The Rigi…

The Rigi

The Golden Lion of Weggis can scarcely be said to resemble its now famed namesake of Granpère. It shows neither coach‐house, stable, farmyard, nor bustling village life around it, and yet there is the one point of a certain homeliness in common which suggests that it too may have seen many a simple romance acted out beneath its roof, and have had its share in many a life’s heart‐story. It is difficult to imagine sentiment of any kind in connection with the monster hotels, or rather caravansaries, of modern Switzerland. But this is a true inn, in the olden acceptation of the word; modest and sedate enough to feel elated at the arrival of new guests, who are welcomed by the landlord himself, and instinctively made to understand that he will personally see to their comfort and proper attendance. At first sight it appears to be overshadowed by a new and larger neighbor; but the Golden Lion does not care, for he enjoys the advantage of mature age and well‐established fame, and justly prides himself on his old customers, whose constancy is a good tribute to his honesty and civility. Some who knew him in the quieter times of Rigi history still come and spend two or three days here when going to, or returning from, the mountain, and it was one of these faithful friends who had recommended us to choose it in preference to the larger establishment of more modern date. Truly, no spot seems more suitable for a romance. Situated on the lake, surrounded by the most lovely views of land and water, removed from the rush and bustle which somewhat jar on the sentimental traveller at Vitznau, and even at Gersau, still with the pleasant splash of the steamers as they halt alongside the shady pier, only making just sufficient noise to remind him that, though not of the world, he can still be in it whenever, or fly whithersoever, his fancy may impel him. Yes; every steamer, backwards and forwards, stops at Weggis, though generally merely to drop a stray traveller—a man with alpenstock and knapsack, or two ladies with their waterproofs neatly strapped across their shoulders, thereby betraying their recent arrival from “fatherland beyond the Rhine.” And every one walks leisurely and with consequent dignity on shore, as though life and plenty of time to enjoy it in were still at their command. No feverish train is in the background; indeed, it cannot be even seen on the mountain sky‐line from Weggis, so that strangers may pause and dine at ease up‐stairs in the clean, airy table‐ d’hôte room of the Golden Lion, sip their coffee on its wide balcony facing the Uri‐Rothstock and Rigi‐Nasen, or lunch à la carte in the leafy arbor of the garden, which is more trim and inviting than its counterpart at Granpère.

It was overpoweringly hot when we landed from the Helvetia, the sun bearing down with that full force which so often follows a heavy shower; and the leafy arbor in question irresistibly attracted us by its deep shade and cool, refreshing shelter. Here we resolved to dine, in order to strengthen the “inner being” and let the noonday hours of heat glide by before attempting the ascent to Kaltbad, which promised to be a matter of two and a half hours at the least. The landlord was loud in praise of his horses and men—“well known before that Vitznau railway existed,” he said in a tone rather contemptuous of such an upstart. “The price of each only six francs to Kaltbad, fixed according to the tariff.” And here an ejaculation in praise of this tariff system, penetrating even to the heart of the mountain, may perhaps be allowed to us. None but those who have benefited by it can understand the advantage of being able thus to calculate beforehand the expense of every excursion, nor the unspeakable comfort it brings when, on reaching the hotel at night, tired and sleepy, you know that the guide cannot cheat you, and he feels you cannot cheat him. No one thing contributes more to ensure peace or conduces to happy wanderings. Nor does any man more surely “deserve well of his country” than that Swiss, whoever he may have been, who first proposed this arrangement; and after him we must be grateful to those authorities who have so well carried it out. The dinner was the next matter for consultation between Mr. C—— and mine host, which ultimately ended in the latter promising to do his best, and to have it ready in three‐quarters of an hour or thereabouts.

Besides the arbor, the Golden Lion boasts of a tea‐house and a swimming or bath house projecting into the lake, and also many a well‐placed seat inviting to a most enjoyable dolce far niente close by the pellucid waters, without sound to disturb poetic musings; bright coloring and full foliage forming a framework to the exquisite landscape which extends beyond. Nothing could be more romantic, rural, or tranquillizing to soul and body; but before long, prompted by my “natural female curiosity,” as Mr. C—— ungallantly styled it, I proposed a saunter through the village. “There is nothing whatever to see,” he retorted. Still, with much good‐ nature, he immediately offered to accompany his wife and me in our rambles. It certainly was true in the ordinary sense of the term. There was nothing very remarkable to behold; still, the Swiss villages are always pleasant to look at, especially in these forest cantons, and of this class Weggis is an excellent specimen. It has probably seen its palmiest days, and is at present thrust aside by the hitherto despised sister, Vitznau, now in the spring‐tide of her charms, who seems to toss her head at her elderly and passée rival with the conceit of young life and energy. Yet there no signs of decay. Far from it. It has a steady, old‐fashioned commune life of its own, quite independent of the tourist element, which only comes in—very opportunely, no doubt—to help it on its way. As at Gersau and many of these places, the population is much smaller than appearances warrant, owing chiefly to the substantial size of the houses and the straggling, independent manner in which they are placed. Sometimes a dwelling stands endwise or sidewise to the road, just as the whim of the ancestral great‐great‐grand‐father who built it centuries ago dictated. The walls are now mantled with vines, bright blue eyes peep through casements embosomed in leaves, gardens of glowing sun‐flowers and fig‐trees laden with fruit surround the cottages, while here and there a noble Spanish chestnut throws its deep shade on all around. The street‐ road was almost deserted as we passed along, on account of the strong sun; but many buxom, pleasant‐faced matrons sat working at their doors, while chubby children played beneath the trees hard by. Though innocent of manufactories, and far more rural in its general aspect and atmosphere than Gersau, the whole place breathes of prosperity and comfort. It gives the impression, too, of greater space; for it is not shut in on all sides, and the open slopes extend much further back before they reach the precipitous mountain‐side.

And in accordance with this character is the church, which stands on a slight eminence at the end of the village. The cemetery too, though large and thoroughly well cared for, is more simple, and has none of those pretty monuments that lend such poetry and beauty to the Camenzind‐Küttel resting‐place. But, if not, it possesses a very handsome stone crucifix in one angle—evidently a recent erection, and of which Weggis may well be proud—with the following inscriptions on the base: “Praise be to Jesus Christ in all eternity”; on the front facing the entrance: “See, is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?” and “In the cross is salvation and benediction” on either side; whilst on the back, close to the Mortuary Chapel, the words run thus: “Gentle Jesus, grant eternal rest to all departed souls.” The children’s quarter, too, was remarkable for its fresh flowers and superabundance of white ribbon; but not until quite near did we notice a poor disconsolate mother decorating the grave of her child—her little engel, or angel, as they are so often styled on the tiny headstones or crosses. She did not mind the sun, nor our presence either, but went on with her work, while large tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. And this part is in a striking spot, right under the northern angle of the Rigi, the straight rocks of which rise perpendicularly from a green slope of pasture‐land behind the village church, covered with large boulders and débris that seem to corroborate all the stories of land‐ slips and stone‐rolling so common in this region. Standing here, it was easy to understand the most noted of these events—the mud‐slide of 1795, which threatened Weggis with destruction. Thirty‐one houses and eighty acres of land were buried beneath the creeping mass. It occurred, like the fall of the Rossberg, after a peculiarly rainy season. Though the story says that the slide was preceded by ominous symptoms, the earth so much resembles rich garden‐mould, and looks so loose and friable, that, recollecting yesterday’s rain, it made me quite nervous to look at it. Had I stayed gazing upwards much longer, I felt that I would certainly have fancied it was beginning to move downwards. “What an idea!” exclaimed Mr. C——, laughing—“the effect of nerves and sun combined! The church‐door is open, and the sanctuary lamp burning; so it would be much wiser and better for you to enter in!” Saying which, he preceded me into the sacred building.

Large, clean, and simple, as a rural church should be, it had three distinguishing points: first, an altar dedicated to S. Justus, one of the patron saints of Weggis, who was an archbishop of Lyons in the first centuries of its Christianity, thus affording, as in the case of S. Leodegar, another proof of the early ecclesiastical connection between Switzerland and the Frank Empire. Next, a large processional banner placed near the altar, and composed simply of the national standard—the beautiful white cross on the red ground—whose position in this spot it puzzled us to explain. Lastly, the model of a boat suspended from the ceiling, with two sailors rowing, whilst a bishop in full canonicals stood erect in the stern, in the act of giving them his benediction. It looked like an ex‐ voto, but our communicative landlord later informed us that it was the emblem of the Guild of S. Nicholas, “patron of all who navigate upon the lake.” Every Weggis man who has anything to do with the water belongs to the confraternity. Before steamers existed they numbered many hundreds, and, though of late the village occupations have been turned into other channels, the numbers are still numerous enough; for boats and smaller craft are even now much used on the lake. The confraternity is still full of life and vigor. The Feast of S. Nicholas is religiously kept in the village. The members of the Guild often assemble, but on that day they go in a body to church, accompanied by their wives and families, to offer thanks for the past and implore protection for the coming year.

Who shall describe our charming little dinner in the deep‐shaded arbor, with the glowing sun‐color lighting up the mountains, seen through its leaf‐framed openings? Such a clean Kellnerinn waited upon us, and the Gastherr himself all smiles and conversation! The beautiful trout too, “fresh from the Muotta‐Thal, just brought by the steamer from Brunnen.” The Muotta valley!

“But what’s in a name?” said Mrs. C——.

“A great deal more than we acknowledge,” I answered.

This one struck again the chord of Schwytz and the “Urschweiz” in our minds, but perhaps much more that of Soovorof and the hard fighting on the surrounding crags of the Muotta between his Russians and the French. Mr. C—— knew the locality, and waxed eloquent on the subject, until interrupted by an army of—wasps! attracted by some delicious cream with which our landlord wound up the dinner. It became a regular battle, and a doubtful one at first, waged in self‐defence. “Never had there been such a year for wasps,” said our host, slaying a couple so dexterously with his napkin that it betrayed considerable practice in the art. “But it had altogether been a prosperous season”—two more knocked down by Mrs. C——. “So no one had a right to complain”—three or four more timidly but effectually killed by Mrs. C—— and myself. “The villagers had made a great deal of money by their fruit and flowers carried up the mountain by their children,” he continued; until at last, counting our victims by tens and twenties during this running dialogue, we were left in peaceful possession of the scene, and ready to hear wonderful reports of Weggis prosperity. The Golden Lion evidently would have been pleased to keep us longer, but the horses were waiting and the afternoon advancing; so, despite the attractions—minus the wasps—we were obliged to depart.

Our path led at first up behind the hotel, through lanes, and meadows enamelled with wild flowers, and dotted here and there with picturesque cottages under magnificent chestnuts and walnut‐trees. The whole of this portion is on the site of the former land‐slip, now the richest and most highly‐cultivated district of the mountain. On every side the views were enchanting; Mount Pilatus standing forth in all his grandeur just opposite, displaying folds and tracts of pasture‐ground we had not attributed to his rugged form. Lost in admiration, we rode on in comparative silence, until we halted, to refresh the men and horses, at a café under a splendid tree, and soon after reached a chapel sheltered by a rock, called in our hand‐book the Heiligenkreuz, or Church of the Holy Cross. “The beginning of the Stations to Kaltbad,” said my guide, a dark‐ eyed, refined‐looking man, who had spoken but little hitherto. “Stations to the Wallfahrtort, or place of pilgrimage at Kaltbad,” he repeated, noticing my perplexed countenance. “Kaltbad is a Gnadenort, or ‘place of grace,’ to us, madam,” he continued, “although you perhaps only know it as a Curort.” And such was the sober truth. I had never heard it spoken of as anything but a huge hotel with salubrious air. So now I entered into conversation with my guide, and found that he constantly made the Stations, in common with all the Weggis population, up this rugged ascent, until they reach the church at Kaltbad. “Would I not go to see the church?” he asked. “It was indeed a Gnadenort. But the feast of the year I could not see, for it takes place in the middle of May, just before the flocks are sent up to the summer pastures. Then there is a procession up the mountain, with the banner we had noticed in the parish church—the white cross on the red ground.”

So here was the explanation of its place of honor inside the sanctuary—one more reason why the Weggis folks should hold it dear and we strangers regard it with reverence. Nay more: should we not love and cherish a flag which not only symbolizes, but is practically used by, a modern free people in connection with their highest and noblest feelings? “In this procession, headed by the priest,” my informant continued, “we, the people, make the Stations with hymns and prayers as we go up, and, after first visiting the Kaltbad church, all ends by the priest blessing the pastures on all sides before the cattle are permitted to be brought up to them for the summer season.” The higher we ascended, the steeper became the road under a straight face of rock, and we could readily fancy how picturesque, even from an artist’s point of view, such a procession must be, headed by the red flag, winding its way up this rugged mountain‐road; but, combined with the spirit and faith which animate it, it is impossible to conceive anything more beautiful.

This peasant was a native of Weggis, and soon grew communicative. “Oh! yes, he had often been to Einsiedeln; every one in that country had many, many times made the pilgrimage there.” And in fervent language he described the place to me. He had also been to Tell’s Chapel often, but not yet to Tell’s Platform. That was the great object of his ambition, what he most wished to accomplish, with a visit to Sachslen to see “Bruder Klaus,” as so many of his neighbors had done; but another year should not pass without his carrying out his intentions. Amidst conversation of this kind we climbed up the straight wall of rock, which seemed to have no issue, until suddenly we reached a curious group called the Felsenthor, composed of large fragments fallen from above exactly in the semblance of a “rocky gate,” as the name implies, and whence the view is magnificent.

The afternoon was lovely. At each turn one snowy peak after another had been coming into view. The air, though warm, was fresher and brisker than at Weggis, while the vegetation had sensibly changed from the luxuriant chestnuts to the pines and fir‐trees of the Alpine heights. Nothing could be more poetic and tranquil than our half‐hour’s repose at this beautiful point, noticing the approach of sunset‐tints on the mountain‐wall just opposite which overhangs Vitznau; watching the pretty steamers looking like dragon‐flies hovering over the lake two thousand feet below; and then reflecting on the faith and piety of our humble attendants, which shed a vivifying atmosphere over the whole scene. Our minds were still full of these thoughts as we set forth again for our last ascent to Kaltbad, about three‐quarters of an hour distant, through a pretty dell of fallen rocks and fresh verdure. We had quite forgotten the existence of the railway or its feverish life, when all at once a turn in the road gave a rude shock to our peaceful meditations. There were the trains laboring up a barren, steep hill beside us—one that would be too steep for any horse without three or four zigzag turns and windings. Three separate trains were coming up at certain distances in succession, the engines puffing and snorting, panting and laboring, in the effort to push the one carriage before each, as though the struggle were too much for their fast‐failing strength. It made one tremble to watch them, and it seemed impossible to comprehend how the passengers looked so quiet and unconcerned. How Mrs. C—— and I congratulated ourselves on having kept old‐fashioned ways and despised “progress,” at least for once in our travels! And when I also thought of the varied charms of our ride, and all that I had seen of the population and their ways, I felt that no one who rushes through a country at high‐ pressure railway speed can ever hope to understand its people half as well as those who come into closer contact with them.

Before we had time to recover from the impressions of the railway, Kaltbad itself appeared in sight, high above our heads, like a green‐jalousied monster of some German watering‐place lifted bodily up from the depths below. Anything more unpoetic than its first view is not to be found; though it must at once be admitted that first impressions are not to be trusted in this particular case. It was a cruel shock, however, to our visions of pious pilgrimages and processions; a return to the prose of life we had never contemplated at four thousand four hundred and thirty‐ nine feet above the level of the sea.

Our young friends were anxiously awaiting us on the long terrace in front of the hotel with such sensational accounts of their railway journey as might well have obliterated all remembrance of the Wallfahrtort, or “place of pilgrimage,” but for the parting reminder of my guide, that “the church was behind the house, and he hoped I would be sure to see it.” But the C——s’ only thought now was of the sunset about to take place, and they hurried us off, without a moment’s delay, to a beautiful spot, called the Käuzli, ten minutes’ distance from the hotel. Certainly no view could be more glorious! Before us spread half the northern portion of Switzerland—Mount Pilatus right opposite, Lucerne at our feet, Sempach, the great lake, just beyond, bathed in a flood of crimson, as though in harmony with its memories, and bringing back to our minds at one glance Arnold von Winkelried and all the grand history related to us so recently by Herr H——. The seven great peaks of the Oberland, including the Wetterhorn, Monk, and Eiger, towered above the clouds to our right, while the summits on the south, half facing the sunset, were lit up by the same kaleidoscopic coloring that we had witnessed on the first evening of our arrival at Lucerne. Spell‐bound by this fairy‐like scene, we lingered here till nearly dark, and it seemingly became too late to seek out the little church. But young C—— had discovered it that afternoon, and led me by an intricate back pathway to its very door. Even at that late hour it was open, the lamp burning before the altar, and many figures could be distinguished devoutly praying in the twilight. These, as I afterwards learned, were servants of the hotel—the laundresses, bath‐women, and porters, who came to pay their visit to the Blessed Sacrament before retiring to rest after their busy day’s work. Mass was celebrated every morning at half‐past seven o’clock, they said. My own devotions over, I was again led back to the hotel, where the brilliantly‐lighted rooms and crowd of fashionably‐dressed ladies—although the material comforts are by no means to be despised—were still in harsh discord with our ideas of mountain life.

Next morning, as if we had been in the plain, the church‐bell tolled at the stated hour, and found us ready to sally forth in answer to its call. In the hotel all was bustle and clatter; but what wonder? Three hundred guests and upwards have, on an average, to be provided for daily during the season. In the middle of July four hundred and twenty were at one time under this roof, but, happily for us, the numbers had now sensibly decreased. No church, however, was visible, and it was only on inquiry that I found a pathway in the rear of the house leading behind two rocks—a true Felsenthor, or “rocky gate,” they made—hiding away their little treasure. Once past them, there stood the church, with the sun shining on its roof, small and simple, but perfect in all its proportions, nestling amongst the encircling crags and overhanging trees, from amidst which, opposite the door, trickled a stream of the clearest water. Mass had just commenced at the centre altar, over which stood a statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child, surrounded by a garland of flowers, and two bouquets were laid, evidently as a pious offering, on the two side altars, which were also adorned by excellent paintings. A handsome silver lamp hung in the sanctuary, and there was a confessional, besides benches capable of accommodating a couple of hundred people, all neatly painted and very clean. To‐day the congregation was small, for the servants could not be spared, we were told, at that hour from their work, and there were few Catholic visitors in the house; but we noticed that the clerk rang the church‐bell at the Gospel and the Elevation, so that the shepherds and others scattered about on the mountain might join their intention with the priest at the altar. Nothing could exceed the quiet of the spot. It might have been miles away from the noisy world hard by, no sound audible but the trickling of the stream outside, heard through the open door, and enhancing the deep tranquillity of the scene. A most perfect haven of rest it made for weary souls or pious pilgrims, and a worthy aim, with the constant presence of the Blessed Sacrament, for any procession toiling up the precipitous mountain‐side. When Mass was over, we lingered awhile, and, looking round, a large, illuminated tablet caught our attention. What was our delight to find it gave the whole history of the place in the following words:

“KALTBAD ON THE RIGI.

“Amongst the venerated spots which the goodness of God seems to have especially chosen for the distribution of rich spiritual and temporal gifts, Kaltbad on the Rigi has for centuries enjoyed a well‐founded reputation. The natural operation of the remarkably cold water has in itself given life and health to thousands. But far more effect has been produced by trustful prayers, joined with the contrite and devout reception of the holy sacraments, and aided by the powerful intercession of the pure Virgin‐Mother of God and of other saints. Remarkable and often perfectly miraculous cures of countless Christians, in the most different circumstances of body and soul, have here taken place, which have partly been recorded in writing, and partly live on in grateful remembrance.

“In former times this place was called the ‘Schwesterborn,’ or ‘Spring of the Sisters’; for the legend relates that in the reign of the Emperor Albert of Austria—in the beginning of the XIVth century—three pious sisters retired to this wilderness in order to escape from powerful governors, or Vogts, and here led holy and saintly lives. The first miraculous cure on record is that of a devout Landsassen of Weggis, named Balthasar Tolen, in the year 1540. From year to year the reputation of this spring increased. In the year 1585, on the 20th of May, the first small chapel was consecrated in honor of God, of the holy Archangel Michael and the other angels, and of the holy shepherd Wendelin, by Balthasar, Bishop of Ascalon. It proved, however, insufficient for the number of Alpine inhabitants and pilgrims. Even after those belonging to the canton Schwytz built themselves a chapel, a hundred years later, at Mary in the Snow, or ‘Maria zum Schnee,’ the want of a larger church was still felt. The present one, with three altars, the middle one of which possesses the image of the ever Blessed Mother of God, and the two side ones the pictures of the holy martyr S. Lawrence and the father of the church, S. Jerome, was built in the year 1779, and considerably renovated in the year 1861, when the two new side altars and their paintings by Theodore von Deschwanden were added.

“On the 20th of July, 1782, His Holiness Pius VI. granted a plenary indulgence to all the faithful, on any day whatsoever, on the condition that after approaching the holy sacraments of Confession and Communion, with contrite and worthy dispositions, they here devoutly pray for the union of all Christian princes, the extirpation of heresy, and the increase of the Holy Catholic Church—an indulgence which can be applied to the souls in purgatory.

“In order to afford the opportunity of assisting at divine service on Sundays and holidays to the shepherds as well as to the pilgrims, and also of approaching the holy sacraments, a special priest is here appointed during the whole summer season.”

So here again, even here, the Austrians and imperial Vogts were at the root of all things—in this instance, however, and unconsciously, the source of good to many poor sufferers; for numberless ex‐votos filling the end of the little church eloquently told that it had proved to them a true “place of grace,” as my guide of yesterday had so beautifully called it. And the little stream outside was the real “Kaltbad,” whose wonder‐ working effects had first given the place its name. Quaint and rude were all the paintings, but full of life and feeling, mostly from the neighborhood—from Weggis, Vitznau, and Gersau. Yes, there was a man in a boat in danger on the lake, just as we had seen from the Gersau hotel two evenings ago; but this one is praying fervently with clasped hands, and we longed to know if those who were saved the other day had done likewise.

Then here is a family of boys and girls kneeling in rows, the father and mother behind, all with their pink, and blue, and green rosaries twined round their hands, in the selfsame manner that the Gersau children had theirs during Mass! Above, a child of two years old, kneeling beside its mother, has a rosary hanging on its arm; quaint little things in caps like those of their elders, or infants tied on pillows with quantities of red bows. Red was so much the prevailing color that it seemed as if it must have some reference to their beloved national flag. And then there were small waxen hearts, and ears, and a wooden hand with a fearful gash, the offering, no doubt, of a grateful wood‐cutter. Some of these are upwards of a hundred or a hundred and fifty years old, with inscriptions in the native dialect, full of pathos and local color. But most striking of all is a large painting of the very wall of rock up which we had climbed from Weggis yesterday, bearing the following simple‐worded inscription:

“Be it known to all, that by the breaking up of the dangerous Rigirocks on the Weggis mountain some of the inhabitants were threatened with the complete destruction of all their possessions. In this extremity and distress they turned to heaven, and, with firm confidence in the gracious Mother of all the angels, they here sought and found help; for instantly the loosening of the rocks ceased, and all became quiet again. Therefore, as a perpetual memorial of praise and thanksgiving to God and the Mother of Mercy, they have consecrated and hung up this tablet, anno 1753.”

This was clearly forty‐two years before the fatal mud‐slide which destroyed so much, and it would be most interesting to know whether the later victims turned hitherward for succor; but of this no record exists in the church. In the above painting the Blessed Mother, holding the divine Infant in her arms, is represented standing in the centre of the rock‐wall, with S. Michael on one side and S. Lawrence on the other, just as if they had been visible. Had we only beheld this tablet before, with what different eyes should we have looked at this face of rock yesterday from the cemetery below, as also during our ascent! And what proof such a picture and inscription give of the strong faith of the Weggis population in the unseen world under whose blessed protection they live in peace and confidence! Whilst we tarried, peasant after peasant came in. One, an old woman, took out her rosary, and told her beads leisurely; another, younger and busier, laid down her basket, prayed for a few minutes with recollection, and then went on to her work; but what most struck us was a little girl of about twelve, who also had her basket, full of fruit and flowers, and had been there before we arrived for Mass. She waited until we left, and then evidently thought that we had finally departed. Unexpectedly, however, I returned to look at the tablet again, and I beheld the little maiden in the act of dropping some money into the poor box, blushing modestly when her eyes caught mine. I asked, and found that she was a Weggis child—one of the number that climb the mountain like antelopes up to this hotel daily to sell their “fresh figs,” “peaches,” and “flowers”—for they offer them in good English—the majority of whom first pay their visit to the Blessed Sacrament in this church, and leave some little offering for themselves or their parents. She was a blue‐eyed, intelligent girl—one who had made her first communion two years previously, and approached the Holy Sacrament manchmal—many times, she said, during the course of the year.

As time went on, experience taught us that the children of the Rigi are one of its most distinctive characteristics. Intelligent, bright‐ countenanced, and yet modest, they are the most attractive race of juveniles to be met with in Switzerland, and, as yet, are unspoiled by contact with the stranger crowd. They form the most remarkable contrast to those of the Bernese Oberland, where the grandeur of Grindelwald and other spots is so much marred by the swarms of sickly beggar‐children that there flock round one from all quarters. Here, on the contrary, they are brimful of health and intelligence, and never once during all our wanderings in the forest cantons did a beggar, old or young, ever cross our path. So much for the popular fallacy, or rather calumny, which says that prosperity, comfort, and thrift are alone to be found in the Protestant cantons, and that beggary, want, and uncleanliness mark the entrance into the Catholic districts. Like many such sayings, it does not bear investigation; but when even the most just‐minded start on their travels with prejudiced minds, it is astonishing how readily they accept the opinions of men whose want of observation they despise at home. Above all, should the question be anything concerning Catholicity, their wilful blindness surpasses all belief. Some exceptions to this rule there certainly are, increasing, too, each year, like the celebrated Dr. Arnold, for instance, who frankly admitted that he had found nothing in Switzerland to justify such a verdict being passed on its Catholic population, and was generous enough to acknowledge this.

Nor are the children who cover the Rigi, selling fruit and flowers, idlers in any way. The law requires their attendance at school up to the age of eight all the year round, but from eight to twelve only during the winter months. This arrangement has been made in order that they may accompany their parents to the upland châlets, or, as often happens, mind the cattle alone on the higher pastures. A most interesting class they are, and one must ardently pray that nothing may ever change or modernize them, according to the present ideas of so‐called “civilization”!

For several days we took up our abode at Kaltbad, and never had cause for one moment’s regret. The hotel is in itself a marvel of material comfort and luxury at such an altitude; the air brisk, invigorating, and yet balmy, and the views simply lovely. Who can forget the terrace facing the Uri‐Rothstock, Tittlis, and many another peak and pass, and overhanging Vitznau, whence we could even distinguish my favorite red standard floating over its hotel, as the steamers came and went to Lucerne or Fluelen, and the light smoke of the engines told that the trains were creeping up towards us? Sometimes, it is true, the lake and all below were hidden by the clouds that settled in thick masses over the water or floated beneath us in light, vapory forms, while the heights and summits opposite shone, like Kaltbad, in brilliant sunlight; making us more fully realize the great elevation we were inhabiting in such tranquillity.

Then, the mornings spent in the “Wilderness,” which is represented nowadays by fir‐trees, descendants of those the three sisters knew, but at present embedded in velvety turf on the hillside, with seats and tables carefully placed at the best points of view! And the dear little church to turn into at all times and hours, with the lamp ever burning, and never quite empty! The afternoons we devoted to longer excursions, ascents and descents in all directions. That to the Kulm, or Summit, was made by rail, despite its terrors and perils. The young people insisted on our making the experiment, but they could not succeed in persuading us elders to return, except on foot! The Kaltbad world seems to go through the ordeal unconcernedly; but nervous and uncomfortable work it must always be, no matter how custom may familiarize them with it. One spot especially is most alarming, where the precipice seems to go straight down from the railroad to the plain many thousand feet below. As a matter of course, the sunset at the Kulm is the great event on the Rigi—one, however, which altogether depends upon the weather. We were most fortunate in catching a clear atmosphere, and consequently distinct horizon. Then, sleeping at the large hotel at the top, we included the famed sunrise in the same excursion. Oh! for the pen of poet to describe either of these sights properly. They are among those grand scenes which nature holds so completely in her own keeping that no rush of commonplace humanity can ever lower or vulgarize them. Crowds from all countries were present, yet we saw nothing save the glorious panorama before us—the sun sinking grandly behind the Jura Mountains in the west, or rising majestically from behind the Sentis far away in Appenzell, after having first heralded his approach by coloring with the light touch of “rosy‐fingered morn” the Finster‐Aarhorn, Wetterhorn, Monk, and Jungfrau, as they stand in gradual succession, facing the east, in the Bernese Oberland.

Here, too, were all the scenes of that famous Swiss history which we had been studying within the last few days—the town of Schwytz in the Urschweiz, bright and cheerful on its fresh, green meadows; Lomerz, where Stauffacher commenced the great revolution; the small lake of Egeri, the site of the battle of Morgarten; Kappel, on this side of the Zurich line of hills—the Albis—with its monument to Zwingle, who was killed here in battle against the Schwytzers; Königsfelden, further north, the scene of Albrecht’s murder, and, later, the site of the sanguinary Agnes’ convent; Küssnacht at our feet, with Tell’s Chapel close by, the object of my guide’s pilgrimages, and where the fatal arrow is said to have entered Gessler’s heart; the Lake of Sempach, and Lucerne towards the northwest—every spot, in short, hallowed by some memory sacred to Swiss patriotism or piety.

A circumference of three hundred miles is said to be included in this panorama, dotted here and there with thirteen lakes, distinguishable in clear weather. But it needs a mountaineer’s eye to detect this number, for, though they certainly do exist, as proved by the map, even the youthful sight of George C—— and his sister failed to count more than eleven. The other two had “to be taken on trust,” on the word of the guides, who declared that particular gleams of sunlight rested on distant waters. But it is not the number of lakes or the extent of view which gives such renown to this favorite spot. It is the grand poetry of its nature, the interest of its associations, and that great, indescribable influence which the poet addresses as

“Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon.”

Amongst the pleasantest of many pleasant memories, that of Sunday at Kaltbad stands forth pre‐eminent. The weather was brilliant, and high and low appeared in corresponding costume. It cannot be said that in the hotel proper the day was altogether sanctified or edifying; for, except the Catholics, the English Protestants, and a rare few others, the foreigners show little outward sign of remembering the day. Indeed, one lady ingenuously confessed her surprise that we should be so careful about attending church, considering that she never thought of it whilst “taking the waters,” as she liked to fancy she was doing at Kaltbad. “Who did?” she asked; and certainly it looked as if the majority were of her way of thinking. Not the peasants, however, and let us hope that their example may yet influence the strangers. Alas! alas! how one trembles, lest the reverse may be the result of this inroad of “civilized” multitudes to their midst! But so far no harm seems to have come of the contact. As the hour for Mass drew near, men and women were to be seen coming from various points, and when we reached the church it was so full that a large overflow of the congregation had taken up their position in the little porch outside. It seemed as though the history of the past century would repeat itself over again; that a new church would become necessary, and another new tablet be put up, telling future generations that the present one had “proved insufficient for the number of Alpine inhabitants and pilgrims.” No sight could be prettier, considering the locality, the bright sun, and all these people in their Sunday dress. In the latter particular, however, one peculiarity had a singular effect, namely, that on the Rigi “full dress” for the men seems to consist in the absence of their outer coats, and the Sunday distinction is shown only by the snow‐white linen of their shirt‐sleeves and collars. All had their alpenstocks and their prayer‐books, which they read devoutly during the whole time. Anna and I also remained outside, as there was no room within; but we heard every word distinctly, and could see the altar through the open door and windows. The service began by an oblation of the Mass and the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity in German, in the very manner and words used in so many other countries, but notably in all the churches of Ireland. This was followed by a good sermon, in which the preacher chiefly urged the necessity of “keeping holy the Sabbath day,” of living in peace and concord, but likewise of holding fast to the principles of religion, “like their forefathers of old,” of whose virtues and steadfastness he spoke in glowing language. It was the first sermon we had had an opportunity of listening to in these parts, and it was very curious to hear, even in a small out‐of‐the‐way place of this kind, such allusions thus brought in as a matter of course, and so thoroughly in accordance with Herr H——’s predictions. At its termination we were surprised to see half a dozen of the hotel guests rise and leave; but these, we later learnt, were Lutherans, who, having no chaplain of their own, find no difficulty in coming to the preliminary part of the Catholic service, though they consider it their duty to leave before Mass commences. It was a curious instance of liberalism, and of the little essential antagonism German Protestants entertain towards the Catholic Church. At the end of Mass a prayer was said in German in honor of the Five Sacred Wounds, joined in by all, after which the congregation dispersed, some to the front of the hotel, and others in various directions. On these days alone a few picturesque costumes appear, but they are generally from other parts, as the Rigi boasts of nothing special of this kind. To‐day two women in bright bodices covered by silver buttons and crosses, and with silvered head‐dresses, enlivened the group of women—relations of the clerk coming, they said, to visit this spot from Bürglen, a long distance on the other side of the lake, and beyond Sachslen, the sanctuary of “Bruder Klaus.”

Not wishing to disturb our Anglican friends, who were singing hymns and performing their service in one of the drawing‐rooms of the house, Anna and I sauntered past the “Wilderness,” until we reached the Käuzli. The atmosphere was most clear, and the landscape so enchanting that a rest here seemed a fitting and heavenly portion of our morning worship. Weggis lay below; its church and the children’s corner, where I had stood lately gazing upwards in this direction, were at our feet, and Lucerne, with its girdle of battlemented walls at the upper end of the lake, further north, its houses and boats distinctly visible in the transparent atmosphere. The peasants could be seen here and there returning to their gray‐roofed châlets, but, save the tinkling bells of the light‐limbed cattle browsing in our neighborhood, no sound broke the perfect stillness of the scene. All at once the peal of Lucerne Cathedral came booming to us across the waters! It was eleven o’clock, which in those cantons is the Angelus hour, and in a moment the deep‐toned bell of Weggis sent its sound up to our very resting‐place. Then swiftly the echo was caught up by the churches of all the numberless pretty villages that here cover the land, until the whole country seemed to sound as with but one note. A more thrilling instance of faith and practice it were impossible to imagine, and, looking down at such a moment at this fruitful, prosperous district, one felt as if our Lord had already heard its prayers, and in his mercy blessed it.

Our afternoon walk was this day directed to the other Rigi sanctuary, “Maria zum Schnee,” or Mary of the Snow, the same mentioned in the Kaltbad tablet, and which, from Wordsworth’s beautiful poem, has obtained a more world‐wide name than its pretty neighbor; though in the locality itself no difference in celebrity is admitted between the two. The only striking distinction is that whilst Kaltbad has but the one simple appellation, “Mary of the Snow” rejoices in a pet name, by which it is more generally known on the Rigi, where Klösterli, or “the little convent,” is its familiar and every‐day title. It lies deep in a southern fold of the mountain, unseen from Kaltbad, but only a couple of miles distant; so that it is a favorite walk with those visitors whose strength is unequal to the longer excursions. This year the charms of the mountain‐road have been sadly interfered with by the blasting of rocks necessary to the making of the railway branch to the Scheideck, and another line up from Arth to the Staffel, besides the building of an additional hotel, all which modern material improvements make one look forward with trepidation to their future effect on the old inhabitants. In a few years more these heights will be one vast mountain‐city—a new phase of life, which may have its own poetic side, it is true, and bring health and advantage to humanity in general, but which, during two or three months of the year, so completely changes the old character of the beautiful mountain that its friends of twenty and thirty years’ standing say they can no longer recognize its former simplicity. Hence our musings were somewhat melancholy, as we wandered on above the new railway‐line, until, from a bend in the hill, we unexpectedly came in sight of a completely new scene, the curious Mythen rocks rising above Schwytz, in the distance, and Klösterli itself lying peacefully below us, as if sheltered from all harm in a dell beneath the Kulm! It seemed a spot exactly made for snow, and one could almost fancy it buried at times under the soft embrace of some snow‐white drift. Whether the name first came from this circumstance of its position, or from its connection with the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, we had no opportunity of ascertaining; but, whatever the cause, the name and connection seemed most appropriate. Certain it is that the painting which is the chief ornament of S. Maria zum Schnee is a copy of the one at the great basilica, and, moreover, that the church at Klösterli has been, as is fitting, affiliated to the one in Rome. The festival is kept on the same day, the 5th of August, and the Rigi church was consecrated by a Papal Nuncio in 1700, and endowed since then with many privileges by Pope Clement XII., so that the link in interest and connection has never been wanting. Mr. C—— knew all the particulars, and as we descended the steep pathway to Klösterli he recalled to us the beautiful tradition about the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore. He reminded us how a Roman senator and his wife having been converted to Christianity, the latter had a dream which made her believe they ought to build a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin. Her husband, however, dismissed the idea as a fancy of her brain, until, having had the same dream for three successive nights, his wife on the last occasion understood that she ought to choose the site which should be covered with snow on the following morning. Her husband, still unwilling, accompanied her in the search, when, not far from the house, they found the top of the Esquiline Mount completely covered with a fine crust of snow! This occurred on the 5th of August, and, bringing conviction to the husband’s mind, he at once consented to give up his fortune for the purpose, and built on the spot the Basilica, which now covers the extent of ground marked out by the fall of snow. Another version states that it was the result of a vision which the pope, S. Liberius, and John, the patrician, had on the same night, and which was confirmed the following morning, the 5th of August, by a miraculous fall of snow, which extended over the space the church was to occupy. Certain it is that the fall of snow occurred, on this very spot too, and that the recollection of this wonderful origin is still kept alive in Rome. On the Feast of Santa Maria ad Nives, on the 5th of the hot month of August, a shower of white leaves is made to fall on the congregation attending High Mass at the great Basilica. What affiliation, therefore, could be more fitting for a mountain chapel? With renewed interest we hurried to the spot. The village consists entirely of a few inns, the convent—where live the Capuchin fathers who have care of the church—and of the church itself, much larger than that at Kaltbad, and which forms the centre of the whole place. The old character is maintained up to the present time, these inns being still most homely—very different from the luxurious abodes elsewhere on the mountain—and the convent in reality an hospice for pilgrims, which at once gives the impression of a higher aim than mere pleasure‐seeking. The Capuchin fathers, who glide about with serious mien in their brown habits, add to the solemnity, further increased by the depth of the valley “making sunset,” as the sailors say, to the place long before it happens on the surrounding heights. It has nothing cheerful or peculiarly attractive to the general public, so one might hope that it would escape the contagion of a worldly spirit. This year the gloom has been added to by a dreadful accident connected with the unwelcome railway, and one heard of little else on the spot. A young lady who was sitting with her father outside the Sonne Hotel, writing at one of the small tables, was suddenly struck by a large stone, thrown by the blasting of a rock close by, and died in less than half an hour. She was to have gone away from Klösterli on the previous day with the rest of her family, but had remained a while longer merely to take care of him. His grief, consequently, was overwhelming. It was a melancholy inauguration of the “iron road,” and for the moment made a deep impression on all concerned. But it is much to be dreaded that it will not be a lasting one. The father, to whom we spoke, shook his head gravely, as he pointed to the railway works, expressing his fears that from a place of pilgrimage they would soon convert his dearly‐ loved Klösterli into a simple Curort, or, in modern parlance, a Sanatorium. He complained of its baneful influence already; for, though the peasants are thoroughly good and pious, the immense influx of tourists gives them little time for devotions during the summer season, especially in the month of August, when the church festival occurs. They, the monks, belong to the large Capuchin convent at Arth, from which two or three have been sent here at the special request of the commune, ever since the foundation, to take care of this church and attend to the wants of the pilgrims. But the numbers of the latter are diminishing from the above causes, and hospitality has this year been chiefly bestowed on invalid priests, who here seek change of air for weeks at a time. The procession similar to that from Weggis, which used to come up from Arth for the 5th of August, making the Stations on the way, did not take place this time. Nor had the people leisure, either, for their old games, which followed the church services as a matter of course. Sad and melancholy, he seemed fearful of this inroad of materialism and the many temptations to which the poorer classes may be exposed. The tranquillity of the spot will doubtless be ruined by the puffing engine and obtrusive railway, and we could not but rejoice doubly that the “haven of rest” at Kaltbad lies safely hidden away behind its rocks out of reach of such disturbance. But so many have been the prayers answered and hearts cured within the last two centuries by the intercession of holy “Mary of the Snow” that it is hard to believe so favored a sanctuary, though this may perhaps be a moment of transition, will be altogether swept away or lose its holy influence on so essentially pious a population. The church is crowded with ex‐votos, many of them the same seen by Wordsworth in 1820, when he sang in the following strain of

“Our Lady Of The Snow.

“Meek Virgin Mother, more benign Than fairest star upon the height Of thy own mountain set to keep Lone vigils thro’ the hours of sleep, What eye can look upon thy shrine Untroubled at the sight?

“These crowded offerings, as they hang In sign of misery relieved, Even these, without intent of theirs, Report of comfortless despairs, Of many a deep and cureless pang And confidence deceived.

“To thee, in this aërial cleft. As to a common centre, tend All sufferings that no longer rest On mortal succor, all distrest That pine of human hope bereft, Nor wish for earthly friend.

“And hence, O Virgin Mother mild! Though plenteous flowers around thee blow, Not only from the dreary strife Of winter, but the storms of life, Thee have thy votaries aptly styled Our Lady of the Snow.

“Even for the man who stops not here, But down the irriguous valley hies, Thy very name, O Lady! flings, O’er blooming fields and gushing springs, A holy shadow soft and dear Of chastening sympathies!

“Nor falls that intermingling shade To summer gladsomeness unkind; It chastens only to requite With gleams of fresher, purer light; While o’er the flower‐enamelled glade More sweetly breathes the wind.

“But on!—a tempting downward way, A verdant path, before us lies; Clear shines the glorious sun above; Then give free course to joy and love, Deeming the evil of the day Sufficient for the wise.”

In our walk hither along the brow of the hill we had talked to some pretty, bright‐eyed children running about to call in their father’s cattle, asking their names and other questions; but, returning the same way, all our thoughts and attention were given to the distant sound of avalanches, which the C——s declared came to us across the mountain‐tops from the region of the great Oberland range. Anything more sublime it were difficult to conceive in the fading light and soft hues of the sunset twilight. We had quite forgotten the children, but they had been thinking of us, and, passing on by their châlet, little Aloysius (a fair‐haired boy of three years old) was seen skipping down the green slope with a paper in his hand. It was a mysterious proceeding, especially when he came and eagerly presented it to me. But my surprise was greater on reading it to find that it consisted of prayers printed at Einsiedeln: the first teaching how to offer up one’s intention with the Masses that are being said all over the world; another to be said when present during the offertory of the Mass; and a third, when unable to attend in person, for daily recital at home in union with the priest at the altar. The little fellow evidently prized it, as taught by his mother, and it was fortunate that I was able to promise him it should hold a place amongst my treasures, and that I would say the beautiful prayers daily, which I have never failed to do. But he could not altogether know how much happiness his act caused me, chasing away the gloomy fears of the Capuchin father, and giving bright hope that a true spirit of piety will grow up with the rising generation.

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Church Song

“And when they had said an hymn, they went forth to the Mount of Olives.”—S. MARK xiv. 26. “Hymnum cecinit, ut et nos similiter faciamus.”—S. CHRYSOSTOM.

The Disciple.

A world I’d give to hear thee sing That song! Too long Is life until it bring The breaking of the bonds that cling About this deadly flesh. Sweet Lord, refresh My weary, longing soul; And this sad banishment condole With one faint echo of that strain Of melody divine, which must remain Yet murmuring through space Of all creation’s bound; And so controls The harmony that rolls In floods of majesty and grace Throughout thy dwelling‐place, From tuneful lyres Of angel choirs, From ceaseless rapturous songs Of shining saintly throngs, That every sound Heaven hears doth merely seem Made to accompany thy theme. Wondrous Singer, O my Lord and King! Tell me, who taught thee how to sing So sweet a strain?

The Master.

I heard my Mother’s voice one morn, Whilst yet in womb unborn, Chanting the canticle of praise She still in heaven doth raise; And when a boy, oft at her knee, She did the tuneful mystery Unfold to me. Wouldst hear me sing? ’Tis no hard thing. Go, hearken to the singing of my Bride With whom my Presence ever doth abide; Who is a Mother unto thee, Like as the Virgin, full of grace, to me. Her voice, in melody her own, If thou wilt mark its heavenly tone, Hath cunning art To make thy heart Hear mine again.

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A Discussion With An Infidel

XVIII. Personal Continuance.

Reader. The next question you treat, doctor, regards the immortality of the human soul, or, as you call it, “personal continuance.” In your opinion the spirit and the body, the soul and the brain, are so intimately and inseparably connected that a soul without a body, as “force without matter,” can never exist. I remember having already answered some of the grounds of this opinion; but as you make “personal continuance” the subject of a special chapter, I presume that it is in this chapter that you have condensed the strength and substance of all your arguments. How do you, then, establish your position?

Büchner. “A spirit without a body is as unimaginable as electricity or magnetism without metallic or other substances” (p. 196).

Reader. Unimaginable! Of course, a spiritual substance is not the object of imagination. Perhaps you mean that it is unthinkable, inconceivable, or unintelligible; which I deny.

Büchner. “Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of a personal continuance after death. With the decay and dissolution of its material substratum, through which alone it has acquired a conscious existence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, the spirit must cease to exist” (ibid.)

Reader. Beware of fallacies, doctor. You have not yet proved that the human soul needs a material substratum. Again, you merely assume that it is through the body that the soul has acquired a conscious existence, whilst the fact is that the soul through itself is conscious of its own existence in the body. Moreover, the soul does not become a person through the body it informs, but, on the contrary, confers on the body the privilege of being a part of the person. Lastly, the spirit is not dependent upon the body, except for the sensitive operations; and you cannot assume that the soul depends upon the body for its own being. Hence your conclusion is yet unproved.

Büchner. “All the knowledge which this spirit has acquired relates to earthly things; it has become conscious of itself in, with, and by these things; it has become a person by its being opposed against earthly, limited individualities. How can we imagine it to be possible that, torn away from these necessary conditions, this being should continue to exist with self‐consciousness and as the same person? It is not reflection, but obstinacy, not science, but faith, which supports the idea of a personal continuance” (pp. 196, 197).

Reader. I am rather amused than embarrassed at your identifying reflection with science and obstinacy with faith, as I know that you are absolutely incapable of accounting for such a nonsensical ranting. It is not true that “all the knowledge acquired by our soul relates to earthly things.” We have already discussed this point, and shown that our knowledge of earthly things is only the alphabet of human knowledge. Nor is it true that our soul “has become conscious of itself by such things.” Consciousness is, even objectively, an immanent act, and the soul cannot be conscious of its own self, except by looking upon itself. No one can say I perceive without a knowledge of the I; and therefore the soul knows its own self independently of the perception of other earthly things. But, as there are philosophers who account for self‐consciousness by the primitive accidental sensations experienced by the child, I will suppose with you that our soul becomes conscious of its own existence by means of such sensations. Does it follow from this that the union with the body is “a necessary condition” for the existence of the soul? Such a conclusion would be absurd. For it latently assumes that the soul must lose its consciousness of self by losing the instrument of its first sensation. Now, to assume this is at least as absurd as to assume that by losing any of your senses you lose all the knowledge already acquired through them, or that by going out of Germany you cease to know everything that is German.

But your greatest mistake regards the notion of personality. The spirit, you say, “has become a person by its being opposed against earthly, limited individualities.” What does this mean? First of all, the spirit does not become a person, but is itself the source of human personality. Secondly, to be a person, there is no need of other earthly, limited individualities, against which the spirit should be opposed. Any intelligent being, left to itself, with the free disposal of its own self, is a person. Persona, says Boethius, est rationalis naturæ individua substantia; and this celebrated definition, adopted by all the metaphysicians of the old school, is far from becoming obsolete. It would seem, then, that you speak of personality without knowing in what it consists. To prove that the soul cannot enjoy personal continuance in a state of separation, you should prove that the soul separated from the body is not an intelligent being having a free use of its faculties. Whatever else you may prove, if you do not prove this, will amount to nothing.

Büchner. “Physiology,” says Vogt, “decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, as against any special existence of the soul” (p. 197).

Reader. Tell the physiologists to keep to their own business. The question of the immortality of the soul is not one of those which can be solved from the knowledge of our organs and their functions. All the physiologist can do is to show the existence in the organs of a principle which animates them, and which at death ceases to show its presence. What becomes of it the physiologist, as such, has no means of deciding. Hence your Vogt is supremely rash in affirming that “physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality.”

Büchner. “Experience and daily observation teach us that the spirit perishes with its material substratum” (ibid.).

Reader. Indeed? Let us hear how experience and daily observation teach what you assert. It is extremely curious that mankind should be ignorant of a fact which falls under daily observation.

Büchner. “There never has been, and never will be, a real apparition which could make us believe or assume that the soul of a deceased individual continues to exist; it is dead, never to return” (p. 198).

Reader. Allow me to remark, doctor, that you change the question. You had to show that experience and daily observation teach that the spirit perishes with the body. To say that there are no apparitions is not to adduce experience and daily observation, but to argue from non‐experience and non‐observation. Not to see a thing is not an argument against its existence, especially if that thing be not the object of sight; and therefore to infer the non‐existence of souls from their non‐apparition is a logical blunder. But, secondly, is it true that “there never has been, and never will be, a real apparition”?

Büchner. “That the soul of a deceased person,” says Burmeister, “does not reappear after death, is not contested by rational people. Spirits and ghosts are only seen by diseased or superstitious individuals” (ibid.).

Reader. I do not say that souls, as a rule, reappear, or that we must believe all the tales of old women about apparitions. Yet it is a fact that Samuel’s ghost appeared to Saul and spoke to him; and it is a fact that the witch of Endor, whom Saul had consulted, was already famous for her power of conjuring up spirits, as it appears from the Bible, where we are informed that there were many other persons in the kingdom of Israel possessing a similar power, whom Saul himself had ordered to be slain. If you happen to meet with Martinus Del Rio’s Magic Disquisitions, you will learn that in all centuries there have been apparitions from the spiritual world. Devils have often appeared, saints have appeared, and, to make the reality of the apparitions incontrovertible, have left visible signs of their presence, or done things which no mortal man has power to do. I need not descend to particulars; yet I may remind you of the great recent apparition of Lourdes, and of the numberless miracles by which it was accompanied and followed, in the eyes of all classes of persons, including infidels and Freemasons, who left no means untried to discredit the facts, but they only succeeded in enhancing the value of the evidence on which such facts had been previously admitted. Come, now, and tell us that all the witnesses of such public facts are “diseased or superstitious individuals”!

It is therefore proved, by experience and observation, that there are apparitions, and that the human soul remains in existence after its separation from the body. But, although this proof suffices to convince all reasonable persons, philosophers furnish us with other excellent proofs of the immortality of the soul. Are you able to show that all such proofs are inconclusive?

Büchner. “There is something suspicious in the great zeal and the waste arguments with which this question has at all times been defended, which yet, for obvious reasons, has rarely experienced serious scientific attacks. This zeal appears to show that the advocates of this theory are rather anxious about their own conscience, since plain reason and daily experience are but little in favor of an assumption which can only be supported on theoretical grounds. It may also appear singular that at all times those individuals were the most zealous for a personal continuance after death whose souls were scarcely worthy of such a careful preservation” (p. 198).

Reader. This is vile language, doctor. Our zeal in defending the immortality of the soul arises from the moral importance of the point at issue; and there is nothing “suspicious” about it. Our “waste of arguments” is not yet certified; whereas your waste of words is already fully demonstrated. The immortality of the soul “has rarely experienced serious scientific attacks,” or rather, it has never experienced them, because real science does not attack truth, and therefore all attacks against the soul’s immortality have been, are, and will always be unscientific in the highest degree. “Plain reason,” without the least need of “daily experience,” convinces every thoughtful man that a truth based on good “theoretical grounds” cannot be rejected as a gratuitous “assumption,” especially when it is also supported by undeniable facts. Your closing utterance deserves no answer. Every sensible man will qualify it as downright insolence. Meanwhile, where are your proofs?

Büchner. “Attempts were made to deduce from the immortality of matter the immortality of the soul” (ibid.).

Reader. This is simply ridiculous. Who ever admitted the immortality of matter?

Büchner. “There being, it was said, no absolute annihilation, it is neither possible nor imaginable that the human soul, once existing, should be annihilated; which would be opposed to reason” (p. 199).

Reader. Natural reason does not show the impossibility of annihilation; and therefore it was impossible for philosophers to argue as you affirm that they did. But, since you think that annihilation is quite impossible, how can you evade the argument?

Büchner. “There is no analogy between the indestructibility of matter and that of spirit. Whilst the visible and tangible matter sensually exhibits its indestructibility, the same cannot be asserted of spirit or soul, which is not matter, but merely an ideal product of a particular combination of force‐endowed materials” (ibid.).

Reader. You merely rehash the old blunder already refuted in one of our past conversations. If the soul were nothing but a product of material combinations, it would certainly perish when those combinations are destroyed, and there would be no need of annihilation to make it vanish. But if the soul is an active principle, as you must admit, it cannot be a result of material combinations, and consequently it is a special substance, and cannot perish except by annihilation, just in the same manner as matter also cannot perish but by annihilation. Your ground for denying the analogy between the destructibility of matter and that of the spirit is therefore a false supposition. It is plain that there is not only analogy, but absolute parity, and that, if matter were really indestructible, the indestructibility of the soul would thereby be sufficiently established. But we do not avail ourselves of such argument; for we know that matter is destructible. You say that “the visible and tangible matter sensually exhibits its indestructibility”; but a little reflection would have sufficed to convince you that the possible and the impossible are not objects of sensible perception, but of intellectual intuition. Then you say that the soul is an “ideal product of a particular combination of force‐endowed materials”; which is the veriest nonsense. For, were it true that a particular combination of materials produces the soul, such a product would be real, not ideal. Thus you have succeeded in condensing no less than three blunders into a few lines. But let this pass. Have you anything to add in connection with this pretended argument?

Büchner. “Experience teaches that the personal soul was, in spite of its pretended indestructibility, annihilated; i.e., it was non‐existing during an eternity. Were the spirit indestructible, like matter, it must not only, like it, last for ever, but have ever existed. But where was the soul before the body to which it belongs was formed? It was not; it gave not the least sign of an existence; and to assume an existence is an arbitrary hypothesis” (pp. 199, 200).

Reader. You grow eloquent, doctor, but without cause. We all admit that the soul did not exist before the body was formed. And, pray, how could the soul be annihilated if it did not exist? Are you doomed to utter nothing but blunders?

Büchner. “It is in the very nature of things that all that arises should necessarily perish” (p. 200).

Reader. By no means.

Büchner. “In the eternal cycle of matter and force nothing is destructible; but this only applies to the whole, while its parts undergo a constant change of birth and decay;” (ibid.).

Reader. Try to be reasonable, dear doctor, and lay aside “the eternal cycle,” which has no existence but in your imagination. You promised to argue from experience and observation. Keep your promise.

Büchner. “I will. There is a state which might enable us to produce a direct and empirical argument in favor of the annihilation of the individual soul—the state of sleep. In consequence of corporeal changes, the function of the organ of thought is suspended, and the soul, in a certain sense, annihilated. The spiritual function is gone, and the body exists or vegetates without consciousness in a state similar to that of the animals in which Flourens had removed the hemispheres. On awakening, the soul is exactly in the state it was before sleep. The interval of time had no existence for the soul, which was spiritually dead. This peculiar condition is so striking that sleep and death have been termed brothers” (p. 200).

Reader. This “direct and empirical argument” may be turned against you. For sleep is not real death; and the animal, when asleep, continues to be animated. If, therefore, the soul remains in the body, even when the organs are in a condition which excludes the possibility of their concurrence to the work of the soul, does it not follow that the soul enjoys an existence independent of the organs? It is true that, while the organs are in such a condition, the soul cannot utilize them for any special work; but it does not follow that “the soul is, in a certain sense, annihilated,” nor that “the spiritual function is gone.” You yourself admit that, “on awakening, the soul is exactly in the state it was before sleep.” I do not care to examine whether the state of the soul is exactly the same; I rather incline to say that it is much better; but, waiving this, it is still necessary to concede that the soul cannot keep its state without preserving its existence, attributes, and faculties, and a direct consciousness of its own being, which can be recollected after sleep, when it has been accompanied, as in dreams, by a certain degree of reflection.

Büchner. I expected, sir, that you would appeal to dreams; for “the phenomena of dreaming have been used as arguments against the supposed annihilation of the soul during sleep, by their proving that the soul is also active in that state. This objection is founded upon error, it being well known that dreaming does not constitute the state properly called sleep, but that it is merely a transition between sleeping and waking” (p. 201).

Reader. I have not appealed to dreams. I simply mentioned the fact that in certain dreams, where a certain degree of reflection accompanies the acts of the soul, we have the possibility of remembering that we were conscious of our own being. Take away all dreams; you will not thereby lessen the certainty of our direct consciousness of our own being; you will only suppress an experimental subsidiary proof, of which we are in no special need. Moreover, remark, doctor, that “against the supposed annihilation of the soul during sleep” we are by no means bound to bring arguments. It is necessary only to say Nego assumptum, and it will be your duty to prove your supposition. I observe, in the third place, that you cannot consistently maintain that dreaming is a state intermediate between sleeping and waking. For, as you affirm that the soul exists in the latter state, and does not exist in the former, you are constrained to affirm that in the middle state the soul cannot be said to exist, and cannot be said not to exist, but partakes of existence and non‐existence at the same time. Now, though you are so thoroughly accustomed to blundering, I am confident that you cannot but shrink from the idea of a non‐existent existence. And thus your definition of dreaming destroys your supposed annihilation of the soul during sleep.

Büchner. “Certain morbid conditions are still more calculated to prove the annihilation of our spirit. There are affections of the brain, e.g., concussions, lesions, etc., which so much influence its functions that consciousness is suspended. Such perfectly unconscious states may continue for months together. On recovery, it is found that the patients have no recollection whatever of the period which has passed, but connect their mental life with the period when consciousness ceased. This whole time was for them a deep sleep, sleep or a mental death; they in a sense died, and were born again. Should death take place during that period, it is perfectly immaterial to the individual, who, considered as a spiritual being, was already dead at the moment when consciousness left him. Those who believe in a personal immortality might find it somewhat difficult, or rather impossible, to explain these processes, or to give some clue as to the whereabouts of the soul during these periods” (p. 202).

Reader. It is neither impossible nor difficult to ascertain where the soul is during such periods; for it is in the body all the while. Only the actual conditions of its existence in the body preclude, by their abnormity, the exercise of some faculties. The soul is, in such cases, like the organist, who is unable to elicit the wonted sounds from the organ so long as the pipes are not properly supplied with wind. The patients you allude to are not corpses; and although you affirm that “they in a sense died and were born again,” it is evident that they did not die at all, but only lost the proximate power of performing certain operations. The soul and the body, so long as they are together, must work together. Even the purely intellectual operations, in which the body has no part, are always naturally associated with the imaginative operations, in which the body has a considerable part; and when these latter, through the abnormal condition of the brain, are suspended, the former also are suspended, so far at least as there is question of reflex acts. And this fully accounts for the phenomena accompanying certain morbid states, without resorting to your pretended annihilation of the spirit. Accordingly, if you wish to argue against personal continuance, you must draw your objections from some other source.

Büchner. “The annihilation of a personal soul has been protested against upon moral grounds. It was, in the first place, asserted that the idea of an eternal annihilation is so revolting to the innermost feeling of man that it must be untrue. Although an appeal to feelings is not a scientific method of proceeding, it must certainly be admitted that the thought of an eternal life is more terrifying than the idea of eternal annihilation. The latter is by no means repugnant to a philosophical thinker. Annihilation, non‐existence, is perfect rest, painlessness, freedom from all tormenting impressions, and therefore not to be feared” (pp. 204, 205).

Reader. This way of reasoning, doctor, is most extraordinary. First, you assume that the moral grounds on which our knowledge of the immortality of the soul is based consist of mere feelings. This is false. Secondly, you do not consider that there are rational tendencies which, whether you call them feelings or not, ought to be taken into account in a philosophic discussion, as they are of such a character that their fulfilment cannot be a matter of doubt. Thirdly, you exhibit eternal life as a synonym of perpetual torments; for you suppose that the idea of eternal life is terrific, and that, to be free “from all tormenting impressions,” annihilation is necessary. Thus you conceive that after this life there can be nothing but the torments of hell. This is most certainly true with regard to unrepenting Freemasons; they have nothing else to expect, not even annihilation; and it would truly be better for them if they were annihilated or had never been born, as we know from the Gospel. But why should you take for granted that there is no heaven? It is plain that your argument in favor of annihilation is nothing but a miserable sophism. Lastly, I wish to remark, though it is of little importance to the question of immortality, that annihilation, or non‐existence, is not perfect rest, as you imagine. For who is it that rests? Can you have the subject after its annihilation, or the rest without the subject? You see, I hope, that your logic here, too, is at fault.

Büchner. “Philosophers, perceiving the loose ground upon which they stand in regard to this question, have, in their endeavors to reconcile philosophy and faith, tried to help themselves by very singular expedients” (p. 205).

Reader. Loose ground and singular expedients indeed! Who will believe you?

Büchner. “The desire of our nature,” says Carrière, “to solve so many problems requires immortality, and the many sorrows of this earth would be such a shocking dissonance in the world if it were not to find its solution in a higher harmony, namely, in the purification and development of personal individuality. This and other considerations render immortality, from our point of view, a subjective certainty—a conviction of the heart” (p. 206).

Reader. Do you consider these words as a very singular expedient to reconcile philosophy and faith? What can you object to the thought they express?

Büchner. “Every one may, certainly, have convictions of the heart, but to mix them up with philosophical questions is unscientific. Either something accords with reason and experience—it is then true; or it does not accord—then it is untrue, and can find no place in philosophical systems” (ibid.).

Reader. I see your trick, doctor. There are two kinds of convictions of the heart. Some of these convictions are accidental, transitory, not universal, and not invincible; others universal, permanent, and unchangeable. The first kind originates in accidental affections of particular persons in particular circumstances; and this kind of convictions should not be mixed up with philosophical questions. But the second kind owes nothing to accidental circumstances, and shows in its universality and invincibility its universal and unconquerable cause, which cannot be other than our rational nature; and this kind of convictions must be taken into account in the philosophical questions concerning our rational soul; for it is from the nature of the effects that we discover the nature of the causes. Now, “the conviction” which Carrière mentions belongs to this second kind; for it is common to all rational beings, and cannot be shaken off even by those who, like you, try to convince themselves of a future annihilation. We therefore can and must take into account such a conviction when we examine philosophically the nature of the soul.

Accordingly, it is absurd, on your part, to pretend that an appeal to such a conviction is “unscientific.” Nothing is more unscientific than to lay aside the effects while one wishes to investigate the causes.

As to your aphorism, “either something accords with reason and experience—it is then true; or it does not accord—then it is untrue,” I do not think that it can help you much. A thoughtless reader may indeed be dazzled by its fine glittering, and candidly believe that you are a most resolute champion and acute investigator of truth; but he who reflects on your reckless disregard of logic, tergiversation, and intellectual perversity will only wonder at your audacity in appealing to a principle which you trample upon in every page of your production. Yes, sir; what accords with reason and experience is true; but how can this be a plea for denying immortality?

Büchner. “It may be that it would be very fine if in heaven, as in the last act of a heart‐stirring drama, everything would resolve in a touching harmony or in general joy; but science has nothing to do with what may be, but with what is, and is accordingly compelled to infer from experience the finiteness of human existence. Indeed, a perfect solution of the enigmas of the universe, as Carrière desires, must be considered as impossible for the human mind. The moment we arrive at this point we are creators and capable of shaping matter according to pleasure. Such a knowledge would be equivalent to dissolution—annihilation—and there exists no being which can possess it. Where there is no striving there can be no life; perfect truth would be a sentence of death for him who has acquired it, and he must perish in apathy and inactivity” (p. 206).

Reader. It is of no use, doctor, to heap up assertions of this kind. They are all groundless. When you say that science has nothing to do with what may be, but with what is, you latently assume that between what may be and what is there must be opposition; whereas it is plain that nothing is but what could be. And again, when you mention science, what do you mean? Physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and the like have certainly nothing to do with the immortality of the soul; but philosophy has something to do with it, and philosophy, the highest of sciences, decides that the human soul not only may be, but must be, immortal. In the third place, it is ludicrous to affirm that “experience shows the finiteness of human existence”; for our experience is limited to human life upon earth, whereas our discussion refers to after‐life. In the fourth place, you pretend that a full knowledge of truth is impossible to the human mind, for the wonderful reason that we would then be “creators and capable of shaping matter according to pleasure.” In this you commit two blunders; for, first, the knowledge of natural truths does not necessarily entail a physical power of shaping matter according to pleasure; and, secondly, were our souls to acquire such a power, we would not yet be creators, as creation is infinitely above the shaping of matter. You are never at a loss to find false reasons when needed to give plausibility to false assertions. Thus you invent the prodigious nonsense that a perfect knowledge of natural things “would be equivalent to annihilation,” and to support this strange notion you argue that “where there is no striving there can be no life,” as if a human soul, when in full possession of truth, could not find in its contemplation a sufficient exercise of intellectual life. Yet it is clear that striving for a good must end in a peaceful enjoyment of the same good; or else all our striving would be purposeless. On the other hand, if “perfect truth were a sentence of death for him who has acquired it,” would it not follow that the more we know, the less we live? But to conclude. How can you conciliate these two things: “The moment we possess full knowledge we are creators,” and “the moment we possess full knowledge we are annihilated”? or these two things: “We become capable of shaping matter according to pleasure,” and “we perish in apathy and inactivity”? Answer, old fox?

Büchner. “It may be that we are surrounded by many riddles” (p. 206). “In doubtful questions we must apply human knowledge, and examine whether we can arrive at any solution by experience, reason, and the aid of natural sciences. . . . Some believe they can give scientific reasons for the doctrine of individual immortality. Thus Mr. Drossbach discovered that every body contains a limited number of monads capable of self‐ consciousness . . .” (p. 208).

Reader. There is no need of discussing such absurdities. We know, that monads are not self‐conscious.

Büchner. In fact, “Drossbach’s monads are too intangible to concern ourselves about them. We may, however, take this opportunity of alluding to the unconquerable difficulties which must arise from the eternal congregation of innumerable swarms of souls which belonged to men who, in their sojourn upon earth, have acquired so extremely different a degree of development” (ibid.).

Reader. What unconquerable difficulties do you apprehend?

Büchner. “Eternal life is said to be a perfectioning, a further development, of earthly life, from which it would follow that every soul should have arrived at a certain degree of culture, which is to be perfected. Let us think, now, of the souls of those who died in earliest childhood, of savage nations, of the lower classes of our populations! Is this defective development or education to be remedied beyond? ‘I am weary of sitting on school‐benches,’ says Danton. And what is to be done with the souls of animals?” (pp. 208, 209).

Reader. Indeed, doctor, the ignorance of the unbeliever is astounding! Our children and the lower classes of our populations are not half as ignorant as you are. They would tell you that the light of the beatific vision dispels with equal facility all degrees of darkness which may remain in our souls in consequence of imperfect education, without any need of your “school‐benches” or other imaginary devices. They would tell you also “what is to be done with the souls of animals,” on which you most stupidly confer “the same rights” as are possessed by the human soul. If beasts have the same rights as men, it is a crime to kill them; or, if this is no crime, it must be as lawful to kill and devour men! Are you ready to accept this doctrine?

Büchner. “There is no essential and natural distinction between man and animal, and the human and animal soul are fundamentally the same” (p. 209).

Reader. Do you understand what you say? What do you mean by “fundamentally”?

Büchner. I mean that the animal soul is only distinguished from the human soul “in quantity, not in quality” (ibid.).

Reader. Then you yourself must have the qualities of an ass, and there will be no difference between you and the ass, except in this: that the asinine qualities are greater in you than in the ass. Your efforts to prove that beasts are endowed with intellect, reason, and freedom are very amusing, but lack a foundation. It would be idle to examine minutely your chapter on the souls of brutes; it will suffice to state that your reasoning in that chapter is based on a perpetual confusion of the sensitive with the intellectual faculties. Sense and intellect do not differ in quantity, but in quality. No sensation can be so intensified as to become an intellectual concept or a universal notion. Hence no intellect can arise from any amount of sensibility. Brutes feel; but, although their sensitive operations bear a certain analogy to the higher operations of the intellectual soul, nothing gives you the right to assume that brutes can reason. So long as you do not show that asses understand the rules and the principles of logic, it is useless to speak of the intellect of beasts. Their cognitions and affections are altogether sensitive; reasoning, morality, and freedom transcend their nature as much as your living person transcends your inanimate portrait in the frontispiece of your book.

But reverting to the immortality of the human soul, I wish you to understand that in the course of your argumentation you have never touched the substantial points of the question. You not only have not refuted, but not even mentioned, our philosophical proofs of immortality. You have been prating, not reasoning. To crown your evil work a couple of historical blunders were needed, and you did not hesitate to commit them. The first consists in asserting that “the chief religious sects of the Jews knew nothing of personal continuance,” while it is well known that the chief religious sect of the Jews was that of the Pharisees, who held not only the immortality of the soul, but also the resurrection of the body. The second consists in asserting that “among the enlightened of all nations and times the dogma of the immortality of the soul has had ever but few partisans” (p. 213), while the very reverse is the truth.

Büchner. “Mirabeau said on his death‐bed, ‘I shall now enter into nothingness,’ and the celebrated Danton, being interrogated before the revolutionary tribunal as to his residence, said, ‘My residence will soon be in nothingness!’ Frederick the Great, one of the greatest geniuses Germany has produced, candidly confessed his disbelief in the immortality of the soul” (p. 213).

Reader. You might as well cite Moleschott, Feuerbach, yourself, and a score or two of modern thinkers, all enlightened by Masonic light, celebrated by Masonic pens and tongues, and great geniuses of revolution. But neither you nor your friends are “among the enlightened of all nations and times.” Before you can aspire to this glory you must study your logic, and, I dare say, the Christian doctrine too.

Büchner. If the soul survives the body, “we cannot explain the fear of death, despite all the consolations religion affords” (p. 214).

Reader. You cannot; but we can.

Büchner. Men would not fear death, “if death were not considered as putting an end to all the pleasures of the world” (ibid.)

Reader. I too, doctor, acknowledge that death puts an end to all the pleasures of this world; but this does not show that our soul will not survive in another world. We fear death for many reasons, and especially because we are sinners, and are afraid of the punishment that a just Judge shall inflict on our wickedness. We would scarcely fear death, if we knew that our soul were to be annihilated. And therefore our fear of death is a proof that the belief in the immortality of the soul is more universal than you imagine.

Büchner. “Pomponatius, an Italian philosopher of the XVIth century, says: ‘In assuming the continuance of the individual we must first show how the soul can live without requiring the body as the subject and object of its activity. We are incapable of thought without intuitions; but these depend upon the body and its organs. Thought in itself is eternal and immaterial; but human thought is connected with the senses, and perceptions succeed each other. Our soul is, therefore, mortal, as neither consciousness nor recollection remains’ ” (p. 214). Can you answer this argument?

Reader. Very easily. That the soul can live without the body is proved by all psychologists from its spirituality—that is, from its being a substance performing operations in which the body can have no part whatever. Such operations are those which regard objects ranging above the reach of the senses altogether; which, therefore, cannot proceed from an organic faculty, nor from any combination of organic parts. Now, if the soul performs operations in which the organs have no part, it is evident that the soul has an existence independent of the organs, and can live without them. Accordingly, the body is not the “subject and object” of the activity of the soul.

That “we are incapable of thought without intuitions” is true, in the same sense as it is true that we are incapable of digesting without eating. But would you admit that therefore no digestion is possible when you have ceased eating? Or would you maintain that I cannot think to‐day of the object I have seen yesterday? Certainly not. Yet it is evident that I have to‐day no sensible intuition of that object. That thought in itself is “eternal” is a phrase without meaning. Thought is never in itself; it is always in the thinking subject. That “human thought is connected with the senses” in the present life is true, not, however, because of any intrinsic dependence of the intellect on the senses, but only because our present mode of thinking implies both the intellectual and the sensible representation. The consequence, “our soul is therefore mortal,” is evidently false, as well as the reason added, that “neither consciousness nor recollection remains.” Pomponatius was a bad philosopher, but still a philosopher. His objection is vain, but still deserves an answer. His reasoning is sophistical, but there is still some meaning in the sophism itself. Not so with you. After three centuries of progress you have not been able to find a single objection really worth answering, either in a scientific or in a philosophical point of view.

Pomponatius brings in another argument against immortality by saying that virtue is much purer when it is “practised for itself without hope of reward.” You quote these words (p. 214), but without gaining much advantage from them. You might have argued that “as the hope of reward makes virtue less pure, it would be against reason to suppose that God can offer us a reward, the hope of which must thus blast our virtue.” In your next edition of Force and Matter you may develop this new argument, if you wish. Your future adversaries, however, will refute it, as I fancy, with the greatest facility, by observing, first, that the hope of a reward may accompany the practice of virtue without interfering with its purity; for we can love virtue for itself without renouncing the reward of virtue. Do you not expect your fees from your patients as a compensation for your services? And yet I presume that you would take it as an insult if any one pretended that you practise medicine for the love of money. It might be observed, secondly, that as sin deserves punishment, so virtue deserves reward; hence a wise and just Providence, which we must recognize as an attribute of Divinity, cannot leave the virtuous without a reward, nor the sinner without a punishment. And, since it is plain that neither the reward nor the punishment is adequately meted out in this world, it remains that it should be given in the next. I shall not enter into any development of this argument, which is the most intelligible among those usually made use of by philosophers to prove the immortality of the human soul. It suffices for me to have shown the utter falsity of your reasons against this philosophical and theological truth.

XIX. Free‐Will.

Reader. Do you admit free‐will?

Büchner. “A free‐will,” says Moleschott, “an act of the will which should be independent of the sum of influences which determine man at every moment and set limits to the most powerful, does not exist” (p. 239).

Reader. Do you adopt this view?

Büchner. Of course. “Man is a product of nature in body and mind. Hence not only what he is, but also what he does, wills, feels, and thinks, depends upon the same natural necessity as the whole structure of the world” (ibid.)

Reader. Then free‐will, according to you, would be a mere dream; political and religious freedom would be delusions; free‐thinkers could never exist; and, what may perhaps strike you most of all, Free‐masons would be actual impossibilities.

Büchner. “The connection of nature is so essential and necessary that free‐will, if it exists, can only have a very limited range” (ibid.)

Reader. What! Do you mean that free‐will can exist, if “what man does, wills, feels, and thinks depends upon the same natural necessity as the whole structure of the world”? Can you reconcile necessity and freedom?

Büchner. “Human liberty, of which all boast,” says Spinoza, “consists solely in this, that man is conscious of his will, and unconscious of the causes by which it is determined” (ibid.)

Reader. This answer does not show that liberty and necessity can be reconciled. It would rather show, if it were true, that there is no liberty; for if the human will is determined by any cause distinct from itself, its volition cannot be free. Accordingly, your assertion that “free‐will, if it exist, can only have a very limited range,” is inconsistent with your principle of natural, essential, and universal necessity, and should be changed into this: “Free‐will cannot exist, even within the most limited range.” If you admit the principle, you must not be afraid of admitting the consequence; or if you shrink from the consequence, it is your duty to abandon the principle from which it descends.

Büchner. “The view I have expressed is no longer theoretical, but sufficiently established by facts, owing to that interesting new science, statistics, which exhibits fixed laws in a mass of phenomena that until now were considered to be arbitrary and accidental. The data for this truth are frequently lost in investigating individual phenomena, but, taken collectively, they exhibit a strict order inexorably ruling man and humanity. It may without exaggeration be stated that at present most physicians and practical psychologists incline to the view in relation to free‐will that human actions are, in the last instance, dependent upon a fixed necessity, so that in every individual case free choice has only an extremely limited, if any, sphere of action” (p. 240).

Reader. “Limited, if any”! It is strange that you hesitate to say which of the two you mean to advocate. Why do you not say clearly, either that free‐will has a certain sphere of action, or that it has no existence at all? Instead of explaining your opinion on this point, you try to obscure the question. Individual free‐will is to be ascertained by the statistics of the individual, not by that of the collection.

When a crowd moves towards a determinate spot, individuals are carried on to the same spot, be they willing or unwilling, by the irresistible wave that presses onward. So also when any collection of men, from a nation to a family, lives under the same laws, experiences the same wants, enjoys the same rights, and holds the same practical principles, the general movement of the mass carries in the same direction every individual member of the collection, by creating such conditions all around him as will morally compel his following the general movement. But this is only moral necessity, against which man can rebel in the same manner as he can rebel against the divine or the human law; whereas our question regards the existence or non‐existence of a physical necessity, physically binding the human will, and determining every one of its actions. Hence, even were it true that “a strict order inexorably rules humanity”—that is, the collection of human beings—it would not follow that the individual will is inexorably ruled by a physical necessity.

Büchner. “The conduct and actions of every individual are dependent upon the character, manners, and modes of thought of the nation to which he belongs. These, again, are, to a certain extent, the necessary product of external circumstances under which they live and have grown up. Galton says: ‘The difference of the moral and physical character of the various tribes of South Africa depends on the form, the soil, and the vegetation of the parts they inhabit.’ ... ‘It is about two hundred and thirty years,’ says Desor, ‘since the first colonists, in every respect true Englishmen, came to New England. In this short time they have undergone considerable changes. A peculiar American type has been developed, chiefly, it appears, by the influence of the climate. An American is distinguished by his long neck, his spare figure, and by something irritable and feverish in his character.... It has been observed that, during the prevalence of easterly winds, the irritability of the Americans is considerably increased. The rapidity of the American state development, which surprises us, may thus, to a considerable extent, be ascribed to the climate.’ As in America, so have the English given rise to a new type in Australia, especially in New South Wales....” (pp. 241, 242).

Reader. Has all this anything to do with the question of free‐will?

Büchner. Certainly. “If the nations are thus in the aggregate, in regard to character and history, dependent upon external circumstances, the individual is no less the product of external and internal natural actions, not merely in relation to his physical and moral nature, but in his actions. These actions depend necessarily, in the first instance, upon his intellectual individuality. But what is this intellectual individuality, which determines man, and prescribes to him, in every individual case, his mode of action with such force that there remains for him but a minute space for free choice? What else is it but the necessary product of congenital physical and mental dispositions in connection with education, example, rank, property, sex, nationality, climate, soil, and other circumstances? Man is subject to the same laws as plants and animals” (pp. 242, 243).

Reader. I do not see any ground for this conclusion. Our “intellectual individuality” is, I surmise, our individual soul, or our individual intellect. Now, our intellect may speculatively prescribe, in individual cases, some mode of action, but even then it lets our will free to obey the prescription. Moreover, it is not true that our intellect prescribes, in every individual case, a determinate mode of action. How often do we not hesitate, even after long intellectual examination, what line of action we should adopt! How often do we not entertain distressing doubts, and have no means of emerging from our state of perplexity! It is therefore false that our “intellectual individuality” prescribes to us, in every individual case, our mode of action. Hence your other assertion, that the same intellectual individuality urges us “with such a force that there remains for us but a minute space for free choice,” needs no further discussion, as being contrary to constant experience and observation. It is curious that a man who professes, as you do, to argue from nothing but facts, should coolly assume as true what is contradicted by universal experience; but you have already accustomed us to such proceedings. What strikes me is that your blunder cannot here be excused by the plea of ignorance, as you cannot be ignorant of your own mode of action; whence your reader must infer that your direct intention in writing is to cheat him to the best of your power.

As to education, example, rank, climate, soil, and other circumstances, I admit that they are calculated to favor the development of particular mental and physical dispositions; but I deny, first, that such dispositions are the “intellectual individuality,” and, secondly, that the existence of such dispositions is incompatible with the exercise of free‐ will. Of course, we experience a greater attraction towards those things which we are accustomed to look upon as more conducive to our well‐being, and towards those actions of which we may have acquired the habit; but this attraction is an invitation, not a compulsion, and we can freely do or choose the contrary, and are responsible for our choice.

Büchner. “Natural dispositions, developed by education, example, etc., are so powerful in human nature that neither deliberation nor religion can effectually neutralize them, and it is constantly observed that man rather follows his inclinations. How frequently does it occur that a man, knowing his intellectual character and the error of his ways, is yet unable to struggle successfully against his inclinations!” (p. 244.)

Reader. I do not deny the power of natural or acquired dispositions, and I admit that men usually follow their inclinations; but this is not the question. The question is, “Do men follow their inclinations freely or necessarily?” The assertion that “neither deliberation nor religion can effectually neutralize” such inclinations is ambiguous. If you mean that, in spite of all deliberation, we continue to feel those inclinations, the thing is obviously true, but proves nothing against free‐will; if, on the contrary, you mean that, after deliberation, we cannot act against such inclinations, the assertion is evidently false; for we very often do things most repugnant to our habitual inclinations.

That a man, knowing the error of his ways, “is unable to struggle successfully against his inclinations,” is a wicked and scandalous proposition. As long as he remains in possession of his reason, man is able to struggle successfully, not only against his own inclinations, but also against his predominant passions. The struggle may indeed be hard, for it is a struggle; but its success is in the hands of man. How could criminals be struck by the sword of justice, if, when committing crime, they had been unable to check the temptation? Your doctrine would, if adopted, soon put an end to the existence of civil society, and transform mankind into a herd of brutes. If we cannot successfully struggle against our bad inclinations, then theft, murder, adultery, drunkenness, and all kinds of vice and iniquity are lawful, or at least justifiable, and nothing but tyranny can undertake to suppress them or to inflict punishment for them. Is it necessary to prove that a theory which leads to such results is a libel against humanity?

Büchner. “The most dreadful crimes have, independently of the will of the agent, been committed under the influence of abnormal corporeal conditions. It was reserved for modern science closely to examine such cases, and to establish disease as the cause of crimes which formerly were considered as the result of deliberate choice” (p. 245).

Reader. Modern science pretends, of course, to have established a great many things. But how can you explain the fact that, when “the most dreadful crimes” are committed by common criminals, science still considers and condemns them as a result of deliberate choice, whilst, if such crimes are committed by members of secret societies, science attributes them to abnormal corporeal conditions? Can we trust a science which so nicely discriminates between the Freemason and the Christian? Yet even your modern science, not to become ridiculous, is obliged, in order to absolve criminals, to put forward a plea of temporary insanity, thus acknowledging that a man who enjoys the use of his reason is always responsible, as a free agent, for his actions. Hence, even according to your modern science, our actions, so long as we are not struck with insanity, are the result of our deliberate choice. It is only when you lose your brain that you are “under the influence of those abnormal corporeal conditions” which prevent all deliberate choice.

Büchner. Yet man’s freedom “must, in theory and practice, be restricted within the narrowest compass. Man is free, but his hands are bound; he cannot cross the limit placed by nature. For what is called free‐will, says Cotta, is nothing but the result of the strongest motives” (pp. 245, 246).

Reader. It is difficult, doctor, to hold a discussion with you. Your views are contradictory, and your argumentation consists of assertions or quotations for which no good reason is, or can be, adduced. If man is free, his hands are not bound; and although he cannot cross the limits of nature by which he is surrounded, he has yet a great latitude for the exercise of freedom within said limits. We are not free to attain the end without using the means, to live on air, to fly to the moon, to add an inch to our stature; but these are limits of physical power, not limits of free volition. Our will is moved by objects through the intellect; and no object which is apprehended as unnecessary to our intellectual nature can necessitate the will. To admit that what is presented to the will as unnecessary can produce necessity, is to admit an effect greater than its cause. Hence the range of free‐will is as wide as creation itself; for no created object can be considered by the intellect as necessary to our rational nature. One object alone may be so considered—that is, God, whose possession alone is sufficient, and therefore necessary, to fill the cravings of our heart. Thus man’s freedom is not to be restricted “within the narrowest compass,” as you pretend, but is to be stretched to the very limits of creation.

But “what is called free‐will,” you say, “is nothing but the result of the strongest motives.” I answer that the stronger the motive is, the intenser is the movement of the will, since the effect must be proportionate to its cause. But the movement of the will is not a reflex act; it is merely an indispensable condition for it, and its existence does not necessarily entail the existence of the rational volition. The first movements of our appetitive faculty are not formally free; for they are not originated by the will, but by the objects. It is only when we reflect upon ourselves and our movements that we become capable of rationally approving or reprobating that towards which or against which we feel moved; and consequently it is only after such a reflection that our will makes its choice. Now, it is impossible that the rational soul, reflecting upon itself and its first movements towards a finite good, should consider its possession as a necessity of its own nature; for all good that is finite is deficient, and if the rational soul considered finite good as necessary to its happiness, it would in fact consider its deficiency also as necessary to its happiness; which cannot be. Hence, whatever the strength of the motives by which we are impelled, no movement excited by finite good interferes with the freedom of the volition.

And now, is it true that our choice always answers to the strongest motives? This question may be understood in two ways, according as the motives are considered objectively or subjectively. The motives which are the strongest objectively may become the weakest subjectively, and vice versa. It is with our will moved by different motives as with the lever loaded with different weights. The heavier weight absolutely prevails over the lighter; but if the arms of the lever be suitably determined, the lighter will prevail over the heavier. Thus the lightest motives may prevail over the strongest ones, when our soul adapts itself to them, by shifting, so to say, its own fulcrum, and thus altering the momenta of the opposite forces. The motives which prevail are therefore the strongest in this sense only: that the will has made them such; and, properly speaking, we should not even say that they are the strongest, but only that they are the most enhanced by the will.

These explanations may be new to you, but they are the result of experience and observation. I abstain from developing them further, as it is no part of my duty to vindicate them by positive arguments. No truth is so universally and unavoidably recognized as the existence of free‐will. A man of common sense must be satisfied of this truth by simply reflecting upon his own acts. Criminals may pretend that they have not the power to avoid crime; but doctors should not countenance such a pretension contrary to evidence. To excuse crime on such a miserable plea is to encourage the triumph of villany and the overthrow of human society.

Büchner. Indeed, it has been said that “the partisans of this doctrine denied the discernment of crime, and that they desired the acquittal of every criminal, by which the state and society would be thrown into a state of anarchy.... What is true is that the partisans of these modern ideas hold different opinions as regards crime, and would banish that cowardly and irreconcilable hatred which the state and society have hitherto cherished with so much hypocrisy as regards the ‘malefactor’ ” (p. 247).

Reader. To denounce the state and society as hypocritical is scarcely a good method of exculpating yourself. Yet your denunciation is false, so far at least as regards Christian states and Christian society; for as regards anti‐Christian societies connected with Freemasonry, and states fallen under their degrading influence and tyranny, I fully admit that they cannot, without hypocrisy, hate malefactors. Those who plunder whole nations, who corrupt public education, who persecute religion, who sow everywhere the seeds of atheism, materialism, and utilitarianism, have no right to hate malefactors. As to those who teach that “neither deliberation nor religion can effectually neutralize the dispositions of man,” and that “man, knowing the error of his ways, is yet unable to struggle successfully against his inclinations,” what right have they to speak of crime or of malefactors? Can there be crime and malefactors without free‐will? You see, doctor, that your materialistic doctrines do away with all morality, and that a society imbued with them cannot be moral. Hence it is bad taste in you to declaim against modern society, as you do (p. 247), on account of vices which are nothing but the result of materialism. “We are astonished,” you say, “that our society is so ticklish as regards certain truths taught by science—a society whose social virtue is nothing but hypocrisy covered by a veil of morality. Just cast a glance at this society, and tell us whether it acts from virtuous, divine, or even moral motives! Is it not, in fact, a bellum omnium contra omnes? Does it not resemble a race‐course, where every one does all he can to outrun or even to destroy the other?... Every one does what he believes he can do without incurring punishment. He cheats and abuses others as much as possible, being convinced that they would do the same to him. Any one who acts differently is treated as an idiot. Is it not the most refined egotism which is the spring of this social mechanism? And distinguished authors who best know human society, do they not constantly depict in their narrations the cowardice, disloyalty, and hypocrisy of this European society? A society which permits human beings to die of starvation on the steps of houses filled with victuals; a society whose force is directed to oppress the weak by the strong, has no right to complain that the natural sciences subvert the foundations of its morality.” These last words should be slightly modified; for the truth is that such a society is the victim of your modern theories, which you dignify with the name of natural sciences, and which have already subverted the foundations of social morality. The society you describe in this passage is not the old Christian society formed on the doctrine of the Gospel, but the materialistic society formed on modern thought. The moral distemper of modern society is the most irrefragable condemnation of all your doctrines. By its fruits we know the tree.

Conclusion.

We ask the indulgence of our readers for having led them through so many disgusting details of pestilential philosophy. Without such details it was impossible to give a clear idea of the futility and perversity which characterize the teaching of one of the greatest luminaries of modern infidelity. We have shown that Dr. Büchner’s Force and Matter, in spite of all its pretensions, is, in a philosophical point of view, a complete failure. We have omitted many of the author’s passages, which we thought too profane to be inserted in these pages, and which, as consisting of vain declamation, arrogance, and assumption, had no need of refutation. As to our mode of dealing with our adversary, we have been pained to hear that some consider it harsh. We beg to say that a man who employs his talents to war against his Creator has no right to expect much regard from any of God’s creatures. Men of this type are frequently treated with too much forbearance, owing to the false idea that every literary character should be treated as a gentleman. Blasphemers are not gentlemen, nor should they be dealt with as gentlemen. They should be made to feel the disgrace which attaches to their moral degradation. Such was the practice in the good old times; and we may justify it by the example of One who did not hesitate, in his infinite wisdom, publicly to rebuke the Scribes and Pharisees in terms not at all complimentary, and certainly much stronger than those which we have used in censuring the author of Force and Matter.

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The Ice‐Wigwam Of Minnehaha

The winter of 1855‐56, memorable for its excessive and prolonged cold, while it brought suffering to many a household throughout the land, and is recalled by that fact almost solely, is fixed in my memory by its verification of an old Indian legend of the ice‐wigwam of Minnehaha. Longfellow has made this name familiar to the English‐speaking world, and beyond. A little waterfall, whose silvery voice is for ever singing a love‐song to the mighty Father of Waters, and into whose bosom it hastens to cast itself, bears the name and personates the Indian maiden.

On the right bank of the Mississippi, between the Falls of St. Anthony and the mouth of the Minnesota, is a broad, level prairie, starting from the high bluffs of the Mississippi, and running far out in the direction of sundown. In the month of June this prairie is profusely decked with bright flowers, forming a carpet which the looms of the world will never rival. Stretching far into the west is a tortuous ribbon of rich, dark green, marking the path of a stream which stealthily glides beneath the shadows of the long grass. As it nears the eastern border of the prairie, this stream becomes more bold. Its expanded surface glistens in the noon‐day sun. Here it passes slowly under a rustic bridge, upon an almost seamless bed of rock. Then its motion quickens, as if in haste to reach the ledge which overhangs the broad valley of the Mississippi, when, with one bound, it plunges into its basin sixty feet below. This is Minnehaha, the little hoiden who throws herself upon the outstretched arm of the great Father of Waters with a merry laugh that wins the heart of every comer. Beautiful child of the plain! How many have sought you in your flower‐decked home, and loved you! Hoiden you may be; but coquette, never. Your life is freely given to be absorbed in the life of him you seek.

But Minnehaha is at times the ward of another—an old man whose white locks are so often the sport of the winds, whose very presence makes the limbs of mortals tremble, and their teeth chatter at his approach. Yet he is wondrous kind to his beautiful ward—touchingly kind is the Ice‐King of the North. When the blasts from his realms, freighted with the chill of death, scourge the lands over which they pass, and a silence awe‐inspiring and complete falls on all; when the flowers are being buried beneath the snow, and the mighty river bound with ice, then it is the ice‐king exhausts his powers to build for Minnehaha a palace worthy of her. The summer through (and spring and autumn scarce are known where Minnehaha dwells) the maid has worn about her, as a veil, a cloud of mist and spray. O wondrous architect! Of mist and spray you build a palace even Angelo might not conceive in wildest dreams, were marbles, opals, pearls, all gems and stones and precious metals, cut and fashioned ready to his hand! Thy breath, O ice‐king! fashions mist and spray into grand temples, palaces, more chaste and cold than any stuff Italian quarries yield! Behold the ice‐king build! He breathes upon the mist, and on all sides strong‐based foundations fix about the space he would enclose. The walls on these rise up, as mist and spray are gathered there and set with his chill breath. Height on height they rise, until the arch is sprung; and then the dome is gathered in to meet the solid rock above, and all the outer work is done. Within, the decorations form as do the stalactites within the caves. Then these are covered with the diamond frost, such as December’s shrubs and trees so oft put on to greet the rising sun. And Minnehaha, so the legend says, sings here the winter through. This is the masterpiece of the great ice‐king. Solomon in all his glory possessed no temple to compare with this, nor Queen of Sheba ever saw its counterpart.

A party of four started from St. Paul in the latter part of March, 1856, to visit this wonder of the North. For many years the winters had not been protracted enough to permit the planting of a Maypole upon the ice of Lake Pepin, nor had eye seen the ice‐wigwam of Minnehaha. Marquette, Hennepin, Lesueur, and the early Catholic missionaries had carried with them their love for the month of Mary into that cold region, and settlers and Christian Indians made the opening day of this month one of joyful festivity. To plant a May‐pole upon the ice of Lake Pepin (which is always the last point on the Upper Mississippi where the ice breaks up, as no current helps to cut or break it) was quite an event. The May‐pole, decked with garlands of green and dotted with the many‐colored crocuses that spring up and bloom at the very edge of the melting snow, and long before the drifts and packs have disappeared, if planted on the ice, permitted dancing on its smooth surface, and pleasanter footing than the loose, moistened soil. May‐day can seldom be pleasantly celebrated in that region out‐of‐doors, except upon the ice. Ice on Lake Pepin, then, is to the young folk of that latitude as important an event as a bright, sunny day in latitudes below.

During the month of March, 1856, a bright, warm sun melted the snows to such an extent as to cover the level prairies with several inches of water, confined within banks of melting snow. Wheels were taking the place of runners. Our party drove over the undulating prairie to St. Anthony, crossed the Mississippi by the first suspension bridge which spanned its waters just above the Falls of St. Anthony, and from Minneapolis, on the west bank, moved out into the dead level which extends south and west toward the Minnesota River. A splashing drive of four miles brought us to the bridge above the Falls of Minnehaha, from which we could see on our left a cone of dirty ice, disfigured here and there with sticks and stones and clods of earth; its base far down within an ice‐lined gorge, its top close pressed upon an overhanging ledge. Was this the wonder we had come to see? A wonder, then, we came. But we did not turn back at this unsightly scene. There was a charm about this legend of Minnehaha’s ice‐ wigwam that surely did not have its source in the charmless thing before us. Nor could we believe the imagination of the red man capable of drawing so poetic an inspiration from so prosaic a source. We therefore set to work to discover the hidden things, if such there were. With large stones we broke away the ice about the top of the cone, hoping to peer through the opening by which the water of the stream entered. We failed in this, but let in the western sun through the opening we had made. Then we descended to the bottom of the gorge, over ice and snow, to seek a new point of observation. Here, to the east, lay the broad, snow‐covered valley of the Mississippi; before us, at the west, rose the cone of ice full sixty feet in height, its wrinkled surface all discolored and defaced, inspiring naught of poetry, stifling imagination. Moving northward around the ungainly mass, and part way up the north side of the gorge, we reached a terrace which led behind the cone and underneath the overhanging ledge. We enter from the north (by broad steps of ice, each rising three or four inches above the other) a hall twelve by twenty feet, floored, columned, curtained, arched, and walled with ice. At somewhat regular intervals elliptical columns of ice rose from floor to spring of arch. Between these columns curtains hung, with convolutes and folds and borders, filling all the space—and all of ice. Above us was the ledge of rock overhanging the basin of the fall, behind us the bluff, and under our feet the terrace of earth midway the cone; and all was paved and curtained and ceiled with ice. Before us stood the upper half of the cone, meeting the ledge above.

While giving play to admiration of the architectural beauties of the place, our ears were greeted with a sound muffled or distant, as of falling water. Whence could this come? Could there be life or motion within that frozen mass? In the chill of that drear winter was not the laughing voice of Minnehaha hushed?

The sun was dropping down the western sky, and a shadow lengthened in the gorge below. The broken edges of the ice which overhung the quiet stream gave back the borrowed rays of sunlight more brilliant than they came.

One of the party had, slung to his side, the customary long‐knife of those days. With it in hand he started in search of the creature whose voice lured him on, not, as the siren, to destruction, but to a scene of beauty, brilliance, glory, with which the fabled cave of Stalacta was but as shadow. Between him and the voice he sought a wall of ice imposed. The knife at once was called to play its part. Between two columns this wall was cut away, a window opened, through which we saw the glories of the wigwam. Our eyes were dazzled and our senses mazed. The curtain rent exposed to view the inner surface of a dome high‐arched and perfect in its curves. From base, through all its height, it was hung with myriad stalactites of ice, which seemed to point us to the laughing voice still rippling on the waters far below. These stalactites were covered thick with richest frost‐work; and from ten thousand upon thousand points the glinting light fell off in floods. Near to the centre of the upper dome the waters of the stream pour in in one broad sheet. An instant only is such form preserved. The sheet of water breaks, and countless globes, from raindrops to a sphere the hand would scarcely grasp with ease, come down, and break still more in passing through the air, until within the basin all is mist and spray. These globes at first arrange themselves in systems not unlike the planetariums of the schools, where sun and planets, with their satellites, are shown the youths, to aid such minds as seek to learn the grander works of God in space. These systems, as they fall, are countless; and by common impulse, which means law, the smaller range themselves about a greater central orb. And so they pass through space, to fall upon the bosom of the pool in mist. Is there no emblem here of life and God?

And as we look, behold! the walls and dome are striped and slashed with silver and with gold; then barred; and then again are panelled with this silver sheen and gold. The gold and silver interchange positions, fade, return, as the Northern Lights dissolve or chase each other here and there. The mystery of this party‐colored scene was soon resolved. The ice we broke away with stones had let the sun shine through the opening, and the waters, flowing in, disputed passage with the light. There is an ebb and flow in running water so like to pulse‐beats that it may not seem strange to those who stop to think, that ruder men have worshipped streams as gods. This ebb and flow upon the ledge so changed the depth of water there that the sunlight, as it struggled through these different depths (for ever changing), cast the light in silver or in gold upon the walls and dome.

And now the sun bows down still more, and shines still more within the dome; its rays are kissed by countless water‐drops, and changed by that caress from white to all the colors of the bow or prism. But, strange, no bow is formed; but in its stead a circle of the varied hues is poised within the midst of all this splendor, as though the sun and flood had come to crown the Indian maid, and vie with the ice‐king in doing fullest homage to his ward.

Such is the legend realized. The time, the accidents, and every impediment we overcame seemed but steps so prearranged that we might see complete the efforts of the cold, the light, the water, all combined to create The Beautiful. It was the meeting of extremes in harmony for common end, instead of conflict. Here was a grand display of powers without jealousy. The cold took irresistible possession of the water, mist, and spray, and reared a work that art can scarcely copy. But all was cold and chaste and white. The light possessed itself of the water also, but with a touch so delicate and warm that color mantled the coldest, chastest, whitest ice.

Do you, dear reader, imagine this a fancy sketch? Be undeceived. Three of the “four” still verify its truth. The fourth has fallen upon the outstretched arm of the great Father of mankind. It is in tribute to his memory that I write; for never soul more chaste, or heart more warm, or life more full of love for all the beautiful, made up a man.

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A Russian Sister Of Charity

By The Rev. C. Tondini, Barnabite

On the fifth of August died in Paris Sister Nathalie Narishkin, a Russian by birth, and descended from the same family from which sprang the mother of Peter the Great. Born on the 1/13th of May, 1820, Sister Nathalie Narishkin abjured the Greek Church August the 15th, 1844. This first step had cost her a fearful struggle—that struggle of heart for which Jesus Christ prepared us when he said, “I came to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (S. Matt. x. 35). We mean that endurance which is perhaps the hardest of martyrdoms, at least when God requires it of a soul whose love of him is combated by an unusual tenderness of affection towards the authors of her being. Such was Nathalie Narishkin.

But as any sacrifice we offer to God enables us, by strengthening our will, to make fresh sacrifices for his love, she had not yet attained the age of twenty‐eight when she resolved to follow more closely the footsteps of our Lord, and in March, 1848, she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity in Paris. A few years afterwards she was named superioress of the convent in the Rue St. Guillaume, where she died.

Foreigners who visit Catholic countries often imagine themselves acquainted with Catholicity when they have hastily glanced through the streets of our capitals, visited the museums, the public buildings, and theatres, and inspected the Catholics in the churches at some mid‐day or one o’clock Mass on Sundays. Hence it follows that in reality they have nothing to relate concerning the influence of the Catholic faith in the sanctification of souls. What would have been their edification, and perhaps surprise, had they visited that convent of the Rue St. Guillaume, and had the good‐fortune to converse with Sister Nathalie! No one who approached her could help feeling that he was in presence of a soul in continual union with God, and in whom self‐abnegation and the profoundest humility had grown, as it were, into a second nature. With these qualities, which at once struck the beholders, she combined the most refined gentleness of manners and language—a gentleness which, let us remark, was in her the same when soliciting from the Emperor Alexander II., at the Elysée, in 1867, permission to enter Russia for the purpose of nursing the sick attacked with cholera, as when answering the meanest beggar asking at her hands a morsel of bread. “Every one who had to deal with Sister Narishkin departed satisfied”—this is the general testimony of all who ever had occasion to speak with her.

It is needless to add that, with regard to charity—that virtue which is the special vocation of the daughters of S. Vincent de Paul, and the surest token of true Christianity, as pointed out by Christ himself—Sister Nathalie was second to no one; and this was made manifest on the day of her funeral by the multitude of poor who accompanied her remains to the cemetery, and the tears they shed on their way to the grave. What is the pomp of the sepulture of kings and the great ones of the nations when compared to this tribute to the memory of a Catholic Sister?

Father Gagarin, S.J., himself a Russian convert, though scarcely recovered from an illness, and in spite of his age and physical sufferings—which did not permit him to walk without difficulty, and leaning on a stick—would not fail to follow the funeral on foot. The body was deposited in the Cemetery of Mont Parnasse—in that same cemetery where for fifteen years past have reposed the remains of that other Russian convert and Barnabite father, Schouvaloff, who, speaking of those among his countrymen who had become Catholics, said: “Fear not, little flock; we are the first‐fruits of that union which every Christian should desire, and which we know will take place. Fear not; our sufferings and our prayers will find grace before God. Russia will be Catholic.”

New Publications.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR THE UNITED STATES, FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1875. Calculated for Different Parallels of Latitude, and Adapted for Use throughout the Country. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This annual is already known in almost every Catholic home in the land. Its cheapness places it within the reach of all, whilst its literary and artistic excellence renders it acceptable even to the most fastidious. The issue for 1875 even surpasses its predecessors in the variety of subjects treated and in the beauty of its illustrations.

Publications of this kind undoubtedly do very much to awaken a truly Catholic interest in the contemporary history of the church, and therefore tend to enlarge the views and widen the sympathies of our people. The life‐current of the universal church is borne through the whole earth, and whatever anywhere concerns her welfare is of importance to Catholics everywhere.

The opening sketch in the Almanac for the year which even now “waiteth at the door” carries us to Rome, in a biographical notice of Cardinal Barnabo, whose name will long be held in grateful remembrance in the United States.

There are also sketches of the lives of the late Archbishop Kenrick, Archbishop Blanc of New Orleans, Bishop Whelan. Bishop McFarland—brief, but sufficiently comprehensive to give one an insight into the character and labors of these apostolic men. Col. Meline and Dr. Huntington, who strove so faithfully and so successfully, as men of letters, to defend and adorn Catholic truth, receive due tribute, and are held up as examples for those of our Catholic young men to whom God has given talent and opportunity of education.

Cardinal Mezzofanti, the greatest of linguists; Cardinal Allen, who was the first president, and we may say founder, of the Douay College, which, during the darkest period of the history of the Catholic Church in England, gave so many noble confessors of the faith to Great Britain; Archbishop Ledochowski, who is to‐day suffering for Christ in the dungeons of Ostrowo, all pass before us in the pages of the Catholic Almanac for 1875.

Then we have sketches of John O’Donovan, the famous Irish antiquarian; of Father Gahan, the great Irish preacher; of Father Clavigero, the historian of Mexico and California, and of Joan of Arc, whose name may yet be inscribed by the church among those of her saints. The miscellaneous matter with which the present issue of the Catholic Almanac is filled has been chosen with admirable tact and with a special view to the wants of our own people.

If the standard of excellence which this publication has now reached be maintained, it cannot fail to command a steadily increasing patronage, and to become in yet wider circles an instrument for good.

NOTES ON THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. By Rev. S. Smith, D.D., formerly Professor of Sacred Scripture, Canon Law, and Ecclesiastical History at Seton Hall Seminary. New York: P. O’Shea. 1874.

The author of these Notes makes his observations on a considerable number of very practical questions, some of which are of the greatest moment and of no small difficulty, with great modesty and moderation of language. Evidently, he seeks to promote piety, discipline, and the well‐ being of the church in an orderly manner, and with due respect to authority and established usage. The Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore is intended as a text‐book of instruction for the clergy and seminarists on what we may call “pastoral theology”—that is, on the whole range of subjects relating to the conduct, preaching, and administration of those who are invested to a lesser or greater degree with the pastoral office. The author makes the Acts of the Council therefore the basis of his Notes, or familiar disquisitions on practical topics of canon law, giving also a general exposition of certain fundamental canonical principles and laws, chiefly derived from the standard authors Soglia and Tarquini. Some valuable documents are also contained in the appendix. Such a work as this is evidently one that, if it can be made complete, and also carry with it sufficient intrinsic and extrinsic authority to give its statements and opinions due weight, will be one of great utility. Due respect to the author, who has given us the results of careful and conscientious labor, as well as the great importance of the topics he discusses, demand that we should not attempt to express a judgment upon his work or the opinions contained in it without a minute and detailed examination and discussion of every point, supported by reasons and authorities. We are not prepared to do this at present. We may say, however, that, in our opinion, a work of this kind cannot easily be brought to completion by a first and single effort. It is, in many respects, tentative in its character. As such, we regard it as a promising effort, creditable to its author, and in many ways likely to prove a serviceable manual for the clergy and those who are engaged in teaching canon law in seminaries.

THE MISTRESS OF THE MANSE. By J. G. Holland. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

We never pardon the reviewer who praises a novel by telling us its plot. Therefore we shall not spoil the pleasure of the reader by revealing the story of this poem. We will only say that the heroine is the wife of a “country parson,” and that their conjugal life is beautifully drawn. A Catholic will not find anything to move his righteous indignation, as he did in the author’s Marble Prophecy though here and there he will come upon something which

“In the light of deeper eyes Is matter for a flying smile.”

For instance, a poet who can write such Tennysonian verse does not blush to place in the same “evangelical” library “Augustine” and “Ansel” (we suppose he means S. Anselm) by the side of

“Great Luther, with his great disputes, And Calvin with his finished scheme.” (!)

After the flood of light which even Protestant research has poured on the characters of Luther and Calvin, how can a poet (of all men) dare to hold them up to admiration?

MARIA MONK’S DAUGHTER. An Autobiography. By Mrs. L. St. John Eckel. New York: Published for the Author by the United States Publishing Co.., 13 University Place. 1874.

The writer of this notice well remembers reading, when a boy of fifteen, the Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, and Six Months in a Convent, by Rebecca Reed. With great satisfaction he recalls the fact that his own father, who was a Presbyterian minister of Connecticut, together with a very large number of other most respectable Protestants, condemned and repudiated the calumnies of Maria Monk from the first moment of their publication. The effect of these books and of the exposure so honorably made by Col. Stone on our own young mind, and undoubtedly upon the minds of thousands besides, to open our eyes to the falsehood and dishonesty of the gross misrepresentations of the Catholic religion and its professors which have been rife among Protestants, and are still prevalent among the less enlightened of them, both gentle and simple. Afterwards the task devolved upon us to prepare a set of documents concerning Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk which Bishop England had collected, for publication in the edition of his works issued by his successor in the see of Charleston. While we were correcting the last proofs of the printer at Philadelphia, the Times of that morning furnished us the last item of news respecting the unfortunate Maria Monk, which came to the knowledge of the public before the publication of the volume under notice, viz., that she had died in a cell on Blackwell’s Island. After the lapse of twenty‐five years, we find before us the autobiography of a daughter of Maria Monk, who seeks to expiate her mother’s crime, and to make reparation for the wrong done to the clergy and religious of the Catholic Church by her pretended disclosures made in the fictitious character of an escaped nun. The unhappy young woman herself, though we believe she was the daughter of an English officer at Montreal, seems to have had a very unkind mother, and, for some reason to us unknown, to have been brought up without education, and early turned adrift without any protection. Having fallen into a condition of desperate misery, she resorted to the expedient of inventing her Awful Disclosures in order to get money and escape from present wretchedness. The men—far more malicious and base in their villainy than this poor forlorn girl, so much sinned against and so fearfully punished for her own sins that we pity more than we blame her—who prepared the vile book of Awful Disclosures, and published it under the name of HOWE AND BATES, cheated her out of her share of the profits. We are glad to see their infamy once more exposed, and the honor of the Catholic religion avenged. Although the most honorable class of Protestants are exempt from complicity with this and similar gross libels on Catholics and caricatures of all they hold dear and sacred, nevertheless their cause and name are disgraced by the fact that they are so frequently and generally implicated in a mode of warfare on the Catholic Church which is dishonorable. The statements which are continually made current among them respecting Catholics and their religion, and which are so generally believed, do no credit to their intelligence or fairness. We remember hearing the Archbishop of Westminster remark that the most ridiculous fables about the Catholic religion are accepted as truth among the aristocratic residents of the West End of London. The coarse and angry assaults of the English press upon the Marquis of Ripon, on account of his conversion, show, what Dr. Newman has so humorously and graphically described, the extent and obstinacy of vulgar prejudice and hostility in England. There is less here, and it is diminishing; yet there is enough to make Mrs. Eckel’s audacious spring into the arena of combat against it well timed as well as chivalrous.

We do not intend a criticism on her book, but merely, as an act of justice to one who has braved the criticism of the world, to aid herself and her book to meet this criticism fairly, without prejudice from any false impressions which may be taken from its title. We therefore mention the fact, which may not be known to those who have not read the book or any correct account of its contents, that Maria Monk, according to the probable evidence furnished in the book, and which does not seem to have anything opposed to it, was really married to a man who was a gentleman by birth and of respectable connections, although reduced by his youthful follies to a condition which was always precarious and sometimes very destitute. Mrs. Eckel is the offspring of this marriage. After a childhood of hardship, she was adopted into a respectable family related to her father, Mr. St. John, and made the most strenuous efforts to acquire the education and good manners which are suitable for a lady. She married a gentleman of respectable position and of very superior intellectual gifts and culture, Mr. Eckel, who afterwards fell into distressed circumstances, and died in a very tragical manner. Mrs. Eckel separated herself from him some time before this occurred, and very shortly before the birth of her daughter, as it seems to us for very good reasons which exonerate her from all blame for the misery into which her husband fell when he lost the support of her sustaining arm. The remarkable history of her subsequent career in Paris must be sought for in the pages of the autobiography. The circles in which she moved while there were the highest, and many of her intimate friends were persons of not only exalted rank, but of the most exemplary piety, and of universal fame among Catholics. Of her own accord, without either compulsion or advice, she did what she was not bound in conscience to do—abandoned her brilliant position in the world, made known the secret of her origin, and has now thrown open the history of her life to the inspection of the world. That history must plead for itself and for the author before impartial and judicious readers. In our opinion it is substantially true. We believe the author has written it from a good motive, and that she is sincere in her statements. Divested of all the adventitious glitter of the successful woman of the world, she presents herself for precisely what she is in herself, and, as we think, is far more worthy of honor and respect now than ever before, or than the most brilliant marriage in France could have made her.

Everybody who can read this book will do so, as a matter of course, even if they have no other motive than they would have in reading one of Thackeray’s romances. It is a romance in real life, and an instance of the truth of the old adage, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Such fictitious works as Lothair and the Schönberg‐Cotta Family have served as a polemical weapon against the Catholic Church, and we do not see why a romantic but true history, of much greater literary merit than the whole class of that sort of trash, should not answer a good purpose on the other side. If the readers of the book find in it many things open to criticism, and jarring upon a delicate and cultivated Catholic sense of propriety and reverence, they should remember that the author lacks the advantage of long and careful Catholic discipline, is still comparatively young, and a novice in everything that relates to the spiritual and religious life. She does not profess to give the history of her life as a model to be imitated, or to instruct others as one competent to teach on spiritual matters, but to write her confessions for the encouragement of other wayward and wandering souls, and to speak out freely what she thinks as she goes along, with very little regard to censure or fear of it.

There seems a Nemesis in the publication of such a book which should give a salutary lesson to those who dare to throw dirt on the spotless robe of the Catholic Church. We have often thought that this Nemesis is frequently apparent of late in the punishments which have come from divine or human justice on notorious corrupters of public and private morals. Dreadful as are the actual corruptions and the corrupt tendencies in the bosom of our political and social state, we hope this is a sign that God has not abandoned us. It is hardly necessary to say that this is not a book suitable for very young people.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XX., NO. 118.—JANUARY, 1875

The Persecution Of The Church In The German Empire.

Concluded.

In the spring of 1870, whilst the discussion concerning the opportuneness of defining the infallibility of the Pope was attracting the attention of every one, and when the distant mutterings of the Franco‐Prussian war were not yet audible, the leading organs of the Party of Progress in Berlin sought to weigh the probable results of a definition, by the Vatican Council, of the much‐talked‐of dogma. In case the Pope should be declared infallible, the Volkszeitung, of Berlin, affirmed that many would favor the interference of the government to prevent all further intercourse between the bishops of Prussia and the Roman Pontiff, which would result in the creation of a national church wholly independent of Rome.

But this organ of the Party of Progress openly avowed that there was not the slightest probability that the state could, by any means at its command, succeed in separating the Catholic Church in Prussia from communion with the See of Peter; nor was there, it confessed with perfect candor, a single bishop in Germany who would desire such a separation.

And yet, as we have shown in a former article, the task which the German Empire has set itself is precisely the one which is here pronounced impossible; and we propose now to continue the history of the tyrannical enactments and harsh measures by which the worshippers of the God‐State hope to destroy the faith of thirteen millions of Catholics. The project of the Falk laws was brought before the Landtag on the 9th of January, 1873, and on the 30th of the same month the Catholic episcopate of the kingdom of Prussia entered a solemn protest against this iniquitous attempt to violate the most sacred rights of conscience and religion.

In the name of the natural law, of the historical and lawfully‐acquired rights of the church in Germany, of the treaties concluded by the crown of Prussia with the Holy See, and, in fine, in the name of the express recognition of these rights by the Constitution, they protest against the violation of the inalienable right of the Catholic Church to exist in the integrity of its doctrine, its constitution, and its discipline.

It is of the duty and right of each bishop, they declare, to teach the Catholic doctrine and administer the sacraments within his own diocese; it is also of his duty and right to educate, commission, and appoint the priests who are his co‐operators and representatives in the sacred ministry; and it is of his duty and right to exhort and encourage them in the fulfilment of their charge, and, when they obstinately refuse to obey the doctrine and laws of the church, to depose them from office, and to forbid them the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions; all of which rights are violated by the proposed laws. As to the Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs, they affirm that they can never recognize its competency, and that they can see in it only an attempt to reduce the divinely‐constituted church to a non‐Catholic and national institution.

The Memorial concludes with the following noble and solemn words:

“Concord between church and state is the safeguard of the spiritual and the temporal power; the indispensable condition of the welfare of all human society. The bishops, the priests, the Catholic people, are not the enemies of the state; they are not intolerant, unjust, rancorous towards those of a different faith. They ask nothing so much as to live in peace with all men; but they demand that they themselves be permitted to live according to their faith, of the divinity and truth of which they are most thoroughly convinced. They require that the integrity of religion and their church and the liberty of their conscience be left inviolate, and they are resolved to defend their lawful freedom, and even the smallest right of the church, with all energy and without fear.

“From our inmost souls, in the interest of the state as much as of the church, we conjure and implore the authorities to abandon the disastrous policy which they have taken up, and to give back to the Catholic Church, and to the millions of the faithful of that church who are in Prussia and in the Empire, peace, religious liberty, and security in the possession of their rights, and not to impose upon us laws obedience to which is incompatible, for every bishop and for every priest and for all Catholics, with the fulfilment of duty—laws, consequently, which violate conscience, are morally impossible, and which, if carried into execution by force, will bring untold misery upon our faithful Catholic people and our German fatherland.”

The organs of the government declared that the Memorial was an ultimatum, “a declaration of war”; that “it was impossible to keep the peace with these bishops; and that they should be reduced as soon as possible to a state in which they could do no harm.” Accordingly, the discussion of the Falk laws was hurried up, and they were adopted in May by a majority of two‐thirds.

In the meantime, the government continued to follow up its harsh measures against the religious orders, going so far as to close the churches of royal patronage in Poland, in order to prevent their consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It even forbade the children of the schools to assist at the devotions of the Sacred Heart. The Catholic casinos were closed; the Congregations of the Blessed Virgin, the Society of the Holy Childhood, and other religious associations were suppressed. The Catholic soldiers of the Prussian army had already been outraged by having their church in Cologne turned over to the Old Catholics.

By the beginning of 1873 nearly all the Jesuits had withdrawn from the territory of the German Empire, and taken refuge in France, England, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Indies, and the United States. Those who still remained were interned, and, deprived of all means of subsistence, placed under the supervision of the police. The government next proceeded to take steps to suppress those religious orders which it considered as affiliated to the Jesuits. A mission which the Redemptorists were giving at Wehlen, near Treves, was broken up by the police. Another mission which they were about to open at Oberjosbach (Nassau) was interdicted; whilst almost at the same time several Redemptorists were decorated “for services rendered to the fatherland during the war.” A community of Lazarists at Kulm was dissolved, and houses of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, of the Sisters of Notre Dame, of the Sisters of Charity, and of the Sisters of S. Charles were closed.

Von Gerlach, the President of the Court of Appeals of Magdeburg, himself a Protestant, has informed us, in a pamphlet which he published about this time, of the effect of these persecutions upon the Catholics of Germany.

“As for the Catholic Church,” he wrote, “persecutions strengthen her. In fact, her moral power is increased under pressure. The Catholic Church is to‐day more zealous, more compact, more united, more confident of herself, more energetic, and better organized, than she was at the commencement of 1871. The Roman Catholics have good reason to be thankful that their church has gained in faith, in the spirit of sacrifice and prayer, in devoutness in worship, and in all Christian virtues.

“It is even evident that the interior force of the religious orders, especially that of the Jesuits, has been proportionately augmented. Around these proscribed men gather all those who love them to protect and help them.”

The courageous conduct of the German bishops in taking a firm and decided stand against the persecutors of the church met with the almost unanimous approval of both priests and people. Dr. Döllinger and his sect were forgotten. If there had ever been any life in the impossible thing, it went out in the first breath of the storm that was breaking over the church. All the cathedral chapters gave in their adhesion to their respective bishops, and their example was followed by the pastors, rectors, and vicars of the eleven Prussian dioceses. They repelled with horror, to use the words of the clergy of Fulda, the attempt to separate the members from the head, and to give to the priesthood tutors in the person of a state official. Even the twenty‐nine deacons of the Seminary of Gnesen entered their protest, recalling in their address to Archbishop Ledochowski the beautiful words of S. Laurence to Pope Sixtus as he was led to martyrdom: Quo sine filio, pater?

The Catholic nobility, in their meeting at Münster in January, 1873, openly proclaimed their fidelity to the church and their firm resolve to defend her rights and liberties; and the Catholic people began to organize throughout the Empire.

“The Association of the Catholic Germans,” which now counts its members by hundreds of thousands, was formed, with the motto, Neither rebel nor apostate. Its Wanderversammlungen (migratory reunions) spring up everywhere, and become the centre of Catholic life. This association is based upon the constitutional law, its acts are public, the means it employs are lawful, and the end it aims at is distinctly formulated in its statutes.

In this manner the Catholics of Germany prepared themselves, not to commit acts of violence or to transgress the law, but to offer a passive resistance to tyranny and oppression, to uphold liberty of conscience against state omnipotence, and to suffer every evil rather than betray their souls’ faith.

The Imperial government, on the other hand, showed no intention of withdrawing its arbitrary measures, but through its organs openly declared that “the execution of the clerical laws would form a clergy as submissive and tractable as the Prussian army”; whilst Herr Falk proclaimed in the Reichstag “that the government was resolved to make use of every means which the law placed within its power; and if the present laws were not sufficient, others would be framed to ensure their execution.”

The ukase, signed by Bismarck on the 20th of May, 1873, suppressed the convents of the Redemptorists, of the Fathers of the Holy Ghost, of the Lazarists, and of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart; and the members of these orders were commanded to abandon their houses before the end of the following November. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart were accused of desiring to acquire “universal spiritual dominion.”

The bishops were called on to submit for the approval of the government, in accordance with the tenor of the May laws, the plan of studies and the disciplinary rules of their diocesan seminaries; which, of course, they declined to do, whilst foreseeing that their action would bring about the closing of these institutions. Herr Falk, the Minister of Worship, ordered an examination into the revenues of the different parishes, without even asking the co‐operation of the bishops; and the civil authorities were warned of their duty to notify the government of any changes which should be made in the body of the clergy. The police received orders to interfere, at certain points, with Catholic pilgrimages, which, in other instances, were positively interdicted.

The annual allowance of twelve hundred thalers to Mgr. Ledochowski, Archbishop of Posen, was withdrawn, his seminary was closed, and all teachers were forbidden to ask his permission to give religious instruction. In November, 1873, the archbishop’s furniture was seized; even his paintings were carried off. The people, gathering in crowds, shouted after the officials: “Thief! thief!” On the 23d of the same month Mgr. Ledochowski was condemned to pay a fine of five thousand four hundred thalers, or, in default, to an imprisonment of two years, for having made nine appointments to ecclesiastical offices contrary to the laws of May.

Before the end of December, the fines imposed upon the archbishop reached twenty‐one thousand thalers. In January, 1874, he was cited before a delegate judge of the Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs, but refused to appear, since he could not, in conscience, recognize the competency of a civil tribunal to pass sentence on the manner in which he had exercised his pastoral functions. He moreover averred that, in case the threat to drag him into court should be carried out, it was his firm resolve to say nothing.

Several priests of the Diocese of Posen had already been incarcerated for failure to pay the fines of the government, and on the 3d of last February, at five o’clock in the morning, the archbishop was himself arrested and carried off to prison in Ostrowo, a town of about seven thousand inhabitants, chiefly Protestants and Jews.

The bishops of Prussia at once drew up a letter to the clergy and the Catholic people of their dioceses, in which they declared that “the only crime of Archbishop Ledochowski was that of having chosen to suffer everything rather than betray the liberty of the church of God and deny Catholic truth, sealed by the precious blood of the Saviour.”

The canons of the Chapter of Posen were ordered by the government to elect a capitular‐vicar; and as they declined to give their approval to the cruel and unjust imprisonment of their archbishop, a state official was appointed to take charge of the affairs of the diocese.

Both the priests and people of Prussian Poland remain firm, and give noble examples of steadfastness in the faith.

The history of the persecution in one diocese is, with a few unimportant differences, that of all. More than a year ago, the annual allowance of three thousand four hundred and seventy thalers made to the Theological Seminary of Cologne was withdrawn. Archbishop Melchers and his vicar‐ general were cited before a civil tribunal for the excommunication of two apostates. The Lazarists were driven from the preparatory seminaries of Neuss and Münstereifel.

On the 22d of November, 1873, the archbishop was condemned to pay a fine of twenty‐five hundred thalers for five appointments made in violation of the May laws; and almost every week thereafter new fines were imposed, until finally his furniture was seized on the 3d of last February, and in a very short time the venerable prelate was incarcerated, not even his lawyer being allowed to visit him. His prison‐cell was thought to be too comfortable, and he was soon changed to one under the very roof of the jail. A great number of pastors and vicars of his diocese were deprived of their positions, and some of them imprisoned.

On the 20th of November, 1873, the priests of twenty‐eight towns and villages of the Diocese of Treves were interdicted by the government, and the bishop fined thirty‐six hundred thalers. The Theological Seminary was closed, “not to be reopened until the bishop and rector should accept in good faith the laws of May, 1873.” Any seminarians who might be found there on the 12th of January, 1874, were to be forcibly ejected.

The 15th of this same month the professors were forbidden to instruct the students of theology, under penalty of a fine of fifteen thalers or five days’ imprisonment for each offence; and this prohibition is to remain in vigor until the bishop accepts the Falk laws. On the 21st of January, an inventory of the furniture of the episcopal palace was taken. The goods were sold at public auction on the 6th of February; in a few days, Bishop Eberhard was thrown into prison; and before the end of last August sixty of his priests were confessing the faith in the dungeons of Treves and Coblentz.

The old Dominican convent in Treves had been converted into a prison, and it is there that the bishop and some thirty of his priests were incarcerated. The prison discipline is rigid and harsh in the extreme. These confessors of Christ are forced out of their beds at five o’clock in the morning, and from this until they retire at nine in the evening they must either walk to and fro in their cells, or sit upon stools, since chairs are not allowed. If during the day they wish to lie down for a moment, an official at once informs them that this is not permitted; if they lean against the wall, the table, or the bed, they again receive the same warning. A jailer accompanies them whenever necessity forces them to leave their cells. All letters to and from the prison are read by the officials, and, in case the slightest pretext can be found, are destroyed. None save those who have voluntarily given themselves up, and who, after a first imprisonment, have not received an ovation from the people, are allowed to say Mass. The bishop is permitted to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, but no one is suffered to be present except the server and the indispensable government official.

The food seems scarcely sufficient to sustain life. Three times in the week, each of the prisoners receives a small piece of meat, and this is the only change ever made in the bill of fare which we have just given. What we have called “porridge” is known at Treves under the name of Schlicht, and is a kind of flour‐paste. When we reflect that there are in Germany to‐day not less than a thousand priests who are suffering this slow and cruel martyrdom, we shall be able to realize that the present pagan persecution may in all truth be compared to those which, in the first ages of Christianity, gave to the church her legions of martyrs and confessors. It is not necessary that we should enter into a detailed account of the persecution in the other dioceses of Germany. The same scenes are everywhere enacted—fines, citations, seizure of effects, interdicts, and imprisonments, on the part of the government; whilst the Catholics, standing in unshaken fidelity to God and conscience, suffer in patience every outrage that their enemies can inflict, rather than betray the sacred cause of the religion of Christ. The May laws of 1873 did not prove sufficiently harsh or tyrannical to satisfy the Prussian infidels; and they were consequently supplemented by clauses which passed both houses of the Reichstag last May. In virtue of these amendments, the state can decree the sequestration of the goods of an ecclesiastical post not occupied in the manner prescribed by the Falk laws. In this case, these goods are to be administered by a royal commissary.

The Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs receives the power to depose bishops; and, this deposition being once pronounced, they are forbidden to exercise any ecclesiastical functions in their respective dioceses, which by this very fact are placed under interdict. When the bishop is deposed by the Royal Court, the cathedral chapter is summoned to proceed to elect his successor; and in case it fails to comply with this injunction within ten days, all goods belonging to the episcopal see, as well as those of the chapter of the diocese, and of the parishes, are sequestrated and administered by the government.

This miserable legislation gives to the state the entire spiritual power, and ignores alike the rights of God and those of the free Christian conscience. Still, it is only the legitimate and logical expression of the views and aims of the modern heathendom which is organizing throughout Europe for the destruction of the religion of Christ.

The May laws of 1873 required the bishops to convert all the incumbents having charge of churches into permanent and irremovable parish priests; in consequence of which the position of twelve hundred and forty‐one incumbents in the Rhine Province became illegal on the 11th of last May. A general interdict was therefore expected, and even a process to compel the bishop to comply with this clause was looked for; but Herr Falk seems to have been frightened by his own legislation, since already, on the 8th of May, he announced in the Reichstag that only those priests whom “the government considered dangerous” would be notified of the proceedings taken against the bishops, and that no others would be held to come under the operation of the law. In this manner the Prussian Minister of Worship avoided the odium of a general interdict, whilst by a slower process he hopes eventually to bring about this result. The moment the incumbent of a church receives official notification that his bishop has been put under restraint, he is by the very fact forbidden to perform any ecclesiastical function, and his post is considered vacant. The Landrath then declares this vacancy, and invites the parishioners to prepare for the election of a successor to their former pastor.

That this election may take place, it suffices that ten men, who are of age and in the full possession of their civil rights, put in an appearance, that the person chosen by them and approved of by the civil authority may be recognized as the lawful incumbent.

The evident aim of this law is to create a schism in every parish in the German Empire, which, by fomenting divisions amongst the Catholics, would greatly aid the government in its efforts to destroy the church. But this is only one of innumerable instances in which the persecutors have been wholly mistaken.

They counted first upon the weakness of the Catholic bishops; confidently expecting that one or the other of them would place himself at the head of the Old Catholics, and thus, whilst causing great scandal in the church, give to that still‐born sect at least a semblance of respectability. But not one of the German prelates wavered. They go to prison, like the apostles, rejoicing that they are found worthy to suffer for Christ, and declare that they are willing to shed their blood for the holy cause. Their enemies are not more ready to inflict than they to bear everything for the love of Jesus. Then, there was no doubt in the minds of the Prussian infidels that large numbers of the clergy would take advantage of the bribes offered by government to apostates to throw off the authority of the bishops, and to constitute themselves into a schismatical body. On the contrary, the persecution has only drawn tighter the bonds which unite the priests with their chief pastors. In all Germany there have not been found more than thirty rationalistic professors and suspended priests who were willing to take sides with Döllinger in his rebellion; and the juridically‐proven immorality of Bishop Reinkens will no doubt give us a true insight into the characters of most of the men who have elected him their ecclesiastical superior.

When the persecutors found that both bishops and priests were immovable in their devotion to the church, they appealed to the Catholic people, and, by the laws of last May, placed it in their power to create a schism, by giving them the right to elect their own pastors, with the promise that government would turn the churches over to them. But this attempt to show that the bishops and priests of Germany have not the sympathy and confidence of the laity has met with signal rebuke.

The elections for the Prussian Landtag in November, 1873, and those for the Reichstag in January last, had not merely a political significance; their bearing upon the present and future welfare of the church in the German Empire is of the greatest importance. Opportunity was given to the Catholic people to make a public confession of faith; to declare, in words which could not be misunderstood, whether or not they were resolved to stand firm in the struggle into which their leaders had been forced.

In the November elections, in spite of every effort of the government, the Catholics increased their representatives in the Landtag from fifty‐two to eighty‐nine; whilst in the Reichstag their members have grown from sixty‐ three to considerably more than one hundred.

The entire Rhenish Province elected Catholics. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Treves, Coblentz, Aix‐la‐Chapelle, Crefeld, Bonn, Neuss, Düren, Essen, Malmedy, Mülheim, all the cities of the Lower Rhine, made their vote an act of faith. Windthorst, the leader of the Catholic party, was elected at Meppen (Hanover) over Falk, the author of the May laws, by a majority of nearly fifteen thousand. The entire vote for Falk was only three hundred and forty‐seven.

The result of the elections undoubtedly startled the government, and possibly shook Bismarck’s confidence in the power of persecution to destroy Catholic faith; but the struggle had grown too fierce to allow him to think of withdrawing.

On the contrary, the firmness of the Catholic people incited the persecutors to still harsher measures; but nothing that they have done or can do will succeed in breaking the combined passive opposition of the clergy and the laity.

In the Vatican Council, the most determined resistance to the definition of the infallibility of the Pope was made by the German bishops, who felt no hesitation in openly declaring with what anxiety they regarded the probable effects of such a definition upon the Catholics of their own country. Divisions, apostasies, schisms, seemed imminent; and it is not easy now to determine what might have been the result had not God’s providence interfered.

In the first place, at the very moment when the definition was made, the terrible conflict between France and Prussia broke forth, and raged so fiercely that the loud earth was struck dumb, and men held their breath till it should be ended. In the meantime, the angry feelings aroused by the discussions in the Vatican Council had, in great measure, been calmed, and it was possible to take a fairer and more dispassionate view of the whole subject.

Then the attempt of the government to destroy the Catholic Church in Germany, by tearing it away from its allegiance to the Pope, and debasing it to a mere function of the state, roused those who might have been disposed to waver, and brought about a universal reawakening of faith. It is the fate of the enemies of God’s people to bless when they mean to curse. In fact, when Catholics begin to suffer, they begin to triumph; and hence even those who hate us have of nothing so great horror as of making martyrs and confessors. They know the history of martyrdom—that in the whole earth and in all ages it means victory.

The church, which sprang from the conflict of the God‐Man with death, like him, in her greatest humiliation shows forth her highest power.

Her march through the world and through the ages is not along pleasant roads and through peaceful prospects, or, if so, only at times and rarely. If she move in pomp amid the acclamations of peoples, her triumphal procession ends in sorrow. The bark of Peter must be storm‐tossed; and when the angry waves would swallow it, the divine voice speaks the magic word, and the quiet deep bears it up on her peaceful bosom.

The road wherein the progress of the church is most secure is the blood‐ stained way of the cross. When she is all bruised, and there is no comeliness left in her; when her eyes are red with weeping, and the world, beholding her agony, mocks and jeers and laughs her to scorn, then is she strongest; for her strength comes from humility, from suffering, from the cross. When she is humbled, God exalts her; when he permits her enemies to entomb her in ignominy, he is near at hand to crown her with the immortal glory of a new life. The word of Christ is: “You shall live in the world in the midst of persecutions; but take heart: I have conquered the world.”

Within the memory of those who are still young, it was the fashion with our enemies to proclaim that the church was decrepit, that she was dying, that of her own weight she would fall to pieces in the new society that was growing up around her: to‐day we hear that she is everywhere waxing too strong, and men appeal against her to tyranny and to brute force.

The most powerful and the most thoroughly organized of the modern nations, the great Cultur‐Staat of the age, has confessed that it is unable to check the growth of the church by legitimate means, and it has therefore had recourse to the most arbitrary legislation and to the harshest measures of compulsion and violence. This, of course, is the most explicit avowal of its own impotence. We find also that the two nations which have manifested the most supercilious indifference to the Catholic Church, as being something which did not and could not concern them, now applaud this Prussian tyranny, in spite of the pretence of the love of freedom and fair play. The sympathy of the English press, and to a great extent of the American press, in this struggle, is with the absolute and liberty‐ destroying government of Prussia. The favorite motto of “civil and religious liberty all the world over” has been wholly lost sight of, and Englishmen and Americans give moral aid to a state which wantonly tramples upon both.

This, too, was a cherished watch‐word: The church is the friend of absolutism, the enemy of freedom.

But to‐day we behold the Catholic Church, single‐handed, fighting again the same battles of liberty which she fought and won in the early centuries of Christianity. Now, as then, she opposes absolutism in the state; denies, as she then denied, that Cæsar can lawfully lay claim to “the things of God”; and protests, in the name of the outraged dignity of human nature, that there is a freedom which transcends the sphere of all earthly authority. Her children, when nothing else remains to be done, utter the divine words: Non possumus—we cannot; we must obey God rather than men.

Referring to this struggle, Bismarck has said, in a memorable speech, that “it is the ancient contest for power, which is as old as the human race itself—the contest for power between king and priest.” This is necessarily the view which he takes, since he believes in nothing but force. But the dualism here is not in the combatants alone; it is in the objects for which they contend.

It is indeed the ancient contest between good and evil, between the spirit and the flesh, between the Christ and the rulers of this world, which makes life a warfare and the earth a battle‐field, and which must continue until the end. Never has it been fiercer than in our day, and the battle is yet hardly begun. But very few indeed understand, as yet, the nature of the struggle, or are at all aware of the real principles and interests which are at stake. Few men can see further than an hour or beyond the little circle that bounds their private interests; but each day it is becoming more evident that men must take sides; that not to be for Christ is to be against him.

Twice in the last eighteen hundred years the church has been the ark of the nations: she destroyed paganism; she converted and civilized barbarism. Some historian will tell, in another age, how, when Christian society, grown luxurious and corrupt, without God and without future hope, was sinking back into the flesh‐worship and the death of ancient paganism, she, gathering around her the remnant of her children, and fearlessly facing the storm and the wrath of those who had ceased to know her, kept her own pure and undefiled till the dawn of the brighter day, to become the leaven of the social state that is to be.

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