls on the pleasant hamlets of Castel-Gandolfo, Marino, Frascati, and Colonna.[42] In this centre of the world, then, made such by God when he formed the globe; in this centre, so wonderfully adapted for easy communication with the rest of the world, God has his central city built, and when the hour comes which he preordained in his wise Providence, he conducts the Fisherman-Pope there, and bids him there abide till the end of time. It is not likely, then, that any other city of the world, either Jerusalem or Constantinople, or any great capital yet to be built, can supplant Rome in the honor of being the city of the Popes, or that any other country will be in as true a sense the chosen country of God as Italy is. Italy was chosen, as we have seen, to be the heart of the world. Then God chose to have this great central capital from which the light of Christianity was to radiate to the four quarters of the globe. It would be easy to show what a glorious and conspicuous part she has acted in all ages through the church’s history. It is Italy which has given to the church almost the whole long line of Pontiffs who have filled the chair of St. Peter. From Italy have gone forth almost all the greatest missionaries of the world. St. Innocent says, in his Epistle to Decentius, that all the great founders of Christian churches in Gaul, Sicily, Spain, and Africa came from this favored county. To her also is Germany indebted for her first apostles; and, unless we credit the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, we must own that Christianity was first brought over into Britain by missionaries from Rome. And we are not surprised that Italy is so prolific in apostles and preachers. Nearest to the heart does the life-blood flow most quickly. Under the eye of Christ’s Vicar, and under the shadow of his presence, has the Christian life always been best realized. We cannot, then, wonder that the history of Christian Italy should furnish the highest and the most glorious pages of the history of the church. She is glorious in her countless martyrs, in her learned doctors, in her great founders of religious orders. With all this before us, we can understand the soul-stirring words of Luigi Tosti to the Italian clergy. “State sa,” he cries out, “Leviti dell’ Italiano chericato, abitatori della terra in cui la chiesa impresse sempre la prima orma dei suoi passi, quando procede all’ assunzione di una forma novella. Scalza, perseguitata, cruenta di martirio in Pietro: ricca, guistiziera, fulminatrice in Ildebrando; bella, copulatrice di due civiltà nel decimo Leone; e sempre in Italia.” We lose much of the fire and vigor of the original by translating these words into our own language, but yet we may, perhaps, venture to render them thus: “Arise, Levites of the Italian clergy, dwellers in that land on which the church always imprints her first foot-mark whenever she is about to take up a new form. Barefooted, persecuted, red with the blood of martyrdom in Peter; rich, rigid, hurling anathemas in Hildebrand; beautiful, uniting the two civilizations in the tenth Leo; and always in Italy.”[43]

Returning, then, to what we have already said regarding the Roman Empire, and seeing how wonderfully God has arranged all things for the establishment of his holy religion, we may form to ourselves an idea how rapidly the truths of Christianity would spread throughout the world. Now we see a nobler and higher use for those grand Roman roads than ever entered into the minds of those who designed and constructed them; now we perceive the advantage of that one noble Latin language being the established language of the empire; now we take in more perfectly the great design of God in laying so many nations at the feet of Rome, and inspiring them with such veneration for her very name. Thus favored on all sides, Christianity soon made its way into the cities and towns of the wide-spreading empire. We have been amazed as we have observed God working out in detail this grand scheme for the propagation of his religion. We have seen and wondered at the mighty power of that Word which was confided by Jesus Christ to the apostles and their successors. We have seen it captivating the rich and the poor alike, and baffling and finally humbling at its feet the proud philosophers themselves. We know how in a few years the Christians could be counted by thousands in Rome itself, and how they were found wherever the Roman legions had penetrated. From Rome, as from a great central sun, the light of truth shone far out in all directions, and Christian churches seemed to rise as by an invisible power, in all cities and towns near and far distant, and then shoot forth their beautiful brightness into the surrounding darkness. In Africa, as Alzog and Döllinger relate, the Christians soon outnumbered the pagans. And we know well, for there is no one who has not read them, the famous words of Tertullian, in his Apologetica: “We are but of yesterday, and already we fill your towns, your villages, your fortresses, your islands, your assemblies and your camps, the senate and the imperial court; we leave you nothing but the temples.” In studying the first ages of the church’s history, what glorious things do we witness, and how strongly is the conviction forced upon us that God is there ruling events and using men for his own great purposes! We see the Roman legions transforming themselves, as did the Thundering Legion, into so many phalanxes of conquering Christians, who rushed to victory under the impulse of the grand idea that they were thus subduing new countries to the rule of Christ.[44] We see those victorious legions carrying with them their laws, their customs, and their schools to the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, and there planting civilization and the faith of Christ. We wonder less at this when we think what noble Christian hearts were burning in the breasts of those brave men, and how oftentimes they laid down their lives as martyrs for Christ’s name. We can never forget the noble Theban legions dying at the foot of the Alps, thus giving by their heroic martyrdom the first lessons of Christian teaching to the people of Switzerland. In the camps of Rhætia, Noricum, and Vindelicia, again, we see Christian soldiers sowing the seeds of their holy religion on every side of them. How beautiful a thing did it appear to the devoted Ozanam to follow the footsteps of these early missionaries, to represent to himself the hymns of redemption rising heavenwards amidst the silence of the pagan forests, and to see in imagination the barbarians receiving the waters of baptism at the same fountains which their fathers adored![45] The more closely, then, we study the manner in which Christianity was propagated in the first ages, the more clearly does the mission of the Roman Empire stand out before our eyes. It becomes more and more evident, the longer we look at facts, that Rome’s conquering legions, her great far-reaching roads, her laws, and her one universal language were all made use of by God in a wonderful way, not only to prepare the way for, but also for the establishment of his great spiritual kingdom upon earth.

Thus far we have considered the Roman Empire as working for God, as aiding in a remarkable manner the propagation of Christianity. Thus viewed, the Roman Empire was on God’s side. But from another point of view we know how bitterly she opposed God’s work. Never was there such dire war made against God as during the three hundred years of the persecutions. We have now to glance at these years of blood and hatred, since they are a part of the explanation why in later times there came, by God’s sending, such a whirlwind of wrath on the mighty empire that it was shaken to its very foundations, and fell with a crash which made the whole universe tremble. We do not intend to dwell on the more minute details of these strange, sad years, but only to refer in a general way to the cruelty of the persecutors and the heroic conduct of the children of the cross in the presence of death.

Towards the end of the first seventy years of the Christian church, we see the imperial garden at Rome the scene of a strange festivity. The Roman people are there assembled on a dark night for an entertainment. The Emperor Nero is seen passing to and fro in his imperial carriage, followed by the senators in their costly equipages amidst the shouts and plaudits of the people. It is the opening of the first persecution. The long, shady avenues are lighted up by living torches--human beings covered over with burning pitch are serving as festal lamps. In the open squares of this garden we see women and children, belonging to some of the noblest families of Rome, clothed with the skins of wild beasts, and cast to hungry dogs, which devour them alive. Meanwhile Nero laughs with savage glee at the success of his new invention, and his myrmidons congratulate him on the ingenuity he has displayed in it. This is only a glimpse--but we need no more.

Later on we see that other monster Domitian, shut up in a dark chamber of his palace, holding with fiendish satisfaction the end of the chain which binds the limbs of those who are brought before him for trial. We see him oftentimes presiding in person and gloating with a wild beast’s gusto over the tortures inflicted on innocent Christians. In his reign, virtue became a crime, and the followers of Christ were put to death throughout the whole extent of the empire as being the declared enemies of the state. We do not wonder that Domitian acquired for himself the odious name of “the tyrant whom the universe detested,” as Suetonius tells us in his Life of this emperor. Neither can we wonder that the Roman people endeavored to blot out even his very name from their memory. Lactantius tells us, in his De Morte Persecutorum, that his statues were broken to pieces, and his inscriptions effaced from the proud monuments which his hands had raised.

As we pass on to Trajan and Adrian, we find no reason to be partial to their memories. Though no new edicts of persecution were published during their reign, yet Christians were put to death in great numbers throughout the empire. When we think of Trajan’s persecution, a grand, saintly figure always rises before our minds--it is St. Ignatius of Antioch, as he himself has sketched in striking outlines, in his famous Epistle to the Romans, the sublime ideal of the Christian martyr, and he realized with wonderful exactitude that ideal in his own person.

The student of church history well remembers the bold independence of the holy man as he stood before the emperor at Antioch; and the courageous joy with which he went to the amphitheatre to be the victim of wild beasts and a spectacle to the bloodthirsty Romans, is one of those glorious things which the church points to as characteristic of her great martyr-bishops.

Again, when we think of Adrian, we recall that symbol of his cruelty, the brazen bull, into which, when heated to red-heat, the faithful veteran Eustachius with his wife and family was cast. His name, too, brings back to our memory the brave widow Symphorosa and her seven sons. The cruel scene of torment is again enacted before our minds. We think how the poor mother was suspended aloft by the hair, all bruised and mangled as she was by hard lashes, whilst the bodies of her children were opened before her eyes with knives and iron hooks. Such facts as these are certainly not calculated to persuade us that Adrian’s character was one of mildness and clemency, as profane historians would have us believe. To this emperor belongs, as Tillemont tells us, the odious distinction of having profaned in the vilest manner those holy places which are so dear to Christian hearts. He defiled the holy Mount of Calvary by erecting thereon the sensual figure of Venus; he desecrated the sacred Cave at Bethlehem by setting up the statue of Adonis; and he placed, as though in jeering triumph, the image of Jupiter over the tomb of our blessed Saviour. Under the influence of Adrian’s zeal, paganism experienced a temporary revival; idolatry seemed to regain new life and vigor, and made a great effort to substitute the trophies of the devil for those of Jesus Christ. Adrian went so far as to erect temples in his own honor, which, as Döllinger says, have been falsely supposed by some to have been places of Christian worship. Adrian died at last a wretched prey to his crimes. As he writhed in agony and rotted away under the violence of a loathsome disease, he called a thousand times upon death to come to his deliverance. But death came slowly to the cruel torturer of Symphorosa and her sons.

As we pass rapidly on down these years of blood, our eye is again arrested, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, by the grand figure of glorious Polycarp, who rises then distinct and clear to our view, as he stands up bravely on his funeral pile above the heads of the Roman rabble, overspanned by his triumphal arch of fire. As the venerable martyr went to his trial, a voice from heaven spoke to him these words: “Courage, Polycarp, quit thyself like a brave man.” And so he did. No one can read without emotion the beautiful, calm answer which the old man gave to the proconsul who ordered him to “blaspheme against Christ.” “It is now eighty-six years,” the aged martyr replied, “that I have served him. How then can I blaspheme against my Lord and Saviour?” His noble words and his heroic death inspired courage in thousands of Christians who afterwards gave their lives for Christ. We learn, also, that during this persecution Christians who had been for some time detained in the prisons were massacred en masse, and that the Rhone flowed all red and ghastly with the blood which countless martyrs had shed on its banks. But the emperor-philosopher felt his impotence to destroy the ever-dying yet ever-multiplying race of Christians. “Vary their torments,” he writes, in his despair, to the governors of the provinces; and then we see the victims of his hatred crucified, burned, or cast to the wild beasts. Modern men of science may rank Marcus Aurelius with philosophers, but we are inclined to believe, with M. Leroy, that it was his infamous cruelty towards the Christians rather than true wisdom which has made them pass over in silence his shameless turpitudes and grant him this proud distinction.

During the raging persecution which Septimius Severus had enkindled against the Christians, we see St. Perpetua going boldly to death, bearing in her arms her new-born child. Her aged pagan father, kneeling in tears at her feet and begging her to sacrifice to the gods, could not deter her from advancing, with firm step and calm look, to meet the wild beasts of the circus. We see Felicitas, Saturninus, Revocatus, and others accompanying her through the savage crowd to the same fate. What a grand procession of heroes--something to look at till our tears flow and our hearts are set on fire! As they advance proudly along, the voice of Satur, one of their number, is heard giving forth those scathing words to the wild crowd that surrounded them: “Look well at us, that you may know us again at the judgment-day.”

Turning our eyes to Alexandria, we find that city a great centre of persecution at this time. There it was that the most intrepid defenders of religion, and the stern, penitential men of the Thebaid, were summoned to crown their noble lives by the heroism of martyrdom. And again is the blood of martyrs flowing like water in the streets of Lyons. St. Irenæus and twenty thousand Christians are immolated in honor of Christ’s name. The work of extermination is continued with unrelenting vigor under the gigantic son of the Thracian peasant. Maximin deals out his blows of death with the power and fury of a Cyclops. But the brave Christian hearts, braced up to noble deeds by the secret indwelling presence of their Lord, do not quail before his terrors. And in the midst of the bloody fray, we hear the soul-inspiring voice of great Origen, calling aloud to his brethren in these words: “Behold, generous athletes, your portion--a tribulation above all tribulations, but yet a hope above all hopes; for the Lord knows how to glorify, by his rewards, those who have thought little of this poor earthen vessel, which death so easily breaks to pieces. I should like to see you, when the combat is at hand, bounding with joy as did the apostles in their day, who rejoiced that they were found worthy to suffer outrages for the name of Jesus. Remember ye the words of Isaiah, ‘Fear not the reproach which comes from men, and let not yourselves be cast down by their contempt.’ Men laugh to-day, and to-morrow they are no more; already the eternal pit swallows them up for ever. When you shall be on the arena of combat, think with Paul that you are a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. If you triumph, Christians will applaud your courage; the heavenly spirits will rejoice at your victory. But if you yield, the powers of hell will shout for joy, and will come forth in myriads from their fiery abyss to meet you. Fight, then, valiantly, and, in imitation of Eleazar, leave behind you, as a remembrance of your death, a noble example of constancy and virtue.”[46] These noble words are worthy of the generous soul and the marvellously gifted mind of the great doctor of Alexandria. They sound forth with a soul-stirring, awakening power, like a trumpet-blast from heaven. And, no doubt, many a trembling heart was nerved into courageous daring by them; many a glorious victory was won under their influence which would otherwise have been lost. And it was in the next persecution under Decius that such powerful, encouraging words were needed. Never yet since the empire began to make bloody war against Christ’s followers had the Christians more need of strength and help; never had they more need than now to picture to themselves the depths of the fiery abyss, and the bright glories of God’s kingdom. Decius came to his bloody work with a resolution to succeed at any cost. His orders went abroad over the empire to all governors and public functionaries, that every conceivable torture was to be used in order to force the Christians to renounce their faith. It was not, then, prompt, quick death that was now the order of the day, but slow, cruel torture. We have a picture of the horrors of this persecution in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa. “The magistrates,” he says, “suspended all cases, private or public, to apply themselves to the great, the important affair--the arrest and punishment of the faithful. The heated iron chains, the steel claws, the pyre, the sword, the beasts, all the instruments invented by the cruelty of man, lacerated, by night and by day, the bodies of martyrs; and each tormentor seemed to fear that he might not be as barbarous as his fellows. Neighbors, relatives, friends, heartlessly betrayed each other, and denounced Christians before the magistrates. The provinces were in consternation; families were decimated; cities became deserts; and the deserts were peopled. Soon the prisons were insufficient for the multitudes arrested for their faith, and most of the public edifices were converted into prisons.”[47] We find, also, St. Denis of Alexandria speaking in moving language of the persecution which he witnessed in his own city. He tells us that the numbers of the martyrs were past counting. No regard was paid to sex, age, or rank; men, women, children, and old men were tormented with equal cruelty. Every species of torture was employed, and every imaginable cruelty used to increase the horrors of death.[48] Again, at Smyrna, Antioch, Lampsacus, Toulouse, Nîmes, and Marseilles, martyrs died in thousands. In fact, wherever we turn our gaze, we see throughout the length and breadth of the empire the blood of Christians flowing.

During the reign of Valerian the monotonous work of death goes on, but, perhaps, as we advance, the destruction of Christians becomes more wholesale. At Utica the heads of one hundred and fifty followers of Christ fell at once, and at Cirta in Numidia we see an atrocious butchery taking place which lasts the greater part of a day. The martyrs are led into a valley with ranges of hills rising to a great height on both sides, as if to favor the spectacle. They are ranged in line, their eyes bandaged, along the river-side; and the executioner passes on from one to another, striking off their heads.[49] It was, perhaps, a glad sight for the savage idolaters who thronged the high hill-sides to witness the bloody slaughter, but it was a sublime spectacle, too, for the angels of heaven, as they looked down upon those brave soldiers of Christ, and saw them standing in calm, joyful silence by that African river-bank and receiving their bright martyrs’ crowns.

The ages of blood came to an end with the Diocletian persecution. It would be difficult to imagine that anything new in the way of torture could be invented at this date. Ingenuity and malice had already done their worst in the matter of inventions; but Diocletian and his associates brought with them a qualification in which they were surpassed by none of their predecessors, and that was an intense hatred for the Christian religion. Never had the rage and fury of persecutors been greater than was displayed by these “three ferocious wild beasts,” as Lactantius calls them; and never, consequently, did the blood of Christians flow more copiously. Hell was making its last great effort. Though we are accustomed, in traversing these centuries of terrible bloodshed, to read of cruelties which are almost beyond belief, yet we are startled into new horror when we find in this tenth persecution an entire town with its twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants consumed by fire because it is a town of Christians. Each province has its peculiar species of torture. In Mesopotamia, it is fire; in Pontus, the wheel; in Syria, the gridiron; in Arabia, the hatchet; in Cappadocia, iron bars for breaking limbs; in Africa, hanging; the wooden horse in Gaul, and wild beasts at Rome.[50] Where, we ask, as we gaze over the wide-stretching empire, is not the blood of Christians flowing? Its voice rises heavenwards from the cliffs of Tangiers; it saturates the plains of Mauritania; it springs from wounded combatants on the shores of Tyr; but nowhere over the wide earth is it poured out for God’s glory without his taking count of it. The blood of martyrs will not cry to heaven in vain; God’s day of reckoning with the empire will surely come.

But we can dwell no longer on these ages of heroic sacrifice. Pascal has truly said that “the history of the rest of the Romans pales beside the history of the martyrs.” Whoever wishes to see the full force of this remark, let him read the Acts of the Martyrs, in the history of Eusebius, or the charming pages of Ruinart, or in the ponderous tomes of the Bollandists. Nowhere in Christian literature is there anything so simply and touchingly eloquent. The Acts of the Martyrs constitute a drama whose character is most sublime, and the interest of which is more than ravishing. In order to express our idea more perfectly, we will borrow the words of Mgr. Freppel. “If there be a drama,” he says, “each of whose acts bears a special character, whilst at the same time perfect unity is preserved, it is the Acts of the Martyrs. Here we have a bishop who puts to confusion a proconsul by the calm constancy of his faith; there we have a virgin who mingles with her answers that enthusiasm of love with which her heart is on fire. In another place, we have the Christian mother surrounded by her sons, who confess one after another the simple faith of their infancy, and pass from mouth to mouth the testimony of truth. Again, we have the Christian soldier, who reveres in Cæsar the majesty of power, but who places above all imperial honors the worship of the King of kings. In this magnificent epopee of martyrdom, to which each persecution adds a new song, the scene varies according to time and place; it is the fidelity of love and the grandeur of sacrifice which constitute its unity.”[51] It is there that we have put before us the most beautiful and the most noble characters that have ever done honor to the human race. We find nothing sordid, nothing selfish, nothing haughty in these heroes. They are meek and humble, yet brave and high-souled, and strikingly grand in the face of death. Profane history may ransack its annals, but it will never be able to show us characters so noble and so admirable. Their equals are not to be found in the Lives of Plutarch, nor in the pages of Eutropius. How true is it that the Catholic Church alone is the Mother of Heroes! The heroism of the martyrs was of that kind for which all ordinary theories fail to account. It gave strength to the tottering frames of venerable old men; it made timid virgins courageous in the presence of hideous racks; it spoke by the lisping tongues of frail infants. Let the profane historian point to any scene that can equal in simple grandeur the trial and death of the gentle, sweet St. Agnes, or in heroic endurance the painful, slow martyrdom of the beautiful Agatha, the glory of Sicilian virgins. Let him tell us of anything, either in profane fact or fable, which can equal in purity and strange boldness the beautiful history of Eulalia, the child-saint of twelve summers, whose name is celebrated in touching harmonies by Prudentius as the glory of Merida, the sweet Lusitanian city which stands on the flowery banks of the rapid Guadiana. Let him tell us of anything, even in the fancied facts of strangest romance, that is half as marvellous as the history of St. Cyr, the child-confessor and martyr of three years old, who, when he was taken up into the governor’s embrace to be coaxed into apostasy, lisped out his brave confession, “Christianus sum,” and was dashed to pieces on the steps of the tribunal. Will the profane historian speak of wonderful endurance? We invite him to look at the child Barallah, in his seventh year, who was suspended in the air and scourged before his mother’s eyes, and who, as his blood sprang out on all sides, and his little bones were stripped of their flesh, could be brave and unflinching whilst the rough executioners themselves shed tears of pity. As the blood flowed from his body, the little martyr cried out in the burning heat of his torments, “I am thirsty; give me a little water.” His brave mother reproved him, saying, “Soon, my son, thou wilt be at the source of living waters”; and she carried her child in her arms to the spot where he was to be beheaded, and as his head was severed from his body she received it into her veil. Tell us, profane historian, of great mothers like this. Tell us if your greatest heroes could be so invincible in the midst of suffering as the child-martyrs of the Catholic Church.

The three ages of martyrdom in the church’s history are emphatically the ages of great heroes. No brave man that ever went to death for any other cause went so boldly or was so calm and dignified as the Christian martyr in the presence of the executioner. Never before in the annals of the human race were men known to go to death rejoicing; never before were they seen to smile and be glad when brought in sight of the rack and the gibbet. This perfection of courage and sublime self-possession were seen every day among the martyrs of the church. This it was that amazed the frantic rabble which witnessed their sufferings; it was this that oftentimes enraged the Roman governors so far as to drive them to order the death-blow to be inflicted before the torturers had done their appointed work. The joy with which the martyrs gave their blood for Christ’s holy name is one of the problems which unchristian philosophers have never been able to solve. These so-called thinkers have never been able to comprehend the long, mysterious blood-shedding of those three hundred years. The Christian philosopher alone, with his great Catholic principles of history, can understand that blood-shedding is the mysterious law which characterizes in such a striking manner the great work of the Incarnation. As he gazes into the past, he sees the sacrificial blood flowing in every nation’s worship. Far back in the ages of the patriarchs, he can discern the red stream glistening; and as his eye still gazes, he sees it flowing ever onward, with typical significance, through the centuries, until it meets the God-man’s sacred blood pouring down from the Cross of Calvary. There the typical was merged in the real. He can see, again, how congruous it seems that, after the great sacrifice of the cross had been typified through the proceding ages by an ever-flowing stream of blood, and after Christ had poured out all his own blood on the hill of Calvary, and it had flowed down so copiously on the sinful world, his first followers and disciples should in their turn shed their blood for him. This abundant blood-shedding, this wondrous heroic self-sacrifice, was a testimony which honest men could not withstand, for, as Pascal says, “men believe witnesses who shed their blood.” To die willingly and joyfully for another was something of which the world had not yet heard. Jesus Christ, then, wished to show the mighty power of his doctrine. He would let the world see what wonders his cross could work in the souls of men. He wished to make it manifest to all men’s eyes what courage it could give in the presence of the most terrible racks; how it could so influence the weak and timid as to make them joyful when they were taken to die; how it could be a consolation and an ineffable sweetness in the midst of torments the most painful. All this he did manifest to the world in the most striking light. His martyrs were such characters as the world had not seen before; what was terrible to others was not so to them; when others would shriek with agony, they would smile with joy; when others would languish and faint under the lash and the knife, they could calmly remark with St. Eulalia as she looked at her wounds: “They write your name all over my body, sweet Jesus.” Truly, the cross planted amidst a very sea of blood, generously shed for the love of the Crucified, is the grand central point of all history, which men may look back at, and gaze upon with admiration and ravishment to the end of time.

But, returning to our former point of view, and looking upon these centuries of terrible blood-shedding as the fierce, furious war which the Roman Empire waged against God and his religion, we naturally ask ourselves a question, Where is the great God of the Christians whilst his children are being immolated to pagan savagery throughout the whole earth? Does he from his high heaven take note of what is done? Oh! he who sees the sparrow fall does not lose sight of his children, nor does his eye fail to see the sufferings which they endure for him. The voice of his martyrs rose heavenwards with a mighty cry during those three hundred years. It rose from the saturated floor of the Roman amphitheatre; it spoke with pleading eloquence from the depths of the mines of Numidia; it echoed incessantly in the ear of God from amid the solitudes of Pannonia. God was not at any time deaf to that cry. He was slow in his anger, but, then, on that account he was the more terrible. Whilst Nero was shedding the first Christian blood at Rome, God was silently gathering together his avenging armies in the forests of the north. It took him more than three hundred years to marshal his overwhelming warrior-hosts; but, O heavens! what a direful shaking of the universe when they did come!

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Carlyle’s Miscellanies, vol. ii., “On History,” p. 151.

[34] Vol. i. p. 44, French ed.

[35] Eccl. Hist., vii. 10.

[36] Hist. ix. 6.

[37] Allies, Formation of Christendom, vol. i. p. 42.

[38] Allies, Formation of Christendom.

[39] See Formation of Christendom, by Mr. Allies.

[40] Dr. Newman, Office and Work of Universities, pp. 161, 162.

[41] Œuvres du R. P. Lacordaire, tome vi. p. 172.

[42] See Père Lacordaire’s Lettre sur le Saint-Liège.

[43] Tosti, Al Clero Italiano; Prolegom.-alla Storia Universale, vol. i.

[44] See Leroy, vol. ii. p. 295.

[45] See Ozanam, La Civilisation chrét. chez les Francs, p. 4.

[46] Origen, Exhortatio ad Mart., passim, quoted by Leroy.

[47] St. Greg. of Nyssa, Vita Thaumat., p. 578.

[48] See the sixth book of Eusebius’ Hist. of the Church.

[49] See Darras’ History of the Church, Amer-edit., p. 262.

[50] See Eusebius’ History, book viii. ch. 12, and following.

[51] Les Pères Apostoliques, 20me leçon, p. 433.

ACOUSTICS AND VENTILATION.[52]

Every effort to elucidate what is obscure, or to provide a remedy for acknowledged evils, is a just title to that friendly acknowledgment which the writer of this little book bespeaks. It is a step in the direction of progress. But it is of the highest importance in the attempt to impart clear ideas upon any subject, that they should be so distinctly expressed as to leave no doubt concerning the identity of their subject. Thus, in treating of sound, it seems to us that the question first presented is this: What is sound? Our author says that it “receives its vitality or its life through the air, and without air sound loses it and becomes extinct.”

We object to this statement of the origin of sound, as both unsatisfactory and indistinct. It implies that sound is something born and floating in the air, and external to the mind perceiving. We fancy that, without an ear to hear, sound would not become extinct, but have no existence; and that the vitality of which our writer treats is not in or on the air, but in the mind itself. This exception to the supposed origin of the life of sound may not seem to affect the discussion of acoustics as far as the practical purpose of the architect is concerned; but we insist that neither the drumsticks nor the drum, nor the air within it or without, nor even all these at work, are sound, more than the telegraph wire and the electric current are the message sent from one operator to another.

That inaccuracy which we discover in our author’s use of terms, we find also in his quotations from others. For example: “The intensity of sound depends on the density of the air in which the sound is generated, and not on that of the air in which it is heard. A feeble sound becomes instantly louder as soon as the air becomes more dense. So you will always find, on great elevations in the atmosphere, the sound sensibly diminished in loudness. If two cannon are equally charged, and one fired at [from] the top of a high mountain, and the other in a valley, the one fired below, in the heavy air, may be heard above, while the one fired in the higher air will not be heard below; owing to its origin, the sound generated in the denser air is louder than that generated in the rarer. Peals of thunder are unable to penetrate the air to a distance commensurate with their intensity on account of the non-homogeneous character of the atmosphere which accompanies them; from the same cause, battles have raged and have been lost within a short distance of the reserves of the defeated army, while they were waiting for the sound of artillery to call them to the scene of action.”

It seems to us that the truth here expressed is not unmixed with error. In the very first sentence, we think that accuracy would require the suppression of the word not. The intensity of sound depends not only upon the density and elasticity of the air whose pulsation is an antecedent condition, but also upon the density and elasticity of the air through which the pulse is transmitted. While it is true that a pulse given to the denser column or stratum of air may be transmitted through a rarer medium with greater resultant force than if its origin and direction were reversed, it by no means follows that the intensity of sound is unaffected by the density of the air in which it is heard. We apprehend the truth to be that the pulse given to highly rarefied air is very feeble; and its secondary effect upon a denser and more elastic fluid, correspondingly slight; while the pulse from the denser air would be transmitted with greater--but still diminished--force, through the rarer atmosphere in which it reaches the ear. An absolute vacuum could not transmit the pulse given through a column or stratum of elastic fluid. A rarefied atmosphere could but transmit it with a force always varying with its own elasticity. And were it possible to preserve one’s consciousness within the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, we doubt if the most sensitive ear could be made to hear the roar of a cataract without.

“A feeble sound becomes instantly louder as soon as the air becomes more dense;” but not as loud as if the same initial pulse were immediately given to the denser air. In the case of two cannon equally charged, one of which is fired on the top of a mountain, and the other in a valley below it, to say that “owing to its origin, the sound generated in the denser air is louder than that generated in the rarer,” sounds much like saying it is because it is. If it be more than this, it is wrong. It is a clear case of non causa pro causa. The origin [of the pulse] of sound is in either case the same: the explosion of equal charges of gunpowder, in guns supposed to be of like material and equal size. The effects are not the same, because the effect of a force depends upon its transmission as well as upon its origin.

Does the atmosphere “accompany” peals of thunder? Or does this expression convey a distinct idea of the office of the atmosphere in the production of sound? We understand that the atmosphere receives the pulse or blow, and that its transmission to the ear is due to the elastic force of the intermediate air. It is not the homogeneousness of air, but its elasticity which transmits the pulse. And though, in architecture, the object sought is a uniformly elastic air throughout the auditorium, it does not follow, nor is it even desirable, that the maximum effect at a given point should be obtained by it.

“Science,” says our author, “teaches us that, whenever a shock or pressure of any sort is suddenly applied to material of any nature, whether metal, wood, gas, water, air, etc., it is immediately affected in all its parts, from the point of contact to the whole extent of the material, in displacing and replacing the particles of a determinate volume; and the velocity of the movement of the particles of the mass, created by the concussion of shocks or pressure, depends solely (?) upon its elasticity and density. Sound likewise causes motions (?) with every particle of the air, and as far as the motion reaches; so that each particle, with regard to that which lies immediately beyond it, is in a progress of rarefaction during return.”

What is meant by affecting a mass of matter “in all its parts,” by “displacing and replacing the particles of a determinate volume,” we do not precisely understand. That whatever causes motion does it “as far as the motion reaches,” is as unquestionable as any other identical proposition. But that the velocity of the movement of the particles, created by the concussion of shocks, pressure, upon an unconfined elastic fluid, depends solely upon its elasticity and density, we dispute. That pulses “are propagated from a trembling body all around in a spherical manner” may be true, if the air is on all sides equally elastic. Such might be the case with those produced by the vibrations of a bell, when the surrounding air is undisturbed by other causes, and is uniformly elastic at equal distances from it. It would not be strictly true if the initial pulse were made only in a certain direction. “Every impression made on a fluid is propagated every way throughout the fluid, whatever be the direction wherein it is made;” but it is not true that the impressions are equal at equal distances from the initial pulse, irrespective of its direction. This result would presuppose a fluid perfectly elastic; which we never have--and then we might, with equal truth, say that the impressions would be equal at all distances.

Everybody is familiar with the fact that the “transmission of sound,” the pulse which strikes upon the ear to produce the sensation, is affected by currents of air--the direction, force, and velocity of the wind--between the initial pulse and the hearer. How? and how much? directly or indirectly? are questions distinct from the fact itself. The distance through which guns are heard, as well as the loudness of their report, varies with the direction, force, and velocity of the wind; and, in very still air, with the aim of the gun itself, the direction of the initial pulse. For short distances, these differences may be so minute as to escape notice; just as the false proportions of a miniature picture are unobserved until the magnifier displays them. And for longer ranges, they are so small, in contrast with the magnitudes compared, as to seem rather like accidental than legitimate differences. But the difference is not the less real because the reality is less. Words spoken in a faint whisper are clearly heard by a listener immediately before the speaker, when quite inaudible or indistinct to one at an equal distance behind him.

The actual velocities of wind and sound differ so widely that the small fraction by which their relative velocity is denoted is held as proof that the propagation of sound--the pulse--through distances of a few yards or feet, is not affected by currents of air: that there are no differences in the “velocity of sound.” Yet the ear detects them as one of the small differences between discord and harmony in music; distinctness and confusion of speech. In music these differences may be blended by the prolonged intonation of vowel sounds; but in speech, whose distinct significance is due to consonants, “which cannot be sounded without the aid of a vowel,” these differences are fatally evident. The sharp edges of the vocal pulses, which give shape and meaning to vowel sounds, are destroyed alike by a husky voice and a puff of air. What remains is vox et præterea nihil.

It seems to us that some of the many failures in practical acoustics come from considering the air--the material involved--as perfectly elastic. From this it is inferred that sound is not affected by the direction of the initial pulse: that the direction and velocity of the effective pulse are not varied by currents and blasts of air. In short, that the slight inaccuracy of these assumptions will be the actual measurement of resultant error.

Were the purpose only to ascertain the acoustic properties of unadulterated air, varied experiments might eliminate the errors of anomalous results. But when the process is reversed, and we deduce effects from only one among concurrent and conflicting causes, theory is confounded by discordant facts. Theories of sound in purely elastic air might give results approximately realized in practice, if the actual pulses with which we are concerned were given by a flail; but are pregnant of error when the atmosphere is mixed with vicious vapors, and the pulse is a breath of air. Then, the assumption that “pulses of sound” proceed equally in all directions from the initial point, is simply false; and theories based upon it can only complicate the problems to be solved.

Water, as well as air, is a highly elastic fluid, and, if confined and subjected to pressure, the force applied is exerted on all sides of the confined volume. But the effect of a pulse or blow upon a surface of large extent varies with the direction of the force as well as with its power and velocity. We have seen fish swimming near the surface killed or paralyzed by a blow upon the water immediately over them. And we have seen the blow fail of its intended effect solely because it was misdirected. Perhaps the water in the latter case was not perfectly elastic! Neither is the air of churches and public halls, when their atmosphere has yielded a portion of its oxygen, and, in return, is charged with carbonic acid and moist vapors from the breath of crowded assemblies. Carbonic acid gas is heavier by one-half than atmospheric air. It does not, then, always rise toward the ceiling or roof, but remains in solution with impure exhalations; or else, condensed by contact with the colder walls, descends to poison the lower air and impair its elastic force--its power of transmitting the “pulse of sound” to the ear.

We have just come from one of our city churches, where we have had a striking example of this result. The church in question will accommodate (?) about two thousand people. Twenty-five hundred may be crowded into it. At the commencement of the sermon, the preacher’s voice was distinctly audible at points fifty or sixty feet from the pulpit, in spite of reflections of sound--air pulses--from galleries, wooden columns, and the arched ceiling and side-walls, of lath and plaster. Before it was ended, the exhalations of the breathing crowd had so filled the lower half of the “auditorium” that only vowel sounds could be distinguished; and the peroration seemed to consist of spasmodic utterances--scarcely sounds--of a, e, i, o, u. W and y had lost their affinity to vowels, and the rest of the alphabet were no longer consonants, for they were not heard at all.

The acoustic and sanitary problems are here identical--to find a method of preventing an accumulation of foul and inelastic vapors around the breathing and listening congregation, and to give, instead, wholesome air to their lungs, while enabling their ears to hear. And since these poisonous and inelastic gases are specifically heavier than atmospheric air, and must fall to the floor by their own weight, the problem is reduced to providing a practicable way for their escape, and guarding it against counter-currents which might obstruct the passage.

The introduction of warm air through openings in or near the floor will not readily produce uniformity of temperature within a room. The simplest experiment in proof of this is constantly made by multitudes of people, who, in crowded assemblies, find their heads surrounded by warm and moist vapors, reeking with offensive odors, while their feet are chilled, though near the “hot-air register.”

A library, whose walls were 12 feet high, and whose floor--18 by 15--contained 270 square feet, was constantly warmed by a “Latrobe heater,” placed in the chimney at one end of the room. The pot holding the coal was raised one foot above the level of the floor, which was covered by a woollen carpet. Immediately under the library was a kitchen, whose temperature was kept at about 72° F. Three thermometers were placed thus: No. 1, standing on the carpet near the centre of the library floor; No. 2, three feet, and No. 3, six feet, above it. At the expiration of half an hour, No. 1 indicated 62°; No. 2, 66°; and No. 3, 72°. Numbers 1 and 3 were then placed side by side with No. 2, three feet above the floor. At the expiration of fifteen minutes, all three indicated the same temperature of 66°. The low temperature of the inferior stratum of air was certainly not due to that of the room beneath it, for that was above 70°. It was only the heavier, colder air of the room itself, and of adjacent apartments warmed in the same way, slightly affected by contact with the stratum of warmer air above it.

Such slight differences of temperature in small apartments could not greatly affect the transmission of “the pulse of sound.” But in larger and loftier rooms, like churches and public halls, corresponding differences of temperature would, and do, produce air strata widely different in density and elasticity, and occasion serious acoustic defects. But the acoustic requirement is not satisfied by uniformly elastic air alone; for its pulses are reflected, and unity--distinctness--of sound, is lost in echoes or reverberations, from windows, columns, floors, and ceilings.

To know the difficulties to be encountered is always a step towards their alleviation; and these are sufficiently apparent throughout the little volume before us. They are, First, inelastic air--which cannot transmit its pulses to the ear. Second, strata and amorphous volumes, of unequal densities, which transmit the air-pulses with unequal force; so that they produce distinct sounds and indefinite murmurs at equal distances from the initial pulse. Third, reflecting surfaces--the floor, the ceiling, walls, columns, and furniture of the auditorium; which variously reflect the waves caused by air-pulses, and produce effects analogous to the eddies and whirlpools made by conflicting currents of running water.

The first and second of these difficulties are clearly within the province of “heat and ventilation;” and any means by which a constant tidal flow--not a current--of wholesome air, from floor to ceiling, may be produced, and by which the _un_wholesome, inelastic, heavier gases generated in crowded assemblies shall be prevented from accumulating but be forced to give place to the purer air, will practically solve the problem which they present.

The third difficulty is purely architectural. While surfaces reflect what are called pulses of sound, and so multiply their effects, they also create conflicting waves, which partially neutralize each other, or else strike the ear in irregular succession, to destroy the unity and harmony of sound. We cannot have buildings free from the inconveniences of walls, floors, and ceilings; but we can regulate and utilize surfaces to give aid in the transmission of air-pulses in one direction, and greatly diminish the reflecting power of those that would give back conflicting waves of air. A sounding-board or arch, whose lower surface should be a semi-paraboloid, so placed that a line drawn from its highest points, and parallel to its axis, would pierce the opposite wall four feet above the floor, while the axis itself should attain the same height at a distance of forty feet from the focus, would be an example of what we mean by utilizing surfaces to transmit air-pulses in one direction. The employment of an inelastic substance, like coarse felt, between the furring of a wall and the lathing, would undoubtedly tend to destroy its ability to reflect the “pulse of sound.” And hollow cast-iron columns, filled with clay, would hardly vibrate from a pulse of air.

In one of the Protestant churches of our city, we were shown a sounding-board, whose authors seemed to have halted between the acoustic merits of the paraboloid and the graceful shape of the pilgrim’s scallop-shell. We were told that “it helps the voice of the preacher.” There seemed to be too much of it for ornament, if its principle be wrong or inefficient, and too little for usefulness if right. Many attempts to improve the acoustic properties of halls designed for public lectures are failures through faulty execution of correct designs.

We once saw the working-plans of a lecture-room, where the line of intersection of the end wall with the floor of the stage or platform was a parabola, the arch above and behind the lecturer’s desk being a semi-paraboloid, springing from the wall at the height of the speaker’s voice. Thus, it was supposed that the pulses reflected from the walls and arch would proceed in parallel lines or “waves of sound,” because the initial pulse would always be given at the focus of the reflector.

The place of every joist in the cylindrical wall was carefully marked, and the dimensions and place of each rib of the paraboloidal arch accurately given. But in executing the design, the builder discovered a mistake!--“the floor of the stage would not be a true circular segment!” So he “corrected it”--with stunning effect upon the lecturer, and to the utter confusion of his audience. And the design was pronounced a failure.

In looking through the work before us, we almost unconsciously began to say: “This is nothing new; we have seen this, and more than this, before.” And in the same sense, we suppose it might as well be said that nothing is essentially new.

We have lately seen a notice of an invention for tracing patterns on glass by means of a jet of sand. Of course, it is nothing new. The wind has been doing the same trick with the sand of the sea-shore for ages. We have seen it long ago, and often. Doubtless, the same effect has been noticed by many others. A thought of the possible utility of a process whose result was seen may have flitted through many minds, and, like the outline of a passing cloud, have been forgotten as it passed. But honestly, we never thought of tracing lace patterns on glass by any such process. And while new combinations of well-known truths give new and useful results, we hope they may never cease to be made.

Mr. Saeltzer’s book is full of good hints. But that is not its chief merit. It recognizes the inseparable connection of sound and ventilation, and insists upon observance of the laws which govern them. As he is so evidently alive to the sanitary and acoustic defects in public buildings, we shall be disappointed if his little volume does not prove to be the preface to more specific, practical directions for their removal. He has put his finger upon the principal cause of failures. The laws of light, and heat, and sound are sufficiently understood to render their phenomena as controllable as time, space, and velocity in mechanics. The more intelligent efforts are therefore directed not to the discovery of new principles involved, but to utilize what knowledge we possess. And when the effort is made at the right point and in the right direction, we can heartily say, Go on and conquer. The world is full of wonderful monuments signalizing defeat. Let us see just one crowned with victory.

As yet, modern ecclesiastical architecture, especially, is but the imperfect reproduction of ancient and mediæval models. It is the heathen temple or the Gothic minster, or, more recently, an attempt to vary the monotony with Byzantine forms of old basilicas, without their grandeur. In decoration, we have crude, unmeaning imitations of Moorish tracery, weak in imagery of form and symbolism, without those glowing contrasts and harmonies of colors which are to architecture as rhythm to poetry of sound. We know the cause and history of this poverty in constructive and decorative art. History tells us how men became so spiritual, in their own conceit, that symbolism was held to be a sin; and how, by losing the sign, the thing signified was forgotten or denied. But it seems almost unaccountable that the world should be teeming with philosophers, to whom the laws of nature, even their least tangible phenomena, seem familiar as things of daily use, while great temples are so constructed that they who have ears to hear cannot hear.

FOOTNOTE:

[52] A Treatise on Acoustics in Connection with Ventilation; and an Account of the Modern and Ancient Methods of Heating and Ventilation. By Alexander Saeltzer, Architect. New York: D. Van Nostrand, Publisher. 1872.

ODD STORIES.

I.

THE LADDER OF LIFE.

There are a great many rounds in the ladder of life, though simple youths have always fancied that a few gallant steps would take them to the summit of riches and power. Now, the top round of this ladder is not the presidency of any railroad or country, nor even the possession of renowned genius; for it oddly happens that when one sits down upon it, then, be he ever so high up in life, he has really begun to descend. Those who put velvet cushions to their particular rounds, and squat at ease with a view of blocking the rise of other good folks, do not know they are going down the other side of the ladder; but such is the fact. Many thrifty men have, in their own mind, gone far up its life-steps when, verily, they were descending them fast; and poor people without number have in all men’s eyes been travelling downward, though in truth they have journeyed higher by descent than others could by rising. So many slippery and delusive ways has this magical ladder that we may say it is as various as men’s minds. One may slip through its rungs out of the common way of ascent, and find himself going down when he ought to be going up; and vain toilers have ever fancied that they were mounting to the clouds when everybody else must have seen they were still at the same old rounds. Ambitious heroes have made the same mistake, if, indeed, the particular ladder which they have imagined to themselves has not itself been sliding down all the while they have been seeking vain glory by its steps.

The ladder of life is an infinite ladder. It is full of indirections to suit the abilities, and of attractions to please the tastes, of climbers. You may work at a forge, or sail the sea, or trade in money and merchandise, or hear operas, or write romances, or take part in politics, or wander over mountains, or go to church, while living thereon; but you must go up or go down, and either way will have some sort of climbing and toiling to do. Everywhere on the ladder is trouble, save in careful steps; and since human progress is so illusory, many honest persons rather fear to fall than aspire too eagerly, or felicitate themselves on precarious elevations. Prudence forbids us to say at what real round of the ladder are all our bankers, brokers, showmen, advertisers, and other millionaires; but it is certain that good little children, and simple citizens, and poor geniuses, and suffering men and women have gone higher up than the world knows. Indeed, they have gone quite out of sight, for there is a place on the great ladder which few men know, and where only saints can see the angels ascending and descending. Moreover, the ladder of life reaches from the pit to the stars, so that they who climb up or climb down, as it were, may see a firmament at either end: the good, their lights and joys; the evil, their chimeras and fire of darkness.

II.

OBED’S SONS.

Obed, the young man, came to Father Isaac for his blessing, who thus said to him with few words: “Thou shalt have five sons, and to the first shall be given might, to the second cunning, to the third beauty, to the fourth knowledge, to the fifth patience, and to all in accord wisdom: but God giveth naught for nothing.” And as Father Isaac had promised, so was it fulfilled in prayer. The first of the sons of Obed became a mighty hunter; the second excelled in craft’s of all kinds; the third was of a comely figure, well to look upon; the fourth was learned in wise traditions; the fifth was patient, as none other of the family of Obed had been before him. Now, the five sons ill-agreed in their husbandry in the field of their fathers, and they went their several ways, some near, some far, to seek their fortunes, leaving the last and youngest to be the staff of their sire. Then poverty fell upon the house of Obed, and infirmity upon the limbs of the patient man; and, dying, his father blessed him, saying: “The Lord bless thy patience that it fail not.”

At this time, the fame of him that slew lions with his arms, and men with his right hand, was very great; but a devil entered into him, so that he did no work, and fell to great sloth, and men scorned him, and he lifted up his voice and cried: “Oh! that I had the cunning of my brother, that my hands might know their work; and the beauty of my brother, that maids should not turn from me; and the knowledge and patience of my brethren, that I might with wisdom bide my time.”

From all sides was he sought that had the gift of cunning; but being greedy in his craft, and seeking not knowledge, nor patience, he lost his cunning, and cried with a face in which there was no beauty: “Wisdom was not given me, nor patience, neither comeliness nor might, and so have I been abandoned to devices of misery.”

Rejoicing in his fair proportions, the third son of Obed danced before the daughters of his tribe, but, taken in the wiles of flattery and of pleasure, he became as a drunken man whose face is a warning, and whose life is a scandal, and he lamented: “Oh! that I had the cunning or patience or might of my brethren, then should none withstand me, or I be overthrown.”

And he to whom it was given to know much in many tongues, and to counsel with scholars, lost the kindly ways of men, seeking vain and dark sciences, till he exclaimed in the bitterness of his heart: “Knowledge is given me without wisdom: henceforth must I seek counsel in patience, and observe the prudence of my brethren.” And he set out for the house of his fathers.

Now had the infirm brother tilled the fields of his brethren, and taught the laborers thereof the arts of handiwork, and when the sons of Obed returned to the house of their sire, one after another, the first averred that he was strong, the second that he was cunning, the third that he was comely, the fourth that he had knowledge. But Father Isaac, the shepherd of his flock, hearing them, said: “Yea, for he hath one virtue which maketh many: the staff of thy brother hath devoured thy rods.”

“Wherefore, then, lov’d Isaac,” spake the eldest, “are we robbed of our gifts, and wit, and might, and beauty gone from us, leave us in sorrow of heart?”

“Told I not thy sire Obed,” said the patriarch, “that the Lord of lords gave naught for naught. Have ye earned your wages--have ye paid back your gifts? He that had might, why was he not taught of knowledge and invention, and, being skilled, why learned he not the patience of toil? He that had beauty, why sought he not counsel of strength and skill, that judgment might be his? He of knowledge, why sought he not help of patience and craft? Each had his virtue to purchase a share in the virtues of the rest, and to win gifts to his gift, that God might be praised. But only goodness bringeth fit wisdom, and wisdom dwelleth not in discord.”

Then the sons of Obed, answering, asked: “Why hath one virtue, as thou sayest, devoured ours?”

“For that thou hast thrown thine own to the dogs, my sons, and patience hath picked them up. He that suffereth much with patience winneth much with wisdom.”

“Even so, Father Isaac, but have we not, too, suffered?”

“Yea, my children, that so God may teach thee wisdom, and thy gifts abound tenfold. He that hath much, let him save it by bounty: he that hath little, let him increase it with patience: he that hath won, let him divide the victory. Share ye each other’s virtues, that each may possess the gifts of all.”

THE THREE PLEDGES.

Three students sat together In a villa on the Rhine, And pledged the beauteous river In draughts of sparkling wine.

One was bold and haughty, Count Otto was his name: His dark eyes flashed and smouldered: From Nuremberg he came.

And one was too fond-hearted For aught but love and song; With hair too brightly golden To wear its lustre long.

His hands were white and shapely As any maid’s might be; Count Adelbert of Munich, A joyous youth was he.

And one was grave and quiet, With such a winning smile That, meeting all its brightness, Sad hearts grew light the while.

And as they sat together, Three trav’llers by the Rhine, And pledged the noble river In draughts of golden wine,

With lays of olden minstrels They whiled the hours away, Till twilight gently sealed them With the sign of parting day.

Then silence fell upon them, And the distant boatman’s song Returned in softened echoes The gleaming waves along;

And through the latticed windows The hush of evening stole, And the solemn spell of silence Fast fettered soul to soul.

Dream on, O happy-hearted! The future holds no truth, No amaranthine jewel, Like the rainbow tints of youth.

Dream on, O happy-hearted! The hour will soon be gone, And darkness fall too swiftly. Dream on, young hearts, dream on!

* * * * *

This is the proudest hour Of all the golden twelve, That seek the mystic caverns Where gray gnomes dig and delve.

“The beauty of the morning Is but the birth of day, And the glory of the noontide Doth pass as soon away.

“But twilight holds the fulness, The meed of every one, And drops the radiant circlet Before her god, the sun.

“This is the proudest hour Of all the golden twelve-- Now combs the Nix her tresses, Now rests his spade the elve.

“And I drink to the proudest maiden That treads this German-land; No other love shall my heart own, No other queen my hand.

“And I’ll pledge her three times over, This haughty queen of mine, In the brightest flowing nectar That ever kissed the Rhine.”

Thus spake the bold Count Otto, And held his goblet up, And three times overflowing Each student drained his cup.

“This is the fairest hour, For the sunset clouds unfold To the purple sea of twilight Their red-tipped sails of gold.

“And the hecatombs of sweetness That all the day have risen In the bosom of the flowers Unbar their shining prison.

“This is the fairest hour, The hour of eventide, And I drink to the fairest maiden That dwells the Rhine beside.

“And I pledge her three times over, Though her only dower should be The heaven-born gift of beauty, And a faithful love for me.”

Thus spake Adelbert, smiling, And held his goblet up, And three times overflowing Each student drained his cup.

Then paused the twain in wond’ring, What Ludwig’s toast might be; For their comrade sat in silence, And never word spake he.

“How now? Why thus, brave Ludwig, Sitt’st thou in pensive mood? Dost choose to dwell unmated, In loveless solitude?”

He smiled, and then looked downward As he answered, glass in hand, “Nay, nay; but, if I pledge her, Ye will not understand.”

“Where dwells she, then?” cried Otto, “This peerless love of thine? Mayhap some fabled Lurline That sings beneath the Rhine?

“Thou’rt smiling--haste, then, pledge her!” And the brimming glasses rung As Ludwig dropped the music That trembled on his tongue.

“This is the holiest hour Of all the twenty-four, For the rush of day hath passed us, And the tide returns no more.

“And the waves of toil and traffic, By dark argosies trod, Are lost through circling eddies In the mightiness of God.

“This is the holiest hour When purest thoughts have birth, And I drink to the holiest maiden That ever dwelt on earth.

“Her vesture falleth around her In folds of changeless white, And her holiness outshineth The jewels of the night.

“She weareth a mantle of sadness, Her sorrows are her fame: She long hath been my chosen, But I will not name her name.

“Ah! not with wine I pledge thee, All spotless as thou art, But with my life’s devotion, With the fulness of my heart.

“Ah! not with wine I pledge thee, Nor one libation pour; Thou hold’st the bond that seals me, Thine own for evermore.”

This with white brow uncovered, ’Neath the floating twilight skies; And angels might have marvelled At the beauty of his eyes.

Then he turned his goblet downward, And waved the flask aside His comrades would have proffered To pledge such wondrous bride.

“Friend, thou hast spoken strangely, But thou wert ever strange; Mayhap this matchless maiden Hath power thy mood to change.”

Thus Adelbert spake, smiling, And shook his golden hair: “I ask nor saint nor angel, But maiden fond and fair.

“Then let us pledge each other, Since thy passion is too deep, With comrades tried and trusty, Its sacredness to keep.

“What maiden like thy vision In all our fatherland?” “Ah! said I not,” cried Ludwig, “Ye would not understand?”

“Come, let us pledge each other,” Said Otto, glass in hand-- “A right good draught of friendship That all may understand.”

Then their glasses clashed together, “Firm may our fealty be!” And Ludwig’s voice of music Rang loudest of the three.

* * * * *

Seven times hath autumn gathered The vintage of the Rhine, Since the students pledged each other In draughts of golden wine.

In a grand and lofty castle, The Danube’s stream beside, Count Otto dwells in splendor, The lord of acres wide.

He has won the proudest maiden In all that German-land, And countless hosts of yeomen Obey his high command.

But the haughty brow is clouded, And his eye is full of care, For the trace of many a heart-storm Hath left its impress there.

Love had sought Adelbert, Young Beauty’s flow’ret blown, And the tendrils of its blossoms About his heart had grown.

And joy had wrapped them softly In robes of radiant sheen, Till Death bent down, relentless, And sapped their living green.

Hush! a mourner sits in silence Within a darkened room, Where the fairest flower of summer Lies withered in her bloom.

While those who move about him With footsteps sad and slow, Whisper to each other, But leave him to his woe.

And down in the quiet churchyard, Where nodding grasses wave, The children gather, silent, And the sexton digs a grave.

Solemnly tolls the church-bell, It counteth twenty-five-- O God! the flowers wither, And the old, old branches thrive.

Solemnly tolls the church-bell, Slowly winds the train Adown the rocky hillside, Along the grassy plain;

Sadly pass the bearers Into the churchyard old, Brightly falls the sunlight In glittering lines of gold;

Tearfully pause the mourners Above the broken sod, And Ludwig waits beside it, A humble priest of God.

NEWMAN ON MIRACLES.[53]

These essays are here reprinted from the original editions of each, with only the addition of a few bracketed notes, and with some slight emendation of the wording of a few sentences of the text of a merely literary character. For many years, Dr. Newman has been a public man in the English theological world, so much so that, as he himself expressed it, “he is obliged to think aloud.” His writings have passed into the domain of English literature, and are public property. It is not now in his power to withdraw any portion of them, much as he might desire to do so. Under existing circumstances, he has judged it the better course--or, at least, the lesser evil--that they should be republished under his own eye, with such corrections in bracketed notes as will indicate what he would now correct or retract.

These two essays mark very distinctly two stages in the career through which, as he fully explains in his Apologia, Dr. Newman has passed.

The first one, written to defend the miracles recorded in the Holy Scriptures against the attacks of Hume, Gibbon, and other infidels, dates from 1825-26, while he was yet young, and a staunch Protestant, somewhat imbued with evangelical feelings, especially in the matter of Popery. Hence, while ably conducting the exposition and defence of the Scripture miracles, he omits no opportunity of hitting at the other miracles recorded to have occurred in the Catholic Church since the days of the apostles. In fact, he had, as he tells us elsewhere, read the work of Middleton on The Miracles of the Early Church, and had imbibed his spirit. He was guided also by Bishop Douglas, whose Criterion he often quotes.

Seventeen years of continuous study and mature thought produced their fruit in his clear and candid mind. In 1842-43, he wrote the second essay as a preface or introduction to a portion of Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History, then being published in an English translation.

Though still a Protestant, he had entirely changed his views on these ecclesiastical miracles. So much so, that this essay may be read as his own confutation of what he had said against them in his earlier essay. In the present volume, the bracketed foot-notes subjoined to that essay are, for the most part, mere references to the paragraphs of the second essay, in which the immature errors of the first are corrected. With the traditional prejudices of Protestantism then strong in him, he had looked on these ecclesiastical miracles as rivals, and as, in some way, antagonistic to the miracles of Scripture which he was upholding; and he had striven to find points of difference as well in their internal character as in the evidence needed to prove them. All this he fully meets in the second essay. In the second, third, and fourth chapters of it, treating of “The Antecedent Probability of Ecclesiastical Miracles,” of their internal character, and of the evidence in support of their credibility, he shows how the admission of Scripture miracles utterly does away with the ground taken by some against the possibility or probability of ecclesiastical miracles, how the two classes agree in their chief and essential characteristics, and how, in fact, they rather merge into one general class of events, under the moral order of divine Providence, established for man’s salvation--an order distinct from and superior to the physical order of nature. Nothing can be more lucid than his replies to the objections of Douglas, Warburton, Middleton, and other Protestant writers on this subject. He shows, with the utmost clearness, how all that they urge against these ecclesiastical miracles in the Catholic Church can be turned by unbelievers, with equal plausibility, and in the same sophistical spirit, against the miracles of the apostles themselves.

Dr. Newman, in both dissertations, frankly admits--what indeed cannot be denied--that not a few of the Scripture miracles are to be believed by us simply because they have been recorded by divinely inspired writers. We have no other knowledge of them, no other evidence of their having occurred, than that we read them on the inspired page. Such miracles are for us matters of faith, not proofs in evidence. They are themselves proved by Scripture. Whatever they were to those who witnessed the occurrence, they are not now for us historical evidence in support of divine revelation. Writing as a Protestant, Dr. Newman did not advert to another important truth lying further back which Protestant writers generally ignore. Our knowledge of the inspiration and divine authority of the Scriptures as we have them--distinguished, that is, from the numerous other gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypses, and other pretended sacred writings, more or less current among and accepted by the sectaries of the early Christian ages--depends entirely on the decision of the Catholic Church, made after the death of the apostles. Hence, the value of the Scripture testimony as to these miracles, and our duty to recognize and accept it as divinely inspired, and therefore unerring, depend, in the last analysis, on the divine authority and character of the Catholic Church--of that same church which has always claimed that God continues to work miracles within her fold. To say that she errs on this latter point leaves room, to say the least, for the imputation or the suspicion that she may have erred in the other decision likewise; and so those Scripture miracles which lack, as most of them do, other corroborative testimony, would stand without sufficient proof. On the contrary, for the ecclesiastical miracles, because they occurred nearer our own times, there might still remain, as in many cases there does remain, ample historical evidence from contemporary witnesses.

After devoting four chapters to a thorough discussion of the subject of ecclesiastical miracles in general, Dr. Newman proceeds, in the fifth and last chapter, to sum up and discuss the evidences we still have, in nine special cases, held to be miraculous interventions, in the early ages of the church. For a clear and orderly presentation of the evidence, the logical application of the principles established in the earlier chapters, and the happy and often overwhelming retorting of their own propositions on Douglas, Leslie, and other anti-Catholic writers, each one of these cases deserves and will amply repay a special study.

Here, as in his other volumes, Dr. Newman displays that intellectual acumen and that plain common sense which are as characteristic of his writings as is the singular mastery over the English language which has caused him to be recognized as one of the classical writers of our day.

Valuable as this volume is to the careful student for its erudition and acute reasoning, and for the aid it gives in the polemical controversies that rise from time to time with Protestants, it is chiefly valuable, in our eyes, as a well-reasoned and, as it were, practical refutation of that rationalistic or materialistic system of false philosophy which is taught in some of our colleges, and is being spread through the land, and which either leaves God out of sight altogether, or at most acknowledges him only as the Creator and founder of the physical order. Dr. Newman, in discussing what some would term the philosophy of miracles, sets forth strongly and clearly the necessity of recognizing and taking into account the moral order, established by God, equally with the physical order, and superior to it in rank. The world is under both. To leave either out is to take only a partial view. To exclude the moral order from our consideration is to err at the very commencement of our course, and our progress will be but from error to error. The action of both orders may, and often does, coincide--would have always coincided had not sin brought in jarring and confusion. But in point of fact, they are sometimes found in opposition. A wise and good sovereign dies immaturely, leaving his sceptre to a wicked and unscrupulous successor; a good father dies early in life, and his orphans are left to grow up in ignorance and vice; a just and benevolent man dies or is ruined, and debts are left unpaid, and a stream of charity fails at the fount. And if we class the evil actions of men as belonging to this physical order, and the rationalists refuse to class them otherwise, do they not present a continual opposition between the physical and the moral orders? And if the physical order so asserts itself, should we not reasonably look for corresponding, if not greater, manifestations in the moral order?

Divine revelation itself is a fact in the moral order entirely beyond and above the physical order of nature--by its nature, a miracle. It can be proved only by miracles; and miracles are the appropriate accompaniment of its continuance as a dispensation of divine Providence. Hence, in the church--the kingdom of heaven--in which God specially reigns and rules, and in which the moral order is endowed with supernatural force, and interworks with the physical order of nature, we should as readily and as reasonably look for miracles, as, if we may be allowed a trivial comparison, we should expect, when examining a piece of complicated machinery, to find that one set of wheels will control and at times arrest the ordinary action of other wheels, and interpose some result due to their own special action in the general series of results. Not to take account of the moral and supernatural order in God’s ruling the world is not to recognize the highest and greatest of his acts. The rationalist is like a deaf man before an exquisite musical clock. His eye may follow the hands as they move round the dial; but he has closed his ears to the sweet melodies that float around him.

FOOTNOTE:

[53] Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical. By John Henry Newman, formerly Fellow of Oriel College. Second edition. London: Pickering. 1870. New York: Sold by the Catholic Publication Society. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 396.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS, AT NAPLES. An Historical and Critical Examination of the Miracle. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

This is a republication of several very able and interesting articles which have lately appeared on this subject in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Their appearance in the present form cannot but be welcomed by all well-disposed persons, whether they be desirous to ascertain the truth or anxious to have the means for defending it. Catholics, who are accustomed to hear this miracle, as well as the many others which have occurred in the church from the earliest times, coolly dismissed by their Protestant acquaintances as undoubted impostures or superstitions, will find in this account all that is needed to silence, if not to convince, their opponents, and to enable them to assert their own faith; while the fair and candid non-Catholic will find in it an array of facts and of reasoning which cannot fail to produce a deep impression on his mind, and which may serve as a basis for his conversion to the faith. But we would not advise anyone who is determined in any event to remain a Protestant or an infidel to have anything to do with it. The failure to find any false but plausible theory to account for certain phenomena which do not agree with one’s preconceived ideas sometimes leads to a very unpleasant and dangerous frame of mind--that in which it impugns the known truth. The book contains seventy-nine pages, and is illustrated by an engraving representing the celebrated reliquary in which the blood of the saint is contained. It is the only complete and exhaustive treatise on the subject in the English language.

* * * * *

AMERICANISMS: The English of the New World. By M. Schele De Vere, LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872.

This elegantly printed book has a real and solid value. It shows how the English language has been enriched by additions from various sources in the New World, while, at the same time, it indicates the deterioration and corruption to which it has been exposed by knocking about in a new country. Both these topics are important, and we commend them to the careful attention of all who wish to acquire a true knowledge of the art of speaking and writing English. We object decidedly to the definition of A Hickory Catholic, on p. 58, as one who “is free from bigotry and asceticism.” This is a vulgar cant phrase, unworthy of a scholar. A hickory Catholic is a person who makes his principles bend to his passions and interests. He believes that he is bound to go to Mass on Sundays and to the Sacraments at Easter, but neglects to do so, because he is lazy, or fond of drinking too much, or licentious, or unwilling to make restitution, or stupidly careless about his soul; hoping to sneak into heaven by an old age or death-bed repentance. We have noticed nothing else worthy of censure in Professor De Vere’s book, and we can recommend it without hesitation as most valuable to all who are engaged in teaching the English language or endeavoring to learn it. It is, moreover, extremely amusing and entertaining, as well as instructive. Would that those who have the naming of places would study it attentively, and strictly follow its suggestions! Think of Ovid, Livy, Greece, Virgil, for names of villages in a country rich in glorious Indian names! Not content with imposing absurd or unmeaning or vulgar names on places which had none before, those which have already most tasteful and appropriate ones are frequently rebaptized. For instance, in Fairfield Co., Connecticut, Saugatuck has been changed to Southport, and Green’s Farms to Westport. What a name is New York for a great state and a great city! What a change from Lake St. Sacrament, or even Horicon to Lake George! We wish that some of those who have leisure and inclination to take up this matter in earnest would do so, and try to effect a reformation. We notice also, with satisfaction, the condemnation of that wretched interloper and vagabond of a word, donate. Humbly, and with tears in our eyes, we entreat of our venerable presidents of colleges and of all in literary authority to sentence and banish donate, or he will some fine day bring into college his still shabbier and more beggarly cousin, orate, and a whole troop of poor relations, who will locate themselves, for all coming time. English has been and can be enriched from new sources, as Professor De Vere amply proves; but let us watch carefully that it do not become corrupted and be not made vulgar.

* * * * *

ZEAL IN THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY. By L’Abbé Dubois. London: J. C. Newby. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

It is encouraging to see books of this kind published in the English language. We know not how to make any extracts from this volume, for every page of it is filled with good sense, practical advice, and the true spirit of the priesthood. Could we realize our wishes, we would place in the hands of every priest and candidate preparing for ordination a copy. It would be most wholesome for daily spiritual reading and meditation. The author reveals his object in writing the book in the following passage in the preface, p. viii.:

“To rekindle in the bosom of the priesthood the ardor of that zeal which should be its animating principle; to call to remembrance those noblest virtues without which it languishes, and with which it works miracles; further, to bring that zeal into practice by showing how the priest ought to act in the various circumstances of daily life, and in his intercourse with the various persons with whom he is perpetually brought into contact; such, in short, is the plan I have adopted. God grant that I may have carried it into execution in such a way as to procure abundantly his glory and the salvation of souls!”

One evidence that he has not been unsuccessful in attaining his object, is that this translation is made from the fifth French edition.

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THE BOOK OF PSALMS. Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Being a Revised Edition of the Douay Version. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 16mo, pp. 193. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

“This English version of the Book of Psalms,” says the Most Rev. Dr. Manning in the preface, “may be regarded as one more of the many gifts bequeathed to us by my learned and lamented predecessor [Cardinal Wiseman]. One-half, at least, of the psalms were revised by his own hand.” Critics will regret that there is nothing to enable them to distinguish the precise psalms on which the illustrious cardinal brought his great Biblical learning and his pure English taste to the task of revision.

The term “Douay Version” in the title is used in the loose way which his eminence himself opposed, and the basis is not the Douay, but Dr. Challoner’s text.

This edition is made in a cheap popular form, and is intended to diffuse more generally among the faithful the psalms as a manual of prayer. They are the great storehouse from which the church draws her offices, and supply the pious with ejaculations, short and fervent prayers, which are of wonderful value. No greater boon has been added recently, for, though there is no lack of pocket Bibles, they are unhandy, and the type too small for those who wish the psalms alone.

To meet this want a new translation was issued in 1700, in a neat little volume, the version being by John Caryl, a friend of Pope, and faithful adherent of the Stuarts. His Psalms is a very uncommon work, though highly esteemed.

We had thus Gregory Martin’s version in the original Douay, Caryl’s, Bishop Challoner’s, and Archbishop Kenrick’s, and we have now a version due in part at least to Cardinal Wiseman. It is a little volume that will reward study among those who wish to compare the versions, and as a convenient, well-printed manual commends itself to the pious.

“In the Book of Psalms,” says his grace, Dr. Manning, “the Spirit of Praise himself has inscribed the notes and the words of thanksgiving to be learned here, and to be continued before the eternal throne. For this use and aid I commend the present volume to the piety of the faithful.”

Some common errors have, we see, been retained in this edition, which we hope to see corrected, such as the omission of “angry” before enemies in Ps. xvii. 48; “and,” in Ps. xliii. 12; “in form,” Ps. xliv. 4.

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A JOURNEY AROUND MY ROOM. By Count Xavier de Maistre. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

This work, so full of the author’s delicate humor and sentimental reverie, is the very thing for a winter evening, when one feels like giving himself up to dream away a few hours.

The author was a younger brother of the perhaps better known Count Joseph de Maistre, French Ambassador at the Russian Court in the early part of this century, and one of the ablest defenders of the Papacy. He was the author of the famous Du Pape and the philosopher of the Soirees de St. Petersbourg. Count Joseph was likewise an intimate friend of Madame Swetchine’s, whose interesting life has been published by “The Catholic Publication Society,” and was instrumental in the conversion of that remarkable woman to the Catholic Church.

The De Maistres belonged to the haute noblesse de Savoy. Count Xavier, as well as his brothers, became an exile during the first French Revolution. He went to Russia, where he married. After an absence of twenty-five years he returned to his own country.

Lamartine addressed him one of his Harmonies Poëtiques after his return, saluting him thus:

“Voyageur fatigué qui reviens sur nos plages Demander à tes champs leurs antiques ombrages, A ton cœur ses premiers amours!”

He also calls Count Xavier the Sterne of Savoy, but without his affectation, and declares him equal to Rousseau, but without his declamatory style. “He is a familiar genie, a fireside talker, a cricket chirping on the rural hearth.”

The writings of Xavier de Maistre were among the favorite volumes that composed Eugénie de Guérin’s library, and we can imagine a certain sympathy in their intellectual natures. The Lépreux in particular appealed to her sympathetic nature, and the thought of meeting its author filled her with delight. When this meeting took place at Paris, Count Xavier had just lost his children, and was so depressed in consequence that it was not equal to her expectations.

But Lamartine speaks of seeing him a few years after, and describes him as “an old man of fourscore years, gracious in manner, and with no signs of decay of body or feebleness of mind. Airiness of sentiment, a mild sensibility, a half-serious, half-indulgent smile at human affairs, a tolerance--the result of his intelligence--of all human opinions: such was the man.

“His sonorous voice had a far-off sound like an echo of the past, and was well adapted to the reminiscenses of his previous life, which he loved to tell.

“His Leper of the City of Aosta is, in the literature of the heart, equal to Paul and Virginia; the Journey around my Room is only a pleasantry. The Leper is a tear, but a tear that flows for ever!”

Lamartine, in his Confidences, gives a pleasing picture of the De Maistre family, and likens a summer passed among its illustrious members in Savoy to the conversations of Boccaccio at his country-seat near Florence. They used to assemble beneath a clump of pines at the foot of Mont du Chat, overlooking the Arcadian valley of Chambery, so redolent of St. Francis de Sales, another genius not less poetical, and with no less delicacy of sentiment, but loftier than Xavier de Maistre; and sometimes they came together on a terrace over-arched by vine-hung elms before the Château de Servolex, the residence of Madame de Vigny, De Maistre’s sister.

Count Joseph de Maistre, like a modern Plato, was the centre of this family group. His stature was lofty, his features fine and manly, his forehead broad and high, and, crowning all, floated his thin, silvery hair. His mouth was indicative of the delicate humor that characterized the family. His brothers regarded him with great respect, and used to gather around him to listen to the experiences of his exile. Even the Canon de Maistre, afterwards Bishop of Aosta, who looked like a Socrates, with features that had been softened and sanctified by the influences of Christianity, would hasten to close the breviary he had been reading in a secluded alley, and join the group.

And now and then came sweet interludes of soft Scythian airs through the open window of the château, which Mademoiselle de Maistre, a pensive, talented girl, was playing on the piano.

The writings of Count Xavier de Maistre, though not at all dogmatic, belong to Catholic literature. They are among the sweet blossoms that have unfolded under the pure light of Catholic influences, and with a delicacy of aroma not to be found in the forced hot-house plants of the world. We love to inhale their odor, and would not be the last to welcome the appearance of The Journey around my Room.

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THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Professor Dr. Ernest Curtius. Translated by Adolphus William Ward, M.A. Vols. I. and II. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1871.

Dr. Ernest Curtius is impartial, and metes out strict justice to all whom he summons to the tribunal of history. Neither Spartan valor nor Athenian grace influences his judgment. He passes from the Eurotas Valley to the Acropolis without leaving in his train a single notion which would weigh in his decision on the men and things in Attica. And this impartiality is a rare gift in the writers of Grecian history, be they ancient or modern. Almost all take sides. Mitford holds the Spartan oligarchy to be the height of perfection in government, and makes it the standard by which the democracy of Athens is to be judged. The result is that in his pages the fair features of Athens are caricatured and distorted, while the stern features of Sparta are so flattered that not even Lycurgus would recognize them. On the other hand, Thirlwall, and many more besides, have not been able to escape the fascination of Athenian wit and elegance, and throughout their histories Athens is unduly favored. Dr. Curtius judges not of governments and institutions in the abstract, but he judges of them with reference to the peoples for whom they were intended, and thus has avoided the error into which so many have fallen.

There are in the volumes before us two points which are particularly well handled. These are the origin of the Greek people, and the development of their religion. Mr. Mommsen, in his History of Rome, absurdly tells us that the ancient peoples of Italy were indigenous to the soil. This he does, doubtless, either to show his independence of revelation, or to save himself the trouble of further investigation, perhaps with both ends in view. Dr. Curtius is neither so disregardless of truth nor so saving of labor. By the aid of ethnography, philology, and historical research, he demonstrates that the Greeks and the Latins also belonged to the great Aryan family. He traces them back to their old homes in the Phrygian highlands, where, before their migrations westward, they occupied positions adjoining. The Latin tribes were the first to leave Asia Minor, then followed the Greeks in successive waves of migration through the Hellespont and Propontis.

The learned professor discusses at length the origin and development of the Greek Pantheon, and the conclusion arrived at is most satisfactory. He proves that the Greek tribes in their primitive simplicity worshipped the one only God--“The Zeus, who dwelt in light inaccessible.” Gradually the primitive traditions began to wane, and the “Zeus who dwelt in light inaccessible” became the “Zeus who dwelt in sacred light over the oak-tops of the Lycæan mountain,” still formless and unapproachable. But this Zeus was too near the earth to remain long formless and unapproachable. His worshippers soon began to approach him under different names, then under different forms, and, finally, they divided him up into the different gods of their Pantheon, so that the first and best known became the “Unknown God.”

We have now pointed out some of the excellences of Dr. Curtius’ history, but it has its defects, as every human work has, and one of these we deem it our duty to point out. Its chief defect is its diffuseness; for diffuse it really is in many places. And because it is diffuse it is often monotonous and even prosaic. On the whole, however, the style is good, and abounds in elegant passages, which are well rendered by the translator. This defect is indeed the only one which justifies us in doubting whether the History will become popular, and receive the appreciation which it deserves.

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FASHION: THE POWER THAT INFLUENCES THE WORLD. By George P. Fox. New York: The American News Company. 1872.

The author of this work seems to have been “born with a divine idea of cloth.” According to him, fashionable dress is a preservative of morals. Easy and graceful garments are incompatible with deeds of violence. No one who ever honored the author with his patronage was ever convicted of a crime. We are as morally bound to offer a pleasing exterior to our friends as a smiling face. In Carlyle’s language, “Man’s earthly interests (to say the least) are all hooked and buttoned together by clothes. Society is founded on cloth.” The pen was once considered mightier than the sword, but shears are now in the ascendency. “Dress makes the man, and want of it the fellow.” Dress is a duty we owe ourselves, and inattention to it indicates a want of respect to others. Man’s chief duty is to sacrifice to the graces. Our author is the high-priest of fashion. He makes dress almost a sacrament--as Hazlitt says, “an outward and visible sign of the inward harmony of the soul.” Non possumus does not seem to be in his code. There is no physical defect he cannot remedy. Witness the unhappy man in New York, with a long neck, low shoulders, and sallow complexion, at last able to hold up his head in society; the unfortunate British nobleman, whose attenuated and shapeless limbs are made to correspond more fully to our idea of sturdy John Bull; and President Fillmore’s life-long ambition for a pair of well-fitting pantaloons at length realized. Bow legs and knock-knees are all remedied. The old proverb of the Béarnais is verified: “Habillez un bâton, il aura l’air d’un baron.” A book that brings hope to all is a public benefaction. No Jonathan need despair of cutting a figure in the world after this, and he should not. Dress, its color, style, and fit, are all matters of momentous interest (being so interwoven with our morals), as well as manners and the carriage of the body, which are not overlooked in this volume. As to the latter, everybody knows a stoop in the shoulders sinks a man in public and private estimation.

The Saturday Review calls our author a Transcendental Tailor, a title he evidently merits. The devise he assumed when he entered the lists was Faire sans dire, which Daniel Webster did him the honor of quoting in an address before the New York Historical Society, as well as wearing his transcendent--we almost said transcendental--garments, both living and dead, for the blue coat with a velvet collar and gold-wove cloth buttons that shrouded the immortal statesman are almost a matter of history, and have been sworn to in the most solemn manner before the mayor of New York.

But to go back to our devise. The author forgot it when he began to write. He must now make it: Faire et dire. However, he handles the pen almost as skilfully as the shears, and throws quite a glamour of poetry over the most common duties of the toilet. He ought to be a capital hand at a hem-a-stitch, as Rogers said of Béranger. He gives some excellent advice about dress (gentlemen’s, of course) and etiquette, but some of the chapters seem rather foreign to the subject. We cordially recommend the book to Mr. and Mrs. Veneering as they endeavor to adjust themselves at the glass of fashion, and to whosoever is entirely wrapped up in cloth.

We have been particularly interested in the published correspondence at the end of the volume of the various dignitaries in the political and literary world who sought the efficient co-operation of our Prince of Tailors. If dress is really an “emanation” of the soul (as well as from Mr. Fox’s “emporium”), and indicative of character, it is well to know that Mr. Fillmore’s ill-fitting garments might be owing to a judgment awry; the attenuated limbs of the British minister, which nothing had been able to hide, to a paucity of understanding; and the long neck of our New York friend, which had to be muffled, to an overreaching disposition. Who can tell?

Dress is certainly of the utmost importance to those who are conscious of no other recommendation. Diderot saw no difference between a man and his dog but the dress, and it would sometimes be hard to give a person his proper grade in the animal world without reference to his material garments, for it really does not do in our social world to follow Carlyle’s advice to look fixedly on clothes till they became transparent. It would lead to a fearful revolution in society.

Still, there are some, like Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, who “go in neck and crop for fashion,” who can bear such a clairvoyant eye. Mrs. Boffin was “a Highflier for Fashion,” but we entirely overlook that low evening dress of black sable which she does credit to (“her make is such”), in consideration of her large heart, and the affectionate readiness to salute her lord to the great detriment of her great black velvet hat and plumes.

Our author is really a phœnix sprung from the ashes of Beau Brummel.

“Kind Heaven has sent us another professor, Who follows the steps of his great predecessor.”

As we read, we share the sensation he produced at the Presidential levée at Washington, clad in a blue coat out of the very web that furnished Mr. Webster’s last suit. The meeting of the President of the United States of America, serenely conscious of his new clothes, and the President of Fashion, who so successfully cut them, reminds us of another meeting there which Irving compared to “two kings of Brentford smelling at one rose.”

We cannot close without expressing our gratitude in particular for the fine suit of black our Prince of Tailors presented Father Mathew of blessed and abstemious memory.

* * * * *

THE BOOK OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF ST. TERESA OF JESUS, OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY OF CARMEL. Written by herself. Translated from the Spanish by David Lewis. London: Burns, Oates & Co. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This volume contains, besides the work indicated in the title-page, Annals of the Saint’s Life, by Don Vicente de La Fuente, The Carmelite Rule and Constitutions, and The Visitation of Nunneries, and Maxims of St. Teresa herself. The principal work is also more complete than any previous edition in English.

Those who are familiar with the wonderful story of St. Teresa’s history will need no assurance that the spirit which animated her life also pervades her works. Indeed, the two are almost inseparable, her writings evidently being a faithful transcript of her whole history. Notwithstanding the signal favors she received from heaven, she seemed always oppressed with the idea of her own unworthiness. The prologue to the Foundations furnishes many valuable lessons to religious as well as those whose sphere of duty lies in the world. St. Teresa knew how to exert the utmost zeal and energy in the service of religion, with entire submission to her ecclesiastical superiors. The case of St. Teresa, moreover, is evidence of the way the church honors real reformers--by proposing them to the veneration of the faithful as canonized saints. As an indication of her humility, even the main work in this volume was undertaken, not to gratify any personal feeling, but in obedience to the command of her confessor. It contains a history of the religious houses, male and female, she established. In the face of great difficulties and discouragements, she persevered in her purpose, until the reform was recognized at Rome, and the Carmelite Order was divided into two branches, one under the milder observance, and her own under the stricter or primitive observance.

The lives of the saints present marvels exceeding in interest the dreams of poetry and romance, and we cannot do better than commend to those who jeopardize their innocence in the perusal of sensational figments of the imagination, to betake themselves to the more edifying and truly interesting lives and writings of the saints.

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SERMONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. Vol. I. American Edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

Each new volume from Archbishop Manning is a precious addition to Catholic literature. The present collection of sermons has all the usual characteristics of the author, both as a preacher and as a writer. Great as many other sermons undoubtedly are, those of Dr. Manning possess a charm all their own. The oldest theme is never stale in his hands. His logic is always of the keenest, while his style is as clear and musical as a brook.

Of the sermons before us, we commend two especially. The first, on “The Church, the Spirit, and the Word”; and the sixth, “The Blessed Sacrament the Centre of Immutable Truth.” The thirteenth will also be found of peculiar interest for American readers. It was preached in St. Joseph’s College, Nov. 17, 1871. Its subject: “The Negro Mission.”

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AN ESSAY ON THE DRUIDS, THE ANCIENT CHURCHES, AND THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND. By the Rev. Richard Smiddy. Dublin: W. B. Kelly. 1871. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This is a very neat little publication, well-bound and handsomely printed. Those who have not leisure or opportunity to read Petrie’s elaborate book on the Round Towers or the works issued by the Archæological Society will find in Mr. Smiddy’s essay much valuable information regarding Irish antiquities, though in some of his views and theories he differs materially from preceding writers on the same class of subjects.

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SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY AND THE SOCIAL. By an Epicure. New York: De Witt C. Lent & Co. 8vo, pp. 526. 1872.

The author of this book, if author in the proper sense he may be called, has acted discreetly in withholding his name from the public, for, though a work not specially opposed to morality or truth, it is as little likely to increase the fame of the compiler or secure the approbation of the judicious as any of the many modern publications that teem from our metropolitan press, and depend almost altogether on the beauty of their illustrations and mechanical taste for public patronage. We have a very high appreciation of the shrewdness and foresight of publishers as a class, but upon a cursory glance at the appearance of the book, and on a comparison of it with its homogeneous contents, we were inclined to think the firm of Lent & Co. was an exception until we noticed in a brief preface that thirty thousand copies of the original, of which the book before us is said to be an enlarged and improved edition, have been sold. This may or may not be a piece of exaggeration on the part of the publishers: if it be not, then we are sorry for the lack of sense and judgment on the part of so many of our fellow-beings. The work is compiled, not written, pretty much as it is said “leading articles” in remote Western journals are produced, by the efficient aid of the scissors and mucilage, and its general contents would be more in place in the columns of those second or third hand journals, under the stereotyped headings of “Facts and Fancies” or “Mirth and Fun,” than in the imposing garb of a well-bound book. From cover to cover it is nothing but a compilation of old stories, thread-bare jokes, worn-out puns, stupid epitaphs, and references to historical and literary personages which are neither new nor original, and scarcely apropos to the subject they are intended to make interesting. There is some attempt at arrangement in the display of this useless learning, and here and there a pleasant little bit of chat, but the whole composition is so disjointed and puerile that the effect produced on the mind of the reader is anything but pleasurable. There is no discretion apparent in the selection of extracts and quotations, and no dignity in the tone of the entire work that would entitle it to the praise of even comparatively illiterate persons, though the generally good character of the engravings and its attractive exterior may secure some purchasers. Besides, its title gives no idea of its contents, and we hope not to be considered unkind when we offer the suggestion that, if the author should ever inflict another edition on a patient public, he will change it. Hash would be much more expressive and germain to the matter, salad being much too palatable a dish to be treated with such contumely.

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A REMEMBRANCE OF THE LIVING TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD. By James Mumford, Priest of the Society of Jesus. Reprinted from the Edition of 1661. With Appendix on the Heroic Act. By John Morris, Priest of the same Society. London: Burns, Oates & Co. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1871.

Those who have read Father Mumford’s Catholic Scripturist or Question of Questions will need no assurance from us of the excellence of the present treatise. Those who are yet strangers to this old writer will find a peculiar charm in the work, if, at least, they have any liking for terseness, directness, and unction. Father Mumford is somewhat quaint; but that only adds to his style. Good works on Purgatory are not plentiful. This is one of the very best. It particularly inculcates, too, a duty we seldom appreciate sufficiently.

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LITTLE PRUDY’S FLYAWAY SERIES. Aunt Madge’s Story. By Sophie May, author of “Little Prudy’s Stories,” “Dotty Dimple Stories,” etc. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1872.

This is a delightful little story for children, but this is saying nothing new, for Sophie May’s stories always are. As Aunt Madge was not one of the “tremendous good” children, her story will, perhaps, have a special interest for the little ones.

P. F. CUNNINGHAM has in press and will soon publish Marion Howard, a story of much interest.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., New York: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. By J. P. Lange, D.D. Translated, enlarged, and edited by P. Schaff, D.D. Vol. IV. Containing Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. 8vo, pp. iv., 188, 261, 53.--Lectures on Science and Religion. By Max Müller, M.A. 12mo, pp. iv., 300.--Systematic Theology. By C. Hodge, D.D. Vol. II. 8vo, pp. 732.

From CARLTON & LANAHAN, New York: Three Score Years and Beyond. By Rev. W. H. De Puy, D.D. 8vo, pp. 512.--Jesus Christ. By E. de Pressensé, D.D. 12mo, pp. 312.--Pillars of the Temple. By Rev. W. C. Smith. 12mo, pp. 366.--Light on the Pathway of Holiness. By Rev. L. D. McCabe, D.D. 18mo, pp. 114.--The Land of the Veda. By Rev. W. Butler, D.D.

From D. APPLETON & CO., New York: Ballads of Good Deeds. By H. Abbey. 18mo, pp. 129.

From P. DONAHOE, Boston: The Fourfold Sovereignty of God. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. 18mo, pp. 272.--The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas, Canon Pope. 12mo, pp. xviii., 340.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: The Martyrs of the Coliseum. By Rev. A. J. O’Reilly. 12mo, pp. viii., 396.

From J. R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Divine Tragedy. By H. W. Longfellow. 18mo, pp. iv., 150.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Half Truths and the Truth. By Rev. J. M. Manning, D.D. 12mo, pp. xii., 398.

From the AUTHOR: Notes on Historical Evidence in Reference to Adverse Theories of the Origin and Nature of the Government of the United States. By J. B. Dillon. 8vo, pp. x., 141.

From D. &. J. SADLIER & CO., New York: The Devil. By Father Delaporte. 18mo, pp. viii., 202.

From KREUZER BROS., Baltimore: Triumph of the Blessed Sacrament. By Rev. M. Müller, C.SS.R. 18mo, pp. 146.--The Catholic Priest. By Rev. M. Müller, C.SS.R. 18mo, pp. 163.

From G. ROUTLEDGE & SONS, New York: The Moral of Accidents. By the late Rev. T. T. Lynch. 12mo, pp. xviii., 415.--Una and Her Paupers.--Memorials of Agnes E. Jones. By her Sister. With an Introduction by Florence Nightingale. First American Edition. With an Introductory Preface by Rev. H. W. Beecher. 12mo, pp. xlvi., 497.

From P. O’SHEA, New York: Lectures on the Church. By Rev. D. A. Merrick, S.J. 12mo, pp. iv., 263.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Wear and Tear. By S. W. Mitchell. 18mo, paper, pp. 59.

From R. CODDINGTON, New York: The Church and the World. By Rev. T. S. Preston, D.D. Paper, pp. 30.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: The To-Morrow of Death. By Louis Figuier. 12mo, pp. viii., 395.

From C. C. CHATFIELD & CO., New Haven: Logical Praxis. By H. N. Day. 12mo, pp. viii., 148.

Proceedings of the Third Annual Session of the American Philological Association, held at New Haven, Conn., July, 1871. [The Third Annual Meeting of the Association will be held in Providence, R. I., July 24, 1872, at 3 P.M.]

We are under obligations to the Author for a copy of Evolution and its Consequences. (Reprinted from the Contemporary Review.) A Reply to Prof. Huxley. By St. Geo. Mivart, F.R.S.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XV., No. 86.--MAY, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

NO. IV.

DUTIES TO THE CHURCH.

If we look at one aspect of Christian society, we cannot help being overwhelmed with astonishment at the number and the greatness of the generous deeds and sacrifices which crowd and adorn its history. The noble, the powerful, the highly gifted, the wealthy, have lavished their possessions, their labors, their lives, for their fellow-men, in such a way as really to merit our wonder when we think of the weakness of human nature and the rarity of disinterested philanthropy among those who are not Christians. But, if we look at another aspect of the same, the amount of meanness, selfishness, and baseness which meets our view makes us wonder that Christian faith has, after all, produced so little really rare and rich fruit in the soil of human nature. The little which we do find is so perfect that we are astonished not to see more of the same quality produced by the same causes and influences. When we think of the motive which men have for making sacrifices, and of the example which has been given them--that is, that the Lord of heaven has died on the cross for mankind--the conduct of those Christians who have followed that example by the practice of heroic perfection seems merely the fulfilment of a plain, Christian duty of gratitude. On the other hand, the conduct of those Christians who live a selfish and unworthy life appears not only in a mean and ignoble, but even in an atrocious, light. That we belong absolutely to God, that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, that we have only one lawful end to our life on the earth, which is to glorify God and merit to be glorified by him hereafter, are first truths which no Catholic ever thinks of denying or doubting. These truths caused some of the saints to renounce literally everything for Jesus Christ, and others to administer the power and wealth which they retained, exclusively for the glory of God and the good of their fellow-men. The saints are only examples of the highest degrees of those virtues of the same kind which constitute the character of all really good Christians. Every rich man, therefore, who wishes to be a good Christian, must have the same devotion to the faith, to the church, to the cause of God, of Christ, and of the Vicar of Christ on earth, which the saints had. Devotion to the church sums up the whole, because it includes or implies everything. This devotion must precede, direct, and dominate over every intention, motive, object, and undertaking of life. The obligation to it lies in the very nature of baptism. The baptized person is wholly devoted to the service of the Lord who has redeemed him, signed him with his own peculiar mark, and given him a title to the crown of celestial glory. The nature and extent of the service due varies with the position and the talents of the individual. The one who receives one talent is bound to gain one more with it. This may mean, for instance, that this particular man, or that particular woman, is bound to no other service to the church than to bring up well some three or five children, to come to Mass and the sacraments with them, to live an honest life, and to make some small contributions to the treasury of the church. The one who receives five talents is also bound to gain five more. The explication of the sense of this, and its application to particular cases, are easily made. Whatever the talents conferred on any individual may be, all must be devoted primarily to the sacred cause of the Catholic Church. It is the kingdom of Christ; it is the only hope of salvation to the world; it is the ark of safety to the individual himself with whom we are speaking. Into that church he has been baptized at the font, and made its child, its citizen, and its subject. There is no escape from its allegiance except by treason. The character of baptism is ineffaceable, and no one who bears that mark has any rights over himself, his talents, or his possessions, except such as are conceded to him by the law of Christ. “Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price.” “Henceforth, no one liveth to himself, and no one dieth to himself.” It is necessary to live and die as a member of the Catholic Church, in order to live honorably and to die happily. As it is only by partaking in the common life of the church that its individual members have any life of their own, it is their first duty to promote that common life. The law of life is the law of duty: the greater and stronger and more important the member is, the greater is the service it is bound to render to the body.

The duties of Catholics who belong to the higher and more wealthy class in society to the church are very various, numerous, and heavy. One portion of them coincides to a great extent with their obligations to the poor and miserable, of which notice was taken in our last number. The obligation of succoring their fellow-creatures because they are of the same blood through Adam, and made in the rational image of the same God, becomes more sacred towards those who are brethren in Christ through baptismal grace. How is it possible for Christians who expect to be saved through the infinite charity of Jesus Christ to revel in splendor, luxury, and enjoyment, and at the same time to look with heartless indifference on the want and suffering of those who are the dearest friends of Christ? If they are charitable and kind-hearted, as every true Christian must be, the charities of the church are so numerous and extensive as to tax their generosity to the utmost. There is great scope for private and personal charity toward individuals, but the great organized works of general charity must be carried on by the clergy or religious societies. The funds which they are ordinarily able to procure for these works are, in proportion to the necessities clamoring for relief, like the five loaves and two small fishes which the disciples of Christ set before the famishing multitude of five thousand men, besides women and children. These small funds come in great part from the almsgiving of laboring people, or from the various devices of lectures, fairs, concerts, etc., to which the managers of charitable works are obliged to resort. After all has been done, the Catholic priest, the charitable layman who makes his round of visits in the name of the St. Vincent de Paul’s Society, the Sister of Charity, are hardly able to do more than help those who are in want of the absolutely necessary clothing, food, and fire with which to keep off the gaunt death that grins at them out of every corner of their life. The demands upon charity are constant, multifarious, and pressing. They are made chiefly upon priests, who have already given up everything for God. It is plain, therefore, that it is the duty of the rich to furnish them liberally and abundantly with the means for supplying these demands.

The building of churches, their decoration, the furnishing of sacred vessels and ornaments for the sanctuary, and other works directly connected with the service and worship of the divine Majesty, are objects demanding a truly immense outlay of money. So far as concerns that which is necessary for the ministering of the word and sacraments of Christ, these spiritual wants of the people take precedence of their bodily necessities. So far as the decoration, splendor, and dignity of religion only are concerned, they come next after the more essential works of charity. Add to the buildings which are immediately devoted to divine worship, all those which belong to colleges, schools, orphanages, etc., and the work demanded of the Catholics of the United States appears colossal, and would seem impossible, did we not see before our eyes so much of it already accomplished. Then, there are the most just and imperative claims of the Holy Father, and the pathetic appeals of the foreign missions, never so pressing as at the present moment, when the downfall of the power of France has left them so denuded of the succor which they formerly received from that most generous nation. The naïve response which a most estimable French lady once gave to a priest who asked her for a donation to a good work in this city, very well expresses the true state of the case in hand: “Very much call, very little fund.” Nowhere is this more literally true than in New York. The most extreme liberality of all the Catholics of this city who have anything to spare, whether rich or poor, would not yield the means of furnishing a sufficient number of churches, schools, and other means for supplying the spiritual and corporal wants of our swarming and increasing population. Millions might be used at the present moment, if they could be had, in works of the most practical utility and even necessity. When a city or a nation is in straits through the calamities of war, pestilence, or famine, all its citizens are expected to strain every nerve and to make heroic sacrifices for its relief. No city or nation has a thousandth part of the claim to devotion from its citizens which the church possesses. And the church, always militant, is always in straits, at least in some part of her great empire, always suffering from the effects of the perpetual warfare waged against her, from pestilential vices and sins among her children, from a famine of the word and sacraments of Christ among the most neglected and abandoned of her people. God alone can help her efficiently. But men must struggle to help themselves, if they expect God to help them. Our Lord demanded of his disciples to feed the hungry multitude, and ordered them to set before them the whole of their own scanty provisions. “He himself knew what he would do,” and he did it by multiplying miraculously the loaves and fishes of his disciples. God alone can rescue the famishing and perishing multitudes of Christendom and heathendom from the abyss of temporal and spiritual ruin and death which yawns under their feet. Society must be reconstructed on a Christian basis, and by mighty, organic movements, in which the church and the state, the hierarchy, both ecclesiastical and civil, and all the powers contained in the bosom of society, in harmonious concert of action, labor together for a common end, it must work out its own regeneration and the Christian civilization of the human race; or the work will remain for ever incomplete. Christendom is full of deadly disorders and wounds, inflicted on it by the fell power of schism, heresy, and infidelity. Only Catholic unity can heal it, and combine its members in the work assigned to it by divine Providence, and only a miracle of grace can restore to that unity the severed and disorganized parts, close up the deadly gashes in the living body, and reanimate it with complete health. The zeal, activity, and wealth of the whole community, collected in the communion of the Catholic Church, would be sufficient for as thorough a regeneration of New York, and of the whole United States, as the most sanguine optimist could ever expect to see brought about in any country in the world. Christendom, united in itself, and governed on Christian principles, would absorb into itself on a century the entire world. But meanwhile, the faithful and loyal children of the church must do what they can, and await the time for God to do what he has determined, and to a great extent made conditional in the efforts of men. The most of our Catholic people in the United States have, on the whole, fulfilled the duty of contributing the funds required for carrying on the works of the church remarkably well. Whether the richer portion of them have done their fair share, is a question not so easy to answer. Instances of princely generosity have not been wanting, and to a considerable extent there has been a creditable liberality manifested by the wealthier classes of Catholics when they have been publicly or privately solicited to aid in religious or other charitable works. That there are some who are niggardly in their disposition, and many who are more sparing and moderate in their charities than they ought to be, can hardly be doubted. The comparatively small number of wealthy men in the Catholic community has necessarily thrown the great burden of supporting the institutions of the church upon the mass of the people who are not rich. There is nothing in this to complain of. If the rich do their fair share, it is no disgrace to them that they enjoy the benefits which have been chiefly purchased by the money of the laboring classes. But if they fall behind their proportion, it is a real disgrace to them, because they receive in that case for nothing, and as an alms from the poor, something which they ought to have paid for.

The church demands something more than a portion of the surplus of the wealth of the rich. She demands the consecration and devotion of the minds, the wills, the time, the efforts of all the élite of her laity, of those who are rich in intellectual gifts and acquisitions, as well as of those who are rich in gold and silver. The principal medium of the operation of this devotion at the present time are voluntary associations under the sanction and direction of the hierarchy. These associations have for their scope the organization of charitable works, the diffusion of knowledge, resistance to the enemies of the church, the defence of the Holy See, and general co-operation with the clergy in the extension of the Catholic religion. We will not enlarge on this theme, at present, as we have promised to make our articles very brief, and an essay on the subject has already appeared in our pages. What we have said will be sufficient, we trust, to stimulate all those who are imbued with the spirit of Catholic faith to greater zeal and effort in the sacred cause of the church, in which the laity have as great an interest as the clergy.

ANNIVERSARY OF BAPTISM.

BY A CONVERT.

On this steep pathway, which, with prayers, I climb, I pause a moment--as a traveller might, Weary and footsore, and in dusty plight, Hearing, far off, the clear, melodious chime Of bells that mark the swiftly passing time: Then, as he pauses on the beetling height, Through filming distance fixes his keen sight On one faint speck, his starting point at prime, And takes fresh courage for the sharp ascent-- Thus do I pause to-day; my steadfast eye Fixed on that point of time, in which doth lie The germ of all which can my soul content; On which my waking thoughts, my dreams, are bent: Then, turn where life’s still summits touch th’ eternal sky.

THE HOUSE OF YORKE.

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