Opening…

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 91.—OCTOBER, 1872

Bismarck And The Jesuits.

“1. The Order of the Company of Jesus, orders akin to it, and congregations of a similar character, are excluded from the German territory. The establishment of residences for these orders is prohibited. The establishments actually in existence must be suppressed within a period to be determined by the Federal Council, but which shall not exceed six months.

“2. The members of the Company of Jesus, of orders akin to it, and of congregations of a similar character, may be expelled from the Federal territory if they are foreigners. If natives, residence within fixed limits may be forbidden them, or imposed upon them.

“The measures necessary for the execution of this law, and for the certainty of this execution, shall be adopted by the Federal Council.”

Such is the amendment on the original motion for the recent legislation with regard to the Jesuits which was proposed to the Reichstag by Dr. Friedberg. The original motion was identical in aim and almost in substance. The amendment is more exact and well‐defined, leaving not the slightest loophole for possible evasion or escape. It was framed and pressed on by the kindly spirit and generous hand of Prince Clovis of Hohenlohe, the brother of the cardinal whose rejection by the Pope as ambassador from Germany to his court gave such high umbrage to the exquisitely sensitive Prince Bismarck.

Such is the law: plain, clear, and well‐defined. There is no mistaking it: it is “goodly writ.” Paraphrased, it runs thus:

There is a body of men—and women even; for though we attach ourselves to the chief point at issue, the phrase, “Those congregations of a similar character,” may cover a very extensive ground, and seems ingeniously framed for abuse—in Germany, possessed of certain property, colleges, churches, seminaries, schools; possessed of certain rights as free citizens of a free land: liberty of action and of thought. Most of them are natives of the soil; many of them members of the highest families in the empire. They have been doing their work all these years without let or hindrance, or rumor of such. The state found no fault with them, or at least never expressed it. Consequently, they went on without changing one iota of their principles or mode of action, teaching in the universities, colleges, and schools: preaching in the churches; gathering together communities; giving themselves free voice in a free press, that all might hear and tell openly what they were doing, and what they purposed doing. Without a moment’s warning, without a trial or even a mockery of a trial, the state swoops down on them, seizes their property, breaks up their communities, turns them out of their homes adrift upon the world, proclaims them outlaws, banishes them the empire, save such as were born in it—one of whom happens to be a cousin to the emperor himself; and these latter they proscribe to fixed limits under the surveillance of the police.

And such is law! The law of the new German Empire: the first great step in its reconstruction!

Short of death, the state could not do more utterly to destroy a body of men. Condensed into a word, these measures are—demolition. As death alone can make their penalty supreme, the crimes of these outlaws ought to be proportionately great. What, then, are these crimes that in a moment produced such a sentence?

Here we must confess to as great an inability to answer the question as Prince Bismarck or his followers found themselves; for the very simple fact that there are no crimes to answer for. This may account in part for the extra severity of the sentence. Only make the penalty big enough, and the popular mind needs to hear nothing of the crime. Prince Bismarck knows the value of the old adage, “Give a dog a bad name, and hang him.”

When the Communists seized upon Paris, we all knew what to expect: scant justice and speedy sentence; none of your careful balancing of right and wrong. They took what they could and gave no reason. This model German government, this new power which we all tremble at, though it promises to regenerate us, follows la Commune pretty closely in this its first essay of power.

In the even balance of the law, it is useless to talk of conspiracies, parties, plots, and this, that, and the other. Show us those conspiracies; point them out in black and white; let the law lay its inexorable finger upon them, and say, such and such actions have been committed by such and such persons; here are the proofs of guilt—and we are satisfied. Though the condemned may have been our dearest friends, we have only to acknowledge the justice of the sentence, to deplore that we have been deceived in them, and to range ourselves as honest men and true citizens on the side of the law. But in the present case, we have not had one single fact produced nor attempted to be produced; not a crime in the varied category of crimes has been laid at the door of the accused. We have had instead from such men as Bismarck and his tools vague generalities of “conspiracy,” “enemies at home as well as abroad,” intermingled with fears for the safety of the new empire—“the new creation”—padded in with bluster and empty bombast, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

And in the face of this advanced nineteenth century, this era of facts, figures, and freedom, on the strength of evidence that would not suffice to condemn the veriest scoundrel that ever stood face to face with justice in the dock, a body of intellectual gentlemen, beloved in the country from which they are banished, are proclaimed outlaws, enemies of their own nation, faithless to their country and their emperor, unfit to live in the land that is proud of them, and driven without scrip or staff into the world.

Let us bear it in mind, before quitting this point, that the feeling of their countrymen as well as of the whole Catholic world is with them. We all know how a government, and particularly a strong government, can influence the public voice and manipulate votes. Well, petitions rolled in for the suppression of the Jesuits; but, strange to say, roll in as they might, a still vaster number came to retain them; and on the strength of the former, the measure was put before parliament and passed. This fact of the popular voice proclaiming itself boldly in favor of the Order is very significant when we take into account the forces arrayed against each other, though, in truth, the battle was all on the side of the government. On the one hand we have the Prince‐Chancellor working the engine of the state—his own creation—with every nerve that is in him, joining himself in the debates with speeches of the bitterest and most inflammatory character; on the other, we have a body of 708 men! Such was their number in Germany according to the statistics of last year; the total number throughout the world being 8,809.

To this, then, the contest reduces itself apparently. These are the ostensible foes. The new and powerful German government, in the first flush of an unprecedented success, headed by the “terrible Chancellor,” pitted might and main against 708 individuals, staking its very life on the contest. What evenly matched foes! For the Jesuits are the sole object of this attack, mind. Listen to Minister Delbrück in his speech on the third reading of the bill: “It is my duty, in the name of the confederate government, to repudiate anew that view of the question which identifies the Society of Jesus with the Catholic Church.... In such an allegation they can discover nothing more than an arbitrary perversion of notorious facts: a falsification which is the more to be deplored, as it might serve to deprive the measure in circles outside of this assembly of its true character, and impress on it another which it does not possess.”

This minister was the mouthpiece of Bismarck—“the hands indeed are Esau’s, but the voice is that of Jacob.” Was there ever such a picture of injured innocence and righteous indignation?

Seven hundred and eight men who spend their lives, as all the world may see, in teaching, preaching, studying, visiting the sick, performing their daily household duties, are such terrible plotters, dangerous political leaders, that they cause the great Chancellor actually to tremble in his shoes. It is a strange fact that he did not find this conspiracy out sooner. Bismarck and the Jesuits are old neighbors, not to say friends. They have lived very happily together up to yesterday. They accompanied him to his wars, and took the place that is always theirs in the battle front, among the wounded and the dying, when no succor was nigh, in the endeavor to give rest and peace to the last moments of those whom Bismarck summoned from their quiet homesteads to die for him under the empty name of glory and patriotism. Some of them were rewarded by the Emperor with the Iron Cross—the proudest decoration which he can bestow on a man; as some others of them on the other side brought their science to bear on the dismal walls of the beleaguered city, spreading out light far and near to discover the crouching foe, and they were rewarded with death. Why, then, after living in harmony so long together, does the Chancellor turn round in a moment and make such a sweeping attack upon them, only them? The body, numerically, is absolutely too insignificant for all this uproar. Why, we could pack them all into some of our hotels, and they would scarcely make an appreciable difference in the number of visitors. Had there existed a conspiracy on their part against the empire, as is alleged, is it possible that with Bismarck’s unlimited power and resources, aided by those wonderful spies of his, who so infested France that his generals knew the country better than the French themselves did—is it possible that he who esteems so highly the value of the opinion of “circles outside the empire,” could not produce one sorry fact to bring forward against them? Their most determined opponents must confess that he has utterly failed to do so; and failing to do so, he has exercised, and the majority of the German Parliament has sanctioned, a barefaced abuse of power, such as we thought had died out with the good old days of Henry VIII. and Queen Bess, or lived only with the Sultan of Turkey or the barbarous monarchs of the East. May it not recoil on their own heads!

The quarrel is scarcely confined to these limits, then, terrible as the power of the Jesuits may be. We do not intend to insult the intelligence of our readers by going into a needless defence, for the millionth time, of the Jesuit Order. Their defence is written on the world with the blood of their martyred children. Their defence rests on the fact of their very existence under such persistent and terrible persecutions as their mother, the church, only has surpassed. It rests in the record of every land upon which the sun has shone. And as for the time‐worn themes, ever welcome and ever new, of secresy, unscrupulous agents, blood, poison, daggers, and all the mysterious paraphernalia which the Jesuit of the popular imagination still bears about with him under that famous black gown, which the intellect of the age, in the persons of the London Times’ correspondents and those of the Saturday Review, are never weary of harping on, we leave them to the enlightened vision of these gentlemen, and their rivals in this respect—the concocters of the villains of fifth‐rate novels. But they object: Well, we are ready to admire your Jesuits. They live among us and we know them, and really, on the whole, they are not half such bad fellows; in fact, we may go so far as to say they are very peaceable, intelligent, respectable gentlemen. When we wish to hear a good sermon we always go to listen to them. They are very fine writers, and very clever men. They have done much, or tried to do much, for America, Africa, Japan, and every out‐of‐the‐way place; they have done something in Europe, even. But after all you must acknowledge that they are very dangerous fellows. Why, your own Pope, Sixtus V., could scarcely be prevailed upon to permit the foundation of the Order at the beginning; and another of your Popes, Clement XIV., actually condemned them. Come, now; what do you say to that?

Must we soberly sit down to answer this absurdity once more? Our readers will pardon us for merely glancing at it, and passing on to the more immediate subject of our article.

First of all, granting, which we by no means intend to do, that all that they allege is true, that it was with the greatest difficulty they even crept into existence, and that a Pope found it necessary to suppress them; there stands out in the face of such opposition the telling fact of their existence in the broad light of these open days, when no sham can pass muster, when the keen, eminently honest eye of these folk pick out the false in a twinkling, expose it, hoot it down, away with it, and there is an end. Such a fact opposed to such never‐failing opposition is a very stubborn thing, and bears with it something very like reality and truth. As for the difficulty of their beginning, that is the history of all orders in the church, so careful is she of new‐fangled notions. In fact, if our recollection serves us, that, we believe, is the history of the church herself. So much for the alleged opposition of Sixtus V. And now for the quelcher: the suppression by Clement XIV.

Here we give in: our opponents are right. Clement XIV. actually did issue a brief suppressing the Jesuits. Of course it is perfectly unnecessary to inform these theological and mediæval scholars that a brief is a very different thing from a bull; that a brief is in no wise binding on the successor of the Pontiff who issues it; that a brief has no more to do with infallibility than these gentlemen themselves have. And now we would beg them to listen a moment to the very few Jesuitical words in which we explain this whole thing away.

Clement XIV. issued this brief in exactly the same way that King John signed the Magna Charta; Charles I. the death‐warrant of Strafford; or George IV. the act for Catholic emancipation. We believe none of our readers would blame King Charles for the death of Strafford, or thank King John for Magna Charta, or George IV. for Catholic emancipation; as little do we, can we, or any one who has read the history of the time, blame Clement XIV. for the brief which suppressed the Jesuits. The timid old monk—he was consecrated Pope at what the Bourbons considered the very safe age of sixty‐four—was strong enough to resist this wicked demand of their suppression to the utmost. We must bear in mind that the demand was made by no body in the church; but only by the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples. “I know what you want,” he said, “you want to create a heresy and destroy the church.” Another time he writes, “I can neither censure nor abolish an institute which has been commended by nineteen of my predecessors.” In the meantime, we have a disinterested witness, happily enough from Prussia, a man whom we have no doubt even Prince Bismarck has some respect for. It is no less a person than Frederick the Great, who writes to Voltaire:

“That good Franciscan of the Vatican leaves me my dear Jesuits, who are persecuted everywhere else. I will preserve the precious seed, so as to be able one day to apply it to such as may desire again to cultivate this rare plant.”

At last, notwithstanding his entreaties and prayers, they wrung the brief from the heart of the tottering old man. They gained their point while he lost his peace of mind, and was ever after murmuring, Compulsus feci, compulsus feci. We should be more correct in saying that they only half‐ gained it; for they were wild with rage at its being only a brief. What they wanted was a bull: destruction, not suspension. And such is the history of the famous suppression of the Jesuits.

To make the story complete, we may as well add that, as soon as the brief became known, Switzerland, knowing that it was the production of the Bourbon faction and not of the Pope, refused to submit to it and deprive the Jesuits of their colleges. Catherine of Russia interceded in their favor, and gave the poor Pope a crumb of comfort in the few days that were left him. Well did he say, “This suppression will be the death of me.” While Frederick the Great—but he shall speak for himself, and we commend his utterance to Prince Bismarck. He writes to his agent at Rome:

“Abbé Columbini, you will inform all who desire to know the fact, but without ostentation and affectation, and you will moreover seek an opportunity of signifying soon to the Pope and his chief minister, that, with regard to the Jesuits, I am determined to retain them in my states. In the treaty of Breslau, I guaranteed the status quo of the Catholic religion, and I have never found better priests in every respect. You will further add that, as I belong to the class of heretics, the Pope cannot relieve me from the obligation of keeping my word, nor from the duty of a king and an honest man.”

These words would be weakened by comment. We pass with relief from this worn‐out subject, and wish our adversaries joy of their mare’s nest. Men who have won the praise of their bitterest foes need small defence from their friends. We leave them in the hands of such men as Voltaire, Lord Macaulay, Sir James Stephens, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, and a host of other eminent men of all nations and all creeds save our own. When those who carp at the Jesuits have studied and refuted these writers to their own satisfaction, they may be in a fair way to meet us.

Now we are met with the further objection: if the Jesuits are such an excellent body as we make them; as Protestant historians and infidel writers make them; as Catherine of Russia, as Frederick the Great, the founder of the Prussian empire, and in this respect the proto‐Bismarck, make them—why should Prince Bismarck pick such a deadly quarrel with them?

Have we possibly been mistaken in him all this time? Have we had another Luther lurking beneath the person of the burly Chancellor? Has his aim been all along not merely to create a German empire, but a German religion and a German popedom? Has his zeal been inspired by religion? In his speech the other day he protested against the pretensions of the Pope “as a Protestant and an evangelical Christian.” We congratulate the evangelical Christians, whoever they may be, on their new apostle. For ourselves, we could not help laughing, and thinking that the height of solemn farce had at length been reached. The words reminded us of one Oliver Cromwell, who, in common with a well‐known kinsman of his, had a knack of “citing Scripture for his purpose.”

No; we confess it, notwithstanding this solemn affirmation from his own mouth, and before the German parliament too—(we think the printer must have omitted the “laughter” at the end)—we cannot bring ourselves to look upon the Chancellor as a “vessel of election,” though he may be a “vessel of wrath.” We consider that his worst enemy could scarcely say a harder thing of him than that he was a religious man. His is “Ercles’ vein: a tyrant’s vein.” The Emperor “is more condoling.” Now he presents the picture of a religious man par excellence. Why, his nostrils discerned a sanctified odor rising up from those reeking fields of France; and he could pray—how well!—after he had won the victory. But his Chancellor is a man of another complexion. He found a rich humor in it all. We have not forgotten that grim joke of his yet about the starving and doomed city. Is he not the prince of jesters? No, however bad may be our opinion of him, we will not accuse him of religiousness.

Where, then, lies the difficulty between them? The answer to this necessitates a review of the whole present question of Bismarck with the Papacy; and we must beg our readers’ indulgence in carrying them over such beaten ground in order to get at the root of it all, fix it in our minds, and keep it there, so that no specious reasoning may blind us to the reality of it, to the true point at issue.

We recollect the position of the Papacy prior to the Franco‐German war. The Pope was supported in his dominions by the arm of France—we say France advisedly; not by Napoleon. The war came and smote this right arm. Victor Emanuel stepped in; took possession: coolly told the Pope he would allow him to live in the Vatican. The world shrieked with delight at seeing a powerless old man reft of the little that was left him. The world was astonished at the generosity of Victor Emanuel in allowing the Pope a fraction of what happened to be his own property. The world looked for the regeneration of Italy, and it has had it. The New York Herald furnished us with the increase of crime since Victor Emanuel’s possession: if we recollect rightly, it is about fourfold. So the Pope rested, as he still rests, a virtual, in plain truth an actual, prisoner in the Vatican, without a helping hand stretched forth to him. Came his jubilee, and with it kindly and solemn gratulations from a quarter least expected—the new emperor. Our eyes began to turn wistfully to the new power, and people whispered, Who knows? perhaps our Holy Father has at last found a defender. Here was Bismarck’s opportunity of winning the hearts of the Catholic world, of binding us to him with the strongest chain that can link man to man. Time wore on, and the gloss wore off. Home questions arose, the Chancellor began to feel his way, to insinuate little measures such as the secularization of schools, which the Catholics, strange to say, found reason to object to. Prince Bismarck grew a little impatient; he was anxious to conciliate the Catholics as far as he possibly could; but really “his patience was nearly exhausted.” Our golden hopes began to grow dim. We have heard this sort of thing before; we hear it every day, from some whose opinions we respect; and we know what it means. It is the old cry, “We have piped to you and you will not dance; we have played to you, and you do not sing.” You are irreconcilable; there is no meeting you on debatable ground. And that is just the point. Our religion has no debatable ground, for it is founded on faith, and not on what goes by the name of free investigation. So that whether it be Bismarck or nearer friends of ours who would force or woo us in turn from our position, we must meet them in matters that touch our faith with the inevitable “Non possumus.”

Prince Bismarck began to grow weary of us; and he soon showed signs of his peculiar form of weariness. He scarcely agrees with “what can’t be cured must be endured”; his motto is rather, “What can’t be cured must be killed.” The secularization of schools was carried in the face of the protest of the Prussian Catholic bishops, assembled at Fulda. The solemnization of the sacrament of marriage is handed over to the civil jurisdiction, the same as any other contract. Still not a whisper against the Jesuits, though, as we have already quoted, his quarrel is purely and entirely with them. We pass on to the crowning act in his list of grievances: the embassy to the Court of the Vatican.

What a noble thing it looked in the all powerful Chancellor to despatch an ambassador from the high and mighty German empire, the mightiest in the world, to the old man pent up in the Vatican! What a condescension to acknowledge that such a person existed!

Of course the Pope would receive such marks of favor with tears of gratitude and open arms. What! is it possible? He actually rejects the ambassador, and sends him back on Bismarck’s hands. Well, well! wonders will never cease.

Now there never was such a tempest in a tea‐pot as the explosion this carefully laid train created. The very fact of sending an ambassador at all to a monarch acknowledges the perfect right of that monarch to receive or reject him as he pleases; and to common sense there is an end of the question. The Pope did not choose to receive this ambassador; he had every right to exercise his freedom of action; he exercised his right, but Prince Bismarck’s sensibilities were hurt. It was not so much the fact of rejection as the Pope’s want of politeness that afflicted him. In his speech before the Reichstag he declared that such a thing was without a parallel in the history of diplomacy. What martinets these Germans are for punctilio! We remember Mr. Disraeli actually refusing to accept as sufficient reason for the late war the “breach of etiquette at a German watering‐place.” Now, with all due respect, Prince Bismarck knew, as those he addressed knew, as all the world knows, that this statement was anything but correct. Ambassadors have been rejected before now, and probably will be again. In fact, had certain individuals of this class to and from ourselves been rejected at the outset, it would have saved national difficulties, or at least wounded feelings and displays of school‐boy recriminations scarcely creditable to such high and mighty folk as gentlemen of the diplomatic body. But there is more in the question than this. The Cardinal‐Prince Hohenlohe is a prince of the church. He is in addition attached to the Pope’s household. He gave himself freely and voluntarily to the service of the church. He is not a mere ordinary member of the Catholic body. He stands in relation to the Pope as Von Moltke, the Dane, stands in relation to the Emperor William; as those who were once fellow‐citizens of ours stand in relation to the Khedive, whose service they have entered; as Carl Schurz and millions of our fellow‐citizens stand in relation to the government of the United States. When the Italians entered Rome, Cardinal Hohenlohe left it; and the next the Pope heard of him was that his own servant had been appointed ambassador to his court from Berlin! Just as though tomorrow we received intimation that a new ambassador had been appointed to us from England, and that ambassador was no less a person than—Minister Schenck. We can imagine the New York Herald’s comments on such a proceeding. And yet Prince Bismarck is sore aggrieved at a breach of political etiquette.

We think we need trouble our readers with no further reasons for Cardinal Hohenlohe’s rejection. What share the cardinal had in the whole proceeding we do not know. Probably Prince Bismarck would eventually have found himself sadly disappointed in his ambassador had he been accepted. S. Thomas of Canterbury made an excellent chancellor till the king, against his wishes, compelled him to enter new service. But it is very clear that if Bismarck, as we do not believe, ever contemplated the possibility of the cardinal’s acceptance at Rome, what he wanted was a tool, one who, to use his own very remarkable words, “would have had rare opportunities of conveying our own version of events and things to his [the Pope’s] ear. This was our sole object in the nomination rejected, I am sorry to say, by Pio Nono.”

We have no doubt of it: it was his sole object; and the acceptance or rejection of his ambassador was one to him; for Prince Bismarck is generally provided with two strings to his bow. Had the cardinal been accepted, he believed he had a churchman devoted to his interests, another Richelieu; his rejection suited him still better; for he could now declare open war, and throw the onus of it on his adversaries. Through the whole proceeding we detect the fine hand of the man who forced on the Danish, Austrian, and French wars. Prince Bismarck must not be surprised if, in the face of such speaking examples, we come at last to have a faint conception of his strategy. His policy always is, and always has been, to egg his adversary on; to goad him into striking first, taking care all the while that he himself is well prepared. They strike, and he crushes them—all in self‐defence. He is exonerated in the eyes of the world. He can tell the others they provoked him to the contest; he can say to them, “Your blood be on your own heads.”

And so this carefully prepared train exploded. It looked such a noble, generous, friendly action to send an ambassador to the Pontiff’s court in the present position of the Pontiff, that, when the ambassador was calmly rejected, the world could not believe its ears; and Prince Bismarck entertains a very high respect for those ears notwithstanding their length. What could we say but that it was too much? There was no conciliating these Romanists and Ultramontanes, do what you would. It was clear that the Pope was altogether out of place in these days; and his obstinacy only served to keep very respectable bodies of men from agreeing and living neighborly together, and so on ad nauseam. Thus Bismarck could afford to froth and fume about insult, unprecedented actions, etiquette, and so on; urge upon the German nation that they had been insulted in the person of their august emperor, who seems as touchy on points of etiquette as a French dancing‐master; and ring the changes up and down till he closed with the loud‐sounding twang, “Neither the emperor nor myself are going to Canossa!”

Could anything be more theatrically effective? Could anything be more transparently shallow?

Well, in the face of this awful outrage and unprecedented provocation, what does the wrathful Chancellor do? March on Rome; declare war against the Catholics; utterly exterminate them; smite them hip and thigh? Nothing of the kind. He not only lets the Pope alone from whom he received the outrage, _but he actually looks about for another ambassador, __“__in the event of unlooked‐for eventualities.__”_ He entertains the greatest possible respect for Catholics. Indeed, he seems to be aware that the small fraction of 14,000,000 of them go to swell his empire; the most Catholic of whom, by the way, bore the brunt of the battle in France. He accepts his rebuff more in sorrow than in wrath. He lets the whole question slip; he has no quarrel with the 14,000,000; but there are 708 of them whom he pounces upon as the policeman on the small boy; and nobody can quarrel with him for letting the steam of his wrath off on this small body, which is at the bottom of every mischief that turns up.

Is not this excellent fooling? He says to the Catholics: I will not touch you; you and I are very excellent friends; I will not touch your mother—the church; I will content myself with murdering her eldest son, who is the cause of all the trouble between us.

Now, we may fairly ask the question: Is the quarrel confined to these limits? Why does Bismarck turn aside from the church, from the Pope who so angered him, from the bishops who protested against his laws and refused to submit to them, from the Centre in the Reichstag who so boldly, calmly, and logically oppose him?—why does he turn from all these legitimate foes, and fall on the small body of 708 men who compose the Jesuit Order in Prussia?

The answer is not difficult. The Jesuits as a body represent the intellect of the church. They represent indeed more, much more, than this; for intellect, great as it is, is not the highest thing in the eye of God or of his church; but our present point deals with their intellectual power. The Pall Mall Gazette said the other day, writing on this question:

“One of the most remarkable traits of the Society of Jesus has always been its literary productiveness. Wherever its members went, no sooner had they founded a home, a college, a mission, than they began to write books. [We beg to call the attention of those who would fain make the church the mother of ignorance, to testimony of this kind from such a source.] The result has been a vast literature, not theological alone, though chiefly that, but embracing almost every branch of knowledge.”

The Jesuits in Germany, as in all countries where they have freedom, possessed the best schools and colleges. They made themselves heard and felt in the press. “In Italy, Germany, Holland, and Belgium,” says the journal above quoted, “the most trustworthy critics are of opinion that there are no better written newspapers than those under Jesuit control.” It says further, and nobody will accuse the Pall Mall Gazette of being a Jesuit organ:

“Why indeed is their Order so dangerous, if it be not on account of the ardent, disinterested conviction of its members, their indomitable courage and energy, their spirit of self sacrifice, to say nothing of their intelligence and their learning? The effect of all this can but be heightened by persecution. On the other side [Austria, if we recollect rightly], the danger which the existence of the Order in the country really offers is much less than it is supposed to be. In Germany, it does not really exist.”

These extracts from various numbers of one of the leading rationalistic organs in England, which it were easy to supplement by many others of the same import, notably from the Saturday Review and the Spectator, we merely present here to such of our non‐Catholic readers as might receive our own testimony of whatever value with a certain suspicion. They embody very sound reasons for Bismarck’s unprovoked and unlawful attack. We purpose going a little deeper into the question.

The Jesuits now, as always, small as their number is, were the leading Catholic teachers in Germany among high and low. Their access to the chairs of the universities made them to a great extent the moulders of thought, the teachers of the teachers, the great intellectual bulwark against the spread of rationalism and every form of false doctrine which strives to creep in to the hearth of the commonwealth and endanger its existence. As they were the strenuous upholders of Bismarck in all that was right; as their influence against the maxims of the International, though not so immediate and showy as his, was infinitely deeper and more lasting, so when he would intrench upon rights that are inalienable to every man of whatever complexion and creed, they turned and boldly faced the Chancellor himself. Were the character which their opponents would fix upon them true, they had their opportunity of showing it—of going with him at least at the outset. He would not have disdained the assistance of such able lieutenants. But instead, the wily Jesuits, the men of the world, the plotters, the schemers, the Order that is untrue to everything and everybody save itself, throws itself with undiminished ardor, with a devotion worthy of the fatalist, with all their heart and soul, into a losing cause; into a cause which they have ever supported; which has been losing these eighteen hundred and seventy‐two years, but which has never lost.

These considerations bring us to the root of the question.

This marvellous German empire, this more than a nine days’ wonder, has been convulsed into life; and sudden convulsions are liable to as sudden relapses. Bismarck’s heart is in it; he is the corner‐stone; it is built upon him; and he of all men knows on what a rocking foundation it is built. Listen to his mouthpiece once more, Minister Delbrück, in his speech on the third reading of the bill against the Jesuits:

“We live under a very new system of government, called into existence by mighty political convulsions: and I hold that we should commit a great error in abandoning ourselves to the delusion that everything is accomplished and perfected because the Imperial German constitution has been published in the official organ of the empire. For a long time to come we shall have to keep carefully in mind that the constitution—the new creation—has enemies not only abroad but at home; and if the representatives of the empire arrive at the conviction that among these internal enemies an organ is to be reckoned which, while furnished with great intellectual and material means, and endowed with a rare organization, steadily pursues a fixed inimical aim, it has a perfect right to meet and frustrate the anticipated attack.”

We have shown how nobly they met and frustrated the anticipated attack—a rather summary mode, we submit, of dealing with those who may be enemies, for it has grown into only an “anticipated attack” now. Worse and worse for the wielders of law. It may be as well to note also that the Chancellor lets nothing slip. He allows the “great intellectual means” to go; but the “great material means” is a far more important thing. He sticks to that. There must be something of the Israelite nature in him. He out‐Shylocks Shylock. As in France, so here; he is not content with the “pound of flesh,” he will have in addition the “monies.” After all, what is there to surprise us in this? The great Chancellor, who coldly wrung such griping terms from bleeding France, could scarcely be expected to leave to the church the great material possessions, that is to say, the schools, seminaries, and churches, which belonged to her children.

But to resume: The first sentence of this quotation strikes the key‐note of the whole movement. And, we avow it, Prince Bismarck is right. This empire has enemies at home as well as abroad, and the Jesuits are in the van. All Catholics are its enemies; and we make bold to say that all free men, and particularly all Americans, are its enemies. For it is not a German but a Bismarck empire; a Bismarck creation, that started into life men scarce knew how; a momentary thing for mutual defence, but never to be made, as he has made it, as powerful an instrument of tyranny as ever was forged to bind and grind a free‐born people in fetters of iron for ever down. Never, in the vexed history of nations, has power, and such awful power, fallen into the hands of any one man at such an opportune moment for good; and never, at the very outset, has it been so basely and so openly abused. The state of Europe, at this moment, is deplorable; revolution in Spain, revolution in Italy, revolution in France. The government, the supreme control of the whole continent, shifting from hand to hand; yesterday it was Napoleon, to‐day ’tis Bismarck: Europe cannot stand these successive shocks, from empire to anarchy, from anarchy to empire, without warning and without ceasing. Under all smoulders the burning lava, breaking out from time to time in fitful eruptions—here the Carbonari, there la Commune, in other places as trades‐unions—which threatens to overwhelm and engulf the whole in one red ruin. It is simply the evil effect of evil spirits working upon dissatisfied and ill‐governed bodies of men. While over all, in the dim treacherous background, looms the vast giant power of Russia, that seems to slumber, but is only biding the event, and shows itself in dangerous signs from time to time. Europe yearns for something fixed, permanent, and strong. Napoleon held it—failed; and the reins fell into the hands of Bismarck. He commences his reign by declaring war against the only element that can humanize these conflicting masses, and cause this wild chaos of passion to adhere, coalesce, and become one again as its Creator made it: religion. Religion alone can make them bow to law; for religion alone can teach them that there is a law that is above, and gives a reason for that law which they themselves make for themselves. And what has Bismarck done with this power that was given him?

To begin with, he has banished religion from the schools, where it has flourished to the mutual satisfaction of Catholics and Protestants ever since its establishment. He has profaned the sacrament of marriage and handed it over to the civil courts. We will omit the expulsion of the Jesuits now. His empire is the most autocratic and aristocratic in Europe. Almost as a consequence, it is the most military. To make assurance doubly sure, he is making it more military still; not a nation of peaceful men, but a nation of warriors. Instead of allowing the weary nation a rest after a strife where centuries were condensed into a few months, and fabulous armies shattered in days, the military laws are made more stringent than ever. The Prussian system of service is to prevail throughout the empire, notwithstanding Bavaria’s remonstrance. Von Moltke’s declarations in his late speech are very clear and concise. Summed up, they mean discipline, discipline, discipline; and this is Bismarck’s word also. To produce this perfection of discipline, the power of the state must be supreme in every point. Nothing must escape it; nothing must evade it. The state must be religion, the state must be God, and Herr von Bismarck is the state. This sounds like exaggerated language; but Bismarck shall speak for himself:

“I may tell the preceding speaker [Herr Windhorst] that, as far as Prussia is concerned, the Prussian cabinet are determined to take measures which shall henceforth render it impossible for Prussians who are priests of the Roman Catholic Church to assert with impunity that they will be guided by canon law rather than Prussian law.”

This referred immediately to the case of the Bishop of Ermeland and others, for excommunicating disobedient priests.

The Bishop of Ermeland was ordered to withdraw his excommunication, because it might affect those who came under it in their civil capacity, under pain of suspension by the government. The answer of the Bishop, Monsignor Krementz, was admirable in every way, and we regret that our limited space compels us to exclude it. It is enough to say that the bishop shows, beyond the possibility of doubt, that he is actually within the law, by a special provision of the Prussian Constitution, which declares in Article XII. “that the enjoyment of civil and political rights is independent of religious professions,” while he declares at the same time that in such matters he is not bound by the civil law. Those opposed to him in faith must support him in this. Recent decisions in the English courts on behalf of the Established Church support him. And we need hardly waste the time of our readers by entering into such a question. If a government acknowledges a church at all, it must allow that church to work in its own way so long as it does not intrench upon the civic rights of the subject. The men in question, who were condemned, received their orders and powers of teaching, preaching, and saying Mass from the church, to which they made the most solemn oaths of entire obedience in matters of doctrine. If afterwards they grew discontented, they possessed the civil right to leave it. But as honest men, how could they remain in it, receiving emolument from it, using its property, and all the while persisting in preaching doctrines contrary to it, and endeavoring to destroy it? Those who defend the decision of the German government must allow that when, as not unfrequently happens, a Protestant clergyman becomes a convert to our faith, he may still abide in the Protestant church, preaching the Catholic faith to his congregation.

Our battle, then, and in this we are all Jesuits, is with the Bismarck empire, with the supreme power of the state. These ideas of Prince Bismarck are not new; they are as old as old Rome. The Roman was taught from his infancy that he belonged body and soul to the state; and no doubt Rome owed much of her vast power and boundless acquisitions to the steady inculcation of this materialistic doctrine from childhood upwards. “The divinity of the emperor” is not far removed from the divinity of the Chancellor. It is a very simple doctrine, and no doubt very convenient for those whom it benefits. But unfortunately for it and its defenders, One came into this world to tell us that we were “to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This is the Catholic golden rule of politics, as we believe it to be of all orthodox Protestants. Prince Bismarck will excuse our obeying Jesus Christ in preference to him.

And here is the reason for the expulsion of the Jesuits: They are the ablest exponents of these doctrines, not necessarily the most earnest—all Catholics are alike in that; but their education has made them as a body the ablest, and therefore they are driven out from the schools, colleges, universities, and churches; from the land utterly. And by whom are they replaced?

By the tools of Bismarck, by men who are ready to preach his doctrines “for a consideration.” We had a sample of them the other day at the opening of one of the universities in Alsace. The correspondent of the London Daily News, among others, described them to us: how they fought like wild beasts to get something to eat, and attacked it with their fingers; how, at the end of the day, they, the German professors, reclined in the gutters, or reeled drunk through the public streets.

And now, to complete our glance at this very large subject, a word on the ambassador to Rome that is to be. While Bismarck is still determined to send one there, he leaves us no room to doubt of his intentions in the significant words—“unlooked‐for eventualities.” That is to say, he looks to the speedy prospect of the present Pontiff’s death, and intends to affect the election of his successor. While refraining from remarking on the outspoken indelicacy of this, we do not at all doubt his intention, as little as we doubt concerning the prospect of its success. It is perfectly true that when the church had some influence over the state—and how that influence was exercised, let the spread of education, the abolition of serfdom, the persistent defense of liberty, and prevention of so many wars speak—the three great Catholic powers, France, Spain, and Germany, had a veto on the election of the Sovereign Pontiff, which they duly exercised in the persons of their respective representatives. These representatives were heard and felt in the councils of the church, and the measures they brought forward taken into due consideration. But we were under the impression that the relations between church and state had been altered to some purpose in our days. Lot has parted from Abram. The state said to the church: Our compact is at an end; you have nothing more to do with us; you may fulminate your thunderbolts as you please, and let them flash abroad through the world. We laugh. Their day is passed. Papistical pyrotechnics may frighten women and children, but we are too old for that. We know the secret of it all; that at bottom the thunderbolt is only a squib, and must fall flat. The church accepted the situation. The state had proclaimed the separation final and eternal. It could scarcely be surprised at the church taking it at its word. It could scarcely be surprised to find the doors of the Vatican Council closed against it. It can scarcely be surprised to know that the veto no longer has force—no longer exists in fact; least of all could it be expected to have force in the hands of a Protestant and heretical power, even when held in the safe keeping of the pious Emperor William and the “Christian and Evangelical” Prince Bismarck.

One effect, and we think a very important one, has grown out of all this which we surmise Prince Bismarck scarcely counted upon. We believe the mass of thinking men, whatever their sympathies might have been prior to and during the late war in France, once they beheld the great German empire an accomplished fact, wished it a hearty Godspeed; for it held in its hands the intellectual, the moral, and that very important thing in these days, the physical force sufficient to regenerate Europe. We looked to it with anxiety to see whither it would tend; we looked to it with hope. Our anxieties have been realized, our hopes dashed to the ground.

Prince Bismarck has alienated all Catholics and all lovers of freedom. And our eyes turn once more, all the chivalry in our natures turns, to the rising form of his late prostrate foe. We are amazed at the intense vitality of the French nation. Bismarck but “scotched the snake, not killed it; ’twill close and be itself.” All our hearts run out to it in the noble, the marvellous efforts it is making for self‐regeneration. And if France, as we now believe, will, and at no very distant date, regain the throne from which she has been hurled, the hand that hurled her thence will, by a strange fatality, have the greatest share in reinstating her. “The moral columns of the new German empire have begun to tremble as though shaken by an earthquake,” says the Lutheran Ecclesiastical Gazette, after deploring, as we have done, all the recent measures that have passed.

As for the manner in which the Catholic Church will come out of this trial, we will let the Protestant press itself speak. We have already heard it in a half‐hearted way in England and among ourselves. The Kreuz‐ zeitung, the organ of the orthodox Protestants, speaks more plainly:

“An eminent Catholic, a member of parliament, said lately that the outlook of the Roman Church in Germany was never more favorable than it is to‐day. It seems that this judgment is not without foundation. The defections produced by the old Catholics are without signification: we have to state a fact of altogether another importance. Formerly, the greater part of the German bishops, the greater part of the lower clergy, and almost all the laics, were adversaries of the new dogma [we give those words of the Kreuz‐zeitung, with our own reservations as to faith in them], but now that the council has spoken, we only find thirty‐ two apostate priests; that is an immeasurable victory won by the Roman Church.... Though the Roman Church thus appears day by day more and more in the ascendant, the Evangelical Church sees itself with deliberate purpose pushed down the inclined plane, or, what is still worse, the government does not seem to be aware of its existence. We have been able to remark this recently in the discussion on the paragraph relating to the clergy in the Reichstag; and lately again on the occasion of the law on the inspection of schools. In the debates, at least those which concern the manifestations of the government, the question has been altogether with reference to the Roman Church. There has been no mention made, or scarcely any, of the Evangelical Church. The impression produced on every impartial observer must be this: the Roman Church is a power, a factor which must be taken into account; the Evangelical Church is not. This disdain is, for the latter, the most telling blow which can be inflicted upon it, and which must aid in strengthening the cause of Rome in a manner that must become of the deepest significance for the future. After all that, it is not strange to see the adherents of the Roman cause conceive the loftiest hopes.”

The Volksblatt von Halle states that “the Catholic Church has become neither more timid nor weaker, but more prudent, bolder, of greater consideration, and in every respect more powerful than ever.” We might go on multiplying such extracts, but our space forbids us.

The result then to us, to Catholics, is not doubtful, as the result of persecution never is. It is strange that such a keen‐sighted, eminently practical man as Prince Bismarck should become so suddenly blind to all the teachings of history. The meanest religion that exists among men thrives on persecution even when it has nothing better to support it. As for us, as for the Jesuits particularly, “suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.” Their great Founder left it to them as his last legacy. And indeed, the measure he meted out to them has been filled to overflowing. While we are thus strong in faith, while we know that Prince Bismarck is only beating the air in his vain and impious efforts to extinguish that fire which God kindled and bade to burn, while we are calmly confident that he will shatter his mightiest forces against the Rock of Ages, and come back from the conflict battered and bruised—finding out too late that he made the one grand mistake of his life, which greater than he have made before him—still we cannot shut our eyes to the fact of the great injuries he is inflicting upon us, and the many fresh trials imposed upon the church and our Holy Father in his declining years.

What, then, are we to do?

We have power, and we must use it. We have voices, and we must make them heard. We have the silent, if not the outspoken sympathy of powerful bodies opposed to us in creed. We have the heart, when we show ourselves, of every free man and hater of oppression in any form. We have the genius of our own constitution on our side. We must speak out plainly and boldly as Catholic Americans. We must do what has already been done in London at the meeting in S. James’ Hall, presided over by the Duke of Norfolk; where peer and ploughman, gentle and simple, priest and layman, were one in protesting against this slavish policy of Prince Bismarck. Let us do the like. Let our eminent men, and they are not few, call us together here in New York, in every city throughout the nation—in behalf not only of our suffering brethren, but of those rights which are inalienable to every man that is born into this world—in protestation against a principle and a policy which, if they found favor here, would sap the life of our nation, and throw us back into the old slavery that we drowned in our best blood. Our standpoint is this: as there are rights which the state does not and cannot give us, those rights are inviolable, and the state cannot touch them. To God alone we owe them; to God alone we give them back, and are answerable for them. The state is not supreme in all things, and never shall be. These are the principles we defend, and are happy in being their persecuted champions.

It is not merely a question of creed; Bismarck does not attack a creed. It is a broad question of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of absolutism and freedom. Power was never given into the hands of the German Chancellor to be abused at the very outset, to oppress his subjects, Catholic and Protestant. It is not and it must not be supreme; and we very much mistake the genius of the great German people if they long allow it to continue so. It is not for him to deprive 14,000,000 of his people of their natural rights; the right to educate their children as they think proper, and as the law allowed them; the right to consider marriage a sacrament sanctified by God, and not a civil contract, to be loosed or unloosed at will by a magistrate; the right of listening to their most eminent teachers; the right of holding the seminaries and churches, built by their own money, for the use of their own priests; the right, above all, of believing that there is a God beyond all governments, from whom all government, which people make for themselves, springs; that God has set a law in the conscience which they must obey, even though princes and kings rage against it, and that it is not in the nature of things for this first and final law of conscience to clash with any other unless that other be wrong. When Prince Bismarck succeeds in eradicating these inborn notions from the minds of the German people, he will then have attained his supremacy; but that then is—never.

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Choice In No Choice

I know not which to love the more: The morning, with its liquid light; Or evening, with its tender lore Of silver lake and purple height.

To morn I say, “The fairer thou: For when thy beauties melt away, ’Tis but to breathe on heart and brow The gladness of the perfect day.”

And o’er the water falls a hue That cannot sate a poet’s eye: As though Our Lady’s mantle threw Its shadow there—and not the sky.

But when has glared the torrid‐noon, And afternoon is gasping low, The sunset brings a sweeter boon Than ever graced the orient’s glow.

And I: “As old wine unto new, Art thou to morn, belovèd eve! And what if dies thy every hue In blankest night? We may not grieve.

“Thy fading lulls us as we dote. Nor always blank the genial night: For when the moon is well afloat, Thou mellowest into amber light.”

Is each, then, fairer in its turn? ’Tis hence the music. Not for me To wish a dayless morn, or yearn For nightless eve—if these could be.

But give me both—the new, the old: And let my spirit sip the wine From silver now, and now from gold: ’Tis wine alike—alike divine!

LAKE GEORGE, July, 1872.

Fleurange.

By Mrs. Craven, Author of “A Sister’s Story.”

Translated From The French, With Permission.

Part Third. The Banks Of The Neckar.

“Brama assai—poco spera—nulla chiede.”—Tasso.

XXXIV.

“Return, Gabrielle! if possible, return at once; at all events, come soon.” These simple words from Clement to his cousin give no idea of the agitation with which they were written. Fleurange herself would never have suspected it, and less than ever at the arrival of a letter at once so affecting and so opportune. She even paid very little attention to her cousin’s assurances as to the inutility of any further sacrifices for the sake of his family. Clement, however, had written her the exact truth. The situation of Professor Dornthal’s family was of course very different from what it once was, but the change was far from being as great as they had all anticipated and prepared for a year before, when ruin overwhelmed and scattered them.

To leave the house in which they had lived twenty‐five years; to see all the objects that adorned it offered for sale; to give up the place where the happiest moments of their lives had been spent; all this at first excluded the possibility of anticipating anything but privation and sadness without alleviation. Madame Dornthal herself did not look forward to the future in any other light, and the courage with which she left her native city was the same she would have shown had her husband been condemned to suffer exile; she would have shared it with him, endeavoring to soften it as much as possible, but without anticipating the least possibility of joy in their changed lives.

Joy, however, returned. It not unfrequently happens that reverses endured without murmuring receive unexpected compensations.

In the first place, their new home, though simple, and even rustic compared with their old one, was neither gloomy nor inconvenient. Two spacious rooms on the ground floor allowed the whole family to assemble not only for their meals, but the evening reunions—their greatest pleasure when all the absent ones returned. A small garden surrounded the house, and a grass‐plot extended down to the river with a covered alley on each side. This place, called Rosenheim, merited its name by the abundance of flowers, and especially of roses, which on every side cheered the eye and embalmed the air. Their very first impressions, therefore, were quite different from what they had apprehended. Besides, Clement had reserved two or three of his father’s favorite paintings, several engravings, as well as a number of other familiar and precious objects, which preceded them, and were there, like old friends, to welcome them.

In the next place, the professor’s rare collections, and the works of art he had selected with so correct a taste and such profound knowledge, proved far more valuable than they had anticipated, so that, if no longer rich, an independence more than sufficient was assured them. Moreover, Clement’s prospects were exceedingly promising. His extraordinary ability was soon recognized to a degree that justified Wilhelm Müller’s foresight. To tell the truth, fortune is not so blind and capricious as she is often represented, and if she sometimes bestows her favors on those who are unworthy of them, there are some she reserves exclusively for persevering industry, perfect integrity, shrewd calculation, strict economy, and undeviating exactness. These virtues—and not chance—lay the foundations of durable and honorably acquired fortunes, and where they are lacking the greatest skill does not prevent them from being frequently lost in a day.

It was one of these legitimate fortunes Clement was worthy of and capable of acquiring. His success was already sufficient to dispense his father from the share of labor he had taken upon himself, but he could not turn him from his purpose, and soon perceived he ought not to attempt it. He derived the poetry of his nature from his father, and was indebted to his mother for his force and energy. Of these the professor, with all the rare and exquisite gifts of his mind and heart, was entirely destitute. A profound dejection mingled with his apparent resignation to misfortune, which sprang from the humiliating conviction—felt too late—of having brought it on himself by a want of foresight, and thus being responsible for the ruin of his family.

He needed something to divert him from this rooted idea, and therefore the necessity of exerting himself to fulfil the duties of the position he had accepted, and of pursuing his favorite studies, was too beneficial to make it desirable he should renounce it. His new life, no longer burdened by any material anxiety, gradually became both active and serene, and when the family assembled together, everything would have had nearly the same aspect as before, had it not been for the vacancies around the hearth. But after the arrival of Hilda and her husband, and subsequently of Dr. Leblanc, the evenings at Rosenheim became once more cheerful and almost lively. Ludwig and Hansfelt resumed their favorite topics of conversation; Hilda’s beauty and happiness delighted her father; the merry voices of the children resounded anew; and Clement often favored them as of yore with a lively air on his violin, but more frequently, at his father’s request, with some graver melody, which he would play with such skill and so pathetic an expression as to surprise Hilda, who asked him one day how he had found time in his busy life to develop his talent to such a degree. Clement did not at first hear, he was so absorbed in some strain of Beethoven’s, which gave forth a heart‐rending accent under his bow. She repeated her question.

“I often play in the evening at Frankfort,” he then replied. “Müller and his wife accompany me. Music refreshes me after the tedious labors of the day, and this prevents me from losing what you are so kind as to call my talent.”

Such was the state of things Fleurange would have found at her new home had she arrived a month sooner. In that case, her involuntary sadness might have excited more attention. But the serenity of the household, so recently regained, had been violently disturbed again. It was not surprising therefore that tears should mingle with her joy at seeing once more those she loved, especially as among them she found Dr. Leblanc’s sister in mourning for him, and she had to be informed of another misfortune, scarcely hinted at in Clement’s letter.

Professor Dornthal’s life was indeed no longer in danger, but his memory was greatly impaired, and his noble mind, if not extinct, only gave out a feeble and vacillating light. This was hoped to be merely a transient state, which time and absolute cessation from labor would soon remedy. But it was a severe affliction to them all, and Clement for the first time saw his mother’s courage waver. It was with truly a sad smile Madame Dornthal saw her husband recognize and embrace Fleurange without manifesting the slightest surprise at her presence, or realizing the time and distance that had separated them. It was the same with Clara; but when she placed her infant in his arms, there was a momentary reawakening of the invalid’s torpid memory. Tears came into his eyes; he embraced the child, murmured “God bless him!” and then gave him back to his mother, looking at him with an expression that filled them for a moment with hope. Then the gleam vanished, and he fell back into his former state.

In consequence of all these circumstances, when the family assembled in the evening in the large salon on the ground floor, every brow was clouded, all the young smiling faces were grave and anxious, and the same cause for sadness weighed on every heart. Perhaps this was best for Fleurange, who, ever ready to forget herself, seemed to feel, and indeed only felt the sorrows of the rest.

Ah! how her sadness, which seemed only sympathy, touched one person that night as he gazed at her in silent admiration. She was sitting between his sisters, the lamp suspended from the ceiling threw a halo around her charming face, and the voice, so dear and so long unheard, resounded for the first time in this place where everything seemed transformed by her presence!

The evening, so sad for all the rest, was not so for Clement. Even his anxiety for his father was suspended: he felt a renewed hope for him as well as for everything else—yes, every thing. He no longer took a dark view of things: he was, as it were, intoxicated with hope. With what a sweet confiding look she had pressed his hand! In what a tone she cried: “Dear Clement, how happy I am to see you again”! Could the future, then, be as doubtful as he had so recently feared? As to the smiles of fortune, he no longer doubted: he was sure of winning them henceforth. He once thought himself inefficient, but he was mistaken. Might he not also be mistaken in thinking himself incapable of ever pleasing?—To this question he heard no other reply but the quickened pulsations of his heart, and the rippling of the water flowing past the seat to which he had betaken himself on the banks of the river.

Meanwhile, Fleurange and her cousins went up‐stairs. Clement soon saw them all talking together in low tones on the large wooden gallery that extended around the house, and on which all the windows opened. Then they retired; but the light that shone for the first time that night was a long time visible, and Clement did not quit his post till he saw it was extinguished.

XXXV.

Fleurange gradually resumed the habits of domestic life—once the realization of all her dreams—and then, only then, she realized the extent and depth of the change she had undergone while separated from her friends.

She was no longer the same. No effort of her will could conceal this fact. Her heart, her thoughts, her regrets, her desires, and her hopes, were all elsewhere. Italy in all its brilliancy did not differ more from the peaceful landscape before her, charming as it was, with the little garden of roses and the river winding around it, the ruins beyond, and the dark forest in the background, than the vanished scenes—still so vividly remembered—of which that land was the enchanting theatre, differed from those now occurring beneath the more misty sky of Germany. At Florence, her struggles and efforts, and the necessity of action, stimulated her courage. The peace she found at Santa Maria revived her strength. But there, as we have said, the past and the future seemed suspended, as it were. Now the struggle was over as well as the pause that succeeded it, and she must again set forth on the way—act, live in the present, and courageously take up life again as she found it, with its actual duties and new combats. Fleurange had never felt more difficulty and repugnance in overcoming herself.

After the long restraint she had been obliged to make, it would have been some relief to be dispensed from all effort, especially at concealment, and freely give herself up to a profound melancholy, to pass away the hours in dreamy inaction, to weep when her heart was swelling with tears, and, if not to speak to every one of her sadness, at least take no trouble to conceal it.

This would have been her natural inclination, and it was only by an effort she refrained from yielding to it. But this would have shown the strength gained in her retreat to have been only factitious, and her intercourse with Madre Maddalena to have left, this time, no permanent influence. We have, however, no such act of cowardice to record respecting our heroine.

On the contrary, whoever saw her up at the first gleam of light in the east to relieve her aunt from all the cares of the ménage; whoever followed her first to the store‐rooms to dispense the provisions for the day, accompanied by little Frida, whom she initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping, and then to the kitchen to give directions and sometimes even lend assistance to the old and not over‐skilful cook; whoever saw her even going sometimes to market with a firm step, basket in hand, and returning with her cloak covered with dew, would not have imagined from the freshness she brought back from these matutinal walks, and the brilliancy which youth and health imparted to her complexion, that, more than once, the night had passed without sleep, and while hearing her early Mass, never neglected, she had shed so many scalding tears.

Other cares, more congenial and better calculated to absorb her mind, occupied the remainder of the day. Her special talent for waiting on the sick, and the beneficent influence she exercised over them, were again brought into requisition around her uncle, and Madame Dornthal blessed the day of her return as she witnessed the evident progress of so prolonged and painful a convalescence—a progress that gave them reason to hope in the complete restoration of the professor’s faculties, if not in the possibility of his ever resuming constant or arduous labor. The young girl found these cares delightful, and her new duties towards her dear old friend Mademoiselle Josephine no less so.

Josephine Leblanc’s affections had all been centred in her brother. She lived exclusively for him, and had never once thought of the possibility of surviving him. A person left alone in a house standing in a district devastated by war or fire, would not have felt more suddenly and strangely left alone than our poor old mademoiselle after the fatal blow that deprived her of her brother, so dear, so admired, and so venerated—the brother younger than herself, and in whose arms she had felt so sure of dying!

She remained calm, however, and self‐possessed. But the mute despair imprinted on her face as she went to and fro in the house, troubling no one with her grief, affected every beholder. She only begged to remain there that she might not have to return alone to the place where she had lived with him. From the first, Madame Dornthal had invited her to take up her residence near them, and Fleurange’s return brought her old friend to a final decision, which proved so consoling that she firmly believed it to have been in the designs of Providence. The doctor left considerable property, which now belonged entirely to his sister. All their relatives were wealthier than they, and lived in the provinces. There was nothing therefore to induce Mademoiselle Josephine to return to Paris, and she resolved to settle near her new friends, that she might be near her whom long before she had adopted in her heart. It was a formidable undertaking for a person who for forty years had led a uniform life, always in the same place, and who was no less ignorant of the world at sixty than she was at twenty years of age. But it seemed no longer difficult as soon as she again had some one to live for. As to Fleurange, she found it pleasant and beneficial to devote herself to her old friend in return, and, in acquitting herself of this new debt of gratitude, her heart gained strength for the interior struggle which had become the constant effort of her life.

Notwithstanding the marriage of her two cousins, everything now resumed the aspect of the past. Clara and Julian, established in the neighborhood where the pursuits of the latter would retain him a year, did not suffer a day to pass without visiting Rosenheim. Hansfelt no longer thought of leaving his old friend, and Hilda’s calm and radiant happiness seemed to lack nothing between her husband and her father, whose case now appeared so hopeful.

Clement alone was not, as formerly, a part of the regular family circle. He only came once a week—on Saturday evening—and returned to Frankfort on Monday morning as soon as it was light.

Business for which one feels a special aptitude is not generally repugnant. But Clement had such a variety of talents, and among all the things he was capable of, the duties of the office where he passed his days were certainly not what he had the greatest taste or inclination for. Nothing would have retained him there but the conviction of thereby serving the best interests of those dear to him. He must accept the most remunerative employment, and, this once resolved upon, nothing could exhaust the courageous endurance so peculiar to him. His courage was not in the least increased by the desire of surprising others or exciting their admiration, and nothing under any circumstances could daunt or turn him from his purpose. And he knew how to brave ennui as well as disaster. But this ennui, which he generally overcame by severe application, became from time to time overwhelming, and he would have had violent fits of discouragement had it not been for the cheering evenings he passed in the modest household of which he was a member.

Wilhelm Müller perceived that Clement’s varied acquirements were useful to him, and his devotedness to him was mingled with an admiration bordering on enthusiasm. On his side, he procured Clement the opportunity and pleasure of talking of something besides their commercial affairs, and with the aid of music their evenings passed agreeably away.

But the kind and simple Bertha, with the instinct that often enables a woman to put her finger on the wound the most penetrating of men would never have discovered, had found a sure means of diverting him. The children had never forgotten the great event of their lives—the journey and the beautiful young lady they met on the way. Clement never seemed weary of listening to this account, to which Bertha would add many a comment; and this had been the commencement of a kind of confidential intimacy, which she discreetly took advantage of, and which was of more comfort to him than he realized. In short, this was the bright spot in his weary life. He would need it more than ever when, after a leave of absence on account of his father’s terrible accident, which had been prolonged from day to day, he would have to return to his bondage, and this time with an effort that added another degree of heroism to the task he had imposed on himself.

It was now the eve of his departure. Fleurange and Hilda were sitting at twilight on a little bench by the river‐side conversing together, and Clement, leaning against a tree opposite, was looking at the current of the water, listening silently, but attentively, to the conversation that was going on before him. They were discussing all that had occurred during their separation, and Hilda began to question Fleurange about her journey—about Italy, and the life she led at Florence away from them all. Fleurange replied, but briefly and with the kind of apprehension we feel when a conversation is leading to a point we would like to avoid. She foresaw the impossibility of succeeding in this, and was endeavoring, but without success, to overcome her embarrassment, when Count George’s name at last was introduced. After some questions, to which Fleurange only replied by monosyllables, Hilda continued:

“Count George!—A friend of Karl’s, who met him, was pretending the other day in my hearing that no one could see him without loving him. As you know him, Fleurange, what is your opinion?”

The question was a decided one, and Fleurange, as we are aware, had no turn for evasion. She blushed and remained silent—so long silent that Clement abruptly turned around and looked at her. Did she turn pale at this? or was it the light of the moon through the foliage that blanched her face, and its silver rays that gave her an expression he had never seen till now? He remained looking at her with attention mingled with anguish, when at length, in a troubled tone and with a fruitless effort at a smile, she replied:

“I think, Hilda, Karl’s friend was right.”

These words were very simple after all, but the darkest hour of Clement’s life never effaced from his memory the spot or the moment in which they were uttered, the silence that preceded, or the tone and look that accompanied them.

XXXVI.

The blindness of love is proverbial. His clairvoyance would be equally so, were it not for the illusion that unceasingly aids the heart in avoiding the discoveries it dreads. The very instinct that gives keenness to the eye is as prompt to close it, and when the truth threatens one’s happiness or pride, there are but few who are bold enough to face it regardless of consequences.

To this number, however, Clement belonged. There was in his nature no liability to illusions which had the power of obscuring his penetration. Therefore the truth was suddenly revealed to him without mercy, and his newly budding hopes were at once blasted for ever.—That moment of silence was as tragical as if all his heart’s blood had been shed on the spot, and left him lifeless at the feet of her who had unwittingly given him so deadly a blow!

Within a year—since the day he thought himself separated from her for ever, not only by his own inferiority, but by the sad necessity of his new position—two unexpected changes had occurred: First, in his exterior life—then he was apparently ruined: now, he felt capable of repairing his fortunes. Secondly, in the opinion he had of himself.

Not that a sudden fatuity had seized the modest and unpretending Clement. By no means; but the great reverses of his family had certainly effaced in a day every trace of his youthful timidity, and a kind of barrier had all at once melted away before him. Hitherto his worth had not been recognized beyond the narrow circle of his family, and even there he was loved without being fully appreciated. Necessity threw him in contact with the world; all his faculties were brought into action and developed by exercise. His features, his attitude, his manners, and his general appearance all participated in this transformation. The silent awkwardness that once left him unnoticed was overcome by the necessity of asserting himself, and also by that increased confidence in himself produced by a widening influence over others. This influence, at which he himself was astonished, was not solely the consequence of the superior ability he manifested in the dull and prosaic life he had embraced. But in this career, as everywhere else, he brought his highest faculties into exercise; and while observing and seizing all these details of his material life, he understood how to impart a soul to them by his dignity, trustworthiness, unselfishness, and generous ardor—which are the sweet flowers of labor and the noble result of a well‐regulated nature.

He also reserved a prominent part of his evenings for the favorite studies in which he had not ceased to interest himself, as well as a thousand subjects foreign to his daily occupation, but exceedingly useful in the development of his mind. Thence sprang a simple and persuasive eloquence, which gave him an ascendency over every one, and caused him to be especially sought after on a thousand occasions that had no immediate connection with his actual position. Once or twice he had even been invited to speak at some public assembly which had for its object either a question of public interest, or one relating to literature and the arts, and he acquitted himself so well as to attract the notice not only of those to whom the name of Dornthal was already familiar, but of a great number of strangers. Numerous advances to acquaintance were made him on all sides, and Clement might easily have passed his evenings elsewhere than in the unpretending home of the Müllers. But he had no such inclination. Their company satisfied his present tastes. Music, which he would not willingly have been deprived of, was the delight of his hosts; and as is frequently the case in Germany, they were able to join him in duets or trios which many a professional singer would not have disdained to listen to.

Over his whole life, with its varied and absorbing interests, reigned one dear and ever‐present form. It seemed at first like some celestial vision, far‐off and inaccessible, but for some time, under the influence of all we have referred to, it appeared to have drawn nearer to him.

On this account, he began to appreciate the increased consideration with which he was regarded, but which he valued so little on his own. He ventured at last to ask himself if the good‐will that seemed to beam on him on all sides did not authorize him to hope sooner or later for something more, and if his favorite poet was wholly wrong in promising that he who loved should win something in return.

Such thoughts and dreams, if allowed entrance in the heart, are apt to end by taking entire possession of it; and, as we have said, Clement was intoxicated with hope when Fleurange reappeared in their midst. But his dreams, fancies, and hopes were now all crushed by one word from her—one word, the fatal meaning of which was clearly revealed by the expression of her eyes, which Clement caught a glimpse of by the pale light of the moon!

The grief that pierced his soul enabled him to realize the full extent of his illusions, and he was astonished he had ever before considered himself unhappy. For some time after his return to Frankfort, he was overpowered by a dejection such as he had never experienced. He felt as incapable of any further effort as he was indifferent to all success. His daily task became insupportable, and study in the evening impossible. Instead of returning to the Müller’s at the usual hour, he would leave the city afoot or on horseback, and roam around the country for hours, as if to wear out his grief by exhausting his strength.

Now he clearly saw he had only lived, planned, and exerted himself for her the two years past; he had given her not only his heart, but his entire life, and that life had had but one aim—the hope of some day winning in return the heart which would never belong to him now—because it was given to another! And while repeating Count George’s name with rage, he sharpened his anguish by recalling him, as he had once seen him, clothed with irresistible attractions. His noble features, his look of intelligence, his taste for the arts, the charm of his manners, his voice, and his language, all came back unpityingly to the memory of his humble rival. He remembered him in the gallery of the Old Mansion, through which he accompanied him at a time when he was a mere student, and absolutely wanting in everything that was, not only attractive, but capable of exciting the least attention. His imagination mercilessly dwelt on the contrast between them. Was it surprising (and he blushed at so ridiculous a comparison) such a man should be more successful than he? And should he, inferior as he was, be astonished that this man, living so near Fleurange, under the same roof—At this thought a bitter anguish, a furious jealousy, took possession of him, and excited a tempest in his heart which neither duty, nor his sense of honor, nor the energy of his will, could succeed in calming. There are times when passion rises superior to every other impulse, and they who have not learned to seek their strength from a divine source are always vanquished. But Clement had been accustomed to the powerful restraints of religion; his strength consisted in never throwing them off. Therefore, he was not to fail in this severe struggle: he would soon turn his eyes heavenward for the aid he needed in again becoming master of himself.

XXXVII.

Disinterestedness, energy, and the power of self‐control were, as may have been perceived, qualities common both to Clement and Fleurange. There was, in fact, a great resemblance in their natures, which, on his part, was the secret of the attraction so suddenly ripened into a more lively sentiment; and, on hers, of an unchanging confidence, in spite of the transformation of another kind she likewise experienced. And now they were both engaged in a like struggle: they were united by similarity of suffering, which separated them, nevertheless, as by an abyss.

Ah! if Clement could have hoped, as he once did, that a more tender sentiment would spring out of this sympathy and confidence, with what joy, what sweet pride, he would have regarded this conformity so constantly manifest between them! But the aspect of everything was now changed: there was no longer any possibility of happiness for him, he could now only suffer; and by the light of what was passing in his own heart he was enabled to read hers—at once open to him and yet closed against him for ever!

With all Clement’s self‐control, he would have been utterly unable to conceal the state of his mind from his cousin had he remained at Frankfort. But, after the days of overpowering anguish we have already referred to, after yielding without restraint to a despair bordering on madness, Clement at length succeeded in regaining his clearness of judgment.

One morning he rose before day, and left the city on foot. His walk was prolonged to such an extent that it might be called a pilgrimage, and the more correctly as its goal was a church, but so unpretending a church that it only differed from the neighboring houses by a stone cross to be seen when passing the door which it surmounted. The door was opened by the very person Clement came to see—a pious and simple young priest who was formerly his schoolmate. He was inferior to Clement intellectually, but his guide and master in those regions the soul alone attains. What Clement now sought was—not merely to pour out his heart by way of confidence—not even the consolation of discreet and Christian sympathy—but to recover his firmness by a courageous avowal of all his weakness, and afterwards make an unchangeable resolution in the presence of God and his representative at the holy tribunal. He had made a similar one while yet a youth, but now in his manhood he wished to renew it in a more solemn manner. It would of course require greater effort after the gleam of hope he had just lost, and the devotedness he pledged himself to would be more difficult after the revelation that she whom he loved, and must ever love, had given her affections to another. His voice faltered as he declared that no word, look, or act of his should ever trouble her, or reveal the sentiments she had inspired in the heart of one who would live near her, without her, and yet for her!

It was, in fact, his old devise: “Garder l’amour et briser l’espoir!” which he now solemnly assumed with the grave and pious feeling that accompanies all self‐sacrifice.

Such piety may be regarded by some as rather exaltée. They are right, but it is the kind of exaltation which accords with the real signification of the word, which elevates the soul it inflames, and which, though powerless in itself, can effect much when the divine assistance is invoked to co‐operate in aiding, increasing, in a word, exalting human strength!

That evening Clement quietly resumed his old seat at the Müllers’ fireside. In reply to Wilhelm’s questions, he said that during his long visit at Rosenheim he had neglected affairs that required his attention. “And then I confess,” continued he, “that I have been in a bad humor, and thought it wiser to relieve you from my society.” But to Bertha, who also questioned him, in a less vague way, however, he acknowledged more frankly, but no less briefly, that he had met with a great affliction, but requested her never to mention the subject to him. Then he took his violin and began to play a strain from Bach.

Bertha seated herself at the piano, and played an accompaniment to this and several other pieces. Her husband, who was beating time beside her, remarked that their young friend’s bad humor had a singularly favorable effect on his talent.

“I assure you, Dornthal, you never played so well as you have this evening.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Clement with a thoughtful air. “Yes, I think you are right.”

It was really the truth. Music was the veiled, but eloquent, language of his soul. The very feelings he so successfully repressed, the words that no temptation or impulse could induce his lips to betray, made the chords vibrate beneath his bow, and gave their tones an inexpressible accent it was impossible to hear without emotion and surprise.

When, at the end of a fortnight, Clement reappeared at Rosenheim, all exterior traces of the excessive agitation he had given himself up to had disappeared. He resumed his usual manner towards Fleurange. No one would have dreamed—and she less than any one else—that between the past and present he found the difference of life and death. She little imagined that the new and strange sympathy that existed between them revealed to him the secret of all her thoughts and struggles. She also, apparently, had become the same as before. Her time was actively employed, the care she had of little Frida and that she lavished on her uncle, the ménage, sewing, exercise, and study filled up the days so completely that it was very seldom she could have been found inactive or pensive.

Hilda, her favorite cousin, though likewise struck for a moment by the hesitation with which she replied to her questions about Count George, almost ceased attaching any importance to this slight incident when she observed the apparent calmness with which Fleurange fulfilled the duties of her active life. Only one clearly read her heart and understood the passing expression of weariness and sorrow that now and then overshadowed her brow for an instant, and saddened her eye. Only one noticed her absence when the family assembled in the evening, and followed her in thought to the little bench on the bank of the river, where he imagined she had gone to weep awhile, alone and unrestrained. All she suffered he had to endure himself, and he lived thus united to her, and yet every day still more widely separated from her.

The weeks flew rapidly away, however, and the tranquility and happiness of the family were continually increasing. The professor’s mental and physical strength gradually returned. Work alone was forbidden him, but reading and conversation were allowable and salutary diversions. His conversations with Hansfelt were sometimes as interesting as of old, and he might have been supposed to have regained the complete use of his faculties had not a partial decay of memory sometimes warned his friends he had not entirely recovered from his illness. For example, he often imagined himself in the Old Mansion, and this illusion became stronger after all his children, including Gabrielle, gathered around him. But in other respects his memory was good. Hansfelt found him as correct and clear as ever on all points of history or literary and religious subjects. It seemed as if the higher faculties of his nature recovered their tone first, and were invigorated by contact with the noble mind of his friend. Thus the evenings passed away without ennui, even for the youngest, while listening to their conversation.

These evenings frequently ended with music, which the professor craved and indeed required as a part of his treatment. Clement would take his violin, and not at all unwillingly, for he saw his cousin always listened to it attentively. In this way he dared address her in a mysterious language, which he alone understood, but which sometimes gave her a thrill as if she were listening to the echo of her own cry of pain.

One evening, when he had excelled, she said: “You call that a song without words, Clement, but the music was certainly composed for a song, which perhaps you know, do you not?”

“No,” replied he, “but like you I imagine I can hear the words, and feel they must exist somewhere.”

Hansfelt had also been listening attentively to the music.

“Yes,” said he smiling, “they exist in the hearts of all who love—especially in the hearts of all who love without hope. Here I will express in common language, but not in rhyme, the meaning of what Clement has just played.”

He took a pencil and hastily wrote four lines nearly synonymous with those of a French poet:

“Du mal qu’une amour ignorée Nous fait souffrir Je porte l’âme déchirée Jusqu’à mourir!”(1)

The pang of unrequited love I feel; ’Tis death the bleeding heart I bear Must heal!

Clement made no reply, but abruptly changed the subject. The children rose and clapped their hands as he struck up their favorite tarantella, and became noisy as well as gay.

Fleurange left the room, unperceived as she supposed, but Hilda, who had been carefully observing her all the evening, followed her, determined to obtain a complete avowal of all that was passing in her heart. She softly entered her cousin’s chamber. Fleurange was not expecting her. She had thrown herself on a chair, with her face buried in her hands, in an attitude expressive at once of dejection and grief.

Hilda approached and threw her arms around her. Fleurange sprang up, her eyes full of tears.

“Do you remember,” said Hilda in a soft, caressing tone—“do you remember, Gabrielle, the day when I also wept in the library at our dear Old Mansion? You asked me the reason of my tears, and I answered by opening my heart to you. You have not forgotten it, have you? Will you not answer me in a like way now?”

Fleurange shook her head without uttering a word.

“It has always seemed to me,” continued Hilda, “that the happiness which has crowned my life dates from my confidence in you that day. Why will you not trust me in a like manner, and hope as I did?”

“Happiness was within your reach,” replied Fleurange; “an imaginary obstacle alone prevented you from grasping it.”

“But how many obstacles that seem insurmountable vanish with time or even beneath a firm will!” She continued slowly and in a lower tone: “Why should not the Count George, then—”

“Stop, Hilda, I conjure you,” cried Fleurange in an agitated manner.

Her cousin stopped confounded.

“Listen to me,” resumed Fleurange, at length, in a calmer tone. “As it is your wish, let us speak of him. I consent. Let us speak of him this time, but never again. Tell me,” she continued with a sad smile, “can you make me his equal in wealth and rank? Or deprive him of his nobility and make him as poor as I? In either case, especially in the latter,” she cried, with a tenderness in her tone, and a look she could not repress—“ah! nothing, certainly nothing but his will, could separate me from him! But it is reasonable to suppose the sun will rise upon us to‐morrow and find us the same as to‐day: we no longer live in the time of fairies, when extraordinary metamorphoses took place to smooth away difficulties and second the wishes of poor mortals. Help me then, Hilda, I beseech you, to forget him, to live, and even recover from the wound, by never speaking to me either of him, or myself!—”

Hilda silently pressed her in her arms for a long time, and then said: “I will obey you, Gabrielle, and never mention his name till you speak of him first.”

XXXVIII.

The summer and autumn both passed away without anything new, except some variations in the professor’s slow recovery, and an occasional gleam of happiness for Clement—the revival of a spark of his buried hopes—but such moments were rare, and succeeded by a sad reaction; nevertheless, they were sweet and lived long in his memory.

One day in particular was thus graven on his heart—a fine day in October, when he had the pleasure of rowing Hilda and his cousin to a shady point further up on the river, which gracefully winds nearly around it. There they spent several hours, conversing together with the delightful familiarity of intimacy, and now and then reading some favorite passage in the books they brought with them. As he sat listening to the silvery tones of Fleurange’s voice, and met her expressive, sympathetic glance when he took the book in his turn and read nearly as well as herself; as he sat thus near her in that lovely, solitary spot, with no other witness but her whose affection for both seemed only an additional tie, hope once more entered his heart, as one breaks into a dwelling fastened against him, but, alas! to be promptly thrust out, leaving him as desolate as before.

While he was rowing them back in the evening, with his eyes fastened on Fleurange, he saw her delightful but evanescent emotions of the day fading away with the light, and another remembrance arise, sadder and more tender than ever, which gave to her eyes, sometimes fastened on the dark and rapid current, sometimes fixed on the shore, the expression he had learned to read so well—an expression that made his heart ache with pity and sympathy, but at the same time quiver and shrink with anguish, as if a lancet or caustic had been applied to his wound and caused it to bleed!

Two months later the festival of Christmas again brought him one of these fleeting moments of happiness. On the eve—the never‐forgotten anniversary of Fleurange’s arrival in their midst—the whole family were reunited, and felt as if they were living over again the delightful past. The Christmas tree was as brilliant as of yore; Mademoiselle Josephine, as ready to participate in the joy of her friends as she was to avoid saddening them with her sorrows, aided in adorning it, and every one found on its branches some offering from her generous hand. Then, as in bygone days, they wove garlands of holly, which Fleurange, as well as her cousins, wore at dinner, and this time without any entreaty. At a later hour they had music and dancing, which, ever ready as she was to catch the joy of others, gave her a feeling of unusual gaiety, to which she unresistingly abandoned herself—the gaiety of youth, which at times triumphs over everything, and sometimes breaks out with an excess in proportion to its previous restraint. Fleurange’s laughter rang like music, and her joyous voice mingled with the children’s, to the great joy of him who was looking on with ecstasy and surprise. Her radiant eyes, her glowing complexion, the brilliancy happiness adds to beauty, and had so long been wanting to hers, gave him, who could not behold it revive without transport, a feeling of intoxication which once more made him forget all and hope everything! But he was speedily and sadly recalled to himself.

Madame Dornthal was seated beside her husband’s arm‐chair, which she seldom left. A pleasant smile reappeared on her lips as she looked at her children moving around her. From time to time she leaned towards the professor, and was glad to see him entering into all that was going on with his usual pleasure and with perfect comprehension of mind. All at once she thought he turned pale. She looked at Clement, and made a gesture which he understood. The noise disturbed his father. In an instant profound silence was restored, and they all gathered around the professor’s chair. He appeared suddenly fatigued: his eyes closed, and he leaned his head on his wife’s shoulder. They all anxiously awaited his first words after this sudden fit of somnolency. Presently he opened his eyes and gave a vague, uneasy glance around. Then, turning to Madame Dornthal, he said in a sad tone, passing his hand over his forehead:

“Tell me why Felix is not here: I knew, but cannot remember.”

This new failure of his memory, the name associated with so many painful recollections and uttered in so distressing a manner, put an end to all the gaiety of the evening. The effect of so much agitation and fatigue on the professor was not regarded as very serious, but it left a painful impression, especially on Fleurange, who had fresh reasons for feeling his words.

Clement, who had been informed by Steinberg of what had occurred at Florence, silently entered into her feelings, and once more the flash of joy that lit up his heart vanished in a night darker than ever.

But he could not foresee that a public event of serious import was at that very hour transpiring far away, in a different sphere from his, which would have an important and painful influence on his humble destiny.

To be continued.

Review of Vaughan’s Life Of S. Thomas.(2)

It is but too seldom that the reviewer has to welcome a work like that which we have already had the pleasure of introducing to our readers, and to which we now desire to render more fitting honors. An original life of a saint, and of an epoch‐making saint like Thomas of Aquin, treated on a scale adequate to its importance, in the English tongue, by an English Benedictine monk, is a refreshing novelty to those who, like ourselves, have so much to say to what is slight, or frivolous, or common, or hostile. The contemplative reviewer, looking at the two thick volumes of the English edition, feels inclined, like a man who guesses before he opens a letter, to conjure up fancies as to what he will find in this new life of S. Thomas of Aquin. Two volumes, each consisting of more than 800 pages, are a great deal, in these days, for one saint. They are a great deal to write, and what is perhaps of more importance, they are a great deal to read. But no one can suppose that they are too much for such a saint as Thomas of Aquin. Considering that his own works, as printed in the splendid Parma edition lately completed, would make up some forty volumes of the size of these two goodly ones, it is not much. Considering that Thomas of Aquin has been more written about by commentators for four or five centuries than any other man, except perhaps Aristotle, who ever lived—considering that every student of theology is always coming across his authority, and that he has been the great builder‐up of the vast building of Catholic philosophical and theological terminology, it is not much that he should have two volumes. Indeed, when we look into the book, we expect to find Prior Vaughan not seldom complaining of being obliged, through want of space, to leave out a great deal that he would have wished to say. And this leads us to notice the author’s name. Father Bede Vaughan, though fairly known by reputation in England, is perhaps a stranger to the greater number of American Catholics. It is sufficient to say at present that he is a brother of the Very Rev. Dr. Herbert Vaughan, whose presence in this country lately, in connection with the mission to the negroes, will have made his name familiar to many even of those who had not the pleasure of personally meeting him. Father Bede Vaughan is Prior of the Benedictine Cathedral Chapter of Newport and Menevia. A cathedral‐prior is a novelty, not only in literature, but absolutely. There were a great many cathedral‐priors in England once upon a time—men of power and substance—wearing their mitres (some of them) and sitting in the House of Lords. Whatever be the lands and the revenues of the only cathedral‐priory in English‐speaking hierarchies of the present day, it is pleasant to meet with the old name, and to meet it on the cover of a book. That a Benedictine should have written a sterling book will not surprise the world of letters. It is perhaps a little new to find the great Dominican, the Angel of the Schools, taken up by a member of an order which S. Thomas is popularly supposed to have in set purpose turned his back upon. But this is a point on which the work itself will enlighten us. Meanwhile, on opening the first volume we catch sight of a portrait of the Saint. It is a reproduction, by photography, of a painting by the Roman artist Szoldatics, which was painted expressly for the present work. It represents the well‐known scene in which the crucified Master, for whom the great doctor has written and taught his life long, asks him what reward he would desire. Portraits of S. Thomas of Aquin are not uncommon. We are all familiar with the large and portly figure and the full and mild countenance, the sun upon his breast, the black and the white, and the shaven crown of the Order of St. Dominic, the open book and the immortal pen. Some of the representations of the saint exaggerate his traditional portliness into a corpulence that almost obliterates the light of genius in his face. On the other hand, there exist many which give at once the large open features and the look of inspiration and of refinement. Those who have turned to the title‐pages of the best Roman or Flemish editions of his life or works will remember these. The new portrait, photographed in the first volume, is very successful. Thomas of Aquin had Norman blood in his veins, and the fairness of his skin and the contour of his head are not those of the typical Italian. The artist has managed to convey very well that massive head, in which every lobe of the brain seems to have been perfectly developed and roomily lodged, thus furnishing the intelligence with an imaginative instrument whose power was only equalled by its delicacy. In the corresponding place in the second volume there is a photograph of a meritorious engraving, from a picture or engraving unknown to us, in which, however, the head of the Saint is not so noble or refined.

Passing, however, to consider the substance of the work itself, it is not too much to say that, as a life of S. Thomas of Aquin, it is perfectly original. We do not mean, of course, that the writer has found out new facts, or made any considerable alteration in the aspect of old ones. But his plan of working is new. He has had the idea of giving, not merely S. Thomas, but his surroundings. Some saints, even of those who have spent themselves in external labors for their fellow‐men, require but little in the way of background to make their portraits significant. Ven. Bede’s biography would not gain much light from discussions upon Mohammedanism, or upon the state of England or of Europe during his life. To understand and love S. Francis of Sales, it is not necessary to study the growth of Calvinism, to follow the steps of the De Auxiliis controversy, or to become minutely acquainted with the character of Henri IV. But it is very different with S. Thomas of Aquin. Opening his mouth, like a true doctor of the church, “in medio ecclesiæ,” he had words to speak which all Christendom listened to, and acted upon, too, in one way or another. He was a power at Paris, at Cologne, at Naples. Every great influence of the thirteenth century felt the impulse of his thought: S. Louis the Crusader, Urban IV., Gregory X., the Greek schismatics, the Arabian philosophers, the opponents of monasticism, the mighty power of the universities. Prior Vaughan thus speaks in the preface to the first volume:

“The author has found it difficult to comprehend how the life of S. Thomas of Aquin could be written so as to content the mind of an educated man—of one who seeks to measure the reach of principle and the influence of saintly genius—without embracing a considerably wider field of thought than has been deemed necessary by those who have aimed more at composing a book of edifying reading, than at displaying the genesis and development of truth and the impress of a master‐mind upon the age in which he lived. It has always appeared to him that one of the most telling influences exerted by the doctor‐saints of God, has been that of rare intellectual power in confronting and controlling the passions and mental aberrations of epochs, as well as of blinded and swerving men....

“The object which the author of these pages has proposed to himself is this: to unfold before the reader’s mind the far‐ reaching and many‐sided influence of heroic sanctity, when manifested by a man of massive mind, of sovereign genius, and of sagacious judgment, and then to remind him that, as the fruit hangs from the branches, so genius of command and steadiness of view and unswervingness of purpose, are naturally conditioned by a certain moral habit of heart and head; that purity, reverence, adoration, love, are the four solid corner‐stones on which that Pharos reposes which, when all about it, and far beyond it, is darkness and confusion, stands up in the midst as the representative of order, and as the minister of light, and as the token of salvation.

“Now, the Angel of the Schools was emphatically a great and shining light. To write his life is not so much to deal with the subject of his personal history, as to display the stretch of his power and the character of his influence. Indeed, few of the great cardinal thinkers of the world have left much private history to record. Self was hidden in the splendor of the light which bursts out from it—just as the more brilliant the flame, so much the more unseen is the lamp in which it burns. It stands to reason that the more widespread the influence which such men as these exert, so much the wider must be the range taken by the writer over the field of history and theology and philosophy if he wishes adequately to delineate the action of their lives. The private history of S. Thomas of Aquin could be conveniently written in fifty pages, whilst his full biography would certainly occupy many thousand pages.” (Pp. iii., iv.)

The view which is thus sketched out is a large one. We have said that the author presents not merely his hero, but his hero’s surroundings. But, in studying his mind and his work, he does not content himself with making a vivid background of the thirteenth century. One century is the child of another, and mind is educated by mind. The past is the seed of the future, and no time can be understood without understanding the times that gave it birth. This is especially true of the times when history accumulates most rapidly, and of minds to whom it is given to fashion history as it is made. Prior Vaughan finds the story of S. Thomas’ intellectual work commencing far back in the work of those men whom he calls the “columnal fathers” of the church. He therefore takes his reader back to primitive ages—to the desert, the laura, the early conflicts of God’s servants with paganism, with heresy, and with worldliness. He sets before him S. Anthony, in the majesty of his single‐hearted union with Christ; S. Athanasius, worthy disciple of such a master, unsurpassed in the great opportunities of his life and the strength with which he rose to meet them; S. Basil, the monk that fought the world, and overcame it; S. Gregory Theologus, the vates sacer of the fourth century, who sang in verse and in rhythmical prose the song of the consubstantial Son of God. He introduces us to S. Augustine, to S. Ambrose, to S. Gregory the Great, and points out how essential a feature, in the greatness of S. Thomas, is the way in which he has reproduced all that was eternal and “catholic” in the thoughts of the men whom God has set up to be the pillars of the doctrine of his church. With other saints, it would, perhaps, be superfluous to trace their connection with the fathers; with the author of the Summa, it is indispensable.

“The Columnal Fathers and the Angelical were in completest harmony; they were knit together by the monastic principle. The intellectual hinges of the Universal Church (speaking humanly) have been monastic‐men—that is to say, men who, through an intense cross‐worship and a keen perception of the beautiful, threw up all for Christ; and through

‘The ingrained instinct of old reverence, The holy habit of obedience,’

loved, labored, suffered for him, and died into his arms.

“For the one thread which pierces through all, and maintains a real communication between the Angelical and the heroes of the classic age—which creates a brotherhood between S. Thomas of the thirteenth century and the great athletes in the second and the third—which makes the ‘Sun of the Church’ illuminate the ‘Pillar of the World,’ and so reciprocally—that is to say, which renders S. Thomas and S. Anthony one in spirit and in principle—was this, that their beings were transformed into a supernatural activity, through an intense and personal love of their Redeemer.

“This was the one special lesson which the Angelical drew from the wilderness and the fathers, which came to him through S. Benedict, indeed, but rather as a principle of quies than of exertion. In the desert athletes, and those who followed them, he found that principle operative, and almost military in its chivalrous readiness to combat and spill blood in defence of truth. It lent to him what it exhibits in them also—breadth of view, largeness, moral freedom, stubborn courage, generosity of heart, expansion of mind, and an electric light of intellect, which bear about them a touch of the Eastern world. How could the Angelical read Anthony’s life, or follow Athanasius in his exiles, or see Basil so heroically rigid in his defence of right, or hear, in imagination, Gregory Theologus pouring out a stream of polished eloquence, without being impressed by truth’s grace and music; how could he watch S. Chrysostom, all on fire with his love of God and with his discriminating sympathy for men, or think of the ascetic Jerome, battling single‐handed in the wilderness, or perusing his Scripture in the cave; how could he dwell in spirit with S. Ambrose or S. Gregory the Great, or follow the career of the passionate, emotional, splendid S. Augustine, without expanding in heart and mind towards all that is best and greatest—all that is most noble and most fair in the majestic character of God’s tenderly‐cherished saints?

“Had he not known them so intimately, great as he was, his mind would have been comparatively cramped, his character most probably would have been less imperial in its mould, and there would have been less of that oriental mightiness about his intellectual creations, which now reminds one of those vast monuments of other days, which still are the marvel of travellers in the East, and the despair of modern engineers.” (II., pp. 523‐5.)

A great portion of the second volume is taken up with the exposition in detail of these thoughts and ideas. We do not think that any one who has thoroughly seized the author’s point of view will be sorry that so much space is given to the lives and characters of men who are not the immediate subject of the book. The truth is, that the full significance of S. Thomas of Aquin has been very much overlooked in modern times. The non‐Catholic theory has always been that he was a voluminous “scholastic,” more acute than most of his sort, perhaps, but mediæval, hair‐splitting, and unprofitable. The Catholic theory has done him greater justice; but even the Catholic schools have too much forgotten S. Thomas. There is an interesting passage in one of Lacordaire’s letters, in which he tells the Abbé Drioux, who has done so much for S. Thomas in France, how he read the Angelical every day, and yet how long it had been before he had come to know him! And then he speaks with some depreciation of that “Positive” theology which has pretended to take the place of the scholastic form and discipline. The great preacher was familiar with the spiritual wants of the world in their widest aspect, and he no sooner came to know S. Thomas of Aquin than he saw that he was face to face with the mind that has said more truth about God and man, and said it better, than any one man who has ever lived; and he has said it so well, because he has not said it out of his own consciousness, but first saturated himself with the living truth of the immortal fathers, and then reproduced in his own way what God had thus himself imparted to the world.

The influence which S. Thomas owed to the study and meditation of the great fathers was surpassed—or rather, we ought to say, most powerfully shown—by the impressions made upon his heart, even more than his mind, by his early bringing up. Every one knows that the Angel of the Schools, who was of the noblest blood of Italy, spent his early years in the great arch‐monastery of Monte Casino. Prior Vaughan has no hesitation in making the assertion that Thomas of Aquin never lost what he acquired from the monks of S. Benedict during those seven childish years that he spent with them in the cloisters of the great abbey. He was never a professed Benedictine, although he would, in the natural course, have become one without making any explicit profession, had not the troubles of the times forced the monks to flee from the abbey. But the Benedictine or monastic spirit, the principle of quies, as our author calls it, with the vivid appreciation of the kingship of Christ, Thomas took away with him when he went forth and carried with him to the work he had to do. The new mendicant orders that had recently been founded were schools of activity, aggressive, moving hither and thither, pitching their tents in great towns, and lifting their voices in universities. Their saints were to be fitted for the regeneration of a new phase of the world. But in the saints themselves it was only an outward change. The essential spirit remained the same. That spirit had been the heirloom of the old monastic orders, and it could never be out of date. In the men who were to do the greatest things in the new life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the old spirit of the cloister must be found strong and deep. In the man who above all was to stand forth as the sum and crown of the middle age, that contemplative, immovable, far‐seeing realization of “the person of Christ” must exist as heroically as in Anthony of the Desert or Benedict of the Mountain. And it was S. Thomas’ Benedictine training that contributed much to make him such a man.

“The monks thought much, but talked little; thus the monastic system encouraged meditation, rather than intellectual tournaments; reserve rather than display, deep humility rather than dialectical skill. The Benedictines did not aim so much at unrestrained companionship of free discussion as at self control; not so much at secular‐minded fantasy as at much prayer and sharp penance, till self was conquered, and the grace of God reigned, and giants walked the earth. Self‐mastery, springing from the basis of a supernatural life, moulded the heart to sanctity, and imparted to the intellect an accuracy of vision which is an act of nature directed and purified by grace. Theodore, Aldhelm, Bede, Boniface, Alcuin, Dunstan, Wilfrid, Stephen, Bernard, Anselm, these names are suggestive of this influence of the monastic system.” (I., p. 26.)

It is one of the aims of the book to bring out the view that the prince of scholastics and the king of dialecticians was a man of the purest and deepest “monasticism.” But he was not destined to be as an Anselm, a Bernard, or a Hugh of S. Victor.

The Saint was sent to Naples for the prosecution of his studies, and whilst there he asked for and received the habit of S. Dominic. The author gives a brilliant sketch of Naples as it was under the sway of Frederick II. He then devotes a whole chapter to a “study” of the new orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, for the purpose of bringing out vividly before the reader the new world that was springing up and the new race of men that the church was calling forth to deal with it. We have no space to quote from this chapter, but, even taken apart from its connection with S. Thomas, it is full of interest and life.

Thus was Thomas of Aquin prepared and equipped; prepared by the great fathers and by S. Benedict, equipped in the armor of the Order of intellectual chivalry. And what was the work before him? Who were his enemies, his friends, his neighbors, his assistants? In answer to these questions we have the chapters on “Abelard, or Rationalism and Irreverence”; on “S. Bernard, or Authority and Reverence”; on the “Schools of S. Victor”; on the “Arabian and the Jewish Influence in Europe”; on “William of S. Amour”; on “Paris and its University”; and on “Albert the Great.” Some of these chapters relate, as will be seen, to men who were not contemporaries of S. Thomas. But if Abelard, and S. Bernard, and William of Champeaux had passed away in the flesh, their influence or their views still lived on when Thomas wrote. And we see the full significance of these chapters on the great schools of thought, orthodox and heterodox, when we arrive at the second volume, and find the author showing in detail how the Angel of the Schools, in some part or other of his voluminous writings, met and refuted every form of prevalent error, and, whilst majestically laying down principles for all ages, never forgot to clear up the difficulties of his own time. The rationalism of Abelard, the emanation doctrines that Arabian subtlety had elaborated out of the reminiscences of the old Gnosticism, the errors of the Greek schismatics, the perversity of the Jews, are all encountered by his never‐resting pen, either in some one of his numerous Opuscula, varying in length from an essay to an octavo volume, or else in one or other of his two great Sums, or perhaps in more places than one, the refutation being the more complete as the writing becomes more mature. As for the two greatest and most prominent of his enterprises—the Christianizing of Aristotle and the formation of a complete Sum of theology—it was to be expected that Prior Vaughan should fully enlarge upon them. The chapters on “S. Thomas and Aristotle,” and “S. Thomas and Reason,” in the second volume, form a good introduction to the study of the Angelic Doctor, and at the same time give the enquiring mind some notion of how S. Thomas has performed one of the greatest feats that genius ever accomplished—the successful and consistent “conversion” of the greatest, the most original, and the most precise of heathen philosophers into a hewer of wood and carrier of water for the faith.

We would gladly dwell on the three chapters at the end of Vol. I., in which the writer, in reviewing the writings of the Saint in defence and exaltation of monasticism, gives a useful and spirited history of the whole of that exciting contest which took its beginning in William of S. Amour’s book called Perils of the Last Times. It seems really impossible to say how much the religious state, humanly speaking, owes to the man who wrote the book Against Those who attack the Service of God and Religion, and that On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life.

Passing now from the more remote surroundings of the hero of the story to the immediate scene of the greatest portion of his labors, we venture to believe that one of the most popular parts of this work of Prior Vaughan’s will be his animated description of the university system of the thirteenth century, and of the University of Paris in particular. He has spared no pains in getting at correct details and putting them artistically together. M. Franklin’s splendid and comparatively unknown labors on mediæval Paris have supplied him with matter that will be found nowhere else. Paris is the natural type of the great mediæval university. More central and accessible than Oxford, safer than Bologna, freer than Naples, and founded on a wide and grand basis, the University of Paris soon grew into a formidable assemblage of men who, whilst ostensibly votaries of science, were not unprovided with excitable spirits and rough hands. Students gathered, rich and poor, great doctors taught, munificent founders, like Robert of Sorbon, bestowed their money or their influence, the monks of all orders gathered round silently, and to some extent distrustfully, from Citeaux, from Cluny, even from the Grande Chartreuse, with the Benedictines of S. Germain, the Premonstratensians—their church was where now stands the Café de la Rotonde—and the Augustinians. As for the Dominicans and Franciscans, they, as may be supposed, were early on the spot, to teach quite as much as to learn. The following is a sketch of the men who flocked to the great university—at least of one considerable class:

“There were starving, friendless lads, with their unkempt heads and their tattered suits, who walked the streets, hungering for bread, and famishing for knowledge, and hankering after a sight of some of those great doctors, of whom they had heard so much when far away in the woods of Germany or the fields of France. Some were so poor that they could not afford to follow a course of theology. We read of one poor fellow on his death‐bed, having nothing else, giving his shoes and stockings to a companion to procure a Mass for his soul. Some were only too glad to carry holy water to private houses, selon la coutume Gallicane, with the hope of receiving some small remuneration. Some were destitute of necessary clothing. One tunic sometimes served for three, who took it in turns—two went to bed, whilst the third dressed himself and hurried off to school. Some spent all their scanty means in buying parchments, and wasted their strength, through half the night, poring over crabbed manuscript, or in puzzling out that jargon which contained the wisdom of the wisest of the Greeks. Whole nights some would remain awake on their hard pallets, in those unhealthy cells, trying to work out some problem proposed by the professor in the schools. But there were rich as well as poor at Paris. There was Langton, like others, famous for his opulence, who taught, and then became Canon of Notre Dame; and Thomas à Becket, who, as a youth, came here to seek the charm of gay society.” (I., p. 354.)

Amid all the noise, turmoil, and disputes of the huge colony of students, numbering more thousands than Oxford or Cambridge at this day can show hundreds, the great Dominican convent of S. James was a grand and famous centre of light and work. S. Dominic was not long before he settled in Paris. At first the friars lived in a mean hired lodging, apparently on the Island of Notre Dame. But soon their reputation for poverty and learning attracted the notice of influential benefactors, and they had a house of their own. It was dedicated to S. James the Apostle, and quickly became not only a great monastery but a famous school. The Dominican Order, divinely founded for a want of the time, soon began to show in front of the progress of the age, and to lead instead of following. It was here, in S. James, that Alanus de Insulis and Vincent of Beauvois wrote histories and commentaries; it was here that Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas lectured and wrote; and the crowd of lesser names that are mentioned on its rolls about this time, less distinguished but still distinguished, would take long to enumerate. It was for S. James that S. Dominic himself had framed a body of rules. These rules are most striking, as given in the pages of Prior Vaughan. They show how a saint and monastic legislator feels the “form and pressure” of the times, and how he provides for a new feature in monasticism. To read these rules, one feels tempted to say that the Dominicans sacrificed everything to give their men a first‐rate course of studies. But we must remember the midnight vigil and the perpetual absence and the long silence. Still, the cloisters of S. James were different enough from those of Monte Casino. There was a great hall at S. James’, where professors taught and whither students thronged to hear—how different from the remote cloister of Jarrow, where Venerable Bede taught his younger brethren for so many years on the quiet flats between the Wear and the Tyne! The cells knew the light of the midnight lamp, the cloisters resounded with disputation, the young students of the Order were men of few books—a Bible, a copy of the Historia of Petrus Comestor and of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, was all their private library. But half the day was spent face to face with a professor and with each other, and the want of books was not much felt. And what an education it must have been to listen to and take down the Summa contra Gentiles of the Angel of the Schools! As we have said, the whole of these two chapters is instinct with the liveliest description, and we cannot do better than recommend readers to go to it and judge for themselves.

We must reserve what we have not yet touched upon, viz., the personal life of the Saint himself, for another notice. It must not be supposed that Prior Vaughan passes over the person of S. Thomas in his anxiety to show us what sort of a world he lived in. It will soon be seen, on making some slight acquaintance with the book, that the strictly biographical portion is in reality most successful; the story is well told, and, like all stories of sanctity and supernatural heroism, goes straight to the heart.

Without saying that Prior Vaughan’s two volumes partake of the nature of the perfect, we frankly say we do not intend to find faults in it. We welcome it, and it deserves to be welcomed by every Catholic that can read it. There are, of course, defects and a few errors here and there; but the book lays down no false principles, takes no dangerous views, and patronizes no pernicious mistakes. On the other hand, it deals with a wide theme in a large way. In language which, if at times too copious, is nevertheless frequently eloquent and always easy and fluent, the writer raises the life of a saint into a picture of a world‐epoch. He has labored very hard at his authorities and sources, and when the book gets into use many students, we are sure, will thank him for his copious references and notes. His imagination is of a high order, and his picture‐loving power is seen in the way in which he sketches with an epithet, puts together the elements that he finds up and down the old authors, and shakes the dust and the mildew from valuable bits of ancient chronicle, so that they look bright again. The Hon. John L. Motley is in the front rank of modern historians, and to compare any writer with him is to give praise that one must think much before giving; but if we wished to indicate the genre of Prior Vaughan’s style—its pictorial power, its realism, and its tone of earnest conviction—we should mention the name of the historian of the Netherlands. The two writers are very unlike in their convictions; and Mr. Motley has, no doubt, a perfection and finish of art which few writers can approach. But still Prior Vaughan is quite fit to be named in the same sentence. And a book which has cost so many hours of thought and labor, which aims so high, which is so really the work of a man with views and with a power to express himself, and which deals with a subject that can never lose its interest, but one which, if we do not mistake, is as yet only at the beginning of a grand revival, is a book to be welcomed, to be read, and to be thankful for.

The Progressionists.

From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden.

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

Chapter V

Gerlach whispered something to the banker. Holt pressed his pocket‐ handkerchief to the wound.

“Please yourself!” said the banker loudly in a business tone. Seraphin again approached the beaten man.

“Will you please, my good man, to accompany us?”

“What for, sir?”

“Because I would like to do something towards healing up your wound; I mean the wound in there.”

Holt stood motionless before the stranger and looked at him.

“I thank you, sir; there is no remedy for me; I am doomed!”

“Still, I will assist you. Follow me.”

“Who are you, sir, if I may ask the question?”

“I am a man whom Providence seems to have chosen to rescue the prey from the jaws of a usurer. Come along with us, and fear nothing.”

“Very well, I will go in the name of God! I do not precisely know your object, and you are a stranger to me. But your countenance looks innocent and kind, therefore I will go with you.”

They passed through alleys and streets.

“Do you often visit that tavern?” inquired Seraphin.

“Not six times in a year,” answered Holt. “Sometimes of a Sunday I drink half a glass of wine, that’s all. I am poor, and have to be saving. I would not have gone to the tavern to‐day but that I wanted to get rid of my feelings of misery.”

“I overheard your story,” rejoined Seraphin. “Shund’s treatment of you was inhuman. He behaved towards you like a trickish devil.”

“That he did! And I am ruined together with my family,” replied the poor man dejectedly.

“Take my advice, and never abuse Shund. You know how respectable he has suddenly got to be, how many influential friends he has. You can easily perceive that one cannot say anything unfavorable of such a man without great risk, no matter were it true ten times over.”

“I am not given to disputing,” replied Holt. “But it stirred the bile within me to hear him extolled, and it broke out. Oh! I have learned to suffer in silence. I haven’t time to think of other matters. After God, my business and my family were my only care. I attended to my occupation faithfully and quietly as long as I had any to attend to, but now I haven’t any to take care of. O God! it is hard. It will bring me to the grave.”

“You are a land cultivator?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shund intends to have you sold out?”

“Yes; immediately after the election he intends to complete my ruin.”

“How much money would you need in order with industry to get along?”

“A great deal of money, a great deal—at least a thousand florins. I have given him a mortgage for a thousand florins on my house and what was left to me. A thousand florins would suffice to help me out of trouble. I might save my little cottage, my two cows, and a field. I might then plough and sow for other people. I could get along and subsist honestly. But as I told you, nothing less than a thousand florins would do; and where am I to get so much money? You see there is no hope for me, no help for me. I am doomed!”

“The mortgaged property is considerable,” said Gerlach. “A house, even though a small one, moreover, a field, a barn, a garden, all these together are surely worth a much higher price. Could you not borrow a thousand florins on it and pay off the usurer?”

“No, sir. Nobody would be willing to lend me that amount of money upon property mortgaged to a man like Shund. Besides, my little property is out of town, and who wants to go there? I, for my part, of course, like no spot as much, for it is the house my father built, and I was born and brought up there.”

The man lapsed into silence, and walked at Seraphin’s side like one weighed down by a heavy load. The delicate sympathy of the young man enabled him to guess what was passing in the breast of the man under the load. He knew that Holt was recalling his childhood passed under the paternal roof; that little spot of home was hallowed for him by events connected with his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters, or with other objects more trifling, which, however, remained fresh and bright in memory, like balmy days of spring.

From this consecrated spot he was to be exiled, driven out with wife and children, through the inhumanity and despicable cunning of an usurer. The man heaved a deep sigh, and Gerlach, watching him sidewise, noticed his lips were compressed, and that large tears rolled down his weather‐browned cheeks. The tender heart of the young man was deeply affected at this sight, and the millionaire for once rejoiced in the consciousness of possessing the might of money.

They halted before the Palais Greifmann. Holt noticed with surprise how the man in blouse drew from his waistcoat pocket a small instrument resembling a toothpick, and with it opened a door near the carriage gate. Had not every shadow of suspicion been driven from Holt’s mind by Seraphin’s appearance, he would surely have believed that he had fallen into the company of burglars, who entrapped him to aid in breaking into this palace.

Reluctantly, after repeated encouragement from Gerlach, he crossed the threshold of the stately mansion. He had not quite passed the door when he took off his cap, stared at the costly furniture of the hall through which they were passing, and was reminded of St. Peter’s thought as the angel was rescuing him from the clutches of Herod. Holt imagined he saw a vision. The man who had unlocked the door disappeared. Seraphin entered an apartment followed by Shund’s victim.

“Do you know where you are?” inquired the millionaire.

“Yes, sir, in the house of Mr. Greifmann the banker.”

“And you are somewhat surprised, are you not?”

“I am so much astonished, sir, that I have several times pinched my arms and legs, for it all seems to me like a dream.”

Seraphin smiled and laid aside his cap. Holt scanned the noble features of the young man more minutely, his handsome face, his stately bearing, and concluded the man in the blouse must be some distinguished gentleman.

“Take courage,” said the noble‐looking young man in a kindly tone. “You shall be assisted. I am convinced that you are an honest, industrious man, brought to the verge of ruin through no fault of your own. Nor do I blame you for inadvertently falling into the nets of the usurer, for I believe your honest nature never suspected that there could exist so fiendish a monster as the one that lives in the soul of an usurer.”

“You may rely upon it, sir. If I had had the slightest suspicion of such a thing, Shund never would have got me into his clutches.”

“I am convinced of it. You are partially the victim of your own good nature, and partially the prey of the wild beast Shund. Now listen to me: Suppose somebody were to give you a thousand florins, and to say: ‘Holt, take this money, ’tis yours. Be industrious, get along, be a prudent housekeeper, serve God to the end of your days, and in future beware of usurers’—suppose somebody were to address you in this way, what would you do?”

“Supposing the case, sir, although it is not possible, but supposing the case, what would I do? I would do precisely what that person would have told me, and a great deal more. I would work day and night. Every day, at evening prayer, I would get on my knees with my wife and children, and invoke God’s protection on that person. I would do that, sir; but, as I said, the case is impossible.”

“Nevertheless, suppose it did happen,” explained Seraphin in a preliminary way. “Give me your hand that you will fulfil the promise you have just given.”

For a moment Seraphin’s hand lay in a callous, iron palm, which pressed his soft fingers in an uncomfortable but well‐meant grasp.

“Well, now follow me,” said Gerlach.

He led the way; Holt followed with an unsteady step like a drunken man. They presented themselves before the banker’s counter. The latter was standing behind the trellis of his desk, and on a table lay ten rolls of money.

“You have just now by word and hand confirmed a promise,” said Gerlach, turning to the countryman, “which cannot be appreciated in money, for that promise comprises almost all the duties of the father of a family. But to make the fulfilment of the promise possible, a thousand florins are needed. Here lies the money. Accept it from me as a gift, and be happy.”

Holt did not stir. He looked from the money at Gerlach, was motionless and rigid, until, at last, the paralyzing surprise began to resolve itself into a spasmodic quivering of the lips, and then into a mighty flood of tears. Seizing Seraphin’s hands, he kissed them with an emotion that convulsed his whole being.

“That will do now,” said the millionaire, “take the money, and go home.”

“My God! I cannot find utterance,” said Holt, stammering forth the words with difficulty. “Good heaven! is it possible? Is it true? I am still thinking ’tis only a dream.”

“Downright reality, my man!” said the banker. “Stop crying; save your tears for a more fitting occasion. Put the rolls in your pocket, and go home.”

Greifmann’s coldness was effective in sobering down the man intoxicated with joy.

“May I ask, sir, what your name is, that I may at least know to whom I owe my rescue?”

“Seraphin is my name.”

“Your name sounds like an angel’s, and you are an angel to me. I am not acquainted with you, but God knows you, and he will requite you according to your deeds.”

Gerlach nodded gravely. The banker was impatient and murmured discontentedly. Holt carefully pocketed the rolls of money, made an inclination of gratitude to Gerlach, and went out. He passed slowly through the hall. The porter opened the door. Holt stood still before him.

“I ask your pardon, but do you know Mr. Seraphin?” asked he.

“Why shouldn’t I know a gentleman that has been our guest for the last two weeks?”

“You must pardon my presumption, Mr. Porter. Will Mr. Seraphin remain here much longer?”

“He will remain another week for certain.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Holt, passing into the street and hurrying away.

“Your intended has a queer way of applying his money,” said the banker to his sister the next morning. And he reported to her the story of Seraphin’s munificence. “I do not exactly like this sort of kindness, for it oversteps all bounds, and undoubtedly results from religious enthusiasm.”

“That, too, can be cured,” replied Louise confidently. “I will make him understand that eternity restores nothing, that consequently it is safer and more prudent to exact interest from the present.”

“’Tis true, the situation of that fellow Holt was a pitiable one, and Hans Shund’s treatment of him was a masterpiece of speculation. He had stripped the fellow completely. The stupid Holt had for years been laboring for the cunning Shund, who continued drawing his meshes more and more tightly about him. Like a huge spider, he leisurely sucked out the life of the fly he had entrapped.”

“Your hostler says there was light in Seraphin’s room long after midnight. I wonder what hindered him from sleeping?”

“That is not hard to divine. In all probability he was composing a sentimental ditty to his much adored,” answered Carl teasingly. “Midnight is said to be a propitious time for occupations of that sort.”

“Do be quiet, you tease! But I too was thinking that he must have been engaged in writing. May be he was making a memorandum of yesterday’s experience in his journal.”

“May be he was. At all events, the impressions made on him were very strong.”

“But I do not like your venture; it may turn out disastrous.”

“How can it, my most learned sister?”

“You know Seraphin’s position,” explained she. “He has been reared in the rigor of sectarian credulity. The spirit of modern civilization being thus abruptly placed before his one‐sided judgment without previous preparation may alarm, nay, may even disgust him. And when once he will have perceived that the brother is a partisan of the horrible monster, is it probable that he will feel favorably disposed towards the sister whose views harmonize with those of her brother?”

“I have done nothing to justify him in setting me down for a partisan. I maintain strict neutrality. My purpose is to accustom the weakling to the atmosphere of enlightenment which is fatal to all religious phantasms. Have no fear of his growing cold towards you,” proceeded he in his customary tone of irony. “Your ever victorious power holds him spell‐bound in the magic circle of your enchantment. Besides, Louise,” continued he, frowning, “I do not think I could tolerate a brother‐in‐law steeped over head and ears in prejudices. You yourself might find it highly uncomfortable to live with a husband of this kind.”

“Uncomfortable! No, I would not. I would find it exciting, for it would become my task to train and cultivate an abnormal specimen of the male gender.”

“Very praiseworthy, sister! And if I now endeavor by means of living illustrations to familiarize your intended with the nature of modern intellectual enlightenment, I am merely preparing the way for your future labors.”

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VI. Masters and Slaves

Under the much despised discipline of religious requirements, the child Seraphin had grown up to boyhood spotless in morals, and then had developed himself into a young man of great firmness of character, whose faith was as unshaken as the correctness of his behavior was constant.

The bloom of his cheeks, the innocent brightness of his eye, the suavity of his disposition, were the natural results of the training which his heart had received. No foul passion had ever disturbed the serenity of his soul. When under the smiling sky of a spring morning he took his ride over the extensive possessions of his father, his interior accorded perfectly with the peace and loveliness of the sights and sounds of blooming nature around him. On earth, however, no spring, be it ever so beautiful, is entirely safe from storms. Evil spirits lie in waiting in the air, dark powers threaten destruction to all blossoms and all incipient life. And the more inevitable is the dread might of those lurking spirits, that in every blossom of living plant lies concealed a germ of ruin, sleeps a treacherous passion—even in the heart of the innocent Seraphin.

The strategic arts of the beautiful young lady received no small degree of additional power from the genuine effort made by her to please the stately double millionaire. In a short time she was to such an extent successful that one day Carl rallied her in the following humorous strain: “Your intended is sitting in the arbor singing a most dismal song! You will have to allow him a little more line, Louise, else you run the risk of unsettling his brain. Moreover, I cannot be expected to instruct a man in the mysteries of progress, if he sees, feels, and thinks nothing but Louise.”

The banker had not uttered an exaggeration. It sometimes happens that a first love bursts forth with an impetuosity so uncontrollable, that, for a time, every other domain of the intellectual and moral nature of a young man is, as it were, submerged under a mighty flood. This temporary inundation of passion cannot, of course, maintain its high tide in presence of calm experience, and the sunshine of more ripened knowledge soon dries up its waters. But Seraphin possessed only the scanty experience of a young man, and his knowledge of the world was also very limited. Hence, in his case, the stream rose alarmingly high, but it did not reach an overflow, for the hand of a pious mother had thrown up in the heart of the child a living dike strong enough to resist the greatest violence of the swell. The height and solidity of the dike increased with the growth of the child; it was a bulwark of defence for the man, who stood secure against humiliating defeats behind the adamantine wall of religious principles—yet only so long as he sought protection behind this bulwark. Faith uttered a serious warning against an unconditional surrender of himself to the object of his attachment. For he could not put to rest some misgivings raised in his mind by the strange and, to him, inexplicable attitude which Louise assumed upon the highest questions of human existence. The uninitiated youth had no suspicion of the existence of that most disgusting product of modern enlightenment, the emancipated female. Had he discovered in Louise the emancipated woman in all the ugliness of her real nature, he would have conceived unutterable loathing for such a monstrosity. And yet he could not but feel that between himself and Louise there yawned an abyss, there existed an essential repulsion, which, at times, gave rise within him to considerable uneasiness.

To obtain a solution of the enigma of this antipathy, the young gentleman concluded to trust entirely to the results of his observations, which, however, were far from being definitive; for his reason was imposed upon by his feelings, and, from day to day, the charms of the beautiful woman were steadily progressing in throwing a seductive spell over his judgment.

The banker’s daughter possessed a high degree of culture; she was a perfect mistress of the tactics employed on the field of coquetry; her tact was exquisite; and she understood thoroughly how to take advantage of a kindly disposition and of the tenderness inspired by passion. How was the eye of Seraphin, strengthened neither by knowledge nor by experience, to detect the true worth of what lay hidden beneath this fascinating delusion?

Here again his religious training came to the rescue of the inexperienced youth, by furnishing him with standards safe and unfalsified, by which to weigh and come to a conclusion.

Louise’s indifference to practices of piety annoyed him. She never attended divine service, not even on Sundays. He never saw her with a prayer‐book, nor was a single picture illustrative of a moral subject to be found hung up in her apartment. Her conversation, at all times, ran upon commonplaces of everyday concern, such as the toilet, theatre, society. He noticed that whenever he ventured to launch matter of a more serious import upon the current of conversation, it immediately became constrained and soon ceased to flow. Louise appeared to his heart at the same time so fascinating and yet so peculiar, so seductive and yet so repulsive, that the contradictions of her being caused him to feel quite unhappy.

He was again sitting in his room thinking about her. In the interview he had just had with her, the young lady had exerted such admirable powers of womanly charms that the poor young man had had a great deal of trouble to maintain his self‐possession. Her ringing, mischievous laugh was still sounding in his ears, and the brightness of her sparkling eyes was still lighting up his memory. And the unsuspecting youth had no Solomon at his side to repeat to him: “My son, can a man hide fire in his bosom, and his garments not burn? Or can he walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt?... She entangleth him with many words, and she draweth him away with the flattery of her lips. Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to be a victim, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and not knowing that he is drawn like a fool to bonds, till the arrow pierce his liver. As if a bird should make haste to the snare, and knoweth not that his life is in danger. Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thy mind be drawn away in her ways: neither be thou deceived with her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded, and the strongest have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, reaching even to the inner chambers of death.”(3)

For Seraphin, however, no Solomon was at hand who might give him counsel. Sustained by his virtue and by his faith alone, he struggled against the temptress, not precisely of the kind referred to by Solomon, but still a dangerous one from the ranks of progress.

Greifmann had notified him that the general assembly election was to be held that day, that Mayor Hans Shund would certainly be returned as a delegate, and that he intended to call for Gerlach, and go out to watch the progress of the election.

Seraphin felt rather indifferent respecting the election; but he would have considered himself under weighty obligation to the brother for an explanation of the peculiar behavior of the sister at which he was so greatly perplexed.

Carl himself he had for a while regarded as an enigma. Now, however, he believed that he had reached a correct conclusion concerning the brother. It appeared to him that the principal characteristic of Carl’s disposition was to treat every subject, except what strictly pertained to business, in a spirit of levity. To the faults of others Carl was always ready to accord a praiseworthy degree of indulgence, he never uttered harsh words in a tone of bitterness, and when he pronounced censure, his reproof was invariably clothed in some form of pleasantry. In general, he behaved like a man not having time to occupy himself seriously with any subject that did not lie within the particular sphere of his occupation. Even their wager he managed like a matter of business, although the landowner could not but take umbrage at the banker’s ready and natural way of dealing with men whose want of principle he himself abominated. Greifmann seemed good‐ natured, minute, and cautious in business, and in all other things exceedingly liberal and full of levity. Such was the judgment arrived at by Seraphin, inexperienced and little inclined to fault‐finding as he was, respecting a gentleman who stood at the summit of modern culture, who had skill in elegantly cloaking great faults and foibles, and whose sole religion consisted in the accumulation of papers and coins of arbitrary value.

Gerlach’s servant entered, and disturbed his meditation.

“There is a man here with a family who begs hard to be allowed to speak with you.”

“A man with a family!” repeated the millionaire, astonished. “I know nobody round here, and have no desire to form acquaintances.”

“The man will not be denied. He says his name is Holt, and that he has something to say to you.”

“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Seraphin, with a smile that revealed a pleasant surprise. “Send the man and those who are with him in to me.”

Closing a diary, in which he was recording circumstantially the experiences of his present visit, he awaited the visitors. A loud knock from a weighty fist reminded him of a pair of callous hands, then Holt, followed by his wife and children, presented himself before his benefactor. They all made a small courtesy, even the flaxen‐headed little children, and the bright, healthy babe in the arms of the mother met his gaze with the smile of an angel. The dark spirits that were hovering around him, torturing and tempting, instantly vanished, and he became serene and unconstrained whilst conversing with these simple people.

“You must excuse us, Mr. Seraphin,” began Holt. “This is my wife, and these are seven of my children. There is one more; her name is Mechtild. She had to stay at home and mind the house. She will pay you an extra visit, and present her thanks. We have called that you might become acquainted with the family whom you have rescued, and that we might thank you with all our hearts.”

After this speech, the father gave a signal, whereupon the little ones gathered around the amiable young man, made their courtesies, and kissed his hands.

“May God bless you, Mr. Seraphin!” first spoke a half‐grown girl.

“We greet you, dear Seraphin!” said another, five years old.

“We pray for you every day, Mr. Seraphin,” said the next in succession.

“We are thankful to you from our hearts, Mr. Seraphin,” spoke a small lad, in a tone of deep earnestness.

And thus did every child deliver its little address. It was touching to witness the noble dignity of the children, which may, at times, be found beautifully investing their innocence. Gerlach was moved. He looked down upon the little ones around him with an expression of affectionate thankfulness. Holt’s lips also quivered, and bright tears of happiness streamed from the eyes of the mother.

“I am obliged to you, my little friends, for your greetings and for your prayers,” spoke the millionaire. “You are well brought up. Continue always to be good children, such as you now are; have the fear of God, and honor your parents.”

“Mr. Seraphin,” said Holt, drawing a paper from his pocket, “here is the note that I have redeemed with the money you gave me. I wanted to show it to you, so that you might know for certain that the money had been applied to the proper purpose.”

Gerlach affected to take an interest in the paper, and read over the receipt.

“But there is one thing, Mr. Seraphin,” continued Holt, “that grieves me. And that is, that there is not anything better than mere words with which I can testify my gratitude to you. I would like ever so much to do something for you—to do something for you worth speaking of. Do you know, Mr. Seraphin, I would be willing to shed the last drop of my blood for you?”

“Never mind that, Holt! It is ample recompense for me to know that I have helped a worthy man out of trouble. You can now, Mrs. Holt, set to work with renewed courage. But,” added he archly, “you will have to watch your husband that he may not again fall into the clutches of beasts of prey like Shund.”

“He has had to pay dearly for his experience, Mr. Seraphin. I used often to say to him: ‘Michael, don’t trust Shund. Shund talks too much, he is too sweet altogether, he has some wicked design upon us—don’t trust him.’ But, you see, Mr. Seraphin, my husband thinks that all people are as upright as he is himself, and he believed that Shund really meant to deal fairly as he pretended. But Michael’s wits are sharpened now, and he will not in future be so ready to believe every man upon his word. Nor will he, hereafter, borrow one single penny, and he will never again undertake to buy anything unless he has the money in hand to pay for it.”

“In what street do you live?” inquired Gerlach.

“Near the turnpike road, Mr. Seraphin. Do you see that knoll?” He pointed through the window in a direction unobstructed by the trees of the garden. “Do you see that dense shade‐tree, and yon white‐washed wall behind the tree? That is our walnut‐tree—my grandfather planted it. And the white wall is the wall of our house.”

“I have passed there twice—the road leads to the beech grove,” said the millionaire. “I remarked the little cottage, and was much pleased with its air of neatness. It struck me, too, that the barn is larger than the dwelling, which is a creditable sign for a farmer. Near the front entrance there is a carefully cultivated flower garden, in which I particularly admired the roses, and further off from the road lies an apple orchard.”

“All that belongs to us. That is what you have rescued and made a present of to us,” replied the land cultivator joyfully. “Everybody stops to view the roses; they belong to our daughter Mechtild.”

“The soil is good and deep, and must bring splendid crops of wheat. I, too, am a farmer, and understand something about such matters. But it appeared to me as though the soil were of a cold nature. You should use lime upon it pretty freely.”

In this manner he spent some time conversing with these good and simple people. Before dismissing them, he made a present to every one of the children of a shining dollar, having previously overcome Holt’s protest against this new instance of generosity.

Old and young then courtesied once more, and Gerlach was left to himself in a mood differing greatly from that in which the visitors had found him.

He had been conversing with good and happy people, and his soul revelled in the consciousness of having been the originator of their happiness.

Suddenly Greifmann’s appearance in the room put to flight the bright spirits that hovered about him, and the sunshine that had been lighting up the apartment was obscured by dark shadows as of a heavy mass of clouds.

“What sort of a horde was that?” asked he.

“They were Holt and his family. The gratitude of these simple people was touching. The innocent little ones gave me an ovation of which a prince might be envious, for the courts of princes are never graced by a naturalness at once so sincere and so beautiful. It is an intense happiness for me to have assured the livelihood of ten human beings with so paltry a gift.”

“A mere matter of taste, my most sympathetic friend!” rejoined the banker with indifference. “You are not made of the proper stuff to be a business man. Your feelings would easily tempt you into very unbusinesslike transactions. But you must come with me! The hubbub of the election is astir through all the streets and thoroughfares. I am going out to discharge my duties as a citizen, and I want you to accompany me.”

“I have no inclination to see any more of this disgusting turmoil,” replied Gerlach.

“Inclination or disinclination is out of the question when interest demands it,” insisted the banker. “You must profit by the opportunity which you now have of enriching your knowledge of men and things, or rather of correcting it; for heretofore your manner of viewing things has been mere ideal enthusiasm. Come with me, my good fellow!”

Seraphin followed with interior reluctance. Greifmann went on to impart to him the following information:

“During the past night, there have sprung up, as if out of the earth, a most formidable host, ready to do battle against the uniformly victorious army of progress—men thoroughly armed and accoutred, real crusaders. A bloody struggle is imminent. Try and make of your heart a sort of monitor covered with plates of iron, so that you may not be overpowered by the horrifying spectacle of the election affray. I am not joking at all! True as gospel, what I tell you! If you do not want to be stifled by indignation at sight of the fiercest kind of terrorism, of the most revolting tyranny, you will have to lay aside, at least for to‐day, every feeling of humanity.”

Gerlach perceived a degree of seriousness in the bubbling current of Greifmann’s levity.

“Who is the enemy that presumes to stand in the way of progress?” enquired he.

“The ultramontanes! Listen to what I have to tell you. This morning Schwefel came in to get a check cashed. With surprise I observed that the manufacturer’s soul was not in business. ‘How are things going?’ asked I when we had got through.

“ ‘I feel like a man,’ exclaimed he, ‘that has just seen a horrible monster! Would you believe it, those accursed ultramontanes have been secretly meddling in the election. They have mustered a number of votes, and have even gone so far as to have a yellow ticket printed. Their yellow placards were to be seen this morning stuck up at every street corner—of course they were immediately torn down.’

“ ‘And are you provoked at that, Mr. Schwefel! You certainly are not going to deny the poor ultramontanes the liberty of existing, or, at least, the liberty of voting for whom they please?’

“ ‘Yes, I am, I am! That must not be tolerated,’ cried he wildly. ‘The black brood are hatching dark schemes, they are conspiring against civilization, and would fain wrest from us the trophies won by progress. It is high time to apply the axe to the root of the upas‐tree. Our duty is to disinfect thoroughly, to banish the absurdities of religious dogma from our schools. The black spawn will have to be rendered harmless: we must kill them politically.’

“ ‘Very well,’ said I. ‘Just make negroes of them. Now that in America the slaves are emancipated, Europe would perhaps do well to take her turn at the slave‐trade.’ But the fellow would not take my joke. He made threatening gesticulations, his eyes gleamed like hot coals, and he muttered words of a belligerent import.

“ ‘The ultramontane rabble are to hold a meeting at the “Key of Heaven,” ’ reported he. ‘There the stupid victims of credulity are to be harangued by several of their best talkers. The black tide is afterwards to diffuse itself through the various wards where the voting is to take place. But let the priest‐ridden slaves come, they will have other memoranda to carry home with them beside their yellow rags of tickets.’

“You perceive, friend Seraphin, that the progress men mean mischief. We may expect to witness scenes of violence.”

“That is unjustifiable brutality on the part of the progressionists,” declared Gerlach indignantly. “Are not the ultramontanes entitled to vote and to receive votes? Are they not free citizens? Do they not enjoy the same privileges as others? It is a disgrace and an outrage thus to tyrannize over men who are their brothers, sons of Germania, their common mother.”

“Granted! Violence is disgraceful. The intention of progress, however, is not quite as bad as you think it. Being convinced of its own infallibility, it cannot help feeling indignant at the unbelief of ultramontanism, which continues deaf to the saving truths of the progressionist gospel. Hence a holy zeal for making converts urges progress so irresistibly that it would fain force wanderers into the path of salvation by violence. This is simply human, and should not be regarded as unpardonable. In the self‐same spirit did my namesake Charles the Great butcher the Saxons because the besotted heathens presumed to entertain convictions differing from his own. And those who were not butchered had to see their sacred groves cut down, their altars demolished, their time‐ honored laws changed, and had to resign themselves to following the ways which he thought fit to have opened through the land of the Saxons. You cannot fail to perceive that Charles the Great was a member of the school of progress.”

“But your comparison is defective,” opposed the millionaire. “Charles subdued a wild and blood‐thirsty horde who made it a practice to set upon and butcher peaceful neighbors. Charles was the protector of the realm, and the Saxons were forced to bend under the weight of his powerful arm. If Charles, however, did violence to the consciences of his vanquished enemies, and converted them to Christianity with the sword and mace, then Charles himself is not to be excused, for moral freedom is expressly proclaimed by the spirit of Christianity.”

“There is no doubt but that the Saxons were blundering fools for rousing the lion by making inroads into Charles’ domain. The ultramontanes, are, however, in a similar situation. They have attacked the giant Progress, and have themselves to blame for the consequences.”

“The ultramontanes have attacked nobody,” maintained Gerlach. “They are merely asserting their own rights, and are not putting restrictions on the rights of other people. But progress will concede neither rights nor freedom to others. It is a disgusting egotist, an unscrupulous tyrant, that tries to build up his own brutal authority on the ruins of the rights of others.”

“Still, it would have been far more prudent on the part of the ultramontanes to keep quiet, seeing that their inferiority of numbers cannot alter the situation. The indisputable rights of the ascendency are in our days with the sceptre and crown of progress.”

“A brave man never counts the foe,” cried Gerlach. “He stands to his convictions, and behaves manfully in the struggle.”

“Well said!” applauded the banker. “And since progress also is forced by the opposition of principles to man itself for the contest, it will naturally beat up all its forces in defence of its conviction. Here we are at the ‘Key of Heaven,’ where the ultramontanes are holding their meeting. Let us go in, for the proverb says, Audiatur et altera pars—the other side should also get a hearing.”

They drew near to a lengthy old building. Over the doorway was a pair of crossed keys hewn out of stone, and gilt, informing the stranger that it was the hostelry of the “Key of Heaven,” where, since the days of hoar antiquity, hospitality was dispensed to pilgrims and travellers. The principal hall of the house contained a gathering of about three hundred men. They were attentively listening to the words of a speaker who was warmly advocating the principles of his party. The speaker stood behind a desk which was placed upon a platform at the far end of the hall.

Seraphin cast a glance over the assembly. He received the painful impression of a hopeless minority. Barely forty votes would the ultramontanes be able to send to each of the wards. To compensate for numbers, intelligence and faith were represented in the meeting. Elegant gentlemen with intellectual countenances sat or stood in the company of respectable tradesmen, and the long black coats of the clergy were not few in number. On a table lay two packages of yellow tickets to be distributed among the members of the assembly. At the same table sat the chairman, a commissary of police named Parteiling, whose business it was to watch the proceedings, and several other gentlemen.

“Compared with the colossal preponderance of progress, our influence is insignificant, and, compared with the masses of our opponents our numerical strength is still less encouraging,” said the speaker. “If in connection with this disheartening fact you take into consideration the pressure which progress has it in its power to exert on the various relations of life through numerous auxiliary means, if you remember that our opponents can dismiss from employment all such as dare uphold views differing from their own, it becomes clear that no ordinary amount of courage is required to entertain and proclaim convictions hostile to progress.”

Seraphin thought of Spitzkopf’s mode of electioneering, and of the terrible threats made to the “wild men,” and concluded the incredible statement was lamentably correct.

“Viewing things in this light,” proceeded the orator, “I congratulate the present assembly upon its unusual degree of pluck, for courage is required to go into battle with a clear knowledge of the overwhelming strength of the enemy. We have rallied round the banner of our convictions notwithstanding that the numbers of the enemy make victory hopeless. We are determined to cast our votes in support of religion and morality in defiance of the scorn, blasphemy, and violence which the well‐known terrorism of progress will not fail to employ in order to frighten us from the exercise of our privilege as citizens. We must be prepared, gentlemen, to hear a multitude of sarcastic remarks and coarse witticisms, both in the streets and at the polls. I adjure you to maintain the deportment alone worthy of our cause. A gentleman never replies to the aggressions of rudeness, and should you wish to take the conduct of our opponents in gay good‐humor, just try, gentlemen, to fancy that you are being treated to some elegant exhibition of the refinement and liberal culture of the times.”

Loud bursts of hilarity now and then relieved the seriousness of the meeting. Even Greifmann would clap applause and cry, “Bravo!”

“Let us stand united to a man, prepared against all the wiles of intimidation and corruption, undismayed by the onset of the enemy. The struggle is grave beyond expression. For you are acquainted with the aims and purposes of the liberals. Progress would like to sweep away all the religious heritages that our fathers held sacred. Education is to be violently wrested from under the influence of the church; the church herself is to be enslaved and strangled in the thrall of the liberal state. I am aware that our opponents pretend to respect religion—but the religion of would‐be progress is infidelity. Divine revelation, of which the church is the faithful guardian, is rejected with scorn by liberalism. Look at the tone of the press and the style of the literature of the day. You have only to notice the derision and fierceness with which the press daily assails the mysteries and dogmas of religion, the Sovereign Pontiff, the clergy, religious orders, the ultramontanes, and you cannot long remain in the dark concerning the aim and object of progress. Christ or Antichrist is the watchword of the day, gentlemen! Hence the imperative duty for us to be active at the elections; for the legislature has the presumption to wish to dictate in matters belonging exclusively to the jurisdiction of the church. We are threatened with school laws the purpose of which is to unchristianize our children, to estrange them from the spirit of religion. No man having the sentiment of religion can remain indifferent in presence of this danger, for it means nothing less than the defection from Christianity of the masses of the coming generation.

“Gentlemen, there is a reproach being uttered just now by the progressionist press, which, far from repelling, I would feel proud to deserve. A priest should have said, so goes the report, that it is a mortal sin to elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies. Some of the writers of our press have met this reproach by simply denying that a priest ever expressed himself in those terms. But, gentlemen, let us take for granted that a priest did actually say that it is a mortal sin to elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies, is there anything opposed to morality in such a declaration?

“By no means, if you remember that it is to be presumed the progressionist will use his vote in the assembly to oppose religion. Mortal sin, gentlemen, is any wilful transgression of God’s law in grave matters. Now I put it to you: Does he gravely transgress the law of God who controverts what God has revealed, who would exclude God and all holy subjects from the schools, who would rob the church of her independence, and make of her a mere state machine unfit for the fulfilment of her high mission? There is not one of you but is ready to declare: ‘Yes, such an one transgresses grievously the law of God.’ This answer at the same time solves the other question, whether it is a mortal sin to put arms in the hands of an enemy of religion that he may use them against faith and morality. Would that all men of Christian sentiment seriously adverted to this connection of things and acted accordingly, the baneful sway of the pernicious spirit that governs the age would soon be at an end; for I have confidence in the sound sense and moral rectitude of the German people. Heathenism is repugnant to the deeply religious nature of our nation; the German people do not wish to dethrone God, nor are they ready to bow the knee before the empty idol of a soulless enlightenment.”

Here the speaker was interrupted by a tumult. A band of factorymen, yelling and laughing, rushed into the hall to disturb the meeting. All eyes were immediately turned upon the rioters. In every countenance indignation could be seen kindling at this outrage of the liberals. The commissary of police alone sat motionless as a statue. The progressionist rioters elbowed their way into the crowd, and, when the excitement caused by this strategic movement had subsided, the speaker resumed his discourse.

“For a number of years back our conduct has been misrepresented and calumniated. They call us men of no nationality, and pretend that we get our orders from Rome. This reproach does honor neither to the intelligence nor to the judgment of our opponents. Whence dates the division of Germany into discordant factions? When began the present faint and languishing condition of our fatherland? From the moment when it separated from Rome. So long as Germany continued united in the bond of the same holy faith, and the voice of the head of the church was hearkened to by every member of her population, her sovereigns held the golden apple, the symbol of universal empire. Our nation was then the mightiest, the proudest, the most glorious upon earth. The church who speaks through the Sovereign Pontiff had civilized the fierce sons of Germany, had conjured the hatred and feuds of hostile tribes, had united the interests and energies of our people in one holy faith, and had ennobled and enriched German genius through the spirit of religion. The church had formed out of the chaos of barbarism the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation—that gigantic and wonderful organization the like of which the world will never see again. But the church has long since been deprived of the leadership in German affairs, and what in consequence is now the condition of our fatherland? It is divided into discordant factions, it is an ailing trunk, with many members, but without a head.

“It is rather amusing that the ultramontanes should be charged with receiving orders from Rome, for the voice of the Father of Christianity has not been heard for many years back in the council of state.”

“Hurrah for the Syllabus!” cried Spitzkopf, who was at the head of the rioters. “Hurrah for the Syllabus!” echoed his gang, yelling and stamping wildly.

The ultramontanes were aroused, eyes glared fiercely, and fists were clenched ready to make a summary clearing of the hall. But no scuffle ensued; the ultramontanes maintained a dignified bearing. The speaker calmly remained in his place, and when the tumult had ceased he again went on with his discourse.

“Such only,” said he, “take offence at the Syllabus as know nothing about it. There is not a word in the Syllabus opposed to political liberty or the most untrammelled self‐government of the German people. But it is opposed to the fiendish terrorism of infidelity. The Syllabus condemns the diabolical principles by which the foundations of the Christian state are sapped and a most disastrous tyranny over conscience is proclaimed.”

“Hallo! listen to that,” cried one of the liberals, and the yelling was renewed, louder, longer, and more furious than before.

The chairman rang his bell. The revellers relapsed into silence.

“Ours is not a public meeting, but a mere private gathering,” explained the chairman. “None but men of Christian principles have been invited. If others have intruded violently, I request them to leave the room, or, at least, to refrain from conduct unbecoming men of good‐breeding.”

Spitzkopf laughed aloud, his comrades yelled and stamped.

“Let us go!” said Greifmann to Gerlach in an angry tone.

“Let us stay!” rejoined the latter with excitement. “The affair is becoming interesting. I want to see how this will end.”

The banker noticed Gerlach’s suppressed indignation; he observed it in the fire of his eyes and the expression of unutterable contempt that had spread over his features, and he began to consider the situation as alarming. He had not expected this exhibition of brutal impertinence. In his estimation an infringement of propriety like the one he had just witnessed was a far more heinous transgression than the grossest violations in the sphere of morals. He judged of Gerlach’s impressions by this standard of appreciation, and feared the behavior of the progressionist mob would produce an effect in the young man’s mind far from favorable to the cause which they represented. He execrated the disturbance of the liberals, and took Seraphin’s arm to lead him away.

“Come away, I beg of you! I cannot imagine what interest the rudeness of that uncultivated horde can have for you.”

“Do not scorn them, for they are honestly earning their pay,” rejoined Gerlach.

“What do you mean?”

“Those fellows are whistling, bawling, stamping, and yelling in the employ of progress. You are trying to give me an insight into the nature of modern civilization: could there be a better opportunity than this?”

“There you make a mistake, my dear fellow! Enlightened progress is never rude.”

To Be Continued.

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Gavazzi Versus The See Of S. Peter

By a Protestant Doctor of Philosophy.

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Introductory Note

The topic of this article has already been fully and satisfactorily treated in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It is well, however, to adopt, in handling the truth, Voltaire’s maxim in regard to falsehood, and to keep continually repeating those truths which are frequently denied. Not only the mountebank Gavazzi, but others more respectable than he is, keep on reasserting the denial of S. Peter’s Roman Episcopate, notwithstanding the evidence which has been over and over again presented in proof of it by Protestant as well as Catholic writers. We, therefore, willingly give admission to the present article, which, we may as well state, has been printed from the author’s MS. copy, without any alteration.—ED. C. W.

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At our examination in the diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church in which we took holy orders, the question of S. Peter’s being at Rome was debated with some warmth by the clerical examiners and the bishop. We had at that time just passed our majority, and, while our reading had been pretty full, we had not touched the subject of this article, for it was indeed comparatively new to us. We remember well the remark of our bishop, whose opinion on theological questions we held in veneration. He was prominent on the bench of bishops as one of the most learned of our prelates, and he had wielded his pen in defence of Anglican Church principles with great reputation to himself among Episcopalians, particularly the High Church school of religious thought. At the period to which we refer, he gave it as his opinion that it was extremely doubtful that S. Peter ever visited Rome, and that he was the first bishop of its See was beyond the province of historical proof. Previous to this date in our studies, we would as lief have questioned the fact of the existence of Rome itself as that of S. Peter’s residence there, and his occupancy of that metropolitan see. We had reached this conclusion by no investigation: it was, rather, one of those traditional questions which fix themselves in the mind without much thought in either direction. The fact, as we supposed, had never been doubted. To hear for the first time a denial of its truth, and that, too, from our ecclesiastical superior, made an impression upon our mind which led us to investigate the subject as soon as time and opportunity were afforded us. From that day to this, we have heard the same theory advanced by Protestant clergymen of every shade of denominational opinion, and in the minds of many it has lodged itself as one of those mooted questions which baffle historical proof.

About twenty years ago, an Italian known as “Father Gavazzi” visited the United States. His crusade against the Church of Rome during that visit is familiar to all. Of its merits or the motives which prompted it we do not propose to speak, as it is foreign to the subject to which the interest of the reader is invited. Again the same Alessandro Gavazzi, as “Commissioner” of what he denominates the “Free Christian Church of Italy,” is lecturing to audiences in our principal cities, for the purpose of securing subscriptions for “evangelization” and for the “Biblical College in Rome.” What these terms may mean we do not know, and of them we have no disposition to speak. In the month of June last, “Father Gavazzi” was advertised to lecture under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian Association in the city in which we reside. Among others, who had no interest perhaps in the especial work in which he is engaged, we attended his lecture. From a report of the lecture in the issue of a daily paper of the following morning we make the quotation which forms the text, upon which we propose to place before the reader some historical proofs for the belief that S. Peter was at Rome.

“Father Gavazzi” said: “A discussion was proposed in Rome as to whether S. Peter was ever there or not. The Pope favored, insisted upon it, and in two days his chosen champions retired defeated from the contest. That is something. The Bible is entirely silent on this subject. But the priests say that is merely negative proof. The silence of S. Luke is, however, positive proof that S. Peter was never there. The discussion of this subject, once prohibited in Rome, is now talked of freely in all public places. It was his delight to fight the Pope. Pius IX. was no more the successor of S. Peter than he was the successor of the emperor of China. S. Peter was never in Rome to be succeeded by anybody.”

Modern investigation at best has done little to clear up the difficulties connected with the geographical history of the Apostle Peter. That he was at Rome, and suffered martyrdom in that city, is the general belief of the fathers. And it was not until the dawn of the Reformation that the apostle’s journey to that city, and his martyrdom there, became even a subject of doubt. So great was the anxiety of some to disprove the Primacy of the Roman See that scholarly men lent themselves to the repetition of myths and traditions which had no foundation in fact, and later writers, biased by early education and ecclesiastical connection, have even introduced into historical literature mythical stories, the germs of which run through the popular mythology of ancient and modern times. If, they argue, it can be proved that S. Peter was never at Rome, then we at once overturn the pretensions of the Papacy; or, again, if we can demonstrate that there is a break in the chain of succession of its bishops from S. Peter, the belief in the doctrine of an apostolic succession is clearly disproved, and the idea of a line of bishops reaching back through the long period of the Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith, only a senseless forgery which originated with some monk the abbot of whose monastery was perhaps the first to give it form after he had ascended the chair of Peter. Mosheim, a respectable writer in the Protestant world, blinded by a singular prejudice which led him at times to forget the critical duties of the historian, is one among the few German scholars who has tarnished the pages of his Ecclesiastical History by giving credence to the fabulous story of Pope Joan. “Between Leo IV., who died 855, and Benedict III.,” says he, “a woman who concealed her sex and assumed the name of John, it is said, opened her way to the pontifical throne by her learning and genius, and governed the church for a time. She is commonly called the Papess Joan. During five subsequent centuries the witnesses to this extraordinary event are without number; nor did any one prior to the Reformation by Luther regard the thing as either incredible or disgraceful to the church.” The earliest writer from whom any information relating to the fable of Pope Joan is derived is Marianus Scotus, a monk of S. Martin of Cologne, who died A.D. 1086. He left a chronicle which has received many additions by later writers, and among those interpolations the students of mythical lore regard the passage which refers to this story. Platina, who wrote the Lives of the Popes anterior to the time of Martin Luther, relates the legend, and, with more of the critical acumen than Mosheim, adds: “These things which I relate are popular reports, but derived from uncertain and obscure authors, which I have therefore inserted briefly and baldly, lest I should seem to omit obstinately and pertinaciously what most people assert.” The legend of Pope Joan has been so thoroughly exposed that no controversialist of discrimination thinks of reviving it as an argument against the succession of the Bishops of Rome. Now and then it may be related to an ignorant crowd by an anti‐popery mountebank of our cities during times of religious excitement, but it is never heard from the lips of an educated Protestant. We are inclined to think, however, that the class of minds that seeks to throw doubt upon S. Peter’s residence at Rome in order to subvert the Primacy of the Apostolic See would not hesitate, in view of the evidence from early ecclesiastical writers, to introduce again this Papess Joan to their unlearned readers.

Turning, then, to the proofs of the subject of our paper, we take as the motto for our investigation of this and all kindred ecclesiastical questions the golden words of Tertullian: “Id esse verum, quodcunque primum; id esse adulterum quodcunque posterius.”(4) Or that petition of a great Anglican divine: “Grant, O Lord! that, in reading thy Holy Word, I may never prefer my private sentiments before those of the church in the purely ancient times of Christianity.”(5)

The earliest testimony is borne by S. Ignatius. He was closely connected with the apostles, both as a hearer of their teachings and sharer of the extraordinary mysteries of their faith.(6) S. John was his Christian Gamaliel, at whose feet he was taught the doctrines of Christianity, which prepared him not only to wear the mitre of Antioch, the most cultivated metropolis of the East, but also to receive the brighter crown of a martyr’s agonizing death. Full of years, the follower of the beloved disciple was hurried to Rome, to seal with his blood the truth of the religion of Christ. On his journey to the pagan capital, he was permitted to tarry for a season at Smyrna, to visit, for the last time, S. Polycarp, the aged bishop of that city. Here, in view of the dreadful death that awaited him in the Roman amphitheatre, and in communion with the revered fellow‐laborer of his life, he wrote his four epistles. From the one to the Romans we quote the following evidence: “I do not command you as S. Peter and S. Paul did; they were apostles of Jesus Christ, and I am a mere nothing” (the least).(7) “What can be more clear,” says the Anglican expositor of the Creed, Bishop Pearson, “from these words than that this most holy martyr was of opinion that Peter, no less than Paul, preached and suffered at Rome?”

Eusebius relates, upon the authority of Papias and S. Clement of Alexandria, that “S. Mark wrote his gospel at the request of S. Peter’s hearers in Rome,” and he further adds that “S. Peter mentions S. Mark in his first epistle, written from Rome, which he figuratively calls Babylon.”(8)

S. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, in his epistle addressed to the Romans, affirms that S. Peter and S. Paul preached the Gospel in Corinth and in Rome, and suffered martyrdom about the same time in the latter city.(9)

S. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, who was born at Smyrna, though of Greek extraction, had been the disciple of S. Polycarp, Pothinus, and Papias, from whose lips he had heard many anecdotes of the apostles and their immediate followers. He was alike eminent both as a scholar in the learning of the times and as a controversialist of no mean repute. The part he bore against the Gnostic and other heresies rendered his name illustrious, not only within the limits of his episcopal jurisdiction, but wherever the claims of Christianity had been presented. The wonderful aptness with which he interwove Scripture and scriptural phraseology into his style, not altogether unpolished, is perhaps unequalled in patristic theology. Residing in a city whose language and intellectual characteristics differed from those of his native country, his writings are essentially foreign, and, with few exceptions, were lost at an early period. In the fragments which remain we find an unequivocal testimony in behalf of the subject under discussion. His language is: “S. Peter and S. Paul preached the Gospel in Rome, and laid the foundation of the church.”(10)

Caius, a learned Roman presbyter, and, as some suppose, bishop, arguing against Proclus, the chief champion of Montanism at Rome, says that he can “show the trophies of the apostles.” “For if you will go,” he continues, “to the Vatican, or to the Ostian Road, you will find the trophies of those who have laid the foundation of this church.”(11)

Origen, a man of encyclopædic learning, who had been carefully nurtured by Christian parents, and who was imbued with the hardy, stern culture of the Greek literature, at the early age of eighteen became the leader of the Alexandrine school of Christian philosophy. He proved no unworthy successor of the logical Clement. Certainly no name stands higher in the catechetical school than that of the iron‐souled Origen (ἀδαμάντινος). The eloquent teachings of this youthful master nerved many a Christian soul to endure with fortitude the fiery trials of martyrdom, and even comforted the bleeding heart of Leonides, his father, who became a victim of the unrelenting persecutions of Severus. From Origen we learn “that S. Peter, after having preached through Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia, to the Jews that were scattered abroad, went at last to Rome, where he was crucified.” “These things,” says Eusebius, “are related by Origen in the third book of his Τῶν εἰς τὴν Γένεσιν ἐξηγητικῶν.”(12)

Tertullian by birth was a heathen and Carthaginian. He was the son of a centurion, and had been educated in all the varied learning of Greece and Rome. Skilled as a rhetorician and advocate in Rome, he brought, on his conversion to Christianity, the accomplishments of a highly cultivated intellect, but a sombre and irritable temper. The natural lawlessness of a mind guided by a passionate and stubborn disposition led him gradually to renounce the truths which the light of a higher intelligence had revealed, until at last he was anathematized for his Montanistic teachings. His writings are an invaluable addition to the Punic‐Latin theology, and a repository from which we receive great information concerning the polemic questions which at that period harassed the Christian church. Upon the subject of our article he writes as follows: “Let them, then, give us the origin of their churches; let them unfold the series of their bishops, coming down in succession from the beginning, so that the first bishop was appointed and preceded by any of the apostles, or apostolic men, who, nevertheless, preserved in communion with the apostles, had an ordainer and predecessor. For in this way the apostolic churches exhibit their origin; thus the Church of Smyrna relates that Polycarp was placed there by John, as the Church of Rome also relates that Clement was ordained by Peter.”(13)

Again: “If thou be adjacent to Italy, there thou hast Rome, whose authority is near at hand to us. How happy is this church, to which the apostles poured forth their whole doctrine with their blood! where Peter is assimilated to our Lord; where Paul is crowned with a death like that of John.”(14)

And again: “Let us see with what milk the Corinthians were fed by Paul; according to what rule the Galatians were reformed; what laws were to the Philippians, Thessalonians, Ephesians; what also the Romans sound in our ears, to whom Peter and Paul left the Gospel sealed with their blood.”(15)

To this list of witnesses we might add the testimony of the fathers and ecclesiastical writers who have flourished in different ages of the church, but we now propose to briefly survey the opinions of some of the most noted Protestant commentators.

The First Epistle of S. Peter is said by the apostle to have been written from Babylon, but whether it be Babylon in Chaldea, Babylon in Egypt, Jerusalem, or Rome, has given rise to much speculation.(16) Our Lord foretold the manner of St. Peter’s death,(17) and an event of such importance would naturally have awakened more than ordinary interest. Seven cities claimed the honor of Homer’s birth,(18) but no other place than Rome ever assumed to itself the glory of the apostle’s martyrdom. Controversies arose concerning the time of celebrating Easter, the baptism of heretics, and questions of a like nature, yet none disputed the place in which S. Peter was martyred. It is highly improbable that S. Peter ever visited either Babylon in Egypt or Babylon in Chaldea. Certainly no fact of history nor even possibility of conjecture furnishes the least warrantable presumption of either opinion. The great burden of proof points toward Rome. Like Babylon, pagan Rome was idolatrous. Like Babylon, it persecuted the church of God. Like Babylon, the glory of its pagan temple and fane had departed. In many manuscripts this epistle is dated from Rome.

Calvin, who little regarded the authority of the fathers, when, in the presumption of his self‐opinionated orthodoxy, he said: “All the ancients were driven into error,”(19) yet from evidence the most patent he believed that S. Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. His language is: “Propter scriptorum consensum non pugno quin illic mortuus fuerit.”(20)

“On the meaning of the word Babylon,” says Grotius, one of the most celebrated of the Calvinistic school, “ancient and modern interpreters disagree. The ancients understand it of Rome, and that Peter was there no true Christian ever doubted; the moderns understand it of Babylon in Chaldea. I adhere to the ancients.”(21)

Rosenmüller, of whom an able American critic has said, “He is almost everywhere a local investigator,”(22) has left his testimony in the same language as Grotius: “Veteres Romam interpretantur.”

Dr. Campbell very reluctantly yielded, by the force of evidence, to the same opinion when he wrote: “I am inclined to think that S. Peter’s martyrdom must have been at Rome, both because it is agreeable to the unanimous voice of antiquity, and because the sufferings of so great an apostle could not fail to be of such notoriety in the church as to preclude the possibility of an imposition in regard to the place.”(23)

“From a careful examination of the evidence adduced,” says the learned Horne, “for the literal meaning of the word Babylon, and of the evidence for its figurative or mystical application to Rome, we think that the latter was intended.”(24)

We commend to “Father Gavazzi,” and to the Rev. Doctors Sunderland and Newman of Washington, who are ever ready to throw down the gauntlet when an argument is made to prove that S. Peter was at Rome, the language of the logical and laborious Macknight, who clearly expresses our own view, and whose diligence, learning, and moderation were so fully appreciated by Bishop Tomline: “It is not for our honor nor for our interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well‐attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequences of which would be fatal.”(25)

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