Chapter II (part 2 of 2)

Chapter II (part 2 of 2)

"And a hat with such a curly brim," continued Jim imperturbably. "Well, it was in the summer, the only time I really was hungry--I don't mean the summer, but that that occasion was the only one when I was nigh starving--and I and two friends, who had helped me to empty my purse, were at Bath. None of us had any money left; in fact, they never had of their own, but were of those whose tongue is their fortune; but hungry we all were, and must have something to eat. 'I have it!' I cried, for I was not a bad hand at imagination, 'Follow me to the White Hart;' and on the way I explained my plan. You will hear later what it was. Now, you will say, Mr. Mayor, that I had better have laid myself down by a haystack, and slept there on an empty stomach; and indeed, after a good supper, such as we had to-night, it would be easy enough for me to say so; but just then it wasn't likely to be my opinion. So we walked into the hotel, as bold as kings, and ordered a private room and dinner for three--French soups and oyster patties, fish and game, and foreign sauces and ale, just as I knew it should be, and Madeira and champagne, of course. When we had done (and, in the intervals when the waiter had gone for the next course, we pocketed as much as our pockets would stand of anything that was solid), we called for the bill, and the waiter brought it, as pompous as you will, on a silver salver. I put my hand in my pocket, whereupon one of my friends, he says: 'Come, come, I'll stand this; it was I who proposed it and chose the wines.' And he puts his hand in his pocket. 'Bless me!' cries the other. 'Gentlemen, I protest; it was I who ordered the dinner, and I request, as a favor, you let me pay; the cost is but a trifle." And he put his hand in his pocket. The waiter stood grinning and smirking, and thinking this great fun. "'An idea strikes me,' I then said. 'Waiter, we'll blindfold you and shut the door, and whoever you catch first will settle the bill.' At this my friends clapped their hands, and the waiter, as proud as a peacock at the condescension of such fine young gentlemen, gives us a napkin to tie over his eyes, and lets us spin him round two or three times, that he may begin fair. 'Now!' I cried, and he began feeling about, afraid to upset the table; but he knew the room well, and went first to a closet beside the further door. While he made a noise opening it and feeling inside, I slid to another door, and gently pushed it ajar. In a twinkling we were all three walking leisurely out of the White Hart, looking like independent gentlemen, who did the host the great honor of approving of his cook! That afternoon, we drew lots which should sell his fine suit to pay travelling expenses, and it fell on me; so good-by to my gay plumage, says I, and never dropt a tear, but got the money and played valet to the other two till we got to London, where I made them pay me what they owed through a lucky stroke at cards. And then we parted company, nothing loath on my side. So that is how I read the saying, 'The Lord helps them as helps themselves.'"

Every one smiled at the privileged old man, though Philippa held up a warning forefinger and whispered: "Grandpapa told me once that you were not half so bad as you make yourself out to be. Why did you not put on ladies' clothes, and go and beg for a dinner? They could not have said no to a pretty face, and it would have been better than stealing."

"Hark at that!" said Uncle Jim aloud. "You women are born to fool us. If I had my life to begin again, I should take advantage of that suggestion. The truth was, high society ruined me; and here I am, a destitute waif without a home. It is the first chapter of the Prodigal Son; but I shall never get into the second."

He looked with comical gravity at Mr. Mason, whose glance of affectionate amusement perfectly satisfied him in return; and then the old man, drawing Philippa towards him, said gently to her:

"On your next birthday, as you know, child, you will become entitled to all my fortune, and with this present will enter, too, into great responsibilities. Now, to give you an idea of what wealth is, what it can do, and how grave a trust it is, I will tell you a story too, but more humbly than good Uncle Jim, because my fault was more reckless, and because God has been more merciful to me in making it bring forth real good. Your father and your uncles were all little things then, and do not remember it, except very dimly; and since that Christmas, forty years ago, I have never repeated the tale."

And in simple, forcible language the Mayor of Carthwaite told his grandchild the story of the distress in Weston in the year 18--, the famine and the wretchedness, the temptations of starving men, and finally the incident in which Mr. Stamyn and the poor shoemaker had figured side by side forty years ago. "And your grandmother and I have prayed for that good man every night without ever missing," added the old man, "and taught your father to do so; you yourself, child, have prayed for the kind friend, whose conversion to the true faith was our greatest wish. But his name and what his kindness was I never told a soul till now."

Philippa was silent. Uncle Jim hid his face, and sobbed. The old couple clasped hands by the fireside, and looked into each other's faces, as they remembered the bare attic where they had shivered and starved, and been nearly driven to become criminals by the sheer force of hunger. Nearly two generations had passed, and they were still together, thanking God that he had put it into the heart of man to relieve his fellow-man that night, when a life of crime and disgrace had so nearly begun to drag them down to the level of a "jail-bird." Philippa crept up to them softly, and kissed them both.

"I understand your life and your charities so much better now," she said; "and when I have the same responsibility thrust upon me, believe me, I will do as you have done."

The bells began to chime, and the party bestirred themselves to go over to the chapel, where the midnight Mass was to be said for the last time. To-morrow the church was to be opened, and dedicated to "Our Lady and S. Crispin," and the chapel was to become a school. Uncle Jim was Philippa's special escort, for the old couple would never separate.

"Did you know that story?" she whispered to him as they crossed the silent streets.

"Ay, but he told me never to speak of it till he gave me leave. He did not tell you who the lad was that spied upon him that night; it was poor Uncle Jim."

Philippa looked aghast.

"Yes," he went on, "and I left Mr. Stamyn some years after, and tried to live as a gentleman on my earnings; but, as I told you in jest, a heap of rascals helped me to empty my purse, and it was soon drained of all. I remembered your grandfather, had taken a fancy to him in Weston, went back, and found him. He took me in, and was very good to me, useless as I was. I was always a shiftless fellow, and never could keep what money I got. So he thought it better just to keep me at home, and I tried to be useful, and could be, too, when there was no question of money; and so it has been for nigh a score of years. Here we are at the chapel. That's one thing I never saw--your religion; but then, Mr. Mason is the best man I ever saw, and he's a Catholic. Anyways, there's no other religion I like better."

And Uncle Jim went in and decorously assisted at the service, just as if it was quite familiar to him and he liked it. I suspect he did, as far as he understood it. What the Masons believed could not be very far wrong.

The next morning there was a grand ceremony at the new church, and an unlimited amount of beef and pudding distributed by tickets among the poorer inhabitants of Carthwaite. After service, a carriage drove up to Mr. Mason's door.

A very old gentleman, followed by a much younger one, stepped out, and inquired for the mayor. They were shown into the study, where all the Masons--cousins, uncles, etc.--had now assembled. The servant announced "Mr. Stamyn."

Uncle Jim, recovering the instincts of his youth, suddenly stood up respectfully before his former master, who, however, did not seem to have the slightest recollection of him.

Mr. Stamyn went up to Mrs. Mason. "My dear friends," he said, "you both told me not to forget your name; it was five years ago that I returned to Weston, and I did not fail to make inquiries, but hardly hoping that I should find you. They told me you had left, and I was lucky enough to find a clue to your subsequent career. I need not say how happy I am to redeem my promise to visit you again; I should certainly have been so, had I found you still in smoky old Weston, but here doubly."

Every one, especially Philippa, was struck by the old-time courtesy, precise, formal, yet most cordial, with which Mr. Stamyn spoke; his young companion glanced admiringly at the girl, instinctively distinguishing her from the more buxom damsels assembled round the family hearth--her cousins of Manchester and Carthwaite. Mr. Mason asked his friend and patron to stay with them, and sit at his board as the chief Christmas guest; he gladly complied, and said laughingly that he had expected to be asked. It was not until after the family meal that Uncle Jim revealed himself to his former master. His awkward self-consciousness and hurried glances had amused Mr. Stamyn in secret all the time, though his own perfectly controlled manner had given no sign of surprise or amusement; but when Jim, mysteriously bending over Mr. Stamyn's chair, feelingly asked what had become of the boy James, the old gentleman's eyes began to twinkle with premonitory signal-fire.

"He left me a few years after our Weston adventure, and, I very much fear, went to the devil!" was the answer.

"No, sir; Mr. Stamyn," said Jim, shaking with excitement, "he went to Mason."

"James," said his master seriously, "you could not possibly have done better; I congratulate you."

Uncle Jim looked triumphantly at Philippa, who was talking to the young man, Mr. Stamyn's companion. By her next birthday she was married to him--he was Mr. Stamyn's great-nephew and heir--but the two old men did not live to see another Christmas. Mrs. Mason and Uncle Jim remain yet, and tell the story to the rising generation.

THE SONG OF ROLAND.

CONCLUDED.

The night flies away, and the white dawn appears. Charles, the majestic emperor, mounts his charger, and casts his eye over the army. "My lords barons," he says, "behold these dark defiles, these narrow gorges. To whom do you counsel me to give the command of the rear-guard?"

"To whom?" replies Ganelon. "To whom but to my son-in-law Roland? Is he not a baron of great valor?"

At these words the emperor looks at him, saying, "You are a very devil! What deadly rage has entered into you?"

Roland approaches; he has heard the words of Ganelon. "Sire father-in-law," he says, "what thanks do I not owe you for having asked for me the command of the rear-guard! Our emperor, be assured, shall lose nothing; neither steed nor palfrey, cart-horse nor sumpter-mule, shall be taken, or our swords shall make more than the price."

"I believe it well," rejoins Ganelon.

"Ah! son of an accursed race!" cries Roland, who can no longer contain his anger, "thou thoughtest that the glove would fall from my hands as it did from thine." Then, turning to the emperor, he prays him to give into his hand the bow which he grasps with his own.

The emperor's countenance darkens; he hesitates to place his nephew in the rear-guard. But the Duke de Naymes says to him, "Give the bow to Count Roland; the rear-guard belongs to him of right, since none other could conduct it so well as he."

And the emperor gives Roland the bow, saying, "My fair nephew, know you what I desire? I would leave with you the half of my army. Take it, I pray you; it shall be for your safety."

"Nay," cries Roland, "I will have no such thing. God forbid that I should belie my race! Leave me twenty thousand valiant Frenchmen, and set out with all the rest. Pass at ease through the defiles, and, while I am alive, fear no man in the world."

Roland mounts his charger. He is joined by his faithful Oliver, then Gérer, then Berenger, and the aged Anséis, Gérard of Roussillon, and the Duke Gaifier. "I, too, will be there," says the Archbishop Turpin, "for I ought in duty to follow my chief."

"And I also," says Count Gauthier. "Roland is my liege-lord, and I must not fail him."

The vanguard begins its march.

How lofty are these peaks! What sombre valleys! How black the rocks; the defiles how profound! The French, in these dark gorges, seem oppressed with sadness. The sound of their footsteps may be heard full fifteen leagues away.

When they draw near to their mother-country, within sight of the land of Gascony, they call to mind their fiefs and their possessions, their tender children and their noble wives. The tears start into their eyes--those of Charles most of all; for his heart is heavy at the thought that he has left Roland among the mountains of Spain.

He hides his face with his mantle. "What ails you, sire?" asks the Duke Naymes, riding by his side.

"Is there any need to ask?" he answers. "In the grief that I am in, how can I refrain from groaning? France will be undone by Ganelon. In a dream this night an angel has made this known to me. He broke my lance in my hands--he who caused me to give the rear-guard to Roland, leaving him in this ungentle land. Heavens! were I to lose Roland, I should never see his like again!"

Charles wept; and a hundred thousand Frenchmen, touched by his tears, shuddered as they thought upon Roland. Ganelon, the felon, has sold him for gold and silver, and shining stuffs; for horses, and camels, and lions.

King Marsilion has sent for all the barons of Spain: dukes, counts, and viscounts, emirs and sons of the senators. He assembles four thousand of them in three days.

The drums beat in Saragossa; the image of Mahomet is set on its highest tower; and there is no pagan who does not feel himself inflamed at the sight. Then, behold, all the Saracens set forth, riding at double speed into the depths of these long valleys. By dint of haste, they have come in sight of the gonfalons of France and of the rear-guard of the twelve brave peers. By evening they lie in ambush in a wood of fir-trees on the sides of the rocks. Four hundred thousand men are hidden there, awaiting the return of the sun. O heavens! what woe! for the French knew naught of this.

The day appears. Now it is the question in the Saracen army who shall strike the first blow. The nephew of Marsilion caracoles before his uncle. "Fair my lord the king," he says, with a joyful countenance, "in severe and numerous combats I have served you so greatly that I ask as a reward the honor of conquering Roland."

Twenty others follow in turn to boast before Marsilion. One says: "At Roncevaux I am going to play the man. If I find Roland, all is over with him. What shame and sorrow for the French! Their emperor is so old that he is imbecile. He will not pass another day without weeping." "Never fear," says another. "Mahomet is stronger than S. Peter! I will meet Roland at Roncevaux; he cannot escape death. Look at my sword; I will measure it against his Durandal, and you will then soon hear which is the longest." "Come, sire," says a third, "come and see all these Frenchmen slain. We will take Charlemagne, and make a present of him to you, and will give you the lands of the rest. Before a year is over, we shall have fixed ourselves in the town of St. Denis."

While they thus excite each other to the combat, they contrive, behind the fir-wood, to put on their Saracen coats of mail, lace on their Saragossa helmets, gird on their swords of Viennese steel, seize their shields and their Valencian lances, surmounted by white, blue, and scarlet gonfalons. They mount neither mules nor palfreys, but strong steeds, and ride in close ranks. The sun shines; the gold of their vestments sparkles and gleams; a thousand clarions begin to sound.

The French listen. "Sire companion," says Oliver, "we may soon have battle with the Saracens."

"God grant it!" replies Roland. "Let us think of our king. We ought to know how to suffer for our lord, bear heat and cold, let our skin be slashed, and risk our heads. Let every one be ready to strike hard blows. We must take heed to what sort of songs may be sung of us. You have the right, Christians, and the pagans the wrong. Never shall bad example be given you by me."

Oliver climbs a tall pine-tree, looks to the right in the wooded valley, and beholds the Saracen horde approaching. "Comrade," he cries to Roland, "what a din and tumult is there on the Spanish side! Heavens! how many white halberds and gleaming helmets! What a rough meeting for our French! Ganelon knew it--the felon! the traitor!"

"Peace, Oliver," answers Roland. "He is my father-in-law; speak not of him."

Oliver dismounts. "Lords barons," he says, "I have seen even now so great a multitude of these pagans that no man here below has ever beheld the like. We shall have a battle such as there has never been before. Ask God for courage!" And the French reply: "Woe to him that flees! To die for you, not one of us all will be found wanting."

"Roland, my comrade," says the prudent Oliver, "these pagans are a multitude, and we are very few. Heed me, and sound your horn; the emperor will hear, and will lead back the army."

"Do you take me for a madman?" answers Roland. "Would you have me lose my honor in sweet France? Let Durandal do its work--strike its heavy blows, and steep itself in blood to the haft; all these pagans are as good as dead, I warrant you!"

"Roland, my comrade, sound your olifant, that the emperor may hear and come to your aid."

"Heaven keep me from such cowardice! Count upon Durandal; you will see how it will slay the pagans."

"Roland, my comrade, sound your olifant, that the emperor may hear it and return."

"Please God, then, no!" replies Roland once more. "No man here below shall ever say I sounded my horn because of the pagans. Never shall like reproach be brought against my race!"

"What reproach? What would you have people say? These Saracens cover the valleys, the mountain, the high-lands, and the plains. I have just beheld it, this innumerable host; and we are but a feeble company."

"My courage grows at the thought," says Roland. "Neither God nor his angels will suffer it that by me our France shall lose her renown. Sire comrade, and my friend, speak no more to me thus. We will stand our ground. For us will be the blows; our emperor wills it. Among the soldiers he has confided to us there is not a single coward; he knows it. Our emperor loves us because we strike well. Strike, then, thou with thy lance, and I with my good sword Durandal--Charles' gift to me. If I die, he who gets it shall be able to say, this was a brave man's sword!"

At this moment, the Archbishop Turpin put spurs to his horse, gained an eminence, and, calling the French around him, said to them, "Lords barons, our emperor has left us here, and for him we ought to die well. Remember that you are Christians. The battle draws on; you see it. The Saracens are there. Call to mind your sins; cry God's mercy. I will absolve you for the health of your souls. If you die, you will all be martyrs, and will find good place in the heights of Paradise!" The French dismount from their horses, and kneel on the ground, while the archbishop blesses them on the part of God, and for their penance bids them strike hard blows. Absolved and rid of their sins, they rise and remount their horses.

Roland, in his shining armor, is beautiful to behold, mounted on his good charger, Vaillantif. The golden reins ring in his hand, and on the top of his lance, which he holds with its point to heaven, floats a white gonfalon. The brave knight advances with a clear and serene countenance, followed by his companion, and then by all these noble French, whose courage he makes strong. He casts his lofty glance upon the Saracens, and, gently turning his head to those about him, says, "March, my lords barons, without haste. These pagans are hastening to their destruction." While he speaks, the two armies approach, and are about to accost each other.

"No more words," cries Oliver. "You have not deigned to sound your olifant. There is nothing to expect from the emperor; nothing for which to reproach him. The brave one, he knows not a word of that which is befalling us; the fault is none of his. Now, my lords barons, hold firm, and for the love of God, I pray you, let us not fear blows; let us know how to give and take. Above all, let us not forget the cry of Charlemagne." Whereupon the French all shouted, Montjoie! Whoso had heard them would never all his life lose the remembrance of that shout.

Then they advance--heavens! with what boldness. To be brief, the horsemen have charged. What better could they do?

The pagans do not draw back; the mêlée begins. They provoke each other by word and gesture. The nephew of Marsilion, with insult in his mouth, flies upon Roland. Roland with one stroke of his lance lays him dead at his feet. The king's brother, Falsaron, desires to revenge his nephew's death; but Oliver forestalls him by planting his lance in his body. A certain Corsablix, one of these barbarian kings, vomits forth slanders and bravadoes. Abp. Turpin hearing him, bears down upon him in full force, and with his lance stretches him dead upon the ground. Each time that a Saracen falls the French cry, Montjoie!--the shout of Charlemagne.

Defiances and combats succeed each other fast on every side; everywhere the French are the conquerors; there is not a pagan who is not overthrown. Roland advances, thrusting with his lance as long as there remains a fragment of its wood in his hand. But at the fifteenth stroke the lance breaks; then he draws his good sword Durandal, which carves and slices the Saracens right valiantly, so that the dead lie heaped around him. Blood flows in torrents around the spot, and over his horse and his arms. He perceives in the mêlée his faithful Oliver breaking with the but-end of his lance the skull of the pagan Fauseron. "Comrade," cries Roland, "what do you? Of what use is a stick in such a fight? Iron and steel are what you need. Where is your Hauteclaire--your sword hafted with crystal and gold?"

"I cannot draw it," said the other. "I have to strike the blows so thick and fast, they give me too much to do."

Nevertheless, with knightly skill he snatches it from its scabbard, and holds it up to Roland, the next moment striking with it a pagan, who falls dead, and cutting also through his gold-enamelled saddle and his horse to the chine. "I hold you for my brother," cries Roland. "Such are the blows which our emperor loves so much." And on all sides they cry, Montjoie!

How the fight rages! What blows fall on every side! How many broken lances covered with blood! How many gonfalons torn to shreds! And, ah! how many brave Frenchmen there lose their youth! Never more will they see again their mothers, their wives, or their friends in France, who wait for them beyond the mountains!

During this time, Charles groans and laments: to what purpose? Can he succor them by weeping? Woe worth the day that Ganelon did him the sorry service of journeying to Saragossa! The traitor will pay the penalty; the scaffold awaits him. But death, meanwhile, spares not our French. The Saracens fall by thousands, and so, also, do our own; they fall, and of the best!

In France, at this very hour, arise tremendous storms. The winds are unchained, the thunder roars, the lightning glares; hail and rain fall in torrents, and the earth trembles. From S. Michael of Paris to Sens, from Besançon to the port of Wissant, not a place of shelter whose walls do not crack. At mid-day there is a black darkness, lit up only by the fire of the lightnings; there is not a man who does not tremble; and some say that, with the end of the century, the end of the world is coming. They are mistaken; it is the great mourning for the death of Roland.

Marsilion, who until then had kept himself apart, has beheld from afar the slaughter of his men; he commands the horns and clarions to sound, and puts in motion the main body of his army.

When the French behold on every side fresh floods of the enemy let loose upon them, they look to see where is Roland, where is Oliver, where are the twelve peers? Every one would seek shelter behind them. The archbishop encourages them all. "For God's sake, barons, fly not! Better a thousand times die fighting! All is over with us. When this day closes, not one of us will be left in this world; but paradise, I promise you, is yours." At these words their ardor rekindles, and again they raise the cry, Montjoie!

But, see there Climorin, the Saracen who at Marsilion's palace embraced Ganelon and gave him his sword. He is mounted on a horse more swift than the swallow, and has even now driven his lance into the body of Angélier de Bordeaux. This is the first Frenchman of mark that has fallen in the mêlée, and quickly has Oliver avenged him; with one blow of his Hauteclaire the Saracen is struck down, and the demons bear away his ugly soul. Then this other pagan, Valdabron, strikes to the heart the noble Duke Sanche, who falls dead from the saddle. What grief for Roland! He rushes on Valdabron, dealing him a blow which cleaves his skull, in sight of the terrified pagans. In his turn, Abp. Turpin rolls in the dust the African Mancuidant, who has just slain Anséis. Roland overthrows and kills the son of the King of Cappadocia; but what mischief has not this pagan done us before he died? Gérin and Gérer, his comrade, Berenger, Austore, and Guy de Saint Antoine, all died by his hand.

How thin our ranks are growing! The battle is stormy and terrible. Never saw you such heaps of dead, so many wounds, and so much blood flowing in streams on the green grass. Our men strike desperate blows. Four times they sustain the shock, but at the fifth they fall, saving sixty only, whom may God spare! for dearly they will sell their lives.

When Roland sees this disaster, "Dear comrade," he says to Oliver, "how many brave hearts lying on the ground! What grievous loss for our sweet France! Charles, our emperor, why are you not here? Oliver, my brother, what shall be done, and how shall we give him of our tidings?"

"There is no means," answers Oliver; "it is better to die than shamefully to flee."

"I will sound my olifant," says Roland. "Charles will hear it in the depths of the defiles, and, be assured, he will return."

"Ah! but what shame! And of your race, my friend, do you then think no more? When I spoke of this anon, nothing would you do, nor will you now, at least not by my counsel. Your arms are bleeding; you have not now the strength to sound it well."

"Sooth, but what hard blows I have been giving! Nevertheless, we have to do with too strong a force. I will blow my olifant, and Charles will hear."

"Nay, then, by no means shall you do this thing, and by my beard I swear it. Should I ever see again my noble sister, my dear Aude, never shall you be in her arms!"

"Wherefore this anger?" Roland asks.

"Comrade," the other answers, "you have lost us! Rashness is not courage. These French are dead through your imprudence. Had you believed me, the emperor would have been here, the battle would be gained, and we should have taken Marsilion, alive or dead. Roland, your prowess has cost us this mishap. Charles, our great Charles, we never shall serve more."

The Archbishop Turpin hears the two friends, and runs to them, exclaiming, "For God's sake, let alone your quarrels! True, there is no longer time for you to sound your horn; but it is good, notwithstanding, that the emperor should return. Charles will avenge us, and these pagans shall not return into their Spain. Our French will find us here, dead and cut to pieces, but they will put us into coffins, and with tears and mourning carry us to be laid in the burial-grounds of our monasteries; at least, we shall not be devoured by dogs, or wolves, or wild boars."

"It is well spoken," answers Roland; and forthwith he puts the olifant to his lips, and blows with all the strength of his lungs. The sound penetrates and prolongs itself in the depths of these far-reaching valleys. Thirty long leagues away the echo is repeating itself still!

Charles hears it; the army hears it also. "They are giving battle to our people," cries the emperor. "Never does Roland sound his olifant but in the heart of a battle."

"A battle, indeed!" says Ganelon. "In another mouth one would have called it a lie! Know you not Roland? For a single hare he goes horning a whole day. Come, let us march on. Why should we delay? The lands of our France are still far away."

But Roland continues to blow his olifant. He makes such great efforts that the blood leaps from his mouth and from the veins of his forehead.

"This horn has a long breath," says the emperor; and the Duke de Naymes replies, "It is a brave man who blows it; there is battle around him. By my faith, he who has betrayed him so well seeks to deceive you likewise. Believe me; march to the succor of your noble nephew. Do you not hear him? Roland is at bay."

The emperor gives the signal. Before setting out, he causes Ganelon to be seized, abandoning the traitor to his scullions. Hair by hair they pull out his moustache and beard, striking him with stick and fist, and passing a chain round his neck, as they would round that of a bear, and then, for the extreme of ignominy, setting him on a beast of burden.

On a signal from the emperor, all the French have turned their horses' heads, and throw themselves eagerly back into the dark defiles and by the rapid streams. Charles rides on in haste. There is not one who, as he runs, does not sigh and say to his neighbor, "If we could only find Roland, and at least see him before he dies! How many blows have we not struck together!"

Alas! to what purpose are these vain efforts! They are too far off, and cannot reach him in time.

Yet Roland glances anxiously around him. On the heights, in the plain, he sees nothing but Frenchmen slain. The noble knight weeps and prays for them. "Lords barons, may God have you in his grace, and may he open to your souls the gate of his paradise, making them lie down upon its holy flowers! Better warriors than you I have never seen; you have served us so long, you have conquered for us so many lands! O land of France! my so sweet country, behold, thou art widowed of many brave hearts! Barons of France, you died by my fault. I have not been able to save you or guard you; may God be your helper--God, who is always true! If the sword slay me not, yet shall I die of grief. Oliver, my brother, let us return to the fight."

Roland appears again in the mêlée. As the stag before the hounds, so do the pagans flee before Roland. Behold, however, Marsilion, coming forth as a warrior, and overthrowing on his way Gérard de Roussillon and other brave Frenchmen. "Perdition be your portion," cries Roland, "for thus striking down my comrades!" And with one back-stroke of Durandal he cuts off his hand, seizing at the same time the fair hair of Jurfalen, the king's son. At this sight the Saracens cry out, "Save us, Mahomet! Avenge us of these accursed ones: they will never give way. Let us flee! let us flee!" So saying, a hundred thousand of them took flight, nor is there fear that they will ever return.

But what avails it that Marsilion has fled? His uncle, Marganice, remains in the field with his black-visaged Ethiopians. He steals behind Oliver, and strikes him a mortal blow in the middle of the back. "There is one," he cries, "whose destruction avenges us for all we have lost!" Oliver, stricken to death, raises his arm, lets fall Hauteclaire on the head of Marganice, makes the diamonds sparkling on it fly around in shivers, and splits his head down to the teeth. "Accursed pagan," he says, "neither to thy wife nor to any lady of thy land shalt thou boast that thou hast slain me!" Then he calls Roland to his aid.

Roland sees Oliver livid and colorless, with the blood streaming down. At this sight he feels himself fainting, and swoons upon his horse. Oliver perceives it not; he has lost so much blood that his eyes fail; he sees neither things far-off nor near. His arm, which goes on wishing to strike, raises Hauteclaire, and it is on the helmet of Roland that the blow falls, cutting it through down to the nasal, but without touching his head. At this blow, Roland looks at him, and asks gently, "My comrade, did you purpose to do this? It is I, Roland, your dearest friend. I know not that you have defied me."

And Oliver answers, "I hear you; it is your voice, but I see you not at all. If I have struck you, pardon me, my friend!"

"You have done me no hurt, my brother," answers Roland, "and I forgive you here and before God." At these words they bend towards one another, and are separated during this tender adieu!

Roland cannot tear himself away from the body of his friend, stretched lifeless on the earth; he contemplates him, weeps over him, and aloud reminds him of so many days passed together in perfect friendship. Oliver being dead, what a burden to him is life!

During this time, without his having perceived it, all our French had perished, excepting only the archbishop and Gauthier. Wounded, but still standing, they call to Roland. He hears and joins them. The pagans cry out, "These are terrible men; let us take heed not to leave one of them alive." And from all sides they throw themselves upon them. Gauthier falls; Turpin has his helmet cloven, his hauberk torn, four wounds in his body, and his horse killed under him. Roland, thinking of the emperor, again seizes his olifant, but he can only draw from it a feeble and plaintive note.

Charles hears it notwithstanding. "Woe betide us!" he cries. "Roland, my dear nephew, we come too late! I know it by the sound of his horn. March! Sound clarions!" And all the clarions of the host sounded together. The noise reached the ears of the pagans. "Alas!" they say to each other, "it is Charles returning! It is the great emperor. O fatal day for us! All our chiefs are in the dust. If Roland lives, the war will begin again, and our Spain is lost to us. Never will he be vanquished by any man of flesh and blood. Let us not go near, but from afar off cast at him our darts." Thereupon they withdraw, and rain upon him, from a distance, darts and arrows, lances and spears. Roland's shield is pierced, his hauberk broken and unfastened; his body is untouched, but Vaillantif, wounded in twenty places, falls dead beneath his master. This blow given, all the pagans flee at full speed further into Spain.

Roland, without horse, is unable to follow the fugitives. He goes to the succor of the archbishop, unlaces his helmet, binds up his gaping wounds, presses him to his heart, and gently lays him on the grass. Then he says to him softly, "Shall we leave without prayers our companions who lie dead around us, and whom we loved so well? I will fetch their bodies, and bring them before you."

"Go," answers the archbishop, "we are masters of the field; go, and return again."

Roland leaves him, and advances alone into the field of carnage, seeking on the mountain, seeking in the valley. He finds them--his brave comrades and the Duke Sanche, the aged Anséis, and Gérard, and Berenger. One by one he brings them, laying them at the knees of the priest, who weeps while he blesses them. But when it comes to the turn of Oliver; when Roland would carry the body of this dear comrade, closely pressed against his heart, his face grows pale, his strength forsakes him, and he falls fainting on the ground.

The archbishop at this sight feels himself seized with a deathlike grief. There is, in this valley of Roncevaux, a running stream; if only he could give some water to Roland! He seizes the olifant, and tries, with slow steps, to drag himself tremblingly along. But he is too feeble to advance. His strength fails, and he falls, with his face to the earth, in the pangs of death.

Roland revives, and sees the prostrate warrior. With his eyes raised to heaven, and with joined hands, he makes his confession to God, and prays him to open to the good soldier of Charlemagne the gate of his paradise. Then he approaches the bleeding body of the holy prelate, raises his beautiful white hands, and lays them crosswise on his breast, bidding him a tender adieu.

But Roland in his turn now feels that the hand of death is upon him. He prays to God for his peers, supplicating him to call them to himself, and invokes the holy angel Gabriel. Taking in one hand the olifant, and Durandal in the other, he climbs an eminence looking towards Spain, and there, in the green corn, underneath a tree, he lets himself sink upon the ground.

Near at hand, behind a marble rock, a Saracen, lying in the midst of the corpses, his face stained with blood, the better to counterfeit death, was watching him. He sees him fall, and, suddenly springing up, he runs to him, trying out, "Conquered! the nephew of Charles! His sword is mine; I will carry it to Arabia!" He tries to draw it, but Roland has felt something, opens his eyes, and says, "You are not one of our people, it seems to me;" and with a blow of his olifant lays him dead at his feet. "Miscreant," he says, "thou art very bold--some would say very mad--thus to lay hands on me. However, I have split my olifant; the gold and precious stones are shaken from it by the blow."

Little by little Roland finds that his sight is failing him. He raises himself on his feet, trying to support himself as best he may; but his countenance is colorless and livid. On a rock hard by he strikes ten blows with Durandal. He would fain break it, his valiant sword. What grief and mourning would it not be to leave it to the pagans! May this shame be spared to France! But the steel cuts into the rock, and does not break. Roland strikes anew upon a rock of sardonyx. Not the least flaw in the steel! He strikes again. The rock flies in pieces, but the steel resists. "Ah!" he cries, "Holy Mary help me! My Durandal, thou who didst so brightly gleam in this resplendent sun; thou, so beautiful and sacred, who wast given to me by Charles at the command of God himself; thou by whom I have conquered Brittany and Normandy, Maine and Poitou, Aquitaine and Romagna, Flanders, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, Constantinople, Saxony, Iceland, and England, long hast thou been in the hands of a valiant man; shalt thou fall now into a coward's power? Ah! sacred Durandal, in thy golden guard how many precious relics are enshrined!--a tooth of S. Peter, the blood of S. Basil, some hair of S. Denis, a portion of Our Lady's robe--and shall ever any pagan possess thee? A brave man and a Christian has alone the right to use thee."

Even as he utters these words, death is stealing over him, until it reaches his heart. He stretches himself at length upon the green grass, laying under him his sword and his dear olifant; then, turning his face towards the Saracens, that Charles and his men should say, on finding him thus, that he died victorious, he smites on his breast, and cries to God for mercy. The memory of many things then comes back to him--the memory of so many brave fights; of his sweet country; of the people of his lineage; of Charles, his lord, who nourished him; and then his thoughts turn also to himself: "My God, our true Father, who never canst deceive, who didst bring Lazarus back from the dead, and Daniel from the teeth of the lions, save my soul! Snatch it from the peril of the sins which I have committed during my life!" And so saying, with his head supported on his arm, with his right hand he reaches out his gauntlet towards God. S. Gabriel takes it, and God sends his angel cherubim and S. Michael, called "du Péril." By them and by Gabriel the soul of the count is borne into paradise.

Charlemagne has returned into this valley of Roncevaux. Not a rood, not an inch of earth, which is not covered by a corpse. With a loud voice Charles calls the name of his nephew; he calls the archbishop, and Gérin, and Berenger, and the Duke Sanche, and Angélier, and all his peers. To what purpose? There are none to answer. "Wherefore was I not in this fight?" he cries, tearing his long beard and fainting with grief; and the whole army laments with him. These weep for their sons, those for their brothers, their nephews, their friends, their lords.

In the midst of all this mourning, the Duke Naymes, a sagacious man, approaches the emperor. "Look in front," he says. "See these dusty roads. It is the pagan horde in flight. To horse! We must be avenged!"

Charles, before setting forth, commands four barons and a thousand knights to guard the field of battle. "Leave the dead there as they are," he says. "Keep away the wild beasts, and let no man touch them, neither squires nor varlets, until the hour, please God, of our return." Then he bade them sound the charge, and pursued the Saracens.

The sun is low in the heavens; the night is near, and the pagans are on the point of escaping in the evening shadows; but an angel descends from heaven. "March," he says to Charles. "Continue marching; the light shall not fail you."

And the sun stays in the sky. The pagans flee, but the French overtake and slay them. In the swift-flowing Ebro the fugitives are drowned. Charles dismounts from his charger, and prostrates himself, giving thanks to God. When he rises, the sun is set. It is too late to return to Roncevaux; the army is exhausted with fatigue. Charles, with a mourning heart, weeps for Roland and his companions until he sinks to sleep. All his warriors sleep also, lying on the ground; and even the horses cannot remain standing. Those which want to feed graze as they lie upon the fresh grass.

In the night, Charles, guarded by his holy angel, who watches by his side, sees the future in a vision; he sees the rude combat in which shortly he will need to engage.

During this time, Marsilion, exhausted, mutilated, has managed to reach Saragossa. The queen utters a cry at the sight of her husband, cursing the evil gods who have betrayed him. One hope alone remains. The old Baligant, Emir of Babylon, will not leave them without succor. He will come to avenge them. Long ago Marsilion sent letters to him; but Babylon is very far away, and the delay is great.

The emir, on receiving the letters, sends for the governors of his forty kingdoms; he causes galleys to be equipped and assembled in his port of Alexandria, and, when the month of May arrives, on the first day of summer he launches them into the sea.

This fleet of the enemy is immense; and how obedient to the sail, to the oar, to the helm! At the top of these masts and lofty yards how many fires are lighted! The waves glitter afar off in the darkness of the night, and, as they draw near the shores of Spain, the whole of the coast is illuminated by them. The news soon flies to Saragossa.

Marsilion, in his distress, resigns himself to do homage for Spain to the Emir Baligant. With his left hand, which alone remains to him, he presents his glove, saying, "Prince Emir, I place all my possessions in your hands; defend them, and, avenge me." The emir receives his glove, and engages to bring him the head of the old Charles; then he throws himself on his horse, as he cries out to the Saracens, "Come, let us march; or the French will escape us."

At daybreak Charles sets out for Roncevaux. As they draw near, he says to those about him, "Slacken your pace somewhat, my lords; I would go on before alone to seek my nephew. I remember that, on a certain festival at Aix, he said that, should it be his hap to die in a foreign land, his body would be found in front of his men and of his peers, with his face turned towards the land of the enemy, in token that he died a conqueror--brave heart!" So saying, he advances alone, and mounts the hill. He recognizes on three blocks of rock the strokes of Durandal, and on the grass hard by the body of his nephew. "Friend Roland," he cries out in extreme anguish, as he raises the corpse with his own hands,-"friend Roland, may God place thy soul among the flowers of his paradise, in the midst of his glorious saints! Alas! what hast thou come to do in Spain! Not a day will there be henceforth in which I shall not weep for thee. Relations still I have, but yet not one like thee! Roland, my friend, I return to France; and when I shall be in my palace at Laon, people will come to me from every quarter, saying, Where is the captain? And I shall make answer, He is dead in Spain! My nephew is dead, by whom I gained so many lands. And now, who shall command my armies? Who shall sustain my empire? France, my sweet country, they who have caused his death have destroyed thee!"

When he had thus given free course to his grief, his barons requested that the last duties should be performed for their companions. They collect the dead, and burn sweet perfumes around them; then are they blessed and incensed, and buried with great pomp, excepting Roland, Oliver, and Abp. Turpin, whose bodies are laid apart to be carried into France.

They were preparing for departure when in the distance appeared the Saracen vanguard. The emperor tears himself away from his grief, turns his fiery glance upon his people, and cries aloud with his strong and clear voice, "Barons and Frenchmen, to horse and to arms!"

The army is forthwith put in readiness for the combat. Charles disposes the order of battle. He forms ten cohorts, giving to each a brave and skilful chief, and placing himself at the head. By his side Geoffrey of Anjou bears the oriflamme, and Guinenant the olifant.

Charles alights and prostrates himself, with an ardent prayer, before God, then mounts his horse, seizes his spear and shield, and with a serene countenance throws himself forward. The clarions sound, but above the clarions there rings the clear note of the olifant. The soldiers weep as they hear it, thinking upon Roland.

The emir, on his part, has passed his soldiers in review. He also disposes his army in cohorts, of which there are thirty, as powerful as they are brave; then calling on Mahomet, and displaying his standard, he rushes with mad pride to meet the French.

Terrible is the shock. On both sides the blood flows in streams. The fight and slaughter continue without ceasing until the day closes, and then, in the twilight, Charles and the emir encounter each other. They fight so fiercely that soon the girths of their horses break, the saddles turn round, and both find themselves on the ground. Full of rage, they draw their swords, and the deadly combat begins anew between them.

Charles is well-nigh spent. Stunned by a blow which has cloven his helmet, he staggers, and is on the point of falling; but he hears passing by his ear the holy voice of the angel Gabriel, who cries out to him, "Great king, what doest thou?" At this voice, his vigor returns, and the emir falls beneath the sword of France.

The pagan host flees; our French pursue them into Saragossa; the town is taken, and King Marsilion dies of despair. The conquerors make war against the false gods, and with great blows of their battle-axes break the idols in pieces. They baptize more than a hundred thousand Saracens, and those who resist they hang or burn, except the Queen Bramimonde, who is to be taken as a captive into France, Charles desiring to convert her by gentle means.

Vengeance is satisfied. They put a garrison into the town, and return to France. In passing through Bordeaux, Charles places upon the altar of S. Severin his nephew's olifant; there pilgrims may see it even to this day. Then in great barks they traverse the Gironde, and in S. Romain-de-Blaye they bury the noble Roland, the faithful Oliver, and the brave archbishop.

Charles will not again halt on his way, nor take any repose, until he reaches his great city of Aix. Behold him arrived thither. He sends messengers through all his kingdoms and provinces, commanding the presence of the peers of his court of justice to take proceedings against Ganelon.

On entering his palace, he sees coming to him the young and gentle lady, the fair Aude. "Where," she asks, "is Roland--Roland the Captain, who promised to take me for his wife?" Charles, upon hearing these words, feels his deadly grief awaken, and weeps burning tears. "My sister and dear friend, he of whom you speak is now no more! I will give you in his place a spouse worthy of you--Louis, my son, who will inherit all my kingdoms; more I cannot say."

"These are strange words," she answers; "God forbid, and the angels and saints likewise, that, Roland being dead, Aude should live!" So saying, she grew pale, and, falling at the feet of Charlemagne, she died. God show to her his mercy!

The emperor will not believe but that she has fainted: he takes her hands, lifts her up; but alas, her head falls down upon her shoulder; her death is only too true. Four countesses are commanded to watch by her all the night, and to cause her to be nobly buried in a convent of nuns.

While they are weeping for the fair Aude, and Charlemagne renders to her the last honors, Ganelon, beaten with rods and laden with chains, awaits his sentence.

The peers are assembled. Ganelon appears before them, and defends himself with subtlety. "I am avenged," he says, "but I have betrayed no one." The judges look at each other, and are inclined to be lenient. "Sire," they say to the emperor, "let him live; he is a good nobleman. His death will not restore to you Roland, your nephew, whom we shall never see more." And Charles exclaims: "You all betray me!"

Upon this, one of them, Thierry, brother to Geoffrey of Anjou, says to the emperor: "Sire, be not disquieted; I condemn Ganelon. I say that he is a perjurer and a traitor, and I condemn him to death. If he has any kin who dares to say that I lie, I have this sword wherewith to answer him."

Forthwith Pinabel, the friend of Ganelon, brave, alert, vigorous, accepts the challenge. At the gates of Aix, in the meadow, the two champions, well-confessed, well-absolved and blessed, their Mass heard, and their swords drawn, prepare themselves for the combat. God only knows how it will end.

Pinabel is vanquished, and all the barons bow before the decision of God. All say to the emperor, "He ought to die."

Ganelon dies the death of a traitor--he is quartered.

Then the emperor assembles his bishops. "In my house," he says to them, "a noble captive has learnt so much by sermons and examples that she desires to believe in God. Let her be baptized; it is the Queen of Spain." They baptize her, therefore, under the name of Julienne. She has become a Christian from the depths of her heart.

The day departs; night covers the earth. The emperor sleeps in his vaulted chamber. The angel known to Charles, S. Gabriel, descends to his bedside, and says to him on the part of God: "To the city which the pagans are besieging, Charles, it is needful that thou march. The Christians cry aloud for thee."

"God!" cries the king, "how painful is my life." And, weeping, he tears his long white beard.

Here ends the song which Turoldus has sung.

* * * * *

We will conclude, as we began, with the words of the original, giving the last stanza of the poem (ccxcvi)

"Quant l'emperère ad faite sa justise, E esclargie est sue grant ire, En Bramidonie (Bramimonde) ad chrestientet mise, Passet li jurz, la nuit est ascrie, Culcez s'est li rei en sa cambre voltice. Seint Gabriel de part Deu li vint dire, 'Carles, semun les oz de tun empire, Par force iras en tere de Bire; Reis Vivien si sucuras en Imphe A la citet que paien unt asize, Li chrestien te recleiment e crient.' Li emperère n'i volsist aler mie: 'Deus!' dist li reis, 'si penuse est ma vie! Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret.' --Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet.

A O I."

VENITE, ADOREMUS.[159]

God an infant--born to-day! Born to live, to die for me! Bow, my soul: adoring say, "Lord, I live, I die, for thee." Humble then, but fearless, rise: Seek the manger where he lies.

Tread with awe the solemn ground; Though a stable, mean and rude, Wondering angels all around Throng the seeming solitude: Swelling anthems, as on high, Hail a second Trinity.[160]

'Neath the cavern's[161] dim-lit shade Meekly sleeps a tender form: God on bed of straw is laid! Breaths of cattle keep him warm! King of glory, can it be Thou art thus for love of me?

Hail, my Jesus, Lord of might-- Here in tiny, helpless hand Thy creation's infinite Holding like a grain of sand! Hail, my Jesus--all my own: Mine as if but mine alone!

Hail, my Lady, full of grace! Maiden-Mother, hail to thee! Poring on the radiant face, Thine a voiceless ecstasy; Yet, sweet Mother, let me dare Join the homage of thy prayer.

Mother of God, O wondrous name! Bending seraphs own thee Queen. Mother of God, yet still the same Mary thou hast ever been: Still so lowly, though so great; Mortal, yet immaculate!

Joseph, hail--of gentlest power! Shadow of the Father[162] thou. Thine to shield in danger's hour Whom thy presence comforts now. Mary trusts to thee her child; He his Mother undefiled.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, hail! Saddest year its Christmas brings. Comes the faith that cannot fail, With the shepherds and the kings: Gold, and myrrh, and incense sweet Come to worship at your feet.

FOOTNOTES:

[159] This is a second edition of a lyric that appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD four years ago. The alterations are so considerable as to make it a new poem.

[160] Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are called "The Earthly Trinity."

[161] It was a cavern used for a stable.

[162] See Faber's Bethlehem.

THE FUR TRADER.

A TALE OF THE NORTHWEST.

CONCLUDED.

The next morning, at a very early hour, it was apparent that an assemblage of Indians at the council lodge had been summoned, to consider the proposal of the missionary. His hopes were encouraged when he noted that many of the old men and earliest converts were mingling with the fierce warriors and young men of the vicinity, on their way to the place of meeting.

After some time, a delegation, with the brave who had borne the message of the priest to his chief at their head, proceeded with measured and stately steps from the council lodge to that of the missionary, where they were received with the silent and ceremonious solemnity so dear to Indians.

The result of the debate, which they communicated, was, that their foes should be requested to meet them--under guaranty of the missionary for their good faith, and the assurance that the injured party would meet them unarmed, if they also would leave their arms behind--that the proposed council should be solemnly held. Should its decision be for peace, all should join in the pursuit and recapture of the maiden; if otherwise, time should be allowed for the foe to regain their camps before her people should take the war-path.

The trapper departed immediately to proclaim these decisions in the nearest camps of the hostile party, and to secure their general diffusion among those tribes. The missionary soon set out to notify the residents of other missions, after seeing that the young chief had despatched runners to summon a full attendance of his own people and friends.

There is wonderful despatch in the simple machinery set in motion by the aborigines of our country upon such occasions, executing their purpose with a speed which proves their ignorance of the wise "circumlocution offices" of civilization.

Immediate preparations were set on foot at the appointed rendezvous for entertaining a multitude. Large parties were sent out in quest of game. The women of the vicinity assembled to prepare the meats, the camash, the wappato, and the bitter root, for a great feast.

During the three days succeeding the transactions related above, multitudes were to be seen gathering from all quarters, and taking their course to the village where they were to meet, in profound silence, and with the grave composure befitting an assembly before which the tremendous issues of life and death were to be discussed.

The trapper came with a large party of the fiercest warriors whom the wiles of the "Northwester" had deceived. Several priests from scattered missions, more or less remote, with their converted Indians, arrived. Numerous savages of both sides advanced in parties by themselves, caring for nothing but blood and plunder should war be the word, or feasting and revelry should it be peace. French creoles, half-breeds, Canadian voyageurs, coureurs des bois, and free trappers, completed the list of this wild and miscellaneous assemblage.

Arrangements were made with great precision for the opening of the council. When the council lodge was in readiness, notice for the assembling of the various delegates was proclaimed from its roof by an Indian crier.

The missionaries passed in first, followed by the chiefs, and seated themselves on a semicircular platform slightly elevated from the earthen floor at the further end of the lodge, the priests sitting in the centre, between the two parties, as umpires. Then the elders, the delegates, and the warriors took their seats upon the floor along each side of the lodge.

The oldest chief of the injured confederates arose, and proceeded with calm dignity to explain the relations which the two parties, although ancient enemies even unto blood, had maintained with each other since they had been mutually moved by the message of peace, delivered by the holy Black Gowns, to bury the hatchet and live, as Christian brethren should, in peace and amity. He showed how faithfully those of his side, on their part, had kept the compact, depicting in vivid colors their grief and horror at the perfidy of their brothers, and the cruel slaughter of their innocent and unsuspecting friends. When he described the ambush, the sudden attack, the death of the old chief, and the murder of his followers; the plunder of their goods, the massacre of the women and children, and the capture of the cherished daughter of her race, it was fearful to see among the warriors the kindling passion for revenge flashing from fiery eyes which glared like those of the tiger thirsting for blood, though their manner remained otherwise cool, collected, and subdued.

At the close of this harangue, he called upon his brother,[163] the oldest chief of the opposite party, to reply, and state what he could in justification of their conduct.

With the same lofty composure, the respondent recapitulated and confirmed all that had been stated as to the former enmity and the friendly relations promoted and established between them by the labors and influence of the Black Gowns.

He then set forth in glowing language the dismay with which his people and their allies had heard that these their pretended friends were joining among themselves and with the new American companies--under the sanction of the missionaries--for their destruction and the possession of their hunting-grounds. That their good friends of the Northwest Company had warned them of their impending ruin, and furnished arms and ammunition, that they might avert the calamity by making the first attack themselves. That this was their sole motive for the act, and in self-defence, for self-preservation, they were ready to pursue the war-path as long as a man was left of their tribes to fight. But as to the massacre at the encampment, and abduction of the maiden, he indignantly denied for himself, his people, and their allies, all knowledge of any such place, or aid in its fulfilment, or of the instruments by which it had been executed.

Convictions of the crafty fabrications by which the Northwest Company, through its wily commander, had beguiled them, fastened gradually upon the minds of both parties, as their history was thus opened.

The missionaries now proceeded to re-establish peace, in which they were so successful that the calumet was duly passed from one to another through the whole assembly. Before the close of the council the terms of a new alliance were fully settled, and all parties pledged to fidelity in maintaining it, and diligence in seeking the lost maiden.

Muttered threats were breathed against the Northwest Company, and especially its false commander, and a determination to take his life vehemently expressed. The missionaries reproved these threats so sternly that they were accused of befriending him, and the trapper was again obliged to exert all his influence in quelling the rising distrust.

Meanwhile, preparations for a grand banquet, after the most approved and bountiful mode of savage magnificence, had been going on, and the village was redolent of savory odors from every variety of meat and vegetables in process of cooking according to the Indian fashions.

The great assemblage regaled themselves plentifully, but with staid decorum. The mirth, the dancing, and the songs, customary upon such occasions, were omitted, out of respect for the memory of the departed chief and the sorrows of his son.

At the close of the feast, the Rosary was recited by the missionaries and their converts; after which the parties who were to set out in quest of the maiden were duly organized and equipped with arms and ammunition, procured for the purpose from the nearest American station. These were so dispersed as to surround by a long circuit the principal trading post of the Northwest Company--at which the commander made his headquarters--and draw towards it by narrowing circles, to intercept any party which might be sent to convey the object of their search to some other place should news of their expedition reach the post before their arrival. A runner accompanied each party to notify the next of any important incident touching the interests of their expedition.

As they were patiently and gradually converging toward their destination, one detachment met a party of traders from the Hudson's Bay Company, who informed them that the "Northwester" whom they sought was absent.

He had failed to meet them, as he had agreed, to arrange terms of requital with them for plunder committed upon their territory by his agents; and had departed a day or two before, with a fleet of canoes and a large party of voyageurs, down the river to an American station which was commanded by a former partner in his company, with whom he was on terms of suspicious intimacy, considering their rival interests.

There were a number of women in the canoes, supposed to be the wives of the voyageurs.

This intelligence changed the course of the expedition. The several bands were notified, and united as speedily as possible, to make their way to the station indicated.

When they reached its vicinity, they found a great carousal was on foot there. The boisterous mirth and revelry that prevailed made it easy to reconnoitre without detection. They soon discovered the quarters where the women were assembled. It was a large tent or camp, guarded from intruders by a detachment of voyageurs and their wives. The Connecticut trapper sauntered carelessly up to one of the sentinels, and began playing off some rough jokes of the wilderness upon him, in the mingled jargon of Indian dialects and Canadian patois used among that class.

He found the fellow sulky and silent; not too well pleased with the duty assigned him, and impatient to join the revellers. He very kindly offered--"bein' a man of sobriety and havin' no hankerin' for such doin's"--to relieve the watcher, and take his place for a time. As he was a Yankee, who, as the Canadian stranger supposed, might belong to the station, he did not hesitate to accept the offer.

From this tent, on the west side, a patch of very high grass extended to a dense clump of bushes at some distance. After the new guardian had surveyed the premises for some time, with his habitual air of careless indifference, he caught a glimpse through the door, over which a buffalo robe had been hung to close it, of the woman who attended the daughter of the chief. All doubt of the maiden's presence vanished before that vision. But how to give notice that friends were near? Pacing slowly back and forth close beside the tent, he uttered distinctly, in a low voice, the sacred name given the maiden in baptism, and known to none here but her attendant--"Josephine!" and was delighted to receive a quick reply, "S. Joseph!" He continued pacing, and humming carelessly, in her native dialect, a short of chant, as if for his own amusement, the words of which conveyed a distinct idea of the grass and the bushes west of the tent, and a hint that she could creep through the one unobserved, and find friends concealed in the covert of the other.

Another sentinel accosted him, in derision, as a "merry singer," when he complained of this tedious business of watching the women, and wished the fellow he had relieved would finish his frolic, and come back.

"He will be in no haste to do that," his companion replied. "Gabriel is a sad gossip, and too fond of the drinking-cup to quit it without compulsion."

Our trapper, favoring the impression this man also had received that he belonged to the station, said he must be released to meet an engagement at this hour, or break the rules of the post; when Gabriel's daughter was called to go and summon her father. An interval elapsed which seemed an age to the trapper, whose wonted coolness almost forsook him before the truant appeared, highly elated with liquor, and loth to resume his irksome duty.

The relieved sentinel vanished to meet his "engagement," the result of which was that the ground in the high grass was speedily filled on both sides with armed and prostrate Indians, listening for the rustle which would betray the presence of their coveted prize.

Nor did they wait long; and, when the maiden with her attendant crept stealthily by them, she was informed that a swift-footed pony was concealed in the covert of the bushes for her use. Her friends soon had the satisfaction of seeing them mounted, and flying, with the speed of the wind, in the direction of their distant home; for the trapper had found a moment in which to direct her as to the course she was to take, and the maiden was no stranger to the use of the noble animal, in the management of which her people are trained from their infancy.

Scarcely were they out of sight over the vast plain before their escape was discovered. A wild sortie of the revellers ensued.

The commander, with the friend whom he was visiting, and his favorite clerk, who was always with him, mounted on swift horses, started in pursuit of the fugitive, while his followers engaged in a bloody combat with her friends. The "Northwester" was the first to descry her in the distance, and his horse was gaining rapidly upon her frantic flight, when she suddenly changed her course toward the river, which here rushed through a gorge bounded by a precipice on each side. Putting his horse to its utmost speed, and shouting his entreaties that she would refrain from fulfilling the intention he too clearly divined, he plunged madly on, reaching the bank only in time to see the pony struggling in the wild waters; but the maiden had disappeared from his sight for ever!

While he was still lamenting, with frenzied exclamations, his own folly, and the dire calamity in which it had resulted, a pursuing party of her friends arrived. It was terrific to mark the fierce flash of eyes that fixed their blazing regard upon him from all sides, as his savage foes encircled him!

He seemed too completely lost in the tumult of his own grief, disappointment, and passion to heed their approach, or the imminent peril in which he stood, as one after another of the band drew up his rifle and prepared to fire upon him at a word from their leader, when the tall form of the trapper stalked into the circle, and his ringing voice gave the command that was instinctively obeyed.

"Down with your rifles, ye bloody-minded sarpints"--suiting a gesture to the word, that was understood in a twinkling. Then, addressing them in their own tongue: "Are the red men wolves, that they would drink the blood of the pale chief without hearing what he has to say? How will they answer to the holy Black Gown for the deed, or how will they face the pestilence and famine which will surely follow every life-drop that flows from the veins of the great medicine-man of the palefaces?" he added, appealing to the faith of the converted Indians, and to the superstitions of the unconverted, and whispering a brief sentence in the ear of the young chief, who had been maddened at the loss of his sister, but was subdued by the presence and words of the trapper. Then resuming his own language, he said to himself as if musing--indulging a habit formed during his long and lonely wanderings--"I'm willin' to own the chap has many ways that a man of peace and justice like myself can't approve by any manner of means, for they don't square with my notions of what's right. But it may be more the misfortune of the critter than his fault, seein' he comes of them Britishers, whose blood, I conclude, carries its pesky pizin down from father to son to the third and fourth generation, as the holy commandments say both good and evil is carried. But there's two sides to every story, and I an't agoin' to stand by and see the life of a feller-critter taken, if he is a son of Satan, without hearin' both. Them Injins an't sich angils of innocence either as to have the right to cast the first stone at the wicked. I'm not a prejudiced man, I hope, but 'cordin' to my notion there an't a truer thing in natur 'cept the Holy Bible--which I take to be the truest of all--than that they're a tarnal pack, take 'em by and large, and 'ud ruther drink blood than water any day, every mother's son on' em, savin' and exceptin' always--as lawyer Smith used to say--the Flat-heads and the Pendorays, who're 'bout the likeliest folks I've met this side of the univarsal world, and have as nat'ral a twist towards Gospil light as the sunflower has to the sun. But all this is neither here nor there"--he said, rousing himself from his soliloquy, which the natives had heard to a close with quiet gravity, being accustomed to his manner; and, striding up to the "Northwester," who remained sitting motionless on his horse, with his back to his pursuers and his eyes fixed upon the rushing flood, as if so petrified by the shocking event he had witnessed as to have eyes or ears for nothing else--"Are you crazy, or a fool?" exclaimed the trapper in a low voice as he approached--"to sit here as unconsarned as if you was in a lady's parlor, with a hundred rifles raised to draw your heart's blood, and your long account with etarnity all unsettled! What on airth is the critter thinkin' of! Speak quick! or I wouldn't give the glim of a lightnin'-bug for all they'll leave of the vital spark in your carkiss in less'n the twinklin' of its wings; they'll put daylight in its place, and your scalp'll be danglin' from the belt of the young chief in less time than it takes to speak the words--a sight I should greatly mislike, bein' a man of peace, though no great admirator of your race, any more'n I be of the Injuns."

Suddenly assuming the careless manner natural to him, and turning towards the maddened throng with the scornful indifference which seldom forsook him, and was the best weapon he could have opposed to the fury of his savage foes at this critical juncture, the young man related in a few words what had happened.

With a sneer of contempt, the Indian appointed to speak for the band replied: "Did the Great Spirit give his bird wings that she might fly from the white chief to the home where his falsehood has sent her father? or is she a fish that she may cleave the waters of that flood and escape from him? No, no, our daughter lives! When the white chief says she went over the rock, his words are to deceive; and when he bewails the fate of the maiden, he is making a false face. He sent the horse over the rock to blind the eyes of her people. He has a long arm and a strong voice, and can call his braves from every covert. He knows where he has hidden our daughter. But we will follow him even unto the homes of the palefaces, and lie in wait until more moons are counted than the hairs on his scalp would number, to drink his blood at last. Our feet will be swift to pursue and our knives to find his heart, even to the piercing of stone walls!"

"Lord give us patience with their Injin nonsense!" the trapper ejaculated. Then, speaking in their language: "Will my red brethren waste time in idle words like prattling women? The white chief will go with us to the lodge of the holy Black Gown, whose words are truth, and whose counsels are wise and just. That's as true's you're alive, Hezekiah," he proceeded, resuming his own tongue; and, as if moved by an irresistible impulse--"Talk about your Methodist preachers, your Presbyterers, your Baptists, and all sorts, who deny that these missionaries hold to Gospel truth! But let 'em obsarve how they follow out Gospel rules by layin' aside all critter comforts, forsakin' father and mother, brother and sister, housen and lands, and, comin' into these howlin' deserts, without scrip or staff, wives or children, labor with their own hands for a livin', sharin' and puttin' up with all the poverty and hardships of the shiftless critters they come to teach--whose souls, I make no dispute, are of as much value for the next world, and in the sight of their Maker, as if they belonged to thoroughgoin', giniwine Yankees--though their works don't amount to much in this, even in the line of their callin' in furs and sich, at which a Connecticut trapper 'ill beat 'em all hollow any day." Then, suddenly recollecting himself, he again addressed his wild companions: "The Big Foot will pledge his own life to his red brothers, against that of the white chief, that he prove not false in this matter; and they will let the Black Gown say what his children shall do."

After some consultation the proposal was accepted, and without any great delay they all departed in the direction of the mission.

When the missionary had examined the matter after their arrival, he became convinced that the life of the young commander would be in danger while he remained within reach of his exasperated foes, and would hardly be safe in his Montreal home from their revengeful pursuit. He therefore advised him to leave without delay.

The advice was scornfully rejected at first, but soon perceiving that it would be folly to provoke a fate which flight only could evade, he joined a party who were leaving for Lake Superior, to proceed thence by the usual route to Montreal, and was seen no more in those Northwestern regions.

* * * * *

Many years had elapsed since these events took place. A dark and rainy night had succeeded a tempestuous autumnal day, and settled down like a wet mantle over Montreal, wrapping the city in its chilling folds.

The street-lamps with which it was dimly lighted in the early evenings of yore--when oil furnished an obscure foreshadowing of this era of gas, that served only to make "darkness visible"--had gone out one by one, leaving the narrow streets, with their high stone houses overhanging on either side, in utter gloom.

The twinkling of a lantern borne by an invisible pilgrim might be seen--like the transient dancing gleam of a will-o'-the-wisp--revealing occasional glimpses of a tall form by his side clad in the habit of the Society of Jesus. They were threading the narrow course of old St. Paul Street, which they followed until they reached a road that turned and ascended a rising ground to the west, in the direction of a district where there had formerly been a beaver meadow of considerable extent, through which flowed a sluggish brook, but which was rapidly assuming the features now presented by that part of the city lying in the neighborhood of Beaver Hall Block.

Into this road they turned, and, passing the district mentioned, took a path to the left, which led them to the base of the hill on the summit of which the city water-works and reservoir are now situated.

In those days the ascent was by no means easy, and the aged father had to pause frequently to take breath during the course of it. Having reached the height, and rested for a brief space, they turned again to the left into spacious, neglected grounds, surrounding a very large stone mansion which stood unfinished on the side of the mountain, as entirely isolated on that lonely height as if in the midst of vast solitudes, instead of the suburb of a populous and thriving city. So chilling, gloomy, and repulsive were all the features of the lofty edifice and its bleak environs, which had been an open common for many years, that even the reverend father, long accustomed to encounter such varied forms of desolation as the missionary in savage regions must continually meet, recoiled unconsciously as he passed the dismal portal, which no door had ever closed, into the damp atmosphere within. Here the mouldy walls appeared to give shelter only to a multitude of owls and bats, whose wings flapped indignantly at the unwonted gleam of light in their dark dominion, and equally rare intrusion of a guest upon the silence of their retreat.

The man with the lantern passed on in advance, followed slowly and cautiously by his venerable companion, over a narrow platform constructed by laying planks on the timber of the framework, until they came to a remote corner of the building, in which a small room had been awkwardly prepared, and arranged in a manner to render it barely habitable. A more comfortless abode could hardly be imagined. Before the door of this rude apartment they paused, the guide inserted a key in the huge lock, the bolt of which yielded slowly as if fearing to betray its trust, the door creaked harshly on its rusty hinges and gave admittance to the reverend guest.

Guided by the faint glimmer of a taper--standing on a rough block beside a bed on which the form of a man tossing in restless agony was dimly visible, the priest approached the sufferer, addressing some soothing words to him.

"Ah, reverend father! is it you?" he faintly gasped. "It was kind of you to come through the storm this dismal night, and, after your long journey, to seek the lost sheep so utterly unworthy of your care! I am near the close of a misspent and wasted life! Will the worthless wreck offered at the eleventh hour in penitence and tears be accepted? O father! how true were the words you uttered when reproving my sinful course: 'Unless you repent the wrongs you have inflicted, making such requital as remains within your power, a fearful retribution awaits you in this world, and eternal despair in the next.' The first part has been fulfilled--wife, children, family, and friends have fallen from me one by one, and for long years the victim of his own folly and iniquity has lingered on desolate and alone--haunted by visions of retribution and despair. But I have tried to be contrite, and to offer such contrition as I could gain, in anguish and tears at the foot of my Redeemer's cross. May I not hope it will be accepted? How I have longed, reverend father, for your return to Montreal! The first emotion of joy my heart has known for years was imparted when I heard from my attendant that you had at length arrived--just in time to hear my last confession and console my dying hour, if there is indeed comfort for such a sinner. The blood of that Indian chief--singled first of all from his followers for death by my command (because he set his authority against my designs)--and that of his innocent daughter and her nurse, who perished by my means, have set a burning seal upon my guilty soul; while the phantom of my injured wife, taken from me while I was pursuing my unhallowed passion, joins with theirs to reproach and haunt me. I am lost, lost in the horrors of remorse for the triple murder, added to an endless list of misdeeds!

"Peace, my son!" the reverend father said tenderly and firmly--"though your sins are as scarlet, their guilt has not surpassed the bounds of Infinite mercy! Nor has it reached so far as you suppose. The Indian maiden lives. A holy nun in an American convent, she has never ceased her supplications for the salvation of your soul, and for the pardon of her own weakness and disobedience to her father, in yielding her young heart's affections to your importunities before she learned, as she did on the voyage down the river, that you were already married, and sought only to make her your dishonored dupe.

"She urged her horse over the precipice according to instructions from the trapper, who told her to fly with all speed in that direction, and at what point to turn to the river, if pursued and in danger of being overtaken. He also warned her to make no resistance to the current, only to avoid being drawn into whirlpools, but to let it carry her through the gorge to a place where the waters spread into a small lake, on the shore of which, near the foot of the gorge, she would find a singular cave opening toward the water, and easily seen, where she must secrete herself until he should bring her brother to her. In all this she succeeded by the skill in swimming which seems to be part of an Indian's nature. When the trapper and her brother sought the hiding-place--with but faint hope indeed of finding her--so great was her dread of your power and of her own weakness, that she entreated them to keep the fact of her escape concealed, and arrange for her departure with a company of traders belonging to the American stations, who were intending to leave with their wives and pass the winter in a distant city of the United States. They therefore left her, first providing means by which her servant could obtain their food; and after the return of the party to me, those arrangements were made. Upon her arrival in that city, and delivery of a letter from me to the superior of a convent there, she was received into the house, and soon after entered upon her novitiate as one of its members."

"And now, my son," he continued, "it only remains for you to prepare for the solemnities of the approaching hour, with deep humility and contrition. I am sent by my Divine Master to call, 'not the just, but sinners to repentance.'"

The holy man remained with his dying penitent through the night, and, while the morning bells of the city were proclaiming the story of our salvation on the wings of the Angelus, the spirit, so long perturbed with agonizing throes of remorse, but at length reconciled and refreshed by the healing dews of divine grace, passed to the tribunal before which it had so dreaded to appear, trusting solely in the merits of that Redeemer born of a Virgin for us, and who was now to be its Judge.

He was the first and last occupant of the gloomy mansion that had been designed for the abode of almost regal magnificence. The phantoms of horror with which his distorted imagination had filled the vacant spaces within those extensive walls, and even the surrounding premises, led him to confine himself entirely to his room. And thus he lived for years, a prisoner in that dimly lighted and cheerless apartment, attended only by the faithful servant who provided his food, and haunted by dark remembrances of the past.

The shadows of those visions still linger around the empty walls, and pervade the silent precincts, nourishing a firm belief in the minds of many that they are peopled by unearthly forms, and investing them with a mysterious influence that keeps all intruders at a distance.

The Canadian driver, as he conveys the stranger in his cab or cariole to different points of interest about the city, pauses a moment on the height opposite the frowning mansion, and points it out--standing in dismal grandeur among the brambles of its neglected grounds--with the half-whispered explanation, "Yonder is the Haunted House of Montreal."

We questioned the narrator as to the fate of the Big Foot, and learned that he made profession of the Catholic faith soon after the departure of the "Northwester" for Montreal; and from that time until his death, a few years later, attached himself to the service of the missionary whom he so venerated.

"And the confidential clerk of the fur trader?" we inquired.

Rising to his feet, and drawing his tall form to its full height, our narrator replied, with a proud self-assertion of which none but a Scotch Highlander is fully capable, and which no pen can describe--"I am myself that clerk. His grandfather was chief of the clan to which my family belonged. When his father came to Canada, mine came with him. I was but little younger than this oldest son, and we were brought up together. When he was sent to the Northwest, I was permitted to go with him, and never left him until the grave closed its inexorable door between us."

He turned away to hide his emotion, and left us pondering upon the strange things that happen in this world of ours!

FOOTNOTES:

[163] Indians always address their equals as "brothers."

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.[164]

The late Archbishop of Baltimore was an admirable type of a class of Catholics, hitherto containing but a small number of individuals, though not without considerable influence and importance in the history of the American Church. Those of our faith who have risen to the highest distinction in this country, either in the sacred ministry or in literature, have rarely been what we may call indigenous Catholics. By birth or by race they have either not been Catholics or not been Americans. Immigration and conquest are still the main dependence of the young church of the United States. What sort of fruit its own will be, when it comes into full bearing, the world has hardly had a chance to judge. Abp. Spalding may be taken, however, as a specimen. His ancestors for several generations were American, and, so far as the record goes, they were never anything but Catholics. They came from England to America in the early days of the Maryland colony, and were possibly among the two hundred families brought over by Lord Baltimore in 1634. They lived for nearly a century and a half in St. Mary's County, and thence Benedict Spalding, the grandfather of the Archbishop, moved to Kentucky in 1790. Benedict was the leader of a little colony of Catholics who left their native state to seek their fortunes together in the wilds of what was then the far West.

They settled in the valley of the Rolling Fork River, in Central Kentucky, not far from Bardstown, where another offshoot from the Maryland church had established itself a few years before. There Martin John Spalding was born, May 23, 1810.

"Kentucky," says his biographer, "was in that day covered with dense forests and tangled woods. There was scarcely a place in its whole territory that might be dignified with the name of village, and the only roads were the almost untrodden paths of the forest, on either side of which lines of blazed trees showed the traveller the route from point to point.

"The forests were filled with a luxuriant undergrowth, thickly interspersed with cane and briers, which the intertwining wild pea-vine wove into an almost impenetrable network; so that, in certain parts, the only way of getting from place to place was to follow the paths worn by the migrating buffalo and other wild beasts. The Indian still hunted on the 'Dark and Bloody Ground,' or prowled about the new settlements, ready to attack them whenever an opportunity was offered. It has been stated on good authority that, from 1783 to 1790, fifteen hundred persons were killed or made captive by the Indians in Kentucky, or in migrating thither.

"In 1794, the Indians appeared on the Rolling Fork, and killed a Catholic by the name of Buckman. This produced a panic in the little settlement, which caused many Catholics to move for a time to Bardstown, where the population was more dense. But Benedict Spalding remained at home, and the Indians disappeared without committing further outrage.

"The early emigrants to Kentucky had to endure all the hardships incident to pioneer life. Even the ordinary comforts were not to be had in the wilderness in which they had taken up their abode, and they not unfrequently suffered the want of the most indispensable necessaries. To obtain salt, they had to go to the Licks, travelling often many miles through a country infested by savages. They dwelt in rudely constructed log-cabins, the windows of which were without glass, whilst the floors were of dirt, or, in the better sort of dwellings, of rough hewn boards. After the clothing which they had brought from Virginia and Maryland became unfit for use, the men, for the most part, wore buckskin and the women homespun gowns. The furniture of the cabins was of an equally simple kind. Stools did the office of chairs, the tables were made of rough boards, whilst wooden vessels served instead of plates and chinaware. A tin cup was an article of luxury. The chase supplied abundance of food. All kinds of game abounded, and, when the hunter had his rifle and a goodly supply of ammunition, he was rich as a prince. This was the school in which was trained the Kentucky rifleman, whose aim on the battle-field was certain death. The game was plainly dressed and served up on wooden platters, and, with cornbread and hominy, it made a feast which the keen appetite of honest labor and free-heartedness thought good enough for kings."

Martin was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Merrywether in a log-cabin near the Rolling Fork, and soon distinguished himself by his proficiency in mathematics. He learned the whole multiplication table in a single day when he was eight years old. At the age of eleven, he entered S. Mary's College, near Lebanon, Kentucky, being one of the first students enrolled in that institution; and by the time he was fourteen, he was acting as teacher of mathematics, and was famous throughout the country as the boy-professor. From S. Mary's he went, at the age of sixteen, to the theological seminary at Bardstown, then under the personal direction of Bp. Flaget and his coadjutor, Bp. David. Francis Patrick Kenrick was one of the professors in this home of learning and piety, and soon became Mr. Spalding's intimate friend. F. Reynolds, afterwards Bishop of Charleston, was there, and the Rev. George Elder, founder of S. Joseph's College, was another of the little company. Mr. Spalding remained at Bardstown four years, dividing his time, according to the system pursued in several of our American seminaries, between the study of theology and the instruction of boys in the college which formed a part of the institution. He paid no more attention to his favorite science of mathematics, and never developed the extraordinary powers in that branch of learning of which he had given such evidences in boyhood; but his aptitude for theology was so marked, and his personal character so amiable, that Bp. Flaget determined to send him to Rome to complete his studies at the Propaganda. It was a long and rather difficult journey in those days. He set out in April, 1830, and did not reach Rome until August. On the way, he visited Washington and Baltimore, and made the acquaintance of some notable persons, of whom he makes interesting mention in his letters of travel. He seems to have been strongly impressed by the Rev. John Hughes, afterward Archbishop of New York, whom he met in Baltimore; and he writes with patriotic ardor of the venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, whose "good-will and benediction" it was his fortune to receive on the eve of departure from his native land. Our young Kentuckian, as might have been supposed from his ancestry and education, was an enthusiastic lover of his country. "I am sure," he wrote some time afterwards from Rome, "that my attachment to the institutions of my country has been increased by my absence from it." Nothing could exceed the warmth of his enthusiasm for the sacred city and all its religious associations; but he never forgot his home, and, like most of his countrymen who have been educated under the shadow of the Vatican, he came back as ardent an American as he went away.

After completing his studies with brilliant success, and sustaining a public defence of two hundred and fifty-six propositions in theology, church history, and canon law against the most formidable adversaries Rome could send to the encounter (a highly interesting description of which intellectual tilt is given by Bp. England), he returned to Kentucky with the title of doctor, and was made pastor of the Cathedral at Bardstown and professor of philosophy in the seminary. His keen appreciation of the peculiar needs of the American Church is illustrated by the zeal with which he immediately entered into the scheme of his associates in the seminary for the establishment of a Catholic periodical. The S. Joseph's College Minerva, to which he became the principal contributor, was a monthly magazine, which lived for about a year, and was then succeeded, in 1835, by the weekly Catholic Advocate, of which Dr. Spalding was chief editor, with Fathers Elder, Deluynes, and Clark for his assistants.

"With Americans, Dr. Spalding used to say, newspaper reading is a passion which amounts to a national characteristic. In the Propaganda the American students were proverbial for their eagerness to get hold of journals, whether religious or secular. Now, he argued, this craving must be satisfied. If we do not furnish our people with wholesome food, they will devour that which is noxious. He believed the American people to be frank, honest, and open to conviction. Their dislike or hatred of the church he ascribed to misapprehension or ignorance of her history and teachings. Hence he believed that if the truth were placed before them plainly, simply, and fearlessly, it could not fail to make a favorable impression upon them. He therefore thought that to the Catholic press in the United States had been given a providential mission of the greatest importance.

"Americans have not time, or will not take the trouble, as a general thing, to read heavy books of controversy. Comparatively few Protestants ever enter our churches, and, even when there, everything seems strange, and the sermon intended for Catholics most frequently fails to tell upon those who have not faith. And yet we must reach the non-Catholic mind. 'The charity of Christ urges us.' Apathy means want of faith, want of hope, want of love. Besides, the church must act intellectually as well as morally. If it is her duty to wrestle ever with the corrupt tendencies of the human heart, to point to heaven when men seek to see only this earth, to utter the indignant protest of the outraged soul when they would fain believe themselves only animals, it is not less a part of her divine mission to combat the intellectual errors of the world. We observe in the history of the church that periods of intellectual activity are almost invariably characterized by moral earnestness and religious zeal. On the other hand, when ignorance invades even the sanctuary, and priests forget to love knowledge, the blood of Christ flows sluggishly through the veins of his spouse, and to the eyes of men she seems to lose something of her divine comeliness. Indeed, there is an essential connection between the thoughts of a people and their actions, especially in an age like ours; and, if we suffer a sectarian and infidel press to control the intellect of the country, our words will fall dead and meaningless upon the hearts of our countrymen."

The Catholic press of America was then in its infancy, yet Catholic controversies were assuming a great importance. The Hughes and Breckinridge discussion was raging in Philadelphia. Protestantism, alarmed apparently at the rapid progress of the American Church, was everywhere assuming an attitude of aggression, and the country was on the eve of one of those periodical outbursts of anti-Catholic bigotry which seem fated to disturb every now and then the course of national politics. Dr. Spalding was fully sensible of the wants of the day. He wrote frequently to the Propaganda of the condition of the American Catholic press and his efforts to extend its influence and direct its attacks. His pen was incessantly busy. Though he was personally one of the most amiable and peaceful of men, he allowed no assault upon the faith to pass unnoticed; and his life for some years was almost an incessant battle. The Advocate, the United States Catholic Magazine, the Catholic Cabinet, the Metropolitan, were all enriched by his contributions. He was one of the editors of the Metropolitan for several years, and, after the death of the Advocate, he founded the Louisville Guardian, for which he continued to write until it was suspended in consequence of the troubles of the civil war. Dr. Spalding well knew that, next to a newspaper, his countrymen loved a speech. He resolved that this passion also should be turned to the advantage of the church. Bp. Flaget had removed his cathedral from Bardstown to Louisville, and Dr. Spalding, being called thither as vicar-general in 1844, began a series of popular evening lectures with the co-operation of the Rev. John McGill, afterward Bishop of Richmond. So great was the interest aroused by these discourses, and so great the crowd of Protestants who flocked to hear them, that the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist preachers of the city united in a "Protestant League," to counteract the influence of the priests by a series of lectures on the abominations of Popery. The result, of course, was exactly the reverse of what they expected. The weekly throng at the cathedral became greater than ever. The lectures assumed a more distinctly controversial character. The Catholics were roused to greater ambition. For three years Dr. Spalding continued his lectures every Sunday evening during the winter months, composing thus the essays which he afterwards revised and published under the title of Evidences of Catholicity. In a very short time he was recognized as one of the foremost Catholic apologists of the day, holding very nearly the same position which Bp. England had occupied before him, and in which the late Abp. Hughes was so highly distinguished in Philadelphia and during the earlier part of his career in New York. Dr. Spalding, however, was less of a polemic than either of those great men. His comprehension of the popular wants amounted almost to an instinct, and he felt that the objections to the church which were then commonest rested rather upon historical and political than doctrinal prejudices, and that the great work of the Catholic apologist was to dispel the ignorance of Protestants respecting the faith of the middle ages, the alliance of church and state, the influence of the Papacy upon civilization, and the harmony between Catholicity and republicanism.

"An American, he knew his countrymen, and admired them; a Catholic, he loved his religion, and was convinced of its truth. That, in his person, between faith and patriotism there was no conflict, was manifest. He loved his country all the more because he was a Catholic, and he was all the sincerer Catholic because no mere human authority was brought to influence the free offering of his soul to God's service. He accepted with cheerful courage the position in which God had placed his church in this young republic, and he asked for her, not privilege or protection, but justice, common rights under the common law; and such was his confidence in God, and in the truth of his cause, that he had no doubt as to the final issue of the struggle of religion, free and untrammelled, with the prejudices of a people who, however erroneous and mistaken their views might be, were still fair-minded and generous. Admiring much in the past, he still did not think that all was lost because that past was gone. Let the old, he thought, the feeble, the impotent complain; those to whom God gives youth and strength must act; and the church is ever young and ever strong. God is infinite strength, and of this attribute, as of his others, his spouse participates. If the latest word of philosophy, both in metaphysics and natural science, is force; if the old theory of inertia has been dropped, since the power of analysis has shown that everywhere there is action, motion, force, let it be so. The church, too, is strength. She has a force and an energy of her own. Daughter of heaven, she has brought on earth some of that divine efficacy by which all things were made. Christ is the strength of God, and from his cross he poured into the heart of his spouse, together with his life-blood, his godlike power....

"Without entering into the complex and delicate question of the proper relations of the church and state, he accepted the actual position of the church in this country with thankfulness and without mental reservation. In this matter, he neither blamed the past nor sought to dictate to the future, but put his hand to the work which God had placed before him. He saw all that was to be done, and, without stopping to reflect how little he could do, he began at once to do what he could. Taking a moderate, and possibly a just, estimate of his own ability, he considered that his mission as a writer and public teacher demanded that he should be useful and practical rather than original or profound. Hence he neither wrote nor spoke for posterity, but for the generation in which he lived. His first aim was to remove the prejudices which false history and a perverted literature had created in the minds of his countrymen. The influence of the church on society, on civilization, and on civil liberty was wholly misunderstood; her services in the cause of learning, of art, and of commerce were ignored; her undying love for the poor and the oppressed were forgotten."

During the Know-Nothing excitement, which culminated after his elevation to the episcopate (he had been consecrated coadjutor to the Bishop of Louisville in 1848, and succeeded to the see in 1850), Bp. Spalding's course was remarkable alike for prudence, charity, and courage. He used all his influence during the riots in Louisville to restrain the pardonable anger of the Catholic population; and it is the testimony of one who knew him intimately that during those trying days, when Catholics were murdered or driven from the city, and houses were burned, and the mob was threatening to destroy the cathedral, "he manifested a more than usual peace of mind. He spent the greater part of his moments of leisure in the sanctuary in prayer, and seemed through communion with God to grow unconscious of the trouble which men were seeking to bring upon the church, and which he could not but feel most keenly." His only great share in the published controversies of the period was a discussion with the late Prof. Morse as to the authenticity of an anti-Catholic phrase attributed to Lafayette--a dispute which attracted a great deal of notice while it lasted, although, of course, the subject was not of permanent interest. This, we say, was his only direct share in the polemical literature of that day; but his collection of Miscellanea, which appeared in 1855, answered all the purposes of a formal discussion without assuming a controversial tone. The essays and reviews comprised in this book were written, says the biographer, in "a free, off-hand, straight-forward style, peculiarly suited to the American taste. They covered the whole ground of what was then the Catholic controversy in the United States, and, by facts resting upon unexceptionable testimony, by arguments which appeal at once to the good sense and fair-mindedness of the reader, and by the whole spirit and temper in which they are written, furnish a defence of the church, as against the attacks of her accusers, the strength of which could not be easily broken." Bp. Spalding had none of the ambition of a scholar or a man of letters. He cared nothing for literary reputation. He set no store by the graces of a polished style. He wrote for present effect, and not for future fame; and if his essays could be read and discussed while they were wet from the press, he had no particular desire that they should hold a place on the library shelves of posterity. Whatever he wrote had an occasional--we might almost say an evanescent--appearance, because his sole impulse in writing was some immediate want of the American church. His pen was powerful, because it was always employed on timely themes, and he had a wonderfully happy art of suiting his style to the tastes and capacities of his readers. With all his scholarship and culture, he spent no great pains upon learned research, simply because he knew that, under the circumstances in which he was placed, such pains would be wasted. His books, however, will long survive the generation for which they were written; and his History of the Protestant Reformation especially, though it is ostensibly nothing more than a caustic review of D'Aubigné and other Protestant writers, is universally esteemed as one of the most valuable works in American Catholic literature.

If Dr. Spalding's single-hearted devotion to the church was conspicuous in his literary labors, it was still more remarkable in the other incidents of his busy career. The story of his life is one long record of untiring effort to advance the glory of the church and extend her conquests. The question of education always engrossed a great deal of his care. Soon after his consecration, he went to Europe to obtain the services of some teaching brotherhood, and succeeded in securing a community of Xaverians; and in the pastoral address which, as promoter of the First Provincial Council of Cincinnati, he was deputed to write to the clergy and laity of the province (1855), he spoke with great earnestness of the need of parochial schools; and time after time he returned to the subject, denouncing the system of godless education, and urging the faithful to fresh exertions and more generous expenditure for the religious instruction of their children. One result of his opposition to the common-school system was a vigorous controversy with George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, in the course of which the bishop reviewed not only the Catholic position on the school question, but the whole dispute as to the bearing of Catholic principles upon the social and political conditions of the country. The foundation of the American College at Louvain was almost entirely his work. The American College at Rome found in him a firm and active friend. In the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore he proposed the establishment of a Catholic university in this country; and we certainly can never forget the affectionate interest which he manifested in the Catholic Publication Society, aiding it by his advice, his encouragement, and his earnest recommendation to the bishops and pastors of the country, and writing the first tract which appeared from its press.

After what we have said of his devotion to the church, and the enthusiasm with which he bent every energy to her service, it can hardly be necessary to explain with what dispositions he took his place in the Vatican Council. Strangely enough, however, his relations with that venerable assemblage have been somewhat misunderstood, and his biographer has been at commendable pains to remove all mistake and obscurity.

"Archbishop Spalding had always believed in the infallibility of the Pope. This belief was a tradition with the Maryland Catholics, fostered and rendered stronger by the Jesuit fathers, who for so many years were their only religious teachers. His fathers had taken this faith with them to Kentucky. It was the doctrine which he had received from Flaget and David. Neither the Catholics of Maryland nor their descendants in Kentucky were tainted with even a tinge of Gallicanism. Indeed, it may be affirmed that, as far as we have a tradition in this country, it is thoroughly orthodox. It is the special pride of the American Church that it has not only been faithful to the Vicar of Christ, but has ever had for him the tenderest devotion.

"'Thank God,' wrote Archbishop Spalding to Cardinal Cullen in 1866, just after the close of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore--'thank God, we are Roman to the heart.' The confession of faith of both the Plenary Councils of Baltimore is as full and complete on this point as it was then possible to make it. When, after the convocation of the Vatican Council, the question, whether or not it would be opportune to define the infallibility of the Pope, first began to be discussed, Archbishop Spalding inclined to the opinion that a formal definition would be unnecessary and possibly inexpedient. He thought that Gallicanism was dead, and that Catholics everywhere believed in the infallibility of the Holy See. Hence, he argued, there could be no necessity for a formal definition. He believed, too, that much time would be consumed in conciliary debate, in case the question of fixing the precise limits of Papal infallibility should be submitted to the fathers.

"These considerations led him to think that the most proper way of proclaiming the dogma of Papal infallibility would be to condemn all errors opposed to it; and this was his opinion when he went to the council. It was, however, merely an opinion, formed, as he himself felt, without a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances in the case, and one which, upon fuller information, he might see cause to change. He was not a partisan. He had in him none of the stuff out of which partisans are made. He was simply a Catholic bishop, who had never belonged to a party either in the church or out of it.

"On the 27th of March, 1869, eight months before the assembling of the council, he wrote as follows to a distinguished theologian who was at that time in Rome:

"'I believe firmly the infallibility of the Pope, but incline to think its formal definition unnecessary and perhaps inexpedient, not only for the reasons which you allege, but also on account of the difficulty of fixing the precise limits of doctrinal decisions. Where they are formal, as in the case of the Immaculate Conception, there is no difficulty. But are all the declarations of encyclicals, allocutions, and similar documents to be received as doctrinal definitions? And what about the decisions of congregations, confirmed by the Pope?'

"And again, in August, he wrote:

"'While maintaining the high Roman ground of orthodoxy, I caution much prudence in framing constitutions.'

"In both these letters, Archbishop Spalding seems to take for granted that a definition will be made; and he simply indicates his preference for an implicit rather than a formal definition.

"In August, 1869, two months before leaving for the council, he wrote to Cardinal Barnabo, giving his views on various subjects which he supposed would be brought before the fathers. One of these he designates as 'The Infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff teaching ex cathedra.' 'I have not,' he says, 'the least doubt of this infallibility, and there are very few bishops who do doubt of it. The only question which may, perhaps, arise will relate to the utility, advisability, and necessity of making an explicit definition in the council. It will have to be considered whether a definition of this kind would not be likely to excite controversies now slumbering and almost extinct; whether an implicit definition--an amplification of that of the Council of Florence--which would define the dogma without using the word, would not be more opportune and of greater service to the cause of the church.

"'Should the fathers deem it expedient to make a formal definition, its limits should be accurately marked, and, in the accompanying doctrinal exposition, statement should be made whether and how far, in the intention of the fathers, this infallibility should be extended to pontifical letters, allocutions, encyclicals, bulls, and other documents of this nature.'

"This letter affords sufficient evidence that Archbishop Spalding had all along contemplated the contingency of an explicit definition, and that he did not look upon it with any alarm. In fact, he held that a definition, either implicit or explicit, was necessary. If he did not, in the beginning, advocate a formal definition, he was still less in favor of abstaining from the unmistakable affirmation of the faith of the church on this point."

He expressed his views more fully in a postulatum drawn up after his arrival in Rome--a document asserting the infallibility of the Pope in the most unmistakable manner, but suggesting an implicit and indirect instead of an explicit and direct definition, because such a course would be likely to command "the approval of almost all the fathers, and would be confirmed by their quasi-unanimous suffrage." Soon after this memorial was drawn up, Abp. Spalding was made a member of the committee of twelve cardinals and fourteen prelates appointed by the Holy Father to consider all postulata before they were brought before the council, and he consequently refrained through delicacy from pressing the consideration of his own scheme; but it was energetically discussed in various quarters, and Abp. Spalding came to be looked upon as a leader of the so-called "third party," which was supposed to hold a position between the opportunists and the non-opportunists in the council. Meanwhile, it became evident to the archbishop that, to quote his own language, but two courses lay before the fathers--either to place themselves openly on the side of the Pope, or on that of the opposition; and he wrote a letter to Bp. Dupanloup, repudiating the false construction which had been placed upon his postulatum, and the false inferences drawn from it, and declaring himself emphatically in favor of the plainest possible definition of the doctrine. "When the history of the Vatican Council comes to be written," says an English author, "not many names will be written with more honor than that of the wise and prudent Archbishop of Baltimore; nor will any extra-conciliary document be recorded in future generations with deeper satisfaction or warmer gratitude than the letter in which Mgr. Spalding vindicated himself and his colleagues from all complicity with Gallican doctrines and intrigues." In a pastoral address to his flock, written immediately after the definition, the archbishop made a very clear statement of the doctrine, and pointed out some of its consequences. He answered the objection that it was in conflict with civil and political liberty, which he believed could flourish only under the shadow of the altar and the cross, and he reminded his people that the same theories of government upon which the American republic is founded were taught by the Catholic schoolmen three hundred years before Washington was born.

We have not attempted, in this brief survey of the character of the late Archbishop of Baltimore, to sketch the incidents of his episcopate--and, indeed, they were very few--or even to enumerate the most important works which occupied his busy brain. Our purpose has rather been to select from the valuable pages before us a few indications of those peculiar qualities of mind which made him pre-eminently a representative of the young and vigorous American Church, so strong in the faith, so ardent in attachment to the Holy See, so reverent of Catholic tradition, and withal so quick to adapt itself to the special wants of a free and growing country. We would gladly have paused for a little while over the attractive story of Bp. Spalding's early pastoral peregrinations through the primitive settlements of Kentucky, his charity, his gentleness, his love for children, the touching scenes when he visited the orphan asylums, in which he took such a tender interest, or the beautiful picture of the great preacher and prelate sitting humbly in the school-room with the little ones about his knees. All this would draw us too far away from our proper subject; but we must allow ourselves one extract from the few scattered passages in which the biographer has told us of his private life:

"I shall never forget the pleasant journeys which, when quite a small boy, I had the happiness to make with him. His merry laugh, that might have been that of a child who had never known a sorrow or a care, the simple and naïve way he had of listening to the prattle of children, the whole expression of the countenance showing a soul at rest and happy in the work which he was doing, are still present to my mind, like the remembrance of flowers and sunshine. And I remember, too, with what warmth, and reverence, and love he was received everywhere, and how his presence was never connected in my mind with anything morose or severe. Eyes that seemed to have looked for his coming grew brighter when he had come; and when he was gone, it was like the ceasing of sweet music which one would wish to hear always, but which, even when hushed, keeps playing on in the soul, attuning it to gentler moods and higher thoughts. He was full of human sympathies and human ways. The purple of the bishop never hid the man; nor did he, because he belonged to the supernatural order, cease to be natural. There was, indeed, a certain elegance and refinement about him which no one could fail to perceive, the true breeding of a gentleman; but withal he was as plain as the simplest Kentucky farmer. He rarely talked about learned things; and when he did, he did not talk in a learned way. He possessed naturally remarkable powers of adaptation, which enabled him to feel perfectly at ease in circumstances and companies the most dissimilar. There was not a poor negro in his whole diocese with whom he was not willing to talk about anything that could be of advantage to him. I remember particularly how kindly he used to speak to the old servants of his father, who had known him as a child. He had a special sympathy with this whole race, and I have known him, whilst Archbishop of Baltimore, to take the trouble to write a long letter to an old negro in Kentucky who had consulted him concerning his own little affairs.

"He frequently wrote to children ten or twelve years old, from whom he had received letters. In company where there were children, he never failed to devote himself to their amusement, even to the forgetfulness of the claims of more important persons. When at home, he usually passed the forenoon in writing, or in receiving those who called to see him on matters of business. After dinner, he spent some time in conversation, which he always enjoyed, then withdrew to his room to say vespers, with matins and lauds for the following day. In summer, he kept up an old Roman habit of taking a short repose in the afternoon. He would then walk out, calling in here and there to visit some school or convent, or to spend a few moments with some Catholic family. On the street, he would stop to greet, with a few pleasant words, almost every acquaintance he chanced to meet. Frequently he would remain to tea at the house of a friend, after which he returned to his room to write or read until the hour for retiring for the night arrived. The rule in his house was, that every one should be in at ten o'clock, when the door was locked. Apart from this regulation, he never interfered with the tastes or hours of the priests of his household. In the cathedral, he had his own confessional, and, when at home, he was generally found there on Saturday afternoon; and it was his custom to preach at the late Mass on Sunday."

The Rev. F. Spalding, to whom the task of writing this biography was committed by the archbishop's literary executor, had the advantage of a somewhat intimate knowledge of his distinguished uncle, and of free access to manuscript sources of information. He has done his work ably and conscientiously, with an accurate judgment of the salient points in the story, and no slight skill in the arrangement of his abundant materials. His style is simple and unaffected, and his whole book, from the first chapter to the last, is thoroughly readable; while, as a contribution to the ecclesiastical history of the United States, its value is of course very considerable.

As a biography of an able and successful prelate, whose career was most honorable and useful--of a man who was virtuous and holy from his childhood to his grave, and who has left a bright example of loyalty to God and the holy faith of Christ in a corrupt age--it is of greater value than any similar work which has hitherto been published in this country. This great and holy prelate is worthy to be classed among those noble and illustrious rulers of the church in past ages and the present whose history is an ornament to ecclesiastical annals. Apart from his career as a bishop in the administration of the important churches committed to his care, his share in the successful issue of the first session of the Vatican Council and in that most auspicious event, the definition of the infallibility of the Pope, entitles him to the perpetual remembrance, not only of the American Church, on which he reflected so much lustre, but of the Catholics of the world. The history of his pure and holy life, so highly marked by devotion, integrity, fidelity, and singleness of high purpose, and closing with a death so beautiful, ought to produce, as we hope it will, a powerful and stimulating effect upon the studious Catholic youth of our country.

It is a great good fortune to a man whose life is worth writing to find an affectionate, just, and skilful biographer. In this respect Abp. Spalding has been more fortunate than those other great ornaments of the American hierarchy, England and Kenrick; though we hope the lack may yet be supplied in the case of these two prelates. We have all along expected that this biography would become very soon one of the most popular, widely circulated, and useful books which has ever issued from the American Catholic press; and we feel confident that our expectation will not be unfulfilled.

FOOTNOTES:

[164] The Life of the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. By J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 8vo, p. 468.

TRAVELS WITH A VALETUDINARIAN.

I.

The summer solstice again, and the metropolis an oven! Why should I remain in it and be baked? There was just one reason that detained me: I could not make up my mind to what point of the compass to peregrinate. On my return from last year's ramble, I had determined to join an Alpine club on my next holiday, and wander in search of the grand in mountainous districts. It only wants lungs and muscle, I thought, and I considered myself equal to the undertaking. The smaller the quantity of luggage the better, was my next reflection. But I was completely put out of conceit of Alpine climbing on visiting my friend Mount. I saw Mount six weeks ago, and all my calculations of enjoyment were upset. Mount was already in training for his journey, as if for a boat-race; he was eating, drinking, taking exercise, gymnastic and pedestrian, and sleeping just so many hours, to a minute, on the most approved system. Then, he had such a collection of what he termed indispensable companions for his travels--such optical instruments, theodolites, grappling-irons and sharp-pointed staves, that I was persuaded that his peace of mind would be endangered in looking after them, to say nothing of wanting a dromedary to carry them. I, who never make pleasure a toil, wished my friend an agreeable time of it, and respectfully declined participating. I am fully aware that I shall be told by-and-by that I have missed a great deal; and I am equally sure that I shall uncomplainingly submit to my loss; but if ever I ascend mountains in quest of the sublime, rather than prepare so laboriously, I will charter a balloon.

I was still negativing suggestions that thronged upon me from many estimable friends, and was still far from determining my particular destination, when I stumbled on an agreeable, middle-aged bachelor acquaintance, Mr. Stowell.

"I am rejoiced to see you looking so well," I began.

"Appearances are deceptive, my dear Lovejoy," he replied. "But I am better, thank you. Ah! what a blessing is health."

"It is, indeed."

"And yet how men squander it away; yes, Mr. Lovejoy, squander it just as they do money; and of the two it is the more precious! It should be an object of unceasing care--to be husbanded with wise frugality."

"Well, it is, sir, as you instituted the comparison, to be treated like money in certain respects. There is an old saying that, if we look to the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves; and in like manner, if a few simple regulations patent to every one are attended to, health is to be attained by the bulk of mankind."

"There, sir, excuse me, you are wrong. I have made the subject my study, and my conclusion is that the matter is much more complex than the care of pence. Consider its conditions." And the worthy gentleman told them off on his fingers very deliberately. "There is," said he, "proper nourishment, temperance, exercise, repose, suitable raiment, salubrious locality, cleanliness, ventilation. And where is the man who is mindful of the harmonious working of all these agencies; for the neglect of one of them is mostly fatal to the rest?"

"Then, there are such a number of complications in the constitution of health, I think we must withdraw the charge of squandering; for the mass of men could never be hemmed in by a series of sanitary rules only partially understood and only partially practicable, though they might be like children throwing away treasures without a knowledge of their value. Squandering implies, to my mind, wilful waste."

"No, sir; I maintain that squander is the right word, and I accept your meaning of it. I say it is every man's duty to study health, and, if he does, he will find the complications I have spoken of exceedingly easy of comprehension. But, sir, men will not learn; they will put themselves to no trouble at all; and they squander their days away, because they heed not the value of them. Their daily conviction makes them conscious of that value, but they stifle it--yes, sir, they squander!"

"I will not argue the question further. I perceive you have given it more attention than I have."

"I own it, and I am proud of it. And now, if you will add a favor to the concession you have just made, you will join me, be my compagnon de voyage out of this furnace, which, we shall both agree, is only suited to the constitution of a salamander."

"You flatter me by your invitation; but I have not settled in my mind what direction to take."

"Leave that to me, sir. If you will gratify me by giving me the pleasure of your company, I would propose to change about from place to place--now inland scenery, then seaside, different parts of the coast, a last view of the country rich in autumnal tints, and then home before Boreas is too rough for us."

"That will do admirably. You speak like one who had well considered his plans."

"I have, sir; it all comes under the study of health."

"Really, you will make a convert of me."

"All in good time. We will get off first; let us start to-morrow, if not too soon for you."

"With all my heart. I love promptitude in action. But by land or water? And whither?"

"We will take the Great Slaughterton Railroad, in the first instance. That's imperative!"

"My dear sir, there was a fearful accident on that line only yesterday--a hundred and sixteen persons killed, besides loss of limbs, dislocations, contusions innumerable!"

"The very thing for us! A nine days' wonder! That line will be particularly careful for a whole week to come while the public eye is on it. We shall be quite safe, sir; but the earlier, the better. To-morrow, then?"

Assent was given, and I was booked for the Great Slaughterton. I was a little startled at my friend's precipitation, which seemed at variance with his usual deliberation; but he had given a reason for expedition on the route he had selected, and, on accompanying him home, I found that his preparations had been made. He showed me all the latest contrivances for comfortable travelling, in a variety of valises, portmanteaus, leather bags, satchels, baths, and a mahogany box which reminded me of a liquor case or cabinet of choice revolvers.

"You see I am all but ready," he said.

"Indeed you are," I replied. "But I shall overtake you, though I have not begun to pack; for I travel in a more primitive style. I leave behind me all I can do without, and trust to civilization to supply wants that may come upon me. A purse and the least possible encumbrances are what I look to. You are not, I suppose, going to burden yourself with that mahogany case, though I perceive it is labelled."

"My life-preserver, sir!"

"Oh! I thought it might be a strong box for your valuables, and I was about to suggest your entrusting it to your bankers. We are not, however, going into any dangerous quarters where firearms...."

"No dangers, sir, while I have the honor to be your guide! It is my medicine-chest--an indispensable part of my equipment!"

"Ha! You cannot trust country apothecaries; and you, of course, understand something of physic."

"A person at my time of life, sir, is usually said to be a fool or a physician. Not that I despise the faculty--we may have to call in their aid before we return."

"I hope not, Mr. Stowell; and present appearances are not in their favor, I am happy to say."

"You have not, I see, made health a study."

"You have the advantage of me there," I rejoined, as speedily as I could relieve myself of the sentiment, fearing another dissertation; and the occurrence of the topic impressed my mind with some alarm that our difference of mental organism might compromise our good-fellowship before we came to the end of our journey. Dwelling for a moment on this idea, I thought I would venture to insinuate terms of concord; so I followed up my hasty remark by a suggestion of mutual forbearance while we were birds of passage.

"It may not be thought out of place," I said, "if I take this early opportunity of pointing out that our minds do not work in the same groove; and that we may find it necessary to give and take, as the saying is, while we shall be together. For my part, I may claim a little indulgence for some hobby of my own, possibly; and I trust you will bear in mind how completely I give in to you on all that appertains to the laws of health."

Mr. Stowell fidgetted about in his chair, and seemed scarcely to take in the scope of my observation.

"All I would recommend," I added, "is that we should endeavor to 'play fair'--in our intellectual conflicts, I mean. Let 'Put yourself in his Place' be a lesson to each of us, and I have no doubt that nothing will occur to ruffle our temper or lessen our enjoyment."

"Temper, sir!" replied my friend. "I am glad you spoke of it. You will only find me too much of a lamb. I detest bickerings and disagreements. No, sir, you will have an easy time of it with me. A little humoring of some whim of mine might be judicious, not to say friendly; but, beyond that, you will not find anywhere a less quarrelsome and more conciliatory being than Benjamin Stowell."

"Then there is every prospect, I rejoice to say for both our sakes, of a lasting understanding between us."

"As firm and durable as adamant!" exclaimed Mr. Stowell energetically, emphasizing the remark by a smart blow on the arm of his chair.

II.

We started on the Great Slaughterton Railroad next day, and it duly consigned us to our destination--a romantically situated town on a fine table-land. The main street in the town, at its extremity, commanded an extensive view of a beautiful country, which promised us some refreshing breezes as they swept over the expansive plains, and many shady retreats from the fiery sun under the umbrageous arms of lofty trees that relieved the prospect from monotony. We took lodgings, Mr. Stowell undertaking to suit our tastes and pockets in this important matter, and claiming from the landlord several extra indulgences without additional cost, on the score of infirm health. Our journey had been very enjoyable, and it had sharpened our appetites; for the prospect of a repast after a good bath in a capacious washstand, which seemed to cool the atmosphere of each of our bed-chambers, put us both in good humor. Everything was well arranged, and, in an incredibly short space of time, we sat down to an excellent table tempting us with its burnished silver and its covering of whitest damask. We both, as it seemed to me, did justice to our meal, and I was a little surprised, therefore, when my friend exclaimed:

"Very provoking, is it not? Travelling has a most peculiar effect on me: it creates the semblance of an appetite; but the moment I sit down to eat, I have no relish for anything."

"Then have I made all this havoc?" I inquired, with something, perhaps, of a dubious air, pointing to the reduced state of the viands.

"I don't wish to be rude, sir, but I have been envying your enjoyment."

"I was sharp-set, I confess; and I must have been too busy to observe your inactivity," I replied, feeling sure that Mr. Stowell's incisors had been no more idle than my own, and wondering what they would go through when their owner gave them their allotted amount of work on a more favorable occasion.

"Always a small eater, sir!" remarked my friend, speaking of himself in a tone of regret.

"Little and often, perhaps?" I asked.

"Not at all, sir; loss of appetite is one of my troubles. Weak digestion! If you should be afflicted in that way, I possess an excellent specific, and I have with me one or two valuable treatises on the stomachic functions."

"But have they not failed in your own case?"

"They have lost some of their efficacy, I allow; but they had a marvellous effect at first. I take it, all remedies wear themselves out, so that we need continual change."

"Of diet?"

"Of regimen, sir! You will find it so, if you will make health your study."

"I won't dispute your conclusions, but I am in the habit of leaving matters to nature, and she has served me hitherto excellently well."

"Very true; but she wants renovating perpetually. It is fatal to rely upon her unassisted efforts. The artificial life we lead is too much for her. Cooks have done for nature, and doctors are called in to restore her powers."

"But you would not physic a man in health merely because he lives, as is contended, artificially?"

"Certainly, most certainly! Prevention is better than cure."

"I prefer to wait until a cure is needed."

"Contrary to all sound system when prevention is possible!"

"Your theory will make the fortune of the doctors."

"A noble profession!"

Mr. Stowell now suggested a walk, which had my advocacy, and we sallied out.

"We will allow ourselves exactly one hour," said my friend, taking out his watch. "I go on system, as you will see. Now, which way is the wind? Westerly. Ay, that will do!"

"A very fine evening! We shall be able to proceed down the chief thoroughfare, and go a little distance on the high-road beyond."

"No, sir, we shall have the wind in our teeth!"

"It is too balmy to hurt us!"

"I am not sure of that. I never face the wind if I can help it. I have known numberless evils result from a little want of attention to such an apparently insignificant point."

Accordingly, we took a northerly direction, and we were rewarded with a sight of some beautiful scenery on that side of the town, so that the caprices of my friend caused me no disappointment.

We returned to our lodgings after a most delightful stroll of an hour and a quarter. Mr. Stowell looked at his watch with a dissatisfied air.

"I must be aware of you," he said, "a second time; you have beguiled me into a transgression. I am not angry, sir, not angry, but I shall feel the effect of it."

"Pray, what have I done?"

"Sir, you have talked me into at least fifteen minutes' excess beyond my regular exercise. I shall suffer for it."

"Do not blame me. Say, rather, that the freshness and novelty of the scenery have led us astray. You are not tired?"

"Not at all. But I ought to be!"

"Then I will prophesy that you will not come to harm."

"Were you not to give in to me in all matters appertaining to health? Don't contradict me again, I beg. I know my own constitution so thoroughly. I shall not be able to sleep without an opiate!"

"I am sorry to hear that; but let me suggest your first trying the effect of the change of air?"

"Really, sir, you are ignorantly striving to undermine the study of my life. Don't suppose for an instant that any scenery would keep me on my legs five minutes past my time, or that air has anything to do with provoking sleep. In primitive times, such might have been the case, and it may be so even now with juveniles; but too much artificiality surrounds adults. I shall be obliged to have recourse to my chest, and I shall give you a treat when I open it for inspection. It is a multum in parvo! Make your mind quite easy that, come what will, I have almost every remedy, not merely within call, but within reach. There's consolation for you!"

I bowed my acknowledgment, which I could not find words, I own, to express.

Presently my friend proposed that we should have half an hour's reading; and, on his asking me if I had any skill in elocution, I replied that, having some taste for it, I should be happy to read aloud to him, if it would afford him any pleasure.

"Well, you won't be offended," he said, "if I ask you to stop, should I not like your style?"

"Certainly not--the moment I fatigue you," I replied.

"And on no account exceed half an hour. Never mind breaking off in a fine passage--we can have that another time; but I could not endure a book more than thirty minutes, not even a newspaper, which, for diversity of contents, perhaps is the best kind of reading."

I accepted the conditions, and, finding a volume of Montaigne's Essays on a shelf, I took it down, and raised the question whether the old Gascon would be to my companion's taste. He replied in the affirmative, and declared his conviction that the art of essay-writing was lost, and that no essayist was comparable to Montaigne. So lively an author he could hear, he continued, with a good deal of enthusiasm, for the allotted time, with the greatest pleasure and without a yawn.

Fortunate in the selection of my author, I opened the volume without looking for any particular subject--for we both agreed that it was impossible to alight on a dull place--and commenced reading.

"Capital!" exclaimed my friend, in less than five minutes. "Capital! What a marvellous digestion that man must have had! You can see it in the clearness of his ideas! Let's see, he was before Galen, wasn't he? Go on, don't let me interrupt you; we will settle these points afterwards. Don't forget what just occurred to me about his digestion--it's important. You may not think so, ha! ha! but I know. Don't stop." And he composed himself as if for attentive listening, with his head thrown back in his chair, and his arms folded across his broad chest.

I had paused during this slight interruption, but, at the bidding of my companion, resumed our essay. Mr. Stowell seemed deep in thought as I occasionally caught sight of him, but, becoming more and more interested in my author, I glanced at him less frequently. Mr. Stowell's watch lay on the table before me, probably with a view of confining the lecture within the stipulated limits. My eye noted the hour as I progressed. I had been reading exactly twenty minutes--two-thirds of my prescribed time. I proceeded a few minutes longer, forgetful of everything but the book, which was enchaining my attention. A hoarse noise came from my friend's chair on the opposite side of the table. I was too busy to look up, and the noise grew louder and thicker. Was it possible? Was that the heavy breathing of my friend, yielding to the influence of the air and our lively Gascon? Another volume, not of print, but of sound, and it was an unmistakable snore! I raised my eyes, and there was my friend fast asleep.

I read on until my time was up, lest the cessation of my voice should disturb his slumbers. When my half-hour had fairly expired, I satisfied myself that neither the stoppage of any accustomed sound nor the raising of an uncommon one had any effect on the sleeper, so securely was he locked in the arms of Morpheus.

III.

For the next two hours I read to myself, but there was no change in the attitude of my friend, unless he had become more musical in the double bass of his nasal intonations. A reflection crossed my mind. Was I not in a dilemma? Mr. Stowell had fallen to sleep without his opiate! He would be very testy at finding his theory at fault, and an ignoramus like myself right! It was dangerous to awake him; and, if I allowed him to sleep on, he would be angry when he awoke to discover that he was not in bed.

Twelve o'clock struck. I continued reading. One o'clock struck, two, three--no change! Four o'clock! Montaigne had deeply interested me, but at last I was tired and inclined to rest. Should I retire? Was my freedom of action gone? I did not wish to be thought inconsiderate, but was I shackled by the companionship of a middle-aged bore? Again I took refuge in my book. Five o'clock--broad daylight again! Seven hours' sleep for Mr. Stowell, and not a wink for me! I could put up with it no longer. I called to him by name, shouted, whistled, walked about, treading heavily on the floor. To no purpose. I opened the window, and let in the streaming sun and the refreshing morning breeze. An extra snort from Mr. Stowell, nothing more! At length I repaired to my chamber, which adjoined our sitting apartment. I had just undressed, when my friend was evidently on his legs.

"What a bore!" I overheard him exclaim. "I told him not to read more than half an hour, and he must have prosed on till dawn. I must be rid of him!"

"Thank heaven!" was on my lips, when he slammed the door of his chamber with great violence. Here is a recompense, I thought, for obliging a friend.

We were late at breakfast. I was taking my seat at the breakfast-table, when Mr. Stowell savagely accosted me.

"I am a lamb in temper, but I can't stand this, Mr. Lovejoy! I will thank you to read to yourself another evening. A pretty thing to keep me up, and then leave me exposed to the chill dews!"

I restrained myself as a man does with right on his side.

"I read at your request," I calmly replied, "and not a moment longer than you desired. I remained up with you until five, not liking to disturb you. It is I, sir, who have reason to complain."

"I don't care. I won't have it. If there is one thing I detest, it is being up all night! Young men can do without sleep; my constitution requires full seven--"

"Hours' sleep, and, to my positive knowledge, it had it; while I have not had three."

"A dog sleep, sir--an unnatural sleep, sir--no sleep at all, sir. I shall feel the want of rest for days to come. Ha! I know why it was: you thought to deprive me of my opiate! But I understand my constitution. I will have my opiate in spite of you. You compel me to have recourse to my chest. I should but for you have made up my morning's prescription overnight. It must be taken fasting."

Patiently I listened to this tirade, and did not condescend to answer. Mr. Stowell brought out his medicine-chest, and busied himself for some time in weighing and pounding. At length he gulped down some kind of mixture. I occupied myself meanwhile with the morning paper. The mixture or its preparation had one good effect--it restored my friend's good humor.

"There, I will not be angry; I never am; I cannot be. I wish you would let me recommend you a dose. I will mix it directly; I will, indeed. It will do you a wonderful amount of good."

The offer I politely declined.

"I see," he continued, "you have lost your temper. Now, what can I do to recover it?" His eye then caught a programme of a morning concert on the table. "The very thing!" he added. "This very day! We'll go! Let me persuade you. 'Music hath charms, etc.' Say yes, and oblige me."

Not wishing to appear churlish, I assented, simply pointing out that the thermometer would range high in a concert-room. My objection was overruled, and we both sat down to breakfast. I was glad to see my friend enjoy his meal with what I thought a decided relish, for he had been very actively employed; and I was on the point of asking whether his mixture had not produced an excellent appetite, when he amused me by saying:

"Positively, I never can take a breakfast! Everything very tempting, though. But then, want of sleep! Ah! I can't get over that."

By this time, I knew better than to contradict my friend, and I suffered his remarks, therefore, to pass unchallenged. In due time, we went to the concert. Several songs by distinguished artists were sung, the chief burden of them being the pleasures of summer, bright, sunny days, golden dawns, and glorious eves. These appropriate subjects and the heat of the room made me sigh for some shady retreat under a leafy canopy, such as had charmed my eye during our saunter of the previous evening. The concert came to an end.

"Do you know," said my friend, when we found ourselves in the open air, "I don't much care for music?"

"Not on a hot day, perhaps," I replied.

"No, sir, it is not that; but I have turned the occasion to some profit."

"I am glad of it."

"Yes, sir; I shall write an article for the Medico-Chirurgical Observer. I am convinced that vocalization injures the larynx. I can prove it. The demonstration became quite painful at last, but I sat it out."

"Then we may bless our stars that we are not singers?"

"We may, indeed! A fatal gift."

"I will wait to see you in type," I remarked, in the expectation of closing a discussion which began to appal me.

On our return, we encountered a strange-looking individual habited in a very long coat, and wearing a hat with a brim of extraordinary breadth. Mr. Stowell let this oddity pass, then stopped and looked after him. A youth approached us as we tarried. Mr. Stowell beckoned to him.

"Pray, who is that gentleman?" he asked the boy.

"Dr. Brambleton, if he be a doctor," said the boy.

"Thank you," said my friend to his informant; then, turning to me, he added, "A most remarkable man, I am sure!"

"An empiric," I suggested. "I saw his gout specifics, and a column of his testimonials in to-day's paper." I laughed slightly, then exclaimed, "Only one more infallible cure for gout!"

Mr. Stowell looked very grave, and the boy, who lingered to hear our remarks, ran off, cackling a good imitation of "quack, quack" as he went along.

"That's all prejudice," said Stowell. "He, Dr. B., may be a benefactor of his race. I say he may be; but I am certain of this--I felt some singular twinges in my big toe while we were on the Great Slaughterton, and I have not been entirely free from them since."

"You are not a gouty subject?"

"I can't say what I may come to. I should very much like some talk with Dr. Brambleton."

"Nonsense, my dear sir."

"I am only curious to hear what he would say. I could tell in a minute whether he was a pretender."

Mr. Stowell now labored under an itching desire to call in Dr. Brambleton, and I continued to combat his folly, as I conceived it. Nothing else for the remainder of the day was talked about except various human ailments, their propagation, and the means of their eradication. It was impossible to turn the conversation into any other channel. I was so worn out at last that my replies became shorter and less courteous. I grew dogmatic in my turn, and backed my objections with more force as I plunged into topics out of my depth. Mr. Stowell was now frantic, and abused my ignorance. I retorted by ridiculing his credulity. We got so personal in our remarks that it was a relief when bedtime came; and we retired to our respective chambers in no very pleasant mood.

That night, a thunder-storm broke over the town. The storm was succeeded by a sudden fall in the temperature, and the air became as cold as it is sometimes in the early spring. A sharp easterly wind was blowing when I arose the following morning. Before I left my chamber, I heard Mr. Stowell in altercation with our landlord.

"I told you I was in infirm health," said Stowell.

"You did, sir," replied the landlord.

"Then, how could you put me in a room with an easterly aspect?"

"Why did you not choose the other room?"

"Because some people know how to take care of themselves."

At this I opened my door, and rushed into our sitting-room.

"Mr. Stowell," I exclaimed, "I am not accustomed to have ungenerous reflections cast upon me. The choice was your own; but you have before expressed a wish to be rid of me, and I reciprocate the sentiment. My room is at your service; I shall not inflict my society on you any longer, and I shall seek more genial companionship than I have found in a confirmed valetudinarian."

Without waiting for an answer, I hurried out of the house, breakfasted at a hotel, conned the newspaper, and proceeded to the railroad depot, partly for a walk, and partly to make sure of the time of arrival of the "up" train. I did not return to my lodgings until just in time to take away my luggage.

In the sitting-room, I found Mr. Stowell and Dr. Brambleton. Mr. Stowell was sitting on a chair, with his bare feet on what I took to be an electric battery, but which resembled a coal-scuttle. He held a wire in his hands, and on his head he wore a cap encircled, as I supposed, with magnets.

"Good-day," I said, in a conciliating tone, as I was on the wing, and my fancy was tickled at the ridiculous appearance of my friend.

"Don't think any more of it," replied Mr. Stowell. "My temper emanated from gout! My first attack, I assure you."

"A most decided case!" chimed in Dr. Brambleton. "But he bears it like a Job."

"A speedy recovery!" I answered. "You are in good hands, I hope?"

"Excellent," said Mr. Stowell. "I have the fullest confidence."

"He knows where he is, sir," put in the doctor slyly. "But I will stake my reputation on a cure."

And wishing the patient and doctor a final adieu, I departed, rejoicing in my deliverance from both quacks and quacked. I should distinguish myself in Alpine climbing while under the stimulus imparted by freedom regained; but experience will make me wary of a travelling companion until I have tested his congeniality of disposition.

THE CHILD RESTORED.

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.

So long had wept this mother, so implored, So pressed against her heart the head adored, The livid forehead of her dying child, That to the frozen breast the marble brow, As by a miracle, returned the glow Of life and light; and, with a fervent joy, She thanked the God who gave her back her boy; But from that hour the infant never smiled!

Three months had passed since then, and still the gloom That seemed to linger from his unfilled tomb Remained unbroken; one might almost think That, when the spirit trembled on the brink Of death, some pitying angel made a change To soothe maternal grief. So sad and strange Was the young, drooping head, the silent mood, His mother dared not, in her gratitude, Missing his joyous laugh, his happy voice And glance, even in embracing him, rejoice.

From open casements song and laughter ring, From turrets high the chimes their carols fling. "Listen, my Louis. 'Tis the happy day When the New Year bids little children play With their new gifts, all merry for his sake! What playthings will my little Louis take? Wilt have this snow-white sheep, with silken string, That thou canst lead to pasture in the spring? Not this? Well, then, these paints, these brushes, made To color paper flowers that will not fade? Or, see! this gay, rebounding woollen ball, That falls and springs from earth, again to fall? Thou dost not love to play? Thou canst not run? What shall I give thee, then, my cherished son?

"Tell me thy secret in one little word; Thy mother fails to guess thy baby need. Say, wilt thou have this pretty, gilded sword To make thee a great captain? No, indeed! Then this thatched cottage, with its drooping eaves, This open book, with all its pictured leaves? No! still the little, mournful, waving hand. Would that thy mother had a fairy wand To bear thee something that would make thee smile! Might not these singing birds thy thoughts beguile, These blooming flowers? Whisper me, tell me, love, While I embrace thee--I who love thee so-- Louis, what wantest thou? My darling, say!" He murmured--"Only wings to flee away."

MADAME DE STAËL.

Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Holstein-Staël, the most remarkable female writer of our century, was born at Paris on the 22d April, 1766. At that time her father was very far removed from the high position he was one day to occupy, being simply a clerk in Thelluson's bank. Mme. Necker herself undertook the education of her daughter--a task for which she was singularly unfitted, being cold and stern by nature, and a pedant to boot.

M. Necker was much more loved by his child, and he understood her disposition better. He liked to draw her out and make her talk, and for that purpose he used playfully to tease her: she invariably met him with that mixture of gaiety and tenderness which characterized their intercourse. Deeply grateful for his affection, Anne put the utmost good-will in the execution of his slightest wish. When only ten years old, she was so struck by the admiration he showed for Gibbon the historian, that the idea occurred to her to marry him, and thereby secure to her father the constant presence of one whose conversation he so much appreciated. Undismayed by Gibbon's repulsive ugliness, the child actually made the proposal to him herself. What makes the comical incident more curious is the fact that her mother had been, when little more than a child, Gibbon's first love. It was said of Anne Necker that she had always been young, and yet had never been a child. Her favorite pastime was fashioning doll kings and queens, and making them act tragedies of which she improvised the various parts. This innocent amusement was at last forbidden by her Calvinistic mother, but Anne used to hide herself and carry on her dramatic little games in secret.

In her mother's salon, Anne early made the acquaintance of some of the clever men of the day--amongst others, Grimm, Marmontel, and the Abbé Raynal. At the age of nineteen her intellectual faculties had become developed in the highest degree, but so much to the detriment of her health as to cause the greatest alarm to her parents. The famous Dr. Tronchin was called in, and ordered the young invalid to be taken to the country, where the mind should lie fallow, and the time hitherto devoted to study be spent in the open air. No prescription could have been more unwelcome to Mme. Necker, for it involved a relaxation, or rather a complete abandonment, of the severe régime she had adopted for her daughter. As it turned out, this was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of hardening into a learned prodigy, Anne's moral nature was allowed to put forth its full luxuriance. Her father came constantly to St. Ouen, and in the charms of his daughter's society he sought rest from the cares of the ministry. In this pleasant retreat he and Anne learned, if possible, to love each other better. M. Necker was not, however, a foolishly fond parent; his tenderness never obscured his judgment; and Anne declared herself that his eye, so far from being blinded by affection, was quicker to detect her faults than her merits. "He unmasked all affectation in me," she writes; "from living with him, I came to believe that people could see clearly into my heart."

Anne made her entrée into society at an early age, and immediately assumed there the position her talents merited. As the daughter of a powerful minister, and a future heiress, it was supposed she would marry at once, but it was not so. Mlle. Necker attained the in those days comparatively mature age of twenty before she gave her hand to the Baron de Staël-Holstein, ambassador from the court of Sweden.

Immediately after her marriage, the Baronne de Staël was presented at court. On this occasion she acquired a character for eccentricity by omitting one of the innumerable court courtesies; but what stamped her irrevocably as an oddity was that, going a few days later to visit the Duchesse de Polignac, the young baroness walked into the room without her head-dress--she had dropped it in the carriage. Those who were inclined to laugh at her, however, soon desisted, seeing that she was herself the first to relate her misdemeanors, and to laugh at them.

But a great event was at hand which was to turn the current of Mme. de Staël's thoughts into other channels: the French Revolution broke out. The daughter of the minister who was the immediate cause of that volcanic eruption was not likely to remain a cool spectator of the national upheaving. Misled by her own enthusiasm for the laws and constitution of England, and still more by the ephemeral homage paid to Necker, who had made his cause triumphant in the king's cabinet, Mme. de Staël honestly believed that the dawn of true political liberty was at hand; but this short-lived chimera was changed to horror when she realized the true motives, the aim and object, of the demagogues. The arrest of Louis XVI. and the queen at Varennes filled her with regret, the sincerity of which it is impossible to doubt when we read her account of this event in the Considérations sur la Révolution Française.

Her knowledge of the men who were the prime motors of these momentous changes enabled her to foresee the terrible catastrophe of the 10th of August. With great courage and clear-sightedness, Mme. de Staël drew up a plan of escape for the royal captives. M. Bertrand de Moleville, one of the king's ministers, gives the details of this scheme, which its author forwarded with a letter to M. de Montmorin, one of his colleagues in the ministry. Her idea was to convey the royal family to the coast of Normandy, whence they were to sail for England. Whether the plan was practicable or not, was never tested; M. de Montmorin knew too well that it was utterly useless to place it before the king.

The murder of the king and queen filled the heart of Mme. de Staël with indignation and dismay. Such was the effect that this crime had upon her, that for a long time she was quite broken-hearted, all her faculties were absorbed and, as it were, paralyzed by the deeds of blood that were being perpetrated around her. When at last she roused herself to resume her pen, it was on behalf of the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette; she addressed to the monsters who then ruled France an article entitled "Défense de la Reine." We can easily imagine what consummate skill and prudence were necessary at such a moment in dealing with the tigers she was striving to disarm. But not even at this crisis would Mme. de Staël descend to flattery; her talent and her spirit were alike above such arts. While scorning to propitiate them by insulting the queen, or using any of those invectives against royalty then in vogue, she tried to merge the sovereign in the woman, the mother, and the devoted and courageous wife. Strong and deep reverence, joined to a delicate and ingenuous pity, breathe throughout this noble appeal.

If Mme. de Staël had written nothing else, this article alone would have sufficed to ensure her fame.

Shortly after the fall of Robespierre, she published two pamphlets, one entitled Reflections on Peace at Home, the other Reflections on Peace, addressed to Pitt and to the French. This latter work received a tribute of praise from Fox in the House of Commons.

Mme. de Staël took a deep interest in the government formed under the new constitution of 1795, but in her desire to become acquainted with the men who were likely to be chosen members of it, she formed intimacies with some who were unworthy of her; even her literary reputation suffered from these so-called friendships. The public rarely discriminates wisely between the character of an author and that of his or her surroundings.

Just at this time Mme. de Staël became the centre of a circle of politicians, who used to meet at the Hôtel de Salm under the title of the Constitutional Club: this society had been formed to counterbalance the doctrines of the Clichy Club, which were ultra-revolutionary. Benjamin Constant was one of the principal speakers at the "Constitutional."

Thibaudeau, in his memoirs, lately published, declares that Mme. de Staël secretly favored the Directory, and even attributes to her influence the reappearance on the political stage of one who had long forfeited the position he formerly held there. "M. de Talleyrand," says Thibaudeau, "had just returned from the United States without any money, when, through the influence of a woman famous for her wit and her spirit of intrigue, he was introduced into the intimacy of Barras."

But enthusiastic as this famous woman was for glory and talent, she was far too shrewd to be deceived by the fine talk of the young conqueror, who came with the spoils of Egypt in his knapsack to dictate to France, promising to replace the "ignoble Directory by a splendid and solid government." Her knowledge of human nature enabled her to foresee with certainty what the result would be when the despot was raised to power; it would be war to the knife against liberty in every shape and form, and against all its supporters. One of Bonaparte's panegyrists has attempted by a base and monstrous calumny to exonerate his petty persecution of a woman by attributing to her a woman's vindictive spite as the motive of her resistance to him and his policy. This worthy servant of his master declares, on the word of the latter, that Mme. de Staël was in love with Bonaparte, and that his coldness to the femme savante was the real motive of her opposition. The story is as worthy of the husband of the loving and divorced Josephine as it is unworthy of Mme. de Staël. Her real crime in his eyes was her unyielding integrity of principle, and the preternatural insight of her genius, which made it impossible for him to dupe her. He verified all her previsions to the full. No sooner had he seized the reins of power than he used it to paralyze liberty in every form; most, above all, when it was handled by talent. Mme. de Staël was imprudent enough to boast of her prophetic instinct on this score to Joseph Bonaparte, who was her friend, but who was also the brother of the First Consul. He entreated her to be more guarded in her words, and soon after warned her that the conversations of her salon found their echo in the Tuileries. When she laughed at his friendly information, he tried to convince her by a more powerful argument. Necker had deposited two millions in the royal treasury, and this sum should be restored to his daughter if she would so far condescend to recognize the First Consul as to ask him for it. Mme. de Staël replied that she would never sue where she had a right to exact, and instead of conciliating the great man, she urged Benjamin Constant to pronounce immediately his famous speech denouncing the covert tyranny of the First Consul, which so roused the wrath of the latter against him and her that from this time forth Mme. de Staël was to know no peace. The daring act sealed her doom. Friends, terrified at her boldness and its consequences, deserted her salon. Fouché, the minister of police, summoned her to his presence, and informed her in his master's name what she already knew, that no one might brave his anger with impunity.

A few days after this official interview she went to a fête given by Gen. Berthier, having accepted the invitation in hopes that some violent outburst from Bonaparte would give her the opportunity of taking a woman's vengeance, and sharpening her wit on him. She actually tells us that she rehearsed an imaginary scene between them, and wrote down her own answers, polishing them off till they were sharp as steel. It was time and wit wasted, however; Bonaparte only accosted her with some vulgar platitude that afforded no opening for pert reprisals. Not long after this disappointment she met the enemy again, this time by chance, and fortune served her better. Mme. de Staël was discussing some political question with great animation when the First Consul came up to the group of admiring listeners, and said brusquely:

"Madame, I hate women who talk politics."

"So do I, General," replied his adversary, looking him coolly in the face; "but in a country where men persecute them and cut their heads off, it is well to know why." On another occasion, when he accosted her in a gracious mood, she made bold to ask him what woman in France he was proudest of. "The woman who has most children," was the coarse rejoinder.

Mme. de Staël made frequent journeys to Coppet, her father's residence. This was another crime in the eyes of the First Consul, as Necker was supposed to have been helped by his talented daughter in his work, Politics and Finance--a book which Bonaparte resented furiously as an attack on his own policy and system of finance.

On Mme. de Staël's return to Paris after the appearance of the work, she was warned that her personal liberty was in danger. Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angély, who was her friend though in Napoleon's service, got her safe out of Paris, and secured her the hospitality of a relative of his in the country, where, she tells us, she used often to sit at her window of a night watching for the arrival of the gendarmes to seize her. She soon left this kindly shelter for the home of her friend Mme. Récamier, at Saint Brice. In the security of this quiet retreat the fugitive fancied herself forgotten by Napoleon, and decided to settle down at a small country-house about ten leagues from Paris. Scarcely had she done so when the happy illusion was dispelled. A commandant of gendarmerie presented himself at her door with an order signed by the First Consul, bidding her withdraw forty leagues from the capital within twenty-four hours.

Joseph Bonaparte and General Tunat had interceded for her, but in vain. Mme. de Staël, exasperated, refused the privilege of remaining in France on such conditions, and decided to seek refuge in Germany, where she could "confront the courtesy of the ancient dynasty with the impertinence of the new one that was striving to crush France."

Her first resting-place was Weimar, the German Athens of that day. Here she learned German under such professors as Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland. In 1804, she visited Berlin, where she met with the kindest reception from the king and queen; but her stay there was short; she was summoned hence to her father's death-bed, and arrived too late to embrace him. This was a fearful blow; she strove to assuage her grief by collecting his MSS., with a view to publishing them, but her health, shaken by so many vicissitudes, gave way, and she was obliged to seek change and rest in Italy. The sight of Rome and of Naples awoke a new life within her, and restored to her the power of writing, which for a time she had lost.

But nothing could long console her for her absence from her own beloved country. The longing to see France at last so far subdued her proud spirit that she determined to avail herself of the privilege of approaching within forty leagues of Paris; she returned accordingly, and settled at Rouen. This was indeed a violation of the permitted limits, but Fouché shut his eyes to it, and the exile remained undisturbed at the residence of her friend M. de Castellane, where she finished Corinne, and corrected the proof-sheets. The work appeared in 1807, and awoke a very trumpet-blast of applause all over Europe. But fame was a crime in one who had incurred the tyrant's displeasure, and the author received a peremptory order to quit France. Broken-hearted and despairing, she returned to Coppet, where she was accompanied by a few faithful friends, who braved all to share her solitude. Here she continued to occupy herself with her great work, Germany. Feeling, however, that a more perfect knowledge of the country was necessary before completing it, she resolved to spend the winter of 1807 at Vienna. She met with a flattering reception there from the Prince de Ligne, the Princesse Lubomirska, and most of the distinguished personages of the court, and returned in the spring to Coppet.

As soon as her book on Germany was ready for the press, Mme. de Staël set out for France, and placed herself at the distance prescribed--forty leagues. She took up her abode at the old castle of Chaumont, formerly the residence of the Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana of Poitiers, and Catherine de' Medicis.

While passing a few days with her dear and valiant friend, M. de Montmorency, the persecuted author received the terrible tidings that 10,000 copies of her new work just issued had been seized by the minister, although she had taken the precaution of submitting the proofs for approval to the censorship. This tyrannical measure was followed by an order to leave France within three days. She begged for a short delay, hoping, by means of a German passport, to land in England; but to this request the Duc de Rovigo sent a positive refusal. Mme. de Staël revenged herself later by placing the duke's letter in her second edition of Germany.

From Fossé she fled to Coppet. Here she found that the prefect of Geneva had received orders to destroy any proofs or copies of her work that he could discover. At the same time, he hinted to Mme. de Staël that she might soften the tyrant by seizing the opportunity to write an ode on the new-born "King of Rome." "My best wish for his infant majesty," she replied, "is, that he may have a good nurse." This impertinence came to Napoleon's ears, and Mme. de Staël expiated it by a prohibition to move two leagues from Coppet. Her friends were finally included in her disgrace. M. Schlegel, her son's tutor, was ordered to resign his position in her family, and M. de Montmorency was exiled for daring to give her the protection of his presence in return for the courageous hospitality he had received from her during the Terror. Mme. Récamier was similarly punished for her boldness in befriending the woman who defied Bonaparte. Hunted to earth while she remained on French soil, Mme. de Staël felt that nothing remained to her but to seek peace and security in flight. But whither should she fly? Bonaparte's spies were spread like a network over the Continent. They would vie with each other in setting traps for her. Russia alone offered some chance of rest; so, one bright spring morning, Mme. de Staël went out for a drive, and, instead of returning home, posted on through Switzerland and the Tyrol to Vienna. She quickly discovered that it was not possible for her to tarry here; the tyrant's tools were on her track. "March! march!" was still the cry of fate; and, like the Wandering Jew, she sallied forth once more on her wanderings. Moscow seemed like a promised land where she might rest awhile; but, scarcely had she drawn breath amidst the unmelted snows of the northern city, when the hunter was down upon her. The Grande Armée was advancing rapidly on the Russian capital. "March! march!" And again the fugitive was on the road, flying to St. Petersburg. Here at last came a respite. The emperor and empress received her like a dethroned sovereign; the nobility followed suit, partly out of admiration for the gifted exile, partly in hatred to her foe, who was theirs also. She was entertained at public banquets, and became the lion of the hour. At one of these magnificent fêtes given in her honor, the toast, "Success to the Russian arms against France!" was proposed. Mme. de Staël seized her glass, and, with a sudden inspiration of patriotism, cried out: "No, not against France! against her oppressor!" The amendment was adopted with applause. But St. Petersburg was no safe retreat for the baroness while the French legions were at Moscow. She was advised by friends to fly, and, once more folding her tent, she carried it to Stockholm. Here she was allowed to recruit her wearied limbs and more wearied spirit for some months. She employed the interval of quiet in writing the recollections called Ten Years in Exile. On leaving Sweden she set sail for England, with a view to publishing her famous Allemagne--the work which had been the immediate cause of her recent persecutions, having exasperated Bonaparte beyond all powers of endurance. It was not until the fall of her enemy that Mme. de Staël ventured to return to France. Her joy, however, at this twofold event was of short duration. The despot who knew no mercy to the weak was not to be bound by the chains of honor. He broke his plighted word, fled from Elba, and landed one morning on the shores of France. It was the signal for Mme. de Staël to fly from them. Filled with patriotic grief and personal dismay, she started immediately for Coppet. She had barely arrived there when a letter followed her with the unexpected order to return to Paris, "where the emperor considered her presence would be useful in establishing constitutional ideas." But she, whom threats and exile had not daunted, was not to be beguiled by flattery. "Tell your master," she replied to the writer of the singular invitation,--"tell your master that since he has got on for twelve years without me or the constitution, he can do without us a little longer, and that at this moment he hates one about as much as the other."

What wonder if the health of this intrepid woman gave way, in spite of her indomitable spirit, under this long spell of mental and physical fatigue, and ceaseless vexation and disappointment. Her declining years were consumed in intense suffering, borne with the utmost courage and resignation. She returned finally to France after the Restoration, and was treated with every mark of esteem by Louis XVIII. He delighted in her conversation, and gave her a more substantial proof of good-will by restoring to her the two millions that her father had deposited in the treasury before his fall. This act of justice bound her by ties of enduring gratitude to the king and his dynasty.

But she was not spared long to enjoy the honors that now surrounded her. Sorrow, and the despondency consequent on great bodily exhaustion, had tempted Mme. de Staël into the deadly habit of using opium, and when once contracted she had not strength to relinquish it, even after the cause that made the stimulant a necessity of existence to her had disappeared. Her friends used every argument and every stratagem to cure her, but in vain. She fell into a state of lethargy, or rather into a succession of lethargic slumbers, broken by sudden gleams of her old brightness. Her patience was very touching, and many evidences are preserved to show that she drew it from her unshaken faith in Christianity, however imperfect the form in which she had been reared, and to which she was outwardly attached. Once, on awaking from her slumbrous state, she exclaimed to those who surrounded her bed: "It seems to me that I know now what the passage from life to death is; and I feel how God in his mercy softens it to us." She expired on the 14th of July, 1817, the anniversary of the very day on which her father's false theories and blind self-confidence had put the match to the powder and kindled that terrific conflagration which enveloped France in flames. Her remains were deposited at Coppet, in the tomb she had raised to the memory of the great financier.

Those who were present at the reading of her will, heard for the first time of her marriage with M. de Rocca. In that document she bade her children proclaim the fact, as also the birth of a boy by this union. A relative and intimate friend of Mme. de Staël's gives us an account of her first meeting with her second husband:

"A young man of good birth excited much interest at Geneva by the stories current about his bravery, and by the contrast between his age and his fragile appearance and shattered health; the result of wounds received in Spain, where he had served in a French hussar regiment. A few words of sympathy addressed to him by Mme. de Staël produced a most wonderful effect; his head and heart took fire. 'I will love her so well,' he vowed, 'that she will end by marrying me!' and he was right. Their affection for each other was of the deepest and tenderest kind. She lived in perpetual fear of losing him, owing to his delicate health; and yet it was he who survived her, but only a year; he died at Hyères, more from grief than from his infirmities, in his thirty-first year."

We have said nothing of the person of this singularly gifted woman. "She was," to quote the words of a contemporary, "graceful in all her movements; her face, without being handsome, attracted your attention, and then fixed it; a sort of intellectual beauty radiated from her countenance, which seemed the reflex of her soul. Genius was visible in her eyes, which were of a rare splendor; her glance had a fire and strength that resembled the flash of the lightning, and was the forerunner of the thunder-roll of her language; her large and well-proportioned figure gave a kind of energy and weight to her discourse. To this was added a certain dramatic effect. Though free from all exaggeration in her dress, she studied what was picturesque more than what was the fashion. Her arms and hands were beautiful, and singularly white."

This picture is an attractive one, and paints Mme. de Staël in very different colors from those generally used by her portrayers. It is only natural that a woman who had all her life been before the world, should be variously judged by various people. A celebrated writer of her own day, who knew the author of Corinne both as an author and a woman, said that she would not be impartially judged until a century had gone by. Napoleon raised her to a pedestal of martyrdom by his unmanly and cruel persecution, and the éclat of her genius hid her individual faults and errors in a haze of glory. She was hated by the flatterers who fawned on the tyrant because she dared to defy him. Some considered her a cold, masculine woman, who had none of the charm of womanhood about her; while others, dazzled by her talent, idealized her as a sort of demigod. Distance enables us to estimate her more justly. She was a woman of unrivalled energy of character, of incomparably brilliant parts, and endowed with a heart equal in tenderness to the power of her genius. Her written style gives but a faint idea of the lustre of her conversation. She was, perhaps, quite unparalleled in this last sphere. The play of wit, logic, and grace never flagged for an instant, but kept her hearers spellbound as long as her voice was heard. Once, at a soirée at Mme. Récamier's, she got into a discussion with the Archbishop of Sens, as to whether it was an advantage or a misfortune for a nation to be in debt; the archbishop took the latter view of the question, and they kept up the ball for two hours, until the excitement among the guests became so great that they stood upon chairs in the adjoining salon to enjoy the brilliancy of the intellectual combat. She was, as her death attests, a devout believer in Christianity. On one occasion, after listening to some metaphysicians crossing lances over their pet theories, she remarked: "The Lord's prayer says more to me than all that."

From the repetition of this divine prayer during her long nights of sleeplessness she drew patience and resignation. By birth and education a Protestant, she never allowed her lofty mind to be prejudiced against Catholics, and often spoke with enthusiasm of the heroic courage of the martyred priests and bishops of the memorable 2d of September, 1792. The Imitation of Christ was her constant companion and solace during her long illness. This woman of genius was a devoted mother. Her literary pursuits did not interfere with her maternal duties: she superintended the education of her children herself, and often impressed upon them that, "if they fell away from the path of honor and duty it would be not alone an irreparable sorrow, but a remorse" to her, as she would accuse herself of being the cause of it.

She was not happy in her first marriage, which was purely one of "arrangement." There was no sympathy of taste or ideas between her and the Baron de Staël; her separation from him was nevertheless a deep source of pain to her, and she never would have consented to it but for the ruinous state into which his imprudence and extravagance had thrown her financial affairs, and which must have led to the utter ruin of his family if they had been left longer in his hands. When his increasing years and illness demanded the consolation of her companionship, she returned to her husband with affectionate alacrity, and devoted herself to him until his death.

The multiplicity of Mme. de Staël's writings earned for her the sobriquet of "the female Voltaire." She began to write when most girls of her age are still in pinafores; her early works are like the flights of a young eagle, betraying the fearless temerity of conscious power, combined with the inexperience of youth--she plunges into depths, and soars to heights of metaphysics and philosophy with all the audacity of untaught genius. The Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of Nations and Individuals is one of the most striking of those juvenile feats, and was quickly followed by others in the same field. Her novels are undoubtedly the first of her claims on enduring fame. Delphine is supposed to be Mme. de Staël as she was, and Corinne as she wished to be. They are both masterpieces of the romantic school prevalent in that day, and they both inaugurated a new reign in fiction. The closing years of the author's agitated life were devoted to the compilation of the volumes entitled Considerations on the French Revolution--a work of great magnitude, and which was intended to embrace the full exposition and justification of her father's policy and life, and a philosophical analysis of the theories of all known forms of government, as well as an elaborate history of the causes and effects of the Revolutionary crisis. The plan was colossal in scope, and almost infinite in the variety of subjects it included; but death did not wait for her to finish it. Amongst her earliest literary productions we must not refuse a passing mention to her dramatic efforts. She was not twenty when Sophie and Jane Grey earned for her a place amongst the most mature and brilliant writers of the period. There is no doubt, if she had had leisure to pursue this vein, Mme. de Staël would have enriched the French language with some remarkable comedies and tragedies. Her works were collected after her death by the Baron de Staël, her son, and form a series of eighteen large volumes.

The interest of the subject has led us into a somewhat lengthy sketch of the life of this distinguished lady. French annals furnish a study, almost unique, of women who were models of all womanly virtues, and yet by their brilliancy, wit, and conversance with public affairs were fitted to be the advisers of rulers and statesmen. We are very far from wishing to see the sex drawn out of their proper sphere, but when by natural and acquired talents they evince a vocation for affairs of state, we think that governments may wisely accept their counsel, and that their services are worthy of permanent record.

FATHER SEBASTIAN RALE, S.J.

The rivalries of the French and English for dominion in the northwestern corner of our republic have deeply impressed themselves upon the pages of our history. The element of religious controversy was not the least of the exciting causes which made that frontier the scene of angry strife. The French carried the Catholic faith wherever they erected the arms of their kings, and the natives flocked with ardor and conviction around the standard of the cross. Whatever may have been the merits of the respective parties in the contest for dominion, it is now the settled voice of history that the Catholic missionaries were actuated by motives far above all earthly considerations, and that their cause was that of no earthly king, but was the sacred cause of the King of Heaven.

Sebastian Rale was born of a good family in Franche-Comté, in the year 1658. At an early age he entered the Society of Jesus. After passing through the novitiate, he was engaged in teaching at the College of Nismes. To fine natural abilities he added great industry, and thus became an accomplished scholar. A foreign mission was the object of his holy aspirations; and, after his ordination, he received directions from his superior to embark for Canada. He sailed from Rochelle on the 23d of July, 1689, and, after a voyage without accidents, arrived at Quebec on the 13th of October following. As his destination was the mission among the Abnakis, the Men-of-the-East, he employed his time at Quebec in studying their language.

It was not long, however, before he was sent on the mission to St. Francis, an Abnaki village, containing about two hundred inhabitants, most of whom were Catholics. Among these, the gentlest of the Indian tribes in the North, his first essays at his favorite vocation were made by this illustrious missionary.

He had commenced the study of the Abnaki dialect at Quebec; surrounded, as he now was, by the Abnakis themselves, he prosecuted that study with great industry. While acquiring their language, he was also engaged in writing his Abnaki catechism and dictionary. Every day he spent some time in their wigwams, in order to catch from the lips of the Indians the idioms of their language; and he often subjected himself to their merry laugh by uttering some sentence for the proposed catechism in his broken Abnaki, which, as they rendered in the pure idiom, the patient student copied in his book. After two years' labor at St. Francis, he was selected by the superior to succeed the missionary of the Illinois, who had recently died, because that mission required a father who had already acquired some one of the Algonquin dialects.

Before setting out for his Illinois missions, he spent three months at Quebec, studying the Algonquin language. On the 13th of August, 1691, he launched his little bark canoe, for his long and arduous voyage to the West. Slowly they moved onward; he and his companions landed night after night to build their fire and erect their tent, which consisted of their little canoe turned up, as their only shelter from the storms. After those long days of labor and fasting, their slender meals were made upon a vegetable, called by the French tripe de roche.[165] His companions were so exhausted on reaching Michilimackinac that he was obliged to stop and winter there. Well may the historian remark of these expeditions of the Catholic missionaries to the West that "all must feel that their fearless devotedness, their severe labors, their meek but heroic self-sacrifice, have thrown a peculiar charm over the early history of a region in which the restless spirit of American enterprise is going forth to such majestic results."[166]

F. Rale wintered at Michilimackinac with the two missionaries stationed there, one of them having the care of the Hurons, and the other of the Ottawas. Here, with the aid of F. Chaumonot's grammar, he learned sufficient of the Huron tongue--the key to most of those spoken in Canada--to assist the Huron missionary. Scarcely had the spring opened, when F. Rale was urging his canoe along the western coast of Lake Michigan. He passed by the villages of the Mascoutens, Sacs, Outagamis or Winnebagoes, Foxes, and others, till he came to the bottom of the lake. Having reached the Illinois partly by river and partly by portage, he launched his canoe on that river, and glided down its stream one hundred and fifty miles, till he came to the great town of the Illinois Indians. This town contained about two thousand five hundred families, and the rest of the nation were scattered through eleven other villages. F. Rale was welcomed to their country by the greatest of Illinois feasts, "the Feast of the Chiefs," at which the appetite was penanced by feeding on dogs, which were esteemed the greatest of delicacies among the Indians, and of which a large number had been served up on this occasion in honor of their distinguished guest. To every two persons an entire dish was allotted. The father manifests no great relish for the food he received, but he expresses the greatest admiration and astonishment at the powerful eloquence and wild beauty of the oration with which he was regaled on this occasion.

F. Rale devoted himself with zeal to the care of his new flock. His principal difficulty consisted in overcoming in them the practice of polygamy. "There would have been," he writes, "less difficulty in converting the Illinois did the Prayer permit polygamy among them. They acknowledged that the Prayer was good, and were delighted to have their wives and children instructed; but when we spoke on the subject to the braves, we found how hard it was to fix their natural fickleness, and induce them to take but one wife, and her for life." Again, the father writes: "When the hour arrives for morning and evening prayers, all repair to the chapel. Not one, even the great medicine-men--that is to say, our worst enemies--but sends his children to be instructed, and, if possible, baptized." The good missionary had the consolation of baptizing numbers of sick infants before death carried them off, and there were among the adults many devout Christians, to whom the faith was dearer than their lives.

After two years thus spent among the Illinois, his superior recalled F. Rale for other duties about the year 1695. During the return to Quebec, he instructed fully in the faith, and baptized, a young Indian girl, whose edifying death afterwards this zealous father esteemed an ample consolation and recompense for all the trials and hardships of his life. On arriving at Quebec, he was assigned to the mission in the heart of the Abnaki country, which F. Bigot had re-established.

But this field, which F. Rale now entered as a minister of the gospel of peace, had become, during his absence, the scene of war. While he had been laboring on the distant banks of the Illinois, the Abnakis had sustained injuries from their English neighbors which provoked them to take up the hatchet in defence and retaliation. Maj. Waldron, of Dover, had, in 1675, seized four hundred Indians of their tribe, and sold them into slavery in the West Indies. Though deeply incensed at this revolting crime, the Indians remained quiet till 1688, when, upon a breach of the peace of 1678 on the part of the English, they could no longer restrain their fury. The war-cry was sounded through the land, bands of infuriated and injured braves rushed upon the English frontier, Dover was taken, and Waldron himself fell a captive into their hands, and suffered a death most shocking, it is true, but one which all must admit he had deserved as many times over, if that were possible, as there had been victims of his rapacious inhumanity. Pemaquid was next taken, and destruction was visited upon the entire line of frontier settlements. The colonists now proposed a peace, but the Indians had already suffered too much from the violation of treaties. They exclaimed: "Nor we, nor our children, nor our children's children will ever make a peace or truce with a nation that kills us in their halls."

But the Abnakis, unsupported in the war by the French, were finally constrained to accept the offer of peace--a peace as deceptive as former ones had proved.

The following year the great and brave chief Taxus went to Pemaquid, with some others, to propose an exchange of prisoners: admitted into the fort for this purpose, they were treacherously fired upon, two of them were killed, and Taxus killed two of the garrison in cutting his way through to make his escape.

This being the condition of the country at the time that F. Rale was sent there by his superior as missionary to the Catholic Abnakis, it may be easily judged how far that state of things is justly attributable to what Mather calls "the charms of the French friar." From what has already been related, it is quite certain that there existed sufficient causes for war on the part of the Indians without any influence from F. Rale, had he been there to exert it.

So far from instigating or countenancing acts of cruelty or blood on the part of his flock, his office and his labors were those of peace and charity. His mission was to announce the glad tidings of the Gospel: "Glory to God on high, and peace on earth to men of good-will." And we have authority, not prejudiced in favor of his cause, for the assertion that he was not faithless to his sacred duty. Thus Gov. Lincoln says: "His followers were not only the bravest, but the most sparing, of the fierce race to which they belonged; and though spoil and havoc were their element, they could sometimes be generous and forbearing. But when the old man expired by the side of the altar he had reared, the barbarism he had only in a measure controlled, broke loose with a ferocity not softened by the dogmas he had taught."[167]

The village of Narrantsouac, on the Kennebec, still called Indian Old Point, became the residence of F. Rale. Here he found, on his arrival, a little church and a flock of converted Indians remarkable for their devotion and sincerity. They entertained a profound attachment to the Prayer, and great veneration for him who was its minister. Besides this, they soon learned to love and esteem F. Rale as their best friend; he was their arbitrator in all disputes, their physician in sickness, and their consoler in all their distresses. Religion was the reigning sentiment in this truly Christian community, and the little chapel, erected by the hands of the neophytes, became at once the object of their love and the scene of their unalloyed devotion.

As game was scarce, the Abnakis bestowed much care and labor in the cultivation of their fields. After planting the seed in the spring, they sallied forth on fishing parties to the sea-shore, accompanied by F. Rale. In these expeditions, a rustic altar, covered with an ornamental cloth, was carried along, and the chapel-tent was pitched every evening for prayer, and struck in the morning after Mass. On reaching the sea-shore a large bark cabin was erected for the church, and the wigwams of the Indians were arranged around it. Thus arose, as by the magic power of religion, a beautiful village on the distant sea-shore, with its chapel, priest, and flock, and there were heard the pious chant and fervent prayer, there the mysteries of the faith were taught to docile hearers, there devout confessions heard, and there the bread of life distributed. The priest was truly the father of the faithful. He was also their companion and sympathetic friend. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue he bore with them, and their sorrows, as their joys, were common. Yet in this rude and simple mode of life the faithful Jesuit conformed himself to the strictest rules of his order. His hours of rising and retiring, his Office, meditations, and all his spiritual exercises were as regular as those of his brethren in the colleges of Europe. In order to avoid interruptions while saying his Office or performing his other devotions, he would refrain from all conversation, except in cases of necessity, from evening prayers till after Mass. His annual retreat was observed at the beginning of Lent with the same scrupulous exactness. The pension which he was allowed by the French government he distributed among the more needy of his spiritual children.

In 1697, F. Rale heard, with solicitude for his flock, that a strange and unconverted tribe--the Amalingans--were coming to settle near to Narrantsouac. He feared for the faith and morals of his neophytes when exposed to the tricks of the medicine-men and the seductive games and dances of such superstitious neighbors. He was engaged in the confessional all the evening before Corpus Christi and during the morning of the festival till near noon. In the meantime, deputies from the newly arrived Amalingans came, bearing presents, according to the Indian custom, for the relatives of some Abnakis recently destroyed by the English. Towards noon the procession of the blessed sacrament began to move with a degree of magnificence that astonished those natives of the wilderness. Struck as were the Amalingan deputies with the solemnity, the earnestness, and the majesty of the scene, they listened with conviction to the fervent and eloquent words of the father, who seized upon so favorable an occasion to acquaint them with the existence and attributes of the Deity, whose worship they then beheld. How sublime and beautiful must have been the appeal which the zealous missionary made to those astonished warriors! The deputies were convinced, but they could not accept the prayer before laying the words of the Black Gown before the assembled sachems of their tribe, who were expected to arrive in the autumn. During the summer, the father sent them a message, reminding them of his words and their promise. In due time the answer was returned, that they desired to embrace the Prayer, and they invited the Black Gown chief to come among them, and bring the wampum of the faith. It happened that Narrantsouac was then deserted by its inhabitants, who were on one of their excursions; and F. Rale set out in his canoe for the village of the Amalingans, who received him with every honor, and welcomed him with a salute of musketry. Soon a cross was raised in the centre of the village and a bark chapel was erected. The missionary visited the cabins and instructed the catechumens. After Mass every day, three public instructions were given; between these they received private instructions in their cabins. Four chiefs and two matrons were first baptized; then followed two bands of twenty each, and finally the entire tribe publicly received the Prayer and were baptized. A public assembly was then held, and the missionary received the simple but touching tokens of their gratitude and love, and then he returned in his canoe to Narrantsouac, while the Christian Amalingans departed for the sea-shore. F. Rale found no difficulty afterwards in uniting in one nation the two tribes that were now members of the one fold of Christ.

In 1698, F. Rale, by the aid of means and skilful labor sent from Quebec, succeeded in erecting a neat but simple chapel at his village of Narrantsouac, or Norridgewock. In this their new chapel the Abnaki Christians assembled to unite with the universal church in the solemn rites of the Catholic worship. It was there in their own native wilderness that those Men-of-the-East were contented to worship God in security and peace. But, strange as it may appear, the New England settlers, themselves professing Christianity, saw with jealousy and dislike a Christian temple erected by the Abnakis for Christian worship, while all the heathen tribes of New England were left free and uncared for in their horrid superstitions and brutal sacrifices. This feeling on their part appears the more extraordinary, since at that time Acadia had been restored to France by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; that the Catholic faith had been professed by the Abnakis for half a century; and the Jesuit missionaries had been their pastors during all that period.

The interval of peace now enjoyed seems not to have resulted in strengthening the friendship nor in conciliating the good-will and confidence of the Indians. Fresh aggressions were from time to time committed upon them by their white neighbors. But a blow was struck at their chosen and beloved pastors which exhibits the true sentiments entertained on the one side and the grievances endured on the other. On the 15th of June, 1700, a law was passed, which recited: "Whereas, divers Jesuit priests and Popish missionaries, by their subtile insinuations, industriously labor to debauch, seduce, and withdraw the Indians from their due obedience unto his majesty, and to excite and stir them up to sedition, rebellion, and open hostility against his majesty's government," and then proceeded to enact, in reference to the same priests and missionaries, that "they shall depart from and out of the same province on or before the 10th day of September, 1700." In case any one of them should be found in the province after that time, it was provided that he "shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary and disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment. And if any person, being so sentenced and actually imprisoned, shall break prison and actually escape, and be afterwards retaken, he shall be punished with death."[168] Gov. Bellamont, by his influence, secured in New York also the passage of a law "for hanging every Popish priest that came voluntarily into the province, which was occasioned by the great number of French Jesuits who were continually practising upon our Indians."[169]

Upon the accession of Gov. Dudley to office, in 1692, he solicited a conference with the Abnakis, and accordingly a conference was held on an island in Casco Bay. The object of the governor was to secure the neutrality of the Indians, in case the French and English went to war. Penhallow and such as follow him contend that the governor succeeded in his purpose, and secured a promise from the Indians not to join their allies, the French, in case of war. But treaties had been imposed upon those unlettered warriors which they never understood, and, consequently, never entered into. Besides, F. Rale, who had the advantage over Penhallow of having been present at the conference, gives quite a different statement of the affair. F. Rale, at the request of the Indians, accompanied them to the conference. "Thus," he relates himself, "I found myself where neither I nor the governor wished me to be." The governor and the missionary exchanged the usual civilities, and then the former, stepping back among his people, made his propositions to the Indians in an address, which he concluded with an offer to supply their wants, take their furs, and supply them with merchandise in return "at a moderate price." An English minister accompanied the governor, whose presence could have had no other object in view than a tender of his services to the Abnakis in lieu of those of F. Rale; but the latter supposes that his own presence disconcerted that portion of the plan. When the Indians retired to consult together, Gov. Dudley approached F. Rale, and said: "I beg you, sir, not to induce your Indians to make war upon us." "No, sir, my religion and my sacred calling require me to give them only counsels of peace," was the prompt and appropriate reply. The Indians soon returned and gave the following answer through their orator: "Great chief, you have told us not to unite with the Frenchman if you declare war against him. Know that the Frenchman is my brother; we have but the same Prayer, we dwell in the same cabin--he at one fire, I at the other. If I see you enter towards the fire where my brother, the Frenchman, is seated, I watch you from my mat at the other. If I see a tomahawk in your hand, I say, What will the Englishman do with that hatchet? and I would rise to see. If he raise it to strike my brother, I grasp mine, and rush upon him. Could I sit still and see my brother struck? No! no! I love my brother, the Frenchman, too well not to defend him. I therefore tell thee, great chief, do no harm to my brother, and I will do none to thee. Remain quiet on thy mat; I will remain so on mine." "Thus," says F. Rale, "the conference ended."

Peace was soon interrupted. War broke out between England and France in 1703, and involved their respective colonies on this continent in the contest. The Abnakis of Maine joined their French allies, and both sides felt the ravages of war to a fearful degree. The Indians, who had long been impatient under the encroaching policy of their white neighbors, carried on the war with destructive fury. Casco was taken, the New England villages, forts, and farms were pillaged, and six hundred of the inhabitants led away captives. As a minister of peace and mercy, F. Rale endeavored to subdue the wild passions of his injured and infuriated Indians, as has been seen above by the testimony of Gov. Lincoln; but the people of New England visited upon him all the blame for the calamities which their own wrong policy had occasioned.

Among the hostile movements of the English during the war was an expedition against Norridgewock, the residence of F. Rale. In the winter of 1705, "when the snow lay four feet deep," and "the country looked like a frozen field," Col. Hilton led an expedition of two hundred and seventy men against Norridgewock. The village, all deserted as it was by its inhabitants, was easily taken. The intended victim, however, was not there; for the missionary was absent with the tribe, as it was his habit to accompany them to the sea-shore. But the cabins and the chapel were there; the torch was applied, and soon one blaze enveloped the church and the village. When the missionary returned, he shuddered at the sacrilege he saw, and wept over the calamities of his people. A bark chapel soon rose from the ashes of the church which had been destroyed, and in it he dispensed the consolations of religion to his flock for several years.

During this year, F. Rale had the misfortune to sustain a fall of such violence as to break his right thigh and left leg, and in this condition he was compelled to make the painful journey to Quebec for surgical aid. The fractured parts were so imperfectly cemented together that he had to submit to the severe operation of having his leg broken again and reset. During his sufferings, not a groan escaped him; and the surgeon who attended him has expressed his wonder at such an exhibition of Christian patience and love of suffering. As soon as his wounds permitted him to return, he was again at his post in his little sanctuary in the wilderness, where, amid personal dangers the most appalling, he continued calmly and without fear the discharge of his sacred duties.

In the meantime, the English were determined to get rid of him, and the General Court of Massachusetts, in November, 1720, passed a resolution for that purpose. John Leighton, Sheriff of York, was commissioned to arrest him. If not found, he was to demand him of the Indians; upon their refusal, the Indians themselves were to be taken and carried to Boston. Every effort was made to induce the Indians to betray their pastor into the hands of his enemies, or at least to send him away from the country. They made many attempts to seize him by force or take him by surprise, and an offer of £1,000 was made for his head. Such was their horror of Jesuit sorcery! "I should be too happy," says the object of their hatred, "were I to become their victim, or did God deem me worthy to be loaded with chains, and shed my blood for the salvation of my dear Indians." This was said in no spirit of bravado or vain display; for the sequel will show how firmly, yet how meekly, he laid down his life for his altar and his flock.

In the midst of the wars that desolated the country, it was his mild spirit and humane counsels that served to moderate the natural ferocity of the Indian character. Instead of urging the infliction of cruelty upon those who had so long sought his life, he endeavored to secure for his enemies every mildness consistent with the laws of war. "I exhorted them," says F. Rale, "to maintain the same interest in their religion as if they were at home; to observe carefully the laws of war; to practise no cruelty; to kill no one except in the heat of battle; and to treat the prisoners humanely." His solicitude for peace during the period of which we have been speaking, at the very moment that his enemies accused him as an instigator of mischief, and his kind sentiments towards them, may be seen from the following letter addressed to the authorities at Boston:

NARRANTSOAK, Nov. 18, 1712.

SIR: The Governor-General of Canada advises me by a letter, which reached here some days ago, that the last royal vessel, arrived at Quebec Sept. 30, announces that peace is not yet concluded between the two crowns of France and England; that, however, it was much talked of. Such are his words.

Other letters, which I have received, inform me that the Intendant, just come out in that vessel, says that when on the point of embarking at Rochelle, a letter was received from M. de Tallard, assuring them that peace was made, and would be published in the latter part of October.

Now, this cannot be known in Canada, but you may know it at Boston, where vessels come at all seasons. If you know anything, I beseech you to let me know, that I may send instantly to Quebec, over the ice, to inform the Governor-General, so that he may prevent the Indians from any act of hostility. I am, sir, perfectly your very humble and obedient servant,

SEB. RALE, S.J.[170]

At length the tidings of the peace of Utrecht, 30th March, 1713, arrived, and restored quiet to New France and New England. Gov. Dudley called the Indians together in conference at Portsmouth in July, 1713, and announced to them that peace had been made, and proposed to them: "If you are willing, you and we will live in peace." He then informed them that the French had ceded Placentia and Port Royal to the English. The Indians, through their orator, replied that they had taken up the hatchet because their allies, the French, had taken it up, and they were willing now to cast it away, since the French had laid it down, and to live in peace. Then the orator added: "But you say that the Frenchman has given you Placentia and Port Royal, which is in my neighborhood, with all the land adjacent. He may give you what he pleases. As for me, I have my land, which the Great Spirit has given me to live upon. While there shall be one child of my nation upon it, he will fight to keep it." Penhallow gives a somewhat different account of this conference; but that of F. Rale is more in keeping with the previous history of the Indians, and more consonant with their character. If they acknowledged themselves subjects of Great Britain, they knew no better in this than in previous similar instances what they were doing, for they understood not the language attributed to them.

It may be judged how welcome peace must have been to F. Rale from the alacrity with which he availed himself of it to attend to the religious interests of his people. To rebuild his church was the first object of his solicitude. As Boston was so much nearer than Quebec, the chiefs sent deputies to the former place, in order to procure workmen for rebuilding the church, for whose services they offered to pay liberally. The governor gave them a most friendly reception, and, to their astonishment, offered to rebuild their church at his own expense, "since the French governor had abandoned them." Their astonishment, however, was soon changed into indignation when they heard the condition annexed to this apparently generous offer, which was that they should dismiss their own pastor, and receive in his place an English minister. "When you first came here," replied the indignant deputies by their orator, "you saw me a long time before the French governors, but neither your predecessors nor your ministers ever spoke to me of Prayer or of the Great Spirit. They saw my furs, my beaver and moose skins, and of these alone they thought; these alone they sought, and so eagerly that I have not been able to supply them enough. When I had much, they were my friends; but only then. One day my canoe missed the route; I lost my way, and wandered a long time at random, until at last I landed near Quebec, in a great village of the Algonquins,[171] where the Black Gowns were teaching. Scarcely had I arrived, when one of them came to see me. I was loaded with furs, but the Black Gown of France disdained to look at them. He spoke to me of the Great Spirit, of heaven, of hell, of the Prayer, which is the only way to reach heaven. I heard him with joy, and was so pleased with his words that I remained in the village to hear him. At last the Prayer pleased me, and I asked to be instructed. I solicited baptism, and received it. Then I returned to the lodges of my tribe, and related all that had happened. All envied my happiness, and wished to partake of it. They, too, went to the Black Gown to be baptized. Thus have the French acted. Had you spoken to me of the Prayer as soon as we met, I should now be so unhappy as to pray like you; for I could not have told whether your Prayer was good or bad. Now I hold to the Prayer of the French; I agree to it; I shall be faithful to it, even until the earth is burnt and destroyed. Keep your men, your gold, and your minister. I will go to my French father."

The required aid was obtained from the French governor; workmen were sent from Quebec, and the church was built soon after the peace. "It possesses a beauty," says the missionary, "which would cause it to be admired even in Europe, and nothing has been spared to adorn it." Subsequently two little chapels were erected, about three hundred paces from the chapel, by workmen obtained probably from Boston; and these chapels are probably what Hutchinson in 1724 alludes to as having been "built a few years before by carpenters from New England." One of them was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the other to their guardian angel. There, in his new church and chapels, with the aid of rich vestments and sacred vessels given by some of his friends, and with the seraphic music of forty innocent Indian boys, all dressed in cassocks and surplices, F. Rale conducted the solemn offices of the church in the wilderness with a splendor and beauty not unworthy of more favored lands. The processions on Corpus Christi were quite unique and beautiful. On these occasions the church and chapels were ornamented with the trinkets and fine work of the squaws, and burning tapers made by the Indians from the wax berries growing on their own native shores, and were thronged with ardent and sincere worshippers--the simple children of the forest gathering around the Holy of Holies, and presenting a scene in which angels themselves might love to mingle.

The following account of F. Rale's daily life cannot but prove interesting: "He rose at four, and, after meditation, said Mass at daybreak, which all the Indians heard, and during it chanted their prayers aloud; at its close he generally, on week-days, made a short exhortation, to inspire them with good thoughts, then dismissing them to the labors of the day. He then began to catechise the children and the young; the aged, too, were there, all answering with the docility of children. Then, after a slight meal, he sat in his chamber to despatch the various matters laid before him--their plans, their troubles, domestic disquiets, or intended marriages--in a word, to direct them all. Towards noon he would go to work in his garden, and then split his wood to cook his little mess of hominy; for this may be said to have been his only food. Wine he never tasted, even when among the French.

"After this frugal repast, he visited the sick, and went to particular cabins to give instruction where it was more needed; and if a public council or feast was to take place, he must be present; for they never proceeded to the one without first hearing his advice, nor to the other without his blessing on the food, which was ready to be placed on the bark plates, which each one brought, and with which he immediately retired to his cabin.

"The evening was left him to say his Breviary and give some time to prayer and reading; but this was so often intrenched upon that at last he made it a rule never to speak from before evening prayer till after Mass on the following day, unless he was called to a sick-bed."[172]

In the course of a few years, the free spirit of the Indians began to grow impatient under the encroachments of the whites. Not only their hunting-grounds, but even their fields for cultivation, were circumscribed. A conference with Gov. Shute was held at Georgetown in August, 1717, but it was evident that redress for the Indians formed no part of the governor's designs. He refused to treat with them otherwise than as subjects; he would not acknowledge their natural liberty nor their hereditary title to their hunting-grounds; nor would he fix a boundary beyond which the encroachments of the white men should not extend. They were told, however, that the English wished them to become of one religion with themselves; an English Bible was given to them, and the governor told them that the Rev. Mr. Baxter, who accompanied him, would become their teacher and pastor. Thus it seems that the governor with one hand presented them a Bible, and with the other grasped their lands. When a letter from F. Rale, pleading in behalf of his children, was handed to the governor, he treated it with great contempt. "He let them know," says Hutchinson, "that he highly resented the insolence of the Jesuit."[173] Another mock treaty was now entered into by the aid of interpreters. F. Rale always protested against it as fraudulent, and announced to the New Englanders that the Norridgewocks did not recognize it. He never ceased his paternal efforts in behalf of his Indians, and repeatedly addressed letters to the governor and other leading men of New England, demanding justice for them.[174]

Having tried every means of gaining over the Indians to their cause in vain, the New Englanders next attacked them in the point which seemed to attach them more than any other to the French; this was their religion. The Rev. Mr. Baxter, a minister of ability and education, as well as of an ardent zeal against Popery, undertook to evangelize the Abnakis. "Thus," says Bancroft, "Calvin and Loyola met in the woods of Maine." The Protestant minister established at Georgetown a school, which was supported by the government, and, by means of every attraction and inducement which he could present to them, endeavored first to gain the children. But their hearts had already been too deeply impressed with religion by the Catholic missionaries to receive the Prayer from any person other than the Black Gown. He then endeavored, but with the same result, to gain his point by addresses and harangues to the parents, the chiefs, and braves of the tribe. "He next assailed the religion of the Indians. He put various questions concerning their faith, and, as they answered, he turned into ridicule the sacraments, purgatory, the invocation of saints, beads, Masses, images, and the other parts of the Catholic creed and ritual."[175]

F. Rale saw at once that he must meet the danger thus threatened to the faith of his flock. He addressed a respectful letter to Mr. Baxter, covering an essay of one hundred pages, in which he undertook to defend and prove, "by Scripture, by tradition, and by theological arguments," those tenets and practices of the Catholic Church which the minister had endeavored to ridicule. In the letter enclosing the essay he remarked that the Indians knew how to believe, but not how to dispute, and the missionary felt it to be his duty to take up the controversy in behalf of his neophytes. Mr. Baxter's reply treated F. Rale's arguments as puerile and ridiculous. Finding, however, that his mission was a fruitless one, Mr. Baxter returned to Boston. The correspondence did not cease here; but, after Mr. Baxter's return to Boston, the letters turned upon the purity of their Latinity, rather than the theology of the respective controversialists. F. Rale remained at his post, the faithful guardian of his flock.

The grievances of which the Indians had been long complaining still remained unredressed. In 1719 another conference was held, but with no better result than the previous one at Georgetown. Fresh causes of resentment were added. Some Indians entered an English house to trade, when suddenly they found themselves surrounded by a force ten times stronger than their own. When about to cut their way through, their arms were arrested by a request on the part of the English for a parley, and they were told that the English only wished to invite some of their number to visit the governor at Boston. Four chiefs consented to go, and, when they arrived, they were detained as hostages, to secure the payment of a large ransom demanded by the English for damages sustained by them from depredations committed by the tribe. The prisoners appealed to their countrymen for relief, and the ransom was accordingly paid; but even then the English refused to release them. A conference was invited by the governor, but this was done merely to prevent an immediate rupture. At the designated time, July, 1721, the chiefs, accompanied by F. Rale; La Chasse, the superior of the missions; Croisel, and the young Castine, repaired to Georgetown, but the governor did not meet them there. La Chasse then drew up a letter in Indian, French, and English, setting forth the claims of the Indians, and sent it to Gov. Shute. No notice was ever taken of it.

In December, 1721, the English seized the young Castine, son of the Baron de Castine by an Indian wife, and a great favorite with the Abnakis. "The ungenerous and unjust arrest of this young man," says Dr. Francis, "incensed to the highest degree the countrymen of his mother, among whom he had always lived."

Still, the Indians refrained from retaliation. Another act of aggression soon followed; a detachment of two hundred and thirty men, towards the end of 1721, or early in 1722, were sent to seize the Catholic missionary. As this party entered the Kennebec, two young braves, hunting near the shore, saw them, and, after following them for some distance unobserved, struck into the woods and gave the alarm at Norridgewock, which was then nearly deserted. Scarcely had F. Rale time to consume the consecrated host on the altar to save it from sacrilege, and secure the sacred vessels. He fled precipitately to the woods, impeded as he was by the painful condition of the wounds received in the severe fall he had received as related above. The English arrived in the evening, and, having waited till morning, pursued him to the woods. They carefully scoured every place, and at one time came within eight steps of their intended victim, and yet passed away without seeing him, though only half concealed behind a small tree. The pursuers then returned disappointed to Norridgewock, where they pillaged the house of God and the missionary's residence, and then retired, carrying away with them everything belonging to F. Rale--his desk, papers, inkstand, and the Abnaki Dictionary, which he had commenced at St. Francis in 1691. He suffered the extremes of hunger while thus in the woods, flying from the pursuit of his enemies; yet his courage and resolution remained firm and cheerful. So great were the dangers that threatened him at every moment that his affectionate neophytes, and even his superior, advised him to retire for the present to Quebec. He always answered: "God has committed this flock to my care, and I will share its lot, being too happy, if permitted, to sacrifice my life for it." In a letter to his nephew he asks: "What will become of the flock, if it be deprived of its shepherd? I do not in the least fear the threats of those who hate me without cause. 'I count not my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy,' and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus."

While thus the object of deadly pursuit on the part of the English colonists, F. Rale enjoyed the purest consolation in the love and affection of his devoted flock. On one occasion, while he was accompanying them on a hunting party, they suddenly perceived that he was missing, and the report was started that the English had broken into his cabin and carried him off. Their grief was only equalled by their fury, and at once the braves began to prepare for an effort to rescue their pastor at the hazard of their lives. Two of their number, however, afterwards went to his cabin, and there they found him, writing the life of a saint in their own language. Transported with joy, they exclaimed: "We were told that the English had carried you off, and our warriors were going to attack the fort, where we thought they had doubtlessly imprisoned you!" "You see, my children," replied the father, "that your fears were unfounded; but your affectionate care of me fills my heart with joy; it shows you love the Prayer." But as some of the warriors were starting, he added: "Set out, immediately after Mass, to overtake the others, and undeceive them."

On another occasion he was with them at a great distance from home, when the alarm was given that the English were within a few hours' march of the encampment. All insisted on his flying back to the village. At daybreak he started with two Indians as his escort. The journey was long, the provisions were out, and the father had for his only food a species of wood, which he softened by boiling. In crossing a lake, which had begun to thaw, he narrowly escaped being drowned himself in his effort to assist another. Saved from this danger, he was not the less exposed to death from cold. On the following day they crossed the river on broken pieces of ice, and were soon at the village. He was welcomed back by a sumptuous feast, consisting of corn and bear's meat; and when he expressed his astonishment and thanks for such a banquet, the Indians replied: "What, father! you have been fasting for two days; can we do less? Oh! would to God we could always regale you so!" But while he was thus feasting, his children elsewhere were mourning over his supposed death. His deserted cabin on the shore led some, who knew nothing of his flight, to believe that he had been killed. One of these erected a stake on the banks of a river, and to it attached a piece of paper-birch bark, on which he had drawn with charcoal a picture of some English surrounding F. Rale, and one was represented cutting off the Black Gown's head. When the main body of the Indians came that way, and saw the pictorial writing, its meaning sank deep into their hearts, and they were overwhelmed with grief. They tore out the long scalp-locks from their heads, and then sat on the ground around the stake, where they remained motionless and without uttering a word till the next day. Such was their mode of manifesting the most intense grief. But what must have been their joy, when, on returning to the village, they saw their beloved father reciting his Office on the banks of the river!

It would appear, from a letter in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, attributed to F. Rale, that he accompanied the expedition that destroyed Berwick. It is quite evident, from what has been related of the determination of the English to destroy him, and of the repeated efforts they made to accomplish that deadly purpose, that F. Rale would not have been safe at Norridgewock or anywhere apart from the main body of his people. It is not likely that his devoted children, who saw his danger, and were solicitous for his safety, would permit him to remain behind, exposed to the constant attempts of his enemies upon his life. His presence in the expedition against Berwick was enough, with his enemies, to confirm their charge that he led them on to war against the English. The truth is, their own pursuit of him rendered his presence there justifiable, as necessary for his own safety, if it were not justifiable on the ground that he was their chaplain in war as in peace, and that his presence among them was more necessary for the religious consolation of the dying, as well as for moderating, by the counsels we have already seen him giving them, the usual cruelties of war. It does not become his accusers, however, to dwell upon this charge, who themselves have boasted of the warlike feats of the Rev. Mr. Fry, who scalped and killed his Indian in Lovell's expedition, and was killed fighting in the thickest of the engagement.

It has already been seen how the Indians were, by repeated injuries, driven at last to take up the hatchet. When once at war, they prosecuted it with terrible energy and destructive fury. And though their humanity on several occasions contrasted with the cruelty of their civilized antagonists, the young settlements of New England suffered much at their hands during this contest.

In the summer of 1724, hostilities on the part of the Indians had begun to moderate, and peace was already spoken of between the respective parties. But this did not restrain the fury of the English. On the 23d of August an expedition of little over two hundred, consisting of English and their Mohawk allies, rushed suddenly from the thickets upon the unconscious village of Norridgewock. The first notice the Indians received was the rattling of the volleys of their assailants among their bark cabins. Consternation seized upon the inhabitants; the women and children fled, but the few braves who were then at the village rushed to arms to defend their altar and their homes. The struggle was indeed a desperate one. F. Rale, when he perceived the cause of the excitement in the village, knew that himself was the chief object of the enemy's pursuit. Hoping, too, to draw off the fury of the assailants from his neophytes upon himself, he went forth. No sooner had he reached the Mission Cross, where the fight was raging, than a shout of exultation arose from two hundred hostile voices, and, though a non-combatant, a discharge of musketry was immediately levelled at his venerable form. Pierced with balls, he fell lifeless at the foot of the cross. Seven principal chiefs lay dead around their saintly pastor and devoted father. The battle was now over, but the victory seemed too easy for the victors; they approached to wreak further vengeance upon the lifeless form of F. Rale. They hacked and mutilated the corpse, split open the head, broke the legs, and otherwise brutally disfigured it. Then proceeding to the house of God, the assailants rifled the altar, desecrated the sacred vessels and the adorable Host, and then committed the church to the devouring flames. After the English had retired, some of the orphaned flock of Norridgewock returned to their desolated home; they first sought for the body of their good father, and, having found it, they piously interred it beneath the spot where the altar stood.

After reading the incidents of the life of F. Rale, the reader would be astonished to peruse the accounts given by New England writers. But the latter bear on their face the evidence that they were the result, not of candid investigation, but of the bitterest partisan prejudice. There may be some explanation of their tone, though no voucher for their accuracy, in the fact that Penhallow derived his accounts from interpreters, who were known not to be faithful. Charlevoix and De la Chasse knew F. Rale personally, and they give us the strongest assurances of his innocence, his sanctity, and his many heroic virtues. M. de Bellemont, Superior of the Sulpician Seminary at Montreal, entertained so exalted an opinion of his merits that he did not hesitate to apply to him the words of S. Augustine: "Injuriam facit martyri, qui orat pro eo."

The accounts hostile to F. Rale have been derived chiefly from Penhallow, who was actuated by the strongest party feeling. A single specimen from his pen will show how he felt towards the person, as well as the religion, of F. Rale; it contains a repetition of the old calumny about the merit of destroying heretics, which no educated person would in our day repeat: "We scalped twenty-six besides M. Rale, the Jesuit, a most bloody incendiary, and instrumental to most of the mischiefs done us by preaching up the doctrine of meriting salvation by the destruction of heretics. He even made the offices of devotion serve as incentives to their ferocity, and kept a flag on which was depicted a cross surrounded by bows and arrows, which he used to hoist on a pole at the door of his church when he gave them absolution previous to their engaging in any warlike enterprise." Now, the flag that awakened so much horror in the breast of the New England chronicler was a simple Indian Sunday-school banner, than which nothing could have been more innocent. F. Rale, artist as well as priest, had decorated his Indian church with pious paintings executed by himself, to excite the piety and zeal of his neophytes. Amongst other similar representations, suitable for pleasing the simple tastes of the natives, was the flag in question, ornamented with the cross and the arrow, emblems of the faith and of the country. A glance would have convinced any passer-by that it was the banner of an Indian church, and no sensible person in our day could object to see such an one used by the Indians of Florida, Oregon, or other hostile Indian country within our territory or bordering on our frontier.

Dr. Francis, who in his life of Rale follows by preference the New England accounts, sums up his estimate of our missionary's character as follows: "But whatever abatements from indiscriminate praise his faults or frailties may require, I cannot review his history without receiving a deep impression that he was a pious, devoted, and extraordinary man. Here was a scholar, nurtured amid European learning, and accustomed to the refinements of one of the most intellectual nations of the Old World, who banished himself from the pleasures of home and from the attractions of his native land, and passed thirty-five years of his life in the forests of an unbroken wilderness, on a distant shore, amidst the squalid rudeness of savage life, and with no companions during those long years but the wild men of the woods. With them he lived as a friend, as a benefactor, as a brother; sharing their coarse fare, their disgusting modes of life, their perils, their exposures under the stern inclemency of a hard climate; always holding his life cheap in the toil of duty, and at last yielding himself a victim to dangers which he disdained to escape. And all this that he might gather these rude men, as he believed, into the fold of the church; that he might bring them to what he sincerely held to be the truth of God and the light of heaven."

Mr. Bancroft thus describes the life and character of the subject of this memoir: "At Norridgewock, on the banks of the Kennebec, the venerable Sebastian Rale, for more than a quarter of a century the companion and instructor of savages, had gathered a flourishing village round a church, which, rising in the desert, made some pretensions to magnificence. Severely ascetic--using no wine, and little food except pounded maize, a rigorous observer of the days of Lent--he built his own cabin, tilled his own garden, drew for himself wood and water, prepared his own hominy, and, distributing all that he received, gave an example of religious poverty. And yet he was laborious in garnishing up his forest sanctuary, believing the faith of the savage must be quickened by striking appeals to the senses. Himself a painter, he adorned the humble walls of his church with pictures. There he gave instruction almost daily. Following his pupils to their wigwams, he tempered the spirit of devotion with familiar conversation and innocent gaiety, winning the mastery over their souls by his powers of persuasion. He had trained a little band of forty young savages, arrayed in cassock and surplice, to assist in the service and chant the hymns of the church; and their public processions attracted a great concourse of red men. Two chapels were built near the village, one dedicated to the Virgin and adorned with her statue in relief, another to the guardian angel; and before them the hunter muttered his prayer on his way to the river or the woods. When the tribe descended to the seaside in the season of wild fowl, they were followed by Rale; and on some islet a little chapel of bark was quickly consecrated."

The scene so peaceful, so happy, so beautiful, in the days of F. Rale, that it has been appropriately called one of "nature's sweet retirements," is described by the poet Whittier after the rude hand of war had blasted its beauty and destroyed its altar and its priest, as it appeared to some Indian warriors who revisited the field after the battle, in the following lines:

"No wigwam smoke is curling there, The very earth is scorched and bare; And they pause and listen to catch a sound Of breathing life, but there comes not one, Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's bound; And here and there on the blackened ground White bones are glistening in the sun. And where the house of prayer arose, And the holy hymn at daylight's close, And the aged priest stood up to bless The children of the wilderness, There is naught but ashes sodden and dank, And the birchen boats of the Norridgewock, Tethered to tree, and stump, and rock, Rotting along the river-bank!"

FOOTNOTES:

[165] Indian name Kanghéssanak; botanical, Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii.

[166] Francis' Life of Rale, in Sparks.

[167] Maine Hist. Soc. Collections, v. i. p. 339, and Shea.

[168] Francis' Life of Father Rale.

[169] Smith's History of New York.

[170] Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, v. viii. p. 258.

[171] Sillery.

[172] Shea.

[173] Francis's Life of Rale.

[174] Chalmers.

[175] Francis's Life of Rale.

FROM EGYPT TO CHANAAN.

My God, while journeying to Chanaan's land, For peace I do not pray; Nor seek beneath thy sheltering sweetness, Lord, To rest each circling day. I cry to thee for strength to struggle on, But do not ask that smooth the way may be; Sufficient for thy servant 'tis to know That earth's bleak desert ends at last with thee.

When heavenly sweetness floods my heart, dear Lord, I magnify thy name; When desolations weigh my spirit down, I bless thee still the same. Keep me, O God! I cry with streaming eyes, From love of earth and creatures ever free: Far sweeter are than Eden's fairest blooms The blood-stained blossoms of Gethsemani.

I do not ask of thee that loving friends Should wander by my side, Or that my hand should feel an angel's touch, A guardian and a guide. But, Israel's God, do thou go on before, An ever-present beacon in the way; A fiery pillar in dark sorrow's night, A cloudy column in my prosperous day.

I do not ask, O Master dear! to lean My head upon thy breast; Nor seek within thy circling arms to find An ever-present rest. I beg from thee that crown of prickly thorn That once thy sacred forehead rudely tore; And I will press those crimsoned brambles close To my poor heart, and ask from thee no more.

But when, at length, my scorched and weary feet Shall reach their journey's end, And I have gained the longed-for promised land Where milk and honey blend; Then give me rest, and food, and drink, dear Lord; For then another pilgrim will have past, As thou didst, o'er the wastes of barren sand From Egypt into Chanaan, safe at last.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1873.

Will a new year ever dawn? is the question that must present itself in some shape or form to the one who glances at the records of the years as they go by. Eighteen hundred and seventy-three of them have passed since that song was heard at midnight on the mountains of Judea, "Glory in the highest, and on earth peace"; yet to-day the chant is as new and strange as it then was. There is no pagan Rome, but there is a Christian Germany; the dead ashes of the divine Emperor Tiberius were long ago blown about the world, but the divine Emperor William lives; there is no Herod, but there is an Emanuel, whose name is as characteristic of the man as the word Eumenides of what it was intended to represent. Who shall say that there are no Pilates still, who would fain wash their minds of conviction and their hands of the blood of Christ with a little water? Are none living who cast lots for his seamless garment? Every person, everything existing at the birth and death of Christ, has its living counterpart to-day; which is to say that human nature is still human nature; that the last chapter of the world's history has not yet been written; and that, beautiful and sublime as parts of it may be, "the trail of the serpent is over it all."

The year now closing is bigger with portent than event, as far, at least, as events touch humanity at large. A glance at the principal states of the world, east as well as west, though with a drowsier movement in the Orient, will bring before the eye many of the same symptoms throughout; more or less of transition, of rapid and often violent national change, which naturally shows itself among peoples of a thousand creeds in the relation of the governed to the governing, of the individual to the state. On this subject there are two extremes--personal absolutism, on the one hand, and communism, on the other. Both are equally disastrous to humanity, both are opposed to the law of Christ; hence the believer in the law of Christ, the individual who founds and builds his life and that of his family on the law of Christ--the Christian, the Catholic--is equally objectionable to both, and alike an object of hatred to Prussian imperialism and French liberalism. We are living in dangerous times; the world seems at the crisis of a fever. God in his mercy grant that it pass safely, and that the patient awake from the long delirium to its senses and the road to recovery, however slow and toilsome!

In American history the year of our Lord 1873 will probably be known as, thus far at least, pre-eminently the year of scandals. Early in this year, the Congress of the United States, as if in emulation of the example set by some of our state legislatures and municipal corporations, did, in the now famous Crédit Mobilier transaction, furnish a chapter apart in the annals of political malfeasance and corruption. It shocked and shook the confidence of the nation. The out-going Vice-President escaped impeachment by a vote so narrow as to imply a conviction of his guilt; his successor entered with the shadow of the same offence on his character. The rank-and-file were worthy of their leaders. Men stared blankly in each other's faces, and asked whether such a thing as honor existed in political life. The result showed itself in general apathy at the elections, while the tide, such as it was, turned again to the opposite party.

Corruption, fraud, embezzlement--embezzlement, corruption, fraud! Such are the chief headlines which the future historian will find in the national annals during this year of grace. The same story is as true of private individuals as of our public and representative men. The fashionable crimes of the year--always after murder and suicide, of course--have been embezzlement and defalcation on the part of gentlemanly and well-educated bank and insurance officers. A batch of American citizens gave us a world-wide celebrity by their long trial, ending in conviction and severe punishment, for astounding forgeries on the Bank of England; so that it is doubtful, as matters stand, which epithet would convey the severest imputation on character--"As honest as a cashier," or "As honest as a member of Congress."

The early spring was signalized by, perhaps, one of the last efforts of the Indians against the whites. A small band of Modocs, under the leadership of their chieftain, "Captain Jack," who seemed to have had serious causes of complaint, after considerable negotiation, resolved to die in harness rather than wait for what, to them, was a lingering death on a narrow reservation. They commenced operations by treacherously murdering Gen. Canby, a brave officer, and a peace commissioner, during a peace parley. Retiring to their caves, which afforded them an admirable shelter, they for a long time maintained a successful resistance to the United States forces despatched to destroy them, inflicting severe loss on the troops. So successful was Captain Jack's battle that at one time it was feared the other tribes would rise and join him. Run to earth at last, he surrendered with one or two companions who remained faithful. After due trial, they were taken and hanged. A poor issue for a Christian government!

Troubles loomed in Louisiana. Faction contended with faction for the government at a sacrifice of many lives. When blood once flows in civil strife, it is hard to tell where or when it will stop. As civil war threatened, and as Congress was not sitting, President Grant was compelled to resort to the expedient of ordering in the United States troops, not only to preserve the peace, but to sustain one of the parties in power. The country looked with a natural jealousy on this, at the time, apparently necessary movement; for if all civil quarrels are to be decided by federal bayonets, centralization and consequent personal government must sooner or later ensue. At the same time, it is impossible to allow local contests to be fought out vi et armis. If the states cannot conduct their internal affairs in a civil fashion and in the spirit of the constitution, there is apparently no medium between centralization and disruption.

The South was making rapid strides towards commercial recovery; the cotton crop for the year was excellent, as, indeed, were the crops generally; but the recent financial disasters have crippled trade as well as commerce. People will neither buy nor sell. Stock lies idle in the market; large business firms close or suspend, and the farmers cannot forward their products; so that the country is faced by a long winter with nothing to do, aggravated by a bad business season, for which the strikers of the preceding year have themselves partially to blame; and all ostensibly because one large banking firm suspended payment!

The only remedy for everything is a restoration of confidence among all; but that is the precise thing that is slow to come. The money market has been in the hands of commercial gamblers and tricksters so long that, with our paper money, which in itself is demoralizing, commercial gambling seems to be the acknowledged and legitimate line of business. Honest men cannot contend with a world of rogues. American credit has suffered terribly. If in political affairs it be true, as Prince Bismarck assured the world no later than last March, that "confidence is a tender plant, which, once destroyed, comes never more," it is doubly true in matters affecting a man's pocket.

There is something ominous as well as startling in this sudden collapse of all business, all commercial transactions, in a young, wealthy, powerful country such as this, in consequence of the failure of one or two men. It could not be unless the roots of the evil that wrought their failure had taken wide and deep hold of the national heart. There are dangers more immediate and more fatal than Cæsars or centralization threatening our republic. There is something like a rotting away of the national virtue, purity, and honor which in themselves constitute the life of a nation. When we find dishonesty accepted as a fact, or a state of affairs rather, against which it is hopeless to contend; when we find money accepted as the lever which Archimedes sought in vain, and that money itself based on nothing--paper--taken on trust, which does not exist, we have arrived at a state very nearly approaching to national decay, and it is high time to look to our salvation. This can be brought about only by an adherence to the doctrines of Christianity, an education of our children in the laws of Christianity, so as to save at least the coming generation. Only one thought will save a nation from dishonesty: the consciousness that a dishonest action is a sin and a crime against Almighty God. When that doctrine is taught and enforced in our public schools, and impressed indelibly on the plastic mind of innocence, the generation will grow up honest, true, and manly. While perfectly aware that reasoning of this kind will scarcely be appreciated "on the street," nay, would not even be understood, that is no reason why prominence should not be given it by those who have the future of their country at heart. The generation that grows up without a Christian education will not know the meaning of such words as private or commercial morality.

The history of the year in Europe is told in a sentence written long before Rome was founded: "The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against his Christ." In Germany, the work of the construction and consolidation of the new empire is advancing bravely. The new German Empire is founded on a military code strengthened by penal statutes, executed with all the promptness, vigor, and rigor of military law. The great feature of the year has been the passing of the ecclesiastical bills, into the particulars of which question it is unnecessary to enter now, as it has already been dealt with at length in THE CATHOLIC WORLD.[176] The present aspect of affairs may be summed up in a sentence: To be a Catholic is to be a criminal in the eyes of the state.

Every Catholic society of men, and women even, living in community together, have been expelled from Prussian territory within the year, for the simple reason that they were Catholics. As an excuse in the eyes of this keen, honest, liberal world of the XIXth century for such an outrage on human liberty, the government which boasts as its head Prince Bismarck, whose very name has become a byword for sagacity and foresight, contents itself with no better reason than that these quiet men and women, whose lives are passed out of the world, are a danger to the nation that conquered Austria and France; and the keen, honest, liberal world finds that reasoning sufficient. To be logical, the government should expel all the 8,000,000 Catholics in Prussia, or the 14,000,000 in the Empire, who are left behind; for there is not one shade of difference in the Catholicity of the societies expelled and that of the vast body remaining. But as it would be a difficult undertaking bodily to expel 14,000,000 of human beings from an empire, and as it would be a costly proceeding in the end, the half a dozen or more men who legislate for this vast empire of 40,000,000 do the best they can under the circumstances, and strain their ingenuity to devise means for purging Catholicity out of the souls of this vast body, as though the religion of Jesus Christ were a fatal disease and a poison.

Consequently, the first thing to do was to change the Prussian constitution, which guaranteed religious freedom independent of state control. By an alteration in Articles XV. and XVIII., religion was brought under complete subjection to the state: Prince Bismarck being compelled to pack the Upper House with his creatures in order to secure a majority for the measure. It passed, and its result, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, is easily told.

Catholic bishops, the successors of the apostles, may no longer exercise apostolic jurisdiction without permission from a Protestant government. A Catholic bishop may not excommunicate a rebellious Catholic without permission from a Protestant government, under the severest penalties.

A Catholic bishop must, under pain of the severest penalties, acknowledge a schismatic as a priest; retain him in his parish, pay him a salary, and allow him to say Mass and preach false doctrine to his Catholic congregation.

A Catholic bishop may not, under the severest penalties, ordain a Catholic priest, unless the candidate for holy orders receive the approval of Protestant government officials.

Catholic seminaries, where students for the Catholic priesthood are trained, must accept the supervision of a Protestant official and the programme of education prescribed by a Protestant government, which has declared war against their religion. If the bishop does not accept these conditions, the seminary is closed.

Catholic candidates for holy orders cannot be exempted from military service; the term of military service embraces a period of twelve years.

Catholic candidates for orders may not be admitted to holy orders before passing three years at a state university under the lectures of Protestant or infidel professors. On their entrance to the university they must matriculate to the satisfaction of those professors, and on leaving it they must pass a rigorous examination, also to the satisfaction of those professors.

A Catholic bishop may not appoint to or remove a Catholic priest from any parish without the permission of the Protestant government. If he does so, the marriages celebrated by such a priest are not recognized by law, and the children are consequently illegitimate in the eyes of the law! This too under a government which recognizes and encourages by every means in its power civil marriages, without the form of any religious ceremony whatsoever. Surely this is an Evangelical power!

Such, in brief, is a sketch of what these ecclesiastical bills mean. The sketch, hasty and incomplete as it is, requires no comment. A running comment is kept up every day, as readers may see for themselves, by cable despatches announcing penalties inflicted upon this bishop and that for refusing to obey laws that not only the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostolic writings forbid him, under pain of losing his soul, to obey, but against which the heart of any man with an ounce of freedom and honesty in his nature must revolt as from a foul offence. But the cable tells not a tithe of the story. Every penalty of the law in all the cases mentioned above has been and is being rigorously, nay bitterly, enforced; and a milder mode of treatment is scarcely to be looked for from the recent return of Prince Bismarck to the Prussian premiership, with full control this time over the cabinet.

It is difficult, in these days and in this country of all others, to write or speak with calmness of this cool assumption of absolute power over soul and body--the souls and bodies of 40,000,000 of human beings whom God created--by one or two men, and of its hypocritical justification by appeals to the Deity himself.[177] It is still more difficult to speak or write with calmness of the undisguised or ill disguised approval which such barbarous enactments have evoked in free America in the columns of Protestant religious or quasi-religious journals. Is religious freedom one thing here and another thing in Germany? Or is this country indeed, as some allege, ripe for absolutism?

The spirit that would wipe out the church of Christ if it could, that stifles every breath of religious freedom, naturally and as a matter of course laughs at such a thing as pretensions to political freedom in any sense. Consequently, it was no surprise to see, in the face of the protest of the majority, the civil as well as foreign polity of the states that compose this German Empire, scarce yet two years old, transferred to the bureau that sits at Berlin. These states were free three years ago, governing themselves by their own laws. They must now be ruled internally as well as externally by the laws of the empire, that is to say, by Prussia; for the imperial chancellor is the Prussian premier, with full control over the cabinet. In a word, Germany is to be Prussianized. Prince Bismarck is no lover of half-measures. Already it was decreed, in spite of opposition, that the Prussian military code should serve for the whole empire. The bill for the organization of the imperial army retains the main features of the former organization. The term of military service is fixed at twelve years, and, as already seen, not even the orders which indelibly stamp a man as the consecrated priest of God, can save him from becoming a man of war.

Now, this one item of itself is sufficient to condemn this government in the eyes of humanity. What is the meaning of the words, "twelve years of military service"? Prussian military service is no playing at soldiers, be it remembered, like our militia here or in England. The average life of a man in these days probably does not much exceed thirty-six years. Yet in this new German empire the men who go to compose its 40,000,000 of human souls are compelled to devote one-third--the best twelve years of their lives--to what?

To serve in the armies of a tyrannical despot, who styles himself "William, by the grace of God"--to spend those best twelve years of their lives in learning the most expeditious method of killing their fellow-Christians! And that is what the glorious German Empire means.

What wonder that Germans should already fly in such numbers from this glorious and consolidated empire as to cause the same government that forbids freedom of religion to prohibit freedom of emigration? As all the world has seen, the German government is compelled to throw every obstacle in the way of its subjects to prevent their flying to this country. Does that betoken soundness, and a government grateful to the people? In the face of that one fact, it is needless to call to mind the riots that have continued at intervals throughout the year in various parts of the country, and the cruelty with which they were put down. What wonder that, even in the face of a military power, the Catholic party, persecuted as it is, should have gained, on Protestant concession, a small but decided increase on the vote of last year? What wonder that the liberty of the press should be attacked, and the journals that dared to publish the Papal Allocution confiscated?

It has been alleged all along that Catholics have been the foes of the unity of Germany. The allegation is utterly false. It is alleged by the Prussian government that they conspire against the empire, from the bishops down. Give us the proofs, say the Catholics; lay your finger on the words or the acts of conspiracy. The government refuses to take up the open, manly challenge. It knew that its charge was false. But had it, by any chance, been true, who shall say that a government that enforces such barbarous laws as those above given, which is compelled to resort to force in order to keep its subjects in the country, which compels every man to devote the best part of his life to preparation for war, whose revenues go only to swell vast armaments and fortify frontiers, which denies not only all religious but all political freedom--practically one and the same thing--is not a curse rather than a blessing to mankind? The German Empire, as it stands to-day, is nothing else than a rampant, military Prussian despotism--a danger not only to its sister nations in Europe, but to the world.

In Italy the story is much the same; and the wonder is the sufferance, in these days of vaunted enlightenment and freedom, of the utter violation and disregard on the part of governments of every human right, even to the seizure of private property. The bill for the appropriation by the state of church property passed through the Italian parliament. These fine words, "appropriation," "parliament," "debates," in this "house" and in that, seem to throw dust in the eyes of men who, when their own property is touched, are particularly keen-sighted, though the "appropriation" go not beyond a single dollar. This high-sounding measure simply means that the Italian parliament has forcibly taken possession of three millions' worth and upwards of property to which, in the face of earth and heaven, it had not one jot, one tittle, one shade of claim in any form.

Three years ago, the present Italian parliament--Italian by courtesy--was not known in Rome. The Pope was as much a sovereign as Victor Emanuel. The withdrawal of the French troops left the Sovereign Pontiff defenceless, and let in the King of Sardinia. Unprovoked and uninvited, he took violent possession of the slender remnant of the Papal States left to the Pope, and proclaimed himself King of Italy--the Pope still remaining on the soil which his predecessors owned and governed before the race of Victor Emanuel existed. Under the Papal rule, certain religious corporations--the religious orders and societies--rented, purchased, or owned certain property. The property belonged to those corporations as surely and as sacredly as property can belong to any man or body of men. Of course, when this Italian government laid its sacrilegious hand on the domain of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, it was scarcely to be expected that, with the example of Henry VIII. of England and, more recently, of William of Prussia before its eyes, it would stop short at the property of religious corporations. Consequently, we hear of a bill for the appropriation of this private property by the state. It is debated, and, after the usual objections to what is already a foregone conclusion, the property is seized by the state, and the owners turned adrift over the world.

When men, and by no means admirable men, calling themselves governments, play thus fast and loose with every vested right, Catholics are told, because they are so bold as to defend their own, that they are and, cannot be other than disloyal to that nowadays obscure thing, a state! The Vicar of Jesus Christ lifts up his voice, and, after his many warnings, pronounces the solemn sentence of major excommunication on all who have had hand, act, or part in these sacrilegious transactions, which the science of jurisprudence itself condemns utterly--and free men, with sound ideas on the rights of property, whatever may be their opinion on the rights of religion, find in his utterances insolence or ravings.

Treasures of art, libraries that are historical relics, relics of the sainted dead, all that the monasteries and convents held, flood the Italian market, and are bought up "for a song"; while the property itself is up at auction to the highest bidder. And what has this government done for the country? Has it, in a manner, justified its seizure by improving the condition of the people?

It only needs to read any of the Roman correspondents of the English or American press to know that never did brigandage exist in a more flourishing condition in Italy than since the entry of Victor Emanuel into Rome. Many Protestant correspondents, be it remembered, intimate plainly enough that the authorities wink at the brigands. Capture, of course, is made once in a while; but so occasionally as only to serve "pour encourager les autres." But, after all, there is no barometer like a man's pocket; and the rise and fall of taxation is a very safe indicator of the state of the political mart. On this point a little comparison will be found instructive.

The New York Herald, in the spring of this year, in an article entitled "The Debts of the State--Important Questions for Taxpayers," mentions, as the revelation of "a startling fact," that "the aggregate debt of the several counties, cities, towns, and villages of the State of New York, for which the taxpayers are responsible, exceeds two hundred and fourteen million dollars. This is more than ten and a half per cent. upon the assessed valuation of all property in the State.... If to this total debt of the subdivisions of the State be added that of the State itself, ... we have as the entire corporate debt of the State $239,685,902--almost twelve per cent. of the whole assessment of property." "This is a heavy encumbrance upon every man's and every woman's estate. It has grown out of a long course of reckless abuse of power, too lightly confided to legislative and the various representative bodies which control the State in its several divisions. Lavish extravagance has been too often authorized in expenditures for the public account, by men who carefully guard their private interests and credit, and it is no secret that many of the burdens imposed upon the taxpayers have enriched those who made the appropriations. How are these onerous obligations to be met? Or are they to be paid at all?"

It is doubtful whether many of the taxpayers in New York State will feel inclined to call in question the strictures here involved. At all events, the ex-Tammany chieftain has recently been consigned to the penitentiary. Turn we now to the taxation in Rome since the commencement of the Emanuel régime. A Herald correspondent, who was despatched to describe the death of our Holy Father, and the election of his successor, and, finding his time heavy on his hands--as the Pope, in the face of an outraged world, refused to die before his Master called him--collected and sent back the following little items:

_Comparative Table of Taxes on an Annual Income of 70,000 Lire (Francs) paid in 1869 to the Pontifical Government, and in 1873 to the Italian Government._

TAXES PAID TO THE PONTIFICAL GOVERNMENT.

Francs. Per Cent. State taxes on property in Rome, 467.20 State taxes on property in the country, 248.75 ------ Total, 715.95 or 1.02279 Communal taxes on property in Rome, 864.95 Communal taxes on property in the country, 613.70 -------- Total, 1,478.65 or 2.11236 Total of all taxes paid under the Pontifical Government, 2,194.60 or 3.13515

TAXES PAID TO THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT.

State taxes on property in Rome, 6,250 State taxes on property in the country, 940 ----- Total, 7,190 or 10.62857 Communal taxes on property in Rome, 4,650 Communal taxes on property in the country, 651 ----- Total, 5,301 or 7.57286 Income taxes on 59,497 francs 7,854 or 11.22 Mortmain taxes on total of 70,000 francs, 2,800 or 4.00 Mortmain on buildings which give no rent, but are taxed, 1,500 or 2.14286 ----- ----- Total of all taxes paid under the Italian Government, 24,645 or 35.56429

SUMMARY.

Increase of Taxes Pontifical Italian under Government. Government. Italian Gov't. Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. State tax--real estate, 1.02 10.63 9.61 Communal and provincial taxes 2.11 7.57 5.46 Income tax, -- 11.22 11.22 Mortmain, -- 4.00 4.00 Mortmain on buildings not paying rent, -- 2.14 2.14 ---- ---- ---- Total, 3.13 35.56 32.43

This schedule refers only to clerical property.

This is an increase of 32½ percent., or, not including the extra tax on mortmain property, 28½ per cent., within, at the time of writing, about two years.[178] Would the taxpayers of New York, who are presumably more wealthy than those of Rome, consider such an increase of taxation as that in two or three years "a startling fact"? And what is there to show for it? Absolutely nothing. All sorts of fine schemes for improvement of the city and such like are in existence--upon paper; unfortunately, they remain there. There is a grand new opera-house to be built, however. That is something. And then those royal visits to Austria and Germany must have cost something. And Victor Emanuel himself and his worthy son Humbert lead rather expensive lives. In the account of New Year's Day at Rome, a twelve-month since, we find the president of the chamber requesting his majesty to take more care of his health. And his majesty in response acknowledges the necessity of so doing, while he assured the president that arrangements existed which would ensure that the unity and liberty of Italy would in no case be endangered.

And here the Roman correspondent of the London Times, who, like most special correspondents of that journal, hates the Pope and the Papacy with a solid Saxon hatred that not even what is passing under his own eyes can remove, furnishes us with a little further information on the same point:

"The rigorous exaction of the taxes, referred to in former letters, has been a great element of discontent, especially in the south, which has suffered in many respects from the formation of the Italian kingdom. The only chance of rescuing the country [What country?--The exchequer of Victor Emanuel.] from its severe financial difficulties and probably from bankruptcy, was in such an exaction, but it has not the less pressed very cruelly on many needy classes. And it must be owned that, instead of seeking to soothe the sufferings of the taxpayers, Signor Sella has rather increased them by his cynical mode of treatment. People think it bad enough to be mulcted until they have scarcely enough left to live upon, and are not in a mood to be made game of also"--and much more in the same strain.[179]

Of the banishment of the religious orders and societies from Italy, which recently came into effect, the same only can be said as of the German expulsion. Our Holy Father, in receiving the generals of the various religious orders on January 2, said in reply to their address: "It is the third time during my life that religious orders have been suppressed. These corporations have always been the support of the church, and it is a dispensation of God that they should from time to time undergo such vicissitudes. This is a secret of Providence which I may not unravel, but I strive to see whether an angel may not be coming to aid the church. I do not say that I desire the destroying angel who visited the host of Sennacherib in order to save the chosen people of God. No, I have not that thought. I wish for an angel who might convert all hearts. We are in exile; we must come before God with the powerful arm of prayer, in order to obtain, if not what we wish, at least some assuagement of our misfortunes."

At the beginning of summer the world was excited by a rumor of the Pope's sickness unto death, and it was curious to observe the effect of the rumor upon the non-Catholic world. Pius IX. has already seen more than "the years of Peter." He has sustained in his own person the trials of Peter. But whatever the end may be which Jesus Christ has reserved for the close of the glorious career of his true Vicar, Pius IX. will leave this world, his soul borne up on the prayers and blessings of two hundred million hearts, while his name will for ever shine resplendent on the glittering scroll of the successors of Peter.

"On his return from Versailles, M. Thiers was greeted at the railway station by a crowd which was awaiting him there with loud cries of Vive M. Thiers! Vive le Président!" So runs a despatch from Paris on New Year's Day, 1873. How oddly it reads now! Le Président est mort: Vive le Président! M. Thiers is politically as dead as he that was laid in his quiet grave at Chiselhurst in the first month of the year. It almost requires a strained effort of the mind to recall the fact that a short year ago M. Thiers was the master of the situation in France, receiving deputations and congratulations on New Year's, and talking of his presidential visit to the Vienna exhibition. A quiet but significant little despatch of the same date may partly explain the rapid collapse of M. Thiers: "Many persons of political distinction left their names at the residence of the Orleans princes." THE CATHOLIC WORLD for last January, in its review of the year 1872, said on the French question: "But Thiers cannot last, and what is to follow? The country would not bear the rule of the man of Sedan.... The speech of the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, on the army contracts, killed Napoleonism for the nonce. We can only hope for the best in France from some other and nobler sprout of former dynasties; we cannot foresee it."

It is needless to tell here the story of how M. Thiers was overthrown, or to comment on it, beyond the timeworn illustration that as a rule it is a radical mistake for any one man to set himself up as a necessity for a nation; yet such a mistake is the commonest indulged in by rulers (in esse or in posse, as may be). In the midst of intense excitement in that most excitable of capitals, Paris, Marshal MacMahon was summoned by the majority of the Assembly to succeed M. Thiers. He placed himself as an impersonal instrument in the hands of the government, promising by the aid of "God and the army" to guarantee peace. He chose a conservative government. Order has been kept. The last farthing of the indemnity to Germany has been paid, and the last German soldier has quitted France.

A volume might be written on those few words--the indemnity has been paid: the last German soldier has quitted France. There is nothing but silent wonder for this marvellous feat, which in its way casts into the shade even the German conquest of France. A nation whose armies were one after the other shattered in a few months, an empire destroyed, an emperor led into captivity; its great fortresses beaten down, its capital besieged and taken twice over, first by the foe, after by its own soldiers from the hands of its suicidal children; two provinces, rich and fair, with their cities and peoples, amounting to a million and a half, taken away; its raw levies scattered into mist at a ruinous waste of life and money; its government overthrown and the entire national system overturned, so that men turned this way and that, and nowhere found a ruler. Men, money, provinces, cities, emperor, empire, rulers--all gone; commerce destroyed, the heart of the nation sore with resentment and stricken with sorrow: and all this crowded into a few months! Yet within less than three years this fickle, false, degenerate French nation--for such was the general character attributed to it after the late war--has restored its armies, has maintained peace, although even yet it can scarcely be said to have a permanent government, has set its commerce again afloat, and has rid itself of the foe at a cost that, when proposed, the whole world deemed fabulous.

One cannot help wondering now whether Prince Bismarck was prescient enough to foresee that France could afford to pay the fabulous sum for which he stipulated--more than a billion dollars. The figures are easily written down on paper, the words slip glibly from the lips, yet they signify a sum of money whose immensity, and the power that it contains for good or for evil, it is well-nigh impossible for the mind of man to conceive. When first bruited, the whole world looked aghast and refused to consider the idea that Prince Bismarck, especially after what the nation had suffered, could stipulate for the payment of so vast a sum--one that simply implied national bankruptcy. The world misjudged Prince Bismarck, and possibly he misjudged the power and vitality of the nation that lay quivering under his iron heel, or he might have demanded more. Yet here two years afterwards the almost impossible sum is told out to the last farthing, and the Germans are over the border again, with their gripe still on two French provinces, hastening fast to fortify and defend them from attack.

With what France has accomplished in these short months before our eyes, how irresistibly the thought comes to one--would it not have been wiser, truer patriotism, a loftier statesmanship, to have left those two provinces to France, and not hold them up for ever before her eyes as the fairest prize pitilessly wrung from her in her hour of anguish? Has not Prince Bismarck, or the Emperor, or Von Moltke, or whomsoever's doing it was, left the germ of future wars as a legacy to be fought by those yet unborn, when they shall be rotting in their graves?

A month or two ago, and the crown that once belonged to his race seemed to offer itself to the grasp of the Count of Chambord. Our readers know the story too well to repeat it here. All that need be said is, he refused it. Henri Cinq is very unlike Henri Quatre, the founder of his race. That Protestant gentleman deemed a throne worth a Mass; his Catholic descendant deems a throne insufficient to compensate him for a broken word or a wavering in principle. It is a lesson to kings; and if there be such a thing as royalty in these days--royalty as men once knew, or thought they knew, it--surely it belongs to the man who could quietly turn aside from a crown within his reach when he could not wear, as the brightest jewels therein, truth and honor untarnished. Verily Henri Cinq is the most royal of the Bourbons, and the line of crowned heads is redeemed in the person of their crown-less descendant. Vive la France! Vive Henri Cinq!

The crown which all felt to be virtually offered to him being refused, the conservative government, with MacMahon at its head, still remains in office, and a provisional government is voted for seven years. It is doubtful whether it will live that time. France is still open to eruption. Yet the present government deserves well of the country. It has shown itself wise, calm, and moderate. The debt was paid off, and the nation scarcely seemed to recognize the fact. How that vast sum of money was collected so rapidly and transferred to Berlin, where it came from, and how it was brought together at so short a notice, without any one apparently feeling the worse for it, is, and will probably remain, one of the mysteries of finance.

It is as impossible this year as it was last to forecast the French horoscope. The nation has accomplished wonders, and shown itself capable of everything save choosing a government which could satisfy the whole body. Probably such a government is impossible. Republicanism, in our sense of the word, is as far off from France as ever. Sooner or later some man will again possess himself of the power in France, unless, as is still not improbable, the nation invite the Count of Chambord. The Duc d'Aumale has "won golden opinions from all sorts of men," and continues to win them. He is conducting the trial of Marshal Bazaine with great keenness and discretion.

"The man of Sedan" went to sleep at last as the year opened. He is reported to have died a Christian death, though the evidence of adequate reparation for his past crimes is wanting. Whatever he may have been, he left many close personal friends behind him. He did more than this: he left a party, or the germ of one, in that fatal legacy of the "Napoleonic idea," to his young son, who, if his life be spared, will probably guard it well, and follow closely in the footsteps of his father, if he have the chance to do so, which God forefend! His English education will not harm him; and he has seen too much of France and imperialism to relinquish an empire which, unless God give him grace to learn a better wisdom than that which his father bequeathed, he cannot fail to consider his by right. For the present he is harmless enough personally; but if France continues in its unsettled state, and if the son inherit any of the power and scheming of the race, he is as likely as any other to be the coming man. We trust, however, that neither of these conditions will be verified.

The death of the Emperor Napoleon undoubtedly lightened France. This is not the time to examine his actions or his policy. He is now part, and a very large part, of history; and history will paint him as it has painted better and greater men--in light and shade.

The pilgrimages to the various French shrines were a feature of the year, drawing the eyes of the world to France, and the blessing of heaven on France. Millions of pilgrims of all classes, ages, and cast of politics visited La Salette, Paray-le-Monial, Our Lady of Lourdes, and a multitude of other shrines. The whole world looked on with wonder. There was abundance of ridicule among a class of writers from whose pens commendation would be an insult. One pilgrimage went from Protestant England under the leadership of the Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal of England. The leading secular newspapers, as a rule, gave very fair and respectful accounts. If it were not invidious to select from many, the letters of the correspondents of the London Times in England, and of the New York Herald in this country--particularly the latter--were admirable in tone, spirit, and style. Pilgrimages were prohibited in Italy and Germany, on the ground that they were political assemblages. They seem rather likely to increase than to diminish in the coming year, and undoubtedly they have imparted a fresh impetus to faith, and returned a solemn answer to the "men of the time," the philosophers of the age, who find it so easy to disbelieve in God.

1873 will be memorable in Spanish annals. The heart sickens and shrinks from going over the dismal record. It is almost startling to read of "the king" receiving deputations on New Year's, and that king Amadeus. His abdication can scarcely have caused surprise to persons who had the slightest inkling of the real state of affairs in Spain. THE CATHOLIC WORLD, in its review of last year, although matters smiled on Amadeus at the time, said: "We do not expect to find Amadeus' name at the head of the Spanish government this day twelve-month." It said also, "A good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he only manage his rising in a more efficient manner." How far those predictions have been verified by events our readers may satisfy themselves. They required, indeed, no very keen insight to make.

Previous to the abdication of Amadeus, the Carlist insurrection, under the leadership of Prince Alfonso, the brother of Don Carlos, Saballs, and a number of other chieftains of greater or less note, again broke forth with renewed vigor. After his abdication, the government was all at sea; and from that time to the present date there has been nothing but a succession of changes of government, one as incapable as another, until the country no longer presents the appearance of a nation. Don Carlos appeared at the head of his forces early in the year. Frequent reports of Carlist annihilation have kept the telegraph wires busily employed ever since; yet, singular to relate, Don Carlos at present is actual king in the north of Spain. The forces sent against him have been defeated in every important engagement, and he only needs artillery to advance into the heart of the country. How it will go with him during the coming winter, which is rigorous in the north, remains to be seen. Insurrections broke out in various parts of the country, resulting, in some places, in scenes of horror and inhumanity, compared with which the horrors of the Commune in Paris were humane. Men seemed possessed by fiends, and the Spanish idea of a federal republic took the form of every petty town its own absolute sovereign. There was serious danger more than once of such insignificant governments embroiling themselves with foreign powers. Part of the fleet revolted, and is still in revolt. Part of the army endeavored to do so more than once. They cannot but despise wild theorists of the Castelar type, who would heal a bleeding nation with windy speeches. The future looks dark for Spain; and its only hope now lies in Don Carlos gaining the throne as speedily as he may. The country is overwhelmed with financial dangers, and it will take a cycle of peace and sound government to atone for the untold evils of these few years of excess. As matters now stand, victory sits on the helm of Don Carlos, and the coming year will probably find him King of Spain. We hope and believe that he will prove himself worthy of the vast sacrifices which have been made in his favor, and show as a wise, temperate, and truly Catholic sovereign over a noble race run mad with riot. As for a Spanish republic, Alcoy and Cartagena indicate what that means.

In this connection it would seem that we should take some notice of the case of the Virginius; but, at the time of sending this to press (Nov. 29), the question is too incomplete and unsettled to enable us to announce the final solution, which will have become a fact when these lines are read. To pronounce our own judgment on the merits of the case, in the brief and superficial manner to which our limits would restrict us, we are unwilling. We merely say one thing, which is obvious on the face of things, that there was no sufficient reason to justify the hurried and summary massacre of the prisoners captured on the Virginius. Filibustering we detest as a crime. Nevertheless, Cuba has been frightfully misgoverned. The reconciliation of Cuba to Spanish rule is impossible. If it can be rightfully made a free state, or annexed to the United States, we think it will be a benefit to the Cubans to be set free from Spanish rule.

The great feature of the English year has been the educational question--a question that at present is agitating the world, and is debated alike throughout all Europe, in our own country, in the states of South America, in India even, and in Australia. It is summed up in this: Shall education be Christian or not? If Christian, it tends to make the coming race bad citizens, inasmuch as it teaches children that there is a God, whose laws even governments must obey. There are side issues, but that constitutes the main point, however governments may seek to disguise the fact. If unchristian, the children learn that they are only graduating to become capable citizens of the state, and that that is their highest duty. This is paganism, and to this doctrine of education Christians cannot consent.

Mr. Gladstone, finding his party shaking, once more strove to consolidate and make it a unit on an Irish question. He took up the Irish educational grievance--and undoubtedly a sore grievance it is--and tried to construct a university which should be equally acceptable to all creeds and no creeds. As might have been expected, it proved acceptable to none. Mr. Gladstone's model university was to exclude chairs of theology, philosophy, and history. The very proposal is sufficient to show how impossible it was for Catholics to support such a measure. The Irish vote very rightly turned the scale against him, and Mr. Disraeli was credited with a victory. After a threatened dissolution, the Gladstone government resumed, and the conservative gains have gone on steadily increasing, so that it is not at all improbable that Mr. Disraeli will find himself and the conservative party in power after the next general elections.

The British government paid to the United States the amount of the Geneva award--£3,500,000.

A war is being waged against the Ashantees, successfully so far. The Australian colonies are advancing in wealth and independence. From Bengal, at the close of the year, comes a dread rumor of famine that seems to be only too well founded. There was an increase in the price of coal, resulting, apparently, from a report of its scarcity.

In the early part of the year, a strike of the miners and iron-workers of South Wales, by which 60,000 men were thrown out of employment, extended over two months. It was finally settled by mutual concessions on the part of masters and men. It evinced the growing power of trades-unions; but, at the same time, a few figures, furnished by the correspondent of the London Times, give sad evidence of what a losing game strikes really are when they can possibly be avoided.

The correspondent writes from Merthyr, February 9, while the strike was still in progress: "A few figures, showing the cost of the present struggle, are instructive. To-day the strikers enter upon the seventh week of its duration. Not a stroke of work has been done by over 60,000 persons since the 28th December last. In giving that figure, the number is under-estimated rather than exaggerated. The average weekly earnings of this industrial host was £60,000, while at the monthly pays or settlements it would not be going beyond the truth to say the payment exceeded the ordinary weekly draws by from 50 to 60 per cent. In the six weeks of idleness, therefore, the workmen have lost, in round figures, £400,000. The withdrawal of this vast sum from the circulation of the district has created such a dearth of money as no tradesman has ever experienced before. The strike payment of the Miners' Union has amounted at the utmost to only £15,000--a miserable pittance compared with the sum which would have been distributed through the various channels of trade had the works continued in operation." The past almost unprecedentedly dull business year in New York was owing, in great measure, to the strikes in the busiest season of 1872.

In Ireland, and among the Irish in England and Scotland, the agitation for home rule has spread with a vigor that promises success. Recently the Irish prelates have given in their adherence to the programme, and thus sanctioned the movement by the voice of the church. A cable message informs us that Mr. Disraeli has seized upon this fact to warn the world generally, and Mr. Disraeli's proverbially slow-witted party particularly, that the contest between the Catholic Church and the world is rapidly coming to a head, and will probably soon be fought out by ordeal of battle. Mr. Disraeli inherits a keen scent for what is likely to take in the market, whether of politics or a more vulgar kind of commodity. He is at a loss for a party-cry, and has happily seized upon one that of all others is likely to commend itself to the British bucolic intellect. In the meantime, the Irish at home may remember that in all their struggles, while they very wisely look to themselves to right themselves, they may count on fast friends, chiefly of their own race, scattered through every English-speaking people, whose voices, at least, will be lifted up in their favor. Let them continue to show such clean calendars as in the past year's assizes--in itself a very strong proof for the right, since it involves the power of self-government--and self-government cannot tarry much longer. The solemn consecration of the whole country to the Sacred Heart, and of Armagh Cathedral, are two events that will live in Irish history. The general wonder evoked by the revolt of an Irish priest against his bishop furnished a striking testimony to the unity of the church.

Russia has advanced a step farther into Asia and closer upon the British possessions. Khiva was captured, after a show of resistance by the forces of the khan. The collision between these two powers in the East is not far distant. Russia has not yet forgotten Sebastopol; and England showed a restive spirit at the advance of its great rival into the East that at one time threatened to burst forth into open opposition to the expedition. The contest is only delayed for a time. Russia internally is not as calm as it might be. We hear from time to time of the eruptions of strange secret societies. Undoubtedly socialism is at work; and in these days, not despotism, but rational freedom, is the only bulwark against its advance. The year opened with the illness of the czarowitz. He recovered sufficiently to absent himself from St. Petersburg just before the kaiser entered to greet the czar. The love of the czarowitz for the Prussians is too well known not to give a significance to his hurried departure on the arrival of their emperor in his father's capital.

Austria opened a universal exposition at Vienna with a financial panic. The country has under consideration the legislation of the period--a bill for the regulation of the affairs of church and state. Austria is not too strong as it stands; it will gain little if it join in the universal attack upon the church of Christ and his Vicar.

Switzerland has essayed the rôle of Bismarck admirably. It has turned everybody in and everybody out, and church and chapel topsy-turvy, in right royal fashion. All the ecclesiastical laws of Prussia have been introduced there, with the addition that the curés were elective. Of course, Catholics could not vote for the election of their curés; consequently, they did not appear at the polls in this matter. But there are Catholics enough in Switzerland, and Italy also, to make themselves felt at the polls in other matters, and it seems that the chief remedy for their evils rests in their own hands. In Germany, as was seen, the Catholics have gained a decisive increase on their vote of last year, however small; and, to judge of the future by the past, those German delegates will fight the battle of God and freedom nobly. In England Catholics are active at the polls, and, small a minority as they are, their vote tells.

Turning now to the East, every year seems to bring it nearer to the West, and possibly to the fulfilment of the promise that F. Thebaud brings out so strongly in his powerful work on The Irish Race--to the time when the sons of Japheth shall "take possession of the tents of Sem." During the past year, the Emperor of China made a concession unprecedented in Chinese history, and doubtless many an old political head shakes over the headlong rate at which the Chinese constitution is being driven to destruction. The Brother of the Sun--we believe that is the relationship--has allowed foreign potentates to present themselves at court after the fashion of the outer barbarians. This, however, is really an important concession, inasmuch as when the representatives of civilized governments have access directly to the person of the emperor, European and American subjects resident in China stand a better chance of having the many annoyances and grievances put in their way redressed; and the moral effect of the imperial concession on the narrow-minded Chinese nation cannot fail to be of benefit.

Japan seems earnest in its endeavor to become Europeanized as rapidly as possible. But it was as near, or nearer, centuries ago, when S. Francis Xavier confuted the Bonzes. The narrowness and selfishness of European traders alone prevented the nation from becoming Christian, probably, at that time. Much depends, therefore, on the representatives of foreign governments. If they are wise and large-hearted Christian men, they may prove apostles to this nation, which seems to possess so many admirable elements; but if, as so often seems the case, they are only second-hand agents of Bible societies and narrow-minded bigots, we may as well resign all hope of Japan. Some outrage is sure to recur sooner or later with lamentable results. Certainly, as a rule, our own foreign diplomats are not a class of men who reflect too much credit on the American nation. They appear to have been chosen blindly or at hap-hazard, in return for some electioneering service. Such is not the spirit that should move the government of a nation like ours, or any nation, to select representative men. They should be truly representative men of this great people, large and liberal-minded, with no bias whatever, but an eye single as that of justice.

Persia has also opened her gates and let forth her king to see the world. What impression the "civilized" world made on Nasr-ed-Deen[180] would be something worth knowing. He traversed Europe. He went to Russia, and the czar showed him armies; he visited Berlin, and the kaiser showed him other armies; he went to Austria--armies again; England--armies, a navy this time, and a lord mayor; France--more armies; Italy--armies still; and the king of kings went back again to Persia to open his kingdom to civilized governments. Belgium showed him the inside of a Christian temple for the first time, as he assured the Papal Nuncio, when expressing his regret at not being able to visit the Sovereign Pontiff. Can we wonder that the shah was soon weary of his journey? Civilization could show him no grander sight than millions of men drawn up in battle array and all the paraphernalia of war. It exhausted itself in that--armies and nothing more. Yes, there was something more--ballets.

The shah seems to have pawned his kingdom for a period of twenty years to Baron Reuter, who is to do what he pleases with it in the interim in the construction of railways, canals, and other means of internal development, he paying the monarch £20,000 annually and a tithe of the income resulting from the improvements. It seems a hazardous undertaking in such a country; but the man who undertook it doubtless "counted the costs" beforehand.

The mission of Sir Bartle Frere from the British government to the interior of Africa, with a view to the putting a stop to the barbarities of the slave-trade, promises, in connection with the expedition under Sir Samuel Baker, to open up a road to European intercourse with the natives of the interior. Some German scientists in Berlin also set on foot during the past year an association for the promotion of the exploration of Africa.

In the states of South America the same strife that we have witnessed in Europe is being waged, which, under the name of church and state, really means the absolutism of the state. The members of the Society of Jesus and of other societies and orders have been expelled from Mexico and several other states. Mexico has decreed civil marriage, as has also Brazil, whose Masonic premier and cabinet are entering on a persecution of the bishops for excommunicating members of secret societies. During the year, the city of San Salvador was utterly destroyed by an earthquake. The political order in these South American states corresponds very closely with their natural order. They exist in a chronic state of revolution and eruption.

In the natural order there have been furious storms, fraught with disaster to life and property; although lives lost in this manner have been insignificant in number compared with loss resulting from wrecks owing mainly to neglect, as in the case of the Northfleet and the Atlantic, and several railroad disasters on a large scale. Boston was again visited by fire, but escaped with a loss less severe than before. The flooding of the Po once more brought disaster upon Italy, as did our own annual freshets upon us in the spring. With the exception of the threatened famine in Bengal, the seasons have been propitious, and the want which threatens the United States particularly during the coming year is due mainly to financial panics and strikes.

Within the past year, Berlin, Vienna, and New York have known panics, all seemingly resulting from the same immediate cause--the failure of one or two great houses; while the markets of the world have been threatened in consequence. Failures of one or two great houses could not possibly affect in so terrible a manner all kinds of business were it not that there was something radically wrong at the bottom--an evil leaven that has spread to the whole commercial mass. It would probably be a puzzle, even to a financier, to lay before the world the secrets of these periodical panics, resulting in ruin to so many outside of the comparative few immediately concerned. It looks as though, in this money-getting age, and among our own money-getting people particularly--on which subject the Holy Father this year addressed to us a special warning--the mass of men were animated by the principle, "Get money at all costs; never mind the means." Even the greatest houses live on a system of puff. In private life the man who lives beyond his means must sooner or later come to grief, and face ruin or roguery. In business the same rule must hold good. Vast establishments are conducted on a system vitally unsound. Probably there exists scarcely a house to-day that, if called on at any one moment to pay all its outstanding debts, could do so. But when the majority of houses are conducted on principles that on a limited capital base a business involving an outlay of perhaps twenty times its amount, we must be prepared for these periodical disasters. The evil is that this essentially dishonest system has become the only recognized style of conducting business in these days; so that commerce has come to be a game of speculation, where the cleverest and most daring rogue generally wins--a game fostered by the excessive issue of paper money.

Among events that attracted some attention during the year was the still lingering trial of the Tichborne claimant, which was not thrown into the shade by the trial of Marshal Bazaine. There have been meetings of the internationalists and other societies. New York was entertained or bored, as may be, for a week, by a meeting of Protestant gentlemen, mostly clericals, of all shades of belief, who called themselves an Evangelical Alliance. They were not quite agreed as to the particular object of their meeting, from which nothing resulted.

Several Catholic nations and numerous dioceses have been solemnly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ during the past year, the province of New York among the number, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. Dr. Corrigan was consecrated Bishop of Newark, and F. Gross of Savannah.

The last point has come: the mention of the dead. The Emperor Napoleon was the first of note to go; his empire went with him, for from first to last it was essentially a personal government. As his will, drawn up in his still palmy days, said, "Power is a heavy burden." He forced himself upon a nation of 30,000,000 of human souls; he voluntarily assumed the responsibility of the absolute guidance of that mighty multitude. He never had a fixed principle to guide him. He never dared honestly say, "This is right," "This is wrong." The power which he voluntarily assumed and kept to himself so long--one solitary man the ruler of 30,000,000--ended in disaster for that mighty multitude and himself.

This death dwarfs all the others. Nevertheless, many a man was laid in his grave last year whose name will live after him. The church has lost Mgr. Losanna, Bishop of Biela, the oldest Italian bishop; F. de Smet, the apostolic missionary among the Indians; and here, in New York, Vicar-General Starrs. Literature has suffered in Manzoni, whose death the Italians rightly viewed as a national calamity. Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, a man of many and great gifts, has at last gone to tell "what could he do with them." History will not soon find again an Amedée Thierry. Col. James F. Meline, a frequent and very able contributor to THE CATHOLIC WORLD, is a loss to American Catholic literature. The Anglican Bishop of Winchester, a gifted orator, but a churchman of no very fixed opinions, was killed by a fall from his horse. On the same day died Lord Westbury, a man of a singularly acute and powerful intellect, who has left his mark on English legislation. Our Chief-Justice Chase is gone, and it will be difficult to find his equal. Rattazzi, the Italian minister, is gone to his place. John Stuart Mill, who could not well be dismissed in a sentence, is dead. He was a singular mixture of philosophical acumen and practical stupidity. Art has lost Landseer; science, Maury and Liebig, the chemist; while medicine laments Nelaton. The American, French, and English stage mourns respectively Forrest and Macready, the once rival tragedians, and Lafont, a prince of comedians. Royalty has lost the Empress Dowager of Austria, a very holy woman; the Empress Dowager of Brazil; the King of Saxony, a scholar and a Christian, and the Duke of Brunswick, who was famed for anything but holiness. General Paez, who once was famous, is dead. The death of Captain Hall adds another to the list of brave, adventurous spirits who so far have wasted their lives in the endeavor to discover the North Pole. His death involved the failure of the Polaris expedition, which was fitted out by the American government. The story of the rescue of the Polaris crew belongs to the romance of history.

Bernstorff and Olozaga, the ambassadors respectively of Germany and Spain, have dropped from diplomatic circles into that circle where the finest diplomacy cannot cover the slightest delinquency.

There is little to add. Another year has happily passed over our heads without a serious war, but the future threatens to make ample and speedy atonement for this lamentable deficiency. Last year THE CATHOLIC WORLD closed its review by saying that "Europe was arming." This year it may say Europe is armed. Prussia, Russia, France, Austria, Italy--what are they? Nations of warriors. Had the Persian king asked the meaning of these armed nations, he would probably have been answered, with a grim jocularity, that civilized powers found such the only method of keeping the peace and preserving that imaginary thing--equilibrium. The Russian expedition into and capture of Khiva, the defeat of the Dutch by the Atchinese in the Island of Sumatra, the English war with Ashantee, make the three ruptures of international peace during the year. England seems particularly choice in her selection of foes: Abyssinia, the Looshai tribes, and now--Ashantee. She is jealous of her turbulent neighbors, and must vindicate her ancient prestige.

The main events which have moved the world during the past year have now been touched upon hastily and crudely enough, but sufficiently, it may be hoped, to give the reader some idea of the mainsprings which move this busy world, of which we form a part, and in which each one is set to play a part and render an account of it. What was said at the beginning may be more readily appreciated now, or denied--that the year of our Lord 1873 is bigger with portent than event, and a portent that bodes ill, as far as human eye can see, for the church of Christ, built upon Peter. Mr. Disraeli's party-cry may contain more truth than the crier, wise man though he be, dreamed: there is such an intense, bitter, determined, and general hostility, on the part of "the kings and the princes of the world, against the Lord and against his Christ"; the opposition is fast becoming so intolerant and absolutely unbearable to Catholics; while protest and opposition in words alone seem vain and idle when addressed to ears that are deaf.

In the meanwhile, Catholics must not budge an inch. They are not only fighting for their religion, but for human freedom. To yield the smallest point of principle is to be false to their conscience. The more persistent is the non-Catholic world in false theories of human rights and human wrongs, the more persistent must they be in adhering, at any sacrifice, to what they know to be right, and what was right when modern nations were unborn. Catholics must remember that all are fighting the same battle, and all are bound to take a hand in the struggle. What the Pope fights for, that all Catholics fight for--from the bishop to the priest, from the priest to the one whose voice is heard in the halls of legislation, to the editor in his office, to the merchant in his counting-house, to the very beggar in the street. There is no difference, no line to be drawn. We must be one, and, if right must win, then victory is ours.

For, for what do we contend? To be Christian; to be free to obey the church which our Lord Jesus Christ founded. Allegiance to a foreign power? What folly! Allegiance to Pius IX. is allegiance to Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. Are Catholics not Americans, or Germans, or Irishmen, or Englishmen, for being Catholics? How, when, where, was it ever shown that they were not? Why, when Protestantism was not known, were Catholics not nationalists--when Christendom was one?

A new year is opening before us--a year of trial, not so much in this country, but to the universal church. Where freedom is left to Catholics, as in this country, they must never cease, by prayer, by the pen, by the voice, by every means that the occasion calls forth, to help their persecuted brethren; not looking to this government or to that to help them, but basing their cause on their natural rights. There is not a civil, religious, or political right anywhere existing on this earth, belonging to non-Catholics, which does not also belong to Catholics. They must get that idea fast in their minds, and fight on that which is a lawful and just issue. No Protestant can claim a right which does not belong equally to a Catholic. No Protestant, be he individual or government, can say to a Catholic: You must not believe this doctrine or that; you must not take the Pope for an infallible guide in religion, but yourself; you must not educate your children in your religion, and so on. This is the language, open or secret, of the day which is addressed to Catholics. It must be met with no hesitation, but with the response: Our freedom is your freedom; our rights are your rights; our interest is your interest; nay, after all, our God is your God. Let us fight our battles of opinion civilly. But when you issue paper constitutions every day, and tell us that we must obey such and such an iniquitous law--a law revolting to our conscience, our reason, and every aspiration of freedom--we throw your paper constitution to the winds, and refuse to obey it. It is necessary to obey God rather than man! We conclude by wishing to all our readers a happy New Year, to our Holy Father a speedy triumph, and to ourselves the pleasure of recording, at the end of 1874, the history of the confusion and rout of the enemies of the church.

Of events accidentally omitted in the preceding record of the year, were the ravages of the yellow fever in the South, particularly at Memphis and Shreveport, where many Catholic priests and religious sacrificed their lives in the service of the sick. To the list of disasters at sea resulting from carelessness must be added the recent wreck of the Ville du Havre, with a loss of upwards of 200 lives. The festival of the Catholic Union at Boston also deserved mention, as it evoked a demonstration of Catholic strength and Catholic feeling that was an honest source of pride. Among names omitted in the death-roll were those of Dr. H. S. Hewit, a noble man who sacrificed much for his country and his faith; Hiram Powers, the sculptor; Laura Keene, the actress, an estimable woman and a good Catholic; Sir Henry Holland, Henry W. Wilberforce, brother of the Anglican bishop, and for a long time editor of the London Weekly Register (Catholic); General Hardee, and a name once very famous, Abdel-Kader. A new Atlantic cable was this year laid by the Great Eastern between Valentia and Heart's Content, N. F.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] "Church and State in Germany," Catholic World, July, 1872.

[177] See the response of the German Emperor to the Pope, in the correspondence recently published.

[178] The New York Tablet, July 19, 1873--"A Truly Liberal Government."

[179] The London Times, January, 1873.

[180] Possibly the spelling of the name is incorrect; but there is such a variety to choose from that the correct form is a nice question.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ARK OF THE PEOPLE. By Plato Punchinello. Translated from the French by a Friend of Christian Civilization. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1873.

A very timely book, whose publication is very welcome. It is one of a class very numerous at present in France, which we hope to see becoming common in our own country. That is to say, it treats of the horrible consequences in the social order flowing from the prevalent infidel, heretical, anti-Catholic theories, maxims, errors, and illusions of the age, vamped up by sophists and charlatans, and palmed off upon their dupes and victims as philosophy, science, advanced ideas, principles of progress and improvement in civilization. It treats also of Catholic principles as the principles of true social and political order and well-being. It is lively and brilliant, and we recommend it most earnestly as a book most useful and entertaining, specially fitted to counteract the false notions which are but too current even among Catholics.

LASCINE. By an Oxford Man. New York: Appletons. 1873.

SEVEN STORIES. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

MARIE AND PAUL. By "Our Little Woman." Same publishers.

THE BARON OF HERTZ. A Tale of the Anabaptists. From the French of Albert De Labadye. New York: O'Shea. 1873.

GORDON LODGE. By Miss M. Agnes White. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1873.

Here is quite a supply of works of fiction by Catholic writers to help while away the dreary winter months. Lascine is a story whose incidents are taken from the experience of an Oxford convert. A number of very good stories of this kind have appeared since the great movement began; and the movement itself, besides its serious importance, is certainly very fertile in romantic incidents, and furnishes abundant stuff for a skilful novelist. Lascine is a book which can be read with great interest, and is by no means lacking in cleverness. Its principal fault is an excess of sentimentality. We think it promises a great deal for the future success of its young author.

Anything written by Lady Georgiana Fullerton must of course be excellent. The first and last of these stories are particularly good, and the last one ought to be read by all our young people, especially young ladies who aspire to become literary stars.

Marie and Paul is a very pretty and pathetic tale.

The Baron of Hertz has a great deal of historical instruction about the crimes and horrors of the German Reformation, couched in the form of a stirring and most tragic story.

Miss White's début is very creditable to her. She has originality of conception and power of delineation and description. There are certain inaccuracies in respect to the English titles of nobility, and some other minor faults of style which indicate the need of a more careful attention to details and a more accurate revision. As a whole, the story is a very successful effort.

THE REAL PRESENCE. By Rev. P. Tissot, S.J. New York: P. O'Shea. 1873.

An excellent little book, solid, simple, and pious, good alike for old and young. The doctrinal gravity of the treatise is relieved in an agreeable and edifying manner by some interesting narrations of miraculous events relating to the Blessed Eucharist. F. Tissot has chosen these incidents with great judgment, selecting those which are both extremely wonderful and at the same time very well authenticated, and taking care to give the proof as well as the history. There cannot be anything more stupid or more provoking than the ignorant, supercilious, and flippant manner in which the writers for the secular and soi-disant religious press, sneer at these Catholic miracles, without pretending to reason about the evidence on which the truth rests. There are some who think it the best policy to keep silent about them; but it is our opinion that we ought to bring them constantly before the face and eyes of the unbelieving world, although the light which flashes from them may be disagreeable to many who do not wish to be disturbed in their fatal slumber.

SAXE HOLM'S STORIES. New York: Scribner. 1874.

A most peculiar school of fiction, which we may call the "transcendental," has grown up among the New Englanders and their semblables within our own remembrance. Some of its productions are of fine quality, and it oscillates in morality between the two extremes of Catholicity and pantheism. Nevertheless, as a dear friend, who lived and died a Unitarian minister, once remarked to us, the prevailing tendency of this entire transcendental movement is a very circuitous return to the religion of our Catholic forefathers. The stories of this volume, written, we conjecture, by a lady, are a sample of the kind of literature referred to. The first story, "Draxy Miller," is a chef d'œuvre. It may seem odd that we should perceive a Catholic undertone in a story the heroine of which, after marrying a minister in a wild country hamlet of New Hampshire, takes charge of the preaching for a year after her husband's death. Female preaching, and the whole set of strong-minded female notions, we abominate, of course. But Draxy Miller's last epoch of life, as the passing umbra of her husband, is so described that the repulsive aspect of the pastoral office in petticoats is hidden. And as an ideal character Draxy is exquisite. "Reuben Miller's Daughter" wins the heart of the reader, as she did the hearts of the old captain, the stage-driver, the elder, and the elder's parishioners.

"The One-Legged Dancers" is capital also, and the other stories are written with skill and effect. There is rather too strong an infusion of transcendental notions about love, yet the moral tone is much higher than is usually found in novels, and the author appears to recognize the stringent obligation of wedlock. We rank this volume of stories decidedly in the first class.

In the advertisements at the end of the volume we perceive the announcement of a translation of Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune, together with another similar book, describing a journey to the centre of the earth. The first of these extraordinary jeux d'esprit has given us so much pleasure in the original, overflowing, as it is, with humor, poetry, and scientific knowledge, that we call the attention of our readers, in a spirit of purely disinterested philanthropy, to the fact that they can get this book and its fellow in English. They will help very materially the effort to pass a merry Christmas.

THE ARENA AND THE THRONE. By L. T. Townsend, D.D., author of Credo, etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1873.

The principal object of this book is one in which we heartily sympathize, being the refutation of the ordinary shallow arguments which some persons consider as conclusive in favor of what is known as the "plurality of worlds" and the maintenance of the dignity of man as a worthy possessor of the universe of God. The material universe is insignificant compared with a single soul. We need not take so much pains to try to utilize it. The convenience of one man would be a sufficient reason for its existence. The physical arguments, drawn from actual observation, in favor of the uninhabitability of the worlds with which we have become in any degree acquainted, are well put.

RHODA THORNTON'S GIRLHOOD. By Mary E. Pratt. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1873.

A pretty, simple story of New England life; a good book for a school prize. The usual hearty country pleasures--husking and quilting parties, Thanksgiving, etc., are well and truly described; a healthy tone runs through the story, which is a natural and probable one. The little heroine, Rhoda, a thoughtful, womanly child, begins her life in an alms-house, and then spends a few years on an old-fashioned farm. She turns out to be the great-granddaughter of a lost member of an old family, whose heirs and representatives she and her brother become. The incidents are not violently improbable, and the disintegration naturally arising in such a family through imprudent marriages and removals to distant and unreclaimed territories very adequately accounts for the mystery. The style is free and simple; studied ornament or any silly rhetorical flourish is avoided.

RITUALE ROMANUM PAULI V. PONTIFICIS MAXIMI JUSSU EDITUM ET A BENEDICTO XIV. AUCTUM ET CASTIGATUM: CUI NOVISSIMA ACCEDIT BENEDICTIONUM ET INSTRUCTIONUM APPENDIX. Baltimori: Excudebat Joannes Murphy. 1873. 12mo, pp. 546.

This is the first entire edition of the Rituale published in this country, and we take pleasure in commending it as one very creditable to the publisher. The type is large, the paper white and clear, and very excellent register is observed in printing the rubrics. If there is any suggestion we would offer, it is that the next edition be printed on thinner paper, so that the volume may be reduced to a more portable size without any diminution in legibility. The imprimatur of the archbishop of Baltimore obviates any necessity for comment on the text.

THE ACTS OF THE EARLY MARTYRS. By J. A. M. Fastré, S.J. Third series. Philadelphia: P. Cunningham & Son. 1873.

The first and second series of this valuable and suggestive work have received due notice in these pages at the time of their publication. We have before us now the third series, chiefly treating of the martyrs of the IVth century, under the tenth general persecution--that of Diocletian. The contents are most interesting, the more so as some of the saints here mentioned are less known than those whose acts filled the first two volumes. The great and foremost reason why we rejoice to see the sufferings and constancy of the early martyrs brought before the remembrance of our people is that these sufferings have some analogy with the present condition of the church in many lands. Although the physical tortures of early days are out of fashion, the moral persecution is not less ingeniously spread over the whole life of a Catholic than it was in former times. The same kind of constancy is required to conquer the latter as was needed by the martyrs to overcome bodily pain. In those early times social ostracism, exile from honorable professions, and confiscation of property, were as frequently as now the guerdon of him who embraced the unpopular religion, as we see in the case of S. Tarachus and his companions. In every instance the bribe held out by Satan to the confessors of the faith was the favor of the emperor, the honors and emoluments of the magistracy, great riches, and high position, as we see specially in the case of S. Clement of Ancyra. His is the most wonderful life recounted in this little book. Eighteen years of incessant martyrdom; the most heroic constancy and patience; the most singular and miraculous Providence watching over him; the powers of persuasion which converted his jailers, his executioners, and thousands of pagans in the various places where he was tortured and confined; the manner in which it pleased God to make him whole no less than six times after the devil had done his best to render his body unrecognizable--all contribute to make of his life a tissue of a more wonderful and awful romance than any imaginary tale of mediæval marvel. To S. Blasius of Sebaste we would also call attention, as having forestalled S. Francis of Assisi in his god-given power over the lower creation. In the story of S. Polyeuctus the reader will recognize the foundation of Corneille's sublime Christian drama of Polyeucte, written at the instance of Mme. de Maintenon. The style of this book is flowing and correct; simple, as befits the subject, which cannot be raised higher by any flight of human fancy or adornment of human fashion; is accessible to the understanding of the unlearned, and cannot fail involuntarily to touch the hearts of all. Is it not a strange thought to dwell upon, that, among all the conversions wrought on the spot by the supernatural courage of the martyrs, there should be hardly one instance on record of it having converted their judge? The sudden judgment executed on some governors and prætors is indeed mentioned in a few cases. Are we to suppose that they were really beyond persuasion, being possessed by a devil who had complete control over their faculties? It is a very awful thing whereon to meditate, but these stories of our forerunners in the good fight certainly strongly suggest the idea.

* * * * *

ANNOUNCEMENT.--We shall begin in our next number the publication of a new story by Mrs. Craven, author of A Sister's Story, Fleurange, etc. The work will be issued simultaneously with its appearance in Le Correspondant, the translation being made from the original MS. with the special sanction of the author from whom the exclusive right of publication in this country has been purchased.

The continuation of Grapes and Thorns, which has been delayed by the departure of the author on an European tour, will be resumed in the February number.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVIII., No. 107.--FEBRUARY, 1874.[181]

THE PRINCIPLES OF REAL BEING.

II.

EXTRINSIC PRINCIPLES OF BEING.

As in chemistry, so also in metaphysics, the labor and difficulty attending the analysis of complex things is proportional to the degree of their complexity. Hence in the search after the principles of real being, which we are about to make, we judge it expedient, for the greater convenience and satisfaction of our philosophical readers, to start from the principles of the most simple among the subjects of metaphysical analysis--that is, from the principles of primitive beings.

By "primitive" being we mean a being not made up of other beings, but "strictly one in its entity"--unum per se in ratione entis--and therefore having nothing of which it can be deprived without ceasing to be altogether.

It is to be observed that a primitive being may be conceived to exist either contingently or through the necessity of its own nature. Of course, a being which exists through the necessity of its own nature is perfectly independent of all extrinsic things, as it contains in its own nature the adequate reason of its being, and therefore admits of no extrinsic principles of any kind. But a being which exists contingently is a being which has not within itself the adequate reason of its existence; whence it follows that its existence cannot be accounted for but by recourse to some extrinsic principle or principles. As the knowledge of extrinsic principles is calculated to throw much light also on the intrinsic constitution of primitive contingent beings, let us make such principles the subject of our first investigation.

We affirm that the extrinsic principles of every primitive contingent being are three; for to the question, "Whence any such being proceeds," three different answers can be given, and three only.

First, we can assign the reason why, or the end for the sake of which, a being has been made to exist.

Secondly, we can point out the agency through which a being has been made to exist.

Thirdly, and lastly, we can mention the term out of which a being has been brought into existence.

These three principles virtually contain the whole theory of creation. If we were now writing for unbelievers, we would be obliged to commence by establishing some preliminary truths, such as God's existence, the contingency of the world, and the philosophical impossibility of accounting for its origin without recourse to the dogma of creation. But as our habitual readers are presumed to be sufficiently instructed about these fundamental truths, we think we may here dispense with a direct demonstration of the same, and avoid a digression which would lead us too far from the subject now under examination. As, however, this article may possibly fall into the hands of some dupe of modern infidelity, we propose to make a few incidental remarks on their usual objections, and to lay down, before we conclude, some of the arguments by which unbelievers can be convinced of the absolute truth of what we now assume as the ground of our explanations.

We assume, then, that there is a Creator, a God, a being infinitely intelligent and infinitely powerful, eternal, and independent. Such a being, as infinitely perfect, is infinitely happy, and experiences no need whatever of anything outside of himself. He therefore does not create anything, unless he freely wills; nor wills he anything, unless it is for some good which he freely intends; for nothing but good can be the object of volition. Now, the only good which God in his infinite wisdom can freely intend is the exterior manifestation of his divine perfections. It is, therefore, for this end that creatures were brought into existence.

Our first answer to the question above proposed points out this final principle of creation--that is, the manifestation of God's perfections in such a degree and manner as he himself was pleased freely to determine. To attain this end, it is obvious that God was obliged to bestow upon his creatures such a degree of reality as would enable them to show in themselves and in their finite perfections a finite image, and, so to say, a reflex of the perfections of their Creator. Hence the final principle, on which the existence of contingent beings originally depends, comprises not only the manifestation of God's perfections in a determinate degree, but also, and more immediately, the bestowal of a proportionate degree of entity upon creatures, that they may carry on such a manifestation according to the design of their Creator. Thus the ultimate end of creation is indeed God's glory, or the manifestation of his perfections; but the proximate end of creation, and that which is immediately obtained in the very act of creation, is the existence of the created things with that degree of reality and with those endowments which make them fit instruments for the aforesaid manifestation. Accordingly, when asked whence a primitive contingent being proceeds, our first answer must be that it proceeds from God's design of showing his existence and infinite perfection by communicating contingent existence and finite perfections outside of himself.

Let us here take notice that "modern thought" ignores final principles altogether, and pretends that arguments from design have no value in science. In this pretension we unmistakably recognize the materialistic propensities and the lack of philosophical reasoning by which our age is afflicted. When our modern sages will prove that creation does not proceed from a will, or that a will can act without an object, then they will be entitled to the honor of a serious refutation. As it is, their negative position is sufficiently refuted by a simple appeal to common sense.

To those who, without denying final causes, maintain that we cannot ascertain them, nor make them an object of science, we reply that, although we do not know all the particular ends which each creature may be destined to fulfil, we nevertheless know perfectly well the general end of creation. Now, nothing more is needed for establishing the reality of the first extrinsic principle on which the existence of every contingent being depends.

Our second answer points out the efficient principle of creation--that is, God's omnipotent power. Rationalists and materialists have tried to do away with this most necessary principle. Besides the old pagan assumption of self-existent matter, which many of them adopted in order to supersede the necessity of a creator, they have tried to popularize other inventions of more recent thinkers, who for the God of the Bible have substituted what they style the Absolute, and pretend that what we call "contingent beings" are mere apparitions of the Absolute--that is, the Absolute manifesting itself. Without stopping here to refute such a strange theory, we shall content ourselves with observing that what is altogether absolute is intrinsically unmodifiable--a truth which needs no demonstration, as it immediately results from the comparison of the two terms; whence it follows that, if the Absolute wishes to manifest itself, it cannot do so by assuming any new form, but only by means of something extraneous to its own nature, and consequently through the instrumentality of some being produced by it, perfectly distinct from it, and which may admit of such modifications as we witness everywhere around us, and as we know to be irreconcilable with the nature of the Absolute. This suffices to show that no apparition or manifestation of the Absolute can be conceived without implying an exertion of efficient power.[182] We say, then, in our second answer, that it is through divine omnipotence that contingent beings were actually brought into existence by such a communication of reality as was proportionate to the design of their Creator. In other terms, God's omnipotent power is the efficient principle of all primitive contingent being.

Our third answer points out the terminus ex quo of creation--that is, the term out of which every contingent being is primarily educed. Such a term is mere nothingness; for whatever primarily begins to exist must come out of absolute non-existence. It is against this that our modern pseudo-philosophers most loudly protest, as they stoutly proclaim that "nothing comes out of nothing"--ex nihilo nihil fit. We may well smile at their useless protestation; for the fact is that nothing is ever brought into existence but from its contrary--that is, from its non-existence. It would be vain to object that, to build a house or a ship, materials are needed. Of course they are needed, but a house is a compound, not a primitive, being; and to build a house is not to produce the house, but only to effect the artistic arrangement of its materials. Now, undoubtedly, before the house is built, such an arrangement has no existence. The only thing, therefore, that the builder efficiently produces springs out of non-existence. We fully admit that a physical compound cannot be made up without materials--viz., without pre-existent components--but, to be sure, the first components do not themselves depend on other components, because the first components are primitive beings, and, as such, cannot be made of any pre-existing material. Yet they must have been made, since they exist and are contingent; and, if made of no pre-existing material, certainly brought out of nothing.

But as our readers need none of our arguments to be convinced of a truth of which they are already in possession, we will set aside all further discussion on this subject, and conclude, from the preceding remarks, that when we are asked whence a contingent being originally comes, our last answer must be that it comes out of nothing as the term of its eduction. Nothingness, in this case, holds the place of the material principle, which is wanting.

It is clear, then, that all primitive contingent beings can, and must, be traced to three extrinsic principles. This doctrine contains nothing difficult, far-fetched, or mysterious, and its great simplicity proves that metaphysics, after all, may be less frightfully abstruse than some people are apt to believe. This same doctrine is also the universal doctrine of all philosophers who did not lose themselves in the dreams of visionary systems. It is true that they do not always mention, as formally as we do, the final object of creation as a distinct principle; but they do not deny it. In treating of the origin of things, they usually consider the final and the efficient principle of creation as a single adequate principle, on the ground that finality and efficiency, viewed absolutely as they are in God, are but one and the same thing. They also omit very frequently the mention of the term out of which things are educed, not because they do not acknowledge it, but because they know that it has no positive causality. Nevertheless, a little reflection will show that such a course is not the best calculated to give a distinct idea of the principiation of things; on the contrary, the very nature of the metaphysical process demands that each of the three extrinsic principles be kept in view very distinctly and explicitly.

We admit, of course, that the final and the efficient principle of creation, viewed absolutely as they are in God, are really and entitatively the same thing; but we consider that the intention, or volition of the end, has its connection with created beings, not on account of its absolute entity, which is necessary, but on account of its extrinsic termination, which is contingent; for, evidently, no act can be conceived as the principle of a being, except inasmuch as it is connected with the same being. Accordingly, God's volition is the principle of things, not inasmuch as it is an absolute act, entitatively necessary, but inasmuch as it is an act having a contingent termination. On the other hand, God's infinite power must indeed be conceived as connoting an infinity of beings that can be created, but is not conceivable as connoting determinate beings that will be created, unless something be found that connects it especially with the same determinate beings. Now, what is it that connects God's omnipotence with any determinate being which is to be created but his volition of a contingent determinate object--that is, his volition as having a contingent termination? Omnipotence, therefore, acquires a special connection with a determinate contingent being only on account of the extrinsic termination of divine volition; and thus divine omnipotence and divine volition have, under this consideration, a kind of relative opposition, on account of which the one that induces the special connection is to be distinguished from the other that acquires it.

Moreover, in the investigation of first principles we must continue our analysis as far as we can--that is, until we reach the ultimate terms into which the subject of our investigation can be resolved. Now, it is evident that omnipotence, as freely connected with the production of a determinate being, is not the ultimate term of analysis; for we can go further, and assign the reason of that free connection--viz., the actual volition of an end. Hence the final and the efficient principle of creation, though not really distinct in God, afford a real ground for two distinct concepts, and are to be considered as two distinct extrinsic principles with respect to all created things.

The third extrinsic principle--that is, the term out of which contingent beings are originally educed--is very frequently overlooked as irrelevant, because it has no reality. We are of opinion that it should be kept in view by all means, and prominently too, for many reasons which will be hereafter explained, and especially for the easier refutation of pantheism. Such a term has, indeed, no reality; but it is not necessary that all the extrinsic principles of being should be realities. Common sense teaches, on the contrary, that when a thing is to be first brought into existence, it is necessary that it should pass from its non-being into being; whence it is manifest that its non-being is the proper term out of which it has to be educed. Now, the non-being of a thing is its nothingness; and, therefore, its nothingness is the proper term out of which it must be educed. For the same reason, the schoolmen uniformly taught with Aristotle that privation also was to be ranked among the principles of things, although privations are not positive beings;[183] and therefore the nothingness of the term from which creatures are educed is no objection to its being placed among the extrinsic principles of contingent beings.

As, however, that which is looked upon as a principle is always conceived to connote the thing principiated, and, on the other hand, absolute nothingness has no such connotation (for connotation is virtual relativity, and cannot spring from nothing), it follows that nothingness, when conceived as a term out of which a being is educed, is to be looked upon, not as an absolute negation of being, but as a negation out of which divine omnipotence, by the production of an act, brings the creature into being. In other terms, nothingness is to be considered, under God's hand, as a negative potency of something real, which can be actuated; and, with regard to any individual reality, as the potency of that individual reality. When viewed in this manner, nothingness assumes a relative aspect, in opposition to that reality of which it is the potency, and thus becomes apt to connote that same reality, in the same way as silence connotes talk, darkness light, absence presence, informity form. Hence we took care to say that a thing is brought into being out of its non-being; because, as the fool only by divesting himself of his foolishness can grow wise, so a reality which is to come out of nothing--say, a point of matter--cannot be educed out of the non-being of an angel or of any other thing, but only out of its own non-being. Consequently, non-being, or nothingness, as the term out of which a point of matter is to be educed, means nothing but the potency of that real point; and thus nothingness, under the hand of the Omnipotent, acquires, in regard to that which is educed out of it, that relativity which is sufficient to make it a principle, according to the nature and manner of its principiation.

Some may ask why, among the extrinsic principles of things, we did not mention God's archetypal ideas; for it seems that, when we are asked whence a contingent being primarily proceeds, we might answer by pointing out God's ideas as the patterns to which creatures must conform, and by saying that things primarily proceed from the divine ideas as from their archetypal principle; and if this answer--which is by no means absurd--be admitted, the extrinsic principles of contingent beings will be four, and not three.

But it is to be observed that God's ideas precede all decrees concerning creation, and are the archetypes not only of all the things that are created, but of all the things also which will never be created; and, therefore, God's ideas have, of themselves, no connection with the existence of contingent beings, but only with their intelligibility. Hence we may argue in the following manner: The extrinsic principiation of a contingent being cannot be traced back to any special principle prior to that which is the first reason of their creation. But God's ideas are prior to God's volition, which is the first reason of creation; therefore, the principiation of contingent beings cannot be traced back to divine ideas as a special extrinsic principle.

Nevertheless, since God cannot intend to create anything but according to his own idea of it, we must own that the divine ideas share in the causality of things, inasmuch as such ideas are implied in the volition of producing the objects they represent; and though, of themselves, they are not a distinct and special principle of creation, yet, as included in the Creator's volition, they make up the whole plan of creation, and thus they have a bearing on the nature, number, and order of all created things.

Such is the doctrine which we find in S. Thomas' Theological Summa, where he explains how God's ideas are the cause of things. "God's ideas," says he, "are to all created things what the artist's ideas are to the works of art. The artist's ideas are the cause of a work of art, inasmuch as the artist acts through his understanding; hence the form or idea which is in his understanding must be the principle of his operation, in the same manner as heat is the principle of the heating. But it must be remarked that a natural form is a principle of operation, not inasmuch as it is the permanent form of the thing to which it gives existence, but inasmuch as it has a leaning towards an effect. And in a similar manner the form which is in the understanding is a principle of action, not inasmuch as it is in the understanding simply, but inasmuch as it acquires, through the will, a leaning towards an effect; for an intellectual form is not more connected with the existence than with the non-existence of the thing of which it is the form (since one and the same is the science of contraries); and, therefore, such a form cannot produce a determinate effect, unless it be brought into connection with one of the two contraries; which is done by the will. Now, God, as we know, causes all things through his understanding, for his understanding is his being; and, therefore, his science, as united with his will, must be the cause of all things."[184]

It might be here objected that if, for the reason just alleged, archetypal ideas are not to be considered a distinct principle of creation, then neither can omnipotence be considered as a distinct principle; for as archetypal ideas do not principiate anything unless through free volition, so, also, omnipotence principiates nothing but in consequence of the same volition; and, therefore, if archetypal ideas on this account are not a distinct principle of things, on the same account omnipotence cannot be taken as a distinct principle.

To this we answer that the assumed parity has no legs to stand on. That archetypal ideas are not a distinct principle of creation was proved above, not simply by arguing that they cannot principiate anything independently of free volition, but by showing that it is not from them, but from the volition alone, that the real principiation of things begins. Now, this proof applies to ideas, but not to omnipotence. In fact, ideas, even in God, must be conceived as having a certain priority with respect to volitions; for it is true, even in God, that nothing is willed which is not foreknown--nihil est volitum, quin præcognitum. If, therefore, God's ideas were a distinct principle of creation, there would be something in God, prior to his will, which would entail the existence of created beings; which is impossible to admit so long as we maintain that God's will must remain free in its extrinsic operations. We cannot, therefore, admit, without absurdity, that the archetypal ideas constitute a distinct principle of things. But, as to divine omnipotence, no such absurdity is to be feared; for God's omnipotence has no priority with respect to God's will; and thus the above argument cannot be used to prove that omnipotence is not a distinct principle of creation.

We conclude that the extrinsic principles, to which the first origin of contingent beings is to be traced, are not fewer, and not more, than three. Our Catholic readers will be satisfied, we hope, that this conclusion has been fairly established on what they know to be secure foundations. Infidels, of course, will object; for they will think that the whole of our discussion has been based on hypothetical grounds. In fact, we have supposed that there are "primitive" beings, that they are "contingent," that they need "a creator," and that the creator must be an "infinite being," a god. If a Comtist or a materialist happens to read the preceding pages, he will surely say that we have built nothing but a cob-house. But we do not care much what may be objected by such a class of frivolous and unreasonable philosophers. We know that their favorite theories have been a hundred times exploded, and their futile objections a hundred times answered. When a foe is defeated, what is the use of prolonging the contest? And when noonday light is dazzling the world, what need is there of lighting candles? Let them, therefore, only open their eyes, if they really want light. There is no scarcity of good philosophical works, which, if consulted by them in a spirit of candor, will afford them all the light that a man can reasonably desire for the full attainment of truth.

Yet the solidity of the ground on which we have taken our stand may be established in a very few words.

That there are contingent beings is quite certain; for nothing which necessarily exists is liable to change or modification. But all that surrounds us in this world is liable to change and modification; therefore, nothing that surrounds us in this world necessarily exists. Accordingly, all that we see in this world exists contingently.

That contingent beings are either primitive or made up of primitive beings is, again, a well-known fact; for all being which is not primitive is a compound, and can be traced to its first physical components--that is, to the first elements of its composition. But the first elements of composition cannot possibly be made up of other elements, and accordingly must be primitive beings. Therefore, primitive beings exist everywhere, at least (if nowhere else) in all the compounds of which they are the first physical components.

That every primitive contingent being must have had its origin from without is a plain truth; for that which has no origin from without must have the adequate reason of its existence from within; and, therefore, it carries in its essence the necessity of its existence. But evidently contingent and changeable beings do not carry within their essence the necessity of their existence; therefore, contingent beings must have had their origin from without.

That every such being must have come out of nothing is not less evident; for a primitive being cannot possibly come out of pre-existent beings as its material principles. It must, therefore, be produced either out of God's substance or out of nothing. But not out of God's substance, for divine substance is not susceptible of contingent forms; therefore, out of nothing--that is, by creation properly.

Lastly, that the Creator is an eternal, infinite being can be easily proved, independently of many other arguments, by the following general theorem, to which modern philosophers are invited to pay close attention. The theorem is this: All efficient cause is infinitely more perfect, and of an infinitely better nature, than any of its effects. If this proposition be true, it immediately follows that the Creator of the universe is infinitely more perfect than the whole universe, and has a nature infinitely better, nobler, and higher than that of any contingent being, and therefore is a necessary and independent being, the supreme being--God. Let us, then, demonstrate our theorem.

It is a known and incontrovertible truth that every efficient cause eminently contains in itself (that is, possesses in an eminent degree) all the perfection which it can efficiently communicate to any number of effects; and it can be proved, moreover, that the efficiency of a cause is never exhausted, and not even weakened, by its exertions, however long continued and indefinitely multiplied. The earth, after having for centuries exerted its attractive power and caused the fall of innumerable bodies, has preserved to this day the same power whole and undiminished, and is still acting, with its primitive energy, on any number of bodies, just as it did at the time of its creation. Our soul is not exhausted or weakened by its operations; but, after having made any number of judgments, reasonings, or any other mental actions, still retains the whole energy and perfection of its faculties without waste, effeteness, or decay. A molecule of oxygen, after having for ages, either free in the air or confined in water or in other compounds, produced such a number of effects as bewilders and beats all power of imagination, retains yet its efficient causality as entire and unimpaired as if it were of quite recent creation. These facts show that the efficient cause suffers no loss whatever by the exertion of its power, and therefore is fully equal to the production of an endless multitude of effects.

Some may say that this conclusion cannot be universal, as we see that natural forces are very often exhausted by exertion. We answer that, when natural forces are said to be exhausted, the efficient powers from which those forces result remain as intact and as active as before. We say, indeed, that a man or a horse is exhausted by fatigue; that our brain, after hours of mental work, needs rest to recover its lost energy, and many other such things; but, in all such cases, what we call exhaustion is not a diminution of efficient power in the agents from the concurrence of which the natural forces result, but either the actual disappearance (by respiration, perspiration, etc.) of a number of those agents, or a perturbance of the arrangements and conditions necessary for their united conspiration towards the production of a determinate effect. Natural force, in the sense of the objection, is a combination of agents and of efficient powers, which produce their effect by many concurrent actions giving a different resultant under different conditions; and as any given effect proximately depends on the resultant of such actions, the same powers, though unaltered in themselves, must, under different conditions, give rise to different effects. Take a car and four horses. If the horses act all in the same direction, the car will move easily enough; but if two of the horses act in one direction, and two in the other, the result will be very different. Yet the powers applied to the car are in both cases the same. Again, take an army of fifty thousand men facing the enemy. If the men are well arranged so as to present a good line of battle, the action of the army will be strong; but if the men are disorderly scattered, the action will be weak, though the men are the same and their powers and exertions undiminished. Now, all bodies and all complex causes are in the same case; which is evident from the fact that with all of them a favorable change of conditions, all other things remaining the same, is always attended by an increase of the effect. Therefore, the so-called exhaustion of natural forces is not a diminution of the efficient powers of which they are the result, but a state of things in which the same active powers are exerted in a different manner, or have to perform a different work, according to the different conditions to which they are actually subjected. We therefore repeat that efficient causes suffer no loss whatever by the exertion of their efficient powers, and that consequently they are fully equal to the production of an infinite multitude of effects; and since every efficient cause, as we have premised, must contain within itself, in an eminent manner, the whole perfection which it can communicate to its effects, we are forced to conclude that the nature of every efficient cause infinitely transcends in perfection the nature of its effects.

The theorem could be further confirmed by considering that all the acts produced by efficient causes of the natural order, either spiritual or material, are mere accidents, whereas the causes themselves are substances; and it is manifest that the nature of substance infinitely transcends the nature of accident.

It might be confirmed, again, by another very simple consideration. The efficient cause does not communicate any portion of itself to its effect.[185] In fact, efficient causation is production; and production is not a transfusion, translocation, or emanation of a pre-existing thing, but the origination of a new entity which had no previous formal existence. It follows that the efficient cause, while producing an effect, retains its entire entity, and therefore is never exhausted. Thus a syllogism is not a portion of the mind that makes it; and the making of it leaves intact the substance and the faculty from which it proceeds. Thus, also, the actual momentum of a falling body is not a portion of the terrestrial power by which it is produced; the power remains whole and undiminished in the substance of the earth, as already remarked, always ready to produce any number of changes, and always unchanged in itself. This is the reason why every efficient cause infinitely transcends the nature of its effects.

Our theorem is, then, demonstrated both by facts and by intrinsic reasons. We are confident that all honest philosophers, no matter how much their intellectual vision may have been distorted by false doctrines, will see their way to the right conclusion, and confess the absolute necessity of an independent, self-existent, infinite Creator, from whom all beauty, goodness, and perfection proceed, and to whom all creatures--philosophers not excepted--owe allegiance, honor, and glory.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[181] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

[182] This argument could be employed against all other forms of pantheism; but we must abstain at present from the discussion of particular systems, as we cannot deal fairly with them within the narrow compass of a single article.

As for self-existent matter, we need only say that nothing which can receive new determinations is self-existent; and since matter receives new determinations, therefore matter is not self-existent. Hence the conception of eternal and uncreated matter cannot be styled a philosophical opinion, but only a dream of unreflecting or uneducated minds.

[183] The Aristotelic meaning of the word privation will be easily understood from the following example: If a cylindrical piece of wax be made to assume a spherical form, the sphericity will be educed, as the schools say, from the cylindrical wax, not inasmuch as it is cylindrical, but inasmuch as it is non-spherical. Such a non-sphericity is a privation, which is more than a negation, as it implies not only the absence of sphericity, but also the presence of its contrary--that is, of the cylindrical form. Privation is usually defined carentia formæ in subjecto apto. It is a principle per accidens.

[184] We give the original text: Sic enim scientia Dei se habet ad omnes res creatas, sicut scientia artificis se habet ad artificiata. Scientia autem artificis est causa artificiatorum, eo quod artifex operatur per suum intellectum. Unde oportet quod forma intellectus sit principium operationis, sicut calor est principium calefactionis. Sed considerandum est, quod forma naturalis, in quantum est forma manens in eo cui dat esse, non nominat principium actionis, sed secundum quod habet inclinationem ad effectum. Et similiter forma intelligibilis non nominat principium actionis secundum quod est tantum in intelligente, nisi adjungatur ei inclinatio ad effectum, quæ est per voluntatem. Quum enim forma intelligibilis ad opposita se habeat (quum eadem sit scientia oppositorum) non produceret determinatum effectum, nisi determinaretur ad unum per appetitum, ut dicitur in 9. Metaph. Manifestum est autem quod Deus per intellectum suum causat res, quum suum esse sit suum intelligere; unde necesse est quod sua scientia sit causa rerum secundum quod habet voluntatem conjunctam (p. 1, q. 14, a. 8).

[185] Parents, however, communicate a portion of their substance to their offspring. The reason is that parents are not only the efficient, but also the material, cause of their offspring. As material causes, they supply the matter of which the fœtus will be formed; but, as efficient causes, they only put the conditions required by nature for the organization of this matter. The position of such conditions is an accidental action as well as the subsequent organization. Therefore, parents, as efficient causes, produce nothing but accidental acts. The matter of which the fœtus is formed is, of course, all pre-existing.

DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

CANTO TWELFTH.

Paired, like two oxen treading under yoke, That burdened soul and I as far had gone As the loved Tutor let. But when he spoke These words: "Now leave him! We must travel on, For here 'tis good with spread of sail and stroke Of oar, to push his boat as each best may;" I made myself, as walking needs, erect, But only in body; just it is to say My thoughts were bowed, my spirit was deject. Still I was moving, and with willing feet Followed my Master; both began to show How light we were, when thus he said: "'Tis meet That, walking here, thou bend thine eyes below, So to observe, and make the moments fleet, Over what kind of bed thy footsteps go."

Even as, that so their memory may survive, Our earthly tombs, above the buried, bear The graven form of what they were alive; Whence oft one weeps afresh the image there, Pricked by remembrance,--which doth only give To souls compassionate a sting of pain-- So I saw figured o'er, but with more skill In the resemblance, all the narrow plain Which formed our pathway, jutting from the hill.

Him[186] there I marked, on one side, noblest made Of all God's creatures, stricken down from heaven Like lightning! Opposite, there was displayed Briareus, cast from where he late had striven, Smit by celestial thunderbolts, and laid Heavy on earth and in the frost of death. I saw Thymbræus, Pallas too, and Mars, Still armed, around their sire, with bated breath Viewing the giants, their torn limbs and scars! Nimrod I saw, at foot of his great tower, As if bewildered, gazing on the tribes That showed with him such haughtiness of power In Shinar's plain, as Genesis describes.

O Niobe! with what eyes, full of woe, Mid thy slain children, upon each hand seven, I saw thee carved upon the road! And, O Saul! in Gilboa, that no more from heaven Felt rain or dew, how dead on thine own sword Didst thou appear! Thee, mad Arachne, there I saw, half spider! fumbling the deplored Shreds of that work which wrought for thee despair O Rehoboam! there no more in threat Stands thy fierce figure; smit with fear he flies, Whirled in a chariot, none pursuing yet: Showed also that hard pavement to mine eyes How young Alcmæon made his mother sell With life the luckless ornament she wore How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell The sons, and left his corpse there on the floor. The cruel carnage and the wreck it showed Which Tomyris made, when she to Cyrus cried: Blood thou didst thirst for! now I give thee blood; And showed th' Assyrians flying far and wide In utter rout, with Holofernes dead, And all the slaughter that befell beside, And the grim carcase by the bloody bed. Troy next I saw, an ashy, caverned waste: O Ilion! how vile the work showed thee Which there is graven,--how utterly abased! What master of pencil or of stile[187] was he Who so those traits and figures could have traced That subtlest wit had been amazed thereby? Alive the living seemed, and dead the dead! Who saw the truth no better saw than I, While bowed I went, all underneath my tread.

Now swell with pride, and on with lofty stalk, Children of Eve! nor bend your visage aught So to behold the sinful way ye walk. More of the mountain than my busied thought Had been aware of we had rounded now, And much more of his course the sun had spent; When he, who still went first with watchful brow, Exclaimed: "Look up!--to accomplish our ascent Time no more suffers to proceed so slow. See yonder angel hastening on his way To come towards us! and from her service, lo! The sixth returning handmaid of the day. Give to thy mien the grace of reverence, then, That he may joy to marshal us above. Think thus: this day will never dawn again." I had so often felt his words reprove My slowness, warning me to lose no time, That on this point I read his dark words right. With sparkling face, as glows at rosy prime The tremulous morning star, and robed in white, That being of beauty moved towards us, and said, Opening his arms and then his pinions wide, "Come, here the steps are!--easy to the tread And close at hand: now upward ye may glide." But very few obey this Angel's call: O human race! born high on wings to soar, Why at a little breath do ye so fall? He brought us where the rock a pass revealed Hewn out, his pinions on my forehead beat And with his promise my safe-going sealed.

As, to the right, in climbing to the seat Of the fair church[188] that looketh lordly down Over the bridge that bears the name this day Of Rubaconte, on the well-ruled town,[189] The sharp ascent is broken by a way Of stairs constructed in the old time, ere Fraud was in measure and in ledger found; Thus the steep bank is graduated there Which falls abruptly from the other round: On either side the tall rock grazes though. As we turned thitherward, were voices heard, Beati pauperes spiritu! singing so As might not be exprest by any word. Ah! these approaches--how unlike to Hell's! With chant of anthems one makes entrance here; Down there with agony's ferocious yells.

Now, as we climb, the sacred stairs appear More easy than the plain had seemed before: Wherefore I thus began: "O Master! say, What heavy load is tak'n from me? No more I feel that weariness upon my way." "When every P, upon thy temples traced, Almost obliterate now," he answered me, "Shall be, like this one, totally erased, So by right will thy feet shall vanquished be, That they not only no fatigue shall know, But ev'n with pleasure shall be forward sped." Then did I like as men do when they go Unweeting what they carry on their head, Till signs from some one their suspicion waking, The assistant hand its own assurance tries, And seeks and findeth, such discovery making As may not be afforded by the eyes. Spreading my right-hand fingers, I could find Six[190] letters only of the seven which he Who bore the keys had on my forehead signed: Observing which, my Master smiled on me.

FOOTNOTES:

[186] Lucifer.

[187] Stile here means a sculptor's tool, and not a writer's style.

[188] This is the well-known church of S. Miniato, which every boy who has been to Florence must well remember.

[189] Florence, in irony.

[190] The Angel, sitting at the gate of Purgatory, had described (as the readers of the Ninth Canto may remember, v. 112) the letter P seven times with the point of his sword on the forehead of Dante, in sign of the seven deadly sins,--Peccata--one of which, and Dante's worst, the sin of pride, now vanishes from his soul as the letter fades from his forehead.

THE EPIPHANY.

Let us, then, also follow the Magi; let us separate ourselves from our barbarian customs, and make our distance therefrom great, that we may see Christ, since they too, had they not been far from their own country, would have missed seeing him. Let us depart from the things of earth. For so the wise men, while they were in Persia, saw but the star; but after they had departed from Persia, they beheld the Sun of Righteousness. Or rather, they would not have seen so much as the star, unless they had readily risen up from thence. Let us, then, also rise up; though all men be troubled, let us run to the house of the young Child; though kings, though nations, though tyrants, interrupt this our path, let not our desire pass away; for so shall we thoroughly repel all the dangers that beset us; since these too, except they had seen the young Child, would not have escaped their danger from the king. Before seeing the young Child, fears and dangers and troubles pressed upon them from every side; but after the adoration, it is calm and security; and no longer a star, but an angel, receives them, having become priests from the act of adoration; for we see that they offered gifts also.

Do thou, therefore, likewise leave the Jewish people, the troubled city, the blood-thirsty tyrant, the pomps of the world, and hasten to Bethlehem, where is the house of the Spiritual Bread;[191] for though thou be a shepherd, and come hither, thou wilt behold the young Child in an inn; though thou be a king, and approach not here, thy purple robe will profit thee nothing; though thou be one of the wise men, this will be no hindrance to thee; only let thy coming be to honor and adore, not to spurn, the Son of God; only do this with trembling and with joy, for it is possible for both of these to concur in one.

But take heed that thou be not like Herod, and say, That I may come and worship him, and, when thou art come, be minded to slay him. For him do they resemble who partake of the mysteries unworthily; it being said that such an one shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Yes; for they have in themselves the tyrant who is grieved at Christ's Kingdom--him that is more wicked than Herod of old--even Mammon. For he would fain have the dominion, and sends them that are his own to worship in appearance, but slaying while they worship. Let us fear, then, lest at any time, while we have the appearance of suppliants and worshippers, we should indeed show forth the contrary.--S. John Chrysostom.

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Bethlehem signifies in Hebrew "the house of bread."

GRAPES AND THORNS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."

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