Acoma…

Acoma

“Mr. S——, would you like to visit Acoma?” asked the commandant.

“Most assuredly,” I replied; “I came out here to see all I could see. But what or who is Acoma?”(227)

“A town built on the top of a rock rising from a level plain to a height of over two hundred feet is Acoma—the home of the Acoma Indians, a tribe of the great Pueblo family. I am ordered thither to have a talk with the principal men, and induce them to give up some Navajo children—captives—they are said to have taken in a recent skirmish.”

I had been enjoying the hospitality of the commandant for some days at old Fort Wingate, near the Ojo del Gallo, in the northwestern part of New Mexico. Acoma lies about fifty miles to the southeast of the fort, by a very rough trail across the mountains. It was somewhat further by the regular trail.

As we started, the sun was creeping over the brow of lofty San Mateo. The party consisted of the commandant, Don Juan Brown, a Castilianized American, who speaks Spanish like a native, and went with us as volunteer interpreter; Messrs. Jim Durden and Joe Smithers, gentlemen loafers; a sergeant and twenty cavalry as escort in case of unexpected and undesired rencounters with hostile Apaches or Navajoes; last, the writer, a denizen of the city of Gotham, general tourist, grand scribe and chronicler.

We all rode on horseback, except Don Juan Brown, who, being a trifle over 225 lbs., divided his weight between a pair of good horses attached to a light buggy. The order of march was: two cavalrymen five hundred yards in advance; the commandant, with Jim and Joe and the writer; the main body of the escort; Don Juan Brown with his buggy, and a rear guard of two cavalrymen five hundred yards behind.

A brisk trot of three miles brought us to the Puertocito, or Little Door, which leads from the Valley of the Gallo into the Mal Païs, a petrified sea of lava, which lies between the Puertocito and the mountains. The lava stream seems to have been suddenly turned to stone by a wave of some enchanter’s wand while it was a raging, seething torrent.

We halted and dismounted, tightened girths, etc. Jim and Joe, unused to the equitating mood, and evidently disliking particularly the trotting tense, had fallen back to the rear guard, and looked somewhat shaken. The relief of a walk of some miles was in store for them, as the trail through the Mal Païs admitted only of that gait and of single file.

The Puertocito is formed by two rocks about twenty feet high. We wound our way through tortuous passages, through lava spires, at a slow walk. We could not see more than a few yards ahead. It was a dreary pathway. The knowledge that it was a haunt for Indians bound on robbery or revenge gave imagination an opportunity to put her darkest colors on the natural gloom. An hour’s slow walking brings us to the Bajada, or Descent, where our path is up and down the steep sides of a lava rock thirty feet high. We dismount and lead our horses carefully down. Half a dozen men holding on to the buggy behind make sufficient drag to let it down in safety, though with some wrenching of the wheels in the channelled surface of the rock.

Thence our way lies on the eastern skirt of the lava, which runs along with the stream known as the San José through a deep and winding gorge named Los Rémanzos. I have seen some wild scenery in my time, but never before nor since so savage a piece of landscape as Los Rémanzos. The mountains rise perpendicularly on either hand—their barren sides dotted with huge boulders which seem ready to fall instantly on the traveller beneath. You wonder why they do not fall. The winding cañon shuts out all view beyond twenty yards in advance. A trail barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass creeps between the San José and the mountains on one side; and from the stream to the mountains on the other the lava piles up its grim and threatening forms.

We halted at the picket to wait for the escort, the buggy, and Jim and Joe, beguiling the time by a comforting draught of hot coffee from a military quart cup which the commander of the picket hospitably offered us. The laggards soon arrived. Jim and Joe took advantage of the pause before starting again to enter a solemn protest against trotting:

“For heaven’s sake, commandant!” said they with one voice and in a tone that showed acute feeling, “either walk or lope; we cannot endure that confounded trot. We shall be as raw as uncooked beefsteaks.”

A bright thought struck them both simultaneously, and, without any further ceremony, they rushed to the buggy, leaving their horses to take care of themselves or be taken care of by some good‐natured dragoon.

Another mile brought us to the crossing of the San José. Here was a check to our proceedings: the crossing was not fordable. The stream, usually about two feet wide and three inches deep at the crossing, had in consequence of recent heavy rains and the melting of snows filled its steep bed and overflowed its banks for fifty yards on either side. A powerful eddy made it impossible for a horse to strike ground on the other side. A dragoon dashed in and tried it, but it was with great difficulty we saved him and his horse from being carried down the swollen stream, and got them safe on our side again.

“That settles it, gentlemen,” said the commandant; “we shall have to cross the mountains—a rough trail, but we have no choice.”

It was now proposed to leave the buggy behind, but Joe would not hear of it. The commandant was too polite to insist, as he ought to have done.

Crossing a narrow but steep cut, however, the buggy went over, spilling Don Juan and Jim over the mountain‐side. The buggy stood on its top—wheels in the air. The horses—good and gentle animals—came to a full stop and stood perfectly quiet. Otherwise, there would have been as little left of the buggy as of Dr. Holmes’ one‐horse shay, the last time the deacon rode in it. Neither the Don nor Jim was hurt, though the latter was somewhat frightened. Don Juan took the matter with the coolness of an old hand. The buggy was uninjured; it had merely met with a reverse. It was soon put upon its legs—or, rather, its wheels—again. Its progress was so aggravatingly slow when even our fastest possible gait was a walk, that, dividing the escort, we went on, leaving it to proceed at its leisure.

It was about nightfall when we reached the edge of a precipitous descent where all marks of a trail disappeared. The descent was probably two hundred feet in perpendicular height, and alarmingly steep.

“The buggy can never go down there,” was the general remark.

“Confound the buggy, we shall have to sleep out in the cold all night with nothing but a saddle‐blanket, on account of it,” also translates a very general sentiment.

“We cannot desert them, however,” said the commandant; “as the buggy has come with us we must stand by it. We shall wait here until it comes up.”

We had a long and weary wait for that anathematized buggy. At length, as the shades of night were falling, the long‐looked‐for buggy was seen, its top bumping up and down like a buffalo with a broken foreleg. The don walked on one side of the vehicle holding the reins; Joe walked on the other side as gloomily as a chief mourner. The remainder of the escort with dismal visages followed behind.

A glance over the steep brink did not give any radiance to their gloomy countenances. Don Juan expressed his regrets that we should have been detained by the slow and difficult progress of the buggy. Joe said nothing, but evidently felt ashamed of himself.

We were still twenty miles from Acoma. Within about five miles, the commandant said there was a little Indian hut—a sort of outpost of the Pueblo—the owner of which, old Salvador, was one of the notables of the Pueblo. The commandant had notified Salvador by courier some days before of our intended visit. He had proposed to meet us at the ranchito and guide us over the remainder of the mountain trail. Here we could pass the night under cover at least, though we should be pretty closely packed.

Joe had resumed the saddle after the steep descent had been accomplished. He and Jim now led the party, and, as the rest of us stayed with Don Juan and the buggy, they got considerably in advance. Thus they had reached the ranchito some twenty minutes before we did. We found them knocking at the door and calling loudly and indignantly on the inmates to open.

“We have been knocking and shouting here for half an hour, and the confounded old Indian has not taken the slightest notice of us. I believe he would let us freeze.”

“Salvador does not know you,” said the commandant. “He is too wise an Indian to open his doors to strangers in this country after nightfall. Salvador is reputed wealthy, and it behooves him to be careful what nocturnal visitors he receives. I think I can get Salvador to open. Is Señor Don Salvador within?” asked the commandant, in Spanish.

“Is it the Señor Comandante who is without?” asked Don Salvador, in the same language, with the usual Pueblo peculiarities of pronunciation—the use of l for r, etc.

Being satisfied on this point, Salvador opened the door to receive us.

Salvador was a stout, middle‐sized, gray‐headed Indian of the Pueblo type. The presence of the commandant being a voucher for the rest, Salvador now proceeded to shake hands with the whole party—in the order of rank, as he understood it—taking first the commandant, next the bugler, then the sergeant and the men of the escort, and then the civilians, Don Brown and the writer, and lastly Jim and Joe; conscientiously repeating in each individual case, “Como le va!” and “Bueno!” Indians believe in uniforms and brass buttons. They don’t understand official dignity without outward and visible signs.

The ranchito was a little structure of tierrones, or sods, roofed with poles laid across from wall to wall, and covered with brush and earth. There were no windows. The door was the only aperture, I think. I am not quite sure whether there was a hole in the roof to let out a little of the smoke; there may have been. The edifice was about large enough for a fair‐ sized poultry‐house. It was perched on the steep mountainside, the earth being cut away on the upper side to give an approach to a level foundation. There was a small shed for animals, the fodder for whose use being piled on top of it. There was the usual corn‐crib. Our best horses were honored with the hospitality of the shed, Salvador’s pony and burros being turned out to make room for them. The other animals were tied to logs in front of the ranchito, and a guard placed over them.

It required some stooping to enter Salvador’s residence. This was very hard on the stout Don, who had not seen his own knee for a number of years, but he accomplished it as if he had been in the daily habit of touching his toes without bending his knees. But a further trial still awaited him. The hut was divided into two rooms. The passage between the two rooms was a blighted door, cut short in its youth to the proportions of a small fireplace. We had to come down to all‐fours to get into the inner chamber. When the commandant, the staunch Don, and the writer had entered, the place seemed full. But Salvador, on hospitable thoughts intent, insisted on Jim and Joe entering. Then Salvador wriggled in. The room was replete.

After a meagre supper and a quiet smoke, we arranged the details of the morrow’s trip. With our saddles for pillows, and our saddle‐blankets and overcoats for beds and bed‐covering, we lay down to sleep. Brown, with Jim and Joe, in the inner room; the commandant, the old Pueblo, and myself in the outer. Jim and Joe lay perpendicularly to Brown, and Salvador described a horizontal to the commandant and myself. I slept well, considering, though I was waked two or three times by a roaring noise, which seemed to me to be that of the house falling, as I was endeavoring to force myself through the passage between the two apartments, in which, more than once during the night, I dreamt that I was stuck fast. On waking, I discovered that the sound proceeded from the resounding Aztec nose of our host, Salvador.

We were roused before day by the old Indian. Dressing took no time, as we had not undressed the night before—a great saving of time, labor, and discomfort. Breakfast was to be got ready, however. Salvador made the fire. The commandant detailed himself and myself as cooks for the morning. At supper‐time, Don Juan, assisted by Jim and Joe, would officiate culinarily. Slices from a haunch of bacon we had brought with us, cooked on the end of a stick, with “hard tack” and coffee, made in a camp kettle, furnished a delicious breakfast. What is there in the odor of unctuous bacon that makes it so pleasant to the nostrils when one is camping out or “roughing it”? There are people who cannot abide the smell of bacon within the confines of civilization. But put them on the Plains, or in the field, and a daily dose of the appetizing grease is necessary to “settle their stomachs.” I have known men who, in long trips in the wilds, forsook chickens and returned to first principles and bacon.

We made an early start. The buggy was left behind. Don Juan saddled one of his horses. He borrowed from the old Indian a saddle, so angular and so full of sharp points that it must have been hard even for an Indian’s seat. But Brown, though heavy, was a good horseman, and he bore the infliction like a hero.

Salvador was our guide. When we were all mounted, and ready to start, we looked around for him. After some hunting we saw him above us, mounted, and seemingly emerging from the roof of the ranchito. He went straight up the side of the mountain, beckoning to us to come on, and shouting “Caballeros! por aquí!”(228)

An Indian does not understand flank movements. He does not go around obstacles. He goes straight over them on the direct line of his objective. We followed our guide, dismounting, however, leading our horses, and zigzagging up the steep ascent like Christians and white men.

Our course was over mountain and across ravine on a bee‐line of ascent or descent for Acoma. There was some growling by Jim and Joe, but as our general gait was a slow walk, and they made much of their progress on foot, they did not grumble much.

I noticed moccasin tracks in several places where the ground was soft. The distance between the foot‐prints was very great. It astonished me. I rode to the commandant’s side, and called his attention to the wonderful tracks. He pointed them out to Salvador, who said they were the tracks of a muchacho he had sent to the Pueblo last night with the news of our arrival at the ranchito. What a stepper that muchacho must have been! His average bound must have been at least ten feet.

“How long will it take him to go to the Pueblo, Salvador?” asked the commandant.

“Oh! not long,” replied Salvador, “long as a good horse.”

Experientia docet. Before I saw those tracks I used to set down the accounts I read in my Grecian history of wonderful time made by messengers to Athens and other classic centres as antique yarns. I now believe in the fastest Grecian time reported. Thus, the torch of faith is often lit by the merest straying spark—a lesson to us not to limit our belief to what is within the scope of our knowledge. We know so little.

Jim and Joe had begun to growl over the continual ups and downs of the journey when we saw Salvador, who was some three or four hundred yards ahead, dismount at the foot of what seemed to be the steepest ascent yet.

“This must be a stiff one,” said the commandant. “I see Salvador has dismounted. It takes a pretty steep ascent to make an Indian or a Mexican dismount. They hold to the saddle until the animal begins to bend backward.”

It was a steep and toilsome ascent, winding in and out through huge boulders just wide enough apart to let a horse squeeze through. It was not always easy to convince the horses that there was room enough for them to pass. They would refuse to be convinced, and obstinately draw back, to the discomfort and danger of those leading them, and more so of those following.

At last we reached the top of the ascent. The descent on the other side was a worthy pendant to it. We halted on the crest to enjoy the landscape before us. From the base of the height a level plain spread away for miles, unbroken save by a cluster of lofty perpendicular white rocks, each rising independently from the level plain. On the top of the highest of these rocks stood a little town, the smoke from its chimneys mingling with the clouds. This was Acoma.

We descended slowly and carefully. A brisk trot of about two miles brought us to two lofty natural columns, through which the trail passed. They seemed the pillars of a gigantic portal—a resemblance which had struck the Indians, for they named it El Puerto: The Gate. We had now reached the base of the inhabited rock. An excavation near the base was pointed out to us by Salvador as the trace of an attempt to mine the position by the Spanish invaders! I think the story rather a doubtful one.

I judged the rock to be about two hundred and fifty feet in height. The path up the rocky side to the village was steep and narrow. No wheeled vehicle has ever entered the Pueblo. The primitive carreta, with its clumsy wheels of solid disks cut from the trunk of some gigantic cotton‐ wood, stopped short at the base—going thus far and no further. Provisions and other necessaries are packed up on the backs of surefooted donkeys. Water for drinking purposes is carried up on the heads of the Indians in large earthen vessels named tinajas; for other uses rain‐water is carefully gathered in natural tanks or hollows in the summit of the rock. There is a bypath or short‐cut up to the Pueblo which the Acomas generally use when unburdened or in a hurry. A glance showed us that it was only practicable for Acoma Indians. This short‐cut is in the most nearly perpendicular of any of the rocky sides. It consists of holes in the smooth and vertical side of the rock, in which the Indians place their hands and feet, and climb up after the fashion of sailors clambering up rigging, and with no less rapidity.

We returned to the common highway, which now seemed by comparison a flowery path of dalliance. It was slow and tiresome work, however. After a rest or two, to breathe our animals and ourselves, we finally reached the comparatively level space, some acres in area, on the summit of the rock.

Here we were met by Francisco, our guide’s son, the governor, matadores, alguazils, and other functionaries of the Pueblo. This is as good a place as any other to say that the governor and all other officials are elected annually. They were dressed in the usual Pueblo fashion. Their heads were uncovered. They were draped in large blankets, which gave them a very dignified appearance.

We received a most cordial reception. The commandant had been a good friend to the Acomas—had protected them in their little trading operations, and helped them in the long, hard winters when their granaries were empty. The entire male population was assembled in the Plaza or central square. The squaws and children were at their front doors, that is to say, on the roofs, for the entrance to a Pueblo’s dwelling is from above.

A fire for the dragoons to cook their rations by was made in the centre of the Plaza. The horses were picketed around. A contribution of corn and firewood was levied by the governor for the use of the escort. The Indians came in cheerful, laughing groups, bearing their costals of corn or their bundles of wood. The escort being provided for, we went to the house of Francisco, the most comfortable house in the Pueblo; for Francisco was the wealthiest member of the little community. The governor’s dwelling was a poor one, and himself a poor man who was unable to entertain us as comfortably as Francisco could. He accompanied us thither.

Francisco’s dwelling, like most of the others in the Pueblo, was a two‐ storied adobe building, whitewashed inside and out. The mode of access was a ladder placed against the outer wall of the lower story. Having reached the top of this, you walk across the roof and enter the house by a door on the second story, the façade of which is somewhat retired from the front line of the first.

Here we found some rosy, apple‐faced squaws, engaged in culinary and other domestic operations. One was kneeling grinding corn with the primitive matata. They smiled with all their countenances on us; and a half‐dozen of the whitest sets of teeth, that dentist or dentifrice never touched, gleamed a bright welcome to us. They wore the usual dark woollen robe, made of two pieces, about five feet long and three broad, sewed together at one of the narrow ends, but with an aperture for the head to pass through. The robe is then gathered round the waist and tied with a string. Their nut‐brown arms were bare, and encircled at the wrist by from one to a dozen brass rings; their feet were bare. The thick swathing of buckskin, with which they wrap their lower limbs when journeying, and which gives them the appearance of being terribly swollen, were laid aside, much to the furthering of a graceful effect.

We were invited to descend to the sitting‐room, situated beneath, through a very narrow trap‐door. Don Juan walked fearlessly toward the aperture. We begged him to pause before he rushed into a place whence he could never hope to return. The Indians understood the joke, and enjoyed it hugely.

So the Don entered the aperture, and by judicious squeezing actually succeeded in passing. His coat‐tails got through about the same time as his head. The others, being of the lean and hungry‐looking kind, had no difficulty in descending.

From the room into which we had descended ventilation was completely excluded. Light was only admitted through one or two small panes of glass in apertures like port‐holes in the walls.

We took seats on sheep‐skins spread in a circle around the floor. The commandant made known his business in passable Spanish; the governor replied, through Francisco, as interpreter. The worthy Don intervened, from time to time, between the high contracting parties, when there was a lack of language or danger of misunderstanding. The business was completed satisfactorily and in short order.

While the floor was being set for dinner—tables not being in vogue here—we endeavored to obtain the Acoma’s idea of the antiquity of the Pueblo. Francisco, though he had learned to read and write, had not got beyond the Indian idea of time, space, or number. There is no medium between “many” and “few”—very far, muy lejos; and near, cerca.

“How many years old is the Pueblo?”

“Muchos años.—Many years.”

“About how many?”

“Who knows, señor?” with a shrug. “A great many.”

“Who is the oldest man in the Pueblo?”

“The cacique.”

The cacique, we were informed, is the official historian of the Pueblo. His records consist only in oral traditions, which he teaches to a youth selected for the purpose, who is to succeed him in his office when he dies.

“Is the cacique very old?”

“Si, señor! Very old.”

It is useless to ask an Indian how old he or any other Indian is, as he never knows. So we did not ask how old the cacique was.

“Was the cacique he succeeded very old?”

“Yes, sir; very old.”

“Was the Pueblo in existence as long as he can remember?”

“Yes, sir; and as long as the cacique before him and the cacique before him could remember. But we shall have the cacique here shortly, and then after dinner we’ll have a good big talk about the many years ago.”

Francisco, the governor, and his father now engaged in an earnest conversation in their Indian tongue, the result of which was that Francisco unlocked a vast trunk, of antique form and solidity, and took therefrom a pile of manuscript, which he handed us with great solemnity. The Indians looked upon this venerable pile with great reverence. It was probably the first time it had been touched by “outsiders.” We owed the permission to examine it to the many kind acts the commandant had performed for the Acomas.

The first portion of the manuscript examined was a Missal. The Office of the Mass was copied in Latin in a fair plain hand, the work of some Spanish missionary. The ink had turned yellow, but the text was clear and legible throughout. Nothing in the MS. Missal indicated the date of its writing. A further examination of the venerable pages furnished us some information. Besides the Missal, they comprised a register in Spanish of births, marriages, and deaths. The earliest written record of the Pueblo which we found is the record of a baptism, 1725.

Having gleaned what knowledge we could from the precious manuscripts, they were carefully and reverently put away in the ponderous chest, and secured by a padlock nearly as large as a travelling satchel.

Dinner was now served. It was very good. It consisted of a chicken stew, good white bread, and very passable tea. The stew was made so intensely hot, however, by chile colorado,(229) that I did not enjoy it as much as I might have done had it been less fiery. I never could relish chile either colorado or verde. But on this occasion, I determined to eat it if it burned me to a shell to show my appreciation of Acoma hospitality!

The cacique—an old, white‐haired, blear‐eyed Indian, at least ninety—came in toward the close of the meal, accompanied by the youth whom he was instructing in the historical and legendary lore of the Pueblo. He evinced no inclination to be communicative, but showed a determination to make a rousing meal—something to which he was evidently not accustomed. After dinner he devoted himself to smoking our cigars; but not a word could we get out of him about the history of Acoma. Joe said that as a story‐teller he considered the cacique a decided failure.

The governor signified that he was now ready to show us the church. So thither we proceeded.

The church is, of course, of adobe. It was unused at the time we visited it. No priest had been attached to the Pueblo for some years. But it was not suffered to fall into decay. On one side of the altar was a painting of the Virgin and Child; on the other, one of S. Joseph. On the ceiling above the altar were large paintings of the sun and moon. Here we got another chronological glimmer—the last we found. It was an inscription which stated that the church had been renovated in 1802. The Indians told us it was done by some artist‐priest who came from far away—probably Spain or Italy. There are a pair of bells in the belfry. The Acoma tradition is that these bells were a gift to the Pueblo from a Queen of Spain. Of course they do not know the date of their reception. They say, however, that it was some time before the renovation of the church.

We next went to the southern edge of the rock to look at the “short cut” from above. This was not easy or pleasant pedestrianism. The rock here ceased to be level, throwing up sharp craggy points. The Indians stepped from point to point, erect and graceful and without difficulty. The pale faces were compelled by a due discretion to abandon erect attitudes, and proceed bending down, and using hands as well as feet. A look down the rocky side was sufficient. The commandant shook his head, and said in Spanish:

“That is no way for a white man to come up”—a remark which the Indians seemed to consider remarkably humorous. They laughed and “how‐how”‐ed vehemently.

As we returned, we remarked that on one side of the rock it was bevelled down from the summit about forty or fifty feet, and then resumed its general steep and vertical character. Some houses were situated near the superior edge of this bend. A thrill ran through me from head to foot as I saw a child roll from the front of one of the houses down the incline.

“He will be dashed to atoms!” I cried in horror.

The Indians looked in the direction to which I frantically pointed, and then united in a good‐humored laugh.

Soon another urchin, and another, and another followed the first, who picked himself up just at the deadly brink, and mounted the incline, to roll down again and again, as we used to on a hillside in snow with our sleds, in our younger days. This was play for the infantine Acomas. They were “keeping the pot a‐bilin’.”

The Indians told us that no fatal accident had ever happened to any Acoma either while rolling down the dread incline “in pretty, pleasant play,” or climbing the steep path the mere sight of which had made us dizzy. Tradition records that only one Indian ever “went over the side.” He was saved by a projecting stump catching him by the breech‐clout and holding him suspended until he was rescued—unhurt.

Our next visit was the Estufa. Here the sacred fire was burning. The Estufa was an underground apartment. We descended through a trap‐door, which also served as a chimney, and down a smoke‐begrimed ladder. The chamber was some thirty feet in length and perhaps fifteen in width. We were informed that it was the general place of meeting—the public hall—the club‐room of the Pueblo. It was pretty hot and not very sweet down there. We found four Indians seated around the fire, each with a loom in front of him, weaving a blanket. Their only covering was the breech‐clout. The Indians told us, through Don Juan, that these men watched the fire, which was always kept burning—waiting for the coming of Montezuma. They were relieved by four others at stated times. We shook hands with the naked watchers, and “how‐how”‐ed with them in the usual way.

“Do you think Montezuma will come?” asked Joe, through Don Juan, of one of the vigilants.

The worthy, shrugging his naked shoulders, looked up sidewise at Joseph, and replied:

“Quizas? Quien sabe?—May be! Who knows?”

Joe withdrew. We all followed him. We had now seen all the lions of the Pueblo of Acoma. “Boots and saddles” and “to horse” were sounded, and with many hand‐shakes, some embraces, and general “how‐hows,” we bade adieu to the hospitable Acomas and their rocky home, and began our return march.

New Publications.

THE LIFE OF DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GALLITZIN, PRINCE AND PRIEST. By Sarah M. Brownson. With an Introduction by O. A. Brownson, LL.D. New York: Pustet. 1872.

Women of talent and cultivation make admirable biographers. In religious biography we know of nothing more charming than the lives written by Mère Chauguy. In recent English literature, the Lives of Mother Margaret Mary O’Halloran, by a lady whose name is unknown to us, and of S. Jane Frances de Chantal, by Miss Emily Bowles, are among the most perfect specimens of this very agreeable species of writing which we have met with in any language. This new and carefully prepared biography of a priest who was illustrious both by birth and Christian virtue, by a lady already known as the author of several works of fiction, well deserves to be classed with the best of its kind in English Catholic literature. It is a work of thorough, patient, and conscientious labor, and for the first time adequately presents the history and character of Prince Gallitzin in their true light. Certainly, we never knew before how truly heroic and admirable a man was this Russian prince who came to pass his life as a missionary in the forests which crowned in his day the summit of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania. The charm of a biography is found in a certain fulness and sprightliness of style and manner, a picturesqueness and ideality of ornament and coloring, a warmth and glow of sentiment, which give life and reality to the narrative. Miss Brownson still possesses the juvenile élan which naturally finds its expression in the style we have indicated, and has also attained that sobriety and maturity of judgment which give it the rightly subdued tone and finish. In several matters of considerable delicacy which she has been obliged to handle, we think she has shown tact and discretion, while at the same time using enough of the freedom of a historian to bring out the truth of facts and events which needed to be told in order to make a veritable record and picture of the life of her subject. The prince is fortunate in his biographer. Would it were the lot of every great man in the church to find a similar one! Miss Brownson’s book seems to us the best religious biography which has been written by anyone of our American Catholic authors. We would like to see more works of this sort from feminine writers, to whom we are already so much indebted for works both of the graver and the lighter kind, and particularly from Miss Brownson, who has fully proved her ability in the volume before us.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA CATHOLICA AMERICANA. A list of works written by Catholic authors and published in the United States. By Rev. Joseph M. Finotti. Part I., 1784 to 1820 inclusive. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 8vo. pp. 319.

It was said of Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms that it was the first dictionary that a man could read through with pleasure. The same in the way of bibliography may be said of this; for, if any of our readers supposes that the title tells the truth, he is mistaken. It is not a mere list, as the author modestly calls it. Some twelve years ago, Mr. Shea published in one of our Catholic papers a list of titles of “The First Catholic Books printed in this County,” coming down to the same date and including the same period as our author, and giving sixty‐eight titles. This meagre beginning of American Catholic bibliography has in F. Finotti’s hands grown to nearly five hundred titles, including some few imprints later than 1820.

It is not merely a collection of titles of Catholic works, but of all works by Catholic authors printed in the country, with notes of the highest interest to Catholics who care at all for what was done by our fathers in the faith in this republic. Biographical notices, notices of celebrated books, accounts of controversies of the time, anecdotes illustrative of Catholic life in the earlier days, notes of Catholic printers and journalists, all find their place in these notes, in which the abundant knowledge of our earlier men and times, and things acquired by the patient and loving research of years, fairly bubble out spontaneously. It is not a history indeed, but to the historian will be invaluable as an authority and a guide.

On some points this work is absolutely exhaustive. The collection of pamphlets and works growing out of the Hogan affair in Philadelphia, considering their perishable nature, is perfectly wonderful, and his library alone can enable any one to go thoroughly into the history of that unhappy matter which was destructive to so many souls.

Of the writings and publications of the celebrated Mathew Carey, we have also here by far the most accurate and comprehensive account ever drawn up, comprising nearly twenty‐five pages.

Many will be amazed to see how many sterling Catholic books were issued early in the century, and thus be able to judge of the zeal and true religious feeling of the little body of Catholics who so generously sustained the publishers, as well as of the public spirit of a man like Bernard Dornin—in our mind, as in F. Finotti’s, the type of what a Catholic publisher should be. Of him as of many other Catholics our author gives biographical notices that we should look for in vain in all the cyclopædias and biographical dictionaries. Book notices often end with the assertion that the book should be in every family; we hardly suppose the publishers ready to supply every Catholic family in the country with a copy, for the edition is small, and must be taken up at once. It is by no means merely a book for the Dryasdust collector or antiquarian. It must find its place in the libraries of many of our gentlemen who love their religion and love books, as well as in our college libraries. We trust that it will impel all to endeavor to have some of the early printed Catholic books, as matters of laudable pride. If they can even find some that have escaped the Argus eyes of the reverend collector and his associate book‐hunters, they will, we trust, be good enough Christians to bear with equanimity even that severe trial to a bibliographer.

This Bibliography commends itself to those interested in the bibliography of the country or the history of printing in the United States.

In the Historical Magazine some months since there was a Bibliography of works on Unitarianism, but it was silent as to Father Kohlmann’s work, and to a sermon by a Catholic clergyman of Pittsburg. So, too, Sabin’s Bibliopolist recently gave a list of books printed in Brooklyn, but was silent as to a Catholic Doctrine printed there in 1817, as well as of Coate’s very curious Reply to Rev. F. Richards’ supposed reasons for becoming a Catholic.

There is one strange point about American bibliography, and that is that the laborers in it have been almost exclusively from Europe. Ludewig gave the Bibliography of Indian Languages and that of Local History; O’Callaghan, that of American Bibles; Harisse, that of the earliest American; Rich was a pioneer in the same field; and now Finotti gives us the Catholic element. Where are our native bibliographers?

LE LIBERALISME. LECONS DONNEES A L’UNIVERSITE LAVAL. Par l’Abbé Benjamin Paquet, Docteur en Theologie, et Professeur à la Faculté de Theologie. Quebec: De l’Imprimerie du Canadien. Brochure, pp. 100. 1872.

Lower Canada, considered both in respect to the condition of the Catholic Church therein, and to the political well‐being of its people, is an eminently fortunate region, despite the rigor of its climate. It is especially pre‐eminent in respect to the Catholic education given to young men of the leisured classes, and others who go through the intermediate and higher courses. Laval University is truly a splendid institution among many others which make Quebec an unique city in Northern America. These remarks are suggested by the pamphlet before us, which is a specimen of the sound and opportune instruction given at the Laval University. The Lectures contained in it give an exposition which is both learned and clear of that most important portion of the Syllabus which relates to the errors of modern liberalism condemned in the Pontifical Acts of Pius IX. When will the Catholics of the United States enjoy privileges similar to those which are the portion of the Catholics of Lower Canada? The Abbé Paquet’s Lectures were delivered as a part of his course on the law of nature and of nations, and were attended not only by his pupils, but by a numerous and select audience, several of whom requested their publication. We have already sufficiently expressed our approbation of their doctrine and style, and they have been favorably noticed in Europe. We are confident that a considerable number of our readers will hasten to procure them, and receive great profit from their perusal.

CARDINAL WISEMAN’S WORKS. New Edition, first 3 vols. New York: P. O’Shea.

This is a reissue of a new London edition which we most cordially commend. The first two volumes, containing the Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, have already been noticed in these pages. The third volume contains the splendid treatise on the Holy Eucharist. Cardinal Wiseman was a great writer, a great prelate, and a remarkably devout and holy man. His works are among our choicest treasures, and as such ought to be everywhere circulated and continually perused by those who wish to imbue their minds with the purest doctrine and the most valuable knowledge.

THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH. By P. E. Moriarty, D.D. Ex‐Assistant General O.S.A. Philadelphia: Cunningham. 1873.

This is a popular biography, though proceeding from the pen of a learned man, and showing marks of erudition. The sketch is a complete one, and shows great power of generalization and condensation in the writer, with vigor and impetus of style. It is not, however, minute in respect to the saint’s public life, or his great work as a philosopher and doctor of the church. This could not be expected in a work of moderate size adapted for popular reading. There is, however, a brief summary of the saint’s writings, with a synopsis, and an account of the Augustinian Order, all of which are of interest and value to the general reader.

PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS; OR, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TRUTHS REFLECTED IN THE UNIVERSE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. New York: P. O’Shea. 1873.

A handsomely printed volume, with a very ornamental title‐page quite appropriate to the nature of the book. The views of truth presented in this book are expressed in aphorisms. Good taste, poetic sensibility, spiritual wisdom, and the purest Christian feeling are their chief characteristics. We are disposed to think this the best of F. Weninger’s works. There are many persons who take great delight in aphorisms of this kind, and we think all such readers will like this book. It is good also as a help to meditation, and a treasury of short spiritual readings for those who have not time for long ones; and will be useful to those who like to stop occasionally in more laborious occupations of the mind, and gather a little spiritual nosegay.

MEMOIRS OF MADAME DESBORDES‐VALMORE. By the late C. A. Sainte‐ Beuve. With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873.

Madame Valmore was one of those poets of the affections who

“Learn in suffering what they teach in song.”

No one can look for a moment at her portrait as depicted in this touching book without feeling that the thorn is continually pressing against her gentle breast. Her poetry and her letters are the very outcry of impassioned love and grief. “I am like the Indian that sings at the stake,” she says. One of her volumes is entitled Tears, every line of which is a pensive sigh. Her poems are full of “the charm of that melancholy which M. de Segur calls the luxury of grief.” M. Michelet says: “She alone among us had the gift of tears—that gift which smites the rock and assuages the thirst of the soul!” M. Sainte‐Beuve calls her “the Mater Dolorosa of poetry,” but that title, consecrated to a higher, diviner type of sorrow, is one that most of us would shrink from applying to ordinary mortals.

It would almost seem as if the highest, purest notes—“half ecstasy, half pain”—only spring from the soul overshadowed by sorrow, as the eyes of some birds are darkened when they are taught to sing. Mme. Valmore herself, in allusion to a brother poet, wonders “if actual misery were requisite for the production of notes that so haunt one’s memory.”

The tombs among which she used to play as a child in the old churchyard at Douai seem to have cast their funereal shadows over her whole life—shadows that lend to her sad muse so attractive a charm. One of her poems thus begins:

“Do not write. I am sad and would my life were o’er. A summer without thee?—Oh! night of starless gloom!— I fold the idle arms that cannot clasp thee more— To knock at my heart’s door, were like knocking at a tomb. Do not write.”

Mme. Valmore’s nature was eminently feminine. Her heart was her guide. She was a being of impulse and sympathy. But her instincts were so delicate and true that they were to her what reason and philosophy are to colder natures. Her imagination was thoroughly Catholic. It is only Catholicity that develops souls of such tender grace and beauty, and she was brought up under its influences. A cheerful piety, Catholic in tone, seems to have pervaded her life, and consoled and sustained her in its many dark hours. She loved to pray in the deserted aisle of some shadowy church full of mystery and peace. “She had her Christ—the Christ of the poor and forsaken, the prisoner and the slave, the Christ of the Magdalen and the good Samaritan, a Christ of the future of whom she herself has sung in one of her sweetest strains:

‘He whose pierced hands have broken so many chains,’ ”

—a line that appeals to all who have sinned and been forgiven!

In her last years she thus writes: “I see at an immense distance the Christ who shall come again. His breath is moving over the crowd. He opens his arms wide, but there are no more nails—no more for ever!”

Her devotion to Mary is constantly peeping out in her letters. After visiting a church at Brussels, she writes thus to her daughter: “To‐day we saw the black Virgin with the Child Jesus also black like his mother. These Madonnas wring my heart with a thousand reminiscences. They are nothing in the way of art, but they are so associated with my earliest and sweetest faiths that I positively adore those stiff pink‐lined veils and wreaths of perennial flowers made of cambric so stout that all the winds of heaven could never cause a leaf to flutter.”

She writes her brother: “Lift up your hat when you pass the Church of Notre Dame, and lay upon its threshold the first spring flowers you find.”

One of the most touching features of her life is her devotedness to this brother, an old soldier and pensioner in the hospital at Douai, whom she aided out of her own scanty purse, and still more by the moral support she was continually giving him in the most delicate manner; trying to ennoble his unfortunate past so as to give him dignity in his own eyes—a thing so often forgotten in our intercourse with those who are in danger of losing their self‐respect.

Mme. Valmore’s charity and sympathies were not confined to her own kindred. They responded to every appeal. The condemned criminal and prisoners of every degree excited the compassion of her heart. At a time of great distress at Lyons, she says she is “ashamed to have food and fire and two garments when so many poor creatures have none.” And yet she seems not to have had too many of the comforts of life herself. One Christmas eve she speaks of kneeling on her humble hearth—“a hearth where there is not much fire save that of her own loving, anxious heart—” to pray.

It is sad to see a woman with such a refined, poetical nature, and a heart sensitive to the last degree, condemned to a fate so chilling and unkind. But she never lost courage. Living in narrow lodgings, and on limited means, she contrived to give a certain artistic air to everything around her, and received her visitors with polished ease and self‐possession, hiding her griefs under the grace of her manner and the vivacity of her conversation. Her courage and fortitude were admirable under adverse circumstances and such afflictions as the loss of her daughters. No book not strictly religious could teach a more forcible lesson of patient, cheerful endurance—how “to suffer and be strong.” The work is elegantly translated, and is a welcome addition to the lives of celebrated French ladies already issued by the same publishers.

THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. In 2 vols. Vol. I. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

We have here the first volume of a new and very elaborate work by the adventurous historian of England, and chivalrous champion of Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. It might perhaps have been hoped that enough had been said of Mr. Froude in these columns, and that our readers had done with him. His reputation as a faithful historian had been sorely damaged, and indeed irretrievably ruined, by several indignant critics in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland, as well as in the United States (by the short, sharp and decisive onslaught of Mr. Meline); so that it has been an actual surprise to the literary world to find him once more tempting Providence in a new book, heralded and advertised by a course of lectures in New York. But this is the nature of the man: he must surprise and startle, or he dies; he must provoke the most wondering and angry contradiction and comment, and gratify the small feminine spite that possesses him, provided he can sting and wound like a hornet. For him, to scold is to live.

The present volume, although entitled The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, is in fact occupied, for more than two hundred pages, with an account of the dealings of his country with Ireland during the XVIIth century, and presents his views of Irish history at the notable periods of the insurrection—or alleged “massacre”—in 1641, as well as the short reign of James II. The narrative ends at the time of the small French invasion under Thurot, shortly after the middle of the XVIIIth century; leaving Still to be treated the whole era of the Volunteering, the Insurrection of ’98, and the Union, so‐called. Indeed, if the author carry forward his subject into the present century, as he has carried it backward into the one before the last, he will have the great famines to deal with, and the multitudinous emigration; so that we may expect a vast picture, covering the whole canvas, portraying from the strictly English point of view that ghastly history in its full perspective. The Froude theory is, on the whole, quite simple; nothing can be more easily understood. It is, in few words, that the English nation having been “forced by situation and circumstances” to take charge of Ireland and its people, when it suited the English to change their religion, or to come back to it, or to change it again, they were bound in duty to compel the Irish to change along with them each time, by means of pains and penalties, from heavy fines to transportation and death on the gallows; also that the English having a strong wish to possess themselves of all the lands of Ireland, everything was lawful and right to effect that object. The reader will remark, with surprise (and the more surprise, the better for Froude), that in his lectures lately delivered in New York, which were a kind of abstract of the work then in press, he did not venture to say before an intelligent audience of freemen some of the things which he has dared to print in the book then just ready to burst upon the world. For example, he did not say, even before the “Christian young men,” such words as these which are found in the book (p. 609):

“The consent of man was not asked when he was born into the world: his consent will not be asked when his time comes to die. As little has his consent to do with the laws which, while he lives, he is bound to obey.”

This sentiment he perhaps thought it unnecessary to enunciate here; because, in fact, he intended it solely for the Irish, not by any means for the Americans, although it reads like a universal maxim for the human race. Again, he did not think it necessary to say in so plain words what he has laid down clearly enough in this passage (p. 213):

“No government need keep terms with such a creed [meaning the Catholic Church] when there is power to abolish it. To call the repression of opinions which had issued so many times in blood and revolt by the name of religions persecution is mere abuse of words.”

ELEVATIONS POÉTIQUES ET RELIGIEUSES. Par Marie Jenna. Deuxième Edit. 2 vols. Paris: Adrien le Clerc et Cie. 1872.

As the eye lingers upon a beautiful landscape, spring clad and fair in the clear light of the new‐risen sun; as the ear loiters unwilling to lose the last echoed link of some simple melting melody; as the hand tarries loth to quit the gentle grasp that speaks unspoken sympathy, so have we—reluctant to lose such fair pictures, such moving lays, such deep and tender feeling—lingered and loitered and tarried with Marie Jenna, “the Poet of the Vosges.” Gifted with the nice perception of a true poet, Marie Jenna clothes the simplest ideas in language of such rare delicacy, so fresh, tender, vivid, and withal so musical, that mind, heart, eye, and ear, all are at once engaged. A bird, a butterfly, a flower, gains new interest in her hands; she flings a grace around it, she vests it with a dignity it never had before; she makes it live again. Take, for instance, the opening stanzas of “Le Papillon”:

“Pourquoi t’approcher en silence Et menacer mon vol joyeux? Par quelle involontaire offense Ai‐je pu déplaire à tes yeux?

“Je suis la vivante étincelle Qui monte et descend tour à tour; La fleur à qui Dieu donne une aile, Un souffle, un regard, un amour.

“Je suis le frère de la rose; Elle me cache aux importuns, Puis sur son cœur je me repose Et je m’enivre de parfums.

“Ma vie est tout heureuse et pure, Pourquoi désires‐tu ma mort? Oh! dis‐moi, roi de la nature, Serais‐tu jaloux de mon sort?

“Va, je sais bien que tu t’inclines Souvent pour essuyer des pleurs, Que tes yeux comptent les épines Où je ne vois rien que des fleurs.

“Je sais que parfois ton visage Se trouble et s’assombrit soudain, Lorsqu’en vain je cherche un nuage Au fond de l’horizon serein.

“Mais Celui dont la main divine A daigné nous former tous deux, Pour moi parfuma la colline, Et de loin te montra les cieux.

“Il me fit deux ailes de flamme, A moi, feu follet du printemps; Pour toi, son fils, il fit une âme Plus grande que le firmament.

“Ecoute ma voix qui t’implore, Loin de moi détourne tes pas... Laisse moi vivre un jour encore, O toi qui ne finiras pas!

“Mon bonheur à moi, c’est la vie, La liberté sous le ciel bleu, Le ruisseau, l’amour sans envie: Le tien ... c’est le secret de Dieu.”

What can be fresher or more charming than this naïve, earnest appeal for life and liberty? And again, in “Pour un Oiseau,” beginning with:

“Il est à toi, c’est vrai ... Frère, veux tu qu’il meure? Sa beauté, sa chanson, tout est là ... dans ta main; Et l’arbuste où sa voix gazouillait tout à l’heure Au bosquet, si tu veux, sera muet demain.

“Tu le tiens: sa faiblesse à ta force le livre; Mais aussi ta pitié peut le laisser aller; Ne le fais pas mourir! il est si bon de vivre Lorsque l’été commence et qu’on peut s’envoler,”

we find the same delicacy of thought, the same rippling, flowing language; and what joyousness and how cheery it sounds: il est si bon de vivre.

But Marie Jenna strikes deeper chords, awakes more solemn strains, than these; and through them all, the graver as the lighter, binding them in one harmonious whole, there sings out the same clear note of firm, enlightened faith that never wavers; it penetrates each thing she handles, giving that breadth and largeness to her field of view that it alone can give. In some beautiful stanzas, “Beati qui lugeant,” she draws near to one bowed down with sorrow, and fearlessly, yet oh! how tenderly touching the wound because she knows its cure, she speaks:

“Va, ton sein cache en vain le glaive qui le blesse: J’ai compris ton silence et j’ai prié pour toi. Laisse aller ta fierté comme un poids qui t’oppresse, Et pleure devant moi.

“Il est, je le sais bien, des jours où la souffrance Trouve en sa solitude une âpre volupté; Et le monde léger voit passer en silence Sa pâle majesté.

“Et la main d’un ami s’arrètant incertaine, N’ose écarter les plis de son voile de deuil. Il est des maux si grands, que la parole humaine Expire sur le seuil.

“Mais deux jours sont passés; il est temps que je vienne; Oh! laisse un front d’ami penché sur ta douleur! Ne te détourne pas: Mets ta main dans la mienne, Ton âme sur mon cœur.

“Si je ne t’apportais qu’une amitié fidèle, Mes pas avec respect s’éloigneraient d’ici. J’attendrais que la tienne enfin se souvint d’elle, Mais j’ai souffert aussi...

“Je ne te dirai point cette vaine parole Que la douleur accueille en son muet dédain. Non, ce que j’ai pour toi, c’est un mot qui console, C’est un secret divin.”

Already we seem to see awaked attention, a gleam of hope flit across the stern, wan face that marks such helpless, hopeless misery; now softening the hard, cold look that bid defiance to all sorrow, repelled all sympathy; now changing it to one of anxious longing and of mute entreaty for the proffered gift, le mot qui console. And see, or is it fancy only, or are there really tears now falling, “gemlike, the last drops of the exhausted storm”? Space forbids us to give it in its fulness, this secret divin, to curtail it would spoil it: so we send the reader to the original, and would ask him only if in the last stanza he does not hear two voices singing:

“Heureux les affligés! dit la Vérité même. Heureux, c’est vrai, mon Dieu! quand vous avez parlé. Nous voulons bien souffrir si le bonheur suprême, Est d’être consolé.”

Then look at this exquisite little picture, “L’Enfant Ressuscité.” Rarely have we met with one more pathetic. It is very delicately painted, with shades so subtile that, in the simplicity of the whole, we are apt to overlook them. And here also we have a glimpse of that reverential love for childhood that is by no means the least characteristic trait of Marie Jenna:

“Elle avait tant gémi, sa mère, et tant pleuré! Tant pressé sur son sein le front décoloré, Que dans le corps glacé l’âme était revenue, Et qu’en bénissant Dieu, palpitante, éperdue, Comme un trésor qu’on cache elle avait emporté Dans ses deux bras tremblants l’enfant ressuscité! Trois mois s’étaient passés depuis.....mais, chose étrange! On eut dit que le ciel avait fait un échange. L’enfant penchait son front comme un bouton flétri, Et depuis ces trois mois, jamais il n’avait ri. Il préférait aux jeux l’ombre silencieuse; Sa mère en l’embrassant n’osait pas être heureuse....

“Des volets entr’ouverts s’élancent des chansons; Dans les clochers frémit la voix des carillons. Ecoute, mon Louis, ces chants, ces joyeux rires.... Vois; c’est le jour de l’an; dis ce que tu désires. Chaque enfant pour étrenne a des jouets nouveaux. En veux‐tu de pareils? en veux‐tu de plus beaux? Veux‐tu ce bélier gris qu’on traîne et qui va paître Au printemps dans les prés l’herbe qui vient naître? Mais regarde plutôt; des pinceaux, des couleurs, Qui d’un papier tout blanc font un bouquet de fleurs. Oh! vois donc ce ballon de laine tricolore Qui s’élève et retombe et se relève encore! Tu n’aimes pas courir..... Que puis‐je te donner? Dis.....ta mère à présent ne sait plus deviner. Veux‐tu ce sabre d’or qui déjà ferait croire Que mon petit Louis médite une victoire? Aimes‐tu ce chalet d’un long toit recouvert? Mais non....qu’en ferais‐tu? Veux‐tu ce livre ouvert, Où près de chaque histoire on regarde une image, Ou l’on rit, où l’on pleure, où l’on devient plus sage? Ah! voici des oiseaux! tu les aimerais mieux! Les oiseaux sont vivants; tu les ferais heureux! Si tu voulais des lisandes roses fleuries, J’en saurais bien trouver, Louis, pour que tu ries. Réponds; je t’aime tant! n’oses‐tu me parler? Tu pleurais ce matin; je veux te consoler. Dis‐moi ce doux secret pendant que je l’embrasse. Que veux‐tu, mon Louis? Et l’enfant, à voix basse: Des ailes pour m’envoler!”

No one can fail to be struck with the sudden stillness that follows the mother’s anxious striving to drive away the cloud that would hang over her little one; with the awe and fear, too, that fill her heart; with the mystery in the whispered answer of the strange mysterious child given back from death in answer to her passionate prayer. It sets us thinking of that other mother whose grief so touched the Master’s heart that he spoke the word, “and he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.” Did that young man go home so grave, with never a smile to light his face, so strangely altered, that, after the first burst of gladness, his mother, clasping him to her bosom, dared not rejoice?

Of the more serious pieces, perhaps not one equals in force “La plus grande Douleur.” It is the old tale, always new though so oft repeated: the old tale that startles, shocks, and brings sharp pain as for the first time it comes home to each one, telling that that strong bond which binds friends closer, draws classes nearer, makes nations firmer, has snapped and riven two hearts asunder; that the newly‐awakened intellect first meeting early faith has turned aside, has chosen a road far other than that on which till now both friends had travelled hand in hand; that that “little superficial knowledge of philosophy that inclines man’s mind to atheism” has come between them like an icy barrier, chilling the old friendship and making everything so dark and strange which before was warmth and light between them; and with effect so drear, so piercing, too, and sharp, that the unchanged heart feels any pain than that would be light to bear:

“Oui mon Dieu! nous pouvons, sans que l’âme succombe, Laisser notre bonheur à ce passé qui tombe; Nous pouvons au matin former un rêve pur, Tout d’amour et de paix, tout de flamme et d’azur, Puis livrer les débris de sa beauté ravie A ce vent du désert, qui laisse notre vie Sans fleur et sans épi comme un champ moissonné; Meliner notre front pâle et découronné, Et devenir semblable à cette pauvre plante Qui n’est pas morte encore, et qui n’est plus vivante, Nous pouvons voir gisant sur un lit de douleur, Celui qui nous restait, l’ami consolateur, Compter chaque moment de son heure dernière, Poser nos doigts tremblants sur sa froide paupière, Et baiser son visage, et nous dire; Il est mort! Nous le pouvons, mon Dieu! Parfois le cœur est fort.

“Mais aimer une autre âme, et la trouver si belle Qu’on frémit de bonheur en se penchant vers elle, Puis un jour contempler d’un regard impuissant Sur sa beauté céleste une ombre qui descend; De cette âme où passaient les souffles de la grâce, Sentir parfois monter quelque chose qui glace, Douter, prier tous bas, pleurer d’anxiété, Craindre, espérer..... Longtemps marcher à son côté Sans oser voir au fond.... Puis un jour où l’on ose, Reculer de partout où le regard se pose, Où fut le feu sacré toucher de froids débris, Murmurer en tremblant un langage incompris Où Dieu passa, chercher sa lumineuse trace, Et n’y trouver plus rien ... rien! pas même un soupir, Pas un cri douloureux vers l’aube qui s’efface, C’est trop souffrir!”

The two volumes before us contain many poems, both short and long, of such great freshness and beauty, so full of original turns and delicate touches, that it is difficult to choose from amongst them. However, we have said enough to give a fair notion of Marie Jenna’s style, and quite enough to show that it is her own, with its own peculiar charm. And so our task is done. If it be said that, having uttered only praise and found no fault, we have but half fulfilled the critic’s task, we answer that we never meant the tone of criticism. All know that man’s most perfect work is not without its blemish; but in our first walk through so fair a garden, meeting new beauties on every side, it would have been ungracious in us to have sought defects: that task we leave to others. Ours has been to welcome, and to tell of fresh flowers of much loveliness offered to us from across the sea, with the certainty that no one can read her “Elévations Poétiques” without feeling that he is indebted for some real enjoyment to the charming “Poet of the Vosges.”

THE TWO YSONDES, AND OTHER VERSES. By Edward Ellis. London: Pickering. 1872.

It takes but a short while to read this thin volume; nor will any one with a taste for true poetry find the perusal a task. The author undoubtedly possesses “the vision and the faculty divine,” and belongs to the subjective school of which Tennyson is king—a school peculiarly capable of teaching a subjective age. The more the pity, then, say we, that Mr. Ellis should have made his chief poem, “The Two Ysondes,” hang on the idea that love is fate. His “Two Ysondes” are the two “Isolts” of Tennyson; but Tennyson does not attempt to excuse the passion of Mark’s wife for Tristrem. Our author makes it originate in Tristrem and Ysonde having “drunk,” “by an evil chance,” a philtre which had been placed “in Tristrem’s charge” as “a wedding‐gift for Ysonde and King Mark” (p. 7). Now, it may be said that this does away with the guilty aspect of the romance, and throws over the whole a veil of faëry. Yes; but we insist that it is, therefore, the more mischievous, as teaching the doctrine of fatality.

Neither is this the only, or even the most, objectionable feature of the poem; for, together with descriptions of emotions and caresses which would be chaste if the theme were lawful love, all idea of sin is kept away, and especially as regards its eternal consequences. There is not a word about remorse during life, or of repentance at death. But Tristrem dies in despair of beholding the object of his passion; and Ysonde, in turn, expires on the breast of her dead lover, declaring that she will “go with him beyond the bars of fate.”

Now, we should not have troubled ourselves to make these strictures but that Mr. Ellis shows powers for the misuse of which he will be very responsible. Moreover, as is clear from some of his shorter lyrics, particularly “At a Shrine,” his mind has a religious bent, with (of course) Catholic sympathies.

With regard to his verse, it is less Tennysonic than his thought. Better if, while originating metres (with which we have no quarrel whatever), he modelled both his lines and his diction on the peerless accuracy of England’s laureate.

Books And Pamphlets Received.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: The Money God. By M. A. Quinton.

From LYNCH, COLE & MEEHAN, New York: English Misrule in Ireland: A Course of Lectures. By V. Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. 12mo. pp. 299.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 96.—MARCH, 1873

The Relation Of The Rights Of Conscience To The Authority Of The State Under The Laws Of Our Republic.

(A LECTURE BEFORE A CATHOLIC SOCIETY OF S. PATRICK’S CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONN., OCT. 20, 1872.)

REVEREND GENTLEMEN AND MY FRIENDS: Before I speak particularly of the relation of the rights of conscience to the laws existing in our republic, I consider it necessary to make a few preliminary remarks and to lay down a few principles regarding the nature of law and government in general, and the relation which they hold to religion. I shall best illustrate the difficulties which envelop this subject, and also give a clue to the way by which it may be extricated, by making a supposition.

Let us suppose that a large number of men come together for the purpose of founding a new state with all its institutions of civil society and government. Some of these are Christians, among whom are Quakers; others are Mohammedans, Hindoos, Thugs, idolaters practising human sacrifices, and communists. It is necessary that they should agree and concur with each other in regard to the rights which respect life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness in general and particular, and the means of protecting all these rights, otherwise no society or government is possible. But this cannot be done by any general consent among these different parties. The Christian holds the sacredness of life and property, and the force of the law of monogamy. The Mohammedan rejects this last, and maintains the right to a plurality of wives. The Hindoo regards it as a sacred right and duty of a widow to offer herself on the funeral pile of her husband, that her spirit may rejoin his spirit in another world. The Thug considers it a most holy and meritorious act to murder as many persons as possible in honor of the cruel goddess whom he worships; while the idolater looks on the sacrifice of children or captives as the means of placating his offended deities and procuring success in war. The Quaker will not allow of any bloodshed whatever, either for avenging crime or repelling aggression. And the communist would abolish all rights of property, reconstruct society on a wholly different plan from that which has heretofore existed, and banish all religion as noxious to the well‐being of man.

It is evident, therefore, that society cannot be constituted without religion, and that society constituted with religion, and on the basis of religious ideas, requires some agreement in these religious ideas, and the incorporation of some fixed and definite religious principles into its very structure and conformation.

If we consult history, we shall find that no state or perfect society has ever been established on the atheistic principle. Every one that has ever existed has had a religious basis, and all political and social constitutions have proceeded from religious ideas and been founded upon them. The civilization of Christendom in general has received its specific form from the influence of the Christian religion moulding and modifying in the Eastern world its previous and ancient laws, and in the West to a great extent creating a new order out of a pre‐existing state of imperfect civilization or semi‐barbarism. To this Christendom we belong, and the laws of our republic are a product of this Christian civilization. This cannot be denied, considered as a mere historical fact respecting our origin; for we are the offspring of Christian Europe, and in the beginning distinctly professed to be a Christian people. But it may be said that we have changed, have undergone a political regeneration as a nation, and in the process of transformation have thrown out all religion from our organic constitution as a republic. By our organic constitution and the laws of our republic I intend not merely the federal constitution and laws which bind together the United States, but also the laws and constitutions of the states, the tout ensemble of our common and statute laws of every kind, which form the regulating code of our whole society as one political people. And in regard to this organic law, I affirm that we do not form an exception among human societies to the universal rule I have above laid down, that the state in political society is based on religious ideas.

In support of this proposition, I cite the opinion of a most competent and impartial judge, Prof. Leo, of Halle, and borrow from him a definition of that which constitutes our state religion. This great historian, in the introductory portion of his Universal History, where he is discussing the universal principles which underlie all political constitutions, analyzes in a masterly way the elements of our own system of government; and he points out that which is the religious element, namely, the rule or law of morals, derived from the common law of Christendom, or a certain standard of moral obligation, conformity to which is enforced by the state with all its coercive power. All churches or voluntary associations which include this moral code or religion of the state within their own specific religious law possess complete equality and liberty before the civil law. With their doctrines, rites, regulations, and practices the state does not interfere, and gives them protection from any infringement upon their rights on the part of any private members of the community. But let them, on pretext of doctrine, of ecclesiastical law, of liberty of conscience, or even of any divine revelation, violate by any overt acts the rule of moral obligation recognized by the state, they come into direct collision with her authority, and must suffer the consequences. So far, therefore, as concerns that portion of Christian law, namely, the moral precepts of the Christian religion, which are incorporated into our civil law, all churches are in vital union with the state. Even Jews, because they hold, with Christians, the decalogue; and societies based on purely natural religion, because they hold the law of nature, are in the same vital union, so far, with the state. And beyond this, within the limits which this law sanctions or permits, all these churches or societies are in union with the state, as lawful, voluntary associations over which her protection is extended. But let a Mohammedan community be formed among citizens or resident foreigners, and attempt the introduction of polygamy, our laws require the civil magistrate to interfere and suppress by force this exercise of the privileges granted by their prophet. Let a community of Hindoos, Thugs, or idolaters establish itself within our bounds, and commence any of the murderous practices of those false religions, and the gibbet or the sword would be called on to execute vengeance upon them. We have in our borders the sect of Mormons, whose doctrines and practices are contrary to our fundamental laws and subversive of them. Obviously, we cannot, consistently with our safety, our well‐being, or our essential principles of political and social order, tolerate the enormities of Mormonism, much less permit the formation of a Mormon state. The right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, must be exercised in conformity to certain laws, which are to the state as her axioms or first principles, and are held as inviolable. And the exercise of this right, in this due and legitimate manner, must not be hindered by force and violence under any pretext. Therefore no pretence of conscience or religion can avail to cover any violation of law by an individual or a society, or any such infringement on the rights of others as has been just alluded to. All this presupposes that the state recognizes and bases its laws upon certain fixed ideas concerning the rights which God has really granted to men, and the obligations which he has imposed upon them. But this has also been distinctly and expressly declared by a body of men, representing the whole political people of the nascent republic which was afterwards developed into the United States of North America. The declaration was made in the very act which constituted the United Colonies free and independent states, and which was published to the world on the fourth day of July, 1776. In the first sentence of this Declaration of Independence, the Congress affirms that the people of the United States have judged it necessary “to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATURE’S GOD entitle them.” This august body then proceeds to lay down the foundation and basis of the entire argument of the document, as follows: “We hold these truths to be self‐evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.” It then proceeds to argue that those governments which fail to fulfil this end, and pursue a contrary end by invading and destroying these rights, forfeit their powers; and makes an application of this principle to the casus belli between the colonies and the British crown.

In this most momentous crisis, amid the very birth‐pangs of our infant republic, the people of the United States solemnly declared that the origin of all right, all law, all political organization, all government, and specifically of those which constitute the United States a separate political people, is to be found in the lex æterna, the law of God; that is to say, it is in religion. For what is religion? According to Cicero’s definition, it is a bond which binds men to God and to each other. This is the very meaning of the word, which comes from ligare, to bind, whence we have the terms ligament, ligature, and obligation. Human right is, therefore, something conferred by God. The right to govern must come from God, for we are created equal, and therefore without any natural right of one over another to give him law. The rights of the governed come from God, and are therefore inviolable; but liberty is the unhindered possession and exercise of the rights conferred by God, under the protection of lawful government; and liberty of conscience is freedom to obey the law of the Creator, and to enjoy the blessings which he has imparted to the creature by that law. These rights and liberties belong to each individual man as a grant from the Creator, which he can maintain in the face of any government, be it that of a monarch, of an aristocracy, or of a majority of the people. If a monarch, or one who executes by delegated power the sovereignty of a majority, invades the right of an individual, he violates a law. This law can be no other than that of the Sovereign Lord of the universe. There is, therefore, a higher law than human law, a higher sovereignty than human sovereignty, to which both governments and the governed are subject and amenable, and which are acknowledged as supreme by this American Republic of which we are citizens. And as another proof of this recognition, I may cite the law of oaths, or the solemn appeal to Almighty God as the Supreme Judge, by which a religious sanction is given to judicial testimony and the engagements of public officers.

There is, therefore, in our republic a religion of the state, but one embodied in civil and political society only, which leaves to citizens perfect freedom to organize churches and act out what they profess to be the dictates of their individual consciences, provided they do not violate the laws which constitute the religion of the state.

Under this law, the Catholic Church possesses in essential matters theoretical liberty and equality of rights with the various religious bodies existing in the country, with some trivial exceptions to be found in the laws of some of the states. To a great extent, this theoretical liberty is also a practical liberty, really possessed and enjoyed, and only occasionally invaded. This is a remark which is quite specially verified in the instance of your own state of Connecticut.

This has not always been the case either here or in other portions of our country. Catholics have not always enjoyed freedom of conscience and liberty of religion. If we go back to the early history of the colonies which became afterwards the United States, we shall find that their founders did not intend to grant that liberty which now exists. In some of these colonies, the Church of England, in others the Church of the Puritans, and in those of Spain and France, which were admitted at a later period, the Catholic Church was the established religion of the state. In all the English colonies the Catholic religion was proscribed and persecuted. The Puritan fathers of New England intended to establish a theocracy. There was a strict union of church and state under their old colonial governments. Only professed members and communicants of the church could vote, and the legislatures regulated the affairs of parishes, and decided doctrinal questions. Our ancestors therefore had a Christian ideal of the state before their minds which they attempted to make an actual reality, and which they dreamed should become the kingdom of Christ our Lord upon the earth which the prophets and apostles foretold. The attempt failed from causes which lay within the bosom of the community itself, and not because of any external force; and the same community which had by tacit agreement or positive statutes enacted the original law combining a specific form of religion with the state, repealed the same by its own free will. In the Puritan state, the first change came about by the multiplication of baptized persons who never became communicants. The number of citizens who were thus deprived of the highest rights of citizenship was felt to be a grave anomaly and inconvenience in a democratic state, and caused the adoption of the half‐way covenant. By this arrangement, those baptized persons who publicly acknowledged their baptism were considered as quasi‐members of the church, entitled to all political rights. When, in the course of time, the number of unbaptized persons increased, and other sects of Protestantism began to flourish, new changes were brought about by which in the end the connection between the state and the Puritan Church was dissolved. Similar causes produced similar effects in other parts of the country, and, so far as the federal union was concerned, there was obviously from the first an utter impossibility of making any specific form of Christianity the religion of the entire republic. Thus, by the very law which the necessity of the case imposed upon the separate states and the entire federal republic, that liberty of religion became established under which the Catholic Church could come in upon a footing of perfect equality with the other religious denominations. Catholics have not come into New England and Connecticut either to demand religious liberty as a right or to beg toleration as a favor. We have not obtained our rights or privileges by any agitation or revolution stirred up by ourselves in our own interest. The work was done before there was a number of Catholics worth estimating either in Connecticut or New England. It was done by the old manor‐born citizens for their own advantage and the welfare of the state.

So also, in regard to the political privileges conceded to foreign‐born immigrants. These are, in their nature, distinct and separate from the rights of conscience conceded to Catholics. Yet they have an actual connection, arising from the fact that so very large a proportion of our Catholic citizens are of foreign birth, and so large a proportion of our adopted citizens are of the Catholic religion; and therefore, in the public mind, these two matters are very much blended together, and even confused with each other. It is, therefore, quite fitting that I should speak of the two things in relation with each other. And I remark on this point that the privileges possessed by the Catholics of this state who are of foreign birth, by which they are made equal to the native‐born citizens in regard to both religious and political rights, have not been extorted by themselves, but freely conceded for the good of the state and of all citizens generally. The original inhabitants had the power to exclude the Catholic religion from all toleration. They had the power and the right to exclude all foreigners from the privileges of native‐born citizens, or to make the conditions of being naturalized more stringent than they now are. They took another course, having in view their own good and the well‐being of the state, and Catholics as well as foreigners have profited by it. Catholics have profited by the religious liberty conceded to citizens, which is something essentially distinct from the privileges conceded to residents of foreign origin. And in point of fact, although the extent and prosperity of the church in Connecticut have proceeded principally and in very great measure from the immigration of Irish Catholics into the state, yet its rights, and liberty, and equality do not depend on anything necessarily and essentially but the religious liberty granted to citizens, and which is the birthright of Catholics as well as Protestants who are born on the soil of the republic.

It would be easy to show, in respect to our country at large, that the first beginnings of the Catholic Church have an intertwined radical grasp with the first fibres of national life in our own soil; and that there is a truly glorious Catholic chapter in the history of the United States. We can find something of this even in the history of this state. The first Mass celebrated in Connecticut was said in an open field within the bounds of Wethersfield, by the chaplain of the French troops who came here to aid our fathers in fighting the battle for independence. The first Catholic sermon in English was preached by the Rev. Dr. Matignon, of Boston, in the Centre Congregational Church of Hartford, at the invitation of the Rev. Dr. Strong, the pastor of the church. The first Catholic church was formed at Hartford in 1827, by Mr. Taylor, a respectable citizen of that town, who was a convert, and who organized the few Irish, French, and German Catholic residents in the place into a congregation, which assembled on Sunday for worship. In 1830, Bishop Fenwick, of Boston, a native of Maryland, purchased and blessed a small frame church, over which he placed F. Fitton, a native of Boston, who was the pastor of the entire state, and who is still actively engaged in the duties of the priesthood at Boston. During the first five years of his ministry at Hartford, F. Fitton received eighty adult converts, who, with their families, made a considerable portion of his little flock, since, in 1835, there were only 730 Catholics in the whole state. The first bishop of the diocese of Hartford was a native of New England. The present distinguished prelate who rules the church in Connecticut is a native of Pennsylvania; and of the 150,000 Catholics under his jurisdiction nearly one‐half must be natives of the state or of the United States. We have, then, some 67,000 native‐born Catholics in this state, most of whom are native‐born Yankees.(230) If you wish to see a fair sample of these, you have only to visit St. Patrick’s Church at nine o’clock of a Sunday morning, where you will see the church filled with them, and to go into the school‐house behind the church any day in the week, where you will find 1,100 of these young Catholic Yankees busily conning their lessons, and learning to love God and their native Columbia. All these have their liberty of conscience and their other rights as citizens secured to them by their birthright, and therefore, on this ground alone, the Catholic Church is equal to the Protestant churches before the law.

And as regards foreign‐born citizens, the state having conceded to them equal rights to those of native‐born citizens, their conscience or religion is included among these rights. The original concession was a privilege, but, having been once conceded, it has become a right. And it was conceded, as I have said, for the good of the state which conceded it, and in view of a compensation or equivalent which the party of the grantor expected to receive. You did not intrude yourselves upon the soil of the state, or come uninvited to beg food and shelter. You were invited, and that not from motives of pure philanthropy. Doubtless many had a kind and philanthropic feeling in the matter, but the prime and urgent motive was that you were needed and wanted for your labor. You were told that your services were wanted for the upbuilding of the material prosperity of the state, and, as an inducement to come, you were offered citizenship, and with that, freedom to bring your religion with you and enjoy it. This was a favor to you without question; but not a purely gratuitous one. It was something advanced to you, but for which you were expected to make a future compensation. And you have well purchased your rights, not only by what you have done in the peaceful arts of industry, but by fighting for your adopted country and shedding your blood for its integrity and the consolidation of its power. You have fought for the state, and for the United States, and, therefore, the compact has been sealed and made inviolable by your blood.

Now, what is the point I have been coming to and have at length reached? It is this: that you possess the full freedom and equality of your Catholic religion, not by toleration, but as an absolute right, inhering in your character as citizens whether by birth or adoption. Catholics are legally domiciled here by virtue of our laws, which recognize, maintain, and protect their religious rights as standing on an equal footing with those of Congregationalists or Episcopalians. No doubt, we should cherish a kind feeling toward those who have granted these most precious and valuable rights, and respect their similar rights. But we must not permit ourselves to be placed in any position of inferiority to other classes of citizens. We must insist upon the full recognition of our equality in the state, and maintain with a manly bearing all our rights of conscience to their fullest extent, claiming and demanding from our fellow‐citizens a complete respect and observance of these rights, and from the state that protection in their exercise which it is bound to give.

The Declaration of Independence avows as an article of the national creed that the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been conferred by the Creator, and is inalienable, and that government is instituted for the purpose of securing to us the possession and exercise of this right. The right to liberty includes freedom to keep the commandments of God, to observe his law, to make use of all the means which he has granted to us for obtaining grace, acquiring virtue, and fulfilling the end of our creation. The right to happiness includes the undisturbed enjoyment of all the privileges of our religion, which alone can make us truly happy in this world, and enable us to obtain eternal happiness. The right to liberty and happiness gives freedom, to those who choose to do so, to devote themselves to the sacred duties of the altar and the cloister. It gives freedom to practise all the rites and ceremonies of religious worship, to dedicate our wealth to the service of God and our fellow‐men, to constitute and regulate our churches according to our own canonical law, to establish and hold possession of colleges, seminaries, convents, and charitable institutions, to educate our children, to profess and practise the Catholic religion wholly and entirely. It is the end of government to secure these rights, so that, if it fails to do so by extending an efficacious protection to their free and peaceable exercise, it is negligent of its duty; and if it impairs or violates them by unjust and tyrannical legislation, it commits a positive act of wrong and usurpation. The government, the sovereign power in the state from which the government holds its authority, are amenable to the eternal law, as well as the individual citizen; and they may violate it by neglecting to secure and protect, or by infringing upon, the rights of conscience conferred by the Creator. Wherefore it is necessary to keep a watchful guard over these rights, to proclaim and defend them loudly when they are assailed or in danger of being impaired, and by all lawful means to hinder any attempt to interfere with their exercise by unjust legislation or a tyrannical exercise of authority by the governing power and its official agents. It is a universal and constant tendency of the sovereign power in the state to usurp unjust authority and to invade the rights of its subjects. The liberty of the individual man and of the class which is governed is always in danger, and, therefore, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. This is true where the people retains its sovereignty, as well as where the sovereignty has been entrusted to a monarch or an aristocracy. It is a great mistake to suppose that a popular form of government and republican institutions are a perfect and adequate guarantee of liberty in general or of liberty of conscience in particular. The political majority or ascendant party can tyrannize over the minority or weaker party and over private citizens. Magistrates elected by a popular vote can misuse their power to oppress those whom they ought to protect. Legislatures chosen by the people can pass the most unjust and despotic laws. The Athenian democracy banished Aristides the Just, and poisoned Socrates, the wisest man of pagan antiquity, the father and founder of philosophy. In our own day we have seen the most perfidious violation of guaranteed rights, and the most tyrannical oppression of the religious freedom of Catholics, perpetrated by the Swiss Republic. Catholics are always liable to oppression where they are the weaker party, and have never any sufficient guarantee for the acquisition and preservation of their full religious liberty, except in their own numbers and strength, made available by their own energetic activity in their own cause. According to the principles and spirit of our laws and political institutions, the Catholic Church possesses in the United States a greater degree of the liberty which belongs to her by divine right than in most other countries. And in practice this liberty has been to a great extent secured to her by the justice of the people at large, and the fidelity of those to whom the administration of law has been entrusted. We may say of Connecticut especially that, considering the old and deeply rooted prejudice of her native inhabitants against the Catholic religion, it is remarkable with what comity they have received and made place for the new and mercurial race who have come in to replenish their staid old towns and quiet villages with fresh life, and with what composure they have beheld the multiplication of the crosses which gleam in the sunlight, on their hilltops and in their valleys, over the churches and convents of that which to them was a new and strange religion. Nevertheless, we cannot and ought not to be content with anything short of that full and complete liberty and equality which of right belong to us, and which do not in the least degree prejudice the same rights in those who profess a different religion. There are some things in regard to which it is our duty as well as our right to demand a greater measure of justice than that which has hitherto been yielded, and to exert ourselves to prevent a still further diminution of our rights as Catholic citizens.

One of these is the right of those unfortunate persons who are inmates of prisons, houses of reformation, and similar institutions to enjoy all the privileges and fulfil all the duties of their religion, if they are members of the Catholic Church. Closely connected with this is the right of the Catholic clergy to have access to all the members of their flock, and to exercise the functions of their sacred ministry wherever their duty calls them, unhindered, and, if necessary, fully protected by the law and all official persons.

Another is the complete and untrammelled freedom of Catholic education in all its departments. The state has no right either to prescribe and enforce religious instruction beyond those first principles of morality and civic obligation which are the foundations of our political order, or to interfere with the religious instruction which the Catholic conscience demands for those who are in a state of pupilage. Far less has it the right to prescribe an irreligious and atheistical system of instruction. I cannot enlarge upon this most important topic in this place. I will here simply recall what I have said of the possibility and danger of usurpation over the rights of conscience even in popular governments, and point out a direction from which we ourselves are threatened by this very danger. I refer to a project entertained by some persons in high positions of establishing under the authority of the federal government a national and compulsory system of education, thus depriving not only Catholics, but Protestants and Jews also, of their essential right as citizens to give their children a religious education. I do not attribute this policy to the party of the administration as a party, but it is most undoubtedly the policy of a considerable and very active section of what is called the Republican party, and is part and parcel of a scheme for modifying most essentially the relations between the federal and the state governments, for extending the authority of the governing power and restricting the private liberty of citizens. The men who are possessed by these ideas are in sympathy with that party in Europe self‐styled the progressive party. The idea which they have of liberty is their own freedom to drive the people on the path which they themselves have surveyed and marked out as the straight road to happiness and well‐being, and this compulsory march they dignify by the name of Progress. In this country, they are avowedly not content with existing institutions and laws, but are restless to try their improving hand upon them. They desire to secure uniformity according to their own ideal standard, by consolidation, concentration, unification of the legislative and executive powers in the federal government, and the reduction of the states into the condition of subordinate, dependent provinces in a republican empire. Education by the state and for the state, and in accordance with so‐called progressive ideas, is an essential part of this Prussianizing plan—an education wholly secular, from which instruction in positive, revealed dogmas and a positive religious discipline are wholly excluded, on the plea that all these are sectarian; and one, of course, which is really anti‐Christian and godless—an education like that of the University of Paris, which made a whole army of infidels among the lettered class in France. It is on this ground of education that the tyrannical and infidel power of the state is waging a battle with the point of the lance against the church and the Catholic religion in Europe. In England, also, as I know from those who have heard it from the lips of the leaders of this party, it is the fixed purpose of these leaders to work for the establishment of this infidel system by the coercive power of the state. The necessary sequel of all this is the commune; and, if such a system should prevail here, we have in prospect the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the destruction of those institutions of learning which will not conform to the ideal of the state, the overthrow of the most essential rights of conscience, and finally the proscription of religion, followed by the war of the masses upon the rights of property and upon the order of civil society itself.

We want none of these improvements of Boston doctrinaires, and no meddling of political charlatans with our constitution. Our private rights we hold from the Creator, and not from any social compact or grant of government. State rights, the strongest safeguard we have against usurpations upon our liberty, we hold from the fundamental law which first constituted us a political people—the law of unity in multiplicity, which is our strength, and the geometrical principle, of our harmonious and symmetrical structure. There was a time when our centralizing principle was in danger; when, so to speak, the centrifugal force threatened to become too strong, and to make a rupture of our system. Now it is the opposite danger we have to fear—the increase of the centripetal force. As we were in danger of flying away from our sun and becoming separated, wandering political orbs, so we are now in danger of running into our sun, and thus losing our proper orbits, becoming absorbed into the central mass, and thereby suffering the extinction of the life of liberty in the individuals who form our population. Therefore, as the exorbitant demands of state rights have been repressed, it should now be our study to prevent the encroachment of federal power upon the just domain of these state rights, of state power over municipal freedom, and of all these powers upon the personal and private liberty of the citizen. It is for the interest of all to do this, but my special purpose has been to show why Catholics in particular are bound to do it, in order to preserve that liberty which God has given to them, and their rights of conscience, among which this right of education is one of the most precious and the most imperilled.

This leads us to another point. All religious societies being equal before the law, and entitled to an equal protection, so long as they do not violate those fundamental principles of morality which constitute the religion of the state, Catholic institutions have an equal claim to a share in the distribution of the public money with those which are not Catholic. In this state, large sums have been granted to institutions which are under the control of particular denominations; for instance, to Yale College. The state is bound to be impartial, and whatever it determines to do in support of education or for the nurture and relief of the helpless and destitute, and the reformation of the depraved, it is bound to carry out on this impartial principle. Therefore grants to useful institutions ought never to be opposed or withheld on the ground that the Catholic clergy have the control over them, and that within their walls the Catholic religion is taught and practised. Nor has the state any right to prefer, much less to enforce, what is falsely called a non‐sectarian system of religious and moral instruction. This is one of the most patent fallacies by which the common mind in our time and country is duped and deluded. If there is one only true church, all other so‐called churches are sectarian, or sections cut off from the church. The true church cannot be a sect or have anything sectarian about it. But the state is incompetent to judge or decide that the Catholic Church is a sect in this sense; and, therefore, incapable of determining that the public money which is granted to a Catholic institution is devoted to sectarian purposes. The state is equally incompetent to decide that there is no one true church, and that, therefore, all denominations are sections of the true church, or sects considered in the sense of parts included in a whole. But if it were competent to decide this point in the sense indicated, the only just conclusion would be that all should be impartially treated and protected. The state is also incompetent to decide that a particular party of men, having a system differing from that of any one sect, and professing to retain the common elements of all, is not itself a sect, and that its system is non‐sectarian. It is, in fact, only another sect. Regular association, government, and special rites are not essential to the nature of a sect. There were the sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians among the Jews. There are philosophical sects. A sect is a party of men holding certain particular opinions. Those men who profess to hold what they call the essential parts of religion and morality, and to teach the same without any sectarian doctrines, simply mean that they do not hold the tenets of any of the Protestant sects around them, by which they differ from each other. But they belong to the genus Protestant nevertheless, and have their own specific differentia. They cannot discriminate the essential from the non‐essential parts of Christianity without a criterion, and the criterion which they adopt and apply makes their specific doctrine, which constitutes them a distinct, if not a separate, sect. They assume that the specific doctrines and laws of the Catholic Church are not essential. But in this they deny a fundamental Catholic doctrine: they place themselves in opposition to Catholics in respect to the essentials of faith and practice, and thus they are, relatively to us, a sect. The state cannot decide this question, and cannot, without injustice, prefer one party to the other. It is, therefore, a violation of Catholic rights to compel Catholics to listen to the teaching which calls itself non‐sectarian, or in any way to adopt and sanction it as a system exclusively entitled to the support and protection of the state.

The truth is that the state has nothing to do directly with religious instruction. Formerly, in this state of Connecticut, it had to do with it, because the Puritan form of Protestantism was the established religion of the state, and made part of the law. But now the state has only to protect the religious corporations and societies which have legal existence in the enjoyment of their vested rights. Grants of money and other legal provisions must be made in view of the utility to society and the state which lies in the nature of the object which any institution aims at accomplishing. Education, the care of the orphaned, the poor, the sick, and other destitute persons, and the instruction of all classes in moral and civic virtues and the fear of that Creator who is acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence as the Author of our natural rights, are useful to the state and society, and even necessary to their continuance and well‐being. Therefore the state may exercise a supervision within certain limits over these things, and grant subsidies for the purpose of sustaining them. But this must be done in such a way that no violence is committed upon the rights or the liberty of conscience guaranteed by law. Religion must be left free, and not interfered with by the state. But non‐ interference is something quite incompatible with exclusion. The state cannot confiscate the property which it has once granted to Yale College because the clergy of one particular denomination control the religious instruction of the college. Nor can it justly refuse to treat Catholic institutions of education with a favor equal to that which it shows to others, because the Bishop of Hartford will have control of their religious teaching.

It is for the interest and well‐being of the state and of all classes of its citizens that the Catholic Church should fully exercise all its rights, and enjoy the most perfect freedom of growth and development. The Catholic Church is fully and unchangeably committed to those essential principles of morality on which our laws are founded. By the very principle of the Catholic religion, those who profess it can never abandon or change these principles, and they thus receive the strongest guarantee of their perpetuity in the number and the moral power of those citizens who profess this religion. By our religion we must hold and profess that human rights are conferred by the Creator, that they are inviolable, and that civil society has been established by Almighty God, with its institutions of government, in order that these rights may be secured. We must profess that peoples and governments are accountable to God for the just administration of the trust committed to them, and responsible to a higher law than mere human laws, the eternal law itself, which is written on the conscience and clearly promulgated by a divine revelation. We must profess the sanctity of life, of marriage, of the rights of property, of oaths, contracts, treaties, and civic obligations, and the duty of allegiance and obedience to the laws and the lawful authorities in the state. All that I have shown to be the religion of the state, which is indeed nothing more than a portion of the universal common law of Christendom, is involved in the religion of Catholics and taught by it with an authority which they acknowledge as unerring and supreme. Here is, therefore, a principle of stability to the state, and to the rights of all classes of citizens, which is involved in the education and popular instruction which is given by the Catholic clergy. Moreover, as the pastors of 150,000 of the inhabitants of the state, and wielding a moral influence over them far superior to that of any other body of clergy, it is for the interest and advantage of their fellow‐citizens that their education, training in their special functions, and other qualifications and advantages for exercising their civilizing power upon such a large and increasing mass of the population, should be elevated to the highest possible grade. Therefore the schools, academies, seminaries, and religious houses in which the clergy are trained are deserving of encouragement as sources of intellectual, moral, and social benefit and improvement to society at large, which accrue to the benefit of the state.

The same is true of institutions of religious women, who are a kind of female clergy in a wider sense of the word, of schools of all kinds, of orphanages and charitable asylums. In the care of the poor and the sick especially, the Catholic Church can do a work which cannot be done so well by any other society, and thus relieve the state of a burden as well as heal a sore on the body politic which is frequently dangerous as well as distressing. Besides these more necessary services to humanity, the Catholic Church contributes to the decoration and embellishment of life, to the refinement of taste, and to the increase of innocent and elevating enjoyment. It ornaments towns and villages with specimens of fine architecture, multiplies statues and paintings, cultivates sacred music, and by its multifarious ceremonies acts most powerfully not only on the souls of men to raise their minds to an unseen world, but, in their human sentiments and manners, to give grace and refinement as well as enjoyment to a life rendered too dull and prosaic by the everlasting drudgery of an industrious and material existence.

All this would not weigh a feather with the severe Puritan ancients who founded this commonwealth. The Catholic religion is a religion of error, they would have said; error is fatal to the soul, and cannot be tolerated in a state where laws are framed according to the laws of God. But times are changed, and both laws and the minds of the descendants of the Puritans are changed with them. Even a great light among the descendants of the Scottish Presbyterians, the Rev. Dr. Hodge, has declared that the Catholic religion teaches the essentials of Christianity, exercises a wholesome moral influence, and cannot be refused the same countenance and aid by the state which is given to the Protestant religion, without the usurpation of an authority to determine what is religious error. Although the New York Observer has raised an outcry against this candid statement of a learned and honest man, and has vehemently denounced the Catholic religion as worse than infidelity, I am persuaded that Yale College will not be satisfied to take a more illiberal position than Princeton, and that the general sense of the Protestant people of Connecticut will accord with that of Dr. Hodge, and reject the contrary extreme of the Observer. The religious people of Connecticut cannot fail to see that they have a common cause with us against atheism and progressive radicalism, and that we are a bulwark against a devastating flood which would sweep away their rights with ours if it once broke over the surface of our society. Our rights stand upon a common basis. They depend from a common chain, which is fastened by the same ring. They have nothing to fear from any violation of their liberty or usurpation of their rights on our part, even should we obtain power enough to be able to attempt such an enterprise. We always respect vested rights and established laws, when these are not contrary to the law of God. The order which is now established is the only one that is good for a state in which the inhabitants are divided in religion, and it enables these divided religious communities to live together in political harmony and social peace. We will not disturb this harmony, and we denounce those who attempt to stir up the passions of the people to destroy it as the enemies of the state as well as impious transgressors of the law of God. The rights of conscience and the liberty of religion which we possess under our laws are invaluable and precious to all of us. And there is indeed a common bond between the descendants of the Puritan founders of this commonwealth and the descendants of the persecuted Catholics of Ireland who have settled on this soil, of which perhaps you have not thought sufficiently. It is the bond which has been made by a conflict which the fathers of both these lines of descendants have maintained against a common enemy. That enemy was the despotic tyranny of the successors of Henry VIII. and their ministers. Our ancestors drew the sword against an invasion of rights which, they avowed, had been conferred upon them by their Creator, and the issue of the war was the establishment of this republic, in which the rights of conscience are declared to be sacred. The ancestors of the “exiles of Erin” who have found a new home in this republic fought, both with the sword and with the patient resistance of martyrdom, against the same despotic violence which invaded all their rights both civic and religious. It is fitting, therefore, that their descendants should dwell together in the land rescued by the blood of heroes from tyranny, and that here should flourish the religion rescued from the same tyranny by the blood of martyrs.

I conclude with the eloquent apostrophe of the Bishop of Orleans to the Belgians, which came from his mouth like the electric flash, amid thunders of applause, at the Congress of Malines in 1867, where I had the privilege of being present. “Vous avez une patrie, sachez la garder!”—“You have a country, know how to keep it!”

When we look abroad and see the dark, threatening clouds overhanging older nations, threatening new tempests to follow those which have lately burst upon them, and then look at home on the peace and liberty we enjoy; our church and religion free, priests, bishops, and the Holy Father from his prison in the Vatican, exercising their lawful jurisdiction without hindrance, we can esteem at their proper worth the blessings we enjoy. We learn how to value order, good government, and civilization founded on religious ideas, as the most precious of all earthly possessions after the faith and the means of eternal salvation. These advantages we possess in the laws and institutions which are summed up in the one word our country—our native land, or the land of our refuge and our children’s nativity. Let us all, therefore, prize, cherish, guard, and loyally serve it during life; prepared and resolved, if necessary, to give our blood and our lives in its defence, in emulation of the patriotic bravery of our noble brothers and ancestors from whom we have received this fair inheritance.

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The Widow Of Nain

“The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”

I.

The dust on their sandals lay heavy and white, Their garments were damp with the tears of the night, Their hot feet aweary, and throbbing with pain, As they entered the gates of the city of Nain.

II.

But lo! on the pathway a sorrowing throng Pressed, mournfully chanting the funeral song, And like a sad monotone, ceaseless and slow, The voice of a woman came laden with woe.

III.

What need, stricken mothers, to tell how she wept? Ye read by the vigils that sorrow hath kept, Ye know, by the travail of anguish and pain, The desolate grief of the widow of Nain.

IV.

As he who was first of the wayfaring men Advanced, the mute burden was lowered, and then As he touched the white grave‐cloths that covered the bier The bearers shrank back, but the mother drew near.

V.

Her snow‐sprinkled tresses had loosened their strands, Great tears fell unchecked on the tightly clasped hands; But hushed the wild sobbing, and stifled her cries, As Jesus of Nazareth lifted his eyes.

VI.

Eyes wet with compassion as slowly they fell— Eyes potent to soften grief’s tremulous swell, As, sweetly and tenderly, “Weep not,” he said, And turned to the passionless face of the dead.

VII.

White, white gleamed his forehead, loose rippled the hair, Bronze‐tinted, o’er temples transparently fair; And a glory stole up from the earth to the skies, As he called to the voiceless one, “Young man, arise!”

VIII.

The hard, rigid outlines grew fervid with breath, The dull eyes unclosed from the midnight of death; Weep, weep, happy mother, and fall at his feet: Life’s pale, blighted promise grown hopeful and sweet.

IX.

The morning had passed, and the midday heats burned: Once more to the pathway the wayfarers turned. The conqueror of kings had been conquered again: There was joy in the house of the widow of Nain.

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Fleurange

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

Translated From The French, With Permission.

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IV. The Immolation

LIX.

Several hours had passed since Fleurange’s return. Anxiety, horror, sadness, and emotion, which by turns filled her heart during the affecting scene we have just described, now gave place to a feeling in which a sweet, profound sense of gratitude predominated.

Ah! no one could comprehend, without the experience faith alone gives, the mysterious joy that penetrates the heart when the salvation of a soul seems assured; when, in a tangible manner, as it were, the abyss of divine mercy which ever surrounds us, opens and allows us to sound its depths; when, in answer to our tears, we almost behold the heavens open; when, in return for pardon implored, we are made to comprehend the ineffable signification of two other words, sweet as mercy and boundless as infinitude—pardon obtained.

Fleurange therefore felt, if not happy—for the impressions of the day had been too solemn not to have left a veil of sadness on her soul—at least calm and serene. The sight of that death‐bed had put to flight some of the dreams she so often abandoned herself to now without scruple—dreams of passionate joy at her approaching sacrifice, mingled with the perspective of a brighter future, in which her happiness with George would be increased and consecrated by the sufferings they first shared together—the cherished theme on which lingered her imagination, her heart, and even her soul, which had faith in the efficacy of sacrifice, and instinctively made it the basis of its hopes. Everything, even this, was forgotten for the moment. It was as if a graver, purer, holier strain had put to flight the mingled harmony in which heaven and earth seemed almost confounded. Hitherto, the idea of immolating herself with and for another had seemed noble; but at this quiet hour, after a day of so much agitation, a sublimer thought sprang up in her soul in spite of herself; it was that of a sacrifice unknown to the person for whom one immolates one’s self!

Was not the greatest of sacrifices—the sacrifice which is our example—of such a nature? Was it not made for those who were unaware of it? And has not this very ignorance been regarded by the eternal goodness as a plea for disarming eternal justice?

Fleurange did not attempt to thus define her confused thoughts; she allowed them to float in her mind without welcoming or rejecting them. She was in that frame of mind which unconsciously enfolds a latent disposition in the depths of the soul, that suddenly develops into efforts and sacrifices which seem impossible an hour before they have to be made.

She was alone in one corner of a large, white marble fireplace in which blazed a good fire. She preferred this salon to the others, which were heated invisibly, though it was the smallest in the house, and it was the one she habitually occupied. Clement, after accompanying her home, had returned to the sad place they visited together to obtain, if not an honorable, at least a separate burial of his unfortunate cousin’s remains. Mademoiselle Josephine, at her usual hour, had gone to her fine chamber, which she now occupied with less uneasiness than the first night, and had been for an hour in the capacious bed, where she had learned to sleep as comfortably as under the muslin curtains which generally guarded her slumbers.

It was nearly ten o’clock, and Fleurange in her turn was about to retire, when the noise of a carriage was heard, the bell rang, and a few minutes after a card was brought her. She looked at it: “The Countess Vera de Liningen”—and beneath, written with a pencil: “Will Mademoiselle Fleurange d’Yves have the kindness to see me a moment?”

“Vera!—the Countess Vera!—”

Fleurange repeated the name twice. It was the first time she had thought of it since she left Florence. She remembered hearing it once in a conversation between the Princess Catherine and the marquis, the first time she ever saw the latter. From that time, Vera’s name had never been mentioned before her. The marquis instinctively avoided it in talking with her the day before, as he did that of Gabrielle in conversing with Vera, and no one mentioned it at the palace. Fleurange’s surprise was therefore inexpressible. She remained with her eyes fixed on the card, till the valet de chambre took the liberty of reminding her the Countess Vera was waiting in her carriage for an answer.

“Certainly. Ask her to come up.” Then she waited, with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment, for the entrance of the visitor, without knowing exactly why. She was almost breathless from agitation; but when the door opened, and she saw the beautiful maid of honor, she felt partially relieved.

“Ah! it is you, mademoiselle,” she exclaimed joyfully. “Pardon me for not having divined it immediately, but I did not know this morning the name of her who received me so kindly.”

It now occurred to Fleurange that the maid of honor had been sent by the empress sooner than she expected with the favorable reply promised, but the visitor’s pale face and silence struck her and checked the words on her lips.

“You were unaware of my name this morning, but did you never hear it before?”

Fleurange blushed. “Never would be incorrect,” replied she.—And she stopped.

“No matter,” continued Vera. “I do not care to know when or how you heard it. I can imagine they did not say much to you about me. But allow me to ask you in my turn if you have not another name besides that under which I had the honor of presenting you to her majesty!”

“My name is Fleurange,” replied the young girl simply, “but it is not the one I habitually bear.”

“And your other name?” asked Vera, with a trembling voice.

Fleurange was astonished at the manner in which this question was asked, and still more so at the effect of her reply, which produced a frightful change in the listener’s face.

“Gabrielle!” repeated she. “I guessed rightly, then.”

An embarrassing silence followed this exclamation. Fleurange did not know what to say. She awaited an explanation of the scene which appeared more and more strange. But while she was looking at Vera with increased surprise during this long silence, a sudden apprehension seized her, and a faint glimpse of the truth flashed across her mind. Nothing could have been more vague than the remembrance of the name mentioned before her but once, but that time it was in a conversation respecting George, and she bethought herself that she understood it to be a question of a marriage the princess desired for her son. Was it with reluctance Vera had now brought the permission for another to accompany him? Such was the question Fleurange asked herself. Approaching Vera, therefore, she said to her softly:

“If you have come with a message, how can I thank you sufficiently, mademoiselle, for taking the trouble of bringing it yourself!”

Vera hastily withdrew her hand, and retreated several steps; then, as if suffering from an emotion she could not overcome, she fell into an arm‐ chair beside the table, and for some moments remained pale and breathless, with a gloomy, forbidding air, wiping away from time to time with an abrupt gesture the tears which, in spite of all her efforts, escaped from her eyes.

Fleurange, motionless with surprise, looked at her with mingled interest and astonishment, but, the frank decision of her character prevailing over her timidity, she came at once to the point.

“Countess Vera,” said she, “if I have not guessed the motive that brings you here, tell me the real one; there is something in all this which I do not understand. Be frank; I will be likewise. Let us not remain thus towards one another. Above all, do not look at me as if we were not only strangers, but enemies.”

At this word, Vera raised her head. “Enemies!” she said. “Well, yes, at present we are.”

What did she mean? Fleurange crossed her arms, and looked at her attentively, trying to guess the meaning of her enigmatical words, and the still more obscure enigma of her face, which expressed by turns the most contradictory sentiments; the enigma of her eyes, which sometimes gazed at her with hatred, and then with sweetness and a humble, beseeching look. At length Vera seemed decided to continue. “You are right,” she said; “I must put an end to your suspense, and explain my strange conduct; but I need courage to do this. To come here as I have, to appeal to you as I am going to do, I must—I must, without knowing why—”

“Well,” said Fleurange with a faint smile, “continue. You must what?”

Vera went on in a low tone, as if affected: “I must have had a secret instinct that you were kind and generous.”

This result of so much hesitation did not throw any light on the subject, but only made it more obscure.

“There has been preamble enough,” said Fleurange, with a calm accent of firmness. “Speak clearly now, Countess Vera, tell me everything without reservation. You may believe nothing to fear. Though your words do me an injury I can neither foresee nor comprehend, speak, I insist upon it. Hesitate no longer.”

“Well, here,” said Vera, suddenly throwing on the table a paper till now concealed.

Fleurange took it, looked at it, and blushed at first, then turned pale. “My petition!” she said. “You have brought it back? It has been refused, then?”

“No; it was not sent.”

“You mean that the empress, after showing me so much kindness, changed her mind and refused to present it?”

“No; on the contrary, she ordered me to forward your petition, and to add her recommendation.”

“Well?”

“I disobeyed her orders.”

“I await the explanation you doubtless intend giving me. Go on without any interruption; I am listening.”

“Well, first, did you know that George de Walden was the husband promised me—to whom my father destined me from infancy?”

“Who was promised you!—from infancy! No, I did not know that. No matter; go on.”

“No matter, indeed; that is not the point, though it is proper to inform you of it. Neither is it a question of his misfortune, or his frightful sentence, or that terrible Siberia where you wished to accompany him and participate in a lot the severities of which you could neither alleviate nor perhaps endure. This is the point: to preserve him from that destiny, to save him, to enable him to regain life, honor, and liberty—in a word, all he has lost. His property, name, and rank can all be restored to him. It is this I have come to tell you and ask you to second.”

“All can be restored to him?” repeated Fleurange, in a strange voice. “By what means?—what authority?”

“The emperor’s. I have appealed to his clemency, and my prayers have prevailed, but on two conditions, one of which is imposed on George, and the other depends on me. To these two conditions, there is a third which depends on you—you alone!”

Fleurange’s large eyes fastened on Vera with an expression of profound astonishment and anguish.

“Finish, I conjure you, if you are not mad in speaking to me so, or I in listening to you—if we are not both deprived of our reason!”

Vera clasped her hands, and passionately exclaimed: “Oh! I beg you to have pity on him!” She stopped, choked with emotion.

Fleurange continued to gaze at her with the same expression, and, without speaking, made a sign for her to continue. She seemed to concentrate her attention in order to comprehend the words addressed her.

“I am waiting,” she said at last. “I am listening attentively and calmly; speak to me in the same manner.”

Vera resumed in a calmer tone: “Well, this morning just as I had finished reading your petition and learned for the first time who the exile was you wished to accompany—at that very moment the emperor arrived at the palace and sent for me.”

“The emperor!” said Fleurange, with surprise.

“Yes, and can you imagine what he wished to say to me? You could not, and I am not surprised, for you are not aware how earnestly I had solicited George’s pardon, and, to this end, how zealously I had sought out every circumstance calculated to conciliate his sovereign. Well, what the emperor wished to inform me was that this pardon would be granted me—me, do you understand?—but on two conditions.”

“His pardon!” exclaimed Fleurange. “Go on, I am listening.—”

“The first, that he should pass four years on his estates in Livonia without leaving them.—” Vera stopped.

“I hear; and next?” said Fleurange, raising her eyes.

“Next,” said Vera slowly and anxiously, “that the will of my father and his should be fulfilled before his departure.”

Fleurange shuddered. An icy chill struck to her heart, and her head swam as if with dizziness. But she remained perfectly motionless.

“His pardon is at this price?” said she in a low voice.

“Yes; the emperor has taken an interest in me from my childhood; he loved my father, and it has pleased him to make this act of clemency depend on the accomplishment of my father’s wish.”

There was a long silence. Vera herself trembled at seeing Fleurange’s pale lips, and colorless cheeks, and her eyes looking straightforward, lost in space.

“And he?”—she said at last. “He accepts his pardon on this condition—without hesitation?”

“Without hesitation!” repeated Vera, blushing with new emotion. “That is what I cannot say. It is this doubt that humiliates and alarms me, for the emperor would regard the least hesitation as fresh ingratitude, and perhaps would annul his pardon.”

“But why should he hesitate?” said Fleurange, in an almost inaudible tone.

“Fleurange,” said Vera, in that passionate tone she had used two or three times during this interview, “let us rend each other’s hearts, if need be, but let us go on to the end. Have you had permission to see George since you came?”

“No.”

“But he expects you; he knows you have arrived, and the devotedness that has brought you here?”

“No, he is still ignorant of all this; he was to be informed of it to‐ morrow.”

A flash of joy lit up Vera’s black eyes. “Then it depends on you whether he hesitates or not—whether he is saved.—Yes, Fleurange, let him remain ignorant of your arrival, let him not see you again—let him never behold you again,” she continued, looking at her with a jealous terror she could not conceal, “and his life will again become brilliant and happy—as it was—as it always should be—and the remembrance of the last few months will disappear like a dream!”

“Like a dream!” repeated Fleurange mechanically, passing her hand over her brow.

“I have told you everything now,” said Vera. “I have done you an injury I can understand better than any one else. But,” she continued, with an accent that resounded in the depths of the listener’s soul, “I wished to save George, I wished to win him back to me! And I thought, I know not why, for I am generally distrustful—yes, I thought I could induce you to aid me against yourself!”

Fleurange, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes gazing before her with a fixed expression, seemed for some moments insensible to everything. She was listening, however—she was listening to that clear, distinct voice which resounded in her soul in a tone so pure—a voice she had never failed to recognize and obey.

If George were free, if he recovered his name, rank, and former position, would she not still be in the same position as before? In that case, could she treacherously usurp the consent obtained from his mother, and that to the detriment of the one before her—the wife chosen from his infancy? Would it not be treachery to him to present herself before him at the moment of recovering his liberty, and thereby endanger its loss with the momentary favor that conferred it?

She placed her icy hand on Vera’s, and turned towards her with a sweet expression of resolution. “That is enough,” she said, in a calm tone. “You have done right. Be easy, I understand it all.”

Vera, astonished at her expression and accent, looked at her with surprise.

“Do not be afraid,” continued Fleurange, in the same tone. “Act as if I were far away—as if I had never come.” And, taking the petition lying on the table, she tore it in pieces, and threw it into the fire! There was a momentary blaze, which died away, and she looked at the ashes as they flew.

Vera, with an irresistible impulse, pressed her lips to the hand she seized, then remained mute and confounded. She had come determined to prevail over her rival, to convince her, to use every means of contending if she failed in her first efforts, but her victory suddenly assumed an aspect she had not anticipated. It had certainly been an easy one, and yet Vera felt it had left a bleeding wound. She experienced for a moment more uneasiness than joy, and her attitude expressed no more of triumph than that of Fleurange of defeat. While one remained with her head and eyes cast down, the other had risen. A passing emotion colored Fleurange’s cheek, the struggle of the sacrifice gave animation and an unusual brilliancy to her face.

“I think,” said she, “you have nothing more to say to me.”

“No—for what I would like to say I cannot, dare not.”

Vera rose and turned towards the door. A thought occurred to her. She approached Fleurange. “Excuse my forgetfulness,” said she; “here is the bracelet you lost this morning. I was commissioned to restore it to you.”

At the sight of the talisman, Fleurange started; her momentary color faded away, she became deadly pale, and, as she looked at it silently, some tears, the only ones she shed during the interview, ran down her cheeks. But it was only for an instant. Before Vera realized what she was doing, Fleurange clasped the bracelet around her rival’s arm.

“This talisman was a present from the Princess Catherine to her son’s betrothed. She said it would bring her good luck. It no longer belongs to me. I return it to you; it is yours.”

Fleurange held out her hand. “We shall never see each other again,” she continued; “let us not bear away any bitter remembrance of each other.”

Vera took her hand without looking at her. She had never felt touched and humiliated to such a degree; gratitude itself was wounding to her pride. But Fleurange’s sweet, grave voice was now irresistible, and spoke to her heart in spite of herself. She hesitated between these two feelings. Fleurange resumed: “You are right. It is not my place to wait for you at this time—you have nothing more to forgive me for, I believe, and I forgive you everything.”

And as Vera still remained motionless with her head bent down, Fleurange leaned forward and embraced her.

LX.

The Marquis Adelardi often declared he had witnessed so many extraordinary and unexpected events that he was seldom surprised at anything that happened. But the day that now dawned brought a surprise of the liveliest kind, and even a second one in the course of a few hours. He rose late, according to his custom, and was breakfasting beside the fire when a note was brought him which put a premature end to the repast just begun. After reading it, he fell into deep thought, then rose and strode around his room. Finally he went to the window, and read the following note a second time.

“MY KIND FRIEND: I have changed my mind. I earnestly beg you when you see Count George not to mention my name, and, above all, to take the greatest precaution to keep him for ever ignorant of the plans I formed and the journey I have made. This will be easy, for no one knows I am here, and tomorrow, before night, I shall have left St. Petersburg. Everything will be explained to you, but I only write now what is most essential for you to know without any delay.”

In vain he read and re‐read. Such were the words, signed Fleurange, which he held in his hands. For once the marquis was completely at a loss. Nothing—absolutely nothing—could account for this sudden change. The success of her petition presented the empress the day before was certain. He recalled every detail of his recent interview with her, during which, having nothing more to conceal, she naïvely revealed all the depth and sincerity of her sentiments towards George. He had long been aware of her firmness and courage, and the idea of her drawing back at the last moment in view of the trial never occurred to him. There was, then, an impenetrable mystery, and he impatiently awaited the hour he could go for the promised explanation. But he must first keep his engagement with George. Poor George! he inspired him now with fresh pity, though he had doubted, the evening before, if he was worthy of the consolation in store for him. It seemed now as if he could not live without it, and that a new and more frightful sentence had been pronounced against him. The marquis was about to start for the fortress to fulfil more sadly than ever the painful duty of his powerless friendship, when another letter was brought him. The mere sight of this second missive made him start, and he examined with extreme astonishment the address and the very envelope that bore it, the impression on the seal, and the slight perfume it gave out. All this was a source of surprise, and, for once, it was not unreasonable, as it generally is, to dwell on these exterior signs before solving the mystery by opening the letter. The reader may judge, after learning that the Marquis Adelardi recognized his friend’s writing in the address. Since George’s imprisonment, he had neither had permission to write, nor the means. In the second place, the paper, the arms on the seal, the perfume—all these things belonged to a different condition, for certainly none of these elegances had been allowed him in prison. The mere exterior of the letter, therefore, had something inexplicable, and, when he opened it to solve the enigma, he read as follows:

“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: Perhaps the very sight of this letter has given you a suspicion of its contents. If not, know that I am free, or, at least, I shall be so to‐morrow! Meanwhile, I have left the frightful cell where you found me yesterday, and now, thanks to the governor of the fortress, am established in his own apartment and surrounded once more by all the delightful accessories of civilized life of which I thought myself for ever deprived—accessories which are only a dawn of the delightful day before me. Yes, Adelardi, free! by the favor of the emperor, against whom I eagerly pledge myself never to enter into a conspiracy as long as I live. Free on two conditions: one to live at my home in Livonia four years; the other—guess what it is! It is not more severe than the first: it is to return to my first love—to her to whom I owe my pardon. In a word, to end where I began, by marrying Vera de Liningen! What do you say to that? Is not this a dénoûment worthy of a romance? You predicted it once, do you remember it? ‘You will renounce this folly which tempts you, and keep the promise you made.’ I was far from believing it then, and perhaps it is well even now that that beautiful siren is seven hundred leagues off, for I know not what would be the result were I subjected to the fascination of those eyes which turned my head, whereas I am now wholly absorbed in the happiness that awaits me. Vera still loves me. She is also beautiful in her way, and, above all, possesses a charm which makes me forget all others. She has the beautiful eyes of liberty which I owe her. Therefore I am not tempted to refuse the hand she is ready to accept, or even my heart, though somewhat blasé, but now filled with gratitude strong enough to sufficiently resemble the love she has a right to expect.

“Au revoir, Adelardi! Come when you please; I am no longer a prisoner, though I have pledged myself not to leave here till I go to the empress’ chapel to meet her who is to accompany me into the mitigated exile to which we are condemned.”

It would be difficult to describe the strange effect of this letter, coming so soon after the other, upon the person to whom they were both addressed. It would be impossible to say whether he was glad or sorry, indignant or affected, relieved or overwhelmed, by such sudden news; and, though only imperfectly enlightened respecting some of the circumstances he wished to know, he felt that somehow Fleurange had been informed of George’s pardon before himself, and the conditions attached to it. This was the evident meaning of her note, which now seemed to the marquis so generous, so touching, and even so sublime, that his whole interest centred, with a kind of passion, in this charming, noble girl. Her letter, which lay beside George’s before him, displayed the greatest contrast imaginable to the cold, selfish levity of the latter. At all events, he had no reason now to be anxious about him on whom everything seemed to smile, but rather about her who was immolating herself to‐day as much as yesterday—unsuspected by the object—and with a devotedness a thousand times more disinterested and more generous than before.

At that moment the door opened, and the marquis uttered an exclamation of joy and welcome at hearing Clement announced. He was just thinking of him, and wishing he could see him at once. As soon as he looked at him he perceived he was unaware of what had occurred. Clement returned home at a late hour the night before, and had not seen Fleurange since their return from the hospital. He now came from the burial of his unfortunate cousin in a distant, obscure spot, to beg the marquis to use his influence to obtain permission to place a simple stone cross on his forlorn grave. But he could not find any opportunity of introducing the subject, the marquis was so eager to enter on that which absorbed him. He informed Clement of George’s pardon and the conditions on which it was granted; but in his eagerness he did not at first perceive the effect of the news on his listener. The latter remained motionless, and for moments his excessive surprise prevented him from replying. The aspect of everything was so changed by the intelligence that his mind refused to take it in. He looked at the marquis with so singular an expression that he was struck by it, and clearly saw he had unguardedly touched a deeper and more vital point than he supposed.

“Pardon me, Dornthal, I have excited you more than I wished or expected.”

“Yes,” said Clement, in a strange voice, “I acknowledge it; but does she know what you have just informed me of?”

The marquis in reply gave him Fleurange’s note. He read it with a still more lively emotion than he had just experienced; but he succeeded better in controlling it.

“Poor Gabrielle! This is evidently a generous, spontaneous impulse, worthy of her. But,” continued he, in quite a different accent, in which trembled an indignation he repressed with difficulty, “I cannot comprehend how this—how Count George can unhesitatingly consent to the conditions proposed, for really I can never believe them rigorously imposed by the emperor, still less that they could be accepted if he appreciates as he ought the sentiments which I should suppose would prevent him from accepting them.”

The marquis hesitated a moment, and then said: “Here, Dornthal, time presses; it is better you should know everything without delay.” And he gave him George’s letter.

As Clement read it, contempt and anger were so clearly displayed in his face that the marquis was confounded at the flash of indignation with which he crushed the letter and threw it on the table. “That is exactly what I should have expected from the man you told me of yesterday. Poor Gabrielle!” he continued, in a voice trembling with emotion and tenderness, “it is thus that the precious treasures of thy heart have been lavished and wasted!”

He leaned on the table, and hid his face in his hands. For some instants there was a silence neither sought to break. At length Clement returned to himself. “Once more pardon me, M. le Marquis. I really do not know what you will think of me after the weakness I have shown before you. But no matter, it is not a question of myself, but of her. There is one point I recommend to you which there is no need of insisting upon: she must remain ignorant of the contents of this letter. She must never know—never, do you understand?—what kind of a love she thought worthy of hers.”

The marquis looked at him with astonishment. “And it is you, Dornthal, who are so anxious as to your cousin’s remembrance of Count George!”

This total absence of vulgar triumph and selfish hope added another notable surprise to those of the morning. Clement neither noticed Adelardi’s tone nor the kind, affectionate expression of regard which accompanied the words he had just uttered.

“I wish her to suffer as little as possible,” said he briefly; “that is my only aim and thought.”

He rose to go out. The marquis pressed his hand with a cordiality he rarely manifested, and after Clement’s departure he remained a long time thoughtful. Perhaps at that moment he was thinking how much more satisfaction there was in meeting and studying such a noble heart than most of those whose acquaintance he had hitherto sought and cultivated with so much eagerness.

LXI.

At Clement’s return, he learned that his cousin had asked for him several times. He immediately went up to the room she occupied. His emotion at seeing her again, though less sudden than that he had just experienced, was deeper than he anticipated, for he was unprepared for the change wrought within so short a time. She was, however, as calm and resolute as the night before, though she had passed through what might be called the agony of sacrifice—that hour of inexpressible suffering, not when the sacrifice of one’s self is decided upon, not even that in which it is consummated, but the intermediate hour in which repugnance still struggles against the will. It was this hour endured by our common Master in the order of his sufferings after he took upon himself our likeness.

Fleurange had only taken a short hour of repose before day. The remainder of the night she passed wholly in conflict with suffering. She then allowed the repressed sobs that filled her breast during her interview with Vera to burst forth without restraint as soon as she was alone for the night; she gave herself up to the poor solace of tasting at leisure the bitterness of sacrifice, repelling every consoling thought—almost allowing the waves of despair to gather round her, and, if not to break over her, at least to threaten her.

The chamber she occupied was more spacious and sumptuous than Mademoiselle Josephine’s, being that of the Princess Catherine herself. It was lighted only by a lamp which burned before the holy images enshrined in gold and silver in one corner, according to the Russian custom. Fleurange threw herself on a couch, and there, with her head buried in the cushions, her long hair dishevelled, and her hands clasped to her face inundated with tears, she gave vent to her grief for a long time without any attempt to moderate it.

Once before in her life she had abandoned herself to a similar transport of grief, though certainly with much less reason. It was when she left Paris two years before, and it seemed as if she was alone in the world, and all the joys of life had come to an end. Those who have not forgotten the beginning of this story may remember that on that occasion the sight of a star suddenly appearing in the clear sky brought her a message of peace. God knows, when it pleaseth him, how to give a voice to everything in nature, and to speak to his creatures by the work of his hands, and even of theirs. An impression of such a nature now infused the first ray of calmness into the tempest that completely overwhelmed her soul. Suddenly raising her head from the attitude in which she had so long remained, her eyes naturally turned towards the light diffused by the lamp before the images in the corner of the chamber, the richest of which sparkled in its ray. In these Greek paintings, as we are aware, the heads alone on the canvas stand out from the gold and precious stones that surround them. That which now attracted Fleurange’s attention was the image of Christ—that sacred face of the well‐known type common to all the representations of Byzantine art. That long, grave face, those mild eyes, with their calmness and depth, have a thrilling, mysterious effect which surpasses a thousand times every reproduction of human beauty. This impression, which a pious love of art enables every one to comprehend, was associated with a tender remembrance of Fleurange’s childhood. She had often prayed before a face of similar aspect in the chapel of Santa Maria al Prato. She now looked steadfastly into those divine eyes gazing at her, and it seemed as if that sweet penetrating look pierced to the depths of her soul, and infused a sudden, marvellous, inexpressible consolation. Changing gradually her previous attitude, she remained for some time seated with clasped hands, transfixed. At last, her eyes still fastened on the holy face, she fell on her knees, bent down her head, and remained a long time buried in profound recollection. Her immoderate grief seemed to diminish and change its character. Her tears, without ceasing to flow, lost their bitterness and changed their object; for in the mildness of that majestic look she read a reproach which she comprehended!—

“O my Saviour and my God! pardon me!” exclaimed she, with fervor, bending down till her forehead touched the floor.

Pardon!—Yes, in spite of her purity, her piety, and the uprightness of her soul, it was a word Fleurange was likewise obliged to utter. In it she felt lay solace and peace for her heart. She perceived it now for the first time. A new light began to rise in her soul, like the faint flush of aurora which precedes day, and her grief seemed a punishment merited for forgetfulness, her tears an expiation. These thoughts were still confused; but their influence was already beneficent, and she soon felt really springing up within her the courage and fortitude which she outwardly manifested during her interview with Vera. She had always been capable of action in spite of suffering, and she now sought it, realizing its benefit. The night was far advanced, but she did not feel the need of repose, and before seeking it she would give her heart and mind, even more fatigued than her body, the relief they needed. Under the impression of all the incidents and varied emotions of the day, she wrote the Madre Maddalena a letter which was the faithful transcript of all she had passed through. The joy of the morning, the sacrifice of the evening, her despair scarcely subsided, nothing was concealed or suppressed, not even a fresh ardent aspiration towards the cloister which she thought could no longer be shut against her, and which now seemed the only refuge of her broken heart.

There is a certain art in reading the hearts of others; but it is as great a one to be able to read one’s own, and this art Fleurange possessed in the highest degree when in the presence of that great soul which afar off as well as near watched over hers. This outpouring soothed her. She afterwards slept awhile, and, on awaking, courageously despatched the letter which we have just seen the Marquis Adelardi read and communicate to Clement.

But such a night leaves its traces. Fleurange’s swollen eyes, her contracted features, her pale, trembling lips, and her sad expression indicated suffering which was an insupportable torture to Clement. He would have spared her this at the expense of his life, as it is allowable to say he had proved. But now that the arduous duty of earnestly desiring her happiness through the affection of another was no longer required of him, the impetuous cry of his own heart became almost irresistible in its power, and Clement never manifested more self‐control than this morning in subduing the impulse which prompted him a thousand times to throw himself at his cousin’s feet, and passionately tell her she loved and regretted an ungrateful man, and that she herself was even more ungrateful than he! But instead of that, he silently pressed her hand. Fleurange saw he was aware of everything, and it was a relief to have nothing to tell. In a few words they made arrangements for their departure, and Clement promised her to start within twenty‐four hours.

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Josephine appeared, and Clement, too preoccupied to use any circumlocution, simply announced the change in his cousin’s intentions, without giving her any explanation. But when, in the height of her joy, mademoiselle exclaimed, “She is going back with us!—O mon Dieu! what happiness!” Clement frowned and pressed her hand in so expressive a manner that the poor demoiselle stopped short and, according to her custom, buried her joy in utter silence, saying to herself that the day would perhaps come when she would understand all these inexplicable things, and, among others, why, when she wept at Gabrielle’s leaving them, it was necessary to conceal her sorrow; and now she was to remain, it was not permitted to manifest her joy.

“All this is very singular—I always seem to take aim at the wrong moment. And yet, Clement allow me to say that I suspect that, as to this Monsieur le Comte, it was I—and I alone—who was right.”

This last reflection did not escape her, it is reasonable to suppose, till later, at one of those seasons of special unburdening her mind to Clement which she sought now and then, and we should add that the smile in return amply repaid her for the frown we have just noted.

The evening passed away almost in silence. The Marquis Adelardi spent it with them. The frightful alteration in Fleurange’s features did not allow him to mistake the extent of her sufferings; and her calm, simple manner redoubled the enthusiasm she had always inspired him with—an enthusiasm which gradually ripened into solid friendship, and ultimately wrought a durable, beneficent effect on his life.

Before Clement and his cousin separated for the night, they spoke of Felix’s sad burial, and its lack of any religious ceremony. The marquis had promised to obtain the last favor Clement asked—that a cross should mark the spot where he reposed. The following morning Mass was to be celebrated for him in the Catholic church.

“We will attend this Mass together,” said Fleurange.

“Yes, Gabrielle, that was my expectation.”

The next morning, at an early hour, Fleurange and her cousin were prostrate at the foot of the altar in the large Catholic church on the Nevskoi Prospekt. After all the sorrow that had overwhelmed the young girl’s soul since the night before, this was an hour of sad consolation and repose. Her long journey, after all, in spite of the bitter deception, in spite of the grief and sacrifice at the end, had not been made in vain. He whose last hours she had consoled, and for whom they were now praying, had carried away with him the blessed influence of her presence into those regions to which repentance opens the door! Repentance! the salvation of the soul that feels it, the benediction of the soul that seconds it, the mysterious joy of the angels that inspire it and rejoice over it as one of the delights of their eternal beatitude!

They left the church, and slowly descended the long avenue bordered by trees called the Nevskoi Prospekt. They found their way impeded by a numerous crowd in front of the gate of the Anitschkoff Palace, which they had to pass. Fleurange, lost in thought, was walking slowly along without looking around, and Clement also was absorbed in his own reflections, when they were both startled as if by an electric shock.

“The newly married pair are coming out,” said a voice.

“Married!—condemned, you mean,” replied another, laughing. “You know they are both going into exile.”

They heard no more. Clement’s sudden effort to lead Fleurange away was powerless. She resisted it, and, leaving his arm without his being able to prevent it, she swiftly made her way to the front, and leaned against a tree. She saw the grille open—the carriage appeared; it drew near; at last she saw him! Yes; she saw Count George’s noble features, his smiling face, his radiant look, and she caught a glimpse of the black eyes and golden locks of the bride. Then it seemed to grow dark around her, and everything vanished from her thoughts as well as from her sight!

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Epilogue

—“No, my Fior Angela, I once more say no, as when you made the same request at Santa Maria that lovely evening in May while we were gazing at the setting sun over the cloisters. What has been changed? And why should God call you now to this retreat if he did not call you then?—Because you suffer still more? But, my poor child, you were suffering then. Life, you said, seemed ‘empty and cheerless, unsatisfactory and imperfect.’ And, indeed, you were not wrong. That is its real aspect when we compare it with the true life that awaits us. From that point of view nothing truly can give it the least attraction; but with this kind of disgust there is no sadness mingled. We are not sad when an object seems poor and valueless compared with another object wonderful and divine of which we are sure. As I have already told you, this is the disgust of the world whence springs the irresistible call to the cloister; but, as I likewise said, this divine voice, when it speaks to the soul, resounds alone, to the exclusion of all earthly voices. A flame is kindled that absorbs and extinguishes all others, even those earthly lights that are attractive and pure. That divine call has not been made to you. The earthly happiness you dreamed of has failed you, that is all. And this disappointment for the second time has inspired you with the same wish as before; but, as on that occasion, I believe if God claimed your life he would not have permitted such a heart as that of my Fleurange to be divided for a day!

“This time, it is true, everything is at an end, and without remedy. You are irrevocably separated from him to whom you gave your heart—allow me to say now, to whom you gave it unreasonably!—You shudder, my poor child, you find me cruel, and all the false brilliancy which fascinated you, now lights up anew the image still present and still dear to your imagination; nevertheless, I will go on.

“There is an earthly love which, if it lengthens the road that leads to God, does not, however, turn one from it—which, by the very virtues it requires, the sacrifices it imposes, and the sufferings that spring from it, often seconds the noblest impulses of the soul.

“Do you not feel now, Fleurange, that the foundation of such a love was wanting to yours? I perceived it at Santa Maria as soon as I heard your story to the end, and looked into the most secret recesses of your heart. I then understood why God had placed obstacles in your way, and imposed a sacrifice on you. Your sufferings appeared to me the expiation of an idolatry you did not realize the extent of.

“If you had shown any doubt or hesitation as to the course to be pursued, if you had been weakly desirous of sparing yourself and escaping the sacrifice imposed, perhaps I should at that time have expressed myself more severely. But you acted with firmness and uprightness, and I deferred revealing to you the secret malady of your heart till, with time, peace should be restored to you. Till then, what you suffered seemed to me a sufficient punishment.

“But it was not to be so. The temptation was to be renewed, and under a form impossible for my poor child to resist. She yielded to the generous, passionate impulse of her heart, and found in the very excess of her devotedness a means of satisfying her conscience which she confusedly felt the need of. But something more was essential: she must suffer still more—more than before. In short, the idol must be shattered, and this destruction seemed to involve the very breaking of her own heart!—

“But it is not so, Fleurange. Across the distance that separates us I would make my voice heard, and wish it possessed a divine power when I say to you: ‘Rise up and walk.’ Yes; resume your course through the life God gives you, and courageously bless him for having snatched you from the snare of a love not founded on him, which must have proved hollow sooner or later. Then look around, see whom you can console and aid; see also whom you can love; especially notice who loves you, and banish from your heart the thought, equivalent to blasphemy, which you express in saying, ‘My life is stripped of all that made it desirable!’—

“Some day, my Fior Angela, you will again recall these bitter, ungrateful words, and will, I assure you, see their falsity. If God did not create you to love him to the exclusion of those lawful affections which reflect a ray of his love, you were still less created to find rest in a love deprived of that light—a love whose sudden rending and keen anguish preserved you from proving its perishable nature and spared you the pain of irreparable deception!

“Once more, Fleurange, prostrate yourself before God, and give thanks: then rise up and act. No lingering pity over yourself, no dwelling regretfully on your deceived hopes and the pain you have suffered. Courage! Your heart has been weak, it yielded to fascination; but your volition as yet has never ceased to be strong. However rough the path of duty, it was enough for you to see it in order to walk in it without faltering. Courage, I say! You will live. You will do better than live—you will recover from all this, and recall the time that seemed so dark as that which preceded the real day that is to illumine your life.

“At first this letter will add to your sadness. You will feel yourself deprived of everything, even of the consolation you expected of me; but do not yield to the temptation of burning this letter after reading it. Keep it to read over again, and be sure that sooner or later the day will come when a sweet promise of happiness will respond at the bottom of your heart at reading it. You will then comprehend what were the prayers of your Madre Maddalena for you, dear Fleurange, for they will on that day have been heard!—”

This reply to the letter Fleurange wrote during the night of agitation which followed her interview with Vera we lay before our readers at its arrival at Rosenheim after her return from her sad journey; but one summer evening, two years after, the young girl, seated on a bench overlooking the river, read it over the second time. She was in her old seat, but her appearance was somewhat changed. A severe illness, resulting from the emotion and fatigue endured two years before, endangered her life, and to her convalescence had succeeded a malady slower, deeper, and more difficult to heal, against which all remedies, though energetically seconded by a resolute will, long remained ineffectual.

During this period of weakness Fleurange had never known before, life assumed a new and formidable aspect. For a long time she was unable to struggle actively against the double languor of illness and depression; she had to endure inaction without making it an additional torture to herself and others; in short, she was obliged to be constantly and silently on her guard against herself. She succeeded, however, accepting with grateful docility all the care that surrounded her. She did not repel her friends from her crushed heart, but, on the contrary, endeavored to convince them that their affection was sufficient, and that, once more with them, nothing was wanting. By degrees, it required no effort to say this. As the sun in spring‐time melts away the snow, then warms the earth and covers it with flowers, so, under the influence of their beneficent tenderness, everything began to revive in her heart and soul. Was it not delightful, as she lay half asleep on her chaise longue for long hours, to hear around her, like the warblings of birds, Frida’s caressing voice mingled with the tones of her cousin’s little children whom she loved to hold in her arms and caress when they awoke her? Was it not a consolation to rest her weary head on a bosom almost maternal? Was it not salutary to converse with her Uncle Ludwig when he wheeled his chair near the young invalid, and spoke of so many things worthy of her attention without ever turning it away from the highest of all? And Hilda? And Clara? And Julian and Hansfelt? Did they not all come with their constant affectionate interest, each one bringing, as it were, a flower to add its perfume to the air she breathed? Finally, was it nothing when she opened her eyes to meet the kind glance of her old friend who, after fearing to lose her, was never weary of gazing at her now she was again restored to life?

And what shall we say of him whom we have not yet named—him whose solicitude for her was not apparently greater than that of his parents and sisters, but who, during her long convalescence, ended by taking a place beside her which no one thought of disputing? Clement’s character has been badly delineated if, after the unexpected occurrence that restored freedom to his hopes, it is supposed he was prompt to admit them, and especially to express them. Nevertheless, since it was no longer an absolute duty to maintain a strong, constant control over himself; since the fear of betraying himself no longer obliged him to a restraint with his cousin which had extended to every subject, and ended by frequently obliging him to partially conceal from her the superiority of his mind and the rare nature of his intelligence, a change was wrought in him which he did not realize himself, and now gave to his physiognomy, the tone of his voice, and his whole person a wholly different character than before in the eyes of her to whom he thus appeared for the first time. She noticed it with surprise, and, when he stopped reading to express the thoughts that sprang spontaneously from his heart when moved, or his mind unimpeded in its flight, and touched on a thousand subjects hitherto deemed forbidden, she became thoughtful, and, in spite of herself, compared his eloquence of soul, whose source was so profound, and whose flight was sometimes so elevated, with the eloquence of another which once dazzled her, the only charm of which sprang from his carefully cultivated mind, and his mind alone. Every day she impatiently awaited this hour for reading or conversation. She already appreciated her cousin’s devotedness, the incomparable kindness of his heart, his trustworthiness, his energy, and his courage. She had given him credit for all these qualities before, and yet, all at once, it seemed as if she had never known him. She even asked herself one day if she had ever looked at him, so completely did the expression of his countenance—which beamed with what is most divine here on earth—a double nobleness of mind and soul—so fully did his look and smile atone for the imperfections already alluded to in Clement’s features, but which time had greatly modified to his advantage. She soon felt that, though she had always cherished a strong regard for her cousin, she had been unjust to him and never appreciated his real worth.

But the day, the hour, the moment when she discovered she had been not only unjust, but ungrateful, and even cruel, we cannot state, and perhaps she did not know herself. Was it the day when, after reading in a tremulous tone a passage that expressed what he dared not utter, he suddenly raised his eyes and looked at her as he had never done before? Was it on another occasion, when, playing one tune after another on his violin, he ended with that song without words which Hansfelt called Hidden Love, and suddenly stopped, incapable of continuing? Or was it when, towards the end of the second spring after their return, she had fully recovered, and he saw her for the first time in the open air standing near a rose‐bush with her hands full of flowers? Was it when he knelt to pick up one that had fallen at her feet, and remained in that position till she extended her hand and blushingly bade him rise? No matter. That day came, and not long before the one when we find her seated on the bench by the river‐side, attentively reading over the letter Madre Maddalena had written her two years before.

The young girl, as we have said, had changed somewhat since we last saw her. Her long illness had left some traces, but those traces which are an additional charm in youth, betokening the complete return of brilliant health. Fleurange’s form was more slender and supple; her complexion more transparent; her long hair, cut off during her illness, and now growing out again, encircled her youthful face with thick, silky curls—all this gave her something of the grace of childhood, and when she stood beside her cousin, whose tall stature and manly, energetic expression added the appearance of several years to his real age, it would never have been supposed she was not the younger of the two.

Motionless and absorbed, from time to time as she read her face colored and expressed a variety of emotions. But when she came to her own words: “My life is now stripped of all that made it desirable,” and what follows, “Some day, my Fior Angela, you will recall these bitter, ungrateful words, and will, I assure you, see their falsity,” she stopped short, and, raising her eyes full of tears to heaven, she said:

“Yes, Madre mia, you were right!” She covered her face with her hands, and remained a long time absorbed and overpowered by a flood of thoughts. In the depths of her memory, there were vague recollections of the past traced as if by lightning; and some almost forgotten scenes now rose before her like a confused dream.

That violent outburst of grief; the sobs he could not repress when he learned she was determined to go to George; and, later on, the words murmured on the ice when he thought the last hour of his life had come, scarcely heard at the time, and then speedily forgotten, came back to‐day like invisible writing brought out by the application of heat. The sentiments she had discovered only within a few days perhaps had long been experienced by Clement, if not always—and, if so, oh! then, how great had been his love and constancy, and what sufferings had he not endured for her sake! Alas! what had she not inflicted on that noble, faithful soul!

“Oh!” cried she aloud, “was there ever a person more blind, more ungrateful, more cruel than I?”

She stopped, started, and raised her head; she thought she heard her cousin’s step. She was not mistaken. He sought her in her favorite seat, and now stood before her in the same place where, three years before, she unwittingly caused him so much suffering as he looked at her. It was the same place, and the same season, and also the same hour. Daylight was fading away, and now, as then, the rising moon cast a silver ray over the charming face which he was again seeking to read. But this time his questioning look was comprehended, and the silent response of her beautiful eyes, as expressive as words, imparted to the heart that understood it one of those human joys reserved here below for those alone who are capable of a pure, constant, peculiar love—a love only worthy of being named after that for God.

We might now end this story, and lay down our pen, without attempting to describe the joy of the family when, as night came on, they saw the two absent ones return, and each one divined from their looks the nature of the conversation which tonight had detained them so long on the banks of the river. But towards the end of an evening so happy, Mademoiselle Josephine unintentionally made an exclamation it may not be useless to add:

“See! see!” she cried, in the exultation of her happiness, mingled with secret pride at her penetration, “how right I was in thinking Count George!—” She stopped confounded, suddenly recalling all past precautions, and fearing she had been imprudent in neglecting them.

But Fleurange unhesitatingly exclaimed: “Go on, dear mademoiselle, go on without any fear, and boldly pronounce a name I now neither shrink from nor seek to hear.” And, as she spoke, the remembrance of his past tortures crossed Clement’s memory, giving him a keener sense of his present happiness. She asked him, in a calm tone, “Is he still in exile, or has he been pardoned?”

Clement replied with a smile: “No, he has not been pardoned; he is still undergoing his sentence to the full extent.” After a moment’s silence, he added: “I had a letter from Adelardi this very morning which speaks of him.—Would you like to read it?”

At an affirmative nod from her, he took out his pocket‐book to find the letter. As he opened it, a little sprig of myrtle fell out. Fleurange immediately recognized it. “What! you still keep that?” said she, blushing.

Clement made no reply. He looked at it with emotion; it was a part of a carefully hoarded treasure, and for a long time the only joy of his hidden love! “Never, no never!” murmured he. “That was my reply that evening, Gabrielle, when you promised me a beautiful bride. Do you remember it?”

“Yes, for I had said the same words an hour before, and the coincidence struck me.”

“What can we think of it, now you are really the fiancée I dreamed of as impossible?”

“That our presentiments are often illusory—and our sentiments also, Clement,” added she, turning towards him her eyes veiled with tears which seemed to implore his pardon.

We will not say what Clement’s reply was; only, that it made them both completely forget Adelardi’s letter. We will, however, lay it before our readers, who may be less indifferent to its contents than he to whom it was addressed was for the moment. It was dated at Florence. The marquis, whose visits at Rosenheim had become annual, announced his speedy arrival, after which he continued:

“The poor Princess Catherine, after whom you inquire, has had a return of her malady, so many times cured, and it is now increased by dissatisfaction and annoyance more than by age. No one succeeds in taking care of her so well as she whom she still remembers. Each new attack renews her regrets, which have found no compensation in the gratification of her wishes. I have often remarked, however, that there is nothing like the realization of a desire to efface the remembrance of the ardor with which it was sought, and even the transport that hailed its fulfilment. It is certain the princess’ actual relations with her son are by no means satisfactory; they are affected by the ill‐humor of both parties. George’s exile would seem enviable to many; for the place he inhabits has everything to make it delightful excepting the liberty of leaving it, and this mars the whole. He can enjoy nothing, he says, because everything is forced upon him. There is reason, therefore, to fear the future he is preparing for himself and his wife is very ominous.

“The Countess Vera is a beautiful, noble woman, capable of self‐sacrifice to a certain point, but haughty, high‐tempered, and jealous to the last degree. She thought the sacrifice she made in marrying George in the position he was then in, would secure his unsteady heart, and bind him faithfully to her through gratitude. She saw only too soon it was not so, and that the comparative liberty he had regained was soon regarded as a weary bondage. Thence resulted scenes which more than once have disturbed the life whose monotony they are not allowed to break. Will you credit it? In one of them, Vera, in the height of her irritation and jealousy, betrayed the secret hitherto so well guarded, and declared in her anger that she regretted not having left him to the fate another was so ready to share with him. She afterwards had reason to regret her imprudence, for George exacted a complete revelation, and the remembrance thus suddenly revived and clad with the double charm of the past and the unattainable caused him in his turn to overwhelm her with the most bitter reproaches. I am not sure but he had the cruelty to tell her he should a thousand times have preferred the fate she saved him from to that he now had to endure with her!—There can only be one opinion as to this mirage of his imagination; but, after all this, you will not be surprised to hear that they both long with equal ardor for their liberty, which they must wait for two years longer. According to appearances, it will be as dangerous for one as for the other. The princess has realized and predicted this since her visit to Livonia last summer, where I accompanied her.

“During her stay, George did not spare her any reproaches, and they were the more keenly felt because she had for a long time seen that the result of her wishes had been a sacrifice of her own comfort and happiness through her opposition to what had at once deprived her of her son and the only companion that had ever satisfied her. And when she is dissatisfied, she must always vent her anger on some one besides herself. Whom do you think she reproached the other day before me for all her troubles? Gabrielle!—who, she said, did not know how to avail herself of her ascendency three years ago as she should, and to retain it!

“Since she has seen that I by no means sympathize in her regrets—which will not be shared by you either, I suppose, nor, I like to think, by her who inspires them—she is offended with me in my turn, and declares in a melancholy tone that all friends are unfeeling and all children ungrateful!—”

Clement’s reply to this letter hastened the marquis’ arrival. He had seen his young friend’s hopes spring up and develop, and would not for the world have been absent from Rosenheim on the day of their realization. William and Bertha, the discreet confidant who knew how to console Clement in his sufferings without questioning him, were the only friends, besides the marquis, who were admitted that day into this happy family. The wedding was as gay as Clara’s, but the newly married pair were graver and more thoughtful. They had both passed through severe trials, which now gave a certain completeness to their happiness, often wanting here below in the most joyful of festivals.

And they also, in their turn, set off for Italy, and it may be imagined that, among the places they visited together, the first to which their hearts led them was that where awaited the Madre Maddalena’s welcome and blessing. At their return, Mademoiselle Josephine’s house, improved and embellished, became their home, on the condition imposed by their old friend that she should dwell under their roof the remainder of her days.

Was their destiny a happy one? We can safely reply in the affirmative. Was it exempt from pains, sufferings, and sacrifices? We can deny that still more positively. But it was, however, enviable; for of all earthly happiness, they possessed what was most desirable, without ever forgetting that “life can never be perfectly happy because it is not heaven, nor wholly unhappy because it is the way thither.”(231)

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American Catholics And Partisan Newspapers

To Catholics, as such, the political discussions of a Presidential campaign have no special significance. Thus far no issues between the two chief parties have particularly affected us. Both have generally been careful not to offend us; and although in local elections questions touching our schools and charities have sometimes become prominent, in the larger contest our votes have been fairly divided between the Republican and the Democratic candidates. If there ever unfortunately arise a distinctively Catholic party in American politics, it will not be because Catholics are unwilling to co‐operate freely with their Protestant fellow‐ citizens in secular affairs, but because we have been thrown upon the defensive by some combination directly and designedly hostile to our religious interests. None know better than we do that there is no excuse in this country for uniting religious with political issues. Our constitution gives equal liberty and protection to all, and we should be sorry to have it otherwise, for we know that the church makes all the more rapid progress in the United States by reason of her absolute independence. Asking nothing of the state but fair play, she gives no excuse to her enemies for making any discrimination against her children. Her position has been generally understood and approved; and although there are fiery bigots at all times who rave about the dangerous designs of the papists, and affect to dread a crusade with torch and sword as soon as we get to be a little stronger, the good sense of the American people has usually treated these sectaries with the indifference they deserve.

We have intimated, however, in former numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that the chronic anti‐Catholic agitation might assume a new character which would require on our part a new attitude of resistance. A few years ago, when the settlement of the issues of the war first seemed to menace the dissolution of the Republican party, the most active leaders of that party began to cast about for a “new departure,” and one of their favorite plans for keeping the organization alive was the scheme of compulsory education by the general government. Of this project the Hon. Henry Wilson was a prominent advocate. It has not yet been formally brought into politics, for the party has been able to get along without it; but it has not been abandoned, and we need not be surprised if it be strongly pushed within the next few years. Now, Catholics look upon the question of religious education as one of paramount importance. They will not surrender the teaching of their children into the hands of Protestants and infidels; they will not consent, so far as their young people are concerned, to the separation of religious and secular instruction. Any party which seeks directly or indirectly to limit the usefulness or hamper the operations of Catholic schools, must prepare to encounter in Catholics a united and determined resistance.

Thus far no such conflict has arisen. We may hope that it never will arise. And yet, during the canvass that has recently closed, two of the leading organs of Republican opinion have opened a bitter and apparently concerted warfare upon the Catholics of the United States which we cannot help regarding as highly significant. In the midst of a Presidential campaign, political organs never make such attacks except for political reasons. The papers to which we refer are in close relations with the party leaders. The New York Times became for a time, when The Tribune abandoned orthodoxy, the principal Republican newspaper of the principal state in the Union. It is known to have reflected with tolerable accuracy the sentiments of the Republican managers in New York, and it has always said what it assumed to be acceptable at the White House. For a long time it has been notoriously unfriendly to Catholics. It has amused itself, in its heavy, witless way, laughing at what they hold sacred and abusing all that they respect. Until a few months ago, its offensive utterances seemed to be merely the occasional vulgarities of a bigotry that, did not know enough to hold its tongue. But when Mr. Francis Kernan was nominated for Governor of the State of New York, its assaults became more methodical, more vehement, and apparently more malicious. Mr. Kernan is a Catholic; so The Times instantly denounced him as “a bigot.” An utterly untrue pretence was made that Democrats were asking Irishmen to vote for him on account of his religion, and thus the point was insinuated rather than openly pressed that on account of his religion Protestants ought to vote against him. For the first time, to our knowledge, since Know‐Nothing days, the question of religious belief was dragged into the dirty arena of politics. Happily, the Catholics as a body kept their temper and their judgment during these infamous proceedings. They refused to be drawn into the discussion which The Times wanted to provoke, and even when that paper surpassed all its former disreputable acts by reproducing in its columns a forged handbill, showing the name of Francis Kernan surrounding a huge black cross, and told the public that such were the devices by which the Democratic candidate sought to inflame the fanatical zeal of his followers, the Catholics contented themselves with one word of indignant denial. It would have been a rash display of political courage to which we do not believe The Times capable of rising, if an open attack had been made upon the Catholic faith or Catholic morals. The Times was even frightened at its own frankness in scolding at Mr. Kernan for a bigot. It professed to be shocked at the introduction of religious affairs into the discussions of the campaign, and carried on a cowardly anti‐Catholic warfare under cover of repelling purely imaginary assaults. Of course this subterfuge was well understood by all parties. The Catholics knew that they had done nothing to draw this fire; the Protestants also knew it, and a great many of them were indignant at the transaction. Was The Times itself deceived? That is a question which perhaps we should not attempt to answer. In its wild bigotry, it is capable of believing almost any preposterous falsehood against us; but it is equally capable of inventing one. Some familiarity with the course of political controversies in the United States has convinced us that in a fight The Times sticks at nothing. It would rather stab an enemy in the back than kill him in open battle. It never gives fair‐play; it never makes amends for a wrong‐doing; it never withdraws a calumny. Everybody who has had a controversy with it will bear witness that it is not in the habit of telling the truth about its adversaries. That it is in the habit of consciously, or, to speak more correctly, deliberately, lying we do not go so far as to say. But there is a kind of falsehood very common with people of strong prejudices to which The Times is greatly addicted. It bears about the same relation to truth that hyperbole bears to historical statement. Let us suppose that The Times really imagines the Catholic Church to be a dangerous and immoral organization, and its bishops and supporters in this country to be engaged in an enterprise which ought to be resisted; with this conviction of the general wickedness of Catholic principles, it imagines itself justified in charging upon individual Catholics a variety of specific crimes for which it has no evidence whatever. Catholics are none too good to commit murder, we can imagine it saying; therefore let us accuse Francis Kernan of killing his grandmother. The Pope is an impostor; therefore it cannot be wrong to call Archbishop McCloskey a thief. Indeed, men who would blush to tell an untruth in private intercourse with their fellow‐men have no hesitation in publishing slanderous accusations which they suppose may “help their party”; and, if we should say that their conduct in doing so was to the last degree infamous, they would affect to be shocked by our strong language. The editor of The Times would think twice before he went into a club parlor, and publicly accused some prominent citizen of a criminal action, unless he had the strongest possible proof of the commission of the offence. But he makes such accusations every day in his newspaper, without knowing, and we presume without caring, whether they are true or not. Anybody whom he dislikes he regards as an outlaw. Anybody who comes in his way is a fit subject for the penitentiary. We saw a striking illustration of his entire insensibility to the demands of truth and honor in his behavior towards a rival newspaper a few weeks ago. At the close of the year, The Times made great efforts to secure the old subscribers of The Tribune, who were supposed to be dissatisfied with that paper’s recent declaration of political independence, and the means which it took to secure them was one which in any other business would have resulted in a suit for slander and a verdict in very heavy damages. The Times first circulated a report that The Tribune had sold itself to one of the most disreputable stock‐gamblers in Wall Street, and then assured the public that the circulation of its competitor had fallen away more than half, and was rapidly going down to nothing at all. Both these stories were well known to be entirely untrue, and, if the editor of The Times was not conscious of their falsity when he penned them, he might easily have learned the truth by a moment’s inquiry. But he did not want the truth. He wanted to say something damaging, and these were the most damaging things he could think of.

How much he succeeded in damaging Mr. Kernan by his campaign slanders against Catholics, we can guess from the figures of the election. Mr. Kernan received about 5,000 more votes for Governor than Mr. Greeley received in this State for President; but he received 5,000 fewer than the candidate for Lieutenant‐Governor on the same ticket. This loss is probably attributable directly to the anti‐Catholic feeling, for Mr. Kernan is a gentleman to whom no personal objection could possibly be made except on religious grounds. No doubt an equally large number of voters were repelled, by the bigotry The Times fostered, from supporting the Democratic and Liberal ticket at all; so that we shall not pass the bounds of probability if we estimate the fruit of prejudice and falsehood in this case as equivalent to ten thousand votes.

Catholics are used to injustice, and they are not quick to resent it. In America, the church has prospered under every sort of obstacle and discouragement short of the direct hostility of the government, and it is not likely that her course will be stayed by The New York Times. But it is well for us to look at the situation carefully, and judge who are our friends. If any political party is to make bigotry part of its stock in trade, we cannot help taking notice of such a declaration of hostilities, and we shall govern ourselves accordingly.

We have said that The Times and Harper’s Weekly appear in this matter to have acted in concert. Perhaps it is unfair to hold the party managers fully responsible for the utterances of these two violent newspapers; but we cannot forget that both journals are in close communion with the Republican administration, and that both have been governed during the campaign by the judgment of the Republican leaders. The editor of The Times enjoys the most intimate association with the federal organization popularly known as the “Custom‐house faction” in New York City; the editor of Harper’s Weekly is the personal friend of the President, and speaks the mind of the President’s chief advisers in Washington. If, then, these two papers have made a systematic assault upon the Catholic Church in the midst of a sharp political controversy, and have taken pains to give their furious Protestantism a direct political bearing, the party for which they speak must be prepared to face the responsibility. It should be observed, however, in justice to the sensible and unprejudiced members of the party, that Harper’s Weekly, though it may have been encouraged in its bitterness by partisan considerations, did not draw from such motives its first anti‐Catholic inspiration. It has always been our enemy. A spirit, of commercial fanaticism, the hatred of a religion which it will pay to abuse, has distinguished the firm of the Harpers ever since the public has known anything about them. The political campaign of 1872 made no difference in the tone of their paper; it merely gave force, and concentration, and regularity to the attacks which had previously been spasmodic.

How coarsely it attempted to turn to political account the religious bigotry upon which it had always traded may be seen in an article entitled “Our Foreign Church,” published in Harper’s Weekly of the 14th of September last. The writer starts with the assumption that all religious denominations in this country, except “the Romish Church,” patriotically renounced the authority of their European rulers when the American republic was founded. The Methodists “rejected the control in political and ecclesiastical matters of their founders”; the Presbyterians repudiated the General Assembly of Scotland; Episcopalians revolted from the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Jews “threw themselves boldly into the tide of American progress”; while the Catholic Church alone stood aloof, and “refused to separate itself from its European masters,” and conform its organization to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the United States. Ridiculous as this complaint sounds, it is no burlesque, but a faithful synopsis of the nonsense which Mr. Eugene Lawrence is permitted to print in Harper’s Weekly. A church of divine origin, according to this preposterous person, is to change its divine laws to conform to the requirements of temporary human institutions; and the political theories of Thomas Jefferson are to govern the ordinances of Jesus Christ. It is the glory of the true church that she is above all secular constitutions. She has seen the rise and fall of countless dynasties and states; she will survive the ruin, if every form of government now known upon earth shall be eventually overthrown. Empires, kingdoms, republics, are all alike to her. She was founded for all ages and all climes; she was not created, as Mr. Eugene Lawrence seems to think she ought to have been, for the exclusive benefit of the United States of America. This is a great country; but we presume that our constitution, amendments and all, occupies but an insignificant place in the divine order of the universe.

Obeying its heaven‐appointed head, who did not see fit to choose either Europe or America for the place of his human birth, the Roman Catholic Church in America, according to Harper’s Weekly, is a foreign body, and, therefore, dangerous (as all foreigners are) to the peace of society. “It is loud in its denunciations of American civilization;” it “furnishes three‐fourths of the criminals and the paupers who prey upon the Protestant community”; it never intermits its “attacks upon the principles of freedom”; and “its great mass of ignorant voters have been the chief source of our political ills.” Moreover, “the unpatriotic conduct of the Romish population in our chief cities during the rebellion is well known. They formed a constant menace and terror to the loyal citizens; they thronged the ‘peace meetings’; they strove to divide the Union; and when the war was over they placed in office their corrupt leaders, and plundered the impoverished community.” We are almost ashamed to copy, even for the purpose of denouncing it, this insult to the memory of our dead Catholic soldiers. There is not a man in the United States who does not know of the noble share of these outraged “Romish” troops in the terrible struggles of the civil war; not a man who is ignorant of the splendid record of the Irish regiments under the Union flag on every hard‐fought field from the first Bull Run to the last conflict before Richmond. “The Romish population of our chief cities” furnished the bone and sinew of more than one gallant army during those four sad years. They gave up their lives for the country of their birth or their adoption with a heroism that stirs every sensitive heart. Their priests followed the army on the march and into the fight. Their Sisters of Charity nursed the wounded and the sick. The greatest of their prelates, aided by another bishop who is still living, spent the last remains of his strength in defending the cause of the Union in hostile foreign capitals. Nothing, in fine, could be more magnificent than the patriotism with which the adherents of this “foreign church” sacrificed life and fortune for their country during its hour of need; and we have no language to define the infamy of endeavoring to make capital for Gen. Grant by maligning the devoted men whom he led to death at Shiloh and in the wilderness, and whose bravery, we are sure, he would be the last man to depreciate.

And now, continues the writer in the Weekly, as the Presidential election approaches, “our foreign church has assumed more openly than ever before the form of a political faction.” “Romish priests” and “Romish bishops” have taken the field as the partisans of Mr. Greeley, “the candidate of disunion and of religious bigotry”!—the italics are ours—and the church is engaged in an attempt “to place the fallen slaveholders once more in power.” For these statements we deliberately declare that there is no justification whatever. Mr. Eugene Lawrence invented them out of his own bigotry and malice; and when he had the folly and insolence to threaten us, as he did at the close of his article, with “the vengeance of the people,” he added to his untruthfulness a degree of hypocrisy which we have rarely seen equalled even in the publications of the house of Harper & Brothers. We say hypocrisy; but perhaps that is unfair. Mr. Lawrence may be silly enough to tremble at the bogies of his own devising. He may imagine that the rest of the world is as much afraid of the Pope as he is. He may fancy that the whole party of which he is such a hard‐working member is burning with desire to take the Jesuits by the throat and hang them on the nearest lamp‐post. If he did not suppose that a profitable market could be found for his sensational wares, he probably would not be at the trouble of the manufacture. If the “vengeance of the people” do not menace the Jesuits, it will certainly not be the fault of Mr. Lawrence. In the issue of the Weekly for Oct. 12, he had a furious narrative of “The Jesuit Crusade against Germany,” the points of which are substantially these: The Jesuits, with the aid of the Inquisition (of which they are the directors) and of a hired band of convicts and brigands, obtained the absolute mastery of the city of Rome and the papal government. The wretched people “cowered before their Jesuit rulers,” and within the crumbling walls of the guilty capital “priests and cardinals perpetrated their enormities unchecked and unseen.” They then, by means of their “lawless police,” overpowered the Œcumenical Council, and forced it, “by intimidation and bribes,” to accept the doctrine of infallibility, to curse liberty and education, and to set on foot a bloody crusade against political and intellectual freedom. This was in accordance with the Jesuits’ time‐honored policy. “The fierce and fanatical Loyola” used to burn heretics in Spain and Italy, and taught his followers that no mercy should be shown to such offenders. It was the Jesuits who set on foot the persecutions under Charles V. and Philip II., and “excited the unparalleled horrors of the Thirty Years’ War.” In 1870, they were getting ready for a new religious war. Napoleon III. was their chief backer. In fact, the attack upon Germany in 1870 was the result of a conspiracy between Rome and Paris, concluded at the council, and the purpose of the war was nothing less than the establishment of the Jesuit Order on the ruins of prostrate Germany! For this scheme _the Irish Catholics of Dublin, London, and New York __“__furnished men, sympathy, and possibly money.__”_ And now that the conspiracy has failed, and that the papists of France have been beaten (in spite of all the sinews of war so lavishly furnished by the Irish laborers and servant‐girls of New York), the Jesuits are getting, up another European convulsion. “The Romish Church, organized into a vast political faction, is stirring up war in Europe, calls upon France to lead another religious crusade, and promises the aid of all the chivalry of Catholicism in avenging the fall of Napoleon upon the German Empire.” It purposes to involve all the great states of Europe in a common ruin, “and erect the Romish See upon the wrecks of the temporal empires.” The pilgrimage of Lourdes is a part of this scheme. The Catholic Union is another. The International Society of Workingmen (of which the Jesuits are the secret instigators!) is another. Mr. Lawrence exhibits the venerable fathers in the unfamiliar garb of communists, and substitutes the red cap for the beretta with all the effrontery and nonchalance in the world. The Order which in one column is the detested safeguard of absolutism becomes in the next the raving propagandist of social anarchy, revolution, and universal democracy. Can any rational person after this condescend to dispute with Mr. Lawrence?

As in the other cases to which we have referred, there was a political moral to this story also. If we would avert this horrible era of blood and fire, said Harper’s Weekly, we must vote for General Grant, and stand up for the straight Republican ticket. Grant is the firm ally of Germany against Jesuitism. Grant is the champion of public schools against religious education. Grant is the enemy of all manner of Romish fraud and violence. Greeley is the friend of priests and persecutors, the foe of the Bible and education, the accomplice of that infamous “Jesuit faction” which “would rejoice to tear the vitals of American freedom, and rend the breast that has offered it a shelter”; and if he should be elected the “Jesuit Society” would celebrate the victory “like a new S. Bartholomew, with bells, cannon, processions, prayers at the Vatican,” and hasten “the rising of the Catholic chivalry ... in their sanguinary schemes against the peace and independence of Germany.” Such was the wicked nonsense with which Harper’s Weekly in the autumn of 1872 attempted to make political capital out of the ignorance and bigotry of its readers.

But this was not the worst. The Jesuits were not only conspirators against political and mental freedom, they were the principal enemies of the freed people of the South. Their society (risum teneatis, amici) had “allied itself with the Ku‐klux of Georgia and Mississippi”! And so infatuated was the Weekly with the monstrous folly of this tale that week after week it returned to the same slander. On Oct. 26 it printed a portrait of the Most Reverend Father‐General, accompanied with one of the most outrageous pages of falsehood and defamation ever put into type. “In our country,” says the author of the article, “the Jesuit faction has allied itself with the Ku‐ klux.” “The Jesuit Society assumes the guise of liberalism, and cheers on the rebel and Ku‐klux in their plots against the Union.” “In America the Jesuits link themselves with the Ku‐klux.” They do this because they hate the republic. They denounce, “with maledictions and threatenings, the course of modern civilization.”

“The world is in danger from the mad schemes of the triumphant society; it is rousing France to a new crusade with omens and pilgrimages; it threatens the German Empire with a war more disastrous and destructive than Europe has ever seen. It summons its adherents to the polls in Italy; it guides the elections of Ireland, terrifies Spain, and even disturbs the repose of London; and in our own country, so recently torn by civil war, the papal crusaders, linked by the tie of perfect obedience, stand ready to profit by our misfortunes, and to stimulate our internal dissensions; to crush those institutions that have ever reproached their own despotism, and destroy that freedom which is the chief obstacle to their perpetual sway.”

The picture which the Weekly draws of these dangerous brethren is horrible enough to throw a child into fits:

“A dreadful mystery still hangs over them. Their proceedings are secret, their purposes unknown. At the command of an absolute master, they wander swiftly among the throngs of their fellow‐men, eager only to obey his voice. Obedience is to the Jesuit the first principle of his faith, instilled into his mind in youth, perfected by the labors of his later years; he hears in the slightest intimations of his chief at Rome the voice of his God, the commands from heaven; and in the long catalogue of fearful deeds which history ascribes to the disciples of Loyola, the first impulse to crime must always have come from the absolute head of the Order, and its single aim has always been to advance the power of the Romish Church. Scarcely had its founder gained the favor of the Pope, and fixed his seat at Rome, when he revived the Inquisition. Italy trembled before the spectacle of ceaseless autos‐da‐fe; the tortures and the cries of dying heretics, the ruin of countless families, the flight of terrified and hopeless throngs from their native land to the friendly shelter of Germany and Switzerland, were the earliest fruits of the relentless teachings of Loyola. The Jesuits led the armies of the persecutors into the beautiful Vaudois valleys, and the worst atrocities of that mournful example of human wickedness are due to their brutal fanaticism. Soon they spread from Italy through all the kingdoms of Europe; everywhere they brought with them their fierce and cruel hatred of religious freedom, their cunning, their moral degradation, their bold and desperate policy. They ruled in courts; they terrified the people into submission; they were the most active politicians of their time; their wealth was enormous; their schools and colleges spread from Paris to Japan; and for three centuries the name of the Jesuits, covered with the infamy of the massacres of the Vaudois, the Huguenots, the Hollanders, and the Germans, surrounded by its terrible mystery, the symbol of a dark and dreadful association, has filled mankind with horror and affright.”

The practical conclusion to be drawn from all this rhetoric was that everybody, and especially every German, ought to vote for Gen. Grant and the straight Republican anti‐Jesuit ticket. It was the Jesuits who “nominated Mr. Greeley, a person known to be in friendly connection with the Romish leaders and closely linked to the Papal Church.” The Jesuits “cover Grant with monstrous calumnies, and celebrate the erratic Greeley.” “Let every German beware lest he lend aid to the enemies of his country. Let him shrink from the support of any candidate who is maintained by the influence of the Jesuits.” “We trust every sincere Protestant ... will labor ceaselessly to defeat the schemes of the Jesuits, and drive their candidate back to a merited obscurity.” And in the same number we find the following wicked paragraph:

“A Jesuit, the Rev. Mr. Renaud, was appointed some time ago by Archbishop McCloskey to superintend the Romish interest in our city charities. The result was at once apparent. The Jesuits excited a revolt in the House of Refuge. One of the keepers was murdered. One of the convicts was sent to the State prison. The rebellion was subdued; but the Jesuits still defend the murderer, and assail with calumnies the House of Refuge, one of the most valuable and successful of our city institutions. This is a curious confirmation of that dangerous character of the Jesuit Society which is painted upon a larger scale in our article in the present number on ‘The Jesuits.’ ”

The next slander of the Weekly was to identify Tweed with the Jesuits. “When the Romish priests,” says this astonishing journal (Nov. 2, 1872), “at the command of their foreign master, began their assaults upon the public schools, they found a ready ally in the Tammany Society.... Tammany became the representative of a foreign influence and a foreign church. It was European rather than American. It teemed with the coarse prejudices, the dull ignorance, the intense moral blindness that to American sentiment are so repulsive, with that mental and moral feebleness that belongs to populations racked by the despot and oppressed by the priest.” An infamous compact was now struck between Tammany and the Papal Church. The “Romanists” supported the political leaders in riotous license, gross vices, and indecent corruption; while an enormous debt was laid upon the city “to satisfy the demands of the Romish priests.” Thus Tammany, by the aid of its foreign allies, became despotic master of New York.

“Covered with the ineffaceable stains of treason and of public robbery, its members attempted to rule by force, and in the spring of 1871 New York lay at the mercy of rebels, peculators, and foreign priests. The press was threatened, whenever it complained, with violence, lawsuits, and the frowns of infamous courts. The Common Council was imported from Ireland, and foreign assassins threatened the lives of those ardent citizens who planned reform.”

The overthrow of the Tweed and Connolly Ring was a stunning defeat for the Pope and his agents. The nomination of Greeley and Kernan (the one openly, the other secretly; a slave of the Jesuits and the Inquisition) was a desperate attempt of the Jesuits to recover what they had lost. And then followed the usual homily, “Vote for Grant,” etc.

In this bitter political campaign against the church the writers for Harper’s Weekly were zealously assisted by their artist, Mr. Thomas Nast. This individual has done more to degrade his profession than any other draughtsman we know of, except, perhaps, the makers of lascivious pictures for some of the flash newspapers. He has made a practice of ridiculing the religious belief of hundreds of thousands of honest people who came to America, as he did, from a foreign land, because America offers to all immigrants the fullest measure of political equality and religious freedom. It has been his pleasure to depict the priest invariably as a sleek, sensual, brutal, and repulsive rogue; the bishop as a grim, overbearing, and cunning despot, or now and then as a crocodile crawling with open jaws towards a group of children. In the Weekly of Oct. 12, he represents Brother Jonathan attempting to sever the tie which binds an American bishop to the Pope, holding out, as he does so, a naturalization paper inscribed “This ends the foreign allegiance.” The Pope has his arms full of papers: “Orders to all state officials that are Roman Catholics”; “Down with the American public schools”; “The promised land, U. S.,” etc.; and the bishop carries similar documents: “Orders from the Pope of Rome to the Catholics in America”; “Vote for Horace Greeley”; “Vote for Kernan; he is a Roman Catholic, and will obey the orders of the church.” Another picture, entitled “Swinging around the circle,” was intended to represent all the disreputable supporters of Mr. Greeley in company. “Free love and Catholicism” were side by side, in the persons of Theodore Tilton and a priest, and “Mass and S. C.” figured as a conventional Irishman with one of the Ku‐klux. Mr. Kernan was drawn (Nov. 2) kneeling, in an abject attitude, at the feet of the Pope (“Our Foreign Ruler”), and swearing, “I will do your bidding, as you are infallible”; in the background stood a priest loaded with papal orders against the public schools; and on the wall was a copy of the forged handbill, with the legend, “For governor, Francis Kernan,” surrounding a black cross. In a picture of the “Pirates under False Colors,” a priest with a cross held aloft in one hand, and a tomahawk half hidden in the other, is a conspicuous figure in a gang of ruffians. In another cartoon a vulgar‐ looking priest is seen sprinkling the ruins of Tammany Hall with holy‐ water.

Now, we know very well that from one point of view the introduction of these calumnies into politics was fraudulent. Mr. Greeley certainly had no leaning towards the Catholic Church and no affiliations with Catholic leaders, and Gen. Grant, we venture to affirm, is insensible to the bigotry which his unworthy followers brought up as a reason for his re‐ election. We have nothing to ask of any President, and we give our votes according to our individual preferences. But while we do not purpose acting as a religious body in any political movement, we do not purpose either to be set aside by any political party as an outlawed and degraded people, upon whom venal pamphleteers and ignorant politicians may trample at pleasure. If party organs take pains to attack us, and pour out, day after day, and week after week, their filthy libels upon us, the party which sanctions such a warfare and tries to reap the fruits of it shall bear the responsibility. The Catholics of the United States are too numerous, too intelligent, and too public‐spirited to be treated with contempt by any faction, whether that faction call itself Liberal, or Republican, or Democratic. We prefer, as we have often said before, to let the politicians alone, and go our various ways in quiet, some after one leader, some after another. But it may as well be understood that, if any of these parties invite an irrepressible conflict with us, they will find out, we trust, that we are not disposed to flinch from the defence of our rights, which are identical with the rights of all other American citizens.

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