Robespierre. Concluded
We know how the son of S. Louis passed his last hours on earth; let us see how the men who sentenced him—against their consciences—prepared for that solemn passage. One, named Valazé, on hearing the sentence, stabbed himself, and fell dead in the court; he was dragged back with the others to prison. The remaining twenty‐one passed their death‐vigil in riotous singing and drinking and making merry; in improvising a comedy where Robespierre and the devil conversed in hell; the dead Valazé meanwhile lying in his blood in the same room. Vergniaud, who so hesitated to vote “death” for the king, is now bent on escaping the block by poisoning himself; but he has only poison enough for one, so he throws away the dose, too generous to desert his companions in their last journey. They will all go together; so, after a night of bacchanalian shouting and carousing, they all set forth in the fatal tumbrel; even dead Valazé is flung in to have his head cut off, that the guillotine may not be done out of its prey. They jolt on, singing the Marseillaise and crying Vive la République. One by one the heads fall, the chorus grows weaker, and at last ceases to be heard. The Girondists are gone. Robespierre is King of the Revolution now, and reigns supreme over its destinies. Now let him prove what truth there is in the plea put forth by his apologists that he was only cruel from necessity, from the pressure put upon him by his fellow‐demagogues. His accession to undivided responsibility was, on the contrary, the signal for greater slaughter, and we see the number of victims swelling in proportion to the growth of his individual power. Look at the lists of the Moniteur. In July, 1793, there were thirteen persons condemned by the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, and in July of the following year the number sent by it to the guillotine was eight hundred and thirty‐five!
But this system of legal assassination was beginning to recoil on the head of its inventor. The murder of the Girondists was an impolitic act that Robespierre soon repented of. He had made a precedent in attacking the representatives of the nation, hitherto inviolate; and now that the longing for vengeance was satisfied, he was clear‐sighted enough to perceive what the cost was likely to be. He had sacrificed his rivals, but he had imperilled his own head. From this day forward he seemed haunted by the shadow of coming retribution. He had poured out the blood of those who stood beside him, and now he was slipping in it; his footing was no longer secure; the words “assassination,” “victim of the poignard of revenge,” etc., etc., were continually on his lips, and there is evidence that his life was poisoned by the constant dread of being murdered by some of the friends of his victims. Those who had hitherto aided and abetted his atrocities now began to look with suspicion and terror on him; even Danton tried to back out of the partnership, and to talk of “the joys of private life” in a way that suggested he had had enough of the glories of public life. He had just married a young and beautiful woman, whose influence was said to have already exercised a humanizing effect on his ferocious nature. She had brought him independence, too, so there was every inducement to him to quit the shambles, and leave Robespierre there alone in his glory. He withdrew from the Public Safety Committee, and ceased almost altogether to attend the meetings of the Convention. Robespierre understood this significant change. He saw his accomplices were deserting him, and he trembled. The Revolution, Saturn‐like, was devouring her own children; why should not the hunters be devoured by their own dogs? Every one was falling away from the tyrant. Camille Desmoulins and Hébert, lately his devoted friends, were gathering up a rival faction dubbed Ultra‐Revolutionists, and, aided by Hébert’s abominable newspaper, Père Duchêsne, they and their followers set to work to hunt down the popular idol. Robespierre was known to harbor a sneaking prejudice in favor of some sort of religion, and once even openly declared his opinion that some such institution was necessary for governing with effect. The Ultras used this admission as a means of insulting him, and at the same time weakening his prestige. They got hold of an unfortunate, half‐witted man named Gobel, an apostate priest, dressed him up as an archbishop, and, surrounded by a crowd of mock priests and prelates, they led him, riding on an ass, to the Convention; here he made a burlesque and blasphemous abjuration of his former state and belief, and solemnly pronounced the Credo of atheism, and the worship of the goddess Reason. The law‐givers, thereupon, amidst the frantic enthusiasm of the crowd, decreed that “God and all superstition were abolished,” and the worship of Reason substituted in their place. A monstrous ceremony was at once organized to celebrate the new religion: an actress was carried to the cathedral of Notre Dame, dressed—or undressed—as the goddess of this adoption, enthroned on the consecrated altar of the living God, while the populace passed before her in adoration. The walls of the sacred temple re‐echoed to the hymn of liberty, the Marseillaise, and were profaned with horrors that no Christian pen may retrace. Similar scenes were enacted in the other churches. Venerable old S. Eustache was turned into a fair; tables were spread with sausages, pork‐puddings, herrings, and bottles; children were forced to sing songs and give toasts, and to drink to the half‐naked goddess; and when the little ones—the precious little ones of Jesus—got drunk, there was huge merriment amongst the spectators.
The shrine of S. Geneviève was torn down and desecrated. The tombs of the kings of France at S. Denis were broken open, and the ashes scattered abroad with every species of insult. The Moniteur thus describes the spectacle the streets of Paris presented during the Festival of Reason: “Most of the people were drunk with the brandy they had swallowed out of Chalices—eating mackerel on the Patens!... They stopped at the doors of dramshops, held out Ciboriums, and the landlord, stoop in hand, had to fill them thrice.” Other things are recorded of this demoniacal saturnalia which had best be left unsaid—if happily they be yet unknown to Catholic hearts.
The provinces followed suit. Lyons sacked her churches, and drove a mitred ass through her streets, trailing the sacred volumes at his tail. The Loire was polluted with drowned bodies of priests. At Nantes ninety priests are embarked at dead of night under hatches; in the middle of the stream the boat is scuttled, and goes down with her human cargo. These are the noyades. Then follow others of more than a hundred at a time. Oh! these priests, these men of the Gospel of Christ, at any cost they must be got rid of! The guillotine is too slow; let us have fire and water to the rescue! So there are the fusillades; men, women, priests, and nuns fall under the showers of grapeshot as fast as they can be gathered and ranged in line—mothers with infants at their breasts, children clinging to one another—five hundred at a batch they go. The mother Revolution herself is turning sick of it. Robespierre alone shows no signs of squeamishness; but, whether from sagacity or some latent moral—perhaps even religious—instinct, he repudiated the sacrilegious excesses which inaugurated and followed the installation of the new goddess. He saw, too, that it was an arrow pointed at himself. He denounced Hébert at the Jacobin Club, ridiculed his new‐fangled divinity, and declared that if “God did not exist, a wise law‐giver would have invented him.” Hébert winced; Camille Desmoulins started the Vieux Cordelier, and began to broach the doctrine of clemency and the savage stupidity of useless blood‐ shedding. Never since the Revolution began had such theories been hinted at. The country was growing nauseated with wholesale butcheries; the daring words of the Vieux Cordelier were heard with wonder and welcomed with deep though silent applause. Robespierre might have tolerated the humane doctrines of the newspaper, if it had abstained from personal aggression; but Desmoulins used his weapon of sarcasm unsparingly against the tyrant, on one occasion twitting him, half facetiously, with his aristocratic origin, as proved by the discarded de formerly prefixed to his name. Robespierre grew pale—paler than his usual sea‐green hue—on reading this, and Desmoulins’ doom was sealed. Hébert went first; he, with nineteen of the faction, perished in one hour on the scaffold, in March, 1794. Ten days later Camille and Danton fell. It is yet a mystery why Danton was thus quickly sacrificed; he was apparently on good terms with Robespierre, and had pointed no witticisms at him like the editor of the Vieux Cordelier. The tyrant himself gives no explanation in his long‐ winded speeches on the hard necessity which compelled him “to sacrifice private friendship to the good of the country,” and so on. But whatever the motive may have been, the act drew upon its perpetrator the aversion and contempt of those who till then had been his staunchest followers and supporters. Every one was terrified for his own head. Danton’s fall seemed to bring the axe to every man’s door. Robespierre was now alone, more terribly alone than the lost traveller in the desert. His fellows shunned him, or shuddered when he passed. He lived in perpetual fear of being assassinated, though it is doubtful whether any attempt was ever made on his life. Several were trumped up with a view to uplifting his tottering popularity; but though the accused persons were guillotined with great pomp and éclat, the proofs of their intended crime were extremely doubtful. A last expedient yet remained.
Robespierre would re‐establish the existence of God, and thus be a prophet as well as a king. He decreed, accordingly, a great meeting which should atone for Hébert’s Feast of Reason and annihilate its brief triumph. It was to take place in the Tuileries gardens. Robespierre, while working the axe so assiduously, never bespattered himself with the blood of his instrument. In a time when sans‐culottism made dirt and Bohemian gear the fashion, he remained a dandy, powdered and frizzled in the midst of legislators who prided themselves on dirty hands and begrimed linen. For this gala‐day of his new religion he ordered a fine sky‐blue silk coat, white‐silk waistcoat embroidered with silver, white stockings, and gold shoe‐buckles. Thus equipped, the Prophet of the Mountain sallied forth to patronize the Omnipotent and decree the existence of a Supreme Being. He ascended the rostrum with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, made a fulsome discourse in a vein of sentimental deism, and then proceeded to unveil the effigy of atheism, a hideous caricature, made of paste‐board, besmeared with turpentine and other inflammable stuffs, to which he applied a lighted torch. The flame leaped up, and Atheism, amidst shouts and cracklings, burned itself to dust; then from the ashes rose up another effigy, the statue of Wisdom, supposed to symbolize the new religion, but sorrily smutted and begrimed by the subsiding smoke of Atheism. No wonder Billaud should exclaim, “Get thee gone! Thou art a bore, thyself and thy Etre Suprême.”
O merciful God! may heaven and earth praise thee, and all the creatures therein, for thou art verily a God of love, long suffering and patient!
And now that Robespierre has duly installed his Etre Suprême, and decreed, moreover, “that consoling principle, the immortality of the soul,” and obliterated from the graves of murdered citizens the hitherto obligatory inscription, “Death is an eternal sleep,” what is there left for him to do? Nothing, apparently, but to go on killing. The revolutionary tribunal must be made to work with greater speed, and so it is split into four fractions, each with its president, and empowered to try and condemn as fast as it can. Even the Mountain quaked when this proposition was uttered at its base; but the law was carried, and henceforth the guillotine quadruples its business. Fouquier‐Tinville sets up one of “improved velocity,” and boasts of being able to make room for a batch of one hundred and fifty at one time. He wants to establish one in the Tuileries itself, but Collot protests that this would “demoralize the instrument.” It did not matter, apparently, how much the instrument demoralized the people. These sit at their windows watching for the tumbrels to pass, criticising the occupants, joking and enjoying themselves. Women fight for seats near the scaffold, where day after day they sit knitting, counting off the heads, as they fall, by the prick of a pin in a bit of card‐board. These are the “furies of the guillotine.”
But to make the new law, called 22me Prairial, more fully available, it was necessary to provide extra work for the executioners. Fouquier‐ Tinville was equal to the occasion. He got up an accusation against the occupants of the prisons for “conspiring against the Convention.” Let us cast a glance into these prisons, where, at this crisis, twelve thousand human beings lie literally rotting to death. The memoirs of the time agree in describing the twelve houses of arrest (the original prisons had long since been increased to that number) as dens of noisome horror never equalled in any other clime or period. Noble dames, maidens of tender years, were huddled pell‐mell with the worst and most wretched of their sex; nobles and shoe‐blacks, priests and ruffians, nuns and actresses, crowded by day and night into the condemned cells, where every night the turnkey came and read his list for the morrow’s “batch.” Then followed scenes such as no pen or painter’s brush could adequately describe. “Men rush towards the grate; listen if their name be in it; ... one deep‐drawn breath when it is not. We live still one day! And yet some score or scores of names were in. Quick these; they clasp their loved ones to their heart one last time. With brief adieu, wet‐eyed or dry‐eyed, they mount and are away. This night to the Conciergerie; through the palace, misnamed of Justice, to the guillotine to‐morrow.” These were the persons whom Tinville’s ready wit accused of getting up a plot to overthrow the Convention! But what did it signify whether the story was an impossibility as well as a lie? The four tribunals must have work, the guillotine must have food. In three days—the 7th, 9th, and 10th of July—one hundred and seventy‐one prisoners were executed on the charge of conspiring from the depth of their squalid dungeons to overturn the state. So much did the newly‐discovered Etre Suprême do towards softening the rule of Robespierre.
But, oh! are we not sick of the ghastly tale? It is now hurrying to a close.
Barère, one of the fiercest of the revolutionary gang who had so far escaped the guillotine, gave a bachelor’s dinner at a suburban villa on a warm day in July, Robespierre being among the guests. The weather was intensely hot, and the company, unshackled by stiff conventionalities, threw off their coats, and sauntered out to sip their coffee under the trees in easy déshabillé. Carnot wanted his pocket‐handkerchief, and went indoors to fetch it. While looking for his own coat he espied Robespierre’s fantastic sky‐blue garment, and, prompted by a sudden thought, put his hand into the pockets, wondering if any secret might be lurking there. What were his feelings on discovering a list of forty names told off for the guillotine, his own amongst the number! He carried off the paper, showed it discreetly to his friends, and they agreed that Robespierre must be made away with. Two days later he appears at the Convention, and is met by dark faces that scowl when he ascends the tribune, and show no docile acquiescence when he speaks. Terror for their own lives has at last stirred these dull, brutalized accomplices to raise their voice and protest against the tyrant. He is impeached by common acclamation. He defends himself in a passionate harangue, accusing Mr. Pitt and King George of having bribed the Convention to arrest him, after sowing calumnies against him in the minds of the people. The charges against him were numerous and heavy; he answered them all with vehemence and a certain wild, disjointed eloquence, and wound up by the following denunciation: “No, death is not an eternal sleep! The nation will not submit to a desperate and desolating doctrine that covers nature itself with a funereal shroud; that deprives virtue of hope, and misfortune of consolation, and insults even death itself. No; we will efface from our tombs your sacrilegious epitaph, and replace it with the consoling truth, ‘Death is the beginning of immortality!’ ” The speech produced an effect on the Assembly, but it did not secure a real success. The next day Saint‐ Just mounted the tribune to defend Robespierre; but he had hardly begun his discourse when cries of “Down with the tyrant!” forced him to give it up. Robespierre stood at his place, utterly abandoned by the members of the Assembly, where twenty‐four hours ago he ruled with despotic and unrivalled sway. Not a voice was raised in his behalf. He strove to obtain a hearing, but his words were drowned in shouts of “Away with him! down with him!” He stood dumb and petrified at the sound of those words, bowed his head, and slowly descended the steps of the tribune; suddenly he looked up and cried, “Let me die, then, at once!” The younger Robespierre advances and takes his brother’s arm, asking to share the same fate with him. This generous movement excites the Convention to still greater rage; it yells and bellows, gesticulating like so many madmen. The president puts on his hat, and calls for order; a temporary lull ensues. Robespierre again tries to make himself heard, but his voice is again drowned in shouts and hisses; he rushes up and down the steps and about the hall, clenching his fist and breathing menaces that now fall powerless and are met with taunts of triumphant hate. At last, over‐mastered by his own emotions, he drops into a chair. The arrest of the two brothers is voted unanimously. The elder one endeavors to resist, but is seized and carried forcibly down to the bar. In the midst of this stormy ebullition, one of the deputies, seeing Robespierre unable to speak from the violence of his rage and terror, cried out: “It is Danton’s blood that is choking him!” Stung by the taunt, Robespierre found breath and courage to retort, “Danton! Is it Danton that you regret? Cowards! why did you not defend him!” These spirited words were the last he ever uttered in public. He and his brother were now removed in custody to a hall close by the Convention, and with them Saint‐Just, Couthon, and Lebas. It had been an arduous day’s work for the Convention, and it is not surprising that the deputies “clamored for an adjournment, that they might repose themselves and dine”; for whether men live or die, legislators must dine. They were thoughtful enough to remember that the five in custody would also like to dine, even for the last time; so the guilty deputies had a good dinner provided for them, and immediately after were transferred to separate prisons: Robespierre to the Luxembourg, his brother to St. Lazare, Couthon to Port Royal (dubbed Port Libre since it had been turned into a prison!), Lebas to Le Force, and Saint‐Just aux Ecossais. Henriot, who commanded the troops devoted to Robespierre, was seized in the act of attempting an attack on the Convention, bound, and locked up in one of the courts. Two bold friends of his rallied the soldiers, stormed the Convention, released him, and placed him again at the head of his men. Meantime, the jailer of the Luxembourg had refused to admit Robespierre, and the bailiffs had to take him to the Mairie, where he was received with acclamations of respect as the “father of the people.” Henriot and his band by midnight had set him and the other four deputies free, and they were installed at the Hôtel de Ville, with a large body of soldiers drawn round the edifice to protect them. But the Convention, on its side, had not been idle. Barras was placed in command of all the troops that could be mustered, and in company with twelve energetic leaders, at the head of the gendarmerie and the artillery, marched on the Hôtel de Ville, dispersed Henriot’s troops, and penetrated into the building, where they found the five deputies and captured them. The younger Robespierre flung himself out of a window in a frantic effort to escape the more tragic death that was now a certainty; he was picked up horribly mutilated, but with life enough yet to realize the horrors of his position. Lebas, on hearing the gendarmes battering on the door of the room, blew his brains out with a pistol. Saint‐Just was seized with a knife in his hand, which he was going to plunge into his heart; he gave it up without a word, and allowed himself to be bound. Couthon, who was nearly blind and half‐paralyzed, being powerless to offer the slightest resistance, was flung into a wheelbarrow that chanced to be in the court‐yard. Robespierre himself, the centre of this group of suicides and murderers, attempted to cheat the guillotine as Lebas had done; but either his cowardly hand trembled and betrayed his will or was seized as he pulled the trigger, for the bullet went through the cheek instead of through the forehead. The jaw was frightfully fractured, and hung loose from the face, held on only by the flesh. Some spectator had the humanity to help the unfortunate man to tie it up with a handkerchief, and in this miserable plight he and his companions were conveyed at about two o’clock in the morning to the Committee of Public Safety. The official report of the day gives the following graphic description of what then occurred: “Robespierre was brought in on a plank ... by several artillery‐men and armed citizens. He was placed on the table of the ante‐chamber which adjoins that where the Committee holds its sittings. A deal box, which contained some samples of the ammunition‐bread sent to the army du Nord, was put under his head by way of pillow. He was for nearly an hour in a state of insensibility which made us think that he was no more; but after an hour he opened his eyes. Blood was running in abundance from the wound he had in the left lower jaw; the jaw was broken, and a ball had gone through the cheek. His shirt was bloody. He was without hat or neckcloth. He had on a sky‐blue coat,(158) nankeen breeches, white stockings hanging down at his heels.... At six in the morning a surgeon who happened to be in the court‐yard of the Tuileries was called in to dress the wound. By way of precaution he first put a key in Robespierre’s mouth. He found the left jaw broken. He pulled out two or three teeth, bandaged up the wound, and got a basin of water, which he placed at his side.” All this time no word was spoken by the wounded man; not even a sigh escaped him when the teeth were being extracted, yet the agony he endured must have been terrific. There he lay, a spectacle to gods and men, in his sky‐blue coat, a tiger caught in his own lair, barked at and cursed and triumphed over by a band of wolves. Who could pity him—he who had never known pity for man or woman? For more than twenty hours he lay there in this mental and bodily torture. Once he made a sign which was understood to express thirst. The burning fever of his wound had parched him till he gasped for breath: but no one was so merciful as to get him a glass of water. Vinegar and gall they gave him in abundance. Many cursed him as the murderer of their kith and kin, and bade him drink his own blood, if he was thirsty.
All this while the tocsin is ringing out the glad news to Paris. Crowds rush out on the house‐tops, and wave signals to the prisoners in the Conciergerie that the hour of deliverance is at hand. The prisoners cannot understand; they think the tocsin is the signal for a new September massacre. The word flies from cell to cell, and all fall on their knees and prepare for instant death.
Others, too, are making ready for death, but not thus. The tumbrels jolt up to the Convention, and collect for the last time their “batch”; this time there are but twenty‐three victims. Amongst them, by an exquisite touch of retributive justice, is Simon the Cordwainer, going to die with Robespierre! And now they are ready, and the tumbrels move on. The corpse of Lebas is flung in with Robespierre, as that of Valazé was with Brissot; the other three were so disfigured with blood and the traces of the death‐ scuffle in the town‐hall that they are hardly to be recognized. The entire city is out, shouting itself hoarse with joy. The roofs of the houses are alive with human eyes, all watching for the figure of Robespierre. When it appears, the soldiers point to it with their swords—show the tyrant, bound and gagged, to the people. The sight causes a frantic thrill of exultation that finds utterance in a yell of something too unholy for joy, too fierce for laughter. A woman breaks through the crowd, dashes aside the bayonets of the escort, and leaps to the side of the tumbrel. “Ah! thou demon,” she cries, waving her hand above her head, “the death of thee is better than wine to my heart Wretch, get thee down to hell with the curses of all wives and mothers!”
Surely this is hell already begun. The wretched man opens his eyes, glued together with blood; a shade of deadlier hue passes over his livid, sea‐ green face; he shudders, but utters no sound. The tumbrel reaches the Place de la Revolution. The furies of the guillotine rush round it, and execute a dance of fiendish joy, the crowd making room for them and applauding. Now the cart stops, and the condemned alight. In the first are the two Robespierres, Couthon, Henriot, and Lebas. Maximilien Robespierre is the only one who has strength left in him to ascend the scaffold without help. He stood on the fatal step whither a few days ago his nod sufficed to send the noblest heads in France; within a few yards of the spot where only six weeks ago he had decreed the existence of the Omnipotent, at whose judgment‐bar he was now going to appear. Seldom indeed does that silent, inscrutable Judge allow us to behold the judgments of his justice accomplished here below, and amidst circumstances so palpably impressive, and to our human eyes so fearfully appropriate, as was this death‐scene of Robespierre’s. He showed no sign of terror or remorse, but, dumb and self‐contained to the last, yielded himself to Samson’s hands. Only when the bandage was wrenched brutally from the broken jaw, letting it drop from the face, he uttered a piercing cry that rang above the yells of the multitude. It was the last sound his voice emitted in this world. Samson did his work, and Robespierre was no more.
One long, loud shout of gladness went up to heaven, and carried the tidings to the ends of France on wings quicker than words. It penetrated the iron doors of the prisons, like the sweet beams of the golden dawn, and bade men hope and rejoice, for the Reign of Terror was at an end and the gates of their dungeons unlocked.
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The guillotine has been so prominent a figure in the foregoing sketch, as indeed throughout the whole span of the Reign of Terror, that a word on its origin may not be uninteresting. It is popularly supposed to have been invented by Dr. Guillotin, but this is a mistake. The first idea of it emanated from him, and he had the unenviable glory of giving it his name; but these are his only claims to its invention. The guillotine would seem to be almost a creature born spontaneously of the Revolution, a cruel offspring of the self‐devouring monster. It is strange that, until the “Sainte Guillotine” was enthroned as the agent of that murder‐mad reign, no mention is ever made in the reports of the time of the exact kind of machine used in capital punishment. We read of persons being “condemned” and “executed,” but there is no more definite account of the manner of execution. The lanterne was the mode of capital punishment up to the Reign of Terror, and the mob could always do summary justice on its victims by making a gallows of the nearest lamp‐post; but when speed became the primary object, this was found too tedious, besides being troublesome. Towards the close of the year 1789 Dr. Guillotin was elected to the States‐General. He was such a mediocre, insignificant person in every way that his appearance in the Assembly caused general surprise and laughter. In the Portraits of Celebrated Persons, a contemporaneous work, we find him thus treated: “By what accident has a man without either ability or reputation obtained for himself a frightful immortality? He fathered a work written by a lawyer—Hardouin—who had too much character to produce it in his own name; and his work having been censured by the parliament, Guillotin, who assumed the responsibility of it, became the man of the day, and owed to it that gleam of reputation which ensured his election to the States‐General. He was, in truth, a nobody who made himself a busy‐body, and by meddling with everything was at once mischievous and ridiculous.” This meddling personage made himself extremely ridiculous on the one occasion to which may be traced his ill‐ starred celebrity. He proposed in the Assembly that some machine, more humane and expeditious than the process of hanging, should be invented for capital punishment, and, after describing the idea that was in his mind, he proceeded to illustrate it by a pantomime with his fingers, straightening out the left index, and bringing down that of the right hand over the thumb with a snap. “There, now, I put your head here; this falls, and it is cut off; you feel nothing; it is the affair of a moment!” Roars of laughter followed this lucid and cheerful explanation, and the next day the ballad‐mongers diverted Paris with a song, the burden of which was “a machine that will kill us right off, and be christened la guillotine!” The doctor said no more about his idea, but, jocosely presented as it was, it nevertheless made an impression on the Assembly, who adopted it three years later. Meantime, they were beset by complaints from the Tiers Etat, who could not reconcile it to their dignity that the bourgeoisie should be hanged while the noblesse were beheaded. Let it be hanging all round, they said, and they would be satisfied; but why should nobles have their head cut off, while plebeians “swung at the lantern?” The grievance met with cold sympathy, however, until the times were ripe for reform, and it became urgent to find some more expeditious means of despatching both nobles and plebeians into the other world. Dr. Guillotin’s proposal was reconsidered; an officer of the Criminal Court, named Laquiante, designed an instrument, which was approved of by the authorities and confided for execution to a piano‐maker—a native of Strasbourg, we believe—named Schmidt. There was a good deal of haggling over the cost. Schmidt, in the first instance, wanted nine hundred and sixty francs, which was found exorbitant and refused. In consideration, however, of his having suggested some improvements in the original design, they consented to let him take out a patent, and to give him an order for eighty‐three machines, one for every department in France, at five hundred francs each, and to be made as quickly as possible. They were three months quarrelling over the bargain, and all this time an unfortunate criminal, of the name of Pelletier, was lying in prison, waiting to be executed; when at last the price was settled and the first machine ready, he had the miserable distinction of inaugurating it on the 25th of April, 1792. The prejudice had been very strong against the new mode of decapitation, the clergy especially arguing that “the sight of blood would prove highly demoralizing to the people.” Samson, the executioner, was one of the staunchest opposers of the innovation on the same grounds, and also because of the shock the spectacle would give to many spectators. His letter to the Assembly embodying his opinions and experience on the subject is a curious bit of literature, highly creditable to the hangman, as indeed all that has come down to us concerning him seems to be. The humane desire to abridge the sufferings of the criminal overcame, however, every objection, and hanging was formally abolished and replaced by decapitation. The new instrument—most unjustly, as we see—was called the guillotine, in spite of a semi‐official mention of it as Louison, and some efforts to make that name adhere. The worthy doctor was doomed to notoriety on account of his having first mooted the affair and made Paris laugh over it. Nothing secures immortality with the Parisians like a joke.
Apropos of the guillotine, we may mention that the Samsons were a respectable family of Abbeville, and held the office of “Executioner of the High Acts of Justice,” by descent, from the year 1722. Charles Henri Samson, who beheaded Louis XVI., came into office in 1778, and retired on a pension in 1795. He was succeeded by his son in his formidable functions, the latter having resigned the grade of captain in the artillery to undertake them.
Robert Cavelier De La Salle
The pious hymns of the good and noble Marquette and his companions had not ceased to reverberate over the waters of the Great River, awakening the echoes of its banks and overhanging forests, when a bold and devoted spirit, fired by the fame of previous explorations, was meditating on the shores of Lake Ontario the prosecution of the grand work begun by the illustrious missionary. The world was startled with the news that the waters over whose bosom the missionaries and traders of Canada drove their canoes at the north, after meandering through the vast plains and forests of the continent, poured themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. This great physical problem was settled by Father Marquette and the Sieur Joliet, who, after having explored the course of the Mississippi for eleven hundred miles, returned to electrify the world by the reports of their brilliant success. But as yet comparatively little was known of this gigantic stream. The imagination of the most sanguine and the hearts of the boldest were appalled at the task; but it was a destined step in the onward march of religion and civilization. A Catholic missionary had gloriously led the way; a Catholic nobleman no less gloriously advanced to complete the work. This was Robert Cavelier de La Salle.
He was born at Rouen, in Normandy, of a good family, but the date of his birth has not been transmitted to us. He spent ten or twelve years of his early life in one of the Jesuit seminaries of France, where he received a good education, and he was well acquainted with mathematics and the natural sciences. His renunciation of his patrimony and his long sojourn among the Fathers of the Society of Jesus justify the belief that he was intended for the priesthood. Providence, however, destined him for a somewhat different sphere of labor and usefulness, but one in close co‐ operation with the great work of the church among mankind. He carried with him from the seminary of the Jesuits the highest testimonials of his superiors for purity of character, unblemished life, and exhaustless energy. By his own high qualities and noble achievements he has won a diploma for himself, inscribed on the brightest pages of our history, and more honorable than man can confer.
Emerging from the seminary full of youth, intelligence, and daring spirit, he joined one of the numerous bands of emigrants from France who came to seek adventures and fortunes in the New World. He came to Canada about the year 1667, and embarked with great energy in the fur trade, then the prevailing means of obtaining an exchange of European wealth and merchandise. His enterprising spirit soon carried him to the frontiers, and in his frail canoe he traversed the vast rivers and broad lakes of the continent, mingling with the aborigines, and acquiring information and experience of their modes of life, character, and languages. He explored Lake Ontario, and ascended Lake Erie. The activity of his mind and the restlessness of his genius could not be satisfied even with the vast and adventurous field of trade presented to him; for he shared largely in the prevailing ambition of discovering a northwest passage across the continent to China and Japan, an evidence of which he left behind him in the name of Lachine, which he bestowed upon one of his trading posts on the island of Montreal. He saw in that extended chain of lakes the link that united America with Asia, and indulged in the fond and proud dream that, as the discoverer of the long‐sought passage, his name would be inscribed beside that of Columbus on the scroll of immortality.
Seeing the advantages of the position selected by the Comte de Frontenac, the Governor of Canada, in fortifying the outlet of Lake Ontario, La Salle erected one of his trading posts under the protection of Fort Fontenac. He acquired the favor and friendship of the governor, and soon rejoiced in the esteem and confidence of the public. Up to this time his efforts were apparently chiefly expended in bold and energetic efforts to build up his fortunes. But his resources were inferior to the grand enterprises which he contemplated. He accordingly repaired to France in 1675, where, aided by the influence of Frontenac and the recommendations of the minister Colbert, he obtained from his sovereign, Louis XIV., letters‐patent, granting him Fort Frontenac and the seigniory of a large tract of land about the same, upon condition that he would rebuild the fort of stone, garrison it at his own expense, and clear up certain lands. This grant secured to him a large domain and the exclusive traffic with the Five Nations. The king also raised him and his family to the rank of nobility as a reward for his services and noble actions. His patent of nobility bears date the 13th of May, 1675.
Returning to America, the Cavalier de La Salle took possession of his seigniory, and soon proved how well he merited the confidence and favors he enjoyed. He fulfilled all his stipulations with the king. In two years Fort Frontenac reared its massive walls and bastions of stone which cast their shadows on the waters of Ontario. A number of French families clustered around the fort; the Recollect missionaries induced their Indian neophytes and catechumens to pitch their tents and offer up their newly‐ learned devotions under its shadow; the rugged wilds were supplanted by cultivated fields, gardens, and pastures, and the new lord of Cataraqui was at once the pioneer of civilization and the friend of religion. Such was the origin of the present city of Kingston.
At the same time La Salle prosecuted his commercial enterprises with renewed vigor, and these, in return, seemed at first to promise to repay his perseverance and energy. Now for the first time the rapids of the St. Lawrence were stemmed, and the waters of Ontario ploughed by the keels of three small barks with decks erected on them. Had all depended on energy and zeal, success and prosperity would have followed, and the young nobleman would have achieved a fortune, fame, and power that would not have been long in winning for him a position among the proudest and most powerful nobility of France. But his fame was destined rather to be associated with the foundation of a great republic than with the more limited work of founding a noble family, to whom to transmit a princely fortune, and with building up the power of a brilliant despotism. His enterprises failed, wealth eluded his grasp, and he found himself oppressed with vast debts, incurred in the great undertakings in which he had embarked. Turning from this field of disaster, his vigorous mind again became filled with visions of the northwest passage and with his darling projects of discovery. He studied the accounts of the Spanish and other adventurers and discoverers on the continent. Joliet, in 1674, passing down from the upper lakes, had visited Fort Frontenac, of which La Salle was then commander under Gov. Frontenac, and thus La Salle was one of the first to learn of the brilliant achievements and discoveries of the illustrious Marquette and Joliet, and was probably one of the first to see the maps and journal which the latter lost between the fort and the next French post. These did not seem, at the time, to have deeply impressed the mind of La Salle, who was then engaged in other plans; for it was after this that he embarked in the project of founding the seigniory of Cataraqui on the shores of Ontario, and in the vast trading operations above referred to. On the failure of these he began to plan new adventures and discoveries. His study of the reports of Spanish and French explorers led him before all others to identify the great river of Marquette and Joliet with that of De Soto. Blending the taste for commerce with the thirst for fame, he saw in the vast herds of bison, described as roaming over the prairies that extended from the banks of the Missouri and Illinois rivers, the means of shipping cargoes of buffalo‐skins and wool to France from the banks of those rivers via the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Nor did he yet relinquish his trading projects at the north; for these he expected to connect with his contemplated trading posts on the Mississippi, Fort Frontenac still remaining his principal post. Nor did he yet abandon the hope of discovering from the head‐waters of the Mississippi a passage to the China Sea.
Filled with these grand and noble views, he returned to France in 1677, and still enjoying the recommendation of Frontenac and the favor of the great Colbert and of his son and successor in the ministry, the Marquis de Seignelay, he succeeded in obtaining from the king, on the 12th of May, 1678, new letters‐patent, confirming his rights to the fort and the seigniory of Cataraqui, and authorizing him to advance as far westward as he desired, to build forts wherever he might choose, and prosecute his commercial enterprises as before, with the single exception that he should not trade with the Hurons and other Indians who brought their furs to Montreal, in order that there might be no interference with other traders. At the recommendation of his friend, the Prince de Conti, La Salle took into his service as his lieutenant the veteran Chevalier de Tonty, an Italian by birth, who proved a great acquisition to the work, and was the ever‐faithful friend and companion of the great captain.
In two months La Salle completed his work in France, and in the autumn of 1678, sailed from Rochelle, accompanied by Tonty, the Sieur de la Motte, a pilot, mariners, ship‐carpenters, and other workmen. He was well provided with anchors, sails, cordage, and everything necessary for rigging vessels, with stores of merchandise for trading with the Indians, and whatever might be useful for his projected expedition. Arriving at Quebec in September, he immediately pushed forward to Fort Frontenac—but not without having to surmount great difficulties and labors in getting his heavy canoes and freight over the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence—where he arrived exhausted and emaciated by his fatigues, but full of courage and hope.
As the winter approached La Salle pressed forward the preparations for his grand enterprise, which he resolved to enter upon in the spring. On the 18th of November, 1678, he despatched the hardy and faithful Tonty, accompanied by Father Louis Hennepin, to the Niagara River in one of his brigantines of ten tons, with workmen, provisions, implements, and materials, to undertake the construction and equipment of a vessel to bear his party over the upper lakes—a work which was to be accomplished with a handful of men, in the midst of winter, at a distance of hundreds of miles from any civilized settlement, and surrounded by savage tribes, whose enmity had been enkindled by the malice of La Salle’s enemies, who, actuated by the rivalry of trade, had induced the Indians to believe that he intended to monopolize their trade upon terms dictated by himself at the cannon’s mouth. Tonty set to work with a cheerful heart. He encountered perils and hardships, which overcame the endurance of La Motte, who abandoned the enterprise, and retired to Quebec to seek ease and rest from such labors. Tonty persevered until the 20th of January, when La Salle by his presence inspired him and his companions with new ardor and courage. About this time the brigantine was cast away on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, in consequence of dissensions among the pilots; and several bark canoes, with their valuable freight of goods and provisions, were wrecked and lost. His difficulties with the Senecas also compelled La Salle to relinquish the fort which he had begun to build at the falls of Niagara as a protection to his ship‐builders, and to content himself with a mere shed or store‐house. A spirit less brave and firm than La Salle’s would have quailed under the misfortunes which, through the inclemency of the season and the malice of men, surrounded his steps. But these only nerved him to greater exertion. In six days after his arrival the keel of his vessel was laid, the cavalier driving the first bolt with his own hand. “When he saw the snow began to melt,” he sent out fifteen men in advance of his exploring expedition, with instructions to pass over the lakes to Mackinac, provide provisions for the expedition, and await the arrival of the main party.
Leaving Tonty now to conduct the building of the vessel, La Salle made a journey of over three hundred miles of frozen country to Fort Frontenac, to arrange his financial business before setting out in the spring. His only food was a bag of corn; his baggage was drawn over the snow and ice by two men and a dog. At the fort he had to exert all his ability and energy to counteract the malicious efforts and practices of his enemies for his ruin. His creditors at Quebec became alarmed by the reports and calumnies of his foes. His effects at that town were seized and sacrificed, while the property which he was compelled to leave at Fort Frontenac was in value double all his debts. But the delay of his expedition would be to him a greater evil than the loss of property, so that he could not stop to remedy or resist these proceedings. In the midst of such harassing cares he bore in mind the necessity of providing for the religious wants of his companions and of the benighted heathen nations which he intended to visit. He secured the services of three Recollect missionaries, Fathers Gabriel de la Ribourde, Louis Hennepin, and Zenobe Membré. He had already, while commanding at Fort Frontenac, built for these good missionaries a house and chapel; he now bestowed upon their order eighteen acres of land near the fort, and one hundred acres of forest‐land.
Tonty having faithfully completed his task, the ship was launched, receiving the name of Griffin, as a compliment to the Comte de Frontenac, whose armorial bearings were adorned with two griffins. Tonty was next sent in search of the fifteen men who had previously set out. The Griffin, with La Salle, the missionaries, and the remainder of the party on board, sailed on the 7th of August, 1679, on the bosom of Lake Erie. The artillery saluted the vessel, as she dashed through the waves, and the missionary and crew chanted a grateful Te Deum in honor of Him who had speeded their work. The Senecas gazed with wonder at a bark of sixty tons riding the lake with greater ease and grace than their own canoes. Reaching in safety the straits connecting Lakes Erie and Huron, he considered the expediency of planting a colony on the majestic Detroit, as he glided between its islands; and on the 12th, S. Clare’s Day, as he traversed its shallow waters, he bestowed upon the little river the name of that saint. While the ship was passing over Lake Huron, she was overtaken by a terrible storm, which caused even the bold captain to fear for the safety of all on board. Uniting with the missionaries in petitions for the intercession of S. Anthony of Padua, he made a promise to dedicate the first chapel built in the countries he was going to discover in honor of that patron saint, in case he should escape. The province from which the missionaries of the expedition had come was that of S. Anthony of Padua, in Artois; hence the selection of this saint as their protector on this occasion, as well as for the reason that he is frequently invoked as the patron of mariners. The storm abated, and on the 27th of August, the Griffin, aided by friendly winds, entered a safe harbor in the island of Mackinac.
Here again the “great wooden canoe” was an object of admiration and dread to the natives, heightened by the roar of the cannon on board. La Salle, clad in a cloak of scarlet and gold, visited the nearest village, and the pious priests offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the benefit of those benighted savages. The opposite bank had been the scene of the missionary labors of the illustrious Marquette. The captain visited this spot, endeavoring there and in the neighboring country to propitiate the friendship of the natives as he advanced. His enemies had here too been at work, poisoning the minds of the Indians against him far and near, and tampering with the advanced corps of fifteen men whom he had sent out, and who, under such influences, became faithless to their leader: some of them deserted, and others squandered the provisions which he had entrusted to them. Again setting sail, the Griffin bore them to Green Bay, where La Salle had the satisfaction of meeting some of his advanced party who had continued faithful to him and their duty, and who now returned with a goodly quantity of furs, the result of successful traffic with the Indians. After two weeks he loaded the Griffin with the rich furs brought in by his men, and sent her with the pilot and five mariners back to the Niagara, amidst the murmurs of his men, who dreaded the work of proceeding in light canoes. It has been remarked(159) that had he adopted the Ohio as his conduit to the Mississippi, one vessel would have answered his purpose, and much suffering and delay been saved, for this river had been known to the missionaries; by his present plan, he had to build two vessels, one above the falls of Niagara, and one on the Illinois River. He now set out to descend Lake Michigan in four bark canoes, September the 19th, the party consisting of La Salle, the fathers, and seventeen men; and they continued their perilous voyage along the west side of the lake. They were overtaken before nightfall by a violent storm, and for several days they struggled through wind, rain, sleet, and waves, until they landed with great danger near the river Milwaukee. Seeing their perilous situation, La Salle leaped into the water, and with his own hands helped to drag his canoe ashore. Those in the other boats followed his example, and soon the landing was effected and the canoes secured.
La Salle was accompanied in his expedition by a faithful Indian, who proved a useful member of the party; for his unerring gun frequently relieved the hunger of the travellers with game from the surrounding forests. They also procured corn from the natives, always paying its full value; and even when they had to take it from villages temporarily abandoned, where there was no one to receive payment, its value in goods was left in its place. At this bleak landing near the Milwaukee the Indians, moved with sympathy for their exhausted and weather‐beaten condition, brought deer and corn for their relief, smoked with them the calumet of friendship, and entertained them with war dances and songs. Cheered on their way by the kindly offices and generous sympathy of the natives, in which they felt that
“Kindness by secret sympathy is tied, For noble souls in nature are allied,”
they pushed on with renewed courage to encounter again the perils of the elements. The voyage from this point to the end of the lake was one continued series of hardships and dangers. They found it frequently a relief from the fury of the waves to drag their canoes over the rugged rocks; and as they pulled them ashore the heaving surf dashed the spray over their heads. They encountered a wandering party of Outagamies, or Fox Indians, near a green and refreshing spot, where they stopped to rest and refresh themselves, and it was only the address, deliberation, and iron courage of La Salle that prevented a bloody conflict with these treacherous savages. On the first of November the entire party came safely into the mouth of the Miami River, now S. Joseph’s, previously appointed as the rendezvous, at which the several companies were to meet.
Here La Salle was sorely disappointed at not finding the Chevalier Tonty. Suffering from want of food and the increasing severity of the winter, the men began to murmur; but La Salle’s bold spirit of command kept them in subjection, especially when they saw him sharing every hardship, privation, and danger with them. He kept them busy in building a fort for their protection from the savages, and in exploring the country and neighboring rivers. The missionaries caused a bark chapel to be erected, in which the divine service was attended by both Europeans and Indians. But La Salle’s apprehensions for the fate of the Griffin began to increase. At length Tonty arrived, and, while he relieved his captain and men with provisions and reinforcements, he confirmed their alarm for the vessel. The Griffin had not reached Mackinac, no tidings could be obtained from the Indians of her safety or fate, and it became, alas! too certain that she, the first to ride triumphantly, with her proud sails spread and her streamers unfurled, across these great lakes, had been the first to fall a victim, with her hardy crew, to the avenging waves of Lake Michigan.
The cavalier now prepared to go down the Kankakee River to the Illinois. The distance to the portage was seventy miles, and much time and labor were spent in endeavoring to find the proper portage. La Salle started out himself to explore the country, and to discover, if possible, the eastern branch of the Illinois. Detained till evening in making the circuit of a large marsh, his gun, fired as a signal, was not answered, and he resolved to spend the night alone in that fearful wilderness. He fortunately descried a fire, and on approaching saw near by a bed of leaves, from which some nomadic son of the forest, startled at the report of the gun, had just fled. La Salle scattered leaves and branches around, in order that he might not be surprised in the night, and then took possession of the Indian’s rustic bed, in which he slept peacefully till morning. To the great joy of his friends, he returned in the following afternoon, with two opossums hanging from his belt. At length the Indian hunter of the expedition found the portage. Leaving four men in the fort, the expedition set out on the 3d of December; the canoes and all the baggage were carried over five or six miles to the head‐waters of the Kankakee, and about the 5th of December the company, consisting of thirty‐three persons, commenced their passage down the dreary and marshy stream, rendered yet more gloomy by the rigors of mid‐winter. At length, after enduring hunger and cold, they came to a more genial and smiling country, and soon their canoes glided into the river Illinois. On the banks of the river they discovered and visited the largest of the Illinois villages, composed of four or five hundred cabins, in each of which resided five or six families, not far below the present town of Ottawa, in La Salle County, Illinois. But the place was deserted; the inhabitants had all gone to the hunting‐grounds for wild cattle and beaver, leaving their corn stored away in their granaries. Yielding to the necessities of his condition, and trusting to fortune for an opportunity to make ample compensation, La Salle appropriated fifty bushels of corn from the immense quantities stored away in the capacious granaries of the village. Re‐embarking on the 27th of December, the party proceeded down the current. On the 1st of January, 1680, the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord was solemnly and appropriately celebrated, the salutations of the New Year were exchanged, and we may well imagine with what hearty and earnest good‐wishes those brave voyagers blessed each other. On the same day, after passing through Lake Pimiteony, now Lake Peoria, our voyagers came suddenly upon an Indian encampment on both sides of the river. Having heard that the Illinois were hostile, La Salle arranged his flotilla for the emergency; the men were armed, and the canoes were placed in battle array across the entire river, La Salle and Tonty occupying the two canoes nearest the shore. Observing that the Indians were somewhat alarmed and disposed to parley, La Salle boldly landed in the midst of the innumerable bands of dusky warriors, prepared for either war or peace, and by his skill and invincible courage soon succeeded in making them his friends. After smoking with them the calumet of peace, he explained the circumstance of his having taken their corn, and then paid them liberally for it, to their great satisfaction. He also told them that he came amongst them in order to give them a knowledge of the one true God, and to better their condition. An alliance of friendship was entered into, and all retired apparently to rest.
But during the night emissaries from La Salle’s enemies arrived. A grand council was held, as that is the favorite time with the Indians for transacting their most important business. The poison was infused into the minds of La Salle’s recent allies; and on the following morning his keen eye soon saw that the intrigues of his enemies had not failed to follow him to that distant region, and it was only his brave, frank, and determined bearing that enabled him to surmount the countless obstacles that were thus thrown in his way. The effect of this intrigue, however, was not wholly lost on his own men. Six of them deserted him at this trying juncture. Severe as was this loss, his proud spirit bore up manfully under it; but the loss of his vessel was a severer trial to him, but one that failed to dampen the ardor of his enthusiasm or the determination of his will. He selected a spot for a fort half a league from the Indian camp and near the present city of Peoria; and while he bestowed upon his fort the name of Crèvecœur—Broken Heart—under the sad influence of the loss of the Griffin and the machinations of his enemies, the vigor with which he raised its walls and arranged its armament is ample proof that he still possessed a heart full of courage and hope.
In the middle of January the entire company took up their residence within the fort. Father Membré remained with the Indians, was adopted into the family of a noted chief, and devoted himself to the task of winning the Illinois to the Christian faith. Father de La Ribourde exercised his ministry at the fort, where he erected a chapel; and Father Hennepin is said to have “rambled as his fancies moved him.”
La Salle engaged a portion of his men in building a brigantine forty‐two feet long and twelve feet broad, in which to descend the Mississippi. On the 29th of February, 1680, he sent an expedition under the direction of Father Hennepin, accompanied by Picard Du Gay and Michel Ako, to explore for the first time the Mississippi above the mouth of the Wisconsin, the point from which Father Marquette’s voyage down the great river commenced. In six weeks the hull of the brigantine was nearly ready to receive the masts and rigging, but the necessary materials were wanting to complete the equipment. An abundance of such materials had been placed on board the Griffin, but these had been buried beneath the waters of the lake with the ill‐fated vessel. Gloomy indeed was the prospect before our brave cavalier; but bold resolves are rapidly conceived and speedily executed by daring spirits. He placed Tonty in command of the fort, and, in order to procure what was necessary for the new vessel, he determined to return on foot to Fort Frontenac, distant at least twelve hundred miles. His journey lay along the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, through vast forests; innumerable rivers intervened, which he had to ford or cross on rafts, and this, too, at a season of the year when the drifting snow and floating ice threw extraordinary dangers and fatigues in the path of the traveller. For food he must rely entirely upon the hazards of the chase. The history of our race contains the record of few such undertakings as this; yet the spirit of La Salle faltered not. On the 2d of March the bold cavalier shouldered his musket and knapsack, and, with three Frenchmen and his Indian hunter, started upon his perilous journey:
“My heart is firm; There’s naught within the compass of humanity But I would dare and do.”
After La Salle’s departure the brave and faithful Tonty began to experience in turn the frowns of fortune. While superintending the erection of a new fort at a spot selected by La Salle, Tonty received the news of an insurrection at Fort Crèvecœur. This, too, was instigated by La Salle’s enemies. Deserted by more than half his party, Tonty took up his quarters at the great Indian village, where he was treated with hospitality. After a residence there of six months a war‐party of Iroquois and Miamis approached the village, and for a long time Tonty and Father Membré, at great peril and with much ill treatment at the hands of the invading savages, endeavored to negotiate a peace. Failing in every effort, and finding that dangers and perils were gathering thick and fast around him, Tonty resolved to make his escape with his remaining five companions, which he succeeded in accomplishing, in an old and leaky canoe, on the 18th of September. On the following day, about twenty‐five miles from the village, they drew the canoe to the shore for repairs. While thus engaged they had the misfortune of losing for ever the great and good Father Gabriel de La Ribourde, who, with a mind fond of the beautiful in nature, as well as with a soul that loved all men, had wandered too far up the banks of the river, drawn on by the picturesque scenery that lay before him, was met by three young Kickapoo warriors, and fell a victim to the unsparing tomahawk. After passing, with heavy hearts, over ice and snow, rambling for some time almost at random in the woods, and enduring hunger and delays, they fortunately reached a village of the Potawatamies, where they were received with hospitality. Tonty was detained at the village by a severe and dangerous illness. Father Membré advanced to the missionary station at Green Bay; here they all met in the spring, and then proceeded to Mackinac to await the return of La Salle.
In the meantime La Salle, after stopping twenty‐four hours at the Indian village which he had previously visited, and finding that the two men whom he had despatched from the Miami River to Mackinac had obtained no tidings of the Griffin, now abandoned every lingering hope for her safety. He pressed forward on his great journey, only to hear of new disasters and losses at Fort Frontenac. The fact that he accomplished such a journey under such circumstances is sufficient to illustrate the endurance and unbending resolution of this great explorer. Of this chapter in the history of La Salle Bancroft thus writes:
“Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a bark; he despatched Louis Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and their southern captives on the course of the Mississippi; he formed conjectures concerning the Tennessee River; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection, and skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes—without drink, except water from the brooks; without food, except supplies from his gun. Of his thoughts on that long journey no record exists.”
He arrived safely at Fort Frontenac, but his affairs had all gone wrong in his absence. In the destruction of his vessel and cargo he had sustained a loss of a large portion of his means; besides this, his agents had plundered him in the fur trade on Lake Ontario; a vessel freighted with merchandise for him had been lost in the Bay of St. Lawrence; his heavily‐ laden canoes had been dashed to pieces by the rapids above Montreal; some of his men, corrupted by his enemies, had deserted, carrying his property among the Dutch in New York, and his creditors, availing themselves of a report, gotten up by his enemies, that he and his companions had been lost, had seized on his remaining effects, and sacrificed them in the market. But one friend remained to him in all Canada—the Comte de Frontenac. The undaunted La Salle still pushed forward his work; having arranged his affairs as well as he could, he secured the services of La Forest as an officer, and engaged more men. On the 23d of July, 1680, he set out on his return. Detained more than a month on Lake Ontario by head‐ winds, he reached Mackinac in the middle of September, and the Miami towards the end of November. Proceeding to the spot where he had left Tonty, he found his forts abandoned, the Illinois village abandoned, and could hear nothing of the companions whom he had left behind him. He now heard of the Iroquois war, and spent some time and effort in endeavoring to effect an alliance of all the neighboring tribes against the Illinois. Finding it impossible to accomplish his purpose for want of a larger force, he returned to the Miami River late in May, 1681, and about the middle of June he had the happiness of saluting Tonty and his companions in the harbor of Mackinac. The two cavaliers sat down together, and related to each other their respective misfortunes and hardships. Thus another year’s delay was occasioned; but in the meantime the trade with the Indians was prosecuted with vigor. Some idea may be formed of the material of which these two men were made when it is related that even now, when all their plans had failed and all seemed lost to them, the ardor with which they first commenced this wonderful task remained unbroken and undiminished. In order to renew their preparations for the exploration of the Mississippi, they all set out in a few days for Fort Frontenac, from which La Salle had already twice departed with the bold and lofty purpose of exploring and laying open to the world the interior geography of the continent. An eyewitness to these interesting conferences between La Salle and Tonty relates that the former maintained “his ordinary coolness and self‐possession. Any one but him would have renounced and abandoned the enterprise; but, far from that, by a firmness of mind and an almost unequalled constancy, I saw him more resolute than ever to continue his work and to carry out his discovery.”(160)
As already mentioned, Father Hennepin had been commissioned by the captain to explore, with his selected companions, the Upper Mississippi, probably the last aspiration of La Salle after the discovery of the northwest passage to the China Sea. Proceeding down the Illinois to its mouth, Father Hennepin directed his canoe up the unexplored stream, and on the eleventh day he and his companions were near the Wisconsin River. Turning up this river, they proceeded nineteen days, when the grand cataract burst for the first time upon the view of Europeans.
“It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight, And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight.”
It was called “The Falls of St. Anthony” in honor of the holy founder of the order of the Recollects. Falling in with the Sieur Du Luth, the two parties, nine in number, rambled and messed together till the end of September, 1680, when they all set out for Canada. Father Hennepin sailed from Quebec to France, where he published, in 1684, an account of his travels and discoveries. Thirteen years after this, and ten after the death of La Salle, he published his New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, between New Mexico and the Frozen Ocean, in which the love of the marvellous is regarded by historians as having far transcended the limits of authentic and trustworthy narrative, and as conflicting with the recognized and just pretensions of La Salle.
Upon his return to Fort Frontenac La Salle lost no time in preparing for another effort. He arranged his affairs with his creditors, pledged Fort Frontenac and the adjacent lands and trading privileges for his future expenses, and enlisted forces for his expedition. On the 28th of August, 1681, the company set out in canoes from the head of the Niagara River, and on the third of November they had arrived at the Miami. The constant and ever‐faithful Tonty and the good Father Membré accompanied the expedition, which consisted of fifty‐four persons, of whom twenty‐three were Frenchmen, eighteen Abnakis or Loup Indians, ten Indian women whom the Indians insisted should go along in order to do their cooking, and three children. Six weeks were consumed at the Miami in making the necessary arrangements. The Sieur Tonty and Father Membré proceeded with nearly the entire company along the southern border of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Chicago River, dragging their canoes, baggage, and provisions for about eighty leagues over the frozen waters of the Illinois on sledges prepared by the indefatigable Tonty. La Salle travelled on foot from the Miami River, and joined the company on the 4th of January, 1682. They continued their journey in the same way up the Chicago to Lake Peoria, where the canoes were carried upon the waters, and on the 6th of February the great river, then called the “Colbert,” received its explorers safely upon its waves. They were detained by the floating ice till about the 19th, when the flotilla commenced its eventful voyage. On the same day, six leagues lower down, they passed the mouth of the Missouri, then called the Osage. They stopped at a deserted village of the Tamaroas Indians, whose people were absent on the chase, and then slowly passed on for forty leagues till they reached the Ohio, stopping frequently on the route to replenish their stock of provisions by hunting and fishing. Leaving the Ohio, they passed through one hundred and twenty miles of low, marshy river, full of thick foam, rushes, and walnut‐trees, till, on the 26th of February, they came to Chickasaw Bluffs, where they rested. Here a fort was built and called Fort Prudhomme, in memory of Peter Prudhomme, one of their companions, who was lost while hunting in the woods, supposed to have been killed or carried off by a party of Indians, whose trail was discovered near by. Afterwards, by the untiring and determined efforts of La Salle, and after nine days scouring the country, Prudhomme was found and restored to his companions; but the fort long retained his name. Proceeding about a hundred miles, they heard the sound of drums and the echo of war‐cries, and soon they came abreast of the villages of the Arkansas Indians, whose inhabitants were informed at one and the same time that the strangers were prepared for war—as was evidenced by the erection of a redoubt upon the shore; or for peace—as was manifested by their extending the calumet of peace. They found the Indians peaceable and friendly, and here our voyagers stopped to rest. Two weeks were spent amongst these gay, open‐hearted, and gentle natives in smoking the calumet, partaking of feasts, and obtaining Indian corn, beans, flour, and various kinds of fruits, for which they repaid their entertainers with presents which, however trifling, pleased their fancy much. Father Membré erected a cross, around which the natives assembled; and though he could not speak their language, he succeeded in acquainting them with the existence of the true God and some of the mysteries of the true faith. The Indians seemed to appreciate all he said, for they raised their eyes to heaven and fell upon their knees in adoration; they rubbed their hands upon the cross, and then all over their own bodies, as if to communicate its holiness to themselves; and, on the return voyage, the missionary found that they had protected the cross by a palisade. La Salle also took possession of the country with great ceremony in behalf of France, and erected the arms of the king, at which the Indians expressed great pleasure.
On the 17th they proceeded on their route, and were received and entertained most hospitably at another village of the same Akansas nation. On the 20th they arrived at a small lake formed by the waters of the Mississippi, on the opposite side of which they found a gentle tribe of Indians, far more civilized than any they had yet met, whose sovereign ruled over his people with regal ceremony, whose houses were built with walls and cane roofs, were adorned with native paintings, and furnished with wooden beds and other domestic comforts. Their temples were ornamented, and served as sepulchres for their departed chiefs. La Salle being too fatigued to visit this interesting people, he sent the Sieur Tonty and Father Membré on an embassy to the king, to whom they carried presents, and who received them with great ceremony. The king next returned the compliment by a visit to the commander, sending his master of ceremonies and heralds before him, and coming two hours afterwards himself, preceded by two men carrying fans of white feathers, himself dressed in a white robe beautifully woven of the bark of trees, with a canopy over his head, and attended by a royal retinue. The king’s demeanor during the interview was grave but frank and friendly. Resuming their route on the 26th of March, thirty or forty miles below this they came among the Natchez Indians, whose village La Salle, with some of his companions, visited by invitation, sleeping there that night and receiving hospitality. A cross was erected here, too, to which were attached the arms of France, signifying that thereby they took possession of the country in the name of their sovereign. The Holy Mass was also offered, and the company received the Blessed Sacrament. They next visited the village of Koroa, and then, advancing over a hundred miles, on the 2d of April they came to the country of the Quinipissas, a belligerent tribe, who answered a proposal to smoke the calumet of peace by a shower of arrows. But having no object to attain by difficulties with the natives, La Salle passed on to the village of the Tangiboas, three of whose deserted cabins he saw full of the bodies of Indians who, fifteen or sixteen days before, had fallen victims in an engagement in which the village was sacked and pillaged. Speaking of La Salle while thus descending the great river, Bancroft writes: “His sagacious eye discerned the magnificent resources of the country. As he floated down its flood; as he framed a cabin on the first Chickasaw bluff; as he raised the cross by the Arkansas; as he planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, he anticipated the future affluence of the emigrants, and heard in the distance the footsteps of the advancing multitude that were coming to take possession of the valley.”
To Be Concluded Next Month.
Birth‐Days
“WHO ARE JUST BORN, BEING DEAD.”
Who weeps when love, a cradled babe, is born? Rather we bring frankincense, myrrh, and gold, While softest welcomes from our lips are rolled To meet the dawning fragrance of a morn Of checkered being. Even while the thorn Keeps pace with rosy graces that unfold, Do we with rapture cry, “Behold, behold, A heaven‐dropped flower our garden to adorn!” And yet when from our darling fall the years As from the rose the shrivelled petals rain, And into newer life the soul again Springs thornless to the air of purer spheres, So blinded are we by our bitter pain We greet the sweeter birth with selfish tears.
The Future Of The Russian Church.
By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.
II.—Continued.
Let it only be borne in mind what are those things which are required of her members by the faith and discipline of the Orthodox Church, and it will be granted us, at least face to face with unbelief, that her priests need something more than the ordinary respectability of a worthy man, an obedient subject of his sovereign, a good father of a family, faithful to his wife and devoted to his children.(161)
This something more is possessed by the Catholic Church. The Russian Church has lost it. Whatever may be thought of the ecclesiastical law on the celibacy of the priesthood, we think it cannot be denied that a priest, living as an angel upon earth, exercises an influence which is always lacking to a married priest. This “magnetism of purity,” as it has been called, has inspired one of the noblest odes of the great English poet, Tennyson;(162) and they who in good faith argue against sacerdotal celibacy do so because, in their opinion, the purity required by the Catholic Church is a virtue too celestial to be met with here below; thus reasoning as did that Jew who, after reading a treatise on the Holy Eucharist by the Abbé Martinet,(163) said to us, “This cannot be true, because it would be too beautiful!” Those who reason as did this Jew conclude too easily from difficulty—what virtue is not difficult?—to impossibility? We do not undertake to convince those who have not faith, and who refuse to allow the efficacy of supernatural means; for the task would be a hopeless one. But if they have faith, we will submit to them the following consideration, which will not be without some weight.
And this is that the Catholic Church earnestly invites all her priests to celebrate daily the holy Mass, and makes it their strict duty to recite every day, with attention and piety, the divine Office. In undertaking the defence of the Russian clergy M. Schédo‐Ferroti says: “Hypocrisy is a vice unknown among them, their piety being of a genuine stamp, and only giving outward expression to the sentiment which is really felt—namely, a belief in the sanctifying virtues of the ceremonies which they are called to perform.”(164) Let it, then, be permitted to us also to express here our firm belief in the sanctifying virtue of the Mass and the divine Office. The Holy Eucharist is called in Scripture _frumentum electorum et vinum __ germinans virgins_—“the wheat of the elect and the wine which makes virgins spring forth” (Zach. ix. 17). With regard to the divine Office, it is the prayer par excellence of the church. As the Lord’s Prayer, taught and recommended by Jesus Christ himself, has a power which is special to it, and a particular efficacy, so also is a sanctifying virtue attached to a prayer chosen and placed daily on our lips by the church. The Mass and the divine Office, in a manner, force the priest to have always about him some thoughts of heaven. If vanity or worldly seductions acquire over him a momentary ascendency, the Mass and the divine Office recall him to those salutary truths which never change.
We will not dwell longer on this point; the reader will be well able to make its practical application. We will only now add that, if to have been capable of an act of great generosity is a title to indulgence for many defects; if the remembrance of an heroic action in favor of one’s country or of humanity surrounds with an aureola of glory the whole existence of him who has performed it; and if, in short, people hesitate to pronounce sentence against him, even when he has deserved blame, let it also be remembered that every Catholic priest, whoever he may be, has accomplished, at least once in his life, an act of the greatest generosity. He has sworn, on being admitted into Holy Orders, to renounce every affection which, by dividing his heart, could hinder him from devoting himself solely and without reserve for the good of souls; and solely with that intent has he voluntarily chosen the path of self‐denial and of conflicts which are the consequences of his generosity. This being considered, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a certain influence is invariably exercised by the Catholic priest who is faithful to his duties, even if his learning and education be defective.
Now, this influence, doubly necessary in Russia, on account of the social inferiority of the orthodox clergy, is entirely wanting to all that portion of the clergy which is in contact with the people;(165) and the fatal consequences of this want will make themselves especially felt in that day when nothing shall be unimportant that can help to keep alive faith in the Russian people.
And this is not all. In the poem alluded to above Tennyson puts these words into the mouth of his hero, the virgin‐knight:
“My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.”(166)
He who thus reveals to us the intimate relation existing between purity and strength is not a Catholic. If we had expressed the same thought as originating from ourselves, we might have been charged with mysticism; this is why we have quoted the great poet. He would not fear being called upon to justify his thought; let him therefore be the one attacked.
But whatever may be the weight which experience gives to this thought of Tennyson’s, there is no need to wait for the time when the Russian clergy shall be waging war against unbelief, to judge of the strength they are likely to have for the combat. In a chapter devoted to revelations of the state of the “orthodox” clergy, M. Schédo‐Ferroti takes praiseworthy pains to exhibit their good qualities. “I have found,” he writes, “with some regrettable exceptions, that the Russian priest possessed two valuable and truly Christian qualities, the frequency of which constitutes in some sort a characteristic feature of the class. The Russian priest is pious without any ostentation, and he is gifted with a wonderful faculty for supporting misfortune, under whatever form it may overtake him.”(167) We have already made some observations on the first of these two qualities, and will now do the same for the second.
To be endowed with a marvellous power of supporting misfortune—what better preparation, apparently, could there be for supporting the struggle of the future? It is to patience that our Lord Jesus Christ promises the possession of our souls for a happy eternity when he says: In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras—“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 19). These divine words, alas! cannot in any way find their application in the patience of the Russian clergy. The patience whereof our Lord speaks is that which fills and sustains the soul, and which places in our mouths words whose wisdom puts our adversaries to silence.
This explanation is not our own; it is that of Jesus Christ himself. “They will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name’s sake: and it shall happen to you for a testimony. Lay it up, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before, how you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but a hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 12‐19). The patience here described corresponds exactly with the patience of which the Catholic bishops and priests of Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere are offering us at this very time so edifying and admirable an example.
The patience taught by our Lord, then, is not wanting to the Catholic clergy; can we hope to find it in the Russian clergy in the day when orthodoxy shall be threatened? Let us well consider the words of our Lord which we have just quoted, bearing in mind the energetic spirit which they suppose, and let us then compare them with the following words of the most devoted advocate of the orthodox clergy in Russia: “This readiness to bear, without murmuring, the sudden reverses of fortune,” says Schédo‐ Ferroti, “this spontaneous submission to the decrees of Providence, is too Christian a virtue to allow us to refuse it the admiration which it deserves; but it seems to us that the combination of circumstances which has contributed to develop in the Russian clergy this mute resignation has also exercised a depressing influence upon their moral strength, in paralyzing the powers of their will by rendering its free exercise utterly and invariably impossible. It is the natural consequence of excessive suffering, whether physical or moral, to end in the enervation of the patient, by depriving him of the faculty of action, by destroying all his energy, and leaving him destitute even of any belief in his own strength; allowing him to remain in possession of but one single conviction, that of his powerlessness to struggle against fate—a conviction that finds its expression in this mute and absolute resignation which we find in the lower Russian clergy.”(168)
Poor Russian clergy! They are all that they can be expected to be, considering what the czars have made them. The sufferings of the Russian priest are not forgotten by God, neither does he forget his resignation. Far from desiring to cast a stone at him, we gladly point out all that we can find in his favor. Reduced to such a degree of indigence that he is compelled to maintain himself by laboriously toiling in the fields, the pressing needs of life bow down not only his brow, but his soul also, towards the earth. What right have we to expect that he can devote to the interests of souls the time and thought imperiously demanded by the daily necessities of his own existence? And even could he forget himself, and in self‐devotion taste the sublime joy of sacrifice, he is not alone; and will his wife and children also become so many victims of his zeal for souls?
This feebleness, this helplessness, these bonds—these are the very things which many would desire to see also in the militant ranks of the Catholic Church. “But wherefore, then, is it,” asks the church, in pointing out the armies of this world, “that the secular governments will that the soldiers called to defend their country should be alone and free?”(169)
But if to be single and free is an element of strength lacking to the Russian priest, already by long habituation to suffering and slavery reduced to the state of which so striking a picture is drawn by Schédo‐ Ferroti, another support is also wanting to him, the power of which is evident in the Catholic clergy. In our day, and under our very eyes, every circumstance concurs to encourage apostasy among the latter. Priests who fail in their duty gain the favor of governments, a considerable portion of the press, the secure perspective of honors and offices; they are proclaimed the only honest, the only true ministers of Jesus Christ, who alone comprehend his interests or succeed in causing him to be loved by souls. In all this there is something seductive, not only for the ambitious and such as would free themselves from the severe discipline of the church, but for those also who, in presence of the ravages which unbelief is making, persuade themselves—not with much humility—that if the church would act according to their ideas, the interests of God would be better secured. In spite of all these things, the number of apostates is a mere nothing when we take into consideration the number of Catholic priests. Did those who have undertaken to make war against Catholicity expect this check?—which, we remark in passing, witnesses plainly against the alleged prevalence of abuses. Have they well calculated the forces of the enemy which they flattered themselves they were about to annihilate? Unless we are mistaken, they think that its strength is the same in the present day as it was in the time of Luther, and that, if whole nations were then withdrawn from the church, there is no reason why they should not be so now. But the Protestantism of those days allowed a true faith in God, in Providence, in Jesus Christ, and retained a baptism in every respect valid. It is allowable to believe that if God has permitted that whole nations should be snatched from the immediate care of the church, his providence will keep them from ever falling back into the state in which they were before the redemption; though this is the logical result of modern Protestantism. Besides, the social and political situation of Europe, the habits of the various nations, and especially the difficulty of communication, then permitted sovereigns to raise, as it were, so many walls of China round the confines of their states. They could at that time isolate their subjects, and only allow them just so much intercommunication with the rest of the world as they might choose to consider suitable to the interests of the state. If thought itself could not be chained, its manifestations at least could be circumscribed or stifled. This is no longer possible in the present day; a pamphlet, a journal, a speech in parliament, even to a simple word of a bishop, can now, from the other end of the world, trouble the repose and disturb the plans of a powerful conqueror. For thought there are no longer any barriers possible, nor yet police; and thought makes revolutions.
Now, amongst the thoughts which escape the vigilance of all police, and which pass through every barrier, there is also that of the constancy which, in no matter what period of the existence of the Catholic Church, is shown by men living under different climates, ruled by various institutions, but brothers in the faith. If to bear the same name, to be born on the same soil, and to speak the same tongue, creates bonds so powerful and so devoted a defence of common interests, fraternity in the Catholic faith yields the palm in nothing to any other fraternity whatsoever for the powerfulness of its effects. The humble curé of a poor parish hidden among the gorges of the mountains learns that a priest in a distant land has been imprisoned for refusing to betray his conscience. He is moved by the tidings, and takes a lively interest in the fate of the priest, following anxiously in his journal the narrative of the struggles of this confessor of the faith. During this time, without his being aware of it, a salutary work has been going on in his mind. Soon afterwards he finds himself in the same case—namely, of being called upon to suffer for the performance of those duties which his quality of priest imposes upon him. His adversaries, judging him by the gentleness of his language and his life, expect to intimidate him by a word; but, to their amazement, they find in him the firmness of an apostle. From whence did he gain this courage? They know not, neither does he; that which impressed his soul and prepared it for the conflict was nothing else than the story of the sufferings of his brother in the faith and in the priesthood, in a distant and foreign land.
Well, then, this sustaining thought which supports the Catholic priest by making him feel himself a member of that family which is as vast as the world and a brother in the faith with martyrs—this support will be wanting to the Russian clergy when upon it alone will depend the fate of orthodoxy. The Russian priest, who, not being alone, will have need of a courage so much the greater as there are beings dear to him whose existence is bound up with his own, will seek examples to encourage him; but will he find them? The same causes which have produced the mute resignation spoken of by Schédo‐Ferroti authorize us to think that the Russian clergy will not have its martyrs, or, if there should be some, that their number will be too small to counterbalance the example of the general feebleness. And yet here again we will undertake the defence of the Russian clergy; for who, in fact, could require an act of heroism of a man “enervated by excess of moral and physical sufferings, deprived of the faculty of action, and not only possessing no longer any energy, but having also lost all belief in his own powers”? Now, this is, word for word, the condition of the Russian priest, as depicted by his most zealous defender.
“But,” it may be said, “the Orthodox Church is not confined to Russia; the orthodox priest will find brethren in Austria, in Roumania, in Turkey, and in Greece.” This is true; but it is not enough to find brothers only. The Russian priest will need brother‐martyrs; and where will he find them?
Besides, strange to say, the various branches of the Orthodox Church live almost strangers to each other, unless some political interest awaken the sentiment of fraternity in their common faith. Without entering into details on this point, we will only make one remark. It is easy to find several histories of the different branches, taken separately; but is it so easy to find an universal history of the Orthodox Church?(170) In Catholic countries the reverse of this is always the case; it is, comparatively, difficult to meet with particular histories of the Catholic Church in France, in Italy, in Germany, etc.; but everywhere is found and taught the universal history of the Catholic Church—a history in which that of a nation, however great or powerful, figures, if not as an episode, certainly as but a simple portion, a contingent part, of a necessary whole.
We one day read in an English journal that has a wide circulation the following remark: “A church which counts among its members men like Archbishop Manning and Dr. Newman is a church which is not to be despised.” English common sense thus did justice to the “coal‐heavers’ faith,” as people are pleased to call the adhesion of Catholics to the doctrines proposed to them by their church. In fact—to speak only of the last named of these two personages—the author of the Grammar of Assent does not yield in intellectual power to any of his Anglican adversaries; from whence we may infer, by a series of logical deductions, that neither does he yield in this to any of the adversaries of the Catholic Church. To speak plainly, we have never perceived that these adversaries have shown any alarming degree of intelligence, at least with regard to the application of the rules of logic. In any case, as, since Porphyry and Celsus, men have never been wanting who have represented the faith propounded by the Catholic Church as an abdication of reason, so also, since Justin and the first Christian philosophers, the church has never lacked doctors who, in defending her, have at the same time been the defenders of reason. The apostolate of learning is not less fruitful, perhaps, than that of virtue and of martyrdom. Without pronouncing upon the relative necessity and advantages of these three apostolates, nor examining whether it is possible to exercise a true apostolate by learning unaided by self‐denial and virtue, nor even doing more than call to mind how God in the Old Law, and the church in the New, have always made learning a part of the duty of a priest, we will confine ourselves to remarking that many souls are led to embrace the faith, and others, tempted to doubt, are quieted and confirmed, by a simple reflection analogous to that of the English journal just quoted. “A faith,” they say, “professed by minds so much above the ordinary class as such and such a writer ought not to be lightly rejected.” It is a preliminary argument of which the effects are salutary, and grace does the rest.
If we now take into account all that eighteen centuries and innumerable writers of all lands have accumulated in the way of proofs and testimonies in favor of the Catholic faith; and if we at the same time consider the immense variety and the infinitely‐multiplied forms of error, each in its turn combated by the church, we shall comprehend that it is scarcely possible to imagine any error of which the refutation has not already somewhere appeared. In the same way the struggle still goes on in all parts of the globe, and among peoples who have advanced, some more, some less, in learning and civilization; in all parts of the globe the defence also continues, and by men brought up among the same surroundings as their adversaries. In short, Catholic productions are not the exclusive appanage of any single diocese, any single country, any single nation; they are the family treasures, belonging to the whole Catholic Church. Facility of communication brings us, together with their names, the works of those who are waging war against various errors in various lands. To take time, to enquire, to make some researches—this is the worst that could happen to a Catholic priest who might find himself, for the moment, unable to solve an objection. But the objection is already solved, even if it be drawn from some scientific discovery of yesterday, if indeed (as it often happens) it cannot be solved at once by the simple use of common sense, and especially of logic, the most necessary of sciences, and the least studied of all.
Thus we see what happens in the Catholic Church, and we see, therefore, why it is that in those countries where formerly the clergy may have been at times taken by surprise, and not well prepared to meet a sudden adversary, they now struggle bravely; and also we see why earnest Catholics have been able without difficulty to distinguish between true and false progress, and between true science and false.
Will it be the same in Russia?
We do not wish to exaggerate anything, and will even admit that the complaints which are so general of the ignorance of the Russian clergy may be much overstated. Nevertheless, in looking through the bibliography of that country, we find ourselves forced to acknowledge that whenever the day shall arrive for unbelief to have free course there, decorated with the seductive appellations of science, of progress, of the emancipation of reason, etc., the Russian clergy will either find themselves without arms wherewith to defend orthodoxy, or with such only as shall prove insufficient.
In fact, the reader is perhaps not aware that, from the year 1701, Peter the Great had been obliged (according to Voltaire) to forbid the use of pen and ink to monks. “It required,” says the apostle of science, “an express permission from the archimandrite, who was responsible for those to whom he granted it. Peter willed that this ordinance should continue.”(171) The successors of Peter likewise willed the same, although we do not venture to affirm that the ordinance is still observed. Let us, then, be just, and refrain from blaming the Russian monks. If, since the time of Peter the Great, they have not extraordinarily enriched the literature of their country, the fault is none of theirs.
Neither have we any right to blame the secular Russian clergy if few writers have appeared among them, nor yet any one of those whose name alone exercises an apostolate. All the Russians who have written on the ecclesiastical schools of their country are unwearied in their complaints against the badness of the method and the insufficiency of instruction which the young Russian levite takes with him on leaving the seminary.(172) We do not in any way accuse the commissions charged with the inspection and reformation of the ecclesiastical schools. We are convinced that these commissions have done their best; if the evil still continues as before, it is because they have not the power to touch its root. Besides, how can it be expected that a priest, poor, burdened with a family, and in very many cases necessitated to maintain himself and his family by the work of his hands, can either have the necessary freedom of mind or sufficient leisure to devote himself to study?
It remains for us to consider the bishops. These are taken from the monastic orders, and if, since Peter I., all of them have not been archimandrites, yet to all has, at any rate, been granted by the archimandrite, of their convent, at his own risk and peril, the use of pen and ink. Of the two hundred and eighty ecclesiastical writers who have appeared and died in Russia from the conversion of that country to Christianity down to the year 1827, and whose biographies may be found in the Dictionary of Mgr. Eugenius, Metropolitan of Kief,(173) one hundred and ten belonged to the episcopate; and ever since 1827 that episcopate has continued to reckon among its members men remarkable for their learning. Everything, however, is relative. These bishops have shone in Russia; and there has been a desire to make them shine as far as France by translating into French the Orthodox Theology of Mgr. Macarius, Bishop of Vinnitsa; a collection of Sermons, by the late Mgr. Philarete, Metropolitan of Moscow; and perhaps some other works. It is also to be supposed that some care must have been shown in selecting from amongst the productions of ecclesiastical literature in Russia, the best there were to be found of what she possessed. Without criticising, we think there is reason for saying that hitherto the Russian episcopate has not by its writings furnished orthodoxy with a support proportioned to the dangers with which it is threatened, and we doubt very much whether it will be equal to furnishing her with it very quickly. The Russian prelates renowned for their learning are but few in number; besides, so long as the faith and the church are protected by the Penal Code, and judicial prosecution would be the consequence of any attack, neither priests nor bishops have much chance of finding themselves face to face with any adversaries of importance. The latter, in fact, would be exceedingly careful to avoid the men who could denounce them; and the result of this is that, for want of exercise, neither the bishops nor priests can state what is either their strength or their weakness. To this we must add the thousand hindrances placed by Russian censorship to the manifestation of religious thought. There is nothing, even to the sermon preached by the pope in his parish, which must not be submitted to censure.(174) As for pastoral letters of bishops, we should be very glad if any could be quoted to us. The formalities and delays which accompany the revision and approbation of every work destined to appear in print are of a nature to discourage the most intrepid. The examination of all the ecclesiastical productions destined to appear in the immense empire of the czars is confided to the committees of the four ecclesiastical academies of Kief, Kasan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. If no exceptions were allowed, at any rate in favor of periodical works, the complaint of Jeremias might be truly applied to Russia: Parvuli petierunt panem, et non erat, qui frangeret eis—“The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it for them” (Lament. Jer. iv. 4). Finally, we will not stop to consider the manner in which ecclesiastical censorship is exercised in Russia, nor yet its tendencies nor its object; but we say, to single out one point only, that it is impossible to find in all Russia a single work that is able to throw any light upon the reciprocal relations of the church and state. More than one reader will join us in acknowledging that in Russia a true, apologetic literature has yet to be created.
To complete the picture of that which will inevitably take place in Russia on the day when the Orthodox Church shall there lose the support of the Penal Code, and will have to struggle alone, and abandoned to her own strength against heresy and unbelief, we ought to observe that, since the general confiscation of the goods of the clergy which was effected under Catherine II. (1762), the Russian Church has no longer anything to supply its needs but that which is allowed it by the state. It is the state which provides for the keeping up of churches and monasteries; the state which furnishes the expenses of the orthodox worship, and which assigns to the ministers of that worship the piece of land from which they must find a maintenance for themselves and their families, or else which supplies them with a salary proportioned to the functions they are to exercise. It is not, after all, impossible that, in the day of which we speak, the state, while continuing to retain a budget for the orthodox worship, may nevertheless extraordinarily reduce it; and also it is not impossible that conditions which cannot be conscientiously accepted will be attached to the payment of the salary, already so moderate, of the ministers of this church. In either case, more even than to combat heresy and unbelief, it will be necessary for the Russian Church to consider how her priests and their families are to find bread and shelter. Now, the only classes which can then effectively help them—are they not the same which at this day show so great a contempt for their popes?
And this is not yet all. In the day of which we speak who will secure to the bishops the obedience of the secular clergy? This clergy trembles now before them, because it sees them armed by the law with a despotic power;(175) but no one can foresee what will happen in the day when popes and bishops shall be equal before the law. The bishops being all drawn from the monastic state, the result has been that hitherto the secular clergy have lived in subjection to the regular; and this fact, united to other causes, has created a powerful antagonism between these two orders of the clergy, which not unfrequently betrays itself by venomous writings. One portion of the press makes common cause with the secular clergy; and, if we may judge by certain tendencies, the admission of the secular clergy to the episcopate will probably be one of the consequences of the changes that will take place in the relations between the church and state. But it is not possible that this change can be peaceably effected; the disorders which, at times, arise in the application of the principle of universal suffrage, show, in some degree, how, in this case, various elections of bishops would be brought about. And then, in the confusion and wild disorder of conflict, where would be found the authority which could have power to settle these differences and claim for itself adhesion and respect? The bishops, moreover, who or a century and a half have all been equal before the czar, and only distinguished by the titles and decorations granted or refused according to the good pleasure of the monarch—will these submit themselves to an archbishop, to a metropolitan, to a patriarch—in a word, to one from amongst themselves? Will they, for the love of concord, invest him with a superior authority, and obey him? And were they to reach this point, would not St. Petersburg contest the primacy with Moscow? And would Kief forget her canonical jurisdiction of former times?
Yet more, would not Constantinople vindicate any right over Russia? And the other Oriental patriarchs—would they forget that their concurrence was formerly sought for the erection of the patriarchate of Moscow, and their approbation to sanction the establishment of the Synod?
We may thus, in its principal features, behold the state to which the czars have reduced the faith and the church of which they entitle themselves the guardians. The picture is a gloomy one; nevertheless, we do not believe that we have exaggerated anything. Before proceeding further we would even say a word of excuse for the czars.
If the Catholic Church were not built upon a rock, proof against all tempests, many a Catholic sovereign designated by appellations indicative of the highest degree of attachment to the church would long ago have reduced her to the same condition as the church of the czars.
To Be Continued.
The Bells Of Prayer
During the prevalence of the great plague at Milan, “at the break of day, at noon, and at night a bell of the cathedral gave the signal for reciting certain prayers which had been ordered by the archbishop, and this was followed by the bells of the other churches. Then persons were seen at the windows, and a confused blending of voices and groans was heard which inspired sorrow, not, however, unmixed with consolation.”
Stern Death, the tyrant, had swept along With trailing robes through the dusty mart. And laid his hand, that is white and chill, On the city’s heart.
The Lombard City of olden ways Over its sorrow and wild despair A cry sent up to the unseen Throne In an earnest prayer.
A lord that is dead as a peasant is, And a peasant dead is as a lord; The angel stood at the city’s gate With his lifted sword!
The tongues of bells in the steeple‐tops Sent on the breath of the baleful air A call for the people far and near To evening prayer.
At the sound of bells the weeping ceased, The heart of the thousand stilled its moan, The name of God was uttered aloud With the bells’ sad tone.
And the gleaming crosses pointing up, Like the gold of crowns that princes wear, Seemed in the gray of the changeless sky As signs of prayer.
And the women’s eyes were wet with tears, Their desolate souls were wrung with pain, For the dead asleep in their silent graves Through the sun and rain.
In the dawn and noon and dusk it rose, Threading its way up the narrow stair— The Catholic cry—when the bells were rung For the people’s prayer.
New Publications.
THE PRISONERS OF THE TEMPLE; OR DISCROWNED AND CROWNED. by M. C. O’Connor Morris. (Eleventh volume of Father Coleridge’s Quarterly Series.) London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is a republication with additions of papers from that excellent magazine, The Month, which is especially valuable for its historical articles. It gives an account of the imprisonment of Louis XVI. and his family in the old tower of the Templars, together with sketches of other parts of the history of that noble and unfortunate group of victims to atheistic and revolutionary fury. The chief interest centres in the history of Louis XVII., commonly called the Dauphin. The tragic tale of his horrible sufferings and death is minutely told. At the end of the volume we have a report of the judgment in the famous case of the Naundorffs, who pretended to be the heirs of the Dauphin. This is one of the many tales of an escape of the Dauphin from the Temple and the substitution of another child in his place. The utter falsity of all these stories is amply proved, pretenders and prophets to the contrary notwithstanding. Whoever looks to the branch of the Capets for the deliverance of France must find him in the Count de Chambord. We cannot too warmly recommend this charming and pathetic narrative to all our readers.
MEDITATIONS ON THE LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST. By Nicholas Avancinus, S.J. Translated from the German Edition of the Rev. J. E. Zollner, by F. E. Bazalgette. With a Preface on Meditation, by George Potter, S.J. 2 vols. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
The Meditations of Avancinus were specially adapted to the use of religious. The German editor modified them for the use of all persons indiscriminately. They are prepared for every day in the year, are short, simple, and well fitted for use, both in community and in private.
THE NOBLEMAN OF ’89. By M. A. Quinton. Translated by Prof. Ernest Lagarde, of Mt. St. Mary’s College. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1874.
Some of our readers have doubtless read the Quatre‐Vingt‐Treize of that great magician of language and fiery genius of revolution, Victor Hugo. It is an apology for the French Revolution; yet, to any person whose mind and heart are not already corrupted by bad principles and passions, it must seem like an apology which makes the crime worse and less excusable. The romances of Erckmann‐Chatrian are more subtle and plausible. One or two of them are, if taken singly, quite inoffensive, and a translation of them was some time ago given in our own pages on account of their vivid illustration of most interesting historical epochs. A contributor, quite unsuspectingly, even proposed to translate them all, and the necessity of reading the whole set before accepting the proposition, first opened our eyes to the scope and object which their authors have always had in view, and which is exposed in some very plainly; as, for instance, in Waterloo, the sequel to The Conscript. The end of these writers is to extend and popularize hatred of the church, the clergy, and the classes enjoying wealth or power in the state; to foster the spirit of liberalism either in its extreme or moderate form, and thus to help on the revolution. The influence of such books teaches us a valuable lesson concerning the polemic strategy to be employed on the opposite side. Historical romances have an extraordinary charm for a multitude of readers, and they can be made the vehicle of conveying historical knowledge together with the valuable lessons which history teaches. In order that they may perfectly fulfil their highest purpose, they should present true, authentic history, using fiction merely as an accessory. M. Quinton has done this, and has given a correct and vivid historical sketch of one period in the French Revolution, which is included in the plot of a novel of genuine dramatic power and descriptive ability. Its size is very considerable, making a volume of eight hundred pages, closely printed in quite small type. Fearful as the scenes are through which we are hurried in following the adventures of the persons figuring in the story, we are not left without some compensation and alleviation in the episodes of quiet life which relieve its tragic gloom. Some charming characters are portrayed, the best of which are three individuals of low station but high heroism—Louisette, Drake, and Cameo.
The characters of Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Philippe Egalité, and other leaders of the Revolution, are well portrayed. The author’s special success, however, is in describing the low ruffians who led the mob in the work of assassination. Maillefer, Lepitre, Boulloche, and Ratfoot are like Dante’s demons. We have never read anything more infernally horrible than the description of Aunt Magloire and the band of women who were trained to yell at the royal family. We recommend the perusal of this description most especially to the strong‐minded young ladies who are inclined to dabble in infidelity. In Mme. Roland they may see themselves as they are now; in Aunt Magloire and her frenzied band they may see where womanhood is brought by the abandonment of faith, when the lowest stage of degradation is reached.
The translator has done a great service to the public by putting this admirable historical novel into English. We take the liberty of recommending to him another one—M. Barthelemy’s Pierre le Peillarot. The multiplication of such books will go far to counteract the evil influence of those which falsify history and instil bad principles. We have vainly endeavored to persuade some of our publishers to undertake the translation of Conrad von Bolanden’s historical novels, which are far superior to the heavy productions of Mühlbach. If these latter, in spite of their dulness, obtained so extensive a circulation, why not the admirable works of Bolanden which depict the thrilling scenes of the Thirty Years’ War? A series of small, popular histories of certain important epochs is also very much wanted.
PURGATORY SURVEYED, ETC. Edited by W. H. Anderdon, S.J. Reprinted from the edition of 1663. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
The original of this treatise was written in French by Father Binet, S.J. As it now stands it is the work of Father Thimelby, S.J., who used the work of Father Binet as a basis for his own. It is quaint, rich, and in one respect more directly practical as a spiritual book than some other excellent treatises on the same subject, inasmuch as it shows the pious reader how to avoid purgatory.
LESSONS IN BIBLE HISTORY FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. By a Teacher. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.
Experienced teachers usually prepare the best school‐books. The compiler of these Bible lessons is a lady of remarkable talent, who has spent many years of most successful labor as a teacher in an academy for young ladies which deservedly enjoys the highest reputation. Her book is one which has been prepared during this long course of teaching, and thus practically tested, as well as continually improved. It is now published with the direct sanction of his Grace the Archbishop of New York, after a careful revision made under his authority. The author has not attempted to go into questions of difficult critical erudition in respect to chronology and similar matters, but has simply followed the commonly‐received interpretation of the text of Scripture history, where there is one, avoiding the difficulties and doubtful topics which beset the study of all ancient history, sacred as well as profane. In this respect she has shown uncommon tact and judgment, and has always kept in view her true object, which is to prepare a text‐book suitable for young pupils of from ten to fifteen years old. The style and method are admirable for brevity, clearness, and a graphic, picturesque grouping of events and characters. The delicacy with which every narrative, where immoral and criminal acts are involved, shuns the danger of shocking the innocent mind of children by contact with evil of which it is ignorant, is exquisite. The questions about morals which necessarily suggest themselves to the quick, inquisitive minds of children, and which the author has often had to answer in class, are solved prudently and correctly. The interval between the sacred history of the Old Testament and that of the New has been filled up from profane authors, particularly Josephus, which is a great addition to the value of the book, and throws light on the narrative of the Gospels that makes it much more intelligible. In the history of the life of Christ the words of the evangelists are for the most part employed, without other changes or additions than such as are necessary to make the narrative continuous. The parables are arranged by themselves in a series. A summary of the Acts of the Apostles concludes the work, which is of very moderate size and copiously illustrated by woodcuts. As a school‐book this is the best of its kind, in our opinion, and we expect to see it generally adopted in Catholic schools. We cannot too cordially recommend it to teachers and parents for their young pupils and for family reading. Many adults, also, will find it the best and most suitable compendium of Bible history for their own reading; and even if they are in the habit of reading the sacred books themselves in their complete text, this manual will aid them to gain a better understanding of their historical parts than they can otherwise obtain. We trust the good example set by the pious and accomplished author will be followed by many of her associates in the holy work of religious education, to the great advantage of both teachers and pupils. Thousands of lovely children whom she will never see this side of heaven will bless the hand that has prepared for them so much delightful instruction, even if their curiosity is never gratified by knowing her name.
EXCERPTA EX RITUALI ROMANO. NOVA ET AUCTIOR EDITIO. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet, et Soc. 1874.
This is a lovely little ritual, a very pretty present for any one to make to a priest, especially to one just sent out from the seminary to a poor and arduous country mission.
LETTERS OF MR. GLADSTONE AND OTHERS. New York: Tribune Office. 1874.
The London Tablet epigrammatically remarks that Mr. Gladstone kindled a fire on a Saturday which was put out on the following Monday. Mgr. Capel has very satisfactorily answered him. Every person not an ignoramus in theology and jurisprudence, knows that the Catholic Church teaches the derivation of the state from a divine institution immediately, and not mediately through the church; moreover, that she teaches what follows by logical sequence, the duty of allegiance to the state. No Christian, no moral philosopher, and no person holding the principles on which the American fabric of law is based, can hold that this allegiance is unlimited.
The New York Herald, remarkable both for extraordinary blunders and for extraordinarily just and sensible statements, has well said that there is a “higher law” recognized by every one who believes in the supremacy of conscience and duty to God. It is a very base and inconsistent thing for an American to profess a doctrine of blind, slavish obedience to civil magistrates and laws, however wicked these may be. The Catholic Church has always claimed to be the infallible judge in morals as well as in faith. The Pope has always exercised the supreme power of pronouncing the infallible judgments of the church, and the Vatican decrees have added nothing to that power. They have embodied the perpetual doctrine of the church in a solemn judgment with annexed penalties, as an article of Catholic faith; and, in consequence, whoever refuses obedience and assent to that judgment is ipso facto a heretic and excommunicated. It is therefore idle for Lord Acton and Lord Camoys, who have stained their nobility and their Catholic lineage by an act of treason and apostasy, to pretend to be Catholics. They are no more Catholics than is Mr. Gladstone, and the English Catholics have repudiated them and their doctrine with indignation. It is futile to pretend that the Pope claims any jure divino temporal power directly over states or citizens in their political capacity, or pretends to retain any jure humano sovereignty beyond his own kingdom. The reader will find the general subject of this notice discussed at greater length elsewhere in this number.
OUTLINES OF ASTRONOMY. By Arthur Searle, A.M., Assistant at Harvard College Observatory. 16mo, 415 pp. Boston: Ginn Brothers. 1874.
A new interest has within the past few years been given to the science of astronomy by the recent discoveries which have been made in it, principally by the use of the spectroscope and by the new field which has been opened and which is still opening before astronomers, of physical research into the construction of the celestial bodies. A short time ago the science seemed nearly as complete as it was ever likely to become; now, while retaining its old ground intact, it is rapidly developing new resources, and, besides being itself perfected, it is contributing no small share to the solution of the great problem of the day in purely physical science—the constitution of matter.
Many new and excellent works have, accordingly, as might be expected, lately appeared on the subject, called forth by the reawakened interest in it, both in the world at large and among scientific men. The book forming the subject of this notice is certainly one of the best of these.
It is not a mere condensed summary of what is known and has been discovered. Such summaries, of course, are of great utility, both for reference and as text‐books, and serve excellently in the latter way, if the object of the learner be to memorize for a time a large number of facts, or, in other words, to cram for an examination. They may serve, for students of good memories, even a permanent purpose; but they require close application, and labor under the difficulty—too often a fatal one—of not being interesting, unless helped out by startling representations of nebulæ, comets, clusters of stars, and other beautiful objects at which many people seem to suppose astronomers to spend their lives in idly gazing.
Fine writing, on the other hand, about the grandeur and magnificence of the celestial orbs, etc., is indeed often interesting; but, though edifying and useful in its way, it fails to instruct. One really knows little more after it than before.
This book has to a great extent, and perhaps as far as possible, avoided both of these difficulties, which usually stand in the way of people who wish to know something of astronomy, but not to become practical astronomers. It is more on the plan of Herschel’s treatise than of any other which we remember, but is, though this is saying a good deal, superior to it in two respects. One is, as is obvious, that it is brought up to the present state of the science; and the other, that in the first part the geometrical diagrams usually considered necessary are dispensed with, and supplied by ingenious popular illustrations borrowed from facts of daily life, and familiar to all, which attract, instead of terrifying, the reader. It is true that the fear which most people have of mathematics is to a great extent unreasonable; but allowance must be made, even for ill founded prejudices. Illustrations and explanations of this kind, for which the author has a remarkable talent, are a feature of the book throughout.
The last half of it is intended for those who have a real desire to understand the work which astronomers do, and how they have done it; the nature of the problems which they have to solve, and the means employed. It does not presuppose any really mathematical education; what geometry is needed is explained as it is required, and with a great deal of originality, as we may observe by the way. But to this branch of the subject there is no admission, except by Newton’s key of “patient thought.” Those who do not care to use it must dispense with the knowledge to which it opens the door. The chapter on the “History of Astronomy” is, however, easy reading, and much the best short sketch of the progress of the science of which we are aware.
The illustrations are excellent, not being copies on a traditional type, but taken from photographs or careful original drawings. A copious index, appended to the book, facilitates reference.
The work is mainly intended for the general reader; but there is no reason why it should not be a text‐book, especially for academies and colleges, as Sir John Herschel’s, already alluded to, has proved to be. We have no hesitation in recommending it for this purpose, and as being worthy to take the place of any now in use.
We regret that the words on page 384, expressing a mere hope in the existence, or at any rate in the providence, of God as the author of nature, should have been inserted. We have not noticed anything else in the book to which Catholics can object, unless it be the use of the word infinity in the sense common to Protestant authors, which is, in fact, the one ordinarily given to it by mathematicians.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS EXAMINED BY THE RULES OF EVIDENCE ADMINISTERED IN COURTS OF JUSTICE. By Simon Greenleaf, LL.D., late Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University, author of “Treatise on the Law of Evidence,” etc. New York: James Cockcroft & Co. 1874.
Prof. Greenleaf’s reputation as a writer on jurisprudence is too well known to need any comment from us. In bringing his judicial calmness and legal acumen to bear on the Christian evidences, he has conferred an obligation which all Christians must acknowledge. He writes as a Christian scholar should write, with learned gravity, yet with reverent simplicity; and as he believes the divinity of Our Lord, and raises no disputed point of doctrine, his work may be accepted as orthodox. It is in reading the productions of such minds as his that the really ephemeral character of works like Renan’s Life of Jesus is best appreciated. Renan holds a brief, and his arguments in support of it are only flowery and superficial rhetoric. Renan’s scenes are very dramatic—the apparition of our Lord to Magdalen, for instance, is worked up with great elaborateness of effect; but when he comes to face solid evidence, he fails most deplorably. Thus, in treating of Our Lord’s appearance to the apostles after his resurrection, and the conviction of the doubting Thomas, he merely says that at the first interview S. Thomas was not present, adding in a careless way: “It is said (on dit) that eight days afterward he was satisfied.” A cavalier way this of disposing of a most circumstantial piece of history!
This ample and elegant volume is a new edition of a work published, we believe, some thirty years ago, and now out of print. One of the best parts of the book is the Appendix, containing, among other things, M. Dupin’s “Refutation of Salvador’s Chapter on the Trial of Jesus.”
SINS OF THE TONGUE; OR, JEALOUSY IN WOMAN’S LIFE; followed by discourses on rash judgments, patience, and grace. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1874.
THE VALIANT WOMAN: A series of discourses intended for the use of women living in the world. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1874.
Two very practical books written by Mgr. Landriot, late Archbishop of Rheims, and translated from the French by Helena Lyons. After having passed through four editions in England, Mr. Donahoe presents them to us in an American dress for circulation and perusal in this country. The print is clear, the translation good, and the binding in keeping.
Both of these books will be found very useful to clergymen who have the spiritual direction of women living in the world, and will assist them in preparing sermons to decry those most mischievous of sins: envy, jealousy, rash judgments, and sloth.
Although these books were written for females, yet they will be very beneficial to many of the opposite sex, who are not unfrequently in great need of cultivating reserve and charity. The first one, particularly, may be read with advantage by some writers for the press, who seem to forget that calumny, detraction, and vituperation are mortal sins, which are even more aggravated when published to the world than when only privately indulged in, and that, moreover, they exact reparation.
ORDO DIVINI OFFICII RECITANDI MISSÆQUE CELEBRANDÆ, JUXTA RUBRICAS BREVIARII AC MISSALIS ROMANI, ANNO 1875. Baltimore: apud Fratres Lucas, Bibliopolas, via vulgo dicta Market, No. 170.
We beg pardon for having misquoted the title of this work. The title‐page contains the word “Rectandi,” which we have supposed to stand for “Recitandi,” and “Celebrande,” for which we have substituted “Celebrandæ.”
It would be well if the mistakes in this important publication were all on the title‐page, and if they were all merely misprints. We will, however, begin with these. The proofs do not seem to have been read at all.
The following, then, are some of the misprints. Feb. 4, “S. Andræ Corsini.” Feb. 10, “Dom. Possion.” Mar. 10, “A cunctus.” Mar. 20, “fucit heri” and “præsente Candav.” Mar. 28, “DOM. RESURECT.” This last is, if we remember rightly, an old acquaintance. Apr. 13, “S. Hemenegildi.” May 2, “S. Anthanasii.” May 5, “præsente caduv.” May 19, “S. Prudentianæ.” May 23, “Festum SS. Trinitatatis.” The superfluous “at” here has perhaps come out of “Matut.,” on June 8, which reads “Mut.” June 13, “Vesp.”
These will suffice as specimens of mere typographical errors. The following cannot be considered as such:
On January 16 we find the feast of S. Marcellinus. The Breviary has Marcellus. Similarly, on July 13, we have S. Anicetus for S. Anacletus.
The feast of S. John Nepomucen has disappeared altogether. Unless it has been suppressed, it should have the day to which that of S. Francis Caracciolo has been transferred. This requires the following changes:
June 15. For S. Francis Caracciolo read S. John Nepomucen.
June 17. For S. Ubaldus read S. Francis Caracciolo.
June 18. For S. Bernardine read S. Ubaldus.
June 22. For S. M. M. of Pazzi read S. Bernardine.
June 23. For the Vigil of S. John read S. M. M. of Pazzi.
The assigned feast of S. Leo comes, it would seem, this year, on July 3. Until now it has been on July 7. Moreover, we do not find it in the Breviary on the 27th of June, as stated this year, but rather on the 28th, as previously.
We must do the Ordo the justice to say that it has itself corrected one of its mistakes. It put in the feast of S. Justin on the 14th of April, and has inserted a slip saying that this is only for the Roman clergy.
Cannot we have a better Ordo next year? It has been getting worse and worse for some time. And if we have a change for the better, would it not be a good idea at the same time to separate the part peculiar to the Diocese of Baltimore entirely from the rest, for the convenience of the clergy? Since writing the above, our attention has been called to the omission of the anniversaries of consecration of some of our bishops.
There may be some other errors; it is not probable that we have noticed all.
REGLEMENT ECCLESIASTIQUE DE PIERRE LE GRAND. Par le R. P. C. Tondini, Barnabite. Paris: Libr. de la Soc. Bibliogr., 75 Rue du Bac. 1874.
F. Tondini has sent us two copies of this curious and valuable document, for which he will please accept our thanks. It contains the text of the Regulation in Russian, Latin, and French, with other pieces and notes, and is prefaced by an introduction. There is a great deal of political talent and skill exhibited in this code of the Russian Peter, which is the foundation upon which the modern schismatical Church of Russia is founded. There are also many things in it most whimsical and amusing. The Emperor Paul wanted to celebrate a Pontifical Mass in vestments of sky‐blue velvet. Peter did not care about performing any such childish escapade as this, but he was resolved to exercise the governing power of a supreme pontiff, and he carried his resolve into execution. The one salient feature of his regulation is the systematic effort to degrade the hierarchy and clergy of the Russian Church, to make them impotent and contemptible. The able despot, aided by his unscrupulous instruments, succeeded but too well. The ultimate result has been that Russia is worm‐ eaten and undermined by infidelity and its necessary concomitant, the revolutionary principle. There is no salvation for it, even politically, except in a return to obedience to the See of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. Our Episcopalian admirers of the Russian Church will find some wholesome reading in this interesting and learned work of F. Tondini.
SADLIERS’ CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1875. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
In the cursory glance we have been able to give this publication, we are glad to notice an evident effort to improve on the issues of previous years. We do not look for perfection in such difficult compilations, and anything approaching it is to be commended.
IERNE OF ARMORICA. By J. C. Bateman. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1874.
This work, reprinted from Father Coleridge’s admirable Quarterly Series, was noticed, at the time of its original publication, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for June, 1873. We have also received from the same house: Moore’s Irish Melodies, with memoir and notes by John Savage; Carleton’s Redmond Count O’Hanlon, The Evil Eye, and The Black Baronet; the latter reprints, we believe, of works heretofore published by Mr. Donahoe of Boston.
THE MILWAUKEE CATHOLIC MAGAZINE, January, 1875.
We welcome to our table this new contemporary, an octavo monthly of thirty‐two pages, just come to hand. The editor having beautified the churches and dwellings of his locality with the productions of his pencil and crayon, now takes up the pen professional; though he has heretofore made occasional contributions to the press, which have recently been put into book‐form. He brings to his task a refined, poetic taste, a genuine appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, and a sturdy good sense, which will doubtless serve him well in his new relations. We wish him all success.
ANNOUNCEMENT.—The Catholic Publication Society has in press, and will soon publish from advance sheets, two very important works in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s late pamphlet; one by the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D., and the other by His Grace Archbishop Manning. The former is entitled A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, on the occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s recent Expostulation, and the latter, The Vatican Decrees and their Bearings on Civil Allegiance.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XX., NO. 120.—MARCH, 1875
Italian Documents Of Freemasonry.
When Elias Ashmole and his literary friends amused their learned leisure at Brazenose in the construction of abstruse symbols and mystic jargon, that passed through their cavalier associates to the first Masonic lodges, they could never have foreseen the result of their invention. In less than two centuries the association that sprang from the union of a few Royalist officers in England, and accompanied the exile of King James’ followers to France, has spread itself over the two hemispheres, a mystery where it is not a terror. Its history has been written by many pens and in many colors. Some have ascribed to it an origin lost in fabulous antiquity, or traced its genealogy back a thousand years before the Christian era. To some it is an absurd system of innocent mystification, without any capacity for the good it promises, and powerless for the evil with which its intentions are credited. But others discern under its mantle of hypocrisy nothing less than a subtle organization for the destruction of all established order, and a diabolical conspiracy for the overthrow of religion. Between the two descriptions our choice is easily made. The voice of the Roman pontiffs, our guardians and our teachers, has been neither slow nor uncertain. Clement XII. and Benedict XIV., Pius VII. and Leo XII., Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., have unequivocally condemned Masonic societies as hot‐beds of impiety and sedition. This judgment was not lightly pronounced. It proceeded from an examination of the manuals, statutes, and catechisms of the order, from undoubted evidence of its practical action as well as its speculative principles. Since the close of the last century many writers, both Catholic and Protestant, have contributed by their researches to justify the sentence of the popes, and nothing has more powerfully aided these efforts than the publication from time to time of the authentic documents of this secret society.
A signal service has just been rendered to the same cause by the publication in Rome of the General Statutes of Freemasonry, and of two rituals for initiation into the first and thirtieth grades of the craft.(176) It would be a mistake to suppose that the organization of Freemasonry is everywhere identical, or that it has been always harmoniously developed to the same extent in the different countries where it has taken root. It has been torn by schisms from the beginning, although its divisions, which concerned rather matters of form and detail than general principles, have never prevented its combining for common purposes of destruction. The two great factions which divide the brethren take their name from the rite which they profess. The orthodox Masons, who are the great majority, give their allegiance to the Scottish rite, which at one time, they say, had its principal seat in Edinburgh. Now, as Domenico Angherà, Grand‐Master of the Neapolitan Orient, tells us in a reserved circular of the 22d of May last, which has found its way to the public papers, the acknowledged centre is established in Maryland under the specious designation of Mother‐Council of the World. In the Scottish rite the grades are thirty‐three: eighteen symbolic, twelve philosophic, and three administrative. The Reform of Orléans, which distinguishes the followers of the French rite, abolishes all the philosophic and higher grades, and reduces the symbolic to seven. The reformers are reproached with clipping the wings of the eagle of liberty, forbidding the introduction of political and religious questions into the lodges, and cancelling at a stroke two‐thirds of the Masonic programme, Equality and Liberty, making Fraternity sole motto of the order.
The documents published are those of the orthodox Masons of the Scottish rite, which is almost exclusively followed in Italy. Of their authenticity there is no doubt. The statutes are printed from the latest edition, clandestinely prepared for Masonic use at Naples (Tipografia dell’ Industria, 1874). They are distributed into five hundred and eighty articles, and in the Roman reprint are followed by thirty‐seven supplementary statutes for Italy agreed to in the Masonic convention held at Rome in May. The rituals, equally authentic, are also copied from the most recent editions. Without the rituals, the statutes cannot be understood. The latter are put into the hands of all Freemasons, and the language, when not positively misleading, is studiously ambiguous, only to be explained as the initiated proceeds in his graduation. It is necessary to give their substance at greater length than the platitudes and general professions of philanthropy they contain would warrant, in order that the commentary afforded by the other manuals may bring the hypocrisy and imposture of the system into full relief. As far as possible these documents shall be allowed to speak for themselves. They are their own indictment.
The General Constitutions of the Society of Freemasons of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in their first paragraph declare that the scope of the order is the perfection of mankind. Embracing in its scheme the whole human race, the grand aim of the institution requires its members to devote all their material means and mental faculties to its furtherance. The brethren, whatever be their nationality, to whatever rite of Masonry they owe allegiance, are members of a great family, one as is the species to which they belong, as the globe they inhabit, as nature which they contemplate. For this reason Freemasons of every country are to take among themselves the designation of brothers, and both in and out of their lodges show, in their deportment to each other, true fraternal affection. The venerable president of the lodge is required to see observed that strict equality which ought to exist among brothers. He is never to forget that the simple quality of man in the eyes of a Freemason commands the highest respect, and is to show deference only to such as deserve it by their virtue and superior Masonic acquirements. He must never permit a brother to assume any superiority over another on account of rank or distinctions he may enjoy in the profane world. He himself, on his admission to office, is reminded that he is but primus inter pares, that his authority lasts only for a time. He must never make his superiority be felt by the others. He ought to reflect that he is chosen to lead because he is considered possessed of the necessary prudence, and that only gentle and kind demeanor can secure the harmony that should reign among Freemasons.
Every member at his initiation, besides his entry‐money paid to the treasurer, must deposit a sum for the benevolent fund. At every meeting of the lodge a collection is made for the poor. This is so essential that any meeting where this duty has been omitted is declared not Masonic, irregular and null. All fines imposed on delinquents or absentees go to the same fund. The grand almoner is charged with the distribution of the offerings among the more indigent of the fraternity, and even the profane are sometimes admitted to share in the Masonic alms. Every application for assistance must be made through a member, and is discussed in the lodge. Preference is to be given to those cases where distress has not been produced by idleness or vice. Certain circumstances justify the president in authorizing an alms without consulting the lodge, but an explanation is to be given at the first meeting. He has also power to exempt the poorer brethren from the payment of the regular subscription, but this he is enjoined to do with such precautions as may conceal the exemption from the other members of the lodge. Were he to manifest the favor, he would be expelled the order.
In every lodge there is an official styled hospitaller, whose duty it is to visit the brethren in sickness daily, and supply them with medicines and whatever else they may happen to need. All the members of the lodge are obliged to visit the sick brother, one each day by turns, and also during his convalescence. A remarkable provision is added, obliging the sick Mason to receive the visits of his brethren. If the illness is dangerous, the sick man must hand over all his Masonic papers to those who are deputed to take charge of them. The funeral expenses of a deceased member are defrayed by the lodge, when circumstances require it, and he is accompanied to the grave by all his brethren of the same or lower grade in Freemasonry. The lodge orator, where practicable, pronounces a discourse over the tomb, enumerating the virtues and praises of the deceased; within the lodge the oration must never be omitted.
In keeping with the professedly humanitarian scope of the order are those articles of the statutes which regulate the admission of new members: “If the end of the institution is the perfection of mankind, it is indispensable that the Freemason should practise true morality, which supposes the knowledge and practice of the duties and rights of man. He ought, accordingly, to be upright, humane, sincere, beneficent to every sort of persons, and, above all, a good father, a good son, a good brother, a good husband, and a good citizen. A Freemason must be a citizen in full enjoyment of his civil rights, of acknowledged probity, and of at least ordinary intelligence. No one is admitted who has not the age required by the statutes. No one may be admitted or may remain in the order who has once been employed or engages in servile, mean, and dishonorable trades or professions, or who has been condemned to suffer punishment for crime. The expiation of any such sentence gives no claim for readmittance.”
The retiring warden, handing over the keys of the Masonic temple to the warden‐elect, admonishes the latter to exclude from its precincts all who have not laid aside every profane distinction, and who do not seek to enter solely by the path of virtue. Every precaution is taken to prevent the admission of unworthy subjects. The age for reception is fixed at twenty‐one, but the son of a Freemason may be initiated at eighteen, or even at fifteen if his father is of the upper grades of the order. The candidate must be proposed in the lodge by a member. Three commissioners are secretly appointed to separately inquire into the antecedents of the postulant, each inquisitor concealing his mandate from his fellow‐ commissioners.
“The investigation,” it is prescribed, “should chiefly turn on the constant integrity of the profane in his habitual conduct, on the exact discharge of the duties of his position, on the rectitude and safeness of his principles, on the firmness of his character, on his activity and ability to penetrate, develop, and fully understand the profound sciences which the mystic Masonic institute offers to the consideration of its followers.”
The three reports of the inquisitors must agree in recommending the candidate; otherwise the subject drops. But even when the commissioners unanimously approve of the proposal, the question is put to the secret votes of the lodge in three several meetings. Two negative votes in the first ballot are sufficient to delay the next trial for three months, while after three negatives it is put off for nine; and if at the end of that time three black balls are again found in the urn, the candidate is definitively rejected, and communication is made of the result to the Grand Orient, which informs all the dependent lodges of the exclusion, to prevent the admission of the rejected candidate among the brethren of its jurisdiction.
Having secured by these stringent regulations the purity of selection, and put the mystic temple beyond the risk of contamination by unworthy neophytes, it is not surprising that the statutes should tell us (paragraph 444) “that the character of Freemason does not admit the supposition that he can commit a fault.” Nevertheless, considering the weakness of human nature and the force of old habits imperfectly subdued, certain violations of decorum are contemplated in the statutes which constitute Masonic faults, and are enumerated with the penalties attached to each. Among these peccadilloes are mentioned perjury and treason against the order, the revelation of its mysteries, embezzlement of its funds, insubordination and rebellion against its authority, duelling among brethren, and breaches of hospitality.
Out of the lodges the conduct of the brethren is to be closely watched. It is the duty of the president to admonish any one whose conduct is reprehensible. This he must do in secret, and with due fraternal tenderness endeavor to bring back the wanderer to the path of virtue. Every corporation has to see that its individual members do nothing to forfeit the good opinion and confidence of the world at large. When, therefore, a brother is subjected to a criminal prosecution and proved guilty, the lodge is to take immediate steps for his expulsion.
Promotion from the lower to the higher grades of Masonry is regulated on the same principles of meritorious selection that govern the first admission of members. Irreprehensible conduct, both in his civil and Masonic capacity, are requisite in the aspirant; and he must have acquired a thorough knowledge of the grade which he possesses before he can be advanced to greater light. Certain intervals must pass between each successive step, that the spirit and devotedness of the brother may be fully ascertained and his promotion justified.
Minute rules are laid down in the statutes to regulate the proceedings in lodge. The arrangement of the seats, the order of business, the method of discussion, all is provided for in a way to promote harmony and social feeling. Unbecoming behavior and offensive language are severely punished. “Among Freemasons everything must breathe wisdom, kindness, and joy.” Any brother may signify his dissent from a proposal while it is under discussion; but when it has received the approbation of the majority, he must applaud the decision with the rest, “and not be so foolishly vain as to think his own opinion better than that of the greater number.” When the ritual practices have been observed, and necessary business despatched, the presiding dignitary may invite the brethren to suspend their labors and engage without formality in conversation or amusement. After this relaxation the ceremonial is resumed for the remainder of the meeting, and the lodge is closed in the usual manner.
Prominent among the observances instituted for the cultivation of Masonic feeling are the Agapæ of Masonic banquets. Some are de rigeur, as those on the Feasts of S. John the Baptist and S. John the Evangelist, and on the anniversary of the foundation of the various lodges. Others may be given according to circumstances. In the regulation banquets the lodge orator makes an appropriate address. Toasts and songs enliven the entertainment, and dancing is not prohibited. Between the toasts a poet, if there be one, may offer some of his productions. “Mirth, harmony, and sobriety are the characteristics of a Masonic feast.” Officials are charged to maintain order and decorum in these reunions. They are instructed to observe a “moderate, fraternal austerity” in their superintendence. Venial slips may be corrected on the spot, and a trifling penance imposed, which must be accepted with the best grace. A brother who more gravely offends against any of the social decencies is to be rigorously chastised at the first subsequent meeting.
After the claim of Freemasonry to represent a universal brotherhood, and its professed purpose to effect a general diffusion of its principles and influence, we are not surprised to find the statutes enjoin the most absolute respect for all political opinions and all religious beliefs. The 325th article says: “It is never permitted to discuss matters of religion or affairs of state in the lodges.”(177) We are not, however, to interpret toleration into a denial of the foundation of religious truth, or into a wicked connivance at subversive agencies in the body politic. Every Masonic temple is consecrated to the “Great Architect of the Universe.” In the name of him, “the purest fountain of all perfection,” the election of the office‐bearers is proclaimed on S. John’s day. By him they swear when, with their hands on S. John’s Gospel, they promise fidelity to the order. All their solemn deeds are inscribed “to the glory of the Great Architect of the Universe” in the name of S. John of Scotland (S. John the Baptist), or of S. John of Jerusalem (S. John the Evangelist), according to the rite. The Bible is always reverently placed on the warden’s table when the lodges meet, and the proceedings are always opened with an invocation of the Deity. If the craft admits among its adepts men of all persuasions, it professes to do so because it does not search consciences. Its toleration, it declares, does not proceed from atheism, but from enlightened liberality. Nor has the state anything to apprehend from the brethren, if we believe the admonition addressed to a novice at his initiation. “Masons are forbidden to mix themselves up in conspiracies.” The first toast in all Masonic banquets is to the head of the nation. It would be strange indeed if, notwithstanding the enlightened scope of the institution and the jealous care with which it professes to exclude all those who are troublesome to society or have given cause of complaint in their civil conduct, any government should find that the Masonic body was not one of the firmest stays of order. Virtue, philanthropy, benevolence, brotherhood—these are the watchwords of Masonry, and its statutes appropriately terminate in the following paragraph:
“The Freemason is the faithful friend of his country and of all men. He must not forget that by the oath he took at his initiation he stripped himself of every profane decoration and of all that is vulgar in man, to assume no other distinction but the sweet name of brother. Let his conduct correspond to the title, and the scope of Masonry is attained.”
We have hitherto drawn on the General Constitutions, which are binding on “all Masonic lodges, and on all Freemasons, of whatever grade, throughout the two hemispheres.” As these statutes, though carefully guarded from the eyes of the profane, are put into the hands of the apprentices or youngest adepts, whose prudence and capacity for greater light have still to be tested, it would be dangerous to make in them more open professions of faith than are covered by elastic and general expressions; yet there is sufficient internal evidence in them to show that the maxims they contain are mere exoteric doctrine compared to the deeper revelation of the inner sanctuary, where only the tried craftsman may dare to penetrate. “Secrecy,” say the Constitutions, “is the first characteristic of the order.”
And this secrecy is to be observed not merely towards the uninitiated, but is equally enforced between the different grades of the brotherhood. The presence of a member of a lower grade regulates the quality of the business to be transacted in the lodge, even if all the others are master‐ masons. And not only the business but the very ceremonial must be accommodated to the imperfection of those present. Each of the thirty‐ three grades has its own ritual, the publication of which is high treason to the order, and which cannot be read without profanation by a member of inferior degree. The books in the lodge library are by no means promiscuous reading, but are permitted according to gradation. Hence the multiplicity of officials with fantastic names who watch over the privacy of the proceedings, verify the certificates of strangers, look out for spies or illegitimate intruders; hence the precautions taken with their documents, and the intricate system of checks and counterchecks on the very office‐bearers through whose hands the correspondence and written documents of an intimate nature have to pass. Why all this secrecy, and why those terrible oaths, which we have still to see, if the end of Masonry is faithfully exhibited in these Constitutions? As they stand, they might almost suit a pious confraternity. Doubtless there are suspicious articles. Their exclusiveness is not a Christian trait.
“Odi profanum vulgus et arceo”
is not the spirit of religion. The visits to the sick, and the obligation not to decline them, receive a dubious commentary in the death‐bed scenes now so distressingly frequent in Italy: when the minister of religion is driven away by the visitors even when sent for by the dying man or his relatives. The solemn decree, “The hand of a Mason shall not be raised against a brother,” throws light on the inexplicable verdicts of juries, judicial sentences, and remarkable escapes of condemned prisoners with which the newspapers have made us familiar. But from the statutes we can learn no more. We cannot discover whether the anti‐Christian and anti‐ social maxims which are unquestionably ascribed to Masonry are the real outcome of its teaching, or an element quite extraneous to its genuine principles. This is to be gathered from other sources, and, fortunately, these are at hand in equally authentic documents, the rituals of the several degrees, and many of the secret instructions that from time to time are issued by the directing lodges. An examination of these leaves no room to doubt the genuine scope of the association. The process may be tedious, but it is conclusive. It brings out the hideous impiety of the sect and its satanic hypocrisy.
Let us follow, Ritual in hand, a neophyte in his first initiation to the grade of apprentice.
A lodge is properly composed of four chambers—a vestibule, the Chamber of Reflection, the middle chamber, and the lodge proper, or temple. In the last the ordinary assemblies of the Masons are held, but for the initiation of a member all the apartments are put in requisition. The candidate is conducted, if possible, in a carriage, blindfolded, to the place of meeting; at all events, he must be blindfolded before entering the Masonic precincts. He is led first into the vestibule, where he is handed over to the Expert. This functionary, who is clothed in a long, black robe, with a hood concealing his features, takes the candidate by the hand, then bids him put his confidence in God, and, after making him take several turns in the outer chamber, introduces him to the Chamber of Reflection. This is described in the Ritual as
“A dark place impenetrable to the rays of the sun, lit by a single sepulchral lamp. The walls are painted black with death’s heads and similar funereal emblems to assist the recipient in his meditations. He has to pass through the four elements of the ancients, and here he is supposed to find himself in the bowels of the earth, reminded of his last abode and of the vanity of earthly things by the spectacle of a skeleton stretched on a bier. In the absence of a skeleton a skull must be placed on a small table in the centre of the room. On the table are pen, ink, and paper, a dish of water, and a piece of bread. A chair completes the furniture.”
Inscriptions are distributed over the walls; as, “If curiosity has brought you here, depart,” “If you are capable of dissimulation, tremble,” and others, as the lodge may think proper. The Ritual adds: “If it can be conveniently arranged, appropriate voices may be made to proceed from the ceiling.” The candidate is made to sit with his back to the door, and the bandage is taken from his eyes. The Expert addresses him: “I leave you to your reflections. You will not be alone. God sees every one.” Then he quits him abruptly, and, closing the door, locks it behind him.
The length of time to be employed in self‐examination is not prescribed in the Ritual, but is left to the caprice of the Masons, who are now engaged in the temple. When the brethren are bent on a joke at the expense of the recipient, it has been known to extend over four hours. The state of the patient during this time may be imagined. He came with his head full of mysterious fancies about Masonry, and the first surroundings are calculated to crowd perplexing thoughts on an already agitated mind. Some never get past this first essay. They have had enough of the mystic rite at the threshold, and are accompanied to the door with the gibes and laughter of the brotherhood, who then close the evening over a repast prepared at the expense of the candidate with his forfeited entrance money.
In most cases, however, the time for reflection is just so much as is necessary to allow the completion of the opening ceremonies in the temple preparatory to the reception of the neophyte. When these are finished, the president sends the Expert to require of the candidate written replies to three questions: “What does man owe to God? What does he owe to himself? What to his fellow‐men?” The candidate is also to be told that as the trials through which he has to pass are full of danger, it behooves him to make his will. When the Expert returns, the will is laid by to be returned to the candidate at the end of the function; but the answers to the three questions are discussed in public, and the disquisitions in theology, philosophy, and ethics may be fancied. If among the auditors there are junior Masons whose ears are not yet accustomed to unequivocal negations of God and the human soul, the president strives to moderate the language of the disputants, and always sums up with a vague and general declaration of respect for all opinions, and of Masonic toleration.
The recipient is now prepared for further tests. The preparation consists first in having his eyes once more bandaged in the Chamber of Reflection, then in being stripped of his clothes, “left only in his shirt and drawers, with his left breast and arm and his right leg bare, his feet in slippers, and a cord twined three times round his neck.” He is led by this cord to the door of the lodge. Here he is to be subjected to a lengthy interrogatory as to his name, birthplace, age, profession, and other qualifications. “As Masonry receives into its bosom members of all opinions and all religions, the president must not propose political or religious questions to offend the sentiments or belief of the recipient or of the auditory.”
In due time the neophyte may learn that the creed of Masons is to have none, and that its politics are the subversion of all authority; but prejudices must be respected at the outset, and the apprentices are not to be shocked unprepared. When the examination is over, the farce begins. The doors of the lodge are thrown open with a great noise, and as soon as the candidate has been led into the room, the Tiler holding the point of a sword against his naked breast, they are violently shut. “What do you perceive?” the president asks. “I see nothing,” the recipient must answer; “but I feel the point of a sword on my breast.” “That point,” says the president, “is symbolic of the remorse that would gnaw your heart, should you ever betray the society you seek to enter. Think what you are about to do. Awful tests await you. Terrible brother, take this profane one out of the lodge, and lead him through those places which all must pass over who would know our secrets.” The candidate is then led out and made to take so many turns that he completely loses every idea of where he is; and when he has quite lost his bearings, he is again in the lodge, although he does not know it; and the brethren, in breathless silence, await the progress of the comedy.
A large, wooden frame, filled in with paper, has been prepared in his absence, and set up in the lodge before the entrance. “What is to be done to this profane one?” asks Brother Terrible. “Throw him into the cavern,” replies the president. Two Masons then seize the candidate and cast him against the frame. The paper, of course, breaks, and the candidate is caught in the arms of some of the brethren who are in waiting. The doors of the lodge are then closed with noise, an iron ring, passing over a dentate bar of iron, is made to imitate the bolting of the door, and the candidate, blindfolded, out of breath, stunned, and frightened, really may fancy himself at the bottom of a cavern.
The candidate is now seated on a stool, with a jagged bottom and unequal legs which never find a plane, that with its constant and uneven motion keeps the occupant in perpetual terror of falling. From this uneasy seat he must answer all the fanciful questions that the whim of the president or his own condition suggests. Metaphysics, astronomy, natural sciences, may all enter into the examination; and as the questions are asked without previous notice, the replies are not always satisfactory. Although the Ritual prescribes the greatest decorum and gravity to be observed during the ceremony, that the neophyte may be properly impressed, and prohibits all rough usage and buffoonery, this is to be understood by the gloss of another Ritual, which says that “this test of the stool of reflection is instituted for the purpose of discovering how far the physical torture which the candidate is made to suffer in his uneasy seat influences the clearness of his ideas.”
If after this examination the patient still perseveres in his resolution to enter the Masonic fraternity, he is admonished to prepare for other trials. First, he must swear to keep absolute silence on all Masonic secrets. This oath is to be taken over a cup of water. “If your intention is pure, you may drink with safety. If in your heart you are a traitor, tremble at the instant and terrible effects of the potion.” The fatal cup is then presented to him. This is a chalice‐shaped vessel, having the cup movable on a pivot in the base, and separated vertically into two divisions. In one there is fresh water, and this side is presented to the candidate. In the other there is a bitter mixture. When the candidate, still blindfolded, has taken hold of the cup, the president invites him to drink, and at the same time to swear after himself in the following terms: “I promise the faithful observance of all Masonic obligations, and if I prove false to my oath”—here he is made to taste the fresh water, and then the cup is turned so that the next draught must be taken from the side containing the bitter mixture, and the president continues with the remainder of the oath to be repeated by the recipient—“I consent to have the sweetness of this water turned into gall, and its salutary effect changed to poison.” Here the countenance of the candidate undergoes the expected change, and at the sight of the fatal grimace the president, striking a terrible blow on the table with his mallet, cries out, “Ha! what do I see? What means that distortion of your face? Away with the profane!” The poor candidate is removed back some paces, and then the president addresses him: “If your purpose is to deceive us, retire at once. Soon it will be too late. We would know your perfidy, and then it were better for you never to have seen the light of day. Think well on it. Brother Terrible, seat him on the stool of reflection. Let him there consider what he must do.” When the candidate has been on his uneasy seat for some time, the president asks him if he means to persevere. If he persists, the Terrible brother is told to accompany him on his first journey and protect him in its dangers. The Ritual proceeds:
“The Expert shall conduct the candidate through this first journey, making it as difficult as possible, with thrusts, ascents, descents, wind, thunder; in such a way that he can have no idea of the ground he goes over, and all in a manner calculated to leave a deep impression on the aspirant.”
We really cannot go on without apologizing to the reader for detaining him over this contemptible mummery. It is humiliating to human nature that men who make the loftiest professions of respect for its dignity should debase themselves to such a depth of absurdity. And this, too, when they matriculate in their school of perfection. Out of a mad‐house and a Masonic lodge folly like this is inconceivable.
To return to our journey. It is a farce to an onlooker, but it is a serious matter to the patient. He still supposes himself in the cavern, and is forced to make several rounds of the lodge, passing over boards that move under him on wheels, to boards adjusted to take a see‐saw motion, and from these to others that suddenly yield under his weight in trap‐door fashion. He is perpetually getting directions to stoop, to raise his right foot, to raise his left, to leap; and corresponding obstructions are put in his way at every movement. He is made to mount an interminable ladder, like a squirrel in a cage, and, when he must think himself as high as a church‐steeple, is told to fling himself down, and falls a couple of feet. Perspiring and out of breath, confused, terrified, and fatigued, his ears are filled with the most horrible noises. Shrieks and cries of pain, wailing of children, roaring of wild beasts, are heard on every side. All the theatrical appliances to produce thunder, rain, hail, wind, and tempest are employed in well‐appointed lodges; and in the others the ingenuity of the merry brethren supplies the want of machinery. The first journey is finished when the brethren are tired of the amusement, and then the candidate makes a second journey without the obstacles, and during this he only hears the clashing of swords. A third journey is made in peace, and at last the candidate passes thrice over an ignited preparation of sulphur, and his purification by earth, water, air, and fire is complete.
Now comes a Masonic instruction which we shall quote from the Ritual:
“ ‘Do you believe,’ asks the Venerable, ‘in a Supreme Being?’ The answer of the candidate is usually in the affirmative. And then the president may reply: ‘This answer does you honor. If we admit persons of all persuasions, it is because we do not pry into the conscience. We believe that the incense of virtue is acceptable to the Deity, in whatever form it is offered. Our toleration proceeds not from atheism, but from liberality and philosophy.’ ”
But mark what follows:
“If the candidate in his reply says he does not believe in God, the president is to say: ‘Atheism is incomprehensible. The only division possible among candid men is on the question whether the First Cause is spirit or matter. But a materialist is no atheist.’ ”
This is a specimen of Masonic theology, expressed in guarded terms, to respect the weaker susceptibilities of an assembly of apprentices; for we must remember that we are assisting at an initiation to the first grade, which is conducted in presence of the youngest Masons. Still, no veil can conceal the boldness of the declaration, and the apology of materialism will surely not protect the dullest adept who remembers the first lessons of his catechism from taking scandal at its effrontery. But if he is to graduate in the higher honors, he must sooner or later get an inkling of what is in reserve, and it is as well that from the very first grade he should be able without much help to proceed to the development of the Masonic idea of God—nature and that universe of which he himself is a part—to pantheism pure and simple. Indeed, the Rivista della Massoneria of the 1st of August, 1874, ventures a little further: “All are aware that this formula (Great Architect of the Universe) by common consent has no exclusive meaning, much less a religious one. It is a formula that adapts itself to every taste, even an atheist’s.”(178)
After this it is scarcely necessary to read on in the Ritual:
“ ‘What is deism?’ asks the president. Having heard the answer, he is to subjoin: ‘Deism is belief in God without revelation or worship. It is the religion of the future, destined to supersede all other systems in the world.’ ”
The catechising proceeds in a similar strain through a multiplicity of questions, which are all treated with a studied ambiguity of language, affirming and denying, saying and unsaying in a breath, leaving nothing unimplied, to satisfy advanced impiety, and softening down the bolder expressions that would grate on the ears of a novice.
When the examination is over, the marking of the new brother is to be proceeded with. He is told to prepare to receive the impression of a hot iron on his person, and is requested to mention on what part he would prefer to be branded. The Masons then go through the preparations of lighting a fire, blowing with a bellows, turning the iron with tongs, discussing the redness of the heated instrument, all in the hearing of the patient, who, still blind‐folded, stands pale and trembling, in spite of his resolution to go through the operation. The diversion this torture affords the lodge may well be imagined. Of course there is no branding, but the rituals suggest different methods of producing the sensation. One recommends violent friction of the part indicated for branding, and then the sudden application of a piece of ice. Another directs the hot wick of a candle just blown out to be pressed against the skin. Sometimes the president declares himself satisfied with the resignation of the neophyte, and dispenses with the operation. Generally the ceremonies of the Ritual are considerably curtailed in practice; not even Masons can endure their tedious trifling.
After this the oath is to be administered. The candidate is warned of the sacred, inviolable, perpetual nature of the obligation he is about to assume; and when he has signified his willingness to be bound by it, he is told that as the time is approaching when he will be admitted to the secrets of the order, the order requires of him a guarantee—to consist in the manifestation of some secret confided to him, that he is not at liberty to reveal. If the candidate agrees, he is to be sharply reprimanded; if he does not consent, the president praises his discretion. The latter then proceeds to inform the candidate that the oath he is about to take requires him to give all his blood for the society. When the candidate assents, his word is at once put to the test, and he is asked if he is really to allow a vein to be immediately opened. This proposal usually draws out a remonstrance, and the victim’s ordinary objection is the weakness of his health, or the probable derangement of his digestion by such an operation following so soon after dinner. In the lodge, however, this is provided for. The surgeon gravely advances, feels the patient’s pulse, and infallibly declares that he lies, that the blood‐ letting can do him no harm, and positively assures him he will be the better for it. The bleeding is performed in this manner: The surgeon binds the arm, and pricks the vein with a tooth‐pick or such like. An assistant drops on it a small stream of tepid water, which trickles over the arm of the patient into a vessel held below. The counterfeit is perfect. The arm is bandaged, arranged in a sling, and the poor man, blindfolded, half‐ naked, terrified, wearied, branded, and bled, is at length conducted to the altar, or table of the presiding master, to seal his initiation with the final oath. There, on his knees, holding in his left hand the points of an open compass against his breast, with his right on the sword of the president (or, according to another ritual, on a Bible, a compass, and a square), he takes the oath, which we give in its naked impiety, as found in the Ritual secretly printed at Naples in 1869:
“I, N. N., do swear and promise of my own free‐will, before the Great Architect of the Universe, and on my honor, to keep inviolable silence on all the secrets of Freemasonry that may be communicated to me, as also on whatever I may see done or hear said in it, under pain of having my throat cut, my tongue torn out, my body cut into pieces, burned, and its ashes scattered to the wind, that my name may go down in execrated memory and eternal infamy. I promise and swear to give help and assistance to all brother Masons, and swear never to belong to any society, under whatever name, form, or title, opposed to Masonry; subjecting myself, if I break my word, to all the penalties established for perjury. Finally, I swear obedience and submission to the general statutes of the order, to the particular regulations of this lodge, and to the Supreme Grand Orient of Italy.”
When the profane has finished the oath, the president asks, “What do you seek?” and the other is to answer, “I seek light.” The most merciless trick of all follows. The bandage is quickly removed from his eyes. Unaccustomed for hours to the faintest light, they are suddenly exposed to the dazzling glare of a great artificial flame started before his face. He is blinded once more by the change, and closes his eyes against the pain caused by the brilliancy; and when at last he opens them to look about him, it is to see the fierce attitudes of the Masons, each pointing his sword at his face. Few pass this ordeal without exhibiting signs of terror; some attempt to escape, some beg their lives, and some protest they have done with Freemasonry. But no one who has reached this point is permitted to depart without being received, and the novice is comforted with the assurance that all is over. The president, addressing the new apprentice, says:
“Fear not those swords that surround you: they threaten only the perjurer. If you are faithful to Masonry, they will protect you. If you betray it, no corner of the earth will protect you against these avenging blades. Masonry requires in every Mason belief in a Supreme Being, and allows him out of the lodge to worship as he pleases, provided he leaves the same liberty to others. Masons are bound to assist each other by every means when occasion offers. Freemasons are forbidden to mix themselves up in conspiracies. But were you to hear of a Mason who had engaged in any such enterprise, and fallen a victim to his imprudence, you should have compassion on his misfortune, and the Masonic bond would make it your duty to use all your influence and the influence of your friends to have the rigor of punishment lessened on his behalf.”
Our candidate by this lime has somewhat recovered from his confusion. He is now led up to the president, who, striking him thrice on the head with his mallet, then with the compass, and lastly with the sword, declares him Apprentice Mason and active member of the lodge. He is invested with the insignia, and put in possession of the Masonic signs and passwords. The description of these would be tedious, and we shall only notice the guttural sign. This is made by bringing to the throat the right hand, with thumb extended and the other fingers closed together to represent a square; the whole intended to recall the imprecation in the oath. To this allusion is made in one of the drinking songs of the Masons, translated from the French for the brethren in Italy, although the verse has been left out in the Italian edition:
Dedans la barque Du Nautonnier Charon Si je m’embarque Je lui dirai: Patron A cette marque Reconnais un Maçon.
Of the sacred word Jachin there will be occasion to speak again.
When the function is over, the lodge is cleared, tables are spread, and the brethren sit down to a refreshment which one, at least, has fairly earned.
Admission to the first three grades of Masonry is easily obtained. Among the Apprentices, Fellowcraft, and Master‐Masons the official language always speaks of charity, toleration, and philanthropy. We have seen sufficient reason to question the sincerity of these expressions in the mouths of the Masons, and the explanations we have heard from themselves are far from reassuring. As the society contemplates the gradual formation of the requisite character in its members, and as most of these at their first entry have not altogether lost every natural sense of duty, as understood by the profane, their advance to perfection is generally slow, and the great bulk never get beyond the symbolic grades. If they are promoted, it is pro forma in the succeeding grades termed capitular, which are the perfection of symbolism, and are completed in the Rosicrucian Knight at the eighteenth grade. From this point promotion is difficult. The degrees that follow up to the thirtieth are called philosophic, and in them the adept is taught plainly, without symbol or artifice, the practice of true Masonic virtue. Vengeance and death are the passwords, the poniard the symbol of action. After this the other degrees are purely administrative, and the Mason of the thirty‐first, thirty‐ second, or thirty‐third grade learns nothing that was not revealed when he was admitted Knight Kadosh in the thirtieth.
In the nineteenth, or first of the philosophic grades, the Ritual says:
“It is not difficult to comprehend that the society of Freemasons, speaking plainly, is just a permanent conspiracy against political despotism and religious fanaticism. The princes who unfortunately were admitted into Masonry, were not slow in reducing it to a society of beneficence and charity, and maintained that religion and politics were foreign to its purpose. They even succeeded in having inserted among the statutes that no discussion was to be tolerated in the lodges on these subjects.”
In the Ritual of the twenty‐ninth degree:
“How would not the Masonic mysteries have degenerated, if, according to the programme of the common herd of Masons, the adept was never to occupy himself with politics or religion!”
And the actual Grand‐Master of the Neapolitan Masons, Domenico Angherà, in a secret history of the society in that Orient, clandestinely printed in 1864, relates with satisfaction that the work of the Carbonari and Buoni Cugini in 1820‐21 was conceived and directed by the Masonic lodges, and carried out by their own adepts under the other designations, and triumphantly boasts that in those days “the mallets of the Masons beat harmonious time to the axes of the Carbonari.” In 1869 the Grand‐Master Frapolli, Deputy in the Chambers, in the opening discourse at the Masonic gathering held that year in Genoa, acknowledged that “during the previous fifty years of tyranny Freemasonry in Italy was replaced by the Carbonari.” He said that on the first reconstruction of the order at Turin, in 1861, the motto was adopted of “A personal God and a constitutional monarchy,” but that this was found to be a stifling limitation, by which the Italian lodges would not submit to be fettered; and in 1864 a new Grand Orient was established which better corresponded to the scope. Up to the occupation of Rome in 1870 the aim of the brotherhood was to “elevate the conscience.” Now they may safely advance a step. Mauro Macchi, another Deputy, and member of the Supreme Council of Freemasons, in the Masonic Review of the 16th of February, 1874, thus expresses his idea of the present practical scope of the society:
“The keystone of the whole system opposed to Masonry was and is that ascetic and transcendental sentiment which carries men beyond the present life, and makes them look on themselves as mere travellers on earth, leading them to sacrifice everything for a happiness to begin in the cemetery. As long as this system is not destroyed by the mallet of Masonry, we shall have society composed of poor, deluded creatures who will sacrifice all to attain felicity in a future existence.”
A Catholic, he says, who mortifies his passions, is consistent and logical, for to him life is a pilgrimage and an exile, and his career is but a preparation for a future state; but this the grand‐master refuses to accept as the type of human perfection.
Let us pass to an inspection of the Ritual of the thirtieth grade of the Scottish Rite, called Chevalier Kadosh, or Knight of the White and Black Eagle, printed at Naples, without indication of printer’s name, in 1869. Here the real ends of Masonry, and the horrible means it directs to their attainment, are exposed without veil or mystery. As Angherà in his preface says:
“Here the great drama of Masonry reaches its dénoûement. Only Masons of strong capacity and devoted attachment penetrate thus far. The other grades are but a sanctuary of approach; this, the thirtieth, is the inmost sanctuary, for which the rest is only a preparation.”
The infamous nature of the conspiracy which it discloses would justify our treating it at greater length, if the limits of an article did not oblige us to hasten to a close. We cannot afford to wade through the tiresome series of mystifying ceremonies without which nothing Masonic can be legally performed. Mithric rites, the Temple of Memphis, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Numa, the Templars, Manicheans, Rabbinic phrases, and lore from the Talmud, Arabic, and Hebrew, are jumbled together to give an air of antiquity to this most modern of widespread impostures. Our business is to cull out of the mass of profanities a few samples of the perfection required of the “holy,” “consecrated,” “purified” knight; for such is the force of the Hebrew Kadosh. Angherà has not proceeded far, when in a note he takes care to inform us that the two sacred passwords, Jachin and Booz, which Masons of the first two grades are taught to repeat and understand as stability and force, and whose initial letters, J and B, are inscribed on the Masonic columns, read as they ought to be, backwards, are two obscene words in the corrupt language of the Maltese Arabs.
The initiation, whenever it is symbolic, recalls the execution of James de Molai, Grand‐Master of the Templars, and holds up to execration Clement V. and Philip the Fair, with Noffodei, the false brother. To emancipate society from the double despotism of priest and king is the duty of the aspirant. The passwords for him are now Nekam, vengeance, Makah, death, and the answer Bealim, to traitors. He is told that his duty is to mark all the murders of friends of liberty, political and religious, committed by the satellites of despotism, and to avenge the victims of tyranny; to bind himself, in common action with the other knights, to annihilate, once for all, the despots of the human race—in a word to establish political and religious liberty where it does not exist, and defend it where it is established, with arms if need be. When the theory of these doctrines has been sufficiently impressed upon him, he is conducted by the grand‐master before a skull crowned with laurel, and repeats as he is told: “Honor and glory to persecuted innocence; honor and glory to virtue sacrificed to vice and ambition.” Next he is shown a skull crowned with a tiara, a dagger is placed in his hand, and he is made to exclaim, “Hatred and death to religious despotism!” In the same way, before a skull on which is placed a kingly diadem, he pronounces “Hatred and death to political despotism!” Twice must the aspirant repeat this ceremony, and on the last occasion casts crown and tiara on the ground.(179) Four times he binds himself by oath to combat political and religious oppression, to put down religious fanaticism, to overturn political tyranny, to propagate the principles of Masonry, to disseminate liberal ideas, to maintain the rights of man and the sovereignty of the people. Each time the holy name of God is called to witness, but we know now the value of the invocation—the universe is the Mason’s God.
“ ‘Do you believe in another world?’ asks the grand‐master, who himself resumes, ‘There are not two worlds. We are a compound of matter and spirit. These two substances return to their origin: this transformation does not remove them out of the universal world, of which we form part. What is the future life? The future life is the life of our descendants, who are to profit by our discoveries.’ ”
Such, then, is the “religion of the future,” by which it is the appointed task of Masonry to supersede Christianity; such the “progress,” “civilization,” “perfectibility,” which humanity is to achieve under Masonic guidance. We have not painted the association in colors of our own; we have merely produced its official documents, and in the hated light they leave their own photograph. When society falls under the influence of such an organization, its demoralization is rapid and complete. Its circulars regulate the popular elections and control the votes of parliaments. “Public opinion” is at its beck, the press is its active instrument. We could quote its instructions to the Italian Deputies on the Roman question, and a communication of the Grand‐Master of Italy, sent to all the foreign Grand Lodges, advising a united attack, through the public mind, on the Carlist movement in Spain. Its theories of assassination and open rebellion are seldom carried out on its own direct responsibility. Out of the Masonic lodges arise a multitude of minor sects, ostensibly independent, but really directed by the brethren. To these the practical work is committed. As Carbonari, Socialists, Communists, Internationalists, Mazzinians, they execute orders received from their common centre. If successful, the result is claimed for the parent association; if unfortunate, they are disavowed. It is usual to say that Freemasonry in firmly‐established constitutional states is comparatively harmless. We are not prepared to affirm that in countries like the United States or Great Britain the wicked principles of Continental European Masonry are developed to the same extent indiscriminately in all the lodges. Where the initiation is supposed never to advance beyond the three symbolic degrees, the anti‐Catholic principle of religious indifference is perhaps its most dangerous characteristic. But this alone is sufficiently repulsive; and the fraternization which binds together every branch of the association can excuse no individual member from moral complicity in its worst deeds, wherever perpetrated.
With that keen forecast of danger to the Christian family which has ever been the characteristic attribute of the Holy See, the popes, from the first origin of Masonry, saw through its flimsy disguise of benevolent professions, and over and over again, and chiefly on the eve of those terrible anti‐social outbursts that have so frequently convulsed Europe since the formation of the society, raised their prophetic voices, foretelling the impending storm, denouncing its source, and condemning in the strongest terms and under the severest penalties all connection with these secret associations. Princes and peoples disregarded the warning, and both have suffered for their neglect. Would that at least they had profited by the lesson! But these eternal enemies of order, emboldened by their success, are only preparing for a new strife. The state is already almost everywhere at their control; the church of God everywhere resists. Against her they now concentrate their warfare. False professions serve no purpose with the civil government in their own hands, and they have learned that their hypocrisy does not avail with the church. They drop the mask. No longer careful to conceal their aim, they make it a public boast. “Protestantism,” writes B. Konrad from Germany in the Bauhütte, a Masonic paper, “without discipline, faith, or spiritual or moral life, broken up into hundreds of sects, offers only the spectacle of a corpse in dissolution. It is not an enemy to oppose us. Our adversary is the Roman‐ Catholic‐Papal‐Infallible Church, with its compact and universal organization. This is our hereditary, implacable foe. If we are to be true and honest Freemasons, and wish to promote our society, we must absolutely cry out with Strauss: We are no longer Christians; we are Freemasons and nothing else. Amateur Freemasons are no advantage to humanity, and no credit to our society. Christians or Freemasons, make your choice.”
The church of God fears them not. Her pastors may mourn over the corruption of morals, the perversion of youth, the irreparable loss of many souls; but amid the dissolution and universal ruin which infidelity and revolution are preparing for society, she will stand erect, unshaken, not shorn of her strength; and when the inevitable revulsion brings repentant nations to her feet, she will be ready as ever to pour the balm of religious consolation on their wounds, to bind up their shattered members, to set humanity once more on the path of true perfectibility, not to be attained through the impious philosophy of midnight conventicles, but in the light of the Sun of Justice, preached on the housetops, to the formation of true Christian brotherhood.
Crown Jewels
Let’s crown our King with what will show His royal power and treasure— Sharp thorns! ’Tis done! His blood doth flow, Of both the might and measure.
Are You My Wife? Chapter II
By The Author Of “A Salon In Paris Before The War,” “Number Thirteen,” “Pius VI.,” Etc.