A Legend Of Alsace. Concluded…

A Legend Of Alsace. Concluded

From The French Of M. Le Vicomte De Bussierre.

VIII.

Odile, who had returned to Hohenbourg without her father’s consent, was now forced to remain against her own will. Her reputation so spread throughout the province that people of the highest rank went to see her, and several aspired to her hand. Among these suitors was a young German duke whose station, wealth, and personal qualities gave him an advantage over his rivals. Adalric and Berswinde joyfully gave their consent, and the marriage settlements were agreed upon. The arrangement was then made known to Odile, who declared firmly but respectfully that she had chosen Christ for her spouse, and could not renounce her choice. But this projected marriage flattered the pride and ambition of her father, and, after vainly endeavoring to persuade her to consent to it, he sought to obtain by force what mildness had not been able to effect. Odile, seeing that her liberty of action was to be infringed upon, felt that flight was her only resource. Commending herself to God and Our Blessed Lady, she clothed herself early one morning in the rags of a beggar, and left the castle unobserved, descending the mountain by an obscure and almost impassable ravine. It was in the year 679. Her first intention was to take refuge in the Abbey of Baume, but, considering that would be the first place to seek for her, she resolved to conceal herself from all mankind, and lead henceforth a difficult and solitary life for the love of her Redeemer. She therefore directed her steps toward the Rhine, and, meeting a fisherman, she gave him a small piece of money to take her across the river.

Odile had been accustomed to seclude herself several hours a day for prayer and meditation, so her non‐appearance excited no surprise. She was supposed to be at her devotions, and was already several miles from home, when the report of her disappearance spread consternation throughout the manor. The duke, distressed by her flight, assembled all his followers, ordered his four sons to pursue her in four different directions, and directed his servants to scour the surrounding country. Berswinde alone did not share the general grief. She would indeed have been pleased by the marriage of her daughter and the German duke, but Odile’s motives for declining the alliance, the remembrance of the miracle wrought at her baptism, and the manifest protection of heaven she was so evidently under, made her mother sure that the support of the Most High would not in this case be wanting.

Adalric himself set off with several esquires, and unwittingly took the same route as his daughter. He soon came to the Rhine, where he heard that a young beggar‐girl, whose rags could not conceal her noble air and extreme beauty, had crossed the river and gone towards Fribourg. The duke, sure it was his daughter, likewise crossed over, and came so close upon her steps that it seemed impossible for her to escape. But the princess, says the old chronicle of Fribourg containing these details, coming in sight of the city near a place called Muszbach, was so overcome with fatigue that she was obliged to sit down and take breath. She had hardly thanked God for his protection thus far when she perceived, at some distance, a company of horsemen swiftly approaching. Then recognizing her father and his followers, she raised her eyes to heaven, whence alone she could expect succor, and prayed fervently: “O my Saviour!” cried she, “spotless protector of virgins! I am lost unless thou shieldest me from their eyes, and coverest me with the shadow of thy wings!” And our Lord, says the legend, heard this earnest prayer: the rock on which she was seated opened to shelter her from her eager pursuers, and had hardly closed upon her when Adalric came up. As soon as he had passed by Odile came out, and, that posterity might not lose the remembrance of this miracle, a limpid stream of healing waters flowed henceforth from the rock. This fountain became eventually the resort of pilgrims, and the saint herself had a chapel built over it in commemoration of her deliverance.

The duke, unsuccessful in his search, returned to Hohenbourg. Unable to resign himself to the loss of his daughter, he fell into a state of sadness and discouragement. Weeks, nay, months, passed, but no news of the fugitive. Adalric finally proclaimed throughout his duchy, at the sound of the trumpet that he would henceforth leave his daughter free to pursue her own course of life, if she would only return to her family.

Having no longer any excuse for remaining away from her family, where she might be called to labor for God, Odile left her retreat at Brisgau, and returned home.(63)

IX.

Adalric’s promises were sincere. He was eager to aid Odile as much as he could in the realization of her most cherished hopes. “For it was in the decrees of divine Providence,” says an old Latin chronicle, “that this light should be placed in a candlestick, that it might give light to all who were in the house; and God had inspired Odile with the resolution to found a community of noble virgins who would live in retirement and observe the evangelical counsels.”

The saint opened her heart to her father, representing to him that Alsace had already convents for men, but no retreat for women who wished to renounce the world, and that such a refuge would be useful and at the same time pleasing to God. Adalric listened favorably to his daughter, and, whether the proposition pleased him or he did not wish to oppose her inclinations, he gave her in due form, in the year 680, the Castle of Hohenbourg with its vast dependencies and immense revenues, that she might convert what had till then been the principal bulwark of Alsace into an inviolable asylum for noble ladies of piety who wished to consecrate themselves to God.

Odile then assembled a number of workmen, and had all the buildings removed that would be of no use to a religious community. This done, they proceeded to construct the convent. It took them ten years. Adalric generously defrayed all the expenses, and even directed the architects, enjoining on them to neglect nothing that could contribute to the solidity and beauty of the edifice.

As soon as it was known that Odile intended forming a community of women, a crowd of young ladies of rank came to Hohenbourg, renouncing their families and earthly possessions for the love of Christ. They besought her to receive them as her companions, and to direct them in the way of salvation. There were one hundred and thirty of them before the convent was finished. Among them were Attale,(64) Eugénie, and Gundeline, the daughters of Odile’s brother Adalbert,(65) and her own sister Roswinde.(66) All these renounced the joys of the world without regret, hoping to obtain eternal life. They united themselves to God by silence, recollection, and prayer. Manual labor and the chanting of the Psalms varied their occupations. Like the first Christians, they seemed to have only one heart and one soul. Their only study seemed to be to equal their superior in humility, sweetness, piety, and self‐renunciation. They lived on barley bread and vegetables cooked in water. They took wine only on festivals, and passed their nights in vigils and prayer, permitting themselves only some hours of sleep when exhausted nature absolutely required it. Then they slept only on a bear’s skin with a stone for a pillow. In a word, they only allowed the body what was necessary for the preservation of life.

Adalric had a profound respect for Odile, as one under the special protection of the Divinity. The system of her community, the devotion and the rigid and holy lives of those who composed it, and above all their inexhaustible charity, led him to lavish his wealth on their monastery. Not satisfied with giving them his palace and its domains, and establishing a foundation in perpetuity for one hundred and thirty young ladies of noble birth, he likewise gave fourteen benefices for the priests who served the convent chapels.

Odile, in her ardent charity, wished there should be free access to her abbey, not only for all the members of her family and persons of high rank who came often to discourse with her on the things of God, but also for the poor, the unhappy, and the sick. The steepness of the mountain in some places made its ascent impossible for the aged. Our saint had an easy pathway constructed, paved with broad flag‐stones. Thenceforth the unfortunate of all grades of society flocked to the abbey—the poor to obtain assistance, the infirm for remedies, and sinners for salutary advice. All who were unhappy or unfortunate, whoever they might be, were the objects of Odile’s tender affection. “The Gospel,” she constantly repeated to her companions, “is a law of love,” and she exhorted them, in imitation of Him who gave his life for us, to be charitable to their fellow‐creatures. Odile’s charity was boundless. Not satisfied with distributing alms, she cheered all with sweet words, carried them nourishment and remedies with her own hands, and dressed the most frightful wounds. “There came one day,” says a writer of that time, “a man covered with a horrid leprosy to the gates of Hohenbourg for alms, uttering most lamentable cries. He was so revolting, and he diffused so infectious an odor, that none of the servants would approach him. One of them, however, informed the saint of his condition. She at once prepared some suitable food, and hastened to serve the leper. In spite of her tenderness towards the unfortunate and her habitual control over her senses, her first movement was one of horror at the sight of so disgusting a being. Ashamed of her weakness, and resolved to conquer it, she folded the leper affectionately in her arms, and burst into tears. Then she broke the food she brought into small pieces, and fed him. At the same time she raised her eyes to heaven, and, with a voice trembling with emotion, exclaimed: ‘O Lord! deign to restore him to health or give him the courage necessary to support such an affliction!’ Her humble prayer was immediately heard. The leprosy disappeared, and the repulsive odor gave place to one of sweetness, so that those who avoided him a short time before were now eager to approach, to touch him, and to wonder.”

Odile gave bread, wine, and meat to all the poor who came to the abbey; she was unwilling any should go away hungry. On feast days a great crowd of beggars would besiege the gates, and on one occasion, all the food of the community, and even the wine, being given them, the Sister who had charge of the wine‐cellar sought Odile in church to tell her there was none left for dinner. The abbess replied with a gentle smile: “He who fed five thousand persons with five loaves and two fishes will provide for us, if it be his will. Forget not, my daughter, that he has promised to those that seek first the kingdom of heaven all other things shall be given. Go where duty calls you.” The Sister went away, and at the hour of repast, going to the wine‐cellar, found a supply of excellent wine.

X.

The two chapels already built by the duke were too small for celebrating the divine service with suitable pomp. There was hardly room enough in them for the sisterhood. The crowds from the neighboring villages were often obliged to kneel outside. A larger church was indispensable. Adalric provided the materials, and it was completed by the year 690. Two square towers of pyramidal form rose beside the grand entrance. The abbess had it consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, her chosen patroness and her model. One of the side chapels she styled the Oratory of the Mother of God. There she loved to take refuge in her mental troubles, in tribulation, and in seasons of spiritual dryness. A second chapel she called Holy Rood Chapel. In commemoration of her baptism she wished also to erect a small church in honor of S. John the Baptist. Undecided about the location, she went out of the monastery one night about midnight, and, kneeling on a great rock, she remained a long time buried in profound meditation. Suddenly, says the old legend, she was surrounded by a dazzling light, and before her stood the radiant form of the precursor of our Lord in a garment of camel’s hair, such as he wore in the desert. He seemed to indicate the spot where the chapel should be erected. The next day it was commenced, and was finished in the autumn of 696. The night before it was to be consecrated S. Odile spent in prayer therein. The prince of the apostles himself, with a choir of angels, descended and performed the ceremony.

“The air of paradise did fan the house, And angels officed all.”

This miraculous chapel was sometimes called the Sacrarium, because the abbess deposited in it the cassette of relics Bishop Erhard gave her on her baptismal day. It was afterwards more commonly called the Chapel of S. Odile, because she was buried there herself. Besides these, she built the Chapel of Tears and the Hanging Chapel, so called because it stood on a steep precipice looking down into a deep chasm. All these chapels were so many stations where the abbess and her companions betook themselves to meditate in silence and solitude.

Adalric and Berswinde, weary of power and grandeur, retired to the Convent of Hohenbourg with their daughter. Advanced in age, they now thought only of preparing themselves for death by prayer and good works. The duke, naturally violent and hard, had sometimes in his moments of passion forgotten his duty. There were many faults for him to expiate before God, and many scandals to repair before men. While he was practising all the virtues of a holy penitent, he was attacked with a serious malady. Odile felt that his last hour was at hand, and hardly left his bedside, wishing, not only to give him the care his illness required, but to console, encourage, and prepare him for a holy death. Contemporary testimony expressly declares: “Consolante eum et roborante beata Odilia.” She received his last breath and closed his eyes on the 20th of February. The year is variously stated. It was between 690 and 700.

A witness of her father’s sorrow for his sins, and of his resignation in his last moments, Odile hoped the mercy of God would be extended to him. She imposed on herself the severest mortifications, and shed floods of tears for the solace of his soul in the chapel, called from this circumstance the Chapel of Tears. On the fifth day she had an inward assurance of his salvation.

There are numberless traditions in Alsace respecting S. Odile. They have been handed down from one generation to another in the villages grouped around the foot of Mount Hohenbourg. One of these legends changes the tears of the saint into a limpid stream, where the blind, or those who have any disease of the eyes, go for a remedy. Another says her tears perforated a rock. A third makes her and all her community behold her father convoyed heavenward by a choir of angels led by S. Peter in sacerdotal robes. The more we examine S. Odile’s life, the more numerous become these brilliant legends, and the more fully do we find her life marked by acts of beneficence and by miracles.

Berswinde survived her husband only nine days. She died suddenly while praying in the Chapel of S. John.

The descendants of the duke and duchess assembled at Hohenbourg to deplore their double loss. A magnificent funeral service was performed. All the people of Alsace flocked to the convent to weep over their death. One would have thought they had lost dear parents, say the chronicles. The duke’s sons gave abundant alms on this occasion. The remains of the deceased were placed in the Chapel of the Virgin, according to their request, and thither came pilgrims to pray by their tomb till they were removed.

Adalric, notwithstanding his generosity to the church, left immense domains to his children. His oldest son, Etton, or Etichon, became Duke of Brisgau and Count of Argovie. He was the progenitor of the houses of Egisheim and Lorraine. The second son, Adelbert, had the duchies of Alsace, Swabia, and Sundgau. From him sprang the houses of Habsburg and Zähringen. Hugo, the third son, died before his father, but left three sons. The oldest, Remigius, was Abbot of S. Gregory in the Val de Münster, and finally Bishop of Strasbourg. He was a great friend of Charlemagne’s, and built the celebrated nunnery of Eschau,(67) where two of his nieces were successively abbesses.

After the death of her parents, Odile kept up most intimate relations with the rest of her family. She saw them frequently, and labored for their sanctification. Following her counsels, they founded a great number of convents and churches, which, in that barbarous age, became the refuge of science, literature, and the arts, and for centuries contributed powerfully to the prosperity of Alsace.

XI.

Hitherto the inmates of Hohenbourg had been subjected to no written rule. Our dear saint was their living guide. But notwithstanding the ardor of their piety, she thought it proper to adopt some definite rule to obviate the inconstancy of the human heart, and to restrain an excess of fervor. Assembling all her spiritual children, she gave them, after invoking the Holy Spirit, a fixed rule, probably drawn from that of S. Augustine.

The steepness of Hohenbourg made it so difficult of ascent for the aged and infirm, the very ones whom Odile desired the most to aid, that she resolved to build at its foot, on the south side, a spacious hospice with a chapel, under the invocation of S. Nicholas.

Berswinde, who was still living, gave up a part of her revenues for the benefit of the poor who were received there. S. Odile daily descended this mountain, too steep and rough for others, to visit the hospice. She used to visit each inmate, and give him alms and advice with all the tenderness Christianity alone can inspire. Her children shared in her labors. They loved the freshness and solitude of the spot where the hospice stood, and there was an abundance of water there, which was lacking on the summit. The number of the infirm that resorted hither became so large as to require, night and day, the constant attendance of the Sisters, and they begged the abbess to build another monastery near S. Nicholas, and dependent on that of Hohenbourg. Odile consented.

One day, while she was occupied in overseeing the workmen, an aged man brought three branches of a linden‐tree, begging her to plant them. He predicted that the faithful would come to sit beneath their shade. Odile did as he requested, planting the first in the name of the Father, the second in the name of the Son, and the third in the name of the Holy Ghost. In fact, successive generations have sought repose beneath them, according to the old man’s prediction. Odile gave this new monastery the name of Niedermünster (Lower Minster). She established there one‐half of the community of Hohenbourg, retaining herself the direction of both houses. She placed in the new house those who were most zealous in nursing the sick, and had the greatest aptitude for it.

Many foreign ladies, drawn to Alsace by Odile’s reputation for sanctity, were among their number. They lived at Niedermünster in obedience to the rule of Hohenbourg, and led lives of austerity. These two cloisters, says Father Hugo Peltre, might be compared to two trees, apparently separated, but really drawing nourishment from the same root.

Odile, though advancing in years and broken down by her excessive austerities, daily descended the mountain. Neither frost nor rain nor fierce winds prevented her from visiting the hospice, which was her place of delight, for there she found a vast field for her charity. She was in the habit of saying: “Jesus Christ has given us the poor to supply his place. In caring for them we serve the Saviour in their person.” The whole of Alsace blessed her name, seeing her constantly occupied in solacing suffering humanity, in guiding her spiritual children in the paths of holiness, and in instructing the people in the sublime truths of the Gospel.

There is a legend that Odile, bent down by the weight of years, was one day ascending the mountain alone when she saw lying in the path an old man dying of thirst and apparently breathing his last. Our saint tried to raise him, but, too feeble to do so, she had recourse to the divine assistance. After a fervent prayer, remembering what Moses did, she smote a rock close by with her staff. A stream burst forth immediately, which restored the old pilgrim to life. This fount is still venerated and frequented. The water is considered miraculous.

XII.

Odile was ripe for heaven. Whether the state of her health announced it, or God gave her a secret presentiment of her approaching end, on the 13th of December (S. Lucius’ Day) she called together her companions in the Chapel of S. John the Baptist, which had become her oratory, and, after begging them not to be afflicted at what she had to say, she sweetly announced to them that she was near the end of her earthly pilgrimage, and her soul, ready to quit its prison of clay, would soon enjoy the liberty God has promised his children. Then the holy abbess exhorted them to remain faithful to the Lord, not to allow their fervor to relax, to resist with all their strength the temptations of the adversary, and to submit their wills to that of the Almighty.

While she was speaking to them her three nieces, Attale, Eugénie, and Gundeline, shed floods of tears. Our dear saint, seeing their profound grief, turned towards them and said: “Weep not, beloved children. Your tears cannot prolong my existence here below. Go rather, all of you, to the Chapel of Our Blessed Lady, pray together, recite the Psalms, and beg for me the grace of a happy death.” As soon as all the community had gone out to obey her wishes, the saint fell into an ecstasy, in which she had a foretaste of heavenly joys. Her companions, returning from the chapel and finding her insensible, began to express their sorrow that she had departed without receiving Holy Communion. The saint, aroused by their sobs and groans, opened her eyes and said: “Why have you returned so soon, my dear children, to disturb my repose? I was in the presence of the Blessed S. Lucius, and inexpressibly happy; for, as the apostle says, the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive it.” She then expressed an ardent desire to receive the most Sacred Body and Precious Blood of our Lord. All at once, says the old legend, a flood of dazzling light pervaded the chapel. The saint fell on her knees, all the Sisters imitating her example. A celestial ministrant, radiant with glory, appeared at the altar. He approached the dying abbess, placed in her hands a wonderful chalice, and then reascended to heaven.(68) She communicated therefrom, murmured a last farewell to her children, joined her hands, and then the eyes, once opened by a miracle, closed for ever to the light.

According to her wishes, her body, extenuated with fasts and other austerities, was laid on a bear’s skin, and exposed for eight days in the Chapel of S. John the Baptist, on the Gospel side, and with the feet turned towards the altar. During this time a sweet odor spread throughout the abbey. Her children felt that, instead of weeping for her who had fought the good fight, and never been wanting in her fidelity to God, they should rather rejoice that she was called to receive the crown of righteousness, and they to imitate her example and seek through her intercession for as happy an end.

Thus died, on the 13th of December, 7—,(69) Odile, eldest daughter of Adalric, Duke of Alsace, abbess of the convents of Hohenbourg and Niedermünster. Her mortal remains were covered with mastic, which, at first soft, became hard; then placed in a tomb of stone, which is still to be seen.

The inmates of the two monasteries celebrated her obsequies with all the solemnity due to their abbess and foundress, and with the recollection due to her sanctity. All the people of Alsace flocked to Hohenbourg to look once more on the face of her to whom the unfortunate and the afflicted never appealed in vain. Her inexhaustible charity, her zeal for Christian perfection, her austere and penitential life, and her good works without number, had during her life rendered her the object of public veneration. As soon as she was dead a particular honor was paid her, first at Hohenbourg, then throughout the whole province, which to this day invokes her as its patroness. This honor has been sanctioned by the church. Her venerated sepulchre is in our day the most frequented place of pilgrimage in Alsace.

XIII.

Odile had acquired a taste for letters at the Abbey of Baume. She had a thorough knowledge of the Latin language, the Holy Scriptures, and ecclesiastical history. Her last will and testament, which has been preserved, proves that she was as enlightened as holy.(70) The monasteries she founded did not degenerate in this respect. They were the asylums of learning. In the XIIth century, says Grandidier, while a large part of Europe was plunged in ignorance and barbarism, the love of literature and the sciences was to be found among some women of Alsace. Hohenbourg was inhabited by canonesses equally learned and regular. Three abbesses were especially distinguished for their taste for poetry and literature in general. The first, Ricklende or Kilinde, reformed the monastery in 1141. Some of her Latin verses, and the fragments of other works in that language, have been preserved. Herrade de Landsberg, who succeeded her in 1167, became still more celebrated. Grandidier, speaking of her, says: “The polite arts, painting, music, and poetry, charmed the leisure of this illustrious abbess.” A collection of poetry in Latin, composed for the instruction of her community, under the title of Hortus Deliciarum,(71) is still preserved. Gerlinde, her sister or cousin, succeeded her, and equalled her in taste and knowledge.

The first abbesses after S. Odile were her two nieces, S. Eugénie and S. Gundeline. They divided the authority. The first was Abbess of Hohenbourg, the second of Niedermünster. The revenues, which had hitherto been in common, were divided by Odile before her death. Only Oberehnheim remained undivided, that there might be a common tie between them.

Regularity of monastic life and observances was maintained till the XIth century. The church was accidentally destroyed in 1045, but was rebuilt and consecrated to the Blessed Virgin by Bruno, Count of Dagsbourg, Bishop of Toul, and Landgrave of Alsace, a descendant of Odile’s brother Etton. A few years after it was again destroyed by the Hungarian invaders, and again Bruno, who had become the Sovereign Pontiff in 1049 under the name of Leo IX., had it rebuilt. This pope, called to Germany by the interests of the church, went himself to Hohenbourg to consecrate the edifice and reassemble the dispersed sisterhood. He did not leave this place, so dear to his heart, till he had re‐established the monastic discipline.

About a hundred years after this the community of Hohenbourg greatly relaxed its fervor, the number of its subjects diminished, their revenues decreased, and the buildings were decaying. The monastery would perhaps have been abandoned had not Frederick Barbarossa, in his quality of Duke of Alsace, interfered to save so celebrated a house from falling. He sent to reform it Ricklende or Kilinde, whom he took from the Convent of Bergen in the Diocese of Eichstadt, and to whom he gave the title and rights of Princess of the Holy Empire, and also bestowed on her large sums of money for the reparation of the monastery. Ricklende, whom we have already mentioned, joined great zeal and piety to an enlarged mind and much information. Sustained by the authority of the emperor, she re‐established discipline in less than two years, as her successor, Herrade de Landsberg, formally testifies. The religious habit worn in this house was white, albens quasi lilium, says the Hortus Deliciarum. The bull of Pope Lucius III. says they followed the rule of S. Augustine. Ricklende had under her thirty‐three choir Sisters. In Herrade’s time there were forty‐ seven and thirteen lay Sisters. It was in the time of Herrade that the Emperor Henry VI., disregarding his oath, had Sibylla, the widow of Tancred, and Constance, her daughter, arrested and conducted to Hohenbourg to take the veil.

In 1354 the Emperor Charles IV. visited S. Odile’s tomb, Agnes de Slauffenberg being the abbess. He had the saint’s body exhumed, and Jean de Lichtenberg, Bishop of Strasbourg, detached a part of the arm to be deposited in the Cathedral of Prague. But, at the request of the sisterhood, Charles IV. drew up an act which forbade any one, under the severest penalties, from ever opening the tomb again. The bishop pronounced the sentence of excommunication on whomsoever should violate this decree of the sovereign.(72)

The Abbey of Hohenbourg, or of S. Odile, as it was also called, was destined to terrible disasters. It was sacked in the XIVth and XVth centuries by the grandes Compagnies by the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. It was still more unfortunate in the XVIth century. Niedermünster was burned in 1542, and Hohenbourg on the 24th of March, 1546. The canonesses and prebends then dispersed, and Jean de Manderscheidt, Bishop of Strasbourg, fearing the Lutherans would seize the property belonging to the two abbeys, obtained permission from the Holy See to annex it to the episcopal domains by paying the canonesses an annual pension. The monastery, rebuilt in 1607 by Cardinal Charles de Lorraine and the Archduke Leopold, Bishops of Strasbourg, was burned anew in 1622 by the Lutheran army of the Count de Mansfeldt. The church was repaired in 1630, but again devastated by the Brandenburg soldiers in 1633. They removed the lead from the windows and organs for ball. Subsequent wars were also disastrous for Hohenbourg, and on the 7th of May, 1681, the whole convent was again burned. Only the Chapel of Tears and that of the Angels remained standing.

The Premonstratensians of the ancient observance established themselves at Hohenbourg in 1663, converting it into a priory. They began to rebuild it in 1684. Two of the monks, Father Hugues Peltre and Father Denys Albrecht, carefully collected all the ancient accounts of S. Odile, and wrote biographies of the saint, which we have freely made use of in this account.

Niedermünster, which was given to the Grand Chapter of Strasbourg in 1558, is now only a heap of ruins. Rosine de Stein, who died in 1534, was the last abbess.

The French Revolution had also its effect on Hohenbourg. A few days after the decree of the National Assembly on the 13th of February, 1790, suppressing the monastic vows, the Convent of S. Odile was vacated. Nevertheless, pilgrimages to the shrine of the holy Patroness of Alsace continued to be frequent.

Nearly all that could nourish or excite the piety of the pilgrim had disappeared from the antique cloister of Altitona, but Odile’s tomb still remained and sufficed to attract a great number from all the surrounding countries.

XIV.

On the 7th of July, 1841, at nine o’clock in the morning, the remains of S. Odile were taken out of the tomb where they had reposed so many centuries, and exposed to public veneration on the altar of the chapel which bears her name. On the eve of this festival Mount Hohenbourg presented an animated spectacle. People from Alsace, Lorraine, and around Metz arrived in crowds. In ascending the mountain they dispersed to gather foliage and wild flowers to deck the old Church of S. Odile with. Large vases were placed on the altars and the boiserie around the church to receive these floral offerings of successive groups. A fir‐tree from a neighboring forest stood beside each column of the nave. Garlands of box and of oak‐leaves hung from tree to tree and covered the trunks. S. Odile’s tomb and altar were richly decorated and her statue crowned with flowers. The châsse of the saint was placed on an elevation elegantly draped. Thousands of pilgrims roamed around the precincts in the evening, visiting successively the various sanctuaries.

The Chapel of Calvary particularly attracted them. It contained Adalric’s remains, and among others a large painting in which were displayed the genealogies of the houses of Alsace, Lorraine, France, and Austria, all of which drew their origin from Adalric and Berswinde, and, finally, an antique bedstead which tradition declared once belonged to King Dagobert.

At three o’clock in the morning of July 7th the bells announced to the impatient pilgrims that the doors of the church were open and the first Mass about to commence. The edifice was immediately crammed; even the sanctuary was invaded. The neighboring chapels, the large court of the monastery, and the green in front, were soon filled; but order reigned everywhere in the multitude of all ages, sexes, and ranks. Every face expressed faith and the most fervent devotion. Eighty priests from Alsace, Lorraine, the Grand Duchy of Baden, and even from Holland, enhanced by their presence the brilliancy of this festival, at once religious and national. Masses succeeded each other till afternoon. The venerable Curate of Oberehnheim (the place of S. Odile’s birth), who was the bishop’s delegate, gave the signal for the ceremony at nine o’clock A.M. The remains of S. Odile were borne in procession by six priests. Censers waved and the sound of the bells mingled joyfully with the music and the ancient hymns of the church. The crowd opened for the procession to pass. Every face lights up, hands are clasped, and tears flow from all eyes. The president of the festival, more than eighty years of age, pronounced the panegyric of the saint. Then followed a grand Mass, during which, and for two hours after, a constant file of pilgrims approached to venerate a relic of the saint. The ceremonies closed with Benediction.

The châsse was exposed during the whole Octave. From that time the concourse of pilgrims has continued. There were fifteen hundred the following Sunday. Hundreds of Communions are daily made at Hohenbourg, and perhaps the number of pilgrims has never been greater than of late.

Glorious Patroness of Alsace, whose great heart, while on earth, was so full of pity for the unfortunate, pray for thy unhappy country, now devastated and full of woe!

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

Wind And Tide

I stood by the broad, deep river, The tide flowed firm to its mouth; I saw the sweet wind quiver, As it rose in the golden south. On the river’s bosom it fluttered, And kissed and caressed all day, And joys of the south it muttered: But the tide kept its northern way. Tender and chaste was its suing, Till the face of the river‐bride Rippled and gleamed in the wooing: But northward flowed the tide.

And so, thought I, God’s graces Woo our souls the livelong day, Which brighten and smile in their faces: Sin bears us another way.

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

Matter. IV

To complete our investigation about the essential properties of matter, one great question remains to be answered, viz.: Is the matter of which bodies are made up intrinsically extended so as to fill a portion of space, or does it ultimately consist of unextended points? We call this a great question, not indeed because of any great difficulty to be encountered in its solution, but because it has a great importance in metaphysics, and because it has been at all times much ventilated by great philosophers.

That bodies do not fill with their matter the dimensions of their volume is conceded by all, as porosity is a general property of bodies. That the molecules, or chemical atoms, of which the mass of a body is composed, do not touch one another with their matter, but are separated by appreciable intervals of space, is also admitted by our best scientists, though many of them are of opinion that those intervals are filled with a subtle medium, by which calorific and luminous vibrations are supposed to be propagated. But with regard to the molecules themselves, the question, whether their constitution is continuous or discrete, has not yet been settled. Some teach, with the old physicists, that bodies are ultimately made up of particles materially continuous, filling with their mass the whole space occupied by their volume. These last particles they call atoms, because their mass is not susceptible of physical division, although their volume is infinitely divisible in a mathematical sense. Others, on the contrary, deny the material continuity of matter, and hold with Boscovich that, as all bodies are composed of discrete molecules, so are all molecules composed of discrete elements wholly destitute of material extension, occupying distinct mathematical points in space, and bound by mutual action in mechanical systems differently constituted, according to the different nature of the substances to which they belong.

Which of these two opinions is right? Although scientists more generally incline to the second, metaphysicians are still in favor of the first. Yet we do not hesitate to say, though it may appear presumptuous on our part, that it is not difficult to decide the question. Let the reader follow our reasoning upon the subject, and we confidently predict that he will soon be satisfied of the truth of our assertion.

Groundless assumption of continuous matter.—As the true metaphysics of matter must be grounded on real facts, we may first inquire what facts, if any, can be adduced in favor of the intrinsic extension and material continuity of molecules. Is there any sensible fact which directly or indirectly proves such a continuity?

We must answer in the negative. For sensible facts are perceived by us in consequence of the impressions which objects make on our senses; if, therefore, such impressions are not calculated to reveal anything concerning the question of material continuity, no sensible fact can be adduced as a proof of the continuity of matter. Now, the impressions made on our senses cannot reveal anything about our question. For we know that bodies contain not only millions of pores, which are invisible to the naked eye, but also millions of movable and separate particles, which are so minute that no microscope can make them visible, and which, though so extremely minute, are composed of millions of other particles still more minute, which have independent movements, and therefore possess an independent existence. There are many species of animalcules (infusoria) so small that millions together would not equal the bulk of a grain of sand, and thousands might swim at once through the eye of a needle. These almost infinitesimal animals are as well adapted to life as the largest beasts, and their movements display all the phenomena of life, sense, and instinct. They have nerves and muscles, organs of digestion and of propagation, liquids and solids of different kinds, etc. It is impossible to form a conception of the minute dimensions of these organic structures; and yet each separate organ of every animalcule is a compound of several organic substances, each in its turn comprising numberless atoms of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. It is plain from this and other examples that the actual magnitude of the ultimate molecules of any body is something completely beyond the reach of our senses to perceive or of our intellect to comprehend.(73) We must therefore concede that no impression received by our senses is calculated to make us perceive anything like a molecule or to give us a clue to its constitution. To say that molecules are so many pieces of continuous matter is therefore to assert what no sensible fact can ever reveal.

Moreover, we know of no sensible phenomenon which has any necessary connection with the continuity of matter. Physicists and chemists, in their scientific explanation of phenomena, have no need of assuming the existence of continuous matter, and acknowledge that there are no facts from which the theory of simple and unextended elements can be refuted. And the reason of this is clear; for the phenomena can be made the ground of experimental proofs only so far as they are perceived by our senses; and since our perception of them is confined within the narrow limits above described, it is impossible to draw from sensible phenomena any distinct conclusion regarding the constitution of molecules. Hence it is plain that no sensible fact exists which directly or indirectly proves the continuity of matter.

Secondly, we may ask, Can the intrinsic extension and continuity of matter be proved from the essence of material substance?

The answer must again be negative. For nothing can in any manner be involved in, or result from, the essence of material substance, unless it be required either by the matter, or by the substantial form, or by the relation and proportion which must exist between the form and the matter. But neither the matter, nor the substantial form, nor their mutual relation requires material continuity or material extension. Therefore the essence of material substance cannot supply us with any valid argument in favor of the extension and continuity of matter.

In this syllogism the major proposition needs no proof, as it is evident that material substance, like all other created things, essentially consists of act and potency; and it is known that its act is called the substantial form, while its potency is called the matter.(74) It is therefore manifest that, if anything has a necessary connection with the essence of material substance, it must be of such a nature as to be needed either by the matter or by the substantial form, or by both together.

The minor proposition can be demonstrated as follows: In the first place, continuous quantity is not needed by the matter, whether actuated or actuable. For, as actuable, the matter is a “mere potency” (pura potentia) which has yet to receive its “first actuality” (primum esse), as philosophers agree; and accordingly it has no actual quantity or continuous extension, nor is it potential with respect to it, as its potency regards only existence (primum esse), and evidently existence is not dimensive quantity. Hence the schoolmen unanimously maintain with Aristotle that the first matter has “no quiddity, no quality, and no quantity” (nec quid, nec quale, nec quantum)—a truth which we hope fully to explain in some future article. As actuated, the matter is nothing else than a substantial term susceptible of local motion; for we know from physics that material substance receives no other determination than to local movement, and for this reason, as we remarked in another place, it has been defined Ens mobile, or a movable thing. Now, a term, to be susceptible of local motion, needs no dimensions, as is evident. And therefore the matter, whether actuated or not, has nothing in its nature which requires continuous extension.

In the second place, material continuity is not required by the nature of the substantial form. This form may, in fact, be considered either as a principle of being or as a principle of operation. As a principle of being, it gives the first existence to its matter; and it is plain that to give the first existence is not to give bulk. Our adversaries teach that what gives bulk to the bodies is quantity; and yet, surely, they will not pretend that quantity is the substantial form. On the other hand, it is evident that to be and to have bulk are not the same thing; and since the substantial form merely causes the matter to be, it would be absurd to infer that it must also cause it to be extended. As a principle of operation, the form needs matter only as a centre from which its exertions are directed. Now, the direction of the exertion, as well as that of the movement, must be taken from a point to a point, not from a bulk to a bulk; and therefore the form, as a principle of operation, needs only one point of matter. Thus it is clear that no material extension is required to suit the wants of the substantial form.

In the third place, material extension is not required to make the matter proportionate to its substantial form. We shall see later that no form which requires a determinate quantity of mass can be a substantial form in the strict sense of the expression; at present it will suffice to keep in mind that the substantial form must give the first being to its matter, and that the matter is therefore perfectly proportioned to its substantial form by merely being in potency to receive its first being. Now, such a potency implies no extension; for if it did, the accident would precede the substance. Besides, the matter before its first actuation is a nonentity, and, as such, is incapable of any positive disposition, as we shall more fully explain in the sequel. But a determinate bulk would be a positive disposition. Hence the matter which receives its first actuation is proportionate to its form independently of material extension. We can therefore safely conclude that the essence of material substance supplies no proof whatever of the continuity of matter.

Thirdly, we ask, Can the continuity of matter be proved from mechanics?

Here also our answer must be negative. For the theorems of mechanics are each and all demonstrated quite independently of the question of material continuity. The old writers of mechanical works (or rather the old metaphysicians, from whom these writers borrowed their notion of matter) admitted the continuity of matter on two grounds: first, because they thought that nature abhorred a vacuum; and, secondly, because they rejected the actio in distans as impossible. But we have already shown that no action of matter upon matter is possible, except on the condition that the matter of the agent be distant from the matter of the patient; which implies that all the material particles, to act on their immediate neighbors, must be separately ubicated, with intervening vacuum. And thus the only reasons by which the ancients could plausibly support the continuity of matter have lost all weight in the light of modern mechanics.

Fourthly: Can the continuity of matter be inferred from geometrical considerations?

We reply that it cannot. For geometric quantity is not a quantity of matter, but a quantity of volume—that is, the quantity of space mensurable within certain limits. Hence it is evident that the continuity of the geometric quantity has nothing to do with the continuity of matter, and is not dependent on it, but wholly depends on the possibility of a continuous movement within the limits of the geometric space. In fact, we have in geometry three dimensions—length, breadth, and depth, which are simple lines. Now, a line is not conceived as made up of material points touching and continuing one another, but as the track of a point moving between certain limits; so that the continuity of the geometric dimensions is not grounded on any extension or continuation of material particles, but on the possibility of continuous movement, on which the continuity of time also depends. We must therefore remain satisfied that no geometrical consideration can lend the least support to the hypothesis of material continuity.

We have thus exhausted all the sources from which any à priori or à posteriori argument in favor of material continuity might have been drawn, if any had been possible; and the result of our investigation authorizes the conclusion that the hypothesis of continuous matter is both scientifically and philosophically gratuitous.

False reasonings in behalf of continuous matter.—But some philosophers, who are afraid that the denial of material continuity may subvert all the scholastic doctrines (to which they most laudably, but perhaps too exclusively, adhere in questions of natural science), contend that the existence of continuous matter can be established by good philosophical reasons. It is therefore our duty, before we proceed further, to acquaint our reader with such reasons, and with our answers to them.

The first reason is the following: Geometry is a real, not a chimerical, science; and therefore it has to deal with real bodies—not indeed inasmuch as they are substances, but inasmuch as they have a quantity which can be considered in the abstract. Hence we must admit that the geometric quantity is a quantity of matter considered in the abstract; and accordingly, if the geometric quantity is continuous and infinitely divisible, as no one doubts, the quantity of matter in the bodies must also be continuous and infinitely divisible.

We reply that bodies have two very different kinds of quantity—the quantity of the mass and the quantity of the volume—and that geometry deals indeed with the latter, but has nothing to do with the former. Hence the geometric quantity is a quantity of volume or bulk, not a quantity of matter; and therefore to argue that, because the geometric quantity is continuous and infinitely divisible, the same must be true of the quantity of matter, is to make an inexcusable confusion of matter with space. The argument might have some value, if the quantity of the volume could be measured by the quantity of the mass; but no one who has studied the first elements of physics can be ignorant that such is not the case. Equal masses are found under unequal volumes, and unequal masses under equal volumes. Volumes preserve the same geometric nature and the same geometric quantity, be they filled with matter or not. A cubic inch of platinum and a cubic inch of water contain different amounts of matter, since the former weighs twenty‐one times as much as the latter; and yet they are geometrically equal. Geometry is not concerned with the density of bodies; and therefore geometrical quantities are altogether independent of the quantity of matter, and cannot be altered except by altering the relative position of the extreme terms between which their three dimensions are measured. These dimensions are not made up of matter, but are mere relations in space, with or without interjacent matter, representing, as we have already observed, the quantity of continuous movement which is possible between the correlated terms; and their continuity depends on the continuity of space, not of matter.

The author from whom we have taken this objection pretends also that the geometric quantity possesses no other attributes than those which belong to all quantity, and are essential to it; whence he concludes that whatever is predicated of geometric quantity must also be predicated of the quantity of matter. But the assumption is evidently false; for it is not of the essence of all quantity to be continuous as the geometric quantity, it being manifest that discrete quantity is a true quantity, although it has no continuity. The general notion of quantity extends to everything which admits of more or less; hence there is intensive quantity, extensive quantity, and numeric quantity. The first is measured by arbitrary degrees of intensity; the second is measured by arbitrary intervals of space and time; the third is measured by natural units—that is, by individual realities as they exist in nature. It is therefore absurd to pretend that whatever can be predicated of geometric quantity must be predicated of all kinds of quantity.

The second reason adduced in behalf of material continuity is as follows: To deny the continuity of matter is to destroy all real extension. For how can real extension arise from simple unextended points arranged in a certain manner, and acting upon one another? The notions of simplicity, order, and activity transcend the attributions of matter, and are applicable to all spiritual beings. If, then, extension could arise from simple unextended elements by their arrangement and actions, why could not angels, by meeting in a sufficient number and acting on one another, give rise to extension, and form, say, a watermelon?

This argument has no weight whatever; but, as it appeared not many years ago in a Catholic periodical of great reputation, we have thought it best to give it a place among other arguments of the same sort. Our answer is that to deny the continuity of matter is not to deny real extension, but only to maintain that no real extension is made up of continuous matter. And we are by no means embarrassed to explain “how real extension can arise from simple unextended points.” The thing is very plain. Two points, A and B, being given in space, the interval of space between them is a real interval, really determined by the real points A and B, and really determining the extension of the real movement possible between the same points. Such an interval is therefore a real extension. This is the way in which real extension arises from unextended points.

Nor can it be objected that nothing extended can be made up of unextended points. This is true, of course, but has nothing to do with the question. For we do not pretend that extension is made up by composition of points—which would be a very gross error—but we say that extension results from the simple position of real points in space, and that it results not in them, but between them. It is the mass of the body that is made up of its components; and thus the sum A + B represents a mass, not an extension. The geometric dimensions, on the contrary, consist entirely of relations between distinct points intercepting mensurable space. The distinct points are the terms of the relation, while the extent of the space mensurable between them by continuous movement is the formal reason of their relativity. And since this continuous movement may extend more or less, according as the terms are variously situated, hence the resulting relation has the nature of continuous quantity. This suffices to show that to deny the continuity of matter is not to destroy all real extension.

And now, what shall we say of those angels freely uniting to form a watermelon? It is hardly necessary to say that this bright idea is only a dream. There is no volume without dimensions, no dimension without distance, and no distance without terms distinctly ubicated in space and marking out the point where the distance begins, and the point where it ends. Now, nothing marks out a point in space but matter. Angels, as destitute of matter, mark no points in space, and accordingly cannot terminate distances nor give rise to dimensions. Had they matter, they would, like the simple elements, possess a formal ubication in space, and determine dimensions; but, owing to their spiritual nature, they transcend all local determinations, and have no formal ubication except in the intellectual sphere of their spiritual operation. It is therefore owing to their spirituality, and not to their simplicity, that they cannot form themselves into a volume. Lastly, we must not forget that the “angelic” watermelon should have not only volume, but mass also. Such a mass would, of course, be made up without matter. How a mass can be conceived without matter is a profound secret, which the author of the argument very prudently avoided to reveal. But let us come to another objection.

A third reason adduced in favor of continuous matter is that we cannot, without employing a vicious circle, account for the extension of bodies by the notion either of space, distance, or movement. For these notions already presuppose extension, and cannot be formed without a previous knowledge of what extension is. To think of space is, in fact, to think of extension. So also distance cannot be conceived except by imagining something extended, which lies, or can lie, between the distant terms. Hence, to avoid the vicious circle, it is necessary to trace the origin of our notion of extension to the matter we see in the bodies. And therefore our very notion of extension is a sufficient proof of the existence of continuous matter.

We reply that this reason is even less plausible than the preceding one. To form the abstract notion of extension, we must first directly perceive some extension in the concrete, in the same manner as we must perceive concrete humanity in individual men before we conceive humanity in the abstract. But in all sensible movements we directly perceive extension through space and time. Therefore from sensible movements, without a previous knowledge of extension, we can form the notion of extension in general. Is there any one who can find in this a vicious circle?

This answer might suffice. But we will further remark that the argument may be retorted against its author. For if we cannot conceive movement as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension, how can we conceive matter as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension? And how can we conceive matter as continuous without a previous knowledge of continuity, or time as enduring without a previous knowledge of duration? To these questions the author of the argument can give no satisfactory answer without solving his own objection. Space, distance, and movement, says he, involve extension; and therefore they cannot be known “without a previous knowledge of what extension is.” It is evident that this conclusion is illogical; for if space, distance, and movement imply extension, we cannot perceive space, distance, and movement without directly perceiving extension; and, since the direct perception of a thing does not require a previous knowledge of it, the logical conclusion should have been that, to perceive space, distance, and movement, no previous knowledge of extension is needed.

On the other hand, while our senses perceive the extension of continuous movement in space, they are not competent to perceive material continuity in natural bodies. Hence it is from movement, and not from matter, that our notion of continuous extension is derived. In fact, to form a conception of the dimensions of a body, we survey it by a continuous movement of our eyes from one end of it to the other. In this movement the eye glides over innumerable pores, by which the material particles of the body are separated. If our conception of the geometric extension of the body depended on the continuity of its matter, these pores, as not consisting of continuous matter, should all be thrown away in the measurement of the body. Why, then, do we consider them as contributing with their own dimensions to form the total dimensions of the body? Merely because the geometric dimensions are estimated by movement, and not by matter.

Nor is it in the least strange that we should know extension from movement, and not from matter. For no one can perceive extension between two terms, unless he measures by continuous movement the space intercepted between them. The local relation between two terms cannot, in fact, be perceived otherwise than by referring the one term to the other through space; hence no one ever perceives a distance between two given terms otherwise than by drawing, at least mentally, a line from the one to the other—that is, otherwise than by measuring by some movement the extent of the movement which can take place between the two given terms. And this is what the very word extension conveys. For this word is composed of the preposition ex, which connotes the term from which the movement begins, and of the verb tendere, which is a verb of motion. And thus everything shows that it is from motion, and not from continuous matter, that our first notion of extension proceeds.

A sharp opponent, however, might still object that before we can perceive any movement we need to perceive something movable—that is, visible matter. But no matter is visible unless it be extended. Therefore extension must be perceived in matter itself before we can perceive it in local movement.

But we answer, first, that although nothing can be perceived by our senses unless it be extended, nevertheless we can see extended things without perceiving their extension. Thus we see many stars as mere points in space, and yet we can perceive their movement from the east to the west. Hence, although matter is not visible unless it be extended, it does not follow that extension must be first perceived in matter itself.

Secondly, we answer that when we perceive the movable matter as extended, we do not judge of its extension by its movement, but by the movement which we ourselves have to make in going from one of its extremities to the other. This is the only way of perceiving extension in space. For how could we conceive anything as extended, if we could not see that it has parts outside of parts? And how could we pronounce that anything has parts outside of parts, if we did not see that between one part and another there is a possibility of local movement? On the other hand, as soon as we perceive the possibility of local movement between distinct parts, we have sufficient evidence of geometric extension. And thus we have no need of continuous matter in order to perceive the volume of bodies.

Before we dismiss this subject, we must add that the advocates of continuous matter, while fighting against us, shield themselves with two other arguments. If matter is not continuous, they say, bodies will consist of mere mathematical points acting at a distance; but actio in distans is the extreme of absurdity, and therefore bodies cannot consist of mathematical points. They also allege that nature abhors a vacuum, and therefore all space must be filled up with matter; which would be impossible, were not matter continuous. That nature abhors a vacuum was once considered a physical axiom; but, since science has destroyed the physical grounds on which the pretended axiom rested, metaphysics has in its turn been appealed to, that the time‐honored dictum may not be consigned to complete oblivion. It has therefore been pretended that space without matter is a mere delusion, and consequently that to make extension dependent on empty intervals of space imagined to intervene between material points is to give a chimerical solution of the question of material extension.

The first of these two arguments we have fully answered in our last article, and we shall not again detain our readers with it. Let us notice, however, that when the elements of matter are called “mathematical” points, the sense is not that they are not physical, but only that those physical points are mathematically, or rigorously, unextended.

The second argument assumes that space void of matter is nothing. As we cannot enter here into a detailed examination of the nature of absolute space, we shall content ourselves with the following answer: 1st. All real relations require a real foundation. Real distances are real relations. Therefore real distances have a real foundation. But their foundation is nothing else than absolute space; and therefore absolute space is a reality. 2d. If empty space is nothing, then bodies were created in nothing, occupy nothing, and all spaces actually occupied are nothing. To say, as so many have said, that empty space is nothing, and that space occupied by matter is a reality, is to say that the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative—a proposition which is the main support of German pantheism, and which every man of sense must reject. 3d. Of two different recipients, the greater has a greater capacity independently of the matter which it may contain; for, whether it be filled with the rarest gas or with the densest metal, its capacity does not vary. It is therefore manifest that its capacity is not determined by the matter it contains, but only by the space intercepted between its limits. In the same manner the smaller recipient has less capacity, irrespective of the matter it may contain, and only in consequence of the space intercepted. If, therefore, space, prescinding from the matter occupying it, is nothing, the greater capacity will be a greater nothing, and the less capacity a less nothing. But greater and less imply quantity, and quantity is something. Therefore nothing will be something.

We hope we shall hereafter have a better opportunity of developing these and other considerations on space; but the little we have said is sufficient, we believe, to show that the assumption of the unreality of space unoccupied by matter is a philosophical absurdity.

We conclude that the existence of continuous matter cannot be proved, and that those philosophers who still admit it cannot account for it by anything like a good argument. They can only shelter themselves behind the prejudices of their infancy, which they have been unable to discard, or behind the venerable authority of the ancients, who, though deserving our admiration in other respects, were led astray by the same popular prejudices, owing to their limited knowledge of natural science. We may be allowed to add that if the ancient philosophers are not to be blamed for admitting continuous matter, the same cannot be said of those among our contemporaries who, in the present state of science, are still satisfied with their authority on the subject.

Mysterious attributes of continuous matter.—Now, let us suppose that bodies, or their molecules, are made up of continuous matter, just as our opponents maintain; and let us see what must necessarily follow from such a gratuitous assumption. In the first place, it follows that a piece of continuous matter cannot be actuated by a single substantial act. This is easily proved.

For a single act gives a single actual being; which is inconsistent with the nature of continuous matter. Matter, to be continuous, must actually contain distinct parts, united indeed, but having distinct ubications in space. Now, with a single substantial act there cannot be distinct actual parts; for all actual distinction, according to the axiom of the schools, implies distinct acts: Actus est qui distinguit. Therefore continuous matter cannot be actuated by a single substantial act.

Again, a piece of continuous matter has dimensions, of which the beginning and the end must be quite distinct, the existence of the one not being the existence of the other. But it is impossible for two things which have a distinct existence to be under the same substantial act; for there cannot be two existences without two formal principles. Hence, if there were any continuous matter, the beginning and the end of its dimensions should be actuated by distinct acts; and the same would be true of any two distinct points throughout the same dimensions. Nor does it matter that the dimensions are supposed to be formed of one unbroken piece; for, before we conceive distinct parts, or terms, as forming the continuation of one another, we must admit the substance of such parts, as their continuation presupposes their being. Hence, however intimately the parts may be united, they always remain substantially distinct; which implies that each one of them must have its own substantial act.

Moreover, continuous extension is divisible. If, then, there is anywhere a piece of continuous matter, it may be divided into two, by God at least. But as division is not a magical operation, and does not give the first existence to the things which are divided, it is plain that the parts which after the division exist separately must have had their own distinct existence before the division; and, evidently, they could not have a distinct existence without being actuated by distinct substantial acts. What we say of these two parts applies to whatever other parts are obtainable by continuing the division. Whence it is manifest that continuous matter needs as many substantial acts as it has divisible parts.

The advocates of continuous matter try to decline this consequence by pretending that matter, so long as it is undivided, is one matter and needs only one form; but this form, according to them, is divisible; hence when the matter is divided, each part of the matter retains its own portion of the substantial form, and thus the same form which gives existence to the whole gives existence to the separate parts. This is, however, a mere subterfuge; for the undivided matter is indeed one accidentally, inasmuch as it has no division of parts; but it is not one substantially, because it has distinction of parts. This distinction exists before the division is made, and we have already seen that no actual distinction is possible without distinct acts. And again, the hypothesis that substantial forms are divisible, is a ridiculous fiction, to say the least. For nothing is divisible which has no multiplicity of parts and consequently a multiplicity of acts. How, then, can a substantial act, which is a single act, be conceived as divisible?

They also argue that as the soul, which is a simple form, actuates the whole matter of the body, so can the material form actuate continuous matter. This comparison may have some weight with those who confound the essential with the substantial forms, and believe that the soul gives the first being to the matter of the body. But the truth is that the substance of the soul is the essential form of the living organism, and not the substantial form giving the first being to matter. The organism and its matter must have their being in nature before being animated by the soul; each part of matter in the body has therefore its own distinct material form and its own distinct existence. The soul is a principle of life, and gives nothing but life.(75) Hence the aforesaid comparison is faulty, and leads to no conclusion.

In the second place it follows that no continuous matter can be styled a single substance.

For within the dimensions of continuous matter there must be as many distinct substantial acts as there are material points distinct from one another; it being clear that distinct points cannot have the same substantial actuation, and accordingly require distinct substantial acts and constitute distinct substances. Against this some will object that a mere point of matter is incapable of supporting the substantial form. But we have already shown that the substantial form is not supported by its matter, as the objection assumes, but only terminated to it, the matter being the substantial term, not the subject, of the substantial form.(76) On the other hand, it is manifest that a form naturally destined to act in a sphere, by actuating a single point of matter, actuates just as much matter as its nature requires. For it is from a single point, not from many, that the action must be directed. Hence nothing more than a point of matter is required to terminate the substantial form and to constitute a perfect substance. Additional proofs of this truth will be found in our next article, where we shall rigorously demonstrate the impossibility of continuous matter. Meanwhile, nothing withstands our conclusion that there must be as many distinct substances in continuous matter as there are distinct points within its dimensions.

In the third place, it follows that this multitude of distinct substances is not merely potential, but actual.

This conclusion is very clear. For every multitude of actual parts is an actual multitude, or, as they say, a multitude in act. But in continuous matter all the parts are actual, although they are not actually separated. Therefore the multitude of such parts is an actual multitude.

The upholders of continuous matter do not admit that this multitude is actual; they contend that it is only potential. For were they to concede that it is actual, they would be compelled to admit either that it is actually finite, or that it is actually infinite. Now, they cannot say that it is actually finite, because this would be against the well‐known nature of continuum, which admits of an endless division, and therefore contains a multitude of parts which has no end. On the other hand, they cannot say that it is actually infinite; because, even admitting the absolute possibility of a multitude actually infinite, it would still be absurd to assert that such is the case with a piece of matter having finite dimensions. Indeed, Leibnitz and Descartes did not hesitate to teach this latter absurdity; but they could not make it fashionable, and were soon abandoned even by their own disciples. Thus the difficulty remained; and philosophers, being unable to solve it, tried to decline it by denying that there can be in the continuum an actual multitude of parts. This was, in fact, the view of the old advocates of continuous matter, who uniformly admitted that the parts of an unbroken continuum are merely potential, and form a potential multitude. For, they say, the actual multitude results from actual division, and therefore has no existence in the undivided continuum.

This last view would be very good, if the continuum in question were successive—as is the case with movement and time, which are always in fieri, and exist only by infinitesimals in an infinitesimal present, or if the continuum in question were virtual, as is the case with any mensurable interval of space; for evidently in these continuums no actual multitude is to be found. But the case is quite different with continuous matter. For he who asserts the existence of continuous matter asserts the existence of a thing having parts formally distinct and simultaneous. He therefore affirms the actual existence of a formal multitude of distinct parts, or, in other terms, an actual multitude. To deny the actual multitude of the parts, on the plea that there is no actual division, is to take refuge in a miserable sophism, which consists in denying the substantial distinction of the parts on the ground that they are not divided, and in ignoring their actual being solely because they have not a certain special mode of being.

As to the axiom that “Number results from division,” two things are to be noticed. The first is that the term “division” here means mensuration, not separation. Thus we divide the day into twenty‐four hours, without discontinuing time for all that; and in like manner we divide the length of a journey into miles without discontinuing space. This shows that the numbers obtained by the division of the continuum are only artificially or virtually discrete, and that the continuum remains unbroken. The second is that a number is not merely a multitude, but a multitude measured by a certain unit, as S. Thomas aptly defines it: Numerus est multitudo mensurata per unum. Hence, if the unit of measure is arbitrary (as is the case with all continuous quantities), the same quantity can be expressed by different numbers, according as a different unit is employed in measuring it. But so long as the unit is not determined, the quantity cannot be expressed by any definite number. And if the unit employed be less than any given finite quantity, the thing which is measured will contain a multitude of such units greater than any given number. All such units exist in the thing measured prior to its mensuration; and as such units are actual and distinct, there can be no doubt that they constitute an actual multitude.

Some modern advocates of continuous matter have imagined another means of evading the difficulty. Tongiorgi admits extended atoms of continuous matter, but denies that their parts are actually distinct. As, however, he confesses that extension requires parts outside of parts (Cosmol., n. 143), we may ask him: Are not such parts actually distinct? Distinction is a negation of identity; and surely parts existing actually outside of one another are not actually identical. They are therefore actually distinct. Now, to use the very words of the author, “where there are distinct parts there is a plurality of units, that is, a multitude, although the parts which are distinct be united in a common term, as is the case with the parts of continuum”;(77) and therefore it is manifest that the continuous atom involves actual multitude.

Liberatore does not entirely deny the actual distinction of the parts in continuous matter, but maintains that the distinction is incomplete, and accordingly cannot give rise to an actual multitude. The parts of a continuum, says he, are united in a common term; hence they are incompletely distinct, and make no number, but are all one. They are outside of one another, yet in such a manner as to be also inside of one another. They do not subsist in themselves, but in the whole. The whole displays many parts, but it is one, and its parts are so indeterminate that they cannot be measured except by an arbitrary measure.(78)

This view scarcely deserves to be discussed, as the author himself owns that it makes continuous matter seem somewhat contradictory—Contradictoriis quodammodo notis subditur—though he attributes this kind of contradiction to the opposition which exists between the matter and the form—an explanation which we do not admit for reasons which we shall give in our next article. But as to the assertion that the parts of a continuum, on account of their having a common term, are only incompletely distinct, we can show at once that the author is much mistaken. Incomplete distinction is a distinction which does not completely exclude identity. Hence where there is incomplete distinction there is also incomplete identity. Now, not a shadow of identity is to be found between any two parts of continuum. Therefore any two parts of continuum are completely distinct. Thus each of the twenty‐four hours into which we divide the day is completely distinct from every other, although the one is united with the other in a common term; for it is evident that the common term, having no extension, is no part of extension, and therefore cannot originate identity between any two parts of extension. To say that there is some identity, and therefore an incomplete distinction, between two extensions, because they have a common term which has no extension, is to pretend that the unextended has some identity with the extended; and this pretension is absurd. We conclude that, in spite of all the efforts of our opponents, it is manifest that continuous matter would be an actual multitude of distinct, though not separated, substances.

Lastly, it follows that actual continuous matter would be an actual infinite multitude of substances.

This conclusion is fully warranted by the infinite divisibility of the continuum. But here again the advocates of material continuity contend that this divisibility is potential, and can never be reduced to act; whence they infer that the multitude of the parts is not actual, but potential. We, however, repeat that if the division is potential, the divisible matter is certainly actual; and therefore the potency of an infinite division presupposes an infinite multitude of distinct terms actually existing in the divisible matter. And as we have already shown that each distinct term must have a distinct substantial act, we must conclude that the least piece of continuous matter would consist of an infinite actual multitude of substances—a consequence whose monstrosity needs no demonstration.

Hence we are not surprised to see that Goudin, one of the great champions of the old physics, considers continuous matter as “a philosophic mystery, about which reason teaches more than it can understand, and objects more than it can answer.”(79) He tries, however, to explain the mystery in some manner, by adding that “when the continuum is said to be infinitely divisible, this must be understood mathematically, not physically—that is, by considering the quantity as it is in itself, not as it is the property of a corporeal form. For in the process of the division we might finally reach a part so small that, if smaller, it would be insufficient to bear any natural form. Nevertheless, mathematically speaking, in that smallest physical part there would still be two halves, and in these halves other halves, and so on without end.”(80)

This explanation is taken from S. Thomas (I Phys., lect. I.), and shows philosophical thought; but, far from solving the difficulty, it rather proves that it is insoluble. For if, mathematically speaking, in the smallest bit of continuous matter there are still halves, and halves of halves, clearly there are in it distinct parts of matter, and therefore distinct forms actuating each of them distinctly, as the being of each part is not the being of any other part. It is therefore false that nothing smaller is sufficient to bear any natural form. And hence the difficulty is not solved. On the other hand, the necessity of resorting to purely mathematical (geometric) quantity clearly shows that it is the space inclosed in the volume of the body (of which alone geometry treats), and not the matter (of which geometry has nothing to say), that is infinitely divisible; and this amounts to a confession that continuous matter has no existence.

While making these remarks, we willingly acknowledge that S. Thomas and all the ancients who considered air, water, fire, and earth as the first elements of all things, were perfectly consistent in teaching that natural forms require a definite amount of matter. For by “natural forms” they meant those forms from which the specific properties of sensible things emanate. Now, all things that are sensible are materially compounded in a greater or less degree, and possess properties which cannot be ascribed to a single material point. So far, then, these ancient philosophers were right. But they should have considered that the required amount of matter ought to consist of distinct parts, having their own distinct being, and therefore their own distinct substantial acts. This would have led them to the conclusion that the natural form of air, water, etc., was not a form giving the first being to the material parts, but a form of natural composition giving the first being to the compound nature. But let us stop here for the present. We have shown that continuous matter cannot be proved to exist, and is, at best, a “philosophic mystery.” In our next article we shall go a step further, and prove that material continuity is a metaphysical impossibility.

To Be Continued.

New Publications.

ALZOG’S UNIVERSAL CHURCH HISTORY. Pabisch and Byrne. Vol I. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This manual for ecclesiastical students is confessedly the best extant. Dr. Pabisch, the chief translator and editor, is well known for his vast erudition, and his associate, the Rev. Mr. Byrne, has paid careful attention to the style of rendering the German into English. The publishers have made the exterior of the work worthy of its contents. We need not say any more to recommend a work which speaks for itself and has received the sanction of names the highest in ecclesiastical rank and theological repute in this country.

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. By James Walsh. Glasgow: Hugh Margey. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This is a valuable work, because it is the only one of its kind, and, even were there others, it would stand on its own merits and still be valuable.

Scotland being so closely united in its history and destinies, and having so much in common with the sister countries, the history of the Scottish Church must necessarily have a close affinity and throw much light upon the ecclesiastical annals of England and Ireland; so that the interest and importance of this work is greatly heightened by the fact that it supplies an integral part of the history of Christianity in the British Isles. Hitherto that history was not complete. It may be said to be completed now. If those among our separated brethren who pretend to seek so diligently after truth in the teachings and practices of the early church will deign to glance at these pages, they will find that Scotland too was evangelized by the popes, and that its first Christians professed, not a mutilated Christianity, but the whole cycle of Catholic doctrine. They will learn, moreover, that the so‐called Reformation in Scotland was entirely a political job, and that there, as elsewhere, the Protestantism in which they pride themselves was tinkered up by a herd of fanatics and foisted upon the people by a rapacious, profligate, unprincipled nobility. Never was there a more truthful page of history written than this. The author, though he modestly claims for himself nothing more than the title of compiler, has many of the qualifications of an historian; his research has been long and laborious, and he notices only the most authentic documents and records of the past. In no instance do we discover any attempt to color or gloss over any of his statements, and he is never betrayed into exaggerating the virtues or concealing the faults of his countrymen.

MANUAL OF MYTHOLOGY: GREEK AND ROMAN, NORSE AND OLD GERMAN, HINDOO AND EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. By Alexander S. Murray, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum. Second Edition. Rewritten and considerably enlarged. With forty‐five plates. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 654 Broadway. 1874.

As a manual of mythology this seems to be as concise, complete, and accurate as such a book can be made. As a specimen of art it is remarkable. The author is apparently one of our modern, cultivated pagans, very much at home among the heathen religions he describes. The very brief exposition of his own theological opinions contained in his introduction ignores the true and primitive religion revealed from heaven altogether, and propounds the utterly unhistorical, pernicious, and false notion that monotheism is a development from polytheism produced by intellectual progress. The author does not, however, put forth anti‐Christian views in an offensive or obtrusive manner, and indeed all he says is included in a few sentences. We cannot, certainly, recommend the study of pagan mythology to young pupils, or consider the present volume as suitable for indiscriminate perusal. Those who are fit for such studies, and for whom they are necessary or proper, will find it a very satisfactory compendium of information and a work of truly classical taste and elegance.

CURTIUS’ HISTORY OF GREECE. Vol. V. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

This volume completes the work of Dr. Curtius. We have already given it the high commendation which it deserves in our notices of previous volumes. It is one of the first‐class historical works of German scholarship, and this is the highest praise that can be given to any work in those departments in which German scholars excel, so far as learning and ability are concerned.

A THEORY OF FINE ART. By Joseph Torrey, late Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the University of Vermont. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

Looking through this treatise of Prof. Torrey, whose intellectual head, stamped in gold on the cover, leads the reader to expect a thoughtful work on the most attractive subject of æsthetics, our impression is decidedly favorable. The University of Vermont used to be considered as quite remarkable for an elevated, philosophical tone. Such seems to be the character of this condensed summary of the retired professor’s lectures on art, evidently the result of much study and observation, and given to the reader in that pleasing style which best suits such a very pleasant branch of knowledge.

PROTESTANT JOURNALISM. By the author of My Clerical Friends. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

It is enough to name the author of this collection of short, lively essays—Dr. Marshall. It is the cream of the London Tablet’s articles, during the author’s active connection with that journal, on the most living and interesting topics of the day in regard to the warfare between the Catholic Church and her enemies. We recommend it to universal reading and circulation in the warmest possible manner, and with the most sincere desire that the author may long be spared to continue his admirable and useful career as a champion of religion and truth.

CHARTERIS; A Romance. By Mary M. Meline. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1874.

This romance does not belie its name in its contents. Its plot and incidents are romantic and tragic in the highest degree. Bordering, at least, on the improbable, as they are, they are nevertheless managed with a very considerable degree of skill and power by the author, who has improved very much on her last story, In Six Months. The characters are drawn with free and bold strokes, and have dramatic individuality. The plot excites even a painful interest all through, and there is no mawkish sentimentalism anywhere. Some scenes are remarkably well drawn. There are no lectures on religion or morals, but the purity of a true Catholic woman’s faith and morality shines through the whole story. We may congratulate the fair author on her success.

KATHERINE EARLE. By Miss Adeline Trafton. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1874.

An interesting story, beautifully illustrated and neatly bound.

SUMMER TALKS ABOUT LOURDES. By Cecilia Mary Caddell. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

In this little book the authoress relates some of the wonderful miracles of Lourdes. Its style is simple and chaste, and, we should say, particularly suited for children.

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

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XX., NO. 117.—DECEMBER, 1874

The Persecution Of The Church In The German Empire.

The Catholics are suffering today, in the very heart of Europe, a persecution which, if less bloody, is not less cruel or unjust, than that which afflicted the Christian Church in the beginning of the IVth century, under the reign of the brutal old emperor, Diocletian. The prisons of Germany are filled with confessors of the faith, who, in the midst of every indignity and outrage, bear themselves with a constancy and heroism not unworthy of the early martyrs. And it is strange, too, that this struggle should be only a renewal of the old conflict between Christ and Cæsar, between the Son of Man and the prince of this world. In fact, anti‐ Christian Europe is using every exertion to re‐create society on the model of Grecian and Roman paganism. This tendency is manifest in all the various realms of thought and action.

We perceive it—and we speak now more particularly of Germany—in literature, in science, in the manner of dealing with all the great problems which concern man in his relations with both the visible and the unseen world; and it looms up before us, in palpable form and gigantic proportions, in the whole attitude of the state toward the church. There has never lived on this earth a more thorough pagan than Goethe, the great idol of German literature, to whom the very sign of the cross was so hateful that in his notorious Venetian Epigram he put it side by side with garlic and vermin. The thought of self‐sacrifice and self‐denial was so odious to his lustful and all‐indulgent nature that he turned from its great emblem with uncontrollable disgust, and openly proclaimed himself a “decidirter Nichtchrist.” “Das Ewig Weibliche”—sensualism and sexualism—were the gods of his heart, in whose praise alone he attuned his lyre. And Schiller, in his Gods of Greece, complained sorrowingly that all the fair world of gods and goddesses should have vanished, that one (the God of the Christian) might be enriched; and with tender longing he prayed that “nature’s sweet morn” might again return.

Both the religion and the philosophy of paganism were based upon the deification of nature, and were consequently pantheistic. Now, this pagan pantheism recrudescent is the one permanent type amid the endless variations of modern German sophistry. It underlies the theorizing of Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, as well as that of Feuerbach, Büchner, and Strauss. They all assume the non‐existence of a personal God, and transfer his attributes to nature, which is, in their eyes, the mother of all, the sole existence, and the supreme good. This pantheism, which confuses all things in extricable chaos, spirit with matter, thought with sensation, the infinite with the finite, destroying the very elements of reason, and taking from language its essential meaning, has infected all non‐Catholic thought in Germany. When we descend from the misty heights of speculation, we find pantheistic paganism in the idolatry of science and culture, which have taken the place of dogma and morality. It is held to be an axiom that man is simply a product of nature, who knows herself in him as she feels herself in the animal.

The formulas in which the thought is clothed are of minor importance. In the ultimate analysis we find in all the conflicting schools of German infidelity this sentiment, however widely its expression may vary: that nature is supreme, and there is no God beside. The cosmos, instead of a personal God, is the ultimate fact beyond which science professes to be unable to proceed; and therefore the duality of ends, aims, and results which underlies the Christian conception of the universe must necessarily disappear. There is no longer God and the world, spirit and matter, good and evil, heaven and hell; there is not even man and the brute. There is only the cosmos, which is one; and from this it necessarily follows that the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal power is unreal and should cease to be recognized.

Now, here we have discovered the very germ from which the whole Prussian persecution has sprung. In the last analysis it rests upon the assumption that the spiritual power has no right to exist, since the truths upon which it was supposed to be based—as God, the soul, and a future life—are proven to be myths. Hence the state is the only autonomy, and to claim authority not derived from it is treason. Thus the struggle now going on in Prussia is for life or death. It rages around the very central citadel of the soul and of all religion. The Catholics of Germany are to‐day contending for what the Christians of the first centuries died—the right to live. To understand this better it will be well to consider for a moment the attributes of the state in pagan Greece and Rome.

Hellenic religion, in its distinctive forms, had its origin in the deification of nature and of man as her crowning work, and both were identified with the state. Hence religion was hero‐worship; the good man was the good citizen, the saint was the successful warrior who struck terror into the enemies of his country, and thus the religious feeling was confounded with the patriotic spirit. To be a true citizen of the state, it was necessary to profess the national religion; and to be loyal to the state was to be true to its protecting gods. The highest act of religion was to beat back the invader or to die gloriously on the battle‐field. Indeed, in paganism we find no idea of a non‐national religion. The pagan state, whether imperial, monarchical, or republican, was essentially tyrannical, wholly incompatible with freedom as understood in Christian society. To be free was to be, soul and body, the slave of the state. Plato gives to his ideal Republic unlimited power to control the will of the individual, to direct all his thoughts and actions, to model and shape his whole life. He merges the family and its privileges into the state and its rights, gives the government absolute authority in the education of its subjects, and even places the propagation of the race under state supervision.

The pagan state was also essentially military, recognizing no rights except those which it had not the power to violate. Now, the preaching of Christ was in direct contradiction to this whole theory of government. He declared that God and the soul have rights as well as Cæsar, and proclaimed the higher law which affirms that man has a destiny superior to that of being a citizen of any state, however glorious; which imposes upon him duties that transcend the sphere of all human authority. Thus religion became the supreme law of life, and the recognition of the indefeasible rights of conscience gave to man citizenship in a kingdom not of this world. It, in consequence, became his duty as well as his privilege to obey first the laws of this supernatural kingdom, and to insist upon this divine obligation, even though the whole world should oppose him.

This teaching of Christ at once lifted religion above the control of the state, and, cutting loose the bonds of servitude which had made it national and narrow, declared it catholic, of the whole earth and for all men. He sent his apostles, not to the Jew, or the Greek, or the Gentile, but to all the nations, and in his church he recognized no distinction of race or social condition—the slave was like the freeman, the beggar like the king.

This doctrine, the most beneficent and humanitarian that the world has ever heard, brought forth from the oblivion of ages the all‐forgotten truth of the brotherhood of the race, and raised man to a level on which paganism was not able even to contemplate him; proclaiming that man, for being simply man, irrespective of race, nationality, or condition, is worthy of honor and reverence. Now, it was precisely this catholic and non‐national character of the religion of Christ which brought it into conflict with the pagan state. The Christians, it was held, could not be loyal citizens of the empire, because they did not profess the religion of the empire, and refused to sacrifice to the divinity of Cæsar. They were traitors, because in those things which concerned faith they were resolved not to recognize on the part of the state any right to interfere; and therefore were they cast into prison, thrown to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre, and devoured under the approving eyes of the worshippers of the emperor’s divinity. This history is repeating itself in Prussia to‐ day.

Many causes have, within the present century, helped to strengthen the national feeling in Germany. The terrible outrages and humiliations inflicted upon her by the pitiless soldiers of the first Napoleon made it evident that the common safety required that the bonds of brotherhood among the peoples of the different German states should be drawn tighter. The development of a national literature also helped to foster a longing for national unity. In the XVIIth, and even down to nearly the end of the XVIIIth, century, French influence, extending from the courts of princes to the closets of the learned, gave tone to both literature and politics.

Leibnitz wrote in French or Latin, and Frederick the Great strove to forget his own tongue, that he might learn to speak French with idiomatic purity—an accomplishment which he never acquired.

As there was no German literature, the national feeling lacked one of its most powerful stimulants. But in the latter half of the XVIIIth century, and during the first half of the XIXth, a literature rich, profound, thoroughly German, the creation of some of the highest names in the world of letters, came into existence, and was both a cause and an effect of the national awakening. Goethe especially did much, by the absolute ascendency which he acquired in the literature of his country, to unify and harmonize the national mind.

Still, a thousand interests and jealousies, local and dynastic, old prescriptive rights, and a constitutional slowness and sluggishness in the Germanic temperament, stood in the way of a united fatherland, and had to be got rid of or overcome by force before the dream of the nationalists could become a reality.

Prussia, founded by rapine, built up and strengthened by war and conquest, has always been a heartless, self‐seeking state. The youngest of the great European states, and for a long time one of the most inconsiderable, she has gradually grown to be the first military power of the world. Already, in the time of Frederick the Great, she was the formidable rival of Austria in the contest for the hegemony of the other German states. This struggle ended, in 1866, in the utter defeat of Austria on the field of Sadowa. Hanover, Saxony, Hesse‐Cassel, and other minor principalities were at once absorbed by Prussia, who, besides greatly increasing her strength, thus became the champion of German unity. But German unity was a menace to France, who could not possibly maintain her preponderance in European affairs in the presence of a united Germany. Hence the irrepressible conflict between France and Prussia, which ended in the catastrophe of Sedan.

The King of Prussia became the Emperor of Germany, and German national pride and enthusiasm reached a degree bordering on frenzy.

By a remarkable coincidence the Franco‐Prussian war broke out at the very moment when the dogma of Papal infallibility was defined, and immediately after the capitulation of Sedan, Victor Emanuel took possession of Rome. The Pope was without temporal power—a prisoner indeed. The feeling against the newly‐defined dogma was especially strong in Germany, where the systematic warfare carried on by the Janus party against the Vatican Council had warped the public mind. France, the eldest daughter of the church, was lying, bleeding and crushed, at the feet of the conqueror. The time seemed to have arrived when the bond which united the Catholics of Germany with the Pope, and through him with the church universal, might easily be broken.

The defection of Döllinger and other rationalistic professors, as well as the attitude of many of the German bishops in the council, and the views which they had expressed with regard to the probable results of a definition of the infallibility of the Pope, tended to confirm those who controlled the policy of the new empire in the opinion that there would be no great difficulty in forming the Catholics of Germany into a kind of national religious body wholly subject to the state, even in matters of faith. If we add to this the fact that the infidels of our day have a kind of superstition which leads them to think that all religious faith has grown weak, and that those who believe are for the most part hypocritical, insincere, and by no means anxious to suffer for conscience’s sake, we shall be able to understand how Bismarck, who is utterly indifferent to all religion, and who believes in nothing except the omnipotence of the state, should have persuaded himself to destroy the religious freedom which had come to be considered the common property of Christendom. Already, in the month of August immediately following the close of the war with France, we find the Northern German press, which obsequiously obeys his orders, beginning to throw out hints that Rome had always been the enemy of Germany; that her claims were incompatible with the rights of the state and hurtful to the national development; and that, in presence of the newly‐defined dogma of Papal infallibility, the necessity of resisting her ever‐increasing encroachments upon the domain of the civil authority had become imperative. The watchword given by the official press was everywhere re‐echoed by the organs of both infidel and Protestant opinion, and it at once became evident that the German Empire intended to make war on the Catholic Church.

There was yet another end to be subserved by the persecution of the church. Bismarck made no secret of his fears of a democratic movement in Germany after the excitement of the French campaign had died away, and he hoped to avert this danger by inflaming the religious prejudices of the infidel and Protestant population.

On the 8th of July, 1871, the Catholic department in the Ministry of Public Worship was abolished, and the government openly lent its influence to the Old Catholic movement.

According to the Prussian constitution, religious instruction in the gymnasia is obligatory; but where a portion or all of the students were Catholics, the state recognized that their religious instructors should not be appointed until they had received the approbation of the bishop. Dr. Wollmann, who had for a long time held the office of teacher of religion in the Catholic gymnasium of Braunsberg, apostatized after the Vatican Council, and was, in consequence, suspended from the exercise of the priestly office by his bishop, who declared that, since Wollmann had left the church, he could no longer be considered a suitable religious instructor of Catholic youth. Von Mühler, the Minister of Public Worship, refused to remove Wollmann; and since religious instruction is compulsory, the pupils who could not in conscience attend his classes were forced to leave the school.

This act of Von Mühler was in open violation of the Prussian constitution, which expressly recognized in the Catholic Church the right of directing the religious instruction of its members.

To require that Catholics should send their children to the lessons of an excommunicated priest was to trample upon the most sacred rights of conscience. By declaring, as in this case, that those who rejected the dogma of infallibility were true Catholics, the German government plainly showed that it intended to assume the competency of deciding in all matters of faith, and consequently to wholly ignore the existence of any religious authority distinct from that of the state.

Bismarck’s next move was not less arbitrary or tyrannical. He proposed to the Federal Council and Reichstag a law against what was termed the abuse of the pulpit, by which the office of preaching should be placed under the supervision of the police.

This law, which was passed by a feeble majority, was simply a renewal of the attempt to suppress Christianity made by the Jewish Council in Jerusalem when the apostles first began to preach in the name of Jesus, without asking permission of the rulers of the people: “But that it may be no further spread among the people, let us threaten them, that they speak no more in this name to any man. And calling them, they charged them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts iv. 17, 18).

The injustice of this law was very well shown by the Saxon member of the Federal Council, who pointed out the fact that, whilst liberty of speech was denied to Catholic priests, socialists and infidels were permitted every day to attack the very foundations of all government and civilization.

This, however, is but the necessary consequence of the theory of the state‐God. To preach in the name of any other God is treason; whereas atheism is the correlative of the omnipotence of the government. That the present tendency in Germany is to put the nation in the place of God is expressly recognized by the Allgemeine Evang. Luth. Kirchenzeitung, which is the organ of orthodox Lutheranism. These are its words: “For the dogmatic teaching of Christianity they hope to substitute the national element. The national idea will form the germ of the new religion of the empire. We have already seen the emblems which foreshadow the manner in which this new worship is to be organized. Instead of the Christian festivals, they will celebrate the national memories, and will call to the churches the masses to whom the road is no longer known. Have we not seen, on the anniversary of Sedan, the eidolon of the emperor placed upon the altar, whilst the pulpit was surrounded with the busts of the heroes of the war?

“During eight days they wove crowns of oak‐leaves and the church was filled; whilst out of ten thousand parishioners, scarcely a dozen can be got together to listen to the word of God. Such is the religion of the future church of the empire. Little more is needed to revive the ancient worship of the Roman emperors; and if the history of Germany is to be reduced to this duel between the church of the emperor and that of the Pope, we must see on which side the Lutherans will stand.”

The next attack on the church was made under cover of an enactment on the inspection of public schools. A project of law was presented to the House of Deputies, excluding all priests from the inspection of schools, and at the same time obliging them to undertake this office whenever asked to do so by the state authorities. This latter clause was, however, so openly unjust that it was rejected by the House. But the law, even as it stands, is a virtual denial that Catholic schools have any right to exist at all, and is an evidence that the German Empire intends to destroy Christian faith by establishing an atheistic system of popular education.

And now war was declared against the Jesuits. The Congress of the Old Catholics, which met at Munich in September, 1871, had passed violent resolutions against the order; and later the Old Catholic Committee at Cologne presented a petition against the Jesuits to the imperial Parliament.

The debate was opened in the month of May, 1872. A project of law, restricting the liberties of religious orders, and especially directed against the Society of Jesus, was brought before the Federal Council and accepted by a large majority. When it came before the imperial Parliament, amendments were added rendering it still more harsh and tyrannical. The order was to be shut out from the empire, its houses to be closed, foreign Jesuits were to be expelled, and the German members of the society were to be confined to certain districts; and the execution of these measures was to be entrusted to the Federal Council.

On the 4th of July the law received the approval of the emperor, and on the 5th it was promulgated.

Thus in the most arbitrary manner, without any legal proceedings, hundreds of German citizens, against whom there was not the slightest proof of guilt, were deprived of all rights and expelled from their country. Besides, the measure was based upon the most ignorant misconception of the real condition of the church, and was therefore necessarily ineffective. The religious orders and the secular priesthood do not represent opposite tendencies in the church; their aims are identical, and, in our day at least, the secular priests are as zealous, as active, and as efficient as the members of the religious orders.

What end, then, was to be gained by expelling the Jesuits, whilst devoted and faithful priests were left to minister to the Catholic people, whose faith had been roused by this scandalous persecution of men whom they knew to be guilty of no crime except that of loving Jesus Christ and his church? The blow struck at the Jesuits was, in truth, aimed at the church, and this the bishops, priests, and entire Catholic people of Germany at once recognized. They saw now, since even the possibility of doubting was no longer left to them, that the German Empire had declared open war against the church; and Bismarck, seeing that his half‐way measures had deceived no one, resolved to adopt a policy of open violence. With this view a new minister of Public Worship was appointed in the person of Dr. Falk, who drew up the plan of the famous Four Church Laws to which he has given his name, and which was adopted on the 11th of May, 1873.

In virtue of these laws—which it is unnecessary to transcribe in full—the state arrogates the right of appointing to all ecclesiastical offices, since the government claims authority to approve or annul all nominations made by the bishops; and the President of the Province (Oberpraesident) is bound to interdict the exercise of any religious function to ecclesiastics appointed without his consent. The bishop who makes an appointment to the cure of souls without the consent of the civil authority is fined from two hundred to one thousand thalers; and the priest who, appointed in this way, exercises spiritual functions, is visited with a proportionate fine. This is an attempt to change the very nature of the church; it is a denial of its right to exist at all.

The third of these laws creates the “Royal Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs,” which claims and possesses by act of Parliament the right to reform all disciplinary decisions made by the bishops in relation to the ecclesiastics under their jurisdiction. This same court has by law the right to depose any ecclesiastic whose conduct the government may see fit to consider incompatible with public order.

The Pope is interdicted from the exercise of disciplinary power within the territory of the Prussian monarchy.

The state takes control of the education of the young men destined to the priesthood. It requires them to pass the arbiturienten‐examen in a German gymnasium, and then to devote three years to the study of theology in a German university, during which time they are not to be permitted to live in an episcopal seminary; and thereafter they are to pass a public examination before the state officials. All educational establishments for the clergy, especially all kinds of seminaries, are placed under the superintendence of the government, and those which refuse to submit to this supervision are to be closed. The education of priests, the fitness of candidates for holy orders, appointments to the cure of souls, the infliction of ecclesiastical censures, the soundness of the faith of the clergy, are, in the new German Empire, matters to be regulated by the police.

This is not a struggle between Catholicity and Protestantism; it is a battle between the Atheist State and the Kingdom of God. The Protestant Church in Germany does not alarm Bismarck, because it is feeble and has no independent organization, since its ministers are appointed and ruled by the emperor, and it is also well understood that very few of them have any faith in positive religion.

But the orthodox Protestants of Germany thoroughly understand that the attempt to crush the Catholic Church is meant to be a fatal blow at the vital principle of all religion. This is recognized by the Allgemeine Evang. Luth. Kirchenzeitung in the article from which we have already quoted. “It is a common remark,” says this organ of orthodox Lutheranism, “that the blows struck at the Church of Rome will tell with redoubled force against the evangelical church. But what is meant to injure, only helps the Roman Church. There she stands, more compact than ever, and the world is amazed at beholding her strength. Once the word of the Monk of Wittenberg made her tremble, but to‐day the blows of power make her stronger. Let us beware of illusion; it is certain that in the Protestant North of Germany there has grown up a public opinion on the Church of Rome which provokes the respect even of the liberals. We have enough to do, they say, to fight the socialists; it is time to leave the Catholic bishops in peace.”

To Be Concluded Next Month.

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Mme. Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

XXVI.

Among the amusements of the Carnival, there was one in which I was not in the least tempted to take part—that of the bal masqué, or, as it was called, the Festino di San Carlo. I ought to remark here, however, that it was with respect to this amusement, above all, Naples differed from Paris. There was no resemblance between the bals masqués at San Carlo and those given at the opera in Paris. No virtuous or even prudent woman, I imagine, would think of venturing to attend the latter; whereas at San Carlo it was not only common to find married women of rank, but even young ladies under their mothers’ protection as at any other ball. They wore their masks awhile, amusing themselves, if they had the turn, with mystifying their friends; then, at a certain hour, several rooms having been formed by uniting a number of boxes, and illuminated, they all laid aside their masks, and the various coteries, in groups of ten, fifteen, or twenty persons, took supper together. I certainly do not pretend to deny (my story itself would forbid it) that the opportunity of profiting by this disguise, in order to pass the evening in a less inoffensive manner, was not made use of by more than one of the company. It could not be otherwise, perhaps, in a place where this kind of folly reigns, even in a mitigated form. I only wish to describe its general character at that time.

I had not, however, the least inclination to attend. The very thought of wearing a mask was repugnant to me, and to see anybody else with one on caused me a kind of fear. Besides, I never could understand what pleasure was to be found in a mystery of this kind, which always seemed childish and trivial, if not culpable and dangerous. I had neither the faculty of disguising my voice nor of making use of the jargon that constitutes the spirit of a bal masqué. I therefore flatly refused to join a party of twenty persons who were to attend the Festino on Jeudi‐Gras, and, after participating for awhile in the amusements of the ball‐room, were to take supper together.

Stella had neither my repugnance nor my incapacity. She knew how to play the part of another with grace and skill, and had been urged, as well as I, to join this merry party; but she denied herself the pleasure in order to attend a family supper with her aged relatives and their friends, and we decided with mutual accord that our amusement for the day should be confined to that which awaited us on my aunt’s balcony on the Toledo.

The hour came at last, and found us under arms—that is to say, our faces protected by a kind of visor of wire netting, and all of us, except my aunt, dressed in such a way as not to fear the clouds of flour we were to face, as well as the missiles which, under the name of confetti, were fearful to encounter, and had nothing sweet about them but the name. Some carried their precaution so far as to prepare a costume de bataille expressly for the occasion. Of this number were Teresina and Mariuccia, who, at Lando’s suggestion, had provided themselves with dresses of white cotton ornamented with bows of rose‐colored ribbon, which enabled them to encounter the showers of missiles, and were so becoming that they looked like two of Watteau’s shepherdesses. But my aunt disdained this mixture of elegance and economy. She did not give a thought to what was to take place in the street; her whole mind was absorbed in what was to occur in her drawing‐room. Regardless of danger, she put on a dress of yellow silk of the brightest shade, and set off her chignon and false braids with a cap adorned with poppies and corn‐flowers, above which was fastened a bow of red ribbon, which streamed like a flag from the summit of a tower. This display was intended to do honor to the visitors who merely came for their own convenience. For the most part, they only entered her house with an eye to her balcony: but in order to obtain access to it, they were obliged to pass through the drawing‐room, where Donna Clelia herself was stationed to arrest the passers‐by and exact a tribute of politeness no one could refuse, and which, brought to such close terms, every one liberally paid. Never had she, therefore, in a single day reaped a like harvest of new and distinguished acquaintances; never had she received at once so great a number of desirable invitations, for could they do otherwise than requite hospitality with hospitality? My aunt thus had at the beginning of the day one hour of happiness without alloy!

At length the battle began in earnest. To those who have taken part in such combats it is useless to describe the enthusiasm and madness which every one ends by manifesting; to those who have not had the experience it is equally useless to try to give an idea of it. It must be acknowledged, however, that the first volley of confetti is by no means very amusing to the recipient, and he is tempted to withdraw ill‐humoredly from what seems at first mere rough, childish sport. Then he endeavors to defend himself by retaliating. By degrees the ardor of combat is awakened; he yields to it, he grows furious, and for hours sometimes he persists in returning volley for volley, unmindful of fatigue, and regardless of the blows he receives. One thing is hurled after another—hard confetti, fragile eggs, flour, sugar‐plums, flowers, and immense bouquets.... If the ammunition fails, he throws out of the window whatever comes to hand. He would rather throw himself out than give up the contest!

This sport had been going on for an hour, and we were still in full glee, when the Venetian gondola made its appearance in the street. It was welcomed with shouts and cries of applause from the crowd. In fact, nothing so splendid of this kind had ever been seen before. It came slowly along, stopping under every balcony. When it arrived before ours, it remained a long time, and a furious combat took place. Notwithstanding the visor that concealed Lorenzo’s face, I easily recognized him by his slender, stately form. Lando and Mario looked very well also, but Lorenzo surpassed them all by the grace and ease with which he wore his costume, as well as the skill with which he threw his bouquets to the precise spot he aimed at. He soon recognized me likewise, and threw me a bunch of roses!...

Alas! those withered roses. I preserved them a long time in memory of a day that was to end in so strange a manner!...

After the gondola had gone entirely out of sight, I concluded to leave the balcony, in order to take some rest while awaiting the return of the brilliant masquerade. This would not be till nightfall, when the gondola was to be illuminated throughout. I had therefore nearly an hour before me in which to repair my strength. But when I entered the drawing‐room, I was frightened at the sight which met my eyes. My poor aunt’s brilliant toilet had undergone the most disastrous consequences possible to imagine, and I found her so covered with flour and blood that I scarcely recognized her!

In this kind of war, as in all others, nothing is more dangerous than to attract the attention of the enemy. A hat, a ribbon, any dress whatever the least remarkable in its color, instantly becomes the object of universal aim. It seems Donna Clelia, after welcoming her company in the drawing‐room, was tempted to go and see in her turn what was taking place on the battle‐field; but no sooner had she stepped her foot on the balcony, no sooner were her poppies visible, and her red ribbons began to wave in the air, than from every balcony, every window, in the neighborhood, there fell on her head such a hail‐storm of missiles of all kinds that, in a second, not only had her flowers, ribbons, and chignon disappeared under a thick layer of flour, but, having neglected to provide herself with a visor, she had been struck in the very middle of the face by some of the confetti I have spoken of, which are merely hard balls of plaster in the centre. No one perceived this in the ardor of the combat, no one left the mélée to go to her assistance, and she was still in the arm‐chair where she had thrown herself, stunned by the violence of the attack!...

I sprang towards her, and hastened to bathe her face with cold water. I then saw it was only her nose (a somewhat prominent feature in her face) that had suffered a slight contusion, though sufficient to inundate her laces and yellow dress with blood, so that the damage they sustained, as well as her head‐dress, was irreparable!...

But in the midst of all this my aunt remained cool and courageous. Like a general wounded on the day of victory, she smiled at the result of her rashness, and, while I was ministering to her wants, she exclaimed:

“It is nothing; no matter! Thanks, Ginevrina mia! Che bel divertimento! I never passed such a day in my life!... Do you know, the Duchessa di L—— has invited me to play la pignata(81) at her house a week from Sunday. And then the gentleman with H.R.H., the Count of Syracuse, has promised to get me an invitation to one of the amateur comedies. And the gondola—what do you say to that? Didn’t your husband look handsome enough for you?... How simpatico that Lorenzo is!... Ah! figlia mia, the Madonna has done well for you!... I hope she will think of us some day!...”

My aunt rambled on in this way while I was trying to repair her disordered attire, after dressing her wounds. This took some time; but I still hesitated about leaving her, though she begged me to return to the balcony and not trouble myself any more about her. I obeyed her at last; but this interruption had put an end to my enthusiastic gayety, and, when I returned to my place, I no longer felt any disposition to resume the sport I found so amusing only a short time before. Besides, it was growing dusk and the combat was slackening, though the noise and confusion in the street increased as the time approached for the return of the gondola. While I was thus standing motionless in the obscurity of one corner of the balcony where we were assembled, I suddenly heard some words from the adjoining balcony of the next house that attracted my attention:

“Valenzano must be fabulously rich, but he is going to ruin at full speed, the dear duke.”

“In the first place, he is really very wealthy,” was the reply; “and when he gains his lawsuit in Sicily, he will be the richest man in this part of Italy. I do not consider his entertaining company, however distinguished it may be, or giving his pretty wife a new set of ornaments now and then, or throwing away a few hundred dollars as he has done to‐day, as an extravagance that will ruin a man of his means.”

“No, of course not, if that were all.”

“What else is there?... He used to play high, but they say he never touches a card now.”

The other speaker burst into a loud laugh, and, after a moment’s silence, resumed in a lower tone:

“He no longer plays in company, but I assure you Qui a bu boira and Qui a joué jouera. I should be satisfied with an income equal to what he spends in one evening at lansquenet or baccara since he stopped playing whist and écarté in the drawing‐rooms to which he accompanies the duchess.”

Their voices grew still lower, and the few words I heard were so indistinct that I only caught the following:

“But as there is no doubt as to the result of the lawsuit in Sicily, there is no danger of a catastrophe.”

At that moment the uproar in the street became deafening. Shouts and wild applause announced the approach of the gondola, and redoubled in proportion to its nearness. It really presented a fairy‐like appearance. It was lit up with a thousand lamps of all colors, and from time to time brilliant rockets were sent up, casting a momentary gleam over the crowd, and then vanishing, leaving everything in obscurity except the dazzling gondola, which proceeded slowly along without stopping this time beneath the balconies. No confetti or flowers were thrown; the combat was over. It was now merely a magnificent picturesque spectacle. I saw Lorenzo again, and more distinctly than before, for he had taken off his visor; but he could not see me in the obscurity of our balcony. He was standing in a group on the deck of the gondola as it went by. They were all dressed in Venetian costumes, which produced an extremely picturesque effect. It was like a living representation of one of Paul Veronese’s paintings. I could not take my eyes off so brilliant and extraordinary a spectacle, and the gondola had gone some distance when I suddenly saw Lorenzo (it was really he; I should have known him, even if his face had not at that moment been turned towards the bright light) rapidly ascend the light staging at one end of the gondola, holding in his hand a small bunch of jasmine tied with a white ribbon, which, when he arrived at the top, he threw towards a window in which gleamed a little light. ... It reached its destination. The window immediately closed, the light disappeared, and Lorenzo descended and was lost in the crowd that thronged the gondola. All this took place so quickly that I could hardly account for the attention with which I watched this little evolution and the degree of vexation it caused me. Lorenzo, in the course of the day, had thrown more than a hundred bouquets of the same kind. Why was I more curious to know the destination of this one than I had been of the rest? But fatigue and the deafening noise rendered me incapable of reflecting any length of time on what I had just witnessed and what I had heard on the balcony. There was almost immediately a general confusion, for the return of the gondola was the signal for dispersing. I remained till the last to ascertain the condition of my aunt after her accident, and did not leave her till she had promised to go to bed and let the baroness, who willingly accepted the charge, accompany her daughters to the Festino at midnight.

Having returned home, I likewise returned to my room, where I threw myself on a sofa, exhausted with fatigue. Lorenzo returned at a later hour. He came up to my room, spoke affectionately, advised me to take some repose, and inquired if I had absolutely decided not to go to San Carlo. I replied that, even if I had intended going, I should be obliged to give it up now. He did not insist, and my eyes were already beginning to close when he embraced me, as he was going away, and said: “Till to‐morrow, Ginevra; for the Festino will not be over till daylight, you know.”

XXVII.

I slept as the young do when suffering from unusual fatigue—that is to say, with a sleep so profound that, when I awoke, I had no idea of the lateness of the hour or where I was, and I felt as completely rested as if I had slept the entire night. The sound of carriage‐wheels on the gravel of the avenue facing my room had roused me from my slumbers, and I now heard steps and the sound of voices in a subdued tone in the chamber adjoining mine. My door soon opened, and Ottavia entered, moving cautiously, as if she supposed me asleep. But as soon as I spoke, I heard a silvery laugh behind her, and, to my great surprise, Stella made her appearance. She had on a black domino with the hood thrown back, and in her hand she held two masks and another domino like her own.

“You see I was right, Ottavia,” she exclaimed. “I was sure we should find her awake, and, what is still better, she is dressed! That is fortunate! Now, Ginevra, you must absolutely consent to indulge in the pleasure of spending an hour with me at San Carlo—only an hour! Here, look at the clock; it is half‐past twelve. I promise to bring you back before two to continue the fine nap I have disturbed.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked at her, without comprehending a thing she proposed.

“Come, come, Ginevra!” she continued, “wake up, I tell you, and listen to what I say. In the first place, you must know we have had no supper or company at our house to‐night. My uncle had an attack of the gout and went to bed at nine o’clock, and I played cards with my aunt till midnight. But just as we were both going to our rooms, she all at once remembered—perhaps touched by my good‐humor—how much she used to enjoy going to the Festini, and told me, of her own accord, it was not too late to go, if I knew of any friend to accompany me. It occurred to me at once, Ginevra, it would be very amusing for you to go and quiz il Signor Duca a little. He is absolutely sure you are in bed fast asleep. You can tell him a thousand things nobody knows but yourselves, which will set him wild with amazement and curiosity. You can acknowledge everything to‐ morrow, and he will be the first to declare it an excellent joke. As for me, I am not sorry to have an opportunity of telling your august brother a few truths in return for certain remarks about my exuberant gayety and levity not quite to my liking. . . . Come, come, Ginevra, we must not lose any time. Consent, and I will tell you the rest on the way.”

It is useless to enumerate the additional arguments she used. The result was, she not only triumphed over my repugnance, but she succeeded in exciting a lively desire to meet Lorenzo in disguise. It seemed to me I could say many things I should not dare breathe a word of to his face, and I could thus relieve my mind of the two or three incidents that had troubled it within twenty‐four hours.

Stella saw I was ready to yield.

“Quick! quick! Ottavia, help me to put on her domino, and above all, put back her hair so it cannot be seen. The least curl peeping out of her hood would be sufficient to betray her. Now, let us see; as we shall have to separate on entering the hall, we must wear something not too conspicuous which will enable us to find each other in the crowd of black dominos. Let me hunt for something.”

She looked around, and soon discovered a large basket, in which remained a number of small bouquets tied with ribbons of all colors, prepared for the contests that morning.

“The very thing,” said she. And while Ottavia was executing her orders and concealing my hair, Stella selected two small bunches of flowers, one tied with red, and the other with white, ribbon.

“Nothing could be better,” said she. “The flowers are alike; the ribbons alone different. Look! see where I have put my badge. Here is yours. Put it in the same place, on the left side near the shoulder.”

But when I saw that the little bouquet she gave me was of jasmine tied with a white ribbon, the emotion I felt was extreme. I did not manifest it, however, for I knew if I told Stella the reason, she would burst into laughter, and ask if I was going to worry myself about all the bouquets my husband had thrown by the dozen that day upon all the balconies on the Toledo, and if I intended to bring him to an account for them. I therefore made no comment on this singular coincidence; but while I was fastening the bouquet on, as Stella had directed, I suddenly recollected, I know not why, it was by giving Lorenzo a sprig of jasmine I pledged myself to be his for life!

Having completed my preparations, with the exception of my mask, which I carried in my hand to put on at the last moment, I drew up my hood and followed Stella, escorted to the foot of the staircase by my good old Ottavia, who, though accustomed to the follies of the Carnival, shook her head as she saw me depart, and looked at me with a more anxious expression than usual. Was she thinking of the evening when she saw me set out for my first ball—of fearful memory? Did she recall my mother’s anxiety? And did she remember to beg her to watch over her child and pray for her, as she did then? . . .

As we approached San Carlo, I was again seized with fear, and regretted having yielded to Stella’s entreaties.

“What will become of us alone in the crowd with no one to protect us?” said I.

“Our masks are a sufficient protection, especially to‐night. There will be so large a number of ladies of rank at the Festino that no one will venture to say a word to us that surpasses the bounds of pleasantry. There would be too much danger of addressing some one who would resent it. As to our masks, you need not be anxious. The rules of the bals masqués absolutely forbid any one’s touching them, and these rules are respected even by those who do not respect any other. But, apropos of masks, it is time to put yours on.”

I still hesitated. But at last, as I was on the point of descending from the carriage, I decided to fasten my mask on, and I tremblingly followed Stella, or rather, she took my arm and drew me along.

My first feeling, on finding myself in such a crowd, was one of inexpressible terror. I was seized with an invincible embarrassment and a sensation of suffocation so painful that it was with all the difficulty in the world I kept myself from tearing off the mask that seemed to hinder me from breathing. But Stella laughingly encouraged me in a whisper, and by degrees I became accustomed to the deafening sound of the music, the exclamations and resonant voices on every side, as well as the sight of the dominos and masks of all colors in circulation around us. She led me on some distance, cautioning me in a low tone to make no reply, and making none herself, to the observations here and there addressed the two “fair masks” who were gliding through the crowd. At length we came to a pillar, against which we leaned, and she whispered:

“Let this place be our rendezvous. You will certainly see Lorenzo pass by in a few moments. As for me, I do not see your brother anywhere, but yonder is Landolfo. I will amuse myself by talking nonsense with him. Do not be afraid, and, above all, do not lose your badge, or I shall be unable to find you. I will be careful of mine also. If I arrive here first, I will wait for you. You must do the same.”

She disappeared as she uttered these words, and I stood still for some minutes, looking around with uneasiness and terror caused by the impossibility of persuading myself I was not seen and recognized by everybody. But after three or four gentlemen of my acquaintance passed by with a mere glance of indifference, I began to take courage, and finally became sufficiently cool to consider what I should do and the means of attaining my object.

I began by looking around on all sides, but for some time it was in vain. I could not see Lorenzo anywhere, and had decided to leave my post in order to search for him in some other part of the hall, when all at once I saw him some distance off, coming in my direction. He was walking slowly along, looking around with a certain attention, as if he was also in search of some one. We were separated by the crowd, and it was not easy to reach him. I advanced a few steps, however, and at that instant, but only for an instant, there was an opening in the crowd which enabled him, in his turn, to see me. I saw a flash of joy on his face. He recognized me, it was evident; by what means I did not ask. I no longer remembered my intention of mystifying him. I sprang towards him, and he towards me. I passed my arm through his, still too much excited by my previous fears and my joy at finding him to utter a word....

A moment passed—a single moment, brief and terrible,... for he spoke—yes, at once, and with vehemence, with passion!... But ... it was not to me!... No, it was to her he expected to meet. I heard his lips murmur the detested name that had not met my ear since I left Paris!...

I was so astounded that I gave him time to say what I ought not to have heard, what I did not wish to hear!... Then ... I know not what impulse I yielded to, for I lost the power of reflection—I abruptly withdrew my arm from his, and fell back with so quick and violent a movement that the crowd opened a moment to make way for me, and then closed, completely separating me from him.... I tore off the flowers and ribbon I wore, and threw them on the ground. I could not now be distinguished from the other black dominos around me. But I was no longer afraid. I cared for nothing now but to get away—to fly as fast as possible from so horrible a place. I hurried along in such a wild, rapid way that every one looked at me with surprise, and stood aside for me to pass. I thus succeeded in leaving the hall and reaching the passage, where I was obliged to stop to take breath. The passers‐by addressed me, but I heard nothing but the words that still resounded in my ears. I was conscious of nothing but a fearful anguish and the rapid beating of my heart.

While standing there, all at once ... O merciful heavens!... I saw a lady pass only a few steps off.... She was of my height, and, like me, wore a black domino with a sprig of jasmine tied with a white ribbon, similar to the one I had just torn off, and doubtless the same my eyes had followed a few hours before! I recognized her at once, and imagined I saw through her mask the sinister gleam of two large blue eyes! She traversed the passage and entered the hall, where she disappeared. I trembled fearfully from head to foot, my sight grew dim, my strength began to fail me. I felt as if I should die on the spot if I did not take off the mask that was suffocating me, and yet I was still conscious I ought to keep it on at all hazards. I threw around a glance of despair, hoping to see Stella, and forgetting she would not be able to recognize me, even if she thought of looking for me so far from the spot where she left me. What torture! Great God!... My strength was gone, my voice failed me, I felt my knees give way, when, O unlooked‐for happiness! I saw Mario pass by. The stifled cry I uttered died away on my lips before it could reach his ear, but he saw the effort I made, he felt my hand on his arm, and stopped. He began to address me in the customary way on such occasions, but I made no reply. I had recovered strength enough, however, to draw him towards the door, and he unresistingly followed my lead; but, as we were going out, he stopped me with an air of surprise, and said:

“I am ready to follow you wherever you wish, fair mask, but do you know yourself where you wish to go?”

I was only able to incline my head as a sign of affirmation, and he suffered me to lead him into the street. As soon as we were out of doors, I tore off my mask, and found strength enough to say:

“It is I, Mario. Help me to get away from this detestable place!”

“Ginevra!” exclaimed he, drawing me along several steps to look at my face by the light of the torches not far off. He seemed frightened at my looks. My face was convulsed and lividly pale.

“Good heavens, sister!” said he gravely, “what has happened? How is it you are alone in this place at such an hour? Where is Lorenzo? Shall I go for him?”

“No, no! Oh! no,” I exclaimed with anguish. “For pity’s sake, Mario, be silent. Help me to get away, I say. That is all I ask. Do this, and ask me no questions.”

His face darkened He silently took hold of my arm, and led me to the place where he had left his carriage. I entered it, and was on the point of going away without another word when I bethought myself of Stella. I hesitated, however, to expose her to his sarcastic comments, and perhaps to the suspicions I saw were already excited in my brother’s distrustful mind, and said in a supplicating tone:

“One favor more, Mario, which I am sure you will no more refuse your sister than any other lady. I did not come here alone.”

At these words his face assumed an expression which I answered with a smile of disdain.

“Do you suppose, Mario, if I did not come here with Lorenzo, I would accept the escort of any other gentleman?” I stopped a moment, at once irritated and impatient, but finally continued:

“The fact is, Mario, if you must know it, it was he, it was Lorenzo himself, I came to see. I wished to play a joke on him and mystify him a little, by way of amusing myself.”

I think my smile must have been frightful as I said this, for my brother looked anxiously at me, though he seemed satisfied with my explanation.

“But I have been punished,” I continued, “terribly punished.... I failed in my object,... and thought I should die in the crowd.”

I could say no more. The tears I could not repress choked me. Mario at once softened.

“I understand, sister—the noise, heat, and so forth were overpowering. Those who go to a bal masqué for the first time often experience this, but another time it will not happen.”

“God preserve me from ever going to another!” said I in a low tone. “But I was about to say, Mario, that the person, the lady, who came with me is probably looking for me by this time. Search for her. Her domino is like mine, and you will know her by a sprig of jasmine tied with a red ribbon.”

“I saw such a domino not long ago on Lando’s arm.”

“It was she. Find her, and tell her not to be anxious; that I was ill, and could not wait for her. That is all. Thanks, Mario. One word more, however. As I did not succeed with regard to Lorenzo, I do not wish him to know anything about it.”

He made a sign that he understood me, and closed the door of the carriage, which soon took me home. Ottavia, who alone sat up for me, was alarmed at seeing me return in such a condition. I repeated the account I had given Mario, and had no difficulty in convincing her I was ill. The change in my face was sufficient to prove it; but what was this paleness, great God! in comparison with the change that had come over my life within the hour that had scarcely elapsed?

XXVIII.

This time the thunderbolt had really fallen on my head! Many times had I heard it rumbling afar off, and once I thought myself fatally injured; but after a few stormy days, calmness was restored, the blue sky became visible, and the sun once more diffused the light and warmth of renewed confidence and happiness. The desire of being happy seconded my effort to become so. And, as I have remarked, the liveliness, buoyancy, and love of pleasure natural to the young, as well as the beauty of Naples and the influence of its climate, all tended to surround me with an atmosphere at once enervating and intoxicating. But now, in an instant, without any warning, all my hopes were crushed, annihilated, for ever at an end!

“Should Lorenzo become treacherous, unfaithful, and untrue to his word, could I continue to love him? What would become of me in such a case?” Such were the questions I once asked myself, and they were the sincere cry of my heart.

Now all this was realized. A person more treacherous, more deceitful, more untrue than he it seemed impossible to find. Everything now became clear. The words I heard, so plainly interpreted by the instinct they awakened and that had already warned me so strangely, enabled me to comprehend everything. Whether there was any good reason or not for his frequent absence, it was evident he had always met her. It was therefore from these interviews he had derived the cheerfulness and good‐humor that apparently made him enjoy so much the comfort and splendor he afterwards came to participate in with me. Once—who can tell for what reason?—he had delayed going. It was then, probably, she came herself to meet him, not foreseeing, or he either, it would be before my very eyes!...

Even at the present time it would perhaps agitate me and disturb the tranquillity of my soul, should I dwell too long on the thoughts which then overwhelmed me, and from which I derived the conviction that I no longer loved Lorenzo. But I suffered from the deadly chill his treachery had struck to my heart. I would rather have experienced the torment of jealousy than the chill of indifference. To suffer from that would still have been life. To suffer as I did was like being paralyzed, petrified, dead.

Women more generous, more courageous, and more devoted than I, had, I was aware, won back such inconstant hearts, and found happiness once more in the sweetest of victories; but their example occurred to me without producing any impression. I was not in a condition to be influenced by it. My aimless life had resulted in the almost complete prostration of my strength of volition. In this condition I could neither suffer with courage, nor act with wisdom, nor resist temptation with any energy of will....

O my God! it is with my face prostrate in the dust I desire to write the pages that are to follow. It is not without hesitation I continue my account. But the remembrance of thy mercy prevails over everything, and effaces the very recollection of the faults and follies that serve to make it manifest! Like our divine poet wandering in the mazes of that gloomy forest which is the image of life, I, in my turn, attempt

“To discourse of what there good befell; All else will I relate discovered there.”(82)

Mario, Stella, and Ottavia were the sole confidants of my secret, and they kept it faithfully. Lorenzo had the less reason for suspecting I had been to the ball when, returning home at six o’clock in the morning, he learned I had had a violent attack of fever in the night, and was not able to rise. There was no deception in this. It was not a mere pretext for keeping my chamber, but the too natural consequence of the terrible excitement of the night I had passed.

Lorenzo came several times to know how I was, and manifested more apparent affection than usual; and yet once or twice, though perhaps my imagination deceived me, I thought I saw something like embarrassment or uneasiness in his face. I was, however, too ill all the morning to observe him closely or make any reply to what he said.

Towards evening I felt better, and, though still weak, I got up. Lorenzo came to see if anything serious was likely to result from my indisposition, and, being reassured on this point, he went out as usual, leaving me alone with Stella, who had spent part of the day at my bedside, though I had not been able to talk with her any more than with him. Her face was as grave that day as it was usually smiling. Stella’s cheerfulness resulted from her complete lack of egotism. She regarded the happiness of others as a treasure from which she took all she needed for herself; and was happy, therefore, through sympathy. It was, so to speak, a reflected happiness. Admirable disposition! Incapable of exacting anything in view of her own lot, or of envying that of others, she was a delightful friend in times of prosperity, and, at the same time, a devoted adherent in misfortune, and the sweet, compassionate confidant of others’ sorrows. My disappearance the evening before, the condition in which she found me in the morning, the incoherent words I uttered, prepared her for something serious, and she knew beforehand I, of all people in the world, would not hesitate to tell her the truth. In fact, as soon as we were left alone in a small sitting‐room next my chamber, I gave her for the first time a full account of all that had taken place at Paris, as well as the night before. She listened without interrupting me, and, after I ended, remained silent for some time.

“This is indeed a good lesson for me,” said she at length. “I am cured for life, I hope, of a folly like that I committed last night.”

“What folly do you allude to?”

“Why, that of coming here and persuading you to go to a place where you learned what you might for ever have remained ignorant of.”

“And continue to be taken in, deceived, and blinded, to live in an atmosphere of deception, hypocrisy, and lies, to love what no longer merits affection? No, Stella, no; do not regret that, thanks to you, it is no longer the case. Were I to suffer even a thousand times more, were I to die of anguish, as I thought I should on the spot when I saw that woman pass by, I should be glad the veil had been torn from my eyes. I can no longer be happy, it is true. My happiness is ruined beyond repair, but I love truth better than happiness.”

“And do you think,” said Stella after a fresh pause, “that you can never forgive Lorenzo?”

“He must, at least, desire it, as you will acknowledge, and this is precisely what will never happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know Lorenzo. If I utter a reproach, it is he who thinks he has something to forgive. He really obeys no law but the impulse that happens to predominate. It is not in his nature, doubtless, to show me openly any ill treatment, but he would break my heart without any scruple in order to gratify his inclinations. I have no doubt he thinks he has acted with great delicacy, because he has taken pains to conceal the base course he has pursued; and when he finds out I have discovered it, it is he who will think he has a right to be angry. That will be the result. What room is there for forgiveness in such a tissue of falseness?”

“What can I say to you? It will be no consolation to hear there are many women who have husbands like him. It is sad to feel there is nothing in the world so rare as happiness. Nevertheless, it is true, and, for my part, it has often consoled me for having had so little in my life. And had I been happy in the beginning, who could tell what the future had in reserve for me?”

“And you have never thought of marrying again? You can content yourself with a life devoid of happiness, as well as of suffering?”

She smiled.

“My life is not so exempt from suffering as you may suppose. Neither is it devoid of happiness while I have my Angiolina. As for marrying again, I have never happened to meet a person who inspired me with the least desire of that kind, and I imagine I never shall.”

“It is certain, however, if you wish to marry, you would only have the trouble of choosing.”

“Perhaps among men not one of whom pleases me. Who knows how it would be if I took it into my head to fancy some one? But let us leave my affairs and return to you. Tell me, are you sure Lorenzo has not discovered you were at the ball?”

“Yes, I am certain he has not. If he had any suspicion, he would not conceal it from me. Besides, he found me too ill at his return to conceive such an idea. And yet...”

“Well, go on.”

“Well, I noticed something that seemed to indicate he is not so sure as he was yesterday of my utter ignorance of all he has thought proper to hide from me.”

“I agree with you, Ginevra. And shall I tell you what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“That he supposes me to be the mask he addressed by mistake, and does me the honor of supposing I have denounced him.”

“What an idea!... Why should he suppose it was you?”

“Oh! by that aberration of mind common to gentlemen who frequent masked balls and persist in thinking they are right every time they are mistaken.”

“But once more: Why should he suppose you were at the ball? Your secret has been as well kept as mine, I imagine.”

“Not quite. In the first place, I spoke to several persons. And when Mario came to deliver your message, I could not repress an exclamation of surprise, which betrayed me, not only to your brother, but to Lando, on whose arm I was then leaning. I do not know whether it was he or not who spread the report, but it has certainly been whispered around that I attended the Festino. Lorenzo has taken the idea I have mentioned into his head, and of course supposes what I know has been communicated to you, or will be. This is what I have been wishing to say to you.”

My faithful Ottavia now made her appearance to warn me it was time to retire. Stella left me, and, after her departure, I began to reflect on her conjecture and consider what reply I should make, should Lorenzo question me on the subject. I was far from suspecting the means he would adopt to anticipate the scene he foresaw.

I was alone the following morning when I saw him enter, calm, smiling, and self‐possessed, as if there was no actual or possible cloud between us. He spoke of my health, and, satisfied that I was really better, proceeded to more indifferent subjects, and then suddenly, with an assurance the recollection of which still astonishes me, he said:

“Apropos, Ginevra, the Marchesa di Villanera has been in Naples several days.”

I turned pale.

“Oh! do not be alarmed,” said he. “I have not the slightest intention of asking you to receive her. I remember too well the sentiments you expressed on this point at Paris. No, I wish instead to let you know I am going to escort her to Milan myself, and shall remain there till after the Carnavalone.”(83)

My heart gave a violent bound. I could not utter a word, but the surprise that rendered me dumb enabled me to be calm, and, when I finally recovered my voice, I said:

“You are at liberty to go where you please, Lorenzo. It is a liberty, moreover, you have always had, and have already made use of, and I cannot conceive why this time (I emphasized these words) you feel obliged to tell me the precise object of your journey.”

“Because I wish to be frank with you this time, and I should have been so before had I not remembered your reproaches, and wished to spare you the occasion of renewing them. Besides, I no longer have it in my power to prevent your jealousy, or forbid the conjectures you think proper to indulge in.”

“Lorenzo!” I said almost in a scream, and I was on the point of giving utterance to all that filled my heart to overflowing when, with the stern, imperious accent he knew how to assume, though without rudeness or the least violence, he stopped me.

“Not another word, Ginevra; not one, I beg, out of love for yourself. Do not destroy your future happiness in a moment of anger! There are some things I will not listen to, and which, for your own interest as well as mine, I forbid your saying!”

I had no chance to reply, for he took my hand before I could prevent it, and said:

“Au revoir, Ginevra. I hope, at my return, to find you as calm and reasonable as I desire.”

He kissed my hand and left the room.

The state in which he left me cannot be described. I need not say how incapable I was of reflection, of effort, or any struggle whatever against the feelings it was natural I should have. I felt outraged as it seemed to me no woman had ever been. My mind lost its clearness, my judgment was impaired, and for some hours I was wild.

After Lorenzo’s departure, it seemed impossible to remain alone. I could not endure inaction and repose for an instant. I ordered my carriage for a drive—not, as usual, with Stella and in a direction where I should find solitude, but, on the contrary, where I was most sure of meeting a crowd. I smilingly returned the numerous salutations I received, and, instead of appearing troubled or downcast, I looked around with eager interest, as if hoping to find some means of escaping from myself and leaving my troubles forever behind me.

I returned home as late as possible, and found Stella awaiting me. She had been disappointed at my not calling for her, and had come to ascertain the reason. Finding I had gone out, she was surprised I had forgotten her, but was still more so when I told her I should go to the ball at the French ambassador’s that evening. I seldom went anywhere alone, and it was only the day before I had told her decidedly I should never attend another ball. Her eyes were fastened on me with a look of sympathy, as she said:

“Poor Ginevra!”

I begged her in a hasty, irritated manner not to waste any pity on me, and then added:

“To‐morrow, if you like, we will talk about it; but not to‐day, I beg. Let us give our whole thoughts to the ball. You will go, I hope.”

“Yes, if you have really decided to go.”

“That is right. Good‐by till this evening, then.”

Thus dismissed, she left me, and I summoned my waiting‐maid to do what I had never required before. I ordered everything I was to wear to be spread out before me. I examined my diamonds and pearls, and gave the most minute directions about the way I intended to wear them. I then began my toilet, though long before the time, and was as long about it as possible. So many women, thought I, seem to take infinite pleasure in creating a sensation when they enter a ball‐room, receiving compliments and homage on all sides, why should I not try this means of diversion as well as other people? I am beautiful, there is no doubt; very beautiful, they say. Why should I not endeavor to excite admiration? Why not become vain and coquettish in my turn?

In a word, the hour had arrived spoken of in the first part of this story, as the reader will recollect—the hour when, for the first and only time after my mother’s death and the tragical end of Flavio Aldini, the lively vanity of girlhood, roused by irritation, jealousy, and grief, broke through the restraint which an ineffaceable remembrance and the grace of God had imposed upon it, and for once I saw what I should doubtless have been without the divine, mysterious influence that warred within me against myself. I had corresponded to this grace, it is true, by my sincere, determined will, but my volition had now become feeble and uncertain, and I set out for the ball after thus carefully preparing in advance the draught of vanity I wished to become intoxicated with.

I had the satisfaction I desired in all its plenitude. I was handsome, stylish, and elegantly dressed; and yet all this is not the chief cause of a lady’s success in society. Let those who think so be persuaded of their error. People accord to these gifts a certain respectful admiration, but such a success as I obtained that evening—brilliant, demonstrative, and universal—does not depend on the beauty a person is endowed with, but on the wish to please she manifests, and this is why the victory is sometimes so strangely awarded!... I was changed in no respect, except in the disposition with which I attended the ball, and yet I did not seem to be the same person. I was surrounded as I had never been before. I excited a kind of enthusiasm. I received compliments that evening I had never listened to before. And when, contrary to my usual custom, I announced my intention to dance, everybody contended for my hand. But, as the evening advanced, I grew weary of it all, and began to feel my factitious, feverish gayety subside. When I rose to waltz for the last time, it was with an effort, and, after my partner led me back to my seat, my smile vanished, and a cold sense of my wretchedness came over me with unpitying grasp. “All is useless,” a secret, sorrowful voice seemed to say; “you must awaken to the reality of your sufferings....”

At that moment I heard beside me a familiar, half‐forgotten voice—calm, sonorous, and sweet, but now somewhat sarcastic:

“I cannot aspire to the honor of dancing with the Duchessa di Valenzano, but I hope she will not refuse to recognize me.”

I eagerly turned around, and there beside me I saw the person who uttered these words was Gilbert de Kergy.

XXIX.

During the week following the ball a most unexpected change took place in my feelings—a change that at once afforded me so much comfort that I did not hesitate to think and say that heaven had, in the hour of my greatest need, sent me a friend.

It must be acknowledged, however, the hour when Gilbert de Kergy so suddenly made his appearance was not exactly that in which I should have expected an extraordinary intervention of divine Providence in my behalf. I ought even to say that the first feeling I experienced at seeing him again was one of extreme confusion at exhibiting myself under so different an aspect from that he had seen me in before, and, in fact, so different from that which was usually mine. This confusion, added to my fatigue and the painful reaction and disgust which inevitably follow such intoxication as I had voluntarily indulged in, sent me home in a totally different frame of mind from that I was in when I left. Two hours before, I beheld myself in the mirror with great complacency; but when I now saw myself in this same glass resplendent with jewels and flowers, I turned away with displeasure, and do not think I should have felt the least regret had I at that moment been told I wore this brilliant array for the last time.

I hastily took off my diamonds and pearls, and changed my dress; and when at length I found myself alone, face to face with the thoughts I had vainly tried to escape from, for the first time since my interview with Lorenzo a flood of tears came to my relief. The nature of the distraction I had sought now appeared in all its vanity, and the shame I felt was increased by the remembrance of Gilbert’s smile and the sarcastic accent of his words. It was not in this way he had addressed me at Paris. This was not the grave, respectful manner, so different from that of any other person, which had so touched and flattered me then. The contrast made me blush, and I longed to meet him again, that I might efface as completely as possible the impression now left on his mind.

I longed also to inquire about his mother and Diana. In short, a thousand recollections, as foreign as possible to everything that surrounded me now, came to my mind and diverted it more effectually than any amusement could have done from the cause of my present troubles. I slept more calmly than I should have supposed after so exciting a day, and the following morning when I awoke, though my first thoughts were of all I had suffered the day before, I could not forget the pleasant event that had also occurred to lighten my burden.

Gilbert had asked at what o’clock he could see me, and, at the appointed hour, I was ready to receive him. I anticipated his arrival with pleasure, and felt no embarrassment, except that which resulted from the recollection of the previous evening. He came punctually, and, after an observant look and a few minutes’ conversation, he became the same he once was; which reconciled me a little to myself. We talked about Paris, the Hôtel de Kergy, and a thousand other things, and his conversation, as formerly, absorbed my attention, diverted my mind from my troubles, and awoke an interest in a multitude of things unconnected with him or myself.

As he was on the point of leaving, he smiled, as he said with something of the sarcastic tone of the evening before:

“I suppose, madame, I cannot flatter myself with the hope of finding you at home, at least as long as the Carnival lasts.”

“Allow me to undeceive you,” I hastened to reply with a blush. “Whatever you may have thought last evening, I am not fond of dancing. I very seldom go to a ball of my own accord, and am sure I shall not attend another this year. This soirée was every way an exceptional one, as far as I was concerned.”

“Really! I hope you will not think me too bold if I acknowledge that what you say affords me pleasure.”

He said this in so frank and natural a way that I was restored to my ease, and laughingly replied:

“You prefer my former manner? Well, Monsieur de Kergy, I acknowledge you are right, and let me assure you it was my true one.”

As he was going away, I expressed the hope of seeing him again, and from that time not a day passed in which I did not meet him. When I had no engagement elsewhere, I usually spent my evenings at home, where I invariably received a certain number of friends who were in the habit of meeting in my drawing‐room. These soirées were not interrupted when Lorenzo was absent from home, but the number of those who composed the little circle was more restricted. Stella, of course, never failed to come, and the other habitués consisted of friends and some of the foreigners who lived in Naples, or were there temporarily, and preferred a quiet circle to gayer society.

On the first story, to the right and left, were two long, lateral terraces, united by a third which extended all along the front of the house. These terraces surmounted a Greek portico, whose colonnades surrounded a small square court, like those of Pompeii, into which looked all the windows of the ground floor. All that part of the house, with the exception of Lorenzo’s studio, was reserved for large parties, while the first story was used for ordinary reunions. We therefore generally assembled in an upper drawing‐room, which opened on one of the lateral terraces; and from the day I allude to Gilbert regularly formed a part of the little coterie which met there every evening. His influence was speedily felt, and the atmosphere once more changed around me as at Paris, and this change seemed even more beneficial than before. Every one felt Gilbert’s influence more or less. He possessed the enviable faculty of elevating the minds of others above their usual level, and of communicating to them the interest he felt in whatever he was conversing about. Not that he tried to introduce subjects he had made a special study of, or to advance theories or opinions that first excited wonder and afterwards wearied the minds of those on whom he wished to impose them. On the contrary, he seemed to take an interest in everything except what was low, repulsive, and absolutely trivial. But subjects of this kind were rather not thought of than avoided intentionally in these conversations, which were lively, natural, unrestrained, and agreeable, and at the same time different from those I took a part in anywhere else.

It soon became evident that this addition to our daily reunions added singularly to their charm. Never had the annual influx of foreigners been so favorable to us. Stella, I observed, sometimes looked pensive while listening to him, and one day she remarked to me she had never seen any one like M. de Kergy. As for me, I felt the beneficial influence of his society, and welcomed it without analyzing the enjoyment that had come so opportunely to divert me from my present trials and renew the influences of the past, which seemed the best in my life.

The lively indignation that filled my heart every time I thought of Lorenzo’s absence and its cause continued to be felt. I bitterly compared the world of perfidy and deceit he had forced me to know, with that to which Gilbert belonged. I thought of the hopes I once had, and how irreparably they had been deceived, and these reflections were my only danger at the time I am speaking of.

The Carnival was now over, but it excited no surprise that Lorenzo wished to prolong it by remaining at Milan during the Carnavalone. No one even seemed to think it extraordinary he had gone there with a beautiful woman who was returning without any escort. Naples, as I have said, was not a place where evil reports were readily credited. People were not much in the habit of discussing the deeds and actions of others. Rather than give themselves up to conjectures common elsewhere, they would make a sign, by putting the hand to the chin, to signify a thing was nothing to them or concerned them but little. But this charitable indifference did not exactly spring from love of their neighbor, and sometimes went so far, it must be confessed, as to be scandalized at nothing.

I soon perceived, therefore, that though the true cause of Lorenzo’s absence was known to almost everybody, and though his course inspired a universal sympathy and compassion for me which wounded my pride, it by no means excited against him the indignation that at least would have somewhat avenged me.

Mario alone appeared grave and anxious, but Lando, who was not slow in discovering the real state of the case, confined himself to some characteristic remarks which would have appeared insulting had I not learned never to take anything he said seriously, or attach any importance to it. One evening, however, finding himself by chance near me in the drawing‐room, he said in his incorrigible way:

“If I were in your place, I would punish that dear Lorenzo in the way he deserves. Unfortunately, you are not the woman for that, I know. And, after all, you need not take the trouble, for I can assure you the fair Milanese herself will be sure to avenge you.”

I did not utter a word in reply to this language, which wounded all the pride and self‐respect in my nature, and, at the same time, excited a torrent of bitterness and contempt for Lorenzo. I thought at that moment of the fearful vow Livia once spoke of, and asked myself if he, this perjured partner of my life, did not make this vow as well as I. By what law, then, was I bound to it, when he had chosen to be free?

I abruptly turned away from Lando as he said this, and left the drawing‐ room, where we happened to be alone.

The fineness of the weather and some indications of activity in Mt. Vesuvius had drawn all the company that evening out on the terrace. I went out as if intending to join them, but I did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I sought a place apart, where I could enjoy in peace the serene brilliancy of the heavens, and took a seat overlooking the garden and commanding a view of the Villa Reale, the bay, and the long line of mountains beyond It was one of those incomparable evenings in spring‐time when all you see or hear, and the very air you breathe, at once softens, enchants, and predisposes the heart to melancholy. I had thrown over my white dress a large veil of black lace, which I drew up over my head; and, thus protected from the scarcely perceptible dampness of the night, I gave myself up without restriction to my feelings of admiration, as well as the sadness, indignation, and bitterness that filled my heart. Afar off on the sombre azure of the cloudless heavens streamed a reddish flame whose brilliancy formed a strong contrast with the trembling, silvery light the growing moon cast over the waters of the sea. It was one of those awakenings of Vesuvius, the fearful but magnificent spectacle of which is always regarded at Naples with a pleasure that greatly surpasses the anxiety it would be natural to feel at the probable consequences of a new eruption.

All my guests were at that moment at the end of the terrace, where they could have a full view of the flaming crater. But I was by no means disposed to follow their example. I remained in the seat I had taken, my face uplifted and my eyes gazing into the blue, mysterious depths, which seemed to direct my thoughts to something far beyond the visible, starry heavens. I know not how long I had been in this attitude when I perceived Gilbert, who had been on the other side of the terrace, now standing before me.

“May I have a seat here, madame,” said he, “or do you prefer continuing your reverie alone?”

“Oh! no; remain. It is better for me to talk than to dream.”

“And yet, to judge from your looks while thus absorbed, your dreams must have been delightful I longed to participate in them.”

“I know not whether they were delightful or otherwise, but they were commonplace and true. Alas! I was thinking that the heavens are as beautiful as the earth is sad.”

“Sad?... Yes, without doubt, but likewise very beautiful at times, something like the sky above our heads, so glorious to‐night, but which does not always look as it does now.”

“But the clouds pass away, and the sky again appears in its unchangeable beauty; whereas....”

“Whereas, a single day is sometimes sufficient to render our lives totally different from what they were before. Yes, you are right,” said he.

He was silent for an instant, and then resumed with a smile:

“But these gloomy thoughts do not always prevail. It was very far from the case the evening I first saw you in Naples.”

“Oh! never speak again of that evening, Monsieur de Kergy, I conjure you,” I exclaimed with a warmth I could not repress. “Have I not already told you that I was wretched, infatuated, desperate?...”

I stopped short, confused at what had escaped me. I saw his expression of surprise, and noticed again the look of sympathy and emotion he had shown at Paris, as I wept while listening to Diana’s music—a look that silently asked me the cause of my tears. Alas! the day I last visited the Hôtel de Kergy was that on which the sadness that now wholly surrounded me first cast its shadow over my path. But I did not wish to betray what I felt now, any more than I did then, and I instantly regretted the words I had just uttered. I think Gilbert perceived it.

“I assure you,” said he after a moment, as if I had never spoken, “notwithstanding the brilliancy of your attire, you were far less imposing in my eyes than you are at this moment; and yet I am going to show a boldness I certainly should not have thought of manifesting that evening, to which I shall never allude again.”

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed that night to belong to a world whose manners and language I was ignorant of, and where I felt more out of place and uninitiated than a savage. I could not have said such a word then. I hardly dared look at you afar off; whereas—but you will think me presumptuous.”

“No, say what you were going to.”

“Well, then, you seem now, on the contrary, as you did at Paris, a member of the world I live in—an inhabitant, a queen if you like, or a sister, perhaps, whose language I speak, as you can mine. That is why ...”

He hesitated an instant, and then continued with an accent of truth and simplicity that prevented his manner from appearing singular: “That is why I venture—and it is showing myself very bold—yes, venture, madame, to consider myself worthy of being your friend, and, should you deign to accord me this title, I think I can safely promise never to show myself unworthy of it.”

What reply I made I hardly know, but what I am only too sure of is that these words were welcome to a heart at once crushed and embittered as mine then was. The void occasioned by Lorenzo’s treachery caused a suffering like that of intense hunger. My dignity, even more than my conscience, forbade my alleviating this hunger by giving vent to my grievances; nor was I tempted to do so. But was there any reason why I should refuse myself the solace of such a friendship as Gilbert now offered me? Had I any other duty now, with regard to Lorenzo, than to show a respect he had not manifested to the tie that united us? Could not Gilbert, as he had just offered, be truly my brother in heart and soul? Was he not different, as Stella acknowledged, from any one I had ever met? And was I not myself in a position without parallel?

I pass over the remainder of my reflections in silence, merely remarking here that if all the women who believe themselves to be in an exceptional position could be counted, they would be astonished, I imagine, to find their number so great, and would perhaps have to renounce some of the privileges they lay claim to by virtue of the singularity of their destiny.

To Be Continued.

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

Church Chant Versus Church Music

Concluded.

“Ah! but it is sad to think,” objects a friend at our elbow, “that your rigid principles deprive the church of the use of the best music. I think she ought to have the very best of all that this world can offer.”

We have already given our friend his answer, from one point of view, in a former article. We will endeavor to give a fair interpretation of the answer which the church herself would make:

“It is not the best music, as such, that I want for my divine offices, any more than I wish my priests to decorate the walls of my churches with the chefs‐d’œuvre of painting and sculpture simply because they are masterpieces of art. I certainly want, and rejoice to possess, the best that is suitable in art, whether of melody, painting, or sculpture, and even of scientific discovery or invention; but my canons of suitability would be a besom of destruction to gas‐lighted altar‐candles and sanctuary lamps, fixed or portable opera‐glasses for the use of distantly‐placed worshippers, the manufactured mimic rain, hail, and thunder storms at the beck of organ pedals, the statues of the Apollo Belvidere or the Greek Slave, valuable paintings of first‐class yachts, fast horses, or prize cattle, even if they came from the pencil of a Landseer or a Rosa Bonheur; and if I cared for melody of any style for its own sake, my child, I would strongly advise my American clergy to engage the services of Theodore Thomas or Patrick J. Gilmore, whose orchestral performances are truly delicious, and the best for their purpose that can be procured in my beloved dominions of the western hemisphere. But the purpose of these delightful concerts is not a part of my programme. The disciples of the Grand Lama, I am told, turn off their rosaries and other prayers by means of a crank, as music is often made by mechanical organs; but my prayers and melodies are not made in this fashion. Have your best music, as you define it, sung and performed where it suits the best; go and hear it, and God bless you; but please do not let me hear of your inventing and using a small patent steam‐whistle to replace the acolyte’s altar‐bell, nor a large one either in lieu of the church‐bell, for that would smack a little too much of the cotton‐mill or the iron‐foundry; and I do not think I would tolerate that.”

We must confess to having our patience severely tried when the question of “suitability” comes under discussion, and we burn to cry out, Where is the honest musician who is not so engrossed with, and mastered by, his art as to become, like it, deprived of ideas, or at least of the power of expressing them in one single logical affirmation, and who has a principle which he will fairly state and reason from instead of taking us into the pathless dreamland of sentiment, or enticing us for ever off the track on to side switches of individual tastes and special pleas that lead nowhere? Discussing the relative suitability of music and plain chant for the use of the Liturgy of the church is, in our experience, only equalled by the purgatory of suffering one’s reason endures when talking “controversy” with a Protestant. Has art no first principles? Is there no relation between art and the nature and purpose of the object to be expressed or illustrated by it? Do you dare define “suitability” to be the harmony of the subject with your present mood, with the fashion of the hour, or with the demands of ignorance and prejudice, or presume to close all discussion with your “Sic volo, sic jubeo; stet pro ratione voluntas”?

But this is a digression. Let us return to our argument.

Thirdly. If we were to say that, contrasted one with the other, the expression of plain chant is unimpassioned, and that of modern music is impassioned—in other words, that the former has not much, if any, capacity for expressing human passions, and that the latter has not only a great capacity for expressing them, but also for exciting them, we think we are affirming what every one who knows anything of the philosophy of music, as well as every one who has been subjected to the influence of both, will readily acknowledge to be true. There is martial music for soldiers, to excite them to combat, or cheer them in victory, or stir their enthusiasm on the triumphant return from battle. There is music for the dancers, and distinct kinds of dance music which invite and sustain those who may wish to waltz or polka, thread the figures of the quadrille, or indulge in the lascivious mazes of other such‐like enjoyments not worthy of our mention or consideration outside of our duty as confessor or preacher. There is funny music to make us laugh, and there are funereal dirges to keep us in fit mood as we march after a coffin. There is music which we know will rouse the wrath of our enemy, and there is amorous music which awakes the passion of love, pure and impure.

We have already signalized the cause which gave to music its sensuous character. Lest it may be supposed that we are endeavoring to create a theory without sufficient warrant, we quote from one who holds an undisputed post of honor in the musical world:

“Very well! that which musical doctrine had condemned, that which ages had proscribed, a man one day dared to do. Guided by his instinct, he had more confidence in what it counselled him than in what the rules commanded, and in spite of the cries of horror which arose from a whole nation of musicians, he had the courage to bring into relation the fourth note of the gamut, the fifth, and the seventh (the tritone). By this one act he created the natural dissonances of harmony, a new tonality, the kind of music called chromatic, and, as a consequence, modulation. What a world of things produced by one single harmonic aggregation! The author of this wonderful discovery is Monteverde.(84) He gives himself the credit, in the preface of one of his works, for the invention of the modulated, animated, and expressive style of melody. In fact, the impassioned accent (l’accent passionné) does not exist, and cannot exist, except in the leading note (la note sensible), and this cannot itself be produced, except by its relation with the fourth and fifth degrees of the gamut—in other words that any note placed in the harmonic relation of augmented fourth with another note produces the sensation of a new tone, without the necessity of hearing the tonic or making a cadence, and that by this faculty of the augmented fourth to create immediately a leading note, modulation—that is to say, the necessary succession of different tones—is rendered easy. Admirable coincidence of two fruitful ideas! The musical drama is born; but the drama lives on emotions, and the tonality of plain chant, grave, severe, and calm, could not furnish it with impassioned accents; for the harmony of its tonality does not contain the elements of transition. Hence genius found inspiration in the demand, and all that could give life to the music of the drama was brought into existence at one blow.”(85)

We cannot refrain from adding the reflections of another eminent musician—M. Jos. d’Ortigue:

“Is it not evident that a new order of ideas, a new social element, and a novel spirit, were introduced in music by the fact alone of the creation of a tonality, and that dissonance, modulation, transition, the leading or sensible note, the impassioned accent (mark the words), were but the material clothing, the means, the outward expression, thanks to which this new principle—namely, the moi humain—which had already, so to speak, broken through the upper strata of thought, made for itself a vent by means of the art of music? For just as the ancient tonality, by the fact of its constitution, inspired the sentiment of repose—that is to say, gave birth to the ideas of permanence, of immutability, of the infinite, which comport with the expression of divine things—so also disturbance, agitation, the febrile and tumultuous expression of the passions, which are the essential characteristics of all earthly things, are inherent in the modern tonality precisely in virtue of its constitution, which depends upon dissonance and transition.”(86)

Those wise old Spartans who made it a capital crime to add a new cord to the lyre, lest the people should be rendered effeminate, would certainly despair of finding a man living in our XIXth century who was fit to be called a man, if they were told that the chord of the minor seventh was in such common use that hardly one melody can be found where its effeminate dissonance is not made to appear and to be felt.(87) We pray to be understood when we call the tonality of “impassioned accent” effeminate. A few words from M. Victor de Laprade will convey our meaning: “I dare to class music, and even women themselves, in the order of femininity—that is to say, in that class in which sentiment rules ideas, in which the heart is more manifestly active than reason. It is bold, I acknowledge. We are no longer living in the age of the Book of Wisdom, of the sacred lawgivers, of the prophets, of the philosophers, nor simply of Molière; we are of the age of Saint‐Simon, of Fourier, of Auguste Comte, and we have changed all that. We have put the heart on the right side. I am obstinate enough to feel it beating on the left.”

In his famous Instructions (we beg our readers to recall our proposed amendment of their title) the cardinal vicar feels the necessity of protesting against this emotional tendency of music. “We forbid,” he says, “too lively or exciting movements,” and dreads lest some composers may be led to express “the unbridled liveliness of the dance.” He would not “deprive the music of that grace and coloring which art and good taste suggest,” but thinks it necessary to add that “an effeminate softness is to be avoided.”

Without question, the best music, allied to words, as music, is in the compositions for the opera. Those eminent composers who have written for the opera and for the church have indisputably produced works of a higher order of musical merit for the former than they have for the latter.(88) And is not operatic music the most intensely impassioned of all melody, and is it not, alas! becoming a vehicle for the expression of the most debased and lascivious passions of the human heart? Give to modern music language and a stage, free it from all the restraints of Catholic morality, and who does not see, after the experience of an operatic season in one of our great cities, that it would soon become the most powerful and dangerous of all the forces which are now threatening to enervate and demoralize our modern society? We must not be surprised, therefore, nor should we much regret, that “modern composers have failed in their works to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion.”

Let us see what spirit marks the ceremonies of the church when considered as opportunities for exhibiting, or as exciting causes of awakening, the passions. It is not possible to find one such occasion. All gesture which might suggest aught but the most perfect calm and repose of the soul in the actors is absolutely out of place. It is very difficult in sudden, unlooked‐for instances of disturbance for the priest not to show in his countenance or by his manner symptoms of alarm, disgust, or annoyance; but he ought not to do so, and would not fail to scandalize the people, unless such disturbance happened to be extraordinary. To betray by look, gesture, or intonation of voice the slightest emotion of sensual passion, however innocent in itself, would disgust and horrify all observers. Neither do the rubrics permit him or his assistants to excite any passion in the hearts of others; for the ceremonial directs their most simple movements, the position of the body, the tenue of the eyes, the hands, and the feet. That “ecclesiastical modesty” which forms so constant a theme of instruction to candidates for the sacred ministry here finds its perfect realization, and is exacted in the highest degree.

The sacred offices are essentially unlike opera, and the church has the good sense to dread the introduction of anything in connection with her divine ceremonies that might be suggestive of it. We now understand why the cardinal vicar throughout the Instructions vehemently proscribes, and over and over again warns composers not to write, operatic or theatrical music, or anything like it, either in its melodies or its character, nor borrow from it, nor imitate it in the use of ariettas, duets, trios, recítative, finales, or cabaletta. Truly, “the best music” is pretty well ruled out by his eminence. By his cautious discrimination, and prudent lopping off, and general toning down he has pretty closely clipped the wings of the steed of Helicon, and, after all, it must be acknowledged, has made of him rather a sorry and unreliable nag, not worth half the old horse who all his lifetime has never given out, or baulked, or behaved in any unseemly manner.

We trust that a distinct disavowal of any intent on our part to treat with flippancy and disrespect the oft‐quoted Instructions of his eminence is not needed, for nothing could be further from our thought; but that our readers will perceive that the point of our lance is directed against the endeavor to impose a restrictive and prohibitory circular‐letter of the cardinal vicar as a brief in favor of modern music with apostolic sanction. We complain, also, that the words of Benedict XIV. have been quoted by the same writers in such a way as to leave the impression on the mind of the general reader that the learned pope treated modern music as un fait accompli, and rather preferred it if composed according to certain demands which he makes of musicians. Wherefore we quote again his words, by which we get at his real sentiments: “The Gregorian chant is that song which excites the minds of the faithful to piety and devotion; it is that music, therefore, which, if sung in our churches with care and decorum, is most willingly heard by devout persons, and is justly preferred to that which is called figured or harmonized music. The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind in comparison with the sweetness of the church chant, and hence it is that the people flock to the churches of the monks, who, taking piety for their guide in singing the praises of God, after the counsel of the prince of psalmists, skilfully sing to their Lord as Lord, and serve God as God with the utmost reverence.”

The learned Suarez has also been cited in favor of modern church music—rather a strange fact, as the great theologian was dead and buried before the system of modern music was invented! S. Alphonsus—no mean theologian, nor a rigorist either—says: “The devil usually gets more by it than God does.”

This attempt to argue a positive approval from prohibitory enactments reminds us of “a little story.”

“I had the honor this morning,” boasted a vain soldier, “of holding a conversation with his majesty the king.”

“You converse with his majesty?” exclaimed his companion. “And what did you say to him?”

“Oh! I said nothing. His majesty alone conversed.”

“And pray, what did he say to you?”

“He said: ‘Fellow, stand out of the way!’ ”

Who has ever thought of denying that the old plain chant suits exactly the ceremonies of the church? There were never any “Instructions” promulgated, that we know of, to curb its worldly, operatic, sensual, or effeminate tendencies, simply because by its essential melodic form it does not lend itself to any such aberrations. By its short intervals, its grave and unmeasured movement, and its intellectual character,(89) it is freed from all sensuousness. You can neither march to it, dance to it, nor make love with it. But you can appropriately accompany any of the ceremonies of the church with it, and pray with it; that is—to forestall the special plea of a theological “distinction”—you can adore with it, propitiate the divine justice with it, supplicate with it, praise and thank God with it; and doing all this, we respectfully ask, what more do you want, and, if you do want more, what right have you to ask it?

In the interests of art, do you say? Pshaw! You know well that the church can offer but a very confined field for the cultivation of music as an art, and, compared with music inspired by other wants and tastes, the music written for her use is not worth mentioning. It is only fit to be consigned to the flames, as our friend observes. Besides, the church is not an Academy of Arts and Sciences. Try again.

If being content with what the church prescribes, refusing to admit what she has not distinctly commanded, and contending stoutly for the fitness of that melody for the expression of her divine prayer, and as an accompaniment to her sublime offices, and which she has never declared to be unsuitable, be to “censure the whole church, and even the Pope himself,” as it is insinuated we do, then we offer ourselves at once for safe conduct to a lunatic asylum, for assuredly we have lost our senses.

Fourthly. We hear much of the coloring in the phraseology of modern music. That it is essentially rhetorical is plain enough. It is pretty much all made up of figures of speech, musically expressed. It is especially antithetical, full of striking contrasts, and highly metaphorical. We used to hear frequently in our own church, when we had a “mixed” choir and a gallery, a finale of the Gloria in Excelsis which the unlearned in musical gymnastics were accustomed to say sounded like the men scampering after the women, and the women scampering after the men, and neither coming out ahead of the other. This rhetorical character of music, this dealing in figures of musical speech, which we dare affirm is not free in many an instance from the faults of tautology, bombast, and mixed metaphor, lucidly explains the reason why the frequent repetition of morceaux de musique, whether anthems, motets, “grand Masses,” or “musical Vespers,” by any celebrated composer whomsoever, soon grows tiresome. The same rhetorical phrases and identical figures of speech in the discourses of a preacher Sunday after Sunday would set all the people yawning, and, if the sacredness of the place and of the speaker were not a hindrance to such emotional display, laughing and hissing as well.

The metaphorical character of music is the result of its theme, which may be, as we have already said, either pastoral, martial, amorous, saltatory, funereal, or even prayerful, etc.; but it is not really pastoral, for there are no green fields to pipe in or any hay‐making going on. It is like pastoral music, and would be only tolerable, even in a concert‐ room, on the strength of the maxim, “Art for art’s sake”—a principle we contend to be unphilosophical at best, and absolutely intolerable when applied to sacred ceremonies, and not sanctioned by a single instance in the rubrics. So, also, there are no military evolutions, no love‐making or dancing, going on, for which reason the music is not really martial, amorous, or saltatory, but only like such music. But there may be a funeral, and there certainly is prayer going on; and what objection can there be to funereal and prayerful music? We have never heard any funereal music that was fit to accompany a Requiem Mass. We have heard musical howling, wailing, sobbing, groans and sighs of despair, and even the spiteful cursing and gnashing of teeth of the damned, as in the confutatis maledictis of Cherubini’s Requiem; but let that pass for the present. Prayer_ful_ music there is of incomparable sweetness and ravishing harmony, but prayer music—i.e., music which is prayer—is quite another thing. Music does not lose its metaphorical character because its theme is prayerful. There is the greatest difference in the world between first‐class paste and real diamond, or between vermeil and pure gold, although it is possible that neither you nor we could distinguish them without the application of a scientific test. The paste may have a perfect diamond_ful_ glitter, if you will; but that this glitter is the expression of the substance of real diamond needs no argument to disprove.

Let us again apply our test. The official acts of the celebrant and his assistants at the altar are not figurative, but real. The priest acts as a priest, and not like a priest. The chorus rise, kneel, bow, prostrate, as a chorus should, and not as a chorus might. All their acts are real, finding their ratio in themselves, and not in something else of which they are now a good and admirable, or now a poor and far‐fetched, figure. Melody for such performances should be a faithful and true expression of these realities. That is to say, when you hear the melody, you should hear the prayer which is the form of the corpus rubricarum, as the soul is the form of the human body. Subjected to this test, the paste is easily distinguished.

Now, will the diamond, as we choose to typify the church chant, be as readily known by the like test? There is nothing corresponding or similar to figures of speech in the chant, neither is it based upon metaphorical themes. It has properly no theme, but only modes, with their special intonations, mediations, and cadences. Considered in its melodic form, it is a rhythmic combination of unities, the purest artistic expression of communion with the Infinite Unity—with God. Sung in or out of the celebration of the divine offices, if it be not simple rehearsal, it is prayer, and nothing else but prayer. It rejoices in the “perennial freshness” of the Holy Mass and Divine Office, because, like these, it is not metaphorical, but real; and hence we deduce at once the explanation of its lasting character. Its melodies do not wear out or become tiresome. It would never occur to a child of the church, although he were the most accomplished musician the world ever knew, if his age surpassed that of Mathusala, and he had heard High Mass every day of his life, that the Preface or the Pater Noster (and wherefore any other chant?) was a worn‐ out or tiresome melody. There is a truth for the lovers of church music to digest.

The essential reason—to go to the very bottom of the matter—of the lasting character of the chant, lies in the form of its phraseology, which is purely didactic, consisting of simple and therefore sublime affirmations; this simplicity of its phraseology being often reduced to the utterance of pure substantives, as if the soul were in rapture, meditating upon God and his attributes, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Being of beings, the Eternal, the Omnipotent, the Everlasting, the All in all, the All wise, the All fair, and the All good.

There is an instance of this sublime simplicity of language in Holy Scripture which is an apt example to illustrate our meaning. It is the twelfth verse of the viith chapter of the Apocalypse: “Amen. Benedictio, et claritas, et sapientia, et gratiarum actio, honor, et virtus, et fortitudo Deo nostro in sæcula sæculorum, amen”—Amen. Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor and power, and strength to our God, for ever and ever, amen.

The test being applied, we think we may affirm and certify the diamond.

Fifthly. From what we have already said, and to judge from the extraordinary pretensions of its capacity for expression put forth in these later days, modern music is essentially dramatic, mimetic, or imitative. That it is especially suitable as the melody to accompany and aid the expression of dramatic representation there is no question. There appears also to be hardly any limit of its capacity, as musicians affirm, for word‐painting and scene‐painting. If the musical critics are not deceived, we think that, with the full score of some genius who may be even now about to graduate in the school of “the music of the future,” a Thomas or a Gilmore might dispense with the actors on the stage altogether, and with the services of the scene‐painter as well. What is thought of this power of word‐painting, when employed to illustrate the sacred text of the church’s offices, we quote from the Dublin Review, Oct., 1868:

“What is called word‐painting in music is, of course, very effective, but, as a rule, it cannot be carried so far in sacred as in secular music without detriment to the dignity of the subject. Indeed, even where it is not otherwise objectionable, it sometimes becomes tiresome from its conventionality. The run down the notes of the scale at the descendit de cœlis, and such like effects, do not bear much repetition. Indeed, the attempt at minute expression has often led to odd blunders, such as in the passages resurrectionem mortuorum, where the music for the first word is usually made to have a joyful effect, the latter a lugubrious one (and that, too, sometimes drawn out into musical passages cut off from the previous word, as if it were a fresh sentence), the composer forgetting that the phrase only comprehends one idea—that of the resurrection. So with the passage remissionem peccatorum, exaltavit humiles, and others that might be named.”

We have already mentioned a notable instance of this word‐painting—the confutatis maledictis from the Dies Iræ of Cherubini. The vividly descriptive and intensely dramatic power of that passage is well known; and if it were further heightened by a mechanically‐darkened church, with a flash or two of stage‐lightning and the rumbling of sheet‐iron thunder, we are sure the effect would be quite as much as we could bear, whether as celebrant or as near relatives of the departed. Overpowered with the emotions of horror and fear which we are sure we would experience in thus having hell opened to us, we would be thinking a great deal more of the devil than of the God of mercy and compassion when the cry of fright broke from our lips, “Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna!” Certainly, deprived even of any stage effects, we have never listened to it without a shudder. And now comes the pertinent question, Is dramatic, theatrical effect what the church desires to obtain from her melody, or, at least, is she willing that there should be anything of this kind at all employed to illustrate her liturgy? We refer to the Instructions of his eminence the cardinal vicar. He is “polarized,” as we say in America, on that subject. We also quote from the late articles on church music in this magazine:

“ ‘Humana nefas miscere divinis’ finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.”

Musicians themselves are not wholly devoid of the sense of propriety. Mme. de Sévigné relates that Baptiste—the celebrated Lulli—hearing at Mass one day an air which he had composed for the theatre, cried out: “Lord, Lord, I crave your pardon. I did not write it for you!”

We wonder if the correspondent of the Herald was aware of the satire contained in the following late announcement: “Signor Verdi protests indignantly against his Requiem being played in a circus at Ferrara.”

Yet let us see if our comparison with the ceremonies of the liturgy and the character of the actors holds good as before.

There is no scenery, nor should there be any for any occasion. No, good reader, not even for the Repository of Holy Thursday. Those puppet‐show “tombs,” with pasteboard soldiers sleeping and watching before pasteboard rocks, are not prescribed by the rubrics, or even tolerated, and are therefore entirely out of order and unmeaning. The Holy Mass is a continuation of the crucifixion and sacrificial death of our Lord on Mount Calvary; but there is no dramatic representation of that event, for the reason, among others that we have alleged before, that it is not a representation, but a reality. We could readily understand its propriety if the Episcopalians or other sects of Protestants were to have a stage erected with scenery of the “upper room,” and a supper‐table with living actors or wax‐figure ones, à la Mme. Tussaud or Mrs. Jarley, in order to vividly represent to their people the celebration of the Last Supper, because their “celebrations,” high, low, broad, or evangelical, expect to have nothing more at best than a representative sacrifice or commemorative supper; but the Catholic Mass is a perfect and real sacrifice in itself, and mimics nothing.

Apart from the Mass, we have a remarkable example in our own day of a sacred drama, the Passion Play of Ober‐Ammergau, which is not a real but an imitative crucifixion, mechanical in the highest degree, passional, figurative, and dramatic. Music for that, à la bonne heure!

Let us again bring the chant into comparison. When we say that it is pre‐ eminently the chant of priests, each one of whom is “alter Christus,”(90) the chorus song of psalmists, we at once proclaim it as pre‐eminently fitted for the expression of the liturgy, and therefore to be wanting in dramatic or word‐painting capacity. There have been a few insignificant attempts made by late composers to express, after a musical fashion, the descendit de cœlis with square notes on a four‐lined staff, in the hope, probably, that it would be mistaken for plain chant; but the guise is too thin!

Here is a fitting opportunity to explain our former intimation that horrifying, tearful, and groaning melody is not suitable even for a requiem. How often have we not heard it said, “Oh! Gregorian chant is admirable for occasions of sorrow; just the thing for a Dead Mass”; or again, “I think the chant is so lugubrious and solemn; every inflexion seems to be in the minor key,” to which we reply:

In the first place, they who suppose plain chant to be in the minor key are simply in ignorance of its tonality. These we advise to study enough of the chant of their church to avoid making ridiculous objections to it. The others evidently suppose, 1st, that the church intends to excite emotions of sadness at a requiem, and to perform, especially with the services of the choir, the office of a paid mute; and if the friends and relatives are moved to weep bitterly and for a long time, every one will say, “How impressive, how touching!” meaning, “How saddening! How depressing to the spirits!” 2d. That the Gregorian chant Requiem is most admirably suited to this purpose, being a melody of such a sorrowful character and of so lugubrious a tone.

On which we remark that they are most egregiously mistaken in both suppositions. The object which the church has in view at a requiem is not to make people weep and wail, but to console, comfort, and soothe the bleeding hearts of the bereaved mourners; to pray herself, and to excite them to pray earnestly, for the soul of the departed. Nothing could be further from her thought than to horrify them with visions of the grave and imaginations of the torments of the damned. No, it is rest, eternal rest, the rapture of the soul’s enjoyment of the everlasting light of glory in heaven, that forms the burden of her funereal refrain,

“Requiem æternam dona ei Domine, Et lux perpetua luceat ei! Requiescat in pace!”

Those who love to indulge in the luxury of woe, and who fancy that plentiful tears and a thoroughly broken‐hearted manner are the proper accompaniments to a mourning dress, highly approve of the anti‐rubrical exhibition of painted or embroidered skulls and cross‐bones, heightened in effect by a diapering of gigantic tears, which the artist in funereal trappings has intruded upon the altar or about the catafalque. The Requiem Masses of Mozart and Cherubini would certainly admit of these imitative skeletons and mechanical grief; but not so the Gregorian Requiem.

Hark! what are those strange words which break the silence as the coffin is borne into the church? “Subvenite sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli Domini, suscipientes animam ejus, offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi. Suscipiat te Christus qui vocavit te, et in sinu Abrahæ angeli deducant te.”(91)

And now the Introit begins, which gives the keynote, so to speak, to the whole Mass:

“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis.”(92)

What a world of comfort in those words! How soothing and hopeful; and chanted to such a smooth, sweet melody, like oil poured out upon the troubled waters, calming the agitated and fretted spirits of the mourners, and gently turning all hearts away from the thoughts of the irreparable loss they have sustained, and shutting out the memory of the scenes of anguish and horror that marked the hours of the agony and death, solicits them to pray for the soul of the beloved departed, and to cast all their sorrow at the feet of God.

Doubtless you presume the chant is very sorrowful; and, like all Gregorian chant, this is, of course, “in the minor key.” Not at all, however inexplicable it may appear to you. Read over again what we have just written above, and now learn one more astonishing fact. The chant for this Introit is written in the sixth mode, the only one of all the Gregorian modes whose scale is identical with the scale of the modern major key!

There is not an invitation to weep in the whole Requiem, neither in the words nor in the melody. It is true the church takes care to improve the occasion by preaching her sermon on the Judgment in the chant of the Dies Iræ; but she soon returns to her keynote of comforting prayer, and at the Communio (which, of course, is not sung at all at our concert requiems) she essays even a bright and cheerful melody in the triumphant eighth mode, to the old refrain,

“Lux æterna luceat eis,”

and, addressing the sweet mercy of God, inspires hope and submission to the divine will by the reminder that he is ever kind and good—“quia pius es.”

Oh! what is this? It is the sympathizing pressure of the hand of the old, old friend who has always been true in sunshine and storm, in our sins and our miseries; it is her sheltering arm that folds our drooping head upon her gentle breast, and her cheery voice that has so often gladdened us in days gone by, soothing our broken heart with the only words that have power with us now—“God is good,” “It is his holy will.”

When we were aforetime groping in the darkness of heretical error, and denied all privilege of stretching out our hands in prayer to help our beloved dead through the mysterious way that death had opened to them, and sternly forbidden to hope for a deeper look into the future than the yawning chasm of corruption opened to our gaze in the earth, we felt—alas! how keenly—the appropriateness of the only burial service we knew of then, whose doleful burden—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and “We commit this body to the ground”—expressed well the faith that was of the earth, earthy. But now our voice is lifted up in praise, and our heart‐strings tuned to strains of festive joy, when God has spared our innocent loved ones the dangers and sorrows of life, chanting their translation to the skies in robes of white, and in words of joy that erst were sung by angels proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men”; and at the borders of the tomb which hides from our sight the forms of those who for many a year have grown with our growth, and knit our very existence unto theirs, the earth with its darkening clouds is made to disappear, and heaven itself is revealed as the herald who precedes the soul to the gates of everlasting light, chants in our hearing its melodious welcome to the home of rest and glory.

“In paradisum deducant te angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.”(93)

The Catholic Church calm in the face of death, and triumphant at the edge of the grave! Why does not the sight convert every Protestant and unbeliever before the setting of the sun? This is our answer: Because you have brought upon the true Israel the calamity which Mardochai the just prayed God to avert when “the mouths of them that sing unto God are shut,” and by your music have bedimmed one of the most sublime manifestations of the church, and by the banishment of her chant have silenced her voice in that supreme, faith‐inspiring hour!

Music at a funeral! We would as soon think of getting an Episcopalian parson to read his gloomy burial service, or of hiring a Methodist preacher to declaim by the hour, for the purpose of exhibiting his own vanity and ministering to ours.

The reason why the much‐lauded musical Masses, whether of requiem or for other occasions, have failed to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, is because their composers have sought by word‐painting to illustrate the words, as separately defined in a dictionary, instead of grasping the chief and leading ideas to which the church strives to give expression; pretty much as if a painter, intending to paint a man, should most carefully sketch apart every separate bone, muscle, nerve, artery, and organ in the body. The result obtained would be a series of most excellently delineated anatomical drawings, no doubt, but no bodily form of a man, and no expression of what makes the body a living body, which is the soul.

Hence we deduce a most important conclusion. The form of modern music is not prayer, but recreation, the delectation of the imaginative faculty. It aims at producing the impressions which material things excite by their contact with the senses. It seeks to imitate motion in direction or velocity, light and darkness, cold and heat, serenity or disturbance in nature. The piano alone is supposed to make us hear the booming of cannon, the galloping and neighing of horses (the tritone Si, Fa, which in the palmy days of Gregorian chant was called diabolus in musica, and which is the essential chord in the tonality of modern music, will be found to give the exact notes of an ass’ braying), the dying moans of the wounded in battle, the rising and setting of the sun, and a host of other equally curious things. “I shouldn’t wonder,” exclaims a witty writer, “if one day I might see upon a piece of sheet music, ‘Demonstration of the square of the hypothenuse,’ or ‘The theory of free trade!’ ” Will not some composer produce a “work” which will give the impressions produced on the souls of the people at Mass and Vespers? It might be found convenient for home use on rainy Sundays!

This suggestion quite tickles our fancy. It has the smack of originality about it, and we feel like playing with it, as a cat plays with a mouse. Who does not see at once that it opens a vast field for development of music as an art, and precisely in the order in which musicians are now striving to give it expression? Yes, the glory of the invention is ours.

“PATENT MUSICAL IMPRESSIONS, adapted to every want in church and state.”

“Save your fuel! Summer Impressions, warranted for the coldest climate.”

“Watering‐places superseded! Refreshing Winter Impressions, deliciously cool, flavored with hops, serenades, moonlight excursions, sea‐views, Adirondack trips, etc., according to taste.”

“Sermon Impressions, a great variety. Parties ordering will please state their religious views or the particular branch of the Episcopalian or other denomination to which they belong.” N.B.—Agents and composers wanted.

If our readers think this to be nonsensical trifling, let them read a few of those lucubrations styled “musical criticisms.”

Musical coloring has only been equalled in its fantastic conceptions by the so‐called ocular harmony and visual melody imagined by the French Jesuit, Father Castel, who lived about the beginning of the last century. Starting with a fancied principle that colors are reducible to a harmonic scale corresponding to the scale of musical sounds, he had manufactured what he called his universal ribbon, on which were graduated all colors and their most minute shades. Of this ribbon he made a little book, which he ingeniously attached to a harpsichord in such a manner that certain leaves would open at the touch of the different keys, thus presenting to the sight a particular shade of color at the same time that the hearing perceived the musical note. It is said that he spent large sums of money on this hobby. He wished also to have silks and other stuffs woven after this principle and “dans ce goût” of which the sacerdotal vestments ought to be made, so that every feast and season would be not only distinguished by those parti‐colored robes, but also, according to his principle of the harmonic proportions of color, that by a scientific arrangement of the colors derived from his graduated ribbon one might, and, as he contended, should, note upon the vestments melodies, and even harmony, so that a chasuble would sing the Gloria in Excelsis or a cope the Antiphons at Vespers! We do not find, however, in his works, any proposal to sing, in colors, either at Mass or Vespers, thunder and lightning, landscapes and sunrises, jigs and waltzes, serenades of love‐ sick swains, the shrieks and gnashing of teeth of devils and lost souls, as our modern musicians have done with their musical coloring.

Sixthly. One of the chief complaints justly made against church music is its liability to the abuse of bringing certain singers of remarkable talent into an undue and often indecent prominence, and thus ministering rather to personal vanity, to petty jealousies and envies, and to the critical delectation of the audience (?), than to the praise and glory of God. That music can be written so as to preclude such an offensive result we are not prepared to deny; but that there is any reasonable hope that it ever will be we do not believe. The principle upon which choice is made of it in preference to chant, and which has extorted the restricted and evidently unwilling toleration of it, forbids us to entertain such a hope. We fancy that such a chastened style of music, composed so as to meet this requirement, would soon be voted as “confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph,” and, with plain chant under the same ban, this world would become indeed a vale of tears and

“... plain of groans, Whose arid wastes resound with moans Of weepers over dead men’s bones.”

The style inherent in music certainly calls for more or less of personal display, and consequently for some sign of appreciation from the listeners, if it be nothing more than that entranced silence which is often the most flattering applause, especially in church.

A little incident has just occurred in connection with our own church choir—we hardly need say that no women sing in it, or that chant is its accepted melody—which illustrates better than long argument the spirit that Gregorian chant inspires in the hearts of the singers. One of their number, a little chorister, lies sick in a hospital. The members of the chorus have made an offering of all the merit they gain in the sight of God, on account of their singing, for his recovery. We imagine the look of puzzled surprise if such an “act” were proposed to the singers of a musical chorus in one of our ordinary gallery‐choirs.

We would furthermore ask whether music for the church could be, or is at all likely to be, composed so as not to betray the hand of the composer and elicit applause for him? Ought the people, or priest either, to suffer the distraction of remarking interiorly, “We have Mgr. Newsham’s Mass to‐ day, but it is not so pleasing as Mr. Richardson’s revised Mozart that we had last Sunday. I do hope the organist will soon give us one of those Mechlin prize Masses; but we cannot have that, I suppose, until we get a better tenor, for ours is rather a poor voice, etc., etc., etc.”?

We say that all such reflections are out of order, and are a valid argument against the use of musical compositions.

What of personal display in church ceremonies? It is not only in bad taste, but irrational, stupid, and contemptible, if it be not grievously scandalous, as it might very easily become. Does any one ever dream of applause to be either given or acknowledged? Why does not the church offer prizes for the composition of “Masses” which will vie with each other in their literary style, their devotional phraseology, and other characteristics, so that the people may have the enjoyment of hearing a Mass, now of the celebrated Dr. Brown, now of Dean Jones, and now of Canon Robinson, instead of being obliged to listen week after week to the same old, tiresome Masses of the Feasts of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints, the productions of the same “barbarous” age which formed the chant, and whose composers are not known to one in a million? Do not the exigencies of modern progress, and the aspirations to see themselves in print of more literati than she can find room for in her contracted temple of fame, demand that the church shall take this matter into serious consideration? We advise the American daily press to press this matter into the notice of the hierarchy at once, or at the reassembling of the Vatican Council at furthest.

As to plain chant, it corresponds exactly with this anonymous character of the present liturgy of the church, as every one can see—immortal works, that immortalize only the common faith which produced them—and then that will be got rid of, which is all we need or care to say on this point. Verbum sap.

Seventhly (and lastly, for the present). Modern music is essentially national and secular. It is the product of a natural and sensual civilization (a question we have not the space to fully discuss here), and advances in a degree corresponding to the cultivation of the arts for their own sake by this or that nation, besides receiving a marked impress from the national habits and tastes.

Art for art’s sake! What else could we expect from a civilization which has ignored the supernatural and placed scientific investigation above the revelations of God, whose painters have abandoned the ideal for servile copying of nature, and whose highest type of beauty for the sculptor’s chisel is a naked Venus?

The secular character of music—by which we mean its variability with succeeding centuries or still shorter periods of time—is also unquestionable. It is of this age or of that; now “all the rage,” and now “old‐fashioned” and “out of date.” Modern musical airs enjoy a very short‐ lived popularity. Fashion is the autocrat, almost the divinity, of modern civilization. It is the logical expression of cultivated sensualism, and the art of music has basely given itself up to its tyrannical rule and whimsical lusts. Church music has been forced to bend its neck and go under the same yoke, and we do not believe it has the power to shake it off. Talk of making the style of music “alla Palestrina” popular now! We have been offered Chevalier Pustet’s costly Musica Divina for a song; and Herr Franz may call the attention of church musicians to the works of Durante until he is hoarse. We tell you that such music is “out of fashion”; and fashion’s ban in the kingdoms of this world is as blasting as the ban of the church’s excommunication in the kingdom of Christ.

There must be nothing national or secular, nothing suggestive of the petty partisanship and strifes of the world, about the melody which expresses the universal and everlasting liturgy of the church. Kenelm Digby, whose judgment is of worth, says: “Sooth, no tongue can be adequate to give an idea of the impression produced by the plain song of the choir. It is full of poetry, full of history, full of sanctity. While the Gregorian chant rises, you seem to hear the whole Catholic Church behind you responding.”

Music may do for religions that are national or fashionable. Hymns in the German style may do for German Protestants; hymns and anthems in the English style may do for English Protestants; and American music (if there be such) may answer for all the requirements of devotion among the fifty odd sects that are struggling for existence amongst us—and we advise them, if they wish to make their churches “pay,” to keep their music well up to the fashion—but the Catholic Church, who knows no present, past, or future in her eternal faith, whose liturgy has never been subjected to the genius of national language, whose motto, “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus,” has defied the attacks of fashion, as her rock‐founded edifice defies the gates of hell, she must have, and, thank God, she has a melody no nation or age shall call “its own,” whose purity no soí‐disant “civilization” shall ever be able to defile, which her faithful children shall always recognize as the voice of their true mother, and know it well from the voice of a foreign step‐dame or of a hireling housekeeper—a voice which, through the mysterious link of divine generation, will ever speak to the child of the Father, who is his through the church, and whose Paternal compassion is sure to be moved by the tones of that song which the Mother taught him to sing.

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