II. SONNET--RYDAL WITH WORDSWORTH (part 1 of 2)

II. SONNET--RYDAL WITH WORDSWORTH (part 1 of 2)

BY THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE.

“What we beheld scarce can I now recall In one connected picture; images Hurrying so swiftly their fresh witcheries O’er the mind’s mirror, that the several Seems lost, or blended in the mighty all. Lone lakes; rills gushing through rock-rooted trees; Peaked mountains shadowing vales of peacefulness; Glens echoing to the flashing waterfall. Then that sweet twilight isle! with friends delayed Beside a ferny bank ’neath oaks and yews; The moon between two mountain peaks embayed; Heaven and the waters dyed with sunset hues: And he, the poet of the age and land, Discoursing as we wandered hand in hand.”

The above-written sonnet is the record of a delightful day spent by my father in 1833 with Wordsworth at Rydal, to which he went from the still more beautiful shores of Ulswater, where he had been sojourning at Halsteads. He had been one of Wordsworth’s warmest admirers when their number was small, and in 1842 he dedicated a volume of poems to him.[136] He taught me when a boy of eighteen years old to admire the great bard. I had been very enthusiastically praising Lord Byron’s poetry. My father calmly replied: “Wordsworth is the great poet of modern times.” Much surprised, I asked: “And what may his special merits be?” The answer was, “They are very various; as, for instance, depth, largeness, elevation, and, what is rare in modern poetry, an entire purity. In his noble ‘Laodamia’ they are chiefly majesty and pathos.” A few weeks afterwards I chanced to take from the library shelves a volume of Wordsworth, and it opened on “Laodamia.” Some strong, calm hand seemed to have been laid on my head, and bound me to the spot till I had come to the end. As I read, a new world, hitherto unimagined, opened itself out, stretching far away into serene infinitudes. The region was one to me unknown, but the harmony of the picture attested its reality. Above and around were indeed

“An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams”;

and when I reached the line,

“Calm pleasures there abide--majestic pains,”

I felt that no tenants less stately could walk in so lordly a precinct. I had been translated into another planet of song--one with larger movements and a longer year. A wider conception of poetry had become mine, and the Byronian enthusiasm fell from me like a bond that is broken by being outgrown. The incident illustrates poetry in one of its many characters--that of the “deliverer.” The ready sympathies and inexperienced imagination of youth make it surrender itself easily despite its better aspirations, or in consequence of them, to a false greatness; and the true greatness, once revealed, sets it free. As early as 1824 Walter Savage Landor, in his “Imaginary Conversation” between Southey and Porson, had pronounced Wordsworth’s “Laodamia” to be “a composition such as Sophocles might have exulted to own, and a part of which might have been heard with shouts of rapture in the regions he describes”--the Elysian Fields.

Wordsworth frequently spoke of death, as if it were the taking of a new degree in the University of Life. “I should like,” he remarked to a young lady, “to visit Italy again before I move to another planet.” He sometimes made a mistake in assuming that others were equally philosophical. We were once breakfasting at the house of Mr. Rogers, when Wordsworth, after gazing attentively round the room with a benignant and complacent expression, turned to our host, and, wishing to compliment him, said: “Mr. Rogers, I never see this house, so perfect in its taste, so exquisite in all its arrangements, and decorated with such well-chosen pictures, without fancying it the very house imaged to himself by the Roman poet when, in illustration of man’s mortality, he says: ‘Linquenda est domus.’” “What is that you’re saying?” replied Mr. Rogers, whose years between eighty and ninety, had not improved his hearing. “I was remarking that your house,” replied Wordsworth, “always reminds me of the ode (more properly called an elegy, though doubtless the lyrical measure not unnaturally causes it to be included among Horace’s odes) in which the Roman poet writes: ‘Linquenda est domus’; that is, since, ladies being present, a translation may be deemed desirable, The house is, or has to be, left; and again,’et placens uxor’--and the pleasing wife; though, as we must all regret, that part of the quotation is not applicable on the present occasion.” The Town Bard, on whom “no angle smiled” more than the end of St. James’ Place, did not enter into the views of the Bard of the Mountains. His answer was what children call “making a great face,” and the ejaculation, “Don’t talk Latin in the society of ladies.” When I was going away, he remarked, “What a stimulus the mountain air has on the appetite! I made a sign to Edmund to hand him the cutlets a second time. I was afraid he would stick his fork into that beautiful woman who sat next him.” Wordsworth never resented a jest at his own expense. Once when we had knocked three times in vain at the door of a London house, I exclaimed, quoting his sonnet written on Westminster Bridge,

“Dear God, the very houses seem asleep.”

He laughed heartily, then smiled gravely, and lastly recounted the occasion and described the early morning on which that sonnet was written. He did not recite more than a part of it, to the accompaniment of distant cab and carriage; and I thought that the door was opened too soon.

Wordsworth, despite his dislike to great cities, was attracted occasionally in his later years

“To the proud margin of the Thames And Lambeth’s venerable towers,”

where his society was courted by persons of the most different character. But he complained bitterly of the great city. It was next to impossible, he remarked, to tell the truth in it. “Yesterday I was at S---- House; the Duchess of S----, showing me the pictures, observed: ‘This is the portrait of my brother’ (naming him), ‘and it is considered very like.’ To this I assented, partly perhaps in absence of mind, but partly, I think, with an impression that her grace’s brother was probably a person whose face every one knew or was expected to know; so that, as I had never met him, my answer was in fact a lie! It is too bad that, when more than seventy years old, I should be drawn from the mountains to London in order to tell a lie!” He made his complaint wherever he went, laying the blame, however, not so much on himself or on the duchess as on the corrupt city; and some of those who learned how the most truthful man in England had thus quickly been subverted by metropolitan snares came to the conclusion that within a few years more no virtue would be left extant in the land. He was likewise maltreated in lesser ways. “This morning I was compelled by my engagements to eat three breakfasts--one with an aged and excellent gentleman, who may justly be esteemed an accomplished man of letters, although I cannot honestly concede to him the title of a poet; one at a fashionable party; and one with an old friend whom no pressure would induce me to neglect, although for this, my first breakfast to-day, I was obliged to name the early hour of seven o’clock, as he lives in a remote part of London.”

But it was only among his own mountains that Wordsworth could be understood. He walked among them not so much to admire them as to converse with them. They exchanged thoughts with him, in sunshine or flying shadow, giving him their own and accepting his. Day and night, at all hours, and in all weathers, he would face them. If it rained, he might fling his plaid over him, but would take no admonition. He must have his way. On such occasions, dutiful as he was in higher matters, he remained incurably wayward. In vain one reminded him that a letter needed an answer or that the storm would soon be over. It was very necessary for him to do what he liked; and one of his dearest friends said to me, with a smile of the most affectionate humor: “He wrote his ‘Ode to Duty,’ and then he had done with that matter.” This very innocent form of lawlessness, corresponding with the classic expression, “Indulge genio,” seemed to belong to his genius, not less than the sympathetic reverence with which he looked up to the higher and universal laws. Sometimes there was a battle between his reverence for nature and his reverence for other things. The friend already alluded to was once remarking on his varying expressions of countenance: “That rough old face is capable of high and real beauty; I have seen in it an expression quite of heavenly peace and contemplative delight, as the May breeze came over him from the woods while he was slowly walking out of church on a Sunday morning, and when he had half emerged from the shadow.” A flippant person present inquired: “Did you ever chance, Miss F----, to observe that heavenly expression on his countenance as he was walking into church on a fine May morning?” A laugh was the reply. The ways of nature harmonized with his feelings in age as well as in youth. He could understand no estrangement. Gathering a wreath of white thorn on one occasion, he murmured, as he slipped it into the ribbon which bound the golden tresses of his youthful companion,

“And what if I enwreathed my own? ’Twere no offence to reason; The sober hills thus deck their brows To meet the wintry season.”

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

III.

“Ah! well, and so you are going to carry the French birds back!” exclaimed the old keeper Jack, with a loud, coarse laugh, as he leaned against one of the century-old trees in Windsor forest. “Well, well, so be it, my friends; but give us a little drop to drink,” he added in a jocular but self-important tone. As he said these words, he familiarly slapped the shoulder of one of the falconers, who was engaged in fastening the chains again to the feet of the tiercelets, whilst his comrades cut off the heads of the game taken, and threw them as a reward to the cruel birds, who devoured them with avidity.

“After a while,” replied the falconer a little impatiently. “Wait till our work is done, father Jack; you are always in a hurry--to drink. We will take our glass together now directly. See that troop of birds! They must first be chained and put with the others.”

“Well, well!” replied Jack, “provided we lose nothing by waiting. These are beautiful birds, if they do come from France.”

“No, no, you shall lose nothing by waiting,” cried the second falconer. “Come here; I will let you taste a liquid that these birds have brought over under their wings, and we will see then if you have ever drunk anything equal to it since you drew on your boots in the service of his majesty.”

And he poured out of a canteen that hung from his shoulder-belt a very acid gin, filling, until it foamed over, a large pewter cup, which he handed to father Jack.

It was swallowed at one draught.

“Oh! superb, superb!” cried the old keeper, returning the cup and smacking his lips. “During the five-and-forty years past that I have had the honor of keeping Windsor, I have drunk nothing better. Let’s go! That strengthens a man’s courage and warms up his old blood! I believe the deer will give us a hard drive to-day; I have seen the tracks of fourteen or fifteen at least.” And saying this, he remounted his old wind-broken mare.

“Wait, father Jack, wait for us! We will all go together,” exclaimed the gens de l’equipage; for Jack contributed much to their amusement. When they had mounted their horses, they followed the keeper, getting off a hundred jokes on the old mare, to which he was much attached.

They very soon passed by two young lords who had halted near the verge of the forest, and were engaged in conversation.

One of them held in leash four beautiful greyhounds, especial favorites of the king because of their great sagacity and swiftness in the chase. Their keeper, however, was obliged to use the lash, in order to stop their clamorous baying.

“You have seen her, then?” he remarked to his companion.

“Yes, I have seen her down yonder. She crossed the road with all of her ladies,” replied the latter, who belonged to Wolsey’s household and wore his livery. “She was dressed in a black velvet cap and green riding-habit and she is really charming!”

“Well, my poor friend,” replied the other, “but do you know I have serious fears that your cardinal will soon fall into disfavor? But a moment ago, as they passed by here, I heard the Duke of Norfolk remark to a lady that the red cloak was decidedly out of style, and altogether it was at this time so completely used up that he did not think it could ever again be mended. The lady smiled maliciously, and said he was right--she believed the green mantle would eventually end by tearing the red to pieces! And pointing to the young Anne Boleyn, who was not far off, she made a sign that left no doubt on my mind it was that lady she meant to designate as the destroyer.”

“Truly,” replied the young domestic,[137] “what you tell me is anything but encouraging. And so our dear duke must have his finger in the pie! I shall be very sorry for all this if it happens, because my own clothes, are made of scarlet, you see; and when one has succeeded, in the course of time, in getting a suit well made up, he doesn’t like the trouble of having to commence again and make it over.”

As he said this a cloud of dust arose, and a troop of horsemen passed at full gallop and with a terrible hue and cry.

“My dogs! my dogs!” cried the king in the midst of the crowd. “Let loose my dogs! The deer makes for the ponds. Let them hasten to tell the ladies, that they may be in at the death.”

He disappeared like a flash of lightning, of which we obtain but a glimpse ere it is gone. The shrill notes of the hunter’s horn resounded from afar, awaking countless echoes through the forest.

“Let us go,” exclaimed the two young men simultaneously. “We will then get rid of these accursed hounds.”

“To the ponds! To the ponds!” they cried. “The ladies, to the ponds! The ladies, to the ponds!” And they started on, laughing and shouting.

“What is that you are shouting down there?” cried a huntsman from a distance, whose horse had just made him roll in the dust.

“To the ponds! My lord, to the ponds!” they cried.

The retinue surrounding the Duke of Suffolk put whip to their horses and followed in a sweeping gallop. From every side of the hills surrounding these ponds there appeared, at the same moment, troops of eager hunters, panting and covered with dust. The different roads traversing the forest in every direction converged and met on the banks of the ponds that slept in the basin thus formed.

The ladies had already assembled, and nothing could have been more entertaining than the rapid and eager movements of the remainder of the hunters as they came galloping up. The king arrived before any of the others. He excelled in exercises of this kind, and took great delight in ending the chase in a brilliant manner by shooting the deer himself. On this occasion he had decided that, contrary to the usual custom, it should be taken alive; consequently, they hastened to spread in every direction the nets and fillets.

In this case the skill of the hunters consisted in driving the game into the snare.

Very soon the deer made his appearance, followed by a multitude of hounds, who pursued him so furiously, and crowded so closely one against the other, that, to use a familiar expression of the hunters, they could have been covered with a table-cloth.

At sight of the nets the beautiful animal paused for an instant. He shook his horns menacingly, and stamped the ground with his feet; then suddenly, feeling already the scorching breath of the infuriated pack of hounds about to seize him, he made a desperate effort, and, leaping at a single bound the entire height of the fillets, threw himself into the lake. Instantly a loud and deafening shout arose, while the furious hounds, arrested in their course by the nets, uttered the most frightful howlings on seeing their prey escape.

“My cross-bow!” cried the king. “Quick! my cross-bow!” and he drew it so skilfully that at the first shot he pierced the flank of the poor animal, who immediately ceased to swim.

Satisfied with his brilliant success, the king, after having heard the plaudits of the ladies and received the congratulations of the hunters, proceeded to the pavilion, constructed of evergreens and foliage, as elegant as it was spacious, which he had had erected in the midst of the forest, in order to dine under cover.

The Duchess of Suffolk did the honors of the festival, taking the place of Queen Catherine, who, under the pretext of bad health, declined appearing at these hunting parties, the noisy sports having become insupportable to her.

Meanwhile the courtiers were greatly excited by observing a roll of paper the extremity of which projected from the right pocket of the king’s hunting-jacket; on one of the leaves, a corner of which was turned down, two words were visible--the name of “Wolsey” and that of “traitor.” Each one sought to approach the king or pass behind him in order to assure himself of the astonishing fact, of which they had the temerity to whisper mysteriously together.

But in spite of all their efforts, they were unable to discover anything more; the day and the festival ended with numerous conjectures--the fears and hopes excited in the minds of that court where for so long the learned favorite had ruled with as much authority as the king himself.

* * * * *

At daybreak on the morning succeeding the festival the gates were thrown open, and a carriage, bearing the royal arms and colors, drove from the great courtyard of Windsor Palace.

While the postilion trotted leisurely along, looking around from time to time as he wonderingly reflected why the horse on his right grew constantly lean in spite of the generous addition he had made to his rations, the two occupants of the carriage engaged in the following conversation:

“It is cold this morning,” said one of them, wrapping his cloak more closely about him.

“Yes; and how this fog and the heavy dew covering the earth remind one of the bivouac!”

“It does indeed,” responded Norfolk to his companion; “but such souvenirs are always agreeable, and carry us back to the happiest days of life--years spent amid the tumult and vicissitudes of the camp. Eighteen! that impulsive, impetuous age, when presumptuous courage rushes headlong into danger, comprehending nothing of death; when reckless intrepidity permits not a moment’s reflection or hesitation, transported by the ardent desire of acquiring glory; the intoxicating happiness of a first success--such are the thrilling emotions, the brilliant illusions of youth, which we shall experience no more!” And the old warrior sorrowfully bowed his head.

“Ah! well, others replace them,” replied Suffolk.

“Yes, to be displaced and disappear in their turn,” answered the duke, brushing back the white locks the wind had blown over his forehead, on which appeared a deep scar.

“Well, my lord,” exclaimed the Duke of Suffolk, “do not spoil, by your philosophic reflections, all the pleasure we ought to enjoy in the thought that, thanks to the influence and good management of your charming niece, we are now going to inform Monseigneur Wolsey that the time has at last arrived for him to abdicate his portion of the crown.”

“Yes, perhaps so,” replied the duke. “And yet I don’t know. Yesterday, even, I detested this man, and desired most ardently his ruin; to-day--no, no; an enemy vanquished and prostrate at my feet inspires only compassion. Now I almost regret the injury my niece has done him and the blow she has struck.”

“Come, come, my lord, do you not know that an excess of generosity becomes a fault? We have nothing to regret,” continued Suffolk, with an exulting laugh. “I only hope he may not be acquitted (and thus be able to settle the scores with us afterwards); that Parliament will show him no mercy. Death alone can effectually remove him. The little memorandum you have there contains enough to hang all the chancellors in the world.”

“It is very certain,” replied the Duke of Norfolk, abstractedly turning the leaves of the book he held in his hand (the same that had excited such eager curiosity among the courtiers)--“it is certain this book contains grave accusations. Nevertheless, I do not think it has entirely accomplished the end proposed by the author.”

“In truth, no,” answered Suffolk; “for Wiltshire counted very certainly on replacing Wolsey. He will be astounded when he learns of the choice of the king.”

“Although Wiltshire is a relative of mine,” replied the duke, “I am compelled to acknowledge that it would have been impossible for the king to have made a better selection or avoided a worse one. Wiltshire is both ignorant and ambitious, while Thomas More has no superior in learning and merit. I knew him when quite a child, living with the distinguished Cardinal Morton, who was particularly attached to him. I remember very often at table Morton speaking of him to us, and always saying: ‘This young boy will make an extraordinary man. You will see it. I shall not be living, but you will then recall the prediction of an old man.’”

“Extraordinary!” replied Suffolk in his habitual tone of raillery; “most extraordinary! We are promised, then, a chancellor of a peculiar species! I suppose he will not be the least astonished at receiving so high and singular a favor. But, the devil! he will need to be a wonderful man. If he sustains himself on the throne ministerial, he will find a superior degree of wisdom necessary. Between the king, the queen, the council, Wiltshire, the Parliament, the clergy, and the people, I would not risk my little finger, brother-in-law of his majesty although I have the honor to be.”

And he began laughing as he looked at Norfolk, although, out of deference to him, he had not included in the list of difficulties the most formidable of all, and the one that carried all others in its train--his niece, Mlle. Anne.

“In the sense you use the word,” the duke answered coldly, “I believe, on the contrary, he is by no means an astute man. The intrigues of court will be altogether foreign to his character; but otherwise, in science and learning, he has no equal. He is in possession of all that a man is capable of acquiring in that direction, and no man has made a more profound study of the common law and the statutes of the kingdom. Morton placed him at Oxford, then at the Chancellors’ College at Lincoln, and he achieved the most brilliant success.”

“Admirable!” exclaimed Suffolk, laughing.

“Since that time,” pursued the Duke of Norfolk, “his reputation has continued to increase. When he lectured in S. Lawrence’s Church, the celebrated Dr. Grocyn and all of our London savants crowded eagerly to hear him.”

“Well! well! I knew nothing of these most agreeable particulars,” said Suffolk; “I only knew that it was he who induced Parliament to refuse the subsidy demanded for the Queen of Scots. If he continues to repeat such exploits as that, I venture to predict he will not be chancellor very long.”

“Oh! as to that,” replied the duke, “he is a man who will never compromise his conscience. Yes, yes, I recall distinctly the enraged expression of the present king’s father when Mr. Tyler came to inform him that the House of Commons had rejected his demand, and a beardless youth had been the cause of it. I have not forgotten, either, that Henry VII., of happy memory, well knew how to avenge himself by having an enormous fine imposed on Sir Thomas’ father.”

“Well,” replied Suffolk, “but it was not always expedient for the House of Commons to raise money in that way.”

The conversation was continued in this manner, as the hours glided by, until at length the glittering spires of the London churches appeared in the distance, and very soon the carriage had entered the narrow, gloomy streets of that great city.

* * * * *

Just at this time the soul of Wolsey was replenished with an inexpressible quietude and contentment. “At last,” he said to himself, “my enemies have all been confounded. I can no longer entertain a doubt respecting my power, after the most gracious manner in which the king has treated me at Grafton. I trust the influence of Anne Boleyn has diminished in the same proportion that mine has increased. Now she wants Sir Thomas Cheney recalled; but I shall not consent to that. Campeggio goes loaded with honorable presents. The influence of the mistress will soon cease, and that ambitious fool Wiltshire will lose the fruit of his intrigues.…” As the Cardinal of York consoled himself with these agreeable reflections, the arrival of the Venetian ambassador was announced.

“Ah! so he presents himself at last,” Wolsey exclaimed. “He has been a long time demanding an audience!” And he ordered him to be introduced.

Wolsey received him in the most gracious manner. After the usual compliments were exchanged, he proposed showing him the honors of the palace. He had spent his life in embellishing and adorning it with wonderful treasures of industry and art, of which he was the enlightened and generous protector, bestowing on them from his own purse the most liberal encouragement.

Numerous galleries, in which an exquisite taste had evidently directed even the most trivial ornamentation, were filled with paintings, statues, and precious antique vases. Superb Flanders tapestries gleamed on all sides, covered the panels, were disposed around the windows, and fell in heavy drapery before the openings of the doors to conceal the entrance. These precious cloths, then of inestimable value, were only found in the palaces of kings. They usually represented some historical or poetical subject; and sometimes landscapes and the rarest flowers were wrought and tinted with reflections of gold. Finally, Wolsey took occasion to point out, among all these treasures, the presents he had received at different times from the various princes of Europe who had sought to secure his influence.

Charmed with the order, taste, and beauty that reigned throughout the palace, the Italian admired everything, surprised to find in this foreign clime a condition of luxury that recalled the memory, always pleasing, yet sometimes sad, of his own country.

“Alas!” he exclaimed at length, “we also were rich and happy, and reposed in peace and security in our palaces, before this war in which we have been so unfortunate as to rely on the King of France for assistance. He has abandoned us; and now, compelled to pay an enormous tribute, the republic finds itself humiliated in the dust beneath the sceptre of the haughty emperor!”

“Such is the right of the conqueror,” replied Wolsey. “You are fortunate, inasmuch as he is forced to use that right with moderation.”

“It seems a heavy burden to us, this moderation!” replied the ambassador. “He not only exacts immense sums of money, but compels us to surrender territory we have conquered with our blood. Florence is placed under the dominion of the Medici, and all of our Italian princes are reduced to a condition of entire dependence.”

“Which, of course, they will shake off at the first opportunity,” interrupted Wolsey. “Charles V. is too shrewd not to foresee that. Be assured he will endeavor to secure your good-will, because your support is indispensable to enable him to resist the formidable power of the Sultan Soliman, and the invasions of the barbarians subject to his authority.”

“In that we have placed our last hope. If our services can be made available, then from vanquished enemies we may become united allies. Already the emperor foresees it; for he overwhelms Andrew Doria and the republic of Genoa with favors. He seems to have forgotten the injuries he suffered from Sforza; he received him most affably at court, and promised him the Princess of Denmark, his niece, in marriage.”

“I am informed,” said Wolsey, “that he is deeply afflicted by the death of the Prince of Orange.”

“Very much,” replied the ambassador. “The prince was a valiant captain. He leaves no children; his titles and landed property will descend to the children of his sister Rénée, the Countess of Nassau.”

“And they are all German princes who have thrown themselves headlong into the Lutheran heresy. They will endeavor to cast off the yoke of the emperor, and become altogether independent.”

“They have no other intention,” replied the ambassador; “and by separating from the Church of Rome they hope more surely to effect their purpose. However, the decree laid before the diet against the religious innovations has passed by a large majority.”

“Yes,” replied Wolsey; “but you see the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Dukes of Luneburg, and the Prince d’Anhalt are all leagued against the church, with the deputies of fourteen imperial cities, and are designated by no other name than that of Protestant.”

“I am aware of that,” replied the ambassador. “It will greatly increase the difficulties in carrying out the emperor’s secret project,” he continued after a moment’s silence. “Perhaps, however, he may succeed in making the crown hereditary in his family.”

“That is what we shall have to prevent!” cried Wolsey vehemently, who, at the words of the ambassador, felt all his old hatred toward Charles V. revive. “We will never suffer it, neither will France. No, no; I am very certain France will never permit it.”

“Ah!” replied the ambassador, shaking his head with a doubtful air, either because he was not convinced, but more probably because he was well pleased to arouse against the conqueror of Venice the animosity of England (still, as he considered, entirely governed by the will of the minister who stood before him).

“I assure you of it most positively,” answered Wolsey; “and I wish you to bear it in mind.” And he regarded him with an expression of perfect confidence and authority.

“I hope it may be so,” said the ambassador in an abstracted manner. “We certainly desire nothing more.”

“Ah! if he had only you to oppose him,” answered Wolsey, resuming his usual haughtiness, “I should doubt of success. See where you stand,” he continued, with the secret satisfaction of national pride. “Invaded on all sides, Italy can oppose but a feeble barrier to the power of two such bold and daring pirates. Is it not a shame, then, to see these obscure and cruel robbers, sons of a Lesbian potter--two barbarians, in fact--reigning sovereigns of the kingdom of Algiers, which they have seized, and from whence they fearlessly go forth to destroy the Christian fleets on every sea? When would you be able to conquer these ocean pirates--you, who have but a gibbet for your couch and a halter for your vestment? Justice would be kept a long time waiting!”

The Italian reddened and bit his lip. He vainly sought words in which to reply, and was relieved of his embarrassment when the door opened and admitted the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.

They entered without the usual ceremonies or salutations, and Wolsey, surprised at seeing Suffolk, whom he had not met since the altercation at Blackfriars, regarded them with astonishment. He arose, however, and advanced toward them. Suffolk, with a disdainful gesture, referred him to the Duke of Norfolk.

Astonished at the coldness of the one, the brusque impoliteness of the other, and embarrassed by the presence of the ambassador, the cardinal stood motionless, undecided what to think or say.

“My lords,” he at length exclaimed, “what do you desire of me?”

“We want you to deliver up the seal of state,” replied Norfolk, without changing countenance.

“What do you say, my lord?” cried Wolsey, stupefied with astonishment.

“The king has ordered it,” continued the duke with the same imperturbable manner.

“The king! Can it be possible?” said Wolsey, dismayed, and in a voice almost inaudible. “The seal of state! And what have I done? What? Can this be true? No, my lord, no,” he suddenly exclaimed with an expression of indescribable terror; “it cannot be true! You have mistaken the king; I do not deserve any such treatment. I pray you let me see him; let me speak to him for a moment--one single moment. Alas! alas!”

And he glanced at the ambassador, who, astounded himself at first, and feeling himself out of place in the presence of this mighty downfall, had involuntarily withdrawn towards the door.

“It is no longer a question to be submitted to the king,” cried Suffolk in a threatening and defiant manner; “it is only necessary now to obey him, and he orders you instantly to deliver up the seal.”

“The order is imperative,” added Norfolk in a cold and serious manner. “I regret being charged with a commission which to you, my lord, must be so painful.”

He said no more. But Suffolk, base and jealous in his nature, was not ashamed to add to the humiliation of the unfortunate cardinal.

“Come, my good friend,” he said in an ironical voice, “why do you beg so imploringly? One would suppose we had demanded the apple of your eye. You have been putting the seal so long now on our purses and tongues, you ought not to be surprised nor annoyed that we feel like using it awhile ourselves.”

This cowardly insult exasperated Wolsey, but his courage was roused with his indignation.

“My Lord Suffolk,” he answered with dignity, “I am sorry for you and for the prompt manner in which you seem to forget in their misfortune those who in days of prosperity were always found ready to come to your assistance. I hope you may never experience how painful it is to endure a similar cruel ingratitude.”

He immediately withdrew, and returned with the richly-adorned casket containing the great seal of state.

Holding it in his trembling hand, he avoided Suffolk, and, advancing rapidly toward the Duke of Norfolk, handed it to him.

“My lord,” he said, “here are the seals of the kingdom of England. Let the king’s will be done. Since I received them from his hand, fifteen years ago, I am conscious of having done nothing to merit his displeasure. I trust he will one day deign to render me full justice, for I have never proved myself unworthy of his favor.”

As he uttered the last words, he was unable to restrain the tears which involuntarily arose to his eyes.

Although the cardinal was by no means a favorite with the Duke of Norfolk, he was moved with compassion, and sadly reflected that he had still more painful intelligence to communicate.

He glanced at his companion, but, fearing the bitter and poignant irony in which Suffolk never failed to indulge, he hastened to prevent it in order to spare Wolsey.

“My lord cardinal,” he said, “you ought to reflect that the king is too just and impartial to withdraw the favor he has so long bestowed on you without having weighed well the reasons and necessities requiring such a course. Nevertheless, his goodness has not abandoned you; he permits you to select such counsel as you may desire to defend you against the accusations presented against you to Parliament.”

“To Parliament!” murmured Wolsey, terror-stricken; for the duke’s last words suddenly disclosed the depth of the abyss into which he had fallen. “To Parliament!” he repeated. The shock he had experienced was so violent that his pride of character, the sense of personal dignity, the presence of his enemies, were all forgotten in a moment, and he abandoned himself to despair. Unable longer to sustain himself, he sank on his knees. “I am lost!” he cried, weeping and extending his hands toward his persecutors. “Have pity on me, my Lord Norfolk! I give up all to the king! Let him do with me what he will! Since he says I am culpable, although I have never had the intention, yet I will acknowledge that I am. But, alas! of what do they accuse me?”

“Of having violated the statutes of præmunire,” replied Norfolk.

“And betraying your country,” continued Suffolk, “by carrying on a secret correspondence with the King of France. You well remember that it was you who had me recalled at the moment when, having become master of Artois and Picardy, I had the Parisians trembling within their walls? Will you dare deny that you were the cause of it, and that it was the prière d’argent of Mme. Louise[138] induced you to give the order for me to retire? The king has been already long enough your dupe, and our duty was to enlighten him. As to the rest, my lord cardinal, you understand the proceedings; your advocate ought to be here, and you should immediately confer with him with regard to the other charges herein contained.”

As he said this, he threw on the cardinal’s table the bill of presentment, which contained no less than forty-four chief accusations.

They then took possession of all the papers they could find, carrying away the seal of state, and left Wolsey in a condition deserving pity.

As they retired, they proposed sending in the advocate, who was waiting in an adjoining apartment conversing with Cromwell.

“Ha! ha! you are here, then, Sir Cromwell,” said the Duke of Suffolk, laughing. “Go in, go in there at once,” he cried, pointing to the door of Wolsey’s cabinet. “The cardinal needs you; I fear he will be hard to console.”

Cromwell watched with great anxiety the course of events, and, not knowing to which side to turn, determined at least to secure for himself the appearance and merit of fidelity to his benefactor. Without reflecting on the consequences, he hastily replied that he would not leave Wolsey, would never abandon him, but follow him to the end.

“You will follow him to the end, eh?” replied Suffolk. “When you know his intended destination, I doubt very much if you will then ask to follow him.”

As he said this, he made a gesture giving Cromwell to understand that his master, besides losing place and power, was also in danger of losing his head.

“High treason, my dear sir, high treason!” cried Suffolk. “Do you hear me?”

“High treason?” repeated Cromwell slowly. “Ah! my lord duke, how could he be guilty?”

He hastened to rejoin Wolsey, whom he found bathed in tears and endeavoring to decipher the act of presentment.

“Ah! Cromwell,” exclaimed the unhappy cardinal on seeing him, “my dear friend, you have not then forsaken me! But, alas! I am lost. Read here for yourself--read it aloud to me; for my sight is failing.”

Cromwell seized the paper and commenced reading the accusation. On hearing that it was based principally on the violation of the statutes of præmunire,[139] Wolsey was unable to control his indignation.

“How,” he cried, “can the king be induced to sanction such unparalleled injustice? It is true that in receiving from the pope the title of legate, and exercising throughout the kingdom the authority conferred by that title, I have been brought in opposition to the precautionary statutes of King Richard; but still I have not violated them, since the king himself has sanctioned that power and recognized it by appearing in his own person before the court. Is he not more to blame, then, who desired and ordered it, than I, who have simply been made a party to it? I can prove this,” he cried--“yes, I can prove it; for I have still the letters-patent, signed by his own hand, and which he furnished me to that effect. Cromwell, look in my secretary; you will find them there.”

Cromwell opened the secretary, but found nothing.

“There is not a single paper here,” he said. “Where could you have placed them?”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the cardinal. “Then they have all been carried away! All!” he repeated. “I have no longer any means of defence; I am lost! They are all arrayed against me; they have resolved upon my death. O Henry! O my king! is it thus you forget in one moment the services I have rendered you? Cromwell,” he continued in a low voice and gloomy, abstracted manner--“Cromwell, I am lost!”

The same evening another messenger came to inform the unhappy cardinal the king wished to occupy, during the session of Parliament he was about to convene, his palace of York (the object of his care and pride), and that in leaving it he could retire to, and have at his disposal, a house about eight leagues from London, entirely abandoned, and belonging to the bishopric of Winchester.

* * * * *

The night, already far advanced, found Sir Thomas More still seated in his cabinet, conversing with the Bishop of Rochester, who had arrived at Chelsea very late that morning.

A light was burning on a long table encumbered with books and papers; several high-backed chairs, covered with black morocco, cast their shadows on the walls; a capacious rug of white sheep-skin was spread before the hearth, where the remains of a fire still burned in the grate.

Such was the simplicity of the home of Sir Thomas More.

“And why, my dear friend,” asked the Bishop of Rochester, “will you consent to take upon your shoulders so terrible a responsibility? Once become chancellor, have you fully considered that you will be surrounded by enemies, who will watch your every movement and pursue you even to your death? Have you reflected well that you acknowledge no other laws than those of your own conscience, and feel no remorse unless for not having spoken your views with sufficient candor? Is it thus you hope to resist--thus you hope to escape the snares that will continually surround you?”

“I fear nothing,” replied More; “for I believe in God! And you yourself--would you not blame such weakness? In refusing the king I refuse the queen. Would not Catherine then declare that the trusted servant, even he who had been called her friend, had sacrificed her interests to his love of ease? He had declared his life should be devoted to her cause, and now had abandoned and deprived her of the only hope of relief Providence seemed to have left her! No, Fisher, friendship has rights too sacred for me not to respect them.”

“Then,” cried the bishop, “if you respect the rights of friendship, listen to my appeal! I ask you to decline a dignity that will prove destructive to you. In the name of all that you hold most dear, in the name of all that is good and beautiful in nature, in the entire universe, I conjure you to refuse this fatal honor! It is more than probable the very seal they wish now to place in your hands will be very soon affixed to your death-warrant! Believe me, my friend, all will unite against you. A deep conviction has taken possession of my soul, and I see, I feel, the wrath of this prince, as violent as he is cruel, ready to fall upon your devoted head. You will be crushed in this struggle, too unequal to admit for an instant the hope of escape.”

“Ah! well,” replied More laughingly, “instead, then, of simply inscribing on my tombstone ‘Here lies Thomas More,’ there will appear in pompous style the inscription, ‘Here lies the Lord High Chancellor of England.’ Assuredly, I think that would sound much better, and I shall take care to bequeath my first quarter’s salary to defray the expense of so elegant an inscription.”

“More!” cried the Bishop of Rochester with impatience, “I cannot suffer you to jest on a subject of such grave importance. Do you, then, desire to die? Would you ruin yourself? Trust to my experience. I know the heart of Henry thoroughly; your attempt to save the queen will be vain, and you will inevitably be involved in her ruin. I conjure you, then, accept not this office. I will myself carry your refusal to the king.”

“No, no!” exclaimed More. “I have decided--decided irrevocably.”

“Irrevocably?” repeated Rochester, whom the thought reduced almost to despair. “More, I see it. You have become ambitious; the vainglory of the world, the fatal infatuation of its honors, have taken possession even of the soul of Thomas More! Your heart no longer responds to mine; your ear remains deaf to all my solicitations! Ah! well, since the desire of being honored among men, and to have them grovel at your feet, has made even you despise my counsel and advice, then listen, listen well, and God grant that I may be able to destroy in your heart the poison that pride has poured into it! You are willing to sacrifice to your vanity all the happiness, all the quiet and peace, of your future; know, then, what recompense will be meted out to you. Yesterday Wolsey was in a manner driven from his palace, and descended the Thames in a common boat, Cromwell alone accompanying him; for all have deserted him except his enemies, who, in order to enjoy his calamities, crowded the river in boats and followed after him. They hoped to see him arrested and carried to the Tower, the report having been circulated that he would be taken there. Wolsey--he whom you have so often seen make his appearance in Parliament, surrounded by an almost royal pomp and splendor--is now a fugitive, alone, abandoned, without defence, of the clamorous insults and bitter scorn of a populace always eager to feast their eyes on the ruins of fallen greatness. The air around him resounded with their maledictions. ‘Here is the man who fattened on the blood of the poor,’ they cried. ‘The taxes will be reduced now,’ exclaimed others, ‘since he will have no farther use for palaces and gardens’; and all, in their ignorance, abused him as the cause of the wrongs and oppressions which it was probably not in his power to have averted. At length, overwhelmed with insults and outrages, he was landed at Pultney, and, in order to escape the mob, was hurriedly conducted to his house at Asher, where he has been banished. Such is the reward you will receive in the service of an avaricious prince and a blind infatuated multitude!”

He paused, overcome by anxiety and excitement.

“My dear Fisher,” responded More, deeply moved, “our hearts and thoughts are always in unison; you have only represented to me a second time the picture I had already painted myself.”

“Indeed!” cried Rochester; “and do you still hesitate?”

“What!” replied More, resolutely, “and does it require so much hesitation to sacrifice one’s self? I would not wish to live dishonored; and I should consider myself guilty if I forgot my duty toward my sovereign and the honor of England!”

“So you are resolved! Ah! well, let your sacrifice be accomplished,” said the saintly bishop; “but then may God, whose goodness is infinite, hear my vows and grant my prayer: may the same dangers unite us; side by side with you may my last sigh be breathed out with yours; and if the life of the aged man is not extinguished before that of the man in his prime, then may the stroke of death cut us down at the same moment!”

“My dear friend,” cried More, “the many years that have passed over your head and blanched your locks have not yet ripened your judgment, since you can believe it possible that the king’s anger, although it may one day fall on me, could ever be permitted to overtake you, the counsellor of his youth, whom he has so often called his father! No, I can conceive of no such fearful possibility; the wise, the virtuous Bishop of Rochester can never be involved in the misfortune that would crush Thomas More.”

“Ah!” replied Fisher, “but I shall understand how to call down on my head the vengeance with which he may hesitate to strike me. Believe me, More, a man scarcely reaches the prime of life before he feels himself, as it were, daily beginning to fail. Just as in the autumn days the sun’s light rapidly diminishes, so the passing years despoil his body of physical strength and beauty; but it has no effect upon his soul. The heart--no, the heart never grows old! It loves, it suffers, as in the early morning of life; and when at last it has reached the age when wisdom and experience have destroyed the illusions of the passions, friendship, strengthened by so many blessed memories, reigns there alone and entire, like a magnificent flower that has been sheltered and preserved from the destroying worm.

“Having almost arrived at the end of his career, he often takes a survey of the road he has passed over. He loves to recall his joys and his sorrows, and to weep again for the friends he has lost. I know that presumptuous youth imagines that the prudence he refuses to obey is the only good that remains after the labors of life have been terminated by time.

“Your feelings are not in unison with those of an old man. It is because you do not understand them. He lives in memory, and you in hope. You pursue a phantom, a chimera, the nothingness of which he has already experienced; you accuse him, he complains of you, and often you do not deign to regard the last bitter tear that is drawn from him at the sight of the tomb into which he must soon descend.”

“Oh!” exclaimed More, “you whom I venerate as a father and love as a friend--can you doubt for one moment the truth of a heart entirely devoted to you? Confirmed by your example, guided and sustained by your counsels, what have I to fear? Banish from your mind these sad presentiments. Why should this dread of the future, that perhaps after all is only chimerical, destroy the extreme happiness I enjoy in seeing you?”

For a long time they continued to converse, until the light of early morning at length succeeded the uncertain glimmer of the candle, now flickering in its socket.

“My friend, I must leave you,” said Rochester. “The day already dawns. God grant the sun may not this morning arise on the beginning of your misfortunes!”

“Oh! no,” replied More, “this is my fête to-day. S. Thomas will pray for and protect us.”

The good bishop then descended to the courtyard and mounted his mule; but More, unwilling to give him up, walked on by his side as far as the road followed the course of the river. When they reached the cross-road where the bishop turned off, More shook his hand and bade him farewell.

A great wooden cross stood near the roadside, on which was suspended a wreath of withered leaves; and More, seating himself on one of the stone steps upon which the cross was elevated, followed the good bishop with his eyes until he had disappeared in the distance.

He then rested his head sadly on his hands, and recalled to mind all this venerable friend had said to him.

“He is right!” he mentally exclaimed. “How clear-sighted his friendship renders him! Into what a sea of agitation, malignity, and hatred I shall be plunged! And all for what? In order that I may be lord chancellor of the kingdom through which this road passes. Behold, then, beside the highway,” he added, looking around him, “my lord the great high chancellor, shivering in the cold morning air just as any other man would do who had gone out at this hour without putting on his cloak!… Yes, I can understand how social distinctions might cause us to scorn other men, if they exempted us from the inconveniences of life. We might then perhaps believe that we had different natures. But let us change our garments, and we fall at once, and are immediately confounded with the common herd.”

While making these sad reflections upon the follies of human nature, More arose and returned to the house, where his wife and children and his aged father--simple and peaceable old man, happy in the favor of the king and the virtues of his son--were all wrapped in profound slumber.

In a spacious apartment, of which the dark and worm-eaten ceiling, ragged tapestry, and dilapidated windows presented the appearance of a desolate and abandoned edifice, a fragment of broken furniture still remained, upon which was placed a small piece of bread. Numberless crumbs strewed the dusty floor and were eagerly devoured by a little mouse, but recently the only inhabitant of the place. To-day, however, he had the company of a man whose extraordinary mind had conceived vast projects and executed great and useful enterprises--the Archbishop of York, Cardinal Wolsey. Seated upon the edge of a wooden stool which he had placed in the embrasure of a window, he held his hands crossed one upon the other, and bitterly reflected upon his unhappy destiny. Regrets, of which he felt all the impotency, pressed upon his agitated soul. It seemed to him that he still heard the cries and menaces of the furious populace that exulted in his distress, and to which perhaps, alas! he would again be subjected. At one time filled with courage and resolution, at another humble and cast down, the anxieties of his mind seemed wholly without measure. His eyes, wearied with straying listlessly over the plain which extended before him, beheld only a single laborer ploughing the field. “Man is small,” said he, “in presence of immensity; the point which he forms in space is imperceptible. Entire generations have passed away, have gathered the fruits of the earth, and now sleep in their native dust. My name has been unknown to them. Millions of creatures suffer, where I exist free from pain. Coming up from the lowest ranks of society, I have endeavored to elevate myself above them. And what has my existence signified to them? Has not each one considered himself the common centre around which all the others must revolve?”

Here Wolsey, impelled by extreme hunger, approached the little worm-eaten table, and took up the morsel of dry bread left from his repast the evening before.

Just as he was raising it to his mouth a man entered, dressed in the most scrupulous manner, and enveloped in an ample cloak of the finest material.

Wolsey was startled, and gazed at him in astonishment.

“What! Arundel,” he exclaimed at last, “what could have brought you to this place?”

“Yourself,” replied Arundel, in a frank, abrupt manner. “You have lost everything, and have never informed me by a word! Do you think, then, I have forgotten all you have done for me?”

“The favors I have conferred on you were so slight,” replied Wolsey, “that it would have been natural you should have no longer remembered them, especially since many who owe their wealth, and perhaps their lives, to me have so completely forgotten it.”

“I have never learned how to flatter nor to wear velvet gloves,” replied Arundel; “but I am still more ignorant of the art of forgetting past favors. No, it has never been my custom to act thus; and you have offended me more than you imagine by proving you believed me capable of such baseness.”

As he said this, Arundel took from his bosom an immense purse of red satin, filled with gold, and laid it on the dilapidated table beside a package of clothing which he had thoughtfully added to his gift.

“There are no acknowledgments to be made,” he remarked; “it is essential first of all that you be made comfortable. You can return this when it suits your convenience. Now let us say no more about it.”

“Alas!” cried Wolsey, “are you not aware, then, that I may never be able to return it? They will divide my ecclesiastical benefices among them. The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Wiltshire have already been put in possession of the revenue from my bishopric of Winchester. This is the only food I have had since I came here,” he added, showing him the bread he still held in his hand.

“Indeed! It is not very delicate,” replied Arundel; “but it is your own fault. When one has friends, he should not neglect them, and that is just what you have done.”

“Misfortune often renders us unjust,” answered the cardinal, deeply moved by the generous frankness and brusque proceedings of Arundel, whom he had always, until now, regarded as being haughty and ungrateful, because he had never observed him among his crowd of fawning courtiers. “I must confess that I could not endure the thought of being repulsed by those for whom I have done everything. I do not believe that among the immense number of those who daily wearied me with protestations of their ostentatious regard there is to-day one who has condescended to think of me in my misfortunes. You only have thought to succor me in my distress--you, who, without my being aware of it, have doubtless been all the while the most sincere among them all.”

“I cannot believe,” replied Arundel, without appearing to notice the acknowledgments with which Wolsey continued to overwhelm him, “that they would all thus have abandoned you had they known the extreme severity with which you have been treated; it would be too foul a blot upon the name of humanity. Notwithstanding they laugh at our misfortunes, I think it appears worse to us than it really is. No, be assured you will find some faithful friends who will defend you. For instance, Sir Thomas More, your successor, whose fortune you have made, cannot fail to use his influence in your favor.”

“More owes me nothing,” replied the cardinal. “I have not made his fortune; when I proposed him to the king as Treasurer of the Exchequer, he had for a long time been acquainted with his rare merits. Knowing that the appointment would prove both useful and agreeable to the king, I recommended him to make it; but really it was more for the king’s benefit than More’s. Besides, I am aware that More is one of the most zealous partisans of Catherine. Thus, you see, there exists no reason why he should feel inclined to assist me. I am only surprised that a man of his exalted integrity should accept a position where he will necessarily be compelled to act in opposition to his convictions.”

“It is with the eager desire of ultimately being able to convert all the world and to correct all consciences,” replied Arundel with a smile of derision; for he never lost an occasion of ridiculing the importance which many attach to political intrigues, and, as they say, to the public good, in whose management they pretend to take a hand, in order to win admiration at any cost for their talents. “And verily, he will find it difficult to sustain his position, unless he becomes the very humble servant of my Lady Anne, regent of the kingdom; for nothing is done but what she ordains, and her uncle, whom she has appointed chief of the council, executes the orders which the king claims the honor of communicating to him. Oh!” continued Arundel in the same ironical tone, and without perceiving the painful effect his words produced on the unhappy cardinal, “truly it is a very great advantage, and above all highly honorable for England, to see her king put in tutelage to the caprices of a woman as weak and vain as she is arrogant. If he was absolutely determined to go into leading-strings, why did he not beseech the good Queen Catherine to take charge of him? She, at least, would have been careful to hold the reins equally on both sides, so that the swaddling could have been made to walk straight.”

“A swaddling,” repeated Wolsey, “… who devoured his nurse!”

“Hold, my dear lord,” continued Arundel; “it cannot be denied that you have made a great mistake in encouraging the king in his divorce project--yes, a great mistake, which they now begin to discover. But I do wrong, perhaps, to reproach you, since you are the first to be punished for your manner of seeing things. But listen to me; as for myself, if, in order to avoid dying of starvation, or being compelled to subsist on just such bread as you have there, I had been obliged to accept the place of lord chancellor, on the day when I found myself relieved of so burdensome and exacting an office I should have cried aloud: ‘Thank heaven that I am again seated by my own fireside, where in peace and quiet I can get up at my leisure and contemplate passing events.’ For myself, these are my principles: to have nothing to do is the first essential to happiness; nothing to lose, the second; nothing to disturb or annoy, the third; and upon these rest all the others. Such is my system--the best of all systems, the only.…”

Arundel would have still continued explaining the numerous theories he had originated for securing happiness for an indefinite length of time, perhaps, but he suddenly perceived that Wolsey no longer heard him, but, with his head sunk on his breast, seemed absorbed in thought.

“Well, my lord,” said Arundel, “you are not listening to me, it seems? Really, it is not worth while to explain to you the true method of being happy.”

“Ah! my dear Arundel,” replied Wolsey, aroused by the exclamation of his visitor, “how could you expect me to think of profiting by your lessons, or to make an application of your theories of happiness, when at this very moment, perhaps, I have been condemned to death by Parliament?”

“There is no proof of that,” replied Arundel. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil--gloomy apprehensions profit us nothing; they do not delay the progress of events; on the contrary, they send them on us in advance, and only serve to aggravate the consequences. Moreover, I must not forget to suggest that if it would be more agreeable for you to be with your friends, there are many who will be happy to receive you, and offer you a mansion as commodious, although less sumptuously furnished, than your palace of York or that of Hampton Court, the latter of which I have never liked since you added the gallery.”

“What is that gallery to me now? I surrender it up to you,” said the cardinal.

The endless arguments of Arundel began to weary him exceedingly. In spite of the extreme gratitude he felt for his sincere and generous offers, Wolsey could not divest himself of the conviction that Arundel belonged to that class who, while in other respects full of good impulses and laudable intentions, are so entirely wanting in tact and delicacy, and contend so urgently for their own opinions, that the consolations they would force you to adopt, far from alleviating your sufferings, only augment them and render their sympathy irksome and oppressive. This feeling was experienced by Wolsey, uncertain as he was what fate was reserved for him, trembling even for his life, while Arundel endeavored to paint for him a minute picture of the happiness and tranquillity enjoyed by a man living in peace and quiet, with nothing to disturb him in the enjoyment of his possessions.

“Alas!” he exclaimed at length impatiently, “why has not kind Providence blessed me with a nature like yours? I should be less unhappy, nor every instant see yawning before me the terrible depths of the precipice on which I now stand. I could catch, at least, at the branches of absurdity, until the moment when I should be dashed to pieces! But no, I cannot; I am too well acquainted with men and things to expect the slightest assistance. They are always ready to strike those who are falling, but never attempt to raise them up. Yesterday, only yesterday, the commissioners of Parliament demanded of me the letters-patent I had received from the king in order to exercise my authority as legate, although every one knew that, as he had given them to me, it was his right alone to take them away again. Ah! well, they have persisted in their demand, and have refused to believe me on oath! No, I will indulge in no more illusions; my enemies have sworn my death, and they will obtain it! And the king, the king my master, after fifteen years of the most faithful service, he delivers me up, helpless and defenceless, to all the cruelties their hatred may inspire; and yet you, Arundel, think that I should still indulge in hope?”

“But all this will be arranged, I tell you,” replied Arundel with an imperturbable coolness. “You should not trouble yourself in advance, because, if the worst should happen, it will change nothing; and if it does not, your present suffering will have been needless.”

As Arundel finished this wise reasoning, Cromwell appeared.

He came from London, where he had been, he said, to defend Wolsey before the Parliament.

On seeing him enter the cardinal was seized with an uncontrollable alarm, thinking his fate had been decided.

“Cromwell!” he cried, and could say no more.

“Ah!” replied Cromwell, “you should not thus give way to your apprehensions, although.…” He paused on seeing the cardinal grow deadly pale. “You need have no uneasiness, because the king has sent Norris to bid me assure you he would take you under his protection.”

“I have been condemned, then!” cried the unhappy Wolsey. “Speak, Cromwell, speak; conceal nothing from me. I am not a child,” he added with firmness.

“You have been condemned by the Star Chamber, but the king says he will have the bill rejected in the House of Commons,” replied Cromwell.

“He will not do it!” cried Wolsey, the tears coursing rapidly down his cheeks. “He will sacrifice me, Cromwell, I know it; he has no longer any use for me, and my past services have left no impression on his mind. But how far has their rage carried them? To what have they condemned me?”

“You have been placed beyond the protection of the king, and all your property confiscated.”

“The king’s protection is already recovered,” gently interrupted Arundel, who had listened until this time in silence. “As for the confiscation, that will be more difficult, inasmuch as they are generally more ready to take than to give. However, my dear cardinal, you should despair of nothing; then let us try and console you. They cannot confiscate me, who have never had anything to do with the gentlemen of the council. I have a good house, an excellent cook; you will come home with me, and, my word for it, you shall want for nothing.”

“Arundel,” interrupted the cardinal, “I am deeply grateful for your kind offer; but believe me, they will not leave me the choice of profiting by it.”

“Why not? why not?” exclaimed Arundel. “The devil! Why, these gentlemen of the council are not wild beasts! A little avaricious, a little ambitious, a little envious, and slightly selfish, but they are at least as accommodating as the devil!”

“No!” replied Wolsey.

“I assure you, before receiving the king’s message,” said Cromwell, “I was in despair, for they spoke of having you arrested and immediately urging the accusation of high treason; but since the king has declared you under his protection, I do not believe that all is entirely lost. Norris has repeated to me twenty times: ‘Say positively to the cardinal that the king advises him not to be troubled, and to remember that he can give him, any moment he pleases, far more than they can take away.’”

“I hope I may be mistaken, dear Cromwell,” replied the cardinal with a sombre air; “but I fear a momentary compassion only has excited the king to say what you tell me, and it will not be long before that wicked night-bird[140] will again have possession of his ear. She will not fail to use her influence in defaming me and blackening anew all my actions, until the king will cease to oppose the wicked designs they have conceived against me.”

Saying this, he buried his face in his hands and sank into a state of despondency impossible to describe.

Cromwell made no reply, and Arundel silently took his leave, inwardly congratulating himself, as he returned home, upon the tranquil and happy life he knew so well how to lead, and censuring those who would not imitate his example; without once reflecting that few were in a position so agreeable or independent as his, and consequently were not able to enjoy themselves equally nor after his own deliberate fashion.

TO BE CONTINUED.

SINE LABE CONCEPTA

Predestined second Eve. For this conceiv’d Immaculate--not lower than the first. Chosen beginner in the loss reversed, And mediatress in the gain achieved, When, the new angel, as the old, believed, Thy hearkening should bless whom Eve’s had curst. And therefore we, whose bondage thou hast burst, Grateful for our inheritance retrieved, Must deem this jewel in thy diadem The brightest--hailing thee alone “all fair,” Nor ever soil’d with the original stain: Alone, save Him whose heart-blood bought the gem With peerless grace preventive none might share-- Redemption’s perfect end, all else tho’ vain.

VILLAGE LIFE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

“I think I shall start for New Hampshire to-morrow,” I said. “Do you know anything about L----, in Cheshire County?”

Jones, who had been meditatively examining the coloring of a richly-tinted meerschaum, sat up erect at this question, with a sudden access of vigor.

“L----?” he said. “By George! there’s where Agnes Cortland lives now in the summer.”

It was the middle week of July. Aspirations for one whiff of the breeze among the hills had become irresistible. We were sitting together, Jones and I, in my room up-town after luncheon. Jones was a young New York artist in his first season after his return from Italy the previous autumn. He, too, was about to start on a sketching tour through Vermont, in which State his people lived. He was late leaving town, but money was not easy with him--a handsome young fellow of that golden age between twenty-three and twenty-four, when one is apt to think he needs only a very short-handled lever to move the world. He was of medium height, but squarely and powerfully built; with a face good-natured, but very resolute, in expression. A stranger would not be likely to take a liberty with him. I had a strong notion that Jones would make a better soldier than artist, if there were any question of blows being struck for the country, which happily there is not. But hitherto I had shrewdly kept that opinion to myself. Considerably older than he was, and engaged in another occupation, circumstances had thrown us a good deal together. Intimacy had brought confidence, and confidence, at his age, meant--nothing more nor less than it always does under such circumstances--the unbosoming of his love affairs. How few there are who have not found themselves in the same position, either as actors or sympathetic chorus, or in time as both! What countless dramas of passion are continually being put upon the private stage before this limited audience!

Now, it is not the purpose of this paper to pursue the history of Jones’ captivity at the hands of the tender goddess through all the infinitesimal and transcendental chapters a first romance runs into. More placid emotions and observations, befitting the serenity of approaching middle age, are in store for the reader. And in fact the history of Jones’ passion is still incomplete. But so much of it may be given as fell within the purview of our New Hampshire observations.

Jones was poor--prosaic fact, which robs life of so many compensations as we grow old. But at twenty-three we spurn the mastery of the glittering dross--that is, if Congress gives us any to spurn! Let us say rather of the flimsy paper. At that age of our flowing life we coin money at our own mint; or, more truly, draw limitless drafts on the Bank of the Future. Happy the man who meets them when they fall due! Jones, at least, had no doubts as to his future solvency. But his plans were vague--very!

Agnes Cortland was the daughter of a railroad director--or two or three directors rolled into one--and had the world, or at least the New York world, to choose from. Poor Jones! his story might almost be predicted from the start. Yet this inheritor of the (latent) genius of any half-dozen masters, ancient or modern, you choose to name, believed, perhaps with some reason, that this daughter of Dives liked him; and as for himself, he vowed with hyperbole that he adored her. They had frequently met--their families then being neighbors in the country--before he went to Italy, where he had spent two years studying and wandering about. No avowal of affection had been made between them, but he had gone away with the consciousness many little signs and tokens give that he was not disliked. Since his return a year ago some meetings had taken place--at rarer intervals--in society. At an evening party some months before she had given him, he said, a slight but unmistakable opportunity of declaring himself, if he had wished to do so.

“But I did not take it,” said Jones, who, spite of his being in love, was as manly a young fellow as one could meet. “She knows I am poor; and I don’t want to be thought a fortune-hunter.”

I laughed at this quixotic declaration.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “you fly at high game. But I should not let the auri sacra fames interfere, one way or the other, with my tender emotions. If I did so at all, Plutus would have his due weight in the scale, believe me!”

“What would you do?” said Jones. This was in one of those “tobacco parliaments” in early spring--if so they might be called, where one, only, smoked, and the other looked on with sympathy; for I had abandoned the “weed” some years before--hardly of such profundity, nor yet so silent, as those Mr. Carlyle speaks of. Jones had recurred to his usual topic of hopes and perplexities.

“Do?” I answered, looking at him retrospectively, as it were, as if contemplating my own departed youth, as he sat there in his favorite attitude after dinner, gracefully balancing one leg over the arm of my chintz-covered easy-chair, while I was stretched out on the sofa. “Ah! that is an easy question to propound, but not so easy to answer. At your age I should not think you would need much prompting. But if you ask me, I would say, leave it alone! Love is a luxury for the rich or the evenly-mated poor. But you are not likely to take that advice. A good deal would depend on the reinforcements she might bring to the struggle. A woman is not always a passive instrument in those affairs, but sometimes has a will of her own. I have never seen your fair one, and know nothing about her. But if she be a girl of some strength of character, and her love do not prove a mere school-girl’s fancy, she might possibly gain her father’s consent. But it is not a promising adventure, at the best; and I would not recommend you to embark your hopes in it. Keep clear of serious entanglements until you see your way before you. Above all, avoid anything like a clandestine engagement. It will not add to your happiness or hers. I don’t suppose you will think this a very encouraging opinion. But there may be circumstances in your favor I know nothing of. Marry her, if you can, and can get the father’s consent; and go into “railroading” with him in his office. You will make more money at that than you are ever likely to do sticking little dabs of color on a piece of canvas.”

I saw Jones wince at this mercenary view of his art. But he bore it like a man, and continued silent. The suggestion of such a change of vocation did not appear to surprise him, though it was plain no active intention of throwing up his art had yet entered his mind. The fact is, Jones is one of those young men--not inconsiderable in numbers in the profession--who “have a studio,” but are not likely ever to send many master-pieces out of it. Developing some precocious talent for drawing when they are boys, and seizing with boyish eagerness upon the suggestion of being “an artist,” they are offered by fond but undiscerning parents upon the altar of art. But they never advance beyond a mechanical dexterity in putting conventional scenes upon canvas. They haven’t a spark of that genius that is often observed where other pursuits have prevented a devotion to the profession. Eventually they abandon altogether the study or practice of their art, or sink into drudges for the picture or chromo dealers, or grind out a living as drawing-masters, or--Heaven knows how. I will not say that Jones was altogether deficient in talent, but the talent that makes an agreeable accomplishment for the rich amateur is a different thing from that which will pay the piper or win eminence in the art. Jones painted his pictures for the autumn and spring exhibitions, and had one or two on view in one of the up-town windows. But at Du Vernet’s big sale I know that a clever little bit of coloring on which he had spent some time was knocked down to a chromo-dealer for sixteen dollars! How was he going to live on such prices? And as for marrying Agnes Cortland--it was simply preposterous to think of it. Nor is this redundancy of young native artists on whom neither genius nor fashion smiles confined to New York alone. In Boston, which is the only other city boasting of a native school of art, the same low prices prevail. It is disheartening; but a more disheartening thing still is that those prices often represented the actual value of the picture.

Jones was imperfectly educated, though his continental travel had made him a fair linguist. He certainly drew very little inspiration from the antique, for he knew next to nothing about it; nor had he much of that sympathy with the undercurrent of life, and its relations with nature, which gives significance to common things. He had a fondness for pleasure which, of course, did not contribute to his success. Yet he was one of those young fellows whom it is impossible to meet without liking. He was frank, honorable, and spirited, and had a robust shrewdness about him in dealing with men and things that made him a pleasant companion. That he would eventually choose a more active kind of life--and probably succeed in it--I was half-convinced, and my advice about “railroading,” though spoken partly in jest, was inwardly meant in good faith.

On this particular July evening on which our paper opens Jones followed up the announcement of my proposed trip to L---- by expressing a wish that he were going there too, so that he might come to a definite understanding with Agnes Cortland; and the wish was soon followed by the determination to act on it.

“How long do you intend to stay there?” he asked.

“Till the first week in September,” I said.

“Then I will come back that way, and join you for a few days about the first of September. The Cortlands don’t leave there till October. We can come back to New York together.”

It would have been ungracious on my part to have objected to this proposal, though I had a good many doubts about its wisdom. So it happened that my little excursion to L----, which I had innocently designed to be a season of simple lotus-eating such as Mr. Tennyson ascribes to his Olympian deities, “reclined upon the hills together, careless of mankind,” was complicated by a subordinate interest in a comedy from real life which had that quiet village for a stage.

The next day I started, taking Boston en route. That staid, quiet, cleanly city seems always to be, compared with New York, like a good school-boy by the side of a big, blustering brother fonder of a street row than his books. Then to Fitchburg, where I stopped over night, as some stage travelling was to be done from our “jumping-off” place, and riding over the country roads in the morning was more promising than on a dark and cloudy night. In the morning the Fitchburg Railroad again, and one of its branches to L----. The unwonted coolness of the morning breeze, as the train entered the New Hampshire hills, already began to refresh mind and body alike. The pines and hemlocks extending back into deep, dim recesses carpeted with moss and ferns; the cattle moving slowly over the pastures in the distance; the pastures themselves stretching up the sides of the highest hills, still of the freshest green, without a hint of the yellow undertone that I watched gradually overspread them as the summer ripened into autumn; a lake in the foreground, silent, unvisited, its clear waters unpolluted by the dregs of commerce or the drainage of a vast metropolis; even the caw! caw! of the ravens flying off from the tops of the pine stumps, send a novel and delicious feeling of freedom through the breast of the city traveller who has put care and work behind him for a season. Nor is this feeling altogether evanescent. Even now, as winter approaches and the north winds from the same hills come sweeping down over the great city, sending us chattering and freezing to our cosey firesides, the glory of the July foliage moves our memory like a far-off dream of youth. Yet, after all, it may be doubted whether the charm of country scenes is not due in great part to their novelty and the feeling that we are not bound to them longer than we please. Of all that has been written in praise of country life, how much is the work of the city resident; how little, comparatively speaking, springs from the country itself! There drudgery too often takes the place of sentiment. It is the Epicurean poet, Horace, satiated with the noise of the Forum and the gossip of the baths, who sings sweetest of rural contentment, of the “lowing herds,” the “mellow fruits of autumn,” and the “brooks murmuring over stony beds.” But when he gives play to his satiric vein, none pictures more truthfully than the Venusian the grumbling of the husbandman, who “turns the heavy clay with the hard plough.” Embowered in some shady arbor on the windings of the Digentia through his Sabine farm, or doing a little amateur farming, to the amusement, as he confesses, of his blunt country neighbors, who laughed at the dandy poet with a hoe in his hand, it was easy for Horace to chant the smooth and sunny side of country life. But the eight laborers on his estate, chained literally to the soil, as many a New England farmer morally is by the burden of debt or family, no doubt saw things differently. And the bailiff of his woodlands we know to have despised those “desert and inhospitable wilds,” and to have longed for the streets and shows of Rome. It is amazing upon what inattentive ears the music of our wild birds falls in a secluded farm-house. Often it seems absolutely unheard; while the clatter of the long street of the country town that the farmer visits once a month is for ever in his mind.

But we delay too long at the way station at L----. Let us onwards.

The carrier of the United States mail, who is at the same time the Jehu of the passenger stage, slings our impedimenta up behind with an energy to be envied by a veteran “baggage-smasher” at some of our big depots, straps it down, and jumps upon the box. We mount more slowly beside him, disdaining to be shut up in the close interior, and intent upon looking at the country we pass through this lovely morning. The two stout grays breast the hill leading to L---- Centre, eight miles distant.

The surface of the country is hilly and broken; as we approach L----, mountainous. Mounting the crest of the first steep hill, a beautiful natural panorama spreads out before us: long, narrow, intersecting lines of timber, like giant hedges, dividing the hill farms from each other. A rolling country spreads toward the east, bounded on the horizon by a low range of mountains wooded to the summit, and with a white steeple flashing out here and there among the trees at their base. The effects of light and shade, caused by the clouds on a brilliant day, on one of those white steeples, standing out solitarily against the side of a mountain eight or ten miles distant, are peculiar. Sometimes it becomes invisible, as the circle of the shadow is projected upon that area of the mountain which includes it. Then, as the dark veil moves slowly, with a sliding motion, up the side and over the crest of the mountain, the white spire flashes out from the obscure background of the forest with a sudden brilliancy. On this side patches of blue water among the trees in the hollows revealed the presence of numerous ponds, as the small lakes, and some of the large ones, are universally called in New England.

To the northwest what seemed to be a level plain from the height over which we rode, but which was in reality broken and undulating ground, stretched beneath us for ten or twelve miles to the base of Mt. Monadnock. The mountain, grand, massive, and still veiled by a thin mist, rose boldly from the low country at its foot to a height of nearly four thousand feet.

A ride of an hour and a half brought us to the top of the hill on the side of which stands L----. A dozen scattered houses flank the broad village green, and a Congregational meeting-house, with white belfry tower and green blinds, stands half-way down the incline.

The post-office and country store combined is at the cross-roads as you drive down the hill, and some ancient elms on the green seem to nod at the stranger with a friendly air as he enters the village. “Here,” said I to myself, “is rural quiet and simplicity. Farewell for many slumberous weeks the busy haunts of men.” L---- is quite out of the beaten track of summer travel, and had been recommended me by a friend who had spent some seasons there, on the ground of economy, charming scenery, good fishing, and repose. Nor did I find any reason to regret having listened to him. A country tavern offers entertainment to man and beast, and is resorted to by the drummers and sample men who invade L----, as elsewhere, with their goods. But I was not forced to be dependent on it, as a letter from my friend opened to me the hospitable doors of the comfortable farm-house where he had boarded two years before.

Here let it be said at the outset that whatever the other drawbacks of village life in New Hampshire, there is among the farming class a natural courtesy, and, among the women, even an inherited refinement of manner, especially in their treatment of strangers, which speaks well for the native stock. Prejudices there are among both men and women--deep-rooted, as we shall see--and narrow-minded opinions in plenty; but even these are concealed where to manifest them might give offence. The family in which I was domiciled consisted of Mr. Allen and his wife, their married daughter--who, together with her husband, resided with them--an unmarried daughter, and a pretty little girl, the grandchild. Mr. Allen kept a country store--for L---- boasted of two--and traded also in cattle with Canada, making a journey sometimes as far as Montreal in the spring to buy stock, which he fattened on his pastures through the summer and autumn, and sold in the early part of the winter. These various ventures, which were on the whole successful--as the command of a little ready money enabled him to take his time and buy and sell to advantage--had made him more “forehanded” than most of his neighbors. He was one of the selectmen of L----. His dwelling-house, a large, white, well-kept two-story edifice, with a garden-plot facing the village street, a piazza on the sunny side, and two beautiful maples dividing the carriage yard from the road, was one of the handsomest in L----. Mrs. Allen was one of those energetic housewives whose sound sense and domestic capacity had evidently contributed not a little to her husband’s present prosperity.

They were a sturdy couple, intelligent, honest, and knowing what was due to themselves and others; now going down the hill together with mutual dependence and confidence in each other. I consider them a good example of the best type of the New Hampshire farming class.

The married daughter did not compare favorably with the mother. One could not say of her in any sense:

“O matre pulchra filia pulchrior!”

for, as to the question of female beauty, I will not say, as far as my observations extend, that the New Hampshire, or indeed the New England women generally, outside the radius of Boston and some of the large towns, are very generously endowed by nature with that gracious but dangerous gift. The lines of the face are too strongly marked; they are sallow, the form angular; or, where the figure is fuller, it is apt to be as redundant as the old Flemish painters make the women at a village fair.

But this absence of feminine beauty is not universal. I have seen a young mother with her babe in her lap--a visitor sitting in Mrs. Allen’s parlor--who made a picture of beautiful maternity as dignified and simple as Murillo ever painted. As for that more lasting moral beauty which, where it is feminine, puts on its most delightful and engaging charm, Mrs. Harley, the married daughter, was too much engaged with her own little cares and gossip--poor woman!--to think much of so intangible a possession. Brought up, probably, in habits of more leisure and pleasure-seeking than her mother, who still took all the household work upon herself, she was a victim of ennui and of that blight of too many American homes--only one child to care for. Her health was delicate and uncertain, and she bade fair to sink eventually into that class of invalid wives which forms such an unhappily large percentage of American women. How often have I heard her complain of the dreadful dulness of the day! “But,” I asked, “what will you do in the winter, if you find the summer so unbearable?” Her answer was that they generally enjoyed themselves enough in the summer-time to be able to get through the winter. I don’t know whether this was a covert thrust at my lack of entertaining power; but I laughed at the stroke of satire at my expense, innocent or intended. That long dreary, snow-shrouded New Hampshire winter--it demanded indeed a stout heart to face it in one of those isolated villages. Mrs. Harley had given up her music when she married; the piano stood idle in the best room. She read nothing--unless looking at the fashion-plates in a ladies’ magazine be considered reading. A Sunday-school picnic, a day’s shopping in the nearest country town, were white days in her calendar. Is such a picture of life cheerless? Yet too many women are forced to endure it elsewhere. Happy they if the abounding resources of the faith and its literature come to their aid! Mrs. Harley was a kind woman withal, if her attention were drawn for a moment from herself; and an affectionate and anxious wife. This and her love for her child--fretful and over-indulgent as the latter sentiment was apt to be--were her redeeming qualities. Placed in a large city, with means equal in proportion to those within her reach in L----, she would have made a more agreeable woman, and would have been tenfold happier herself. The influence of semi-solitary life--where a religious vocation does not exalt and sanctify it--is more unfavorable in its effects upon women than upon men. The latter commonly have work to do which keeps their faculties from rusting. Woman’s nature is essentially social.

Mr. Harley assisted his father-in-law in the store--a tall, handsome young man with a city air, who, at that season, sat in the store the whole afternoon with perhaps one customer. Such a life for youth, with its superabundant energies ready to pour like a torrent into any channel, is stagnation. The highest of man’s natural powers rust and decay. But natural forces have their sway in the great majority of such cases, and force an outlet for themselves. The youth of these villages leave their homes for the great cities, or take Horace Greeley’s advice and “go West.” Life is hard, and it is monotonous, which adds a new slavery to hardship. The exodus is constant. L---- has less population and fewer inhabited houses now than it had forty years ago. The same is true of other villages--a striking fact in a comparatively new country. One rambles along some by-road overgrown with grass, and presently comes upon a deserted and ruined house and barn, the rafters only standing, or perhaps nothing more than a heap of bricks in the cellar. He asks about the people, and is told that they have “gone away.” The answer is vague and uncertain as their fate. I spoke to an old man of eighty-seven, seated in the shade on the long bench before the country store, where he could hear the news in the morning. He remembered with distinctness the events of the war of 1812. He spoke with regret of the flourishing times of his youth in L---- and its dulness to-day. This roving disposition of the American youth is the result of immense elbow-room, and has been providential in building up new States and subduing the virgin wilderness. The manufacturing cities of New Hampshire also gain yearly at the expense of the small villages. The township--or town, as it is most commonly called--embraces three or four of such villages, and is subject to the same reciprocal movement. Comparatively few new farms have been broken in during the last twenty or thirty years; and too rarely it happens on the old farms that fresh ground is taken in from the pasture for cultivation. The son tills what his father or grandfather cleared.

The first few days in L---- I spent rambling about the pastures--some of them literally red with the raspberry, which, though it has not the delicacy or fragrance of the wild strawberry, is not to be disdained by the city palate--or climbing to the tops of the highest neighboring hills. What a sense of elastic joy and freedom to me, who had not spent a summer in the country for three years, to lie stretched at full length on the top of a new-mown hill, and let the eye wander over the valley beneath, with its intervening woods and ponds, till it rested upon the distant mountains, the cloud-shadows chasing each other over their sides and summits! If this were not in truth an Arcadia to those who lived and died there, and were buried in the white-stoned churchyard among the elms--if to them life brought its cares, its jealousies, and sorrows--to the stranger who sought nothing more than to enjoy its natural beauties it renewed all the associations of rural happiness and simplicity. Not that one might hope to see a Corydon and Phillis issue from the New Hampshire woods--for there is a sternness among those northern scenes, even in the brightest bloom of summer, foreign to the poetry of the South--but that in its dark pine groves and on its windy hills fancy might picture an eclogue or a romance not less sweet and tender because more real.

L---- is on the height of land between the valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimac, between twenty and thirty miles distant from each. It is from one thousand to one thousand three hundred feet above the sea level. It is said of the rain that falls on the roof of the village church that part of it eventually runs into the Connecticut, part into the Merrimac, so evenly does its roof-tree divide the water-shed of those rivers. But as the same story is told of other churches in the central belt of Cheshire County, it may be regarded rather in the light of a rhetorical illustration than as a fact of physical geography. The scenery is not of the grand or sublime order to be seen further north among the White Mountains, except where Mt. Monadnock raises its dark and solemn front above the surrounding landscape; but it is beautiful and picturesque. Its greatest charm is its variety. In the morning, when the sun was well towards the zenith--for the fresh air of those hills made the day at all hours delightful--I would stroll out over the pastures to a hill a quarter of a mile distant from the farm-house. There would I seat myself, protected from the sun’s ardent rays, under a young maple bush, the elastic branches of which, with the sloping ground thick with ferns, made a natural easy-chair. The valley is below me, the farms stretch along the nearer hills, and in the further distance the blue-veiled mountains define the skyline. I bend down a branch of the maple, and before me is the upper half of Mt. Monadnock, a thin gray mist still enveloping it. The base of the mountain is hidden by an intervening hill. Leaving this pasture, and walking a few hundred rods further on, I enter a field where the hay has just been cut, and which is now as smooth as a croquet lawn, but not so level; for it is the crest of one of the highest hills. Here a new scene awaits me. To the north and west the hill has the shape almost of a perfect dome. Stretched on the top, I cannot see the declivities of the sides, but only the tops of the trees at some distance. One has the sensation of being on the roof of a high building with a deep drop between him and the surrounding country. The view is superb. The whole mass of Mt. Monadnock, from its base to the highest elevation, rises from the valley ten miles distant. At its foot is the village of West Jaffrey, a fashionable watering place. The white spire of the church is conspicuous among the trees. Further south is Gap Mountain and Attleborough Mountain; and sweeping round to the east, the view stretches along the New Ipswich Mountains to Watatick Hill. The circuit extends about twenty or thirty miles, making a picture of great natural beauty. The English hay, as the timothy and red clover are generally called, was still standing in many of the fields, but here and there the whirr of the mowing-machine could be heard, and the eye, following the direction of the sound, could discern the mower in his shirt-sleeves driving his pair of horses in the distant field. The meadow-grass of the lowlands was still in most places untouched. On the sides of the hills the scattered fields of wheat, barley, and oats, still green, made darker patches of verdure on the yellowish ground-color.

But the view I most preferred was from a hill a little to the south of the village near some deserted buildings. Here the scene was wilder and more extensive. To the west Mt. Monadnock could be seen through a gorge between two hills; to the east was a wild and broken country; while to the south the woods seemed to extend as far as the eye could reach, and over the furthest range of hills the great dome of Mt. Wachusett in Massachusetts, nearly thirty miles distant, was plainly seen, gray and massive, with the naked eye. It was only when one turned to Mt. Monadnock, ten miles distant, and observed how plainly he could distinguish the different colors of the mountain--the dark woods, the brown, bare surfaces, and the slate-colored rocks--that, looking at Mt. Wachusett, and noting its uniform pale gray outline, he was able to estimate the real distance of the latter, so comparatively close at hand did it appear.

Seated at ease on the smooth turf on the summit of this “heaven-kissing” hill, and looking at this wide and beautiful prospect, one might repeat to himself Mr. Longfellow’s lines:

“Pleasant it was, when woods were green And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long, drooping boughs between, Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go;”

substituting only for “drooping boughs” the irregular ranges of hills.

But descriptions of natural scenery, if long continued, are wearisome. Even a Ruskin is read best in snatches. The mind otherwise becomes clogged with images. Let us return, therefore, to animated life.

As Sunday approached, I made inquiries about the nearest Catholic church. I found it was at W----, eight or nine miles distant. I had no means of getting there the first Sunday. I retired to my room and read some chapters of that sublime and affecting work, the Imitation of Christ, the gift of a good and beloved mother.

A Catholic is still almost a being from another moral world in some of the isolated New Hampshire villages. Nowhere are the traditions of Puritanism more zealously or rigidly maintained. These good folk seem hardly yet to have emerged from a fog of wild amazement that “popish” priests and their followers should be tolerated by the selectmen. Not that any overt or offensive change of manner follows the announcement that one is a Catholic--as I have elsewhere said, there is a natural or inherited vein of good manners among the people that forbids it--but a momentary silence reveals to the speaker that he has stated something strange and unlooked for. There is an unmistakable tone of intolerance manifest, however, in any allusion to the poorer class of Irish and French that congregate in the larger towns, and are sometimes found in the villages in a wooden-ware factory, or cutting wood or hemlock-bark, or doing an odd job of haymaking. They are looked upon with dislike and distrust, mixed with a feeling of contempt. Curious it is that the native-born New Englander, with his mind saturated with hereditary theories of personal liberty, equality, and fraternity, should yet evince a more unconquerable aversion to the foreign element, which has contributed so largely to the greatness of the country, than is shown in European countries to men of a different race, unless war has temporarily embittered national feeling. Yet the explanation is not hard to find. This descendant of the Puritan, chained to the rocky and ungrateful soil his forefathers won from the Indians and the wilderness, sees with sullen indignation and jealousy the same rights and privileges which he enjoys under our free institutions extended so largely to those of a different nationality and religion. In revenge he draws himself more jealously into his shell. Nor is this feeling confined to the rich and refined; it penetrates the mass of the native-born New England population.

To speak of lighter things. Society in L---- is eminently aristocratic. Better, perhaps, it would be to say that the lines of society are very strongly marked, and that the aristocratic element is essentially conservative.

Mrs. Cortland, the wife of the New York capitalist, who resides there three months in the summer, a stout, refined, tight-gloved, graciously condescending lady, gives a metropolitan tone to L---- society. Mr. Cortland, an easy-going, easy-tempered man in private life, but reported to be hard as flint in business matters, seldom finds time to leave New York, and his visits to L---- are uncertain. His country house, a large, handsome mansion with well-kept grounds, croquet-lawn, coach-house, and stables, is on the highest ground in the village; and Mrs. Cortland occupies without dispute the highest ground socially. It is an imperial elevation, after the manner of the saying attributed to Cæsar. A call on Mrs. Cortland is the event of a week, and a return call from her is a matter not to be lightly treated. How have I seen this good Mrs. Allen, my landlady, prepare her best room for the grand occasion, and Mrs. Harley speculate about it with well-assumed indifference a whole afternoon. One or two other magnates from Boston, scattered through L---- and adjacent townships, save Mrs. Cortland from complete exhaustion by contact with the village people during the summer.

Then there is the local aristocracy, consisting of the wife of the Congregational pastor ex-officio, and Mrs. Parsons, the wife of “Squire” Parsons, who owns a small bucket-factory near L----. These two ladies maintain a strict alliance, offensive and defensive, with Mrs. Cortland during the summer. Then come the middle classes, comprising Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Harley, the young doctor’s wife--a stranger and somewhat snubbed by the autochthonous élite--and the well-to-do farmers’ wives. Finally, we have the profanum vulgus, the tail of L---- society, or, to speak more correctly, those whom society does not recognize--some farmers’ wives whose husbands were too much in debt to allow them to keep up appearances; one or two hapless women who sold milk in a wagon to the neighboring towns, and drove the wagon themselves; and the village washerwoman, who went around doing “chores.” I think I have exhausted the classification of the social strata of L----. I observed that the men eschewed as much as possible the aristocratic distinctions made by their wives, and were apt to resent by silence or the assumption of an unwonted bluntness the empty airs and loud voice with which some vulgar rich man from a neighboring large town would sometimes stride through the village.

Wanderers and waifs, destined apparently to be at some time drawn into the great caldron of city life--perhaps to their own destruction--were not wanting in L----. I have said that the women were not remarkable for beauty. But there was one exception. A girl belonging to one of the most destitute families in the village, by one of those whims of nature which are not uncommon, was gifted with a face and figure to attract even an unobservant eye, and which seemed out of place in that quiet and homely neighborhood. The mother, a poor, struggling woman with a growing-up family of all ages, managed to live somehow by the days’ work and occasional assistance given her by the well-to-do families. The father was living, but spent most of his time in the county jail for drunkenness. The daughter of whom I speak was about nineteen or twenty years of age; tall, of fair complexion, with a naturally elegant carriage and a proud and almost defiant air, as if she resented the caprice of fortune which had placed her in that lowly station. She had the art of dressing well with limited means, which some women possess to the envy of others. On Sundays and at picnics she outshone the more expensively-dressed daughters of the farmers. She had been, and perhaps still is, the maid at the village inn. It may be imagined that gossip was not idle about this poor girl, thus singularly placed and dangerously gifted. Dreadful quarrels had taken place between the father and mother about the girl’s staying at the hotel; the drunken father, with a true sense of what was becoming, insisting that she should leave, the mother as strenuously maintaining that she should remain. The beauty of the girl herself was not of that domestic type I have elsewhere noticed in the mother and her babe I saw in Mrs. Allen’s parlor, but of that showy, restless, naturally haughty stamp which presaged storm, perhaps disaster. It is this class misfortune follows and the great cities sweep into their net. Poverty often makes vice of that which, under happier fortunes, might have been attractive virtue. Absit omen. May this rustic beauty find a happier, if more homely, destiny as the wife of some honest farmer in L----!

The summer passed, week after week. I fished, I walked, I rode, I read, I loitered. The barley ripened on the hill behind the farm-house, and a golden tint began to spread over the distant fields. The apples grew large and ruddy on one side where the sun struck the laden branch in the orchard. The tassels of the corn showed purple. August blazed. The doves flew thirstily to the large blue pump, and perched on the edges of the horse-trough after the farmer watered his horse at mid-day. The bees hummed three at a time in the big yellow cups of the squash-vines. Have you ever observed of that homely vegetable how ingeniously and dexterously it fastens its daring and aggressive vines to the ground as it shoots out over the close-cut grass? Stoop down among the after-math, or rowen, as it is called in New Hampshire, and you will see that at the inosculation of each successive joint of the vine, where it throws out its tendrils and blossoms, it also thrusts forth slender, white, curling ligaments that twist, each of them, tightly around a tiny tuft of the short grass. Thus it moors itself, as if by so many delicate living cables, to the bosom of the life-giving earth.

I might, if space allowed, tell of my fishing ventures, and how one glorious morning we rode out of L---- in a big yellow wagon with three horses--a party of seven of us, ladies and gentlemen, from the village--to make the ascent of Mt. Monadnock. This is the lion of all the country round. Parties are made up every week to climb its rugged summit. Over the hills and rolling ground we gaily rattled. Through the sandy country roads, where the branches of the trees met overhead and made dim aisles of verdure, we smoothly sped. And then what panting, laughing, climbing, shrill screaming, as we toiled up the winding path from the half-way house to the top of the mountain! What a magnificent, boundless view repaid us! The day was clear. To the north, Mt. Kearsarge and rolling ranges of mountains; to the southeast, a diversified surface of country spreading onwards far as the eye could reach towards the unseen ocean; to the south, Mt. Wachusett; below us woods, valleys, and lakes. A feeling of awe creeps over one in these mountain solitudes.

As to the fishing, I will confess that to me, who had thrown a fly over more than one Canadian river, and had killed my twenty-pound salmon on the Nipisiquit, loafing with a pole in a boat over a lily-covered pond for a half-pound pickerel was not tremendously exciting sport. But what mattered it? The mornings were soft and wooing; the woods were full of mysterious shadows; the water was limpid as if Diana and her nymphs bathed there in the spectral moonlight. Life passed smoothly and agreeably. I sought no more.

The blackberries began to ripen, first one by one and then in sable clusters, in the pastures. The days were growing shorter. The twilight sank more quickly into night. September approached, and I began to look for the appearance of my friend Jones. I had seen Miss Cortland two or three times coming from or going to the meeting-house on Sunday mornings, when all the beauty and fashion of L---- for miles around rode up in buggies, carryalls, or open wagons; but I had never met her to be introduced to her--a little imperial beauty, with a fresh and rosy color, and a mouth shaped like Cupid’s bow, that needed only to smile to conquer.

On a bright September morning, when the surrounding atmosphere was clear as a bell, but a thin haze still clung about Mt. Monadnock and the far-off mountains, Jones rode over on the stage-coach from the railroad station and joined me at L----. He asked eagerly about Miss Cortland.

Was she in the village?

Yes.

Had I met her?

No; but I had seen her two or three times.

What did I think of her?

Well, I thought her pretty enough to excuse a little wildness of imagination on his part. He would be a lucky fellow if he got her and some of her father’s money or a position in his business!

Did I think he would give up his Art so easily?

“My dear Jones,” I replied, “I don’t want to appear cold-blooded, or to dash your enthusiasm for your art in the least; but, to speak candidly, I should not be surprised if you did some day under sufficient temptation--the prospect of marrying Miss Cortland, for example.”

Jones declared his intention of calling on Miss Cortland that very day. He had a sketch-book full of studies, spirited, but many of them mere hints. He came back before dinner, full of life, and proposing a score of schemes for to-morrow. He made a sort of small whirlwind in my quiet life. Mrs. Cortland had received him civilly, but he thought a little coolly. But he had seen Agnes, and had spoken a few words to her that might mean much or little as they were taken, and he was happy--rather boisterously happy, perhaps, as a young fellow will be at such times--full of jokes, and refusing to see a cloud on his horizon.

Jones fell easily into our farm-house ways, though he was apt to steal off in the mornings to play croquet on the Cortlands’ lawn with Miss Cortland and Miss Parsons, and any other friend they could get to join them.

One afternoon, when the sun was getting low and a southerly wind blowing, we started to try for some fish at a pond about half an hour’s walk from the house. As we turned off the highway into a by-road covered with grass that led to the pond, I saw Miss Cortland standing on the rising ground some distance before us. She was looking from us towards the sinking sun, now veiled in quick-drifting clouds. Her dog, a large, powerful animal, a cross between a Newfoundland and Mount St. Bernard, was crouched at her feet. Some vague thoughts about Una and her lion flitted through my mind. But I was more struck by the way the light touched her figure, standing out motionless against the gray sky. It reminded me very much of the general effect of a painting by a foreign artist--Kammerer, I think it was--that I saw at the exhibition of the Boston Art Club last year. It was the picture of a girl standing on a pier on the French coast, looking out to sea. Her golden hair was slightly stirred by the breeze, her lips a little parted, and there was a far-away look in her eyes, as if she may have expected a lover to be coming over the sea in one of the yachts that lined the horizon. The dress of the girl and the stone-work of the pier were both white. It was a good example of the striking effects produced by the free use of a great deal of almost staring white, which is a favorite device of the latest school of French art.

As we advanced, the dog growled and rose, but, recognizing Jones, wagged his tail inoffensively as we drew nearer. Miss Cortland turned towards us.

“Shall I introduce you?” said Jones.

“No,” I said. “I’ll go on to the pond. I’ll see you to-night.”

Jones advanced, hat in hand. “What happy fortune,” he said, addressing her, “has led me to meet the goddess of these woods?” Then, altering his tone, he added in a bantering way: “I see you have been poaching on our preserves, Miss Cortland. But I do wonder at your taste, fishing for eels!” pointing to a small basket on her arm from which hung some of the long stems of the pond-lily. This he said to vex her, knowing her horror of those creatures. “Eels?” she exclaimed indignantly, with a tone and gesture of aversion at the thought. “They are pond-lilies.”

“Oh! that is very well to say,” replied Jones, “when you have the lid of the basket down to hide them; but I insist upon their being eels unless you show them to me.”

By this time I was out of hearing. I left them together, and kept on down the road to the pond.

That night Jones came into my room with a quieter manner than usual. He was evidently very happy, but his happiness had a sobering effect upon him. He told me that he had made a plain avowal of his feelings to Agnes Cortland as they walked home together, and that he had won from her the confession that she loved him and had not been indifferent to him before he left for Europe. I wished him joy of his good-fortune, though I could foresee plainly enough that his difficulties had only begun. For a little time these two innocent young souls--for Jones I knew to be singularly unsullied by the world for a man of his age--would enjoy their paradise undisturbed together. Then would come maternal explanations, and the father’s authority would be invoked. A solemn promise would be exacted from her to see him no more. Miss Cortland was much attached to her parents, who would be sincerely anxious for her welfare. She would not make much resistance. Some day there would come a storm of tears, and poor Jones’s letters and the ring he gave her would be returned to him by a faithful messenger, and a little note, blotted with tears, asking him to forgive her and praying for his happiness. This must be the end. A year or two of separation and a summer and winter in Europe with her parents would leave nothing more than a little sad memory of her brief New Hampshire romance; and in five years she would be married to some foreigner of distinction or successful man of business, and would be a happy wife and mother. As for poor Jones, he would probably be heard of at rare intervals for a year or two as a trader on the Pacific coast or prospecting a claim in Nevada. But men like him, vigorous, powerful, well equipped in body and temper for the struggle with the world, are not kept down long by such disappointments. The storm is fierce, and leaves its scars after it; but the man rises above it, and is more closely knit thereafter. Jones will make his mark in the world of business, if not of art.

No unwelcome prophecies of mine, however, disturbed his happiness for those few days. I let events take their course. Why should I interrupt his dream by Cassandra-like anticipations of woe, which would have been resented as a reflection upon the constancy of his idol? I know that they met frequently for the following three or four days. Then came the packing up for departure. My long holiday was over.

On a foggy morning in September we steamed up the Sound on a Fall River boat. Through Hell Gate the stately boat sped on her way, past Blackwell’s Island, and across the bows of the Brooklyn ferry-boats, crowded with passengers for the city in the early morning. Around the Battery we swept, into the North River, and slowly swung alongside of Pier 28. Then the hackmen yelled at us; our coach stuck at the corner of the street; a jam followed; the drivers swore; the policemen shouted and threatened; the small boys grinned and dodged between the horses; and a ward politician, with a ruby nose, looked on complacently from the steps of a corner “sample” room. In one word, we were in New York, and our village life in Hampshire was a thing of the past.

THE PALATINE PRELATES OF ROME.

Whatever is connected with our Holy Father must have an interest for Catholics; and at the present time especially it would seem desirable to know something about the origin and functions of those faithful prelates of whom this article treats, and with some of whom American visitors to Rome may be likely to have relations. They are called palatine prelates because lodged in the same palace as the sovereign, and in these days of trouble are the nearest to his most sacred Majesty in his solitude and sufferings. They are four in number, and belong to the pope’s intimate court and confidence, their names being registered in the Roman Notizie immediately after those of the palatine cardinals among the members of the pontifical family.

MAGGIORDOMO.

The majordomo, called in good Latin, the official language of the church, Magister Domus Papæ, is the first of these prelates and one of the highest dignitaries of the Holy See. The chief of the royal palace has had in all countries immense influence and power; and in France and Scotland, at least, the Maires du palais and stewards succeeded in mounting the throne. This officer, who, like the other three, is always a clergyman, is the high steward of his Holiness and master of his household, remaining day and night conveniently near to the Pope’s person, of which he has the special care, and for the safety of which he is responsible to the Sacred College. Until the present reign he was supreme under the sovereign, in the civil, military, and ecclesiastical affairs of the court, having his own tribunal of civil and criminal jurisdiction.[141] Some years ago, however, a part of the prerogatives of this office was transferred to the Cardinal Secretary of State; but even now the majordomo is at the head of the administration of the palace in which the Pope may reside for the time being, and on a vacancy of the see is ex-officio, by a decree of Clement XII. in 1732, governor of the conclave.[142] In this latter capacity, by a natural order of things which cannot be long delayed (yet God grant it may!), he will have to act a part during one of the most critical periods in the history of Christian Rome. He has the privilege[143] for life of using the pope’s arms with his own, and consequently retains this heraldic distinction even after he has been promoted to the cardinalate to which his office surely leads, sooner or later, according to a court custom that began in the middle of the XVIIth century.[144] The origin of this office is involved in some doubt, owing to its antiquity. It must have been that, in the palace given to Pope Melchiades by the Emperor Constantine, some person conspicuous for piety and prudence was appointed to keep the members of a large and constantly-increasing court in mutual harmony and subjection to authority, while relieving the pontiff of the immediate superintendence of his household, and leaving him free to give his precious time to public and more important matters. At all events, at a very early period after this there is mentioned among the officers attached to the Patriarchium Lateranense--as the old Ædes Lateranæ were then called--a Vice-dominus, who was chosen from the Roman clergy, and was often, as the more modern prelates have been, invested with the episcopal dignity. He was answerable for the good order and harmonious administration of the palace; and the extent of that portion of it in which he dwelt and had his offices, as well as held his court of jurisdiction over the papal domestics,[145] must have been large, since it was called the vicedominium; and although his successor fifteen hundred years later has not the same ample powers that he enjoyed, he is still a personage so considerable that the part of the Vatican in which he resides is known officially as the Maggiordomato. The earliest name (not title) of such an officer which has come down to us is that of a certain priest Ampliatus, who is mentioned in the year 544 as having accompanied Pope Vigilius to Constantinople for the affair of the Three Chapters, and being detached from the pontiff’s suite at Sicily on their way back, with orders to hurry on to Rome, where the concerns of the Lateran seem to have suffered by his absence. Anatolius, a deacon, held the office under S. Gregory the Great, who was very particular to have only virtuous and learned men about him; and in 742 Benedict, a bishop, held it under S. Zachary, who sent him on a mission to Luitprand, King of the Lombards. This officer is mentioned for the last time in history as Vice-dominus in the year 1044, when an archdeacon Benedict served under Benedict IX. After this period, those who held the analogous position were styled chamberlains of the Holy Roman Church until 1305, when, the court being at Avignon, a large share of their duties and privileges was given to a nobleman of high standing, who was called Maestro del sacro Ospizio.[146]

Under Alexander V., in 1409, the Holy Father having returned to Rome, mention is made for the first time, in a paper drawn up for the guidance of the court, of a prefect of the apostolic palace--Magister domus pontificiæ--who was the same as the later majordomo, the name only having been changed by Urban VIII. in 1626. The series of these high prelates, to the number of 99--belonging generally to the very first nobility of Italy, and showing such illustrious names as Colonna, Gonzaga, Farnese, Frangipani, Visconti, Acquaviva, Cybo, Cenci, Caraffa, Pico della Mirandola, Piccolomini, Borghese, Borromeo, etc.--begins with Alexander Mirabelli, a Neapolitan, who was named to the office by Pius II. in the month of August, 1458.

MAESTRO DI CAMERA.

This officer, whose official title in Latin is Prefectus cubiculi Sanctitatis suæ, is the second palatine prelate. He is the grand chamberlain of his Holiness, carries out the entire court ceremonial, and has the supervision of all audiences, as well as admittances of whatever kind to the presence of the Pope. How important and confidential is this post which he holds at the door of the papal chambers may best be judged from the single fact that no one can approach the sovereign without his knowledge in all and his consent[147] in most cases. He has sometimes the episcopal character--in truth, was usually in times past an archbishop in partibus; but it is now more customary for him to be simply in priest’s orders. If, however, he be not already a prelate of high rank, he is always, immediately after his nomination to the office, made an apostolic prothonotary, with precedence over all his brethren in that ancient and honorable college. Like his immediate superior, he has the privilege of quartering the Pope’s arms with his own. He is the keeper of the Fisherman’s ring, and at the Pope’s death delivers it up to the cardinal chamberlain of the Holy Roman College, who gives him a notarial receipt for it. This celebrated ring is the official one of the popes, and gets its name from having the figure of S. Peter in a bark and casting his net into the sea engraved upon it. Above this figure is cut the name of the reigning pontiff. It is the first among the rings, but the second in the class of seals, since it only serves as the privy seal or signet used on apostolic briefs and matters of subordinate consequence,[148] whereas the Great Seal is used to impress the heads of SS. Peter and Paul in lead (sometimes, but rarely, in gold) on papal bulls. At first this ring was a private and not an official one of the pope; for in a letter from Perugia of March 7, 1265, addressed by Clement IV. to his nephew Peter Le Gros, he says that he writes to him and to his other relatives, not sub bulla, sed sub piscatoris sigillo, quo Romani Pontifices in suis secretis utuntur; from which we gather that the ring was in use some time before, but by whom introduced is unknown, as is also the precise period when it became official, although this happened during one or other of the XVth century pontificates. Perhaps the first time that the now familiar expression, “Given under the Fisherman’s ring,” is met with in the manner of a formal statement or curial formula, such as it has been ever since retained, is in a document of Nicholas V. dated from Rome--Datum Romæ--on the 15th of April, 1448.

The institution of this office is extremely ancient, but, like most others of the court, it has had different names and increased or diminished attributions at various periods. The modern Romans take a legitimate pride in being able to deduce many of their great court offices from the corresponding ones of the Cæsars, to whom their sovereign has succeeded. Thus this officer is sometimes called in classical Latin Magister admissionum, such an one being mentioned by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus (xv. 5); and his office Officium admissionis, which is found in Suetonius’ Life of Vespasian (xiv.) Among the members of the household of S. Gregory the Great in the year 601 there was a certain (S.) Paterius, Secundicerius of the Holy See (corresponding to the modern sub-dean of the apostolic prothonotaries, the dean being Primicerius). He had to make known to the pope the names of those who solicited the favor of an interview; and it is probable that he also gave (as is now given) along with the name some account of the quality and business of the visitor, for fear that the pontiff should be unnecessarily intruded upon or brought in contact with unworthy and perhaps dangerous characters. Investigators into the origin of the offices of the Holy See have fixed upon this person as the remote predecessor of the present Maestro di Camera; but all the charges of the palace having been remodelled and placed nearly on their present footing about four hundred and fifty years ago, and many of the court records having been lost or stolen during the disturbed era between the pontificates of Clement V. (1305) and Martin V. (1417)--which includes the periods of Avignon and the schism--the authentic roll of the holders of these high offices of state rarely begins earlier than the XVth century. Thus the first grand chamberlain of the modern series is Bindaccio Ricasoli of Florence, who was Magister aulæ palatii to John XXIII. in 1410. The present one is Monsignor Ricci-Paracciani, a Roman, who, however, has become majordomo by Monsignor Pacca’s promotion. The Maestro di Camera, being constantly in company with exalted personages who seek an audience of the Holy Father and wait their turn in, or at all events pass through, the Anticamera nobile, which opens immediately into the Pope’s reception-room, must be distinguished for good breeding and courtliness, and serve as a model to his subordinates in that august apartment, lest it be said of him:

“His manners had not the repose That marks the caste of Vere de Vere.”

Hence we are prepared to find the noblest families of Italy represented in the office, and notice such patrician names as Odescalchi, Altieri, Fieschi, Ruffo, Doria, Massimo, Pignatelli, Caracciolo, Barberini, Riario-Sforza, etc.

UDITORE.

The auditor of his Holiness--Auditor Papæ--is the agent-general, most intimate privy councillor, and canonist of the Pope. He is third in rank of the palatine prelates, and lived in the Quirinal, where his offices and the archives were situated, until the present iniquitous occupation, since which they have been removed to the Torlonia palace, near the Vatican. This office was instituted by Paul II. (1464-1471), and the first to hold it was the renowned J. B. Millini, a Roman, who was at the same time Bishop of Urbino (which was administered by some one else in his name); he later became a cardinal under Sixtus IV., in 1476. His successor at the present time is Monsignor Sagretti. Up to this century the power and general influence of the auditor were extraordinary, since he had a court of justice and ample jurisdiction, even exercising in the name of the Pope the supremacy of appeal in many matters. For this reason the great epigraphist Morcelli, who wrote before these judicial functions were abolished, called him Judex sacrarum cognitionum. Formerly he gave audience to all comers about matters of equity and appeal on Tuesdays, in his apartment at the Quirinal, standing in his prelatic robes behind a low-backed throne supposed by a sort of fiction to be then occupied by the Pope;[149] hence he was called in choice Latin Cognoscens vice sacrâ--i.e., in lieu of his Holiness. The common Italian appellation Uditore Santissimo is only a corrupt rendering of the Latin Auditor Sanctissimi. This post has always been occupied by one of the ablest jurists in Italy; and even now the auditor must be both very learned and most incorruptible, from the part that he takes officially in filling vacant sees and making other important nominations.

MAESTRO DEL SACRO PALAZZO.

The Master of the Holy Apostolic Palace--Magister Sacri Palatii Apostolici--is one of the most distinguished members for piety and doctrine of the Dominican Order. He is the Pope’s official theologian, and usually a consultor of several Roman congregations, more nearly concerned with matters of faith and morals, as the Inquisition, Indulgences and Relics, Index, etc. He ranks fourth among the palatine prelates, and resided until the late invasion in the Quirinal Palace with his “companion” and two lay brothers of his order. He is considered an honorary auditor of the Rota, and as such has a place with the prelates of this class in the papal chapels and reunions. He retains the habit of his order, but wears on his hat a black prelatical band. He is ex-officio president of the Theological Faculty in the Roman University, and the person to whom was entrusted the censorship of the press. The origin of this office dates from the year 1218, when S. Dominic, who established the Order of Friars Preachers, suggested to Honorius III. that it would be proper if some one were charged to give religious instruction to the many servants of cardinals, prelates, and others, who used to spend their time idly in useless talk and slanderous gossip with their brethren of the papal palace while their masters were expecting an audience or engaged with his Holiness.[150] The Pope was pleased, and at once appointed Dominic to the good work, who began by explaining the Epistles of S. Paul.[151] The fruit of these pious conferences was so apparent that the pope determined to perpetuate them under the direction of a Dominican. Besides the more familiar instructions, which were given at first extempore, it was arranged later that while the pope and court were listening to the preacher appointed to sermonize in the palace during Advent and Lent, the papal domestics and other servants should also have the benefit of formal discourses, but in another part of the building. It was always the father master--i.e., doctor--who held forth to them until the XVIth century, when the duties of his office becoming more onerous, especially by reason of the many attempts to misuse the recently-discovered art of printing to corrupt faith and morals in Rome itself, the obligation devolved upon his companion--Pro-Magister or Socius--who also holds three days of catechism in preparation for each of the four general communions that are given yearly in the palace. This deputy is appointed by the master, and is a person of consequence, succeeding sometimes to the higher office. The present master is Vincenzo Maria Gatti. When the learned Alexander V. became pope (1409), the Master of the Palace was required to stand by at his meals, especially on Sundays and festival days, and be ready to propose difficult points of debate, or to enter into an argument on any matter and with any person present as the Holy Father should command.[152] There have been seventy-nine occupants of this office since its institution (not to count several anti-masters created by anti-popes), of whom seventeen have been made cardinals, and among them the celebrated church historian Orsi. The great writer on Christian antiquities, Mamachi, held this office with distinction. It is one, of course, in which “brains” rather than “blood” find a place; and since there is no royal road to learning--for as an old monkish couplet says:

“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo, Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”

--we are not surprised that the series of Masters of the Apostolic Palace exhibits no such names as those that predominate among the chamberlains and majordomos--“Not many noble” (1 Cor. i. 26).

In the mother-church of the Dominican Order at Rome, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is also the title of the first American cardinal,[153] there is a special vault beneath the chapel of S. Dominic for the entombment of the masters; but the brutal invaders who now hold possession of Rome having forbidden all intra-mural burials--evidently through malice, because, from the dry nature of the soil and the perfection of Roman masonry, there could not be the slightest danger from a moderate number of interments within the city--they will have to sleep after death in some less appropriate spot: “How long shall sinners, O Lord, how long shall sinners glory?… Thy people, O Lord, they have brought low: and they have afflicted thy inheritance” (Ps. xciii.)

POWER, ACTION, AND MOVEMENT.

The word “motion” is now commonly used for movement, but it properly means the action by which a thing is set into movement. This action, or motion, of course proceeds from an agent, and consists in the production of an act, or momentum, which must be terminated or received in a patient. The active power of the agent is its substantial act as virtually containing in itself all the acts which the agent is ready to produce, according to its nature. This active power may therefore be called the virtuality, or terminability, of the act by which the agent is. The momentum produced by such a power stands to the power in the same ontological relation as the now of time to the virtuality of God’s eternity, and as the ubication of a point in space to the virtuality of God’s immensity; for in all these cases there is question of nothing else than of an extrinsic terminability and an extrinsic term. We may, therefore, in treating of motive powers and momentums, follow the same order of questions which we have followed in our articles on space and duration.

But the subject which we are about to investigate has a special feature of its own; because in the exertion of active power, and consequently in the momentums produced, there is something--intensity--which is not to be met with either in the when or in the where. For the when and the where are mere terms of intervals or distances, and do not partake in their continuity; from which it follows that they are not quantities, but merely terms of quantities, whereas the momentum of motion is the formal principle of the real changes produced by the agent in the patient. And these changes admit of different degrees, and thus by their greater or less magnitude reveal the greater or less intensity of the exertion. The reason of this difference is very plain; for the when and the where are not efficiently produced by God’s eternity and immensity, for these divine attributes do not connote action. Their origin is not to be traced to action, but to resultation, as we have explained in our preceding articles. The entity of every creature, on the contrary, proceeds from God as efficient cause--that is, it does not merely result from the existence of other things, but it is actively produced; and, since an act produced must have some degree of perfection, creatures are more or less perfect as to their entity, and therefore have in their own act a greater or less power of acting, according to the degree of their entitative perfection. This explains why it is that there is intensity in all action and in all act produced, whereas there is no intensity in the when and the where.

But, apart from this special feature, the questions regarding active powers, actions, and the acts produced are entirely similar to those which we have answered in treating of space and of duration. Nay, more, the same questions may be viewed under three distinct aspects--viz., first, with reference to the divine power and its causality of contingent things; secondly, with reference to second causes, their actions, and the momentums produced by them; and, thirdly, with reference to these momentums themselves and the local movements resulting from them. This third view of the subject is the only one immediately connected with the notions of space and of time, and we might limit ourselves to its consideration. Nevertheless, to shed more light on the whole treatise, we propose to say something of the other two also; for, by tracing the actions and the phenomena of the material world to their original sources, we shall discover that all different grades of reality are linked with their immediate principles in such a manner as to exhibit a perpetual analogy of the lower with the higher, till we reach the highest--God.

To ascertain the truth of this proposition, let us recall to mind the main conclusions established by us with respect to space. They were as follows:

1st. There is void space--that is, a capacity which does not imply the presence of anything created.

2d. Void space is an objective reality.

3d. Void space was not created.

4th. Absolute space is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s immensity.

5th. Absolute space is not modified by the presence of matter in it--that is, by its extrinsic termination.

6th. Ubications are extrinsic terms of absolute space, and their relations have in space itself an extrinsic foundation.

A similar series of conclusions was established in regard to duration. They were:

1st. There is a standing duration--that is, an actuality which does not imply succession.

2d. Standing duration is an objective reality.

3d. Standing duration is not created.

4th. Standing duration is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s eternity.

5th. Standing duration is not modified by the existence in it of created things--that is, by its extrinsic termination.

6th. The whens of creatures are extrinsic terms of standing duration, and their relations have in standing duration their extrinsic foundation.

Before we give the analogous conclusions concerning active powers and their causality, we have to premise that all power ready to act is said to be in actu primo, or in the “first act,” with respect to its termination and term, or act, which it is ready to produce. Its action is its termination, and it consists in the causation of a second act. This second act, inasmuch as it exists in its proper term, potency, or subject, is called actio in facto esse--that is, an action wholly complete, though the action proper is always in fieri; for it consists in the very production of such a second act, as we have just stated. The result of this production is the existence of a new reality, substantial or accidental, according to the nature of the act produced. This well-known terminology we shall use here for the parallel development of the three classes of questions which we have to answer.

Origin of Power.--First, then, with regard to the primary origin of active and moving powers, we lay down the following conclusions:

1st. There is some absolute power--that is, a first act which has no need of producing any second act.

2d. Absolute power is an objective reality.

3d. Absolute power is uncreated.

4th. Absolute power is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of the act by which God is.

5th. Absolute power is not modified by the production of effects--that is, by its extrinsic termination.

6th. The beings thus produced are extrinsic terms of God’s power; and although, owing to their intrinsic perfection, which may be greater or less, they can be related to one another by an intrinsic foundation, yet their “entitative distances” have only an extrinsic foundation--to wit, God’s omnipotence.

Some of these propositions are so obvious that they might have been omitted but for the object we have in view of pointing out the parallelism of absolute power with space and duration.

The first of these conclusions is proved thus: All first act which naturally needs to produce some second act has an intrinsic and natural ordination to something distinct from itself; for all effect is really distinct from its efficient principle. But it cannot be admitted without absurdity that every first act has such an intrinsic and natural ordination; for, if everything were thus ordained to something else, all things would tend to some subordinate end, while there would be no supreme end at all; for nothing that is ordained to something else can rank as the supreme end. On the other hand, no subordinate ends can be admitted without a supreme end. And therefore there must be some first act which has no intrinsic necessity of producing any second act. Such a first act is altogether absolute.

The second conclusion is evident. For what we call here “a first act” is not an imperfect and incomplete act, since it needs no termination; nor is it a result of mental abstraction and analysis, but a perfect principle of real operations; for the epithet “first,” by which we characterize it, does not imply that it lacks anything in its entity, but, on the contrary, it means that it already contains eminently the whole reality of the effects which it is competent to produce. Hence it is clear that, if such effects are objective realities, the first act on which their production depends is an objective reality, and a much better one too.

The third conclusion needs no proof, it being evident that whatever is created must tend to the end of its creation, which is the manifestation of the perfections of its creator. This manifestation implies action--viz., a transition of the first act to its second act. Accordingly, a first act which has no necessary ordination to second acts cannot be created.

The fourth conclusion follows from the third, since an uncreated act can be nothing else than the act by which God is. This act, inasmuch as it eminently contains the reality of all possible things, is extrinsically terminable, and as thus terminable it exhibits itself as a “first” act. But, since God has no need of creatures, such a first act has no need of extrinsic terminations, and, as first, it constitutes omnipotence, or God’s absolute power. This power in its infinite simplicity has an infinite range, as it extends to all conceivable reality.

The fifth conclusion will be easily understood by reflecting that the extrinsic termination of active power consists in giving existence to contingent things by efficient action. Now, to act efficiently does not bring about any intrinsic change in the agent; for all intrinsic change follows from passion, which is the opposite of action. Nor does God, when giving existence and active powers to any number of creatures, weaken his own power. For the power imparted to creatures is not a portion of the divine power, but a product of creation, and nothing, in fact, but the created act itself. For, as all contingent things are created for the manifestation of God’s perfections, all creatures must be active; and as everything acts as it is in act, the act being the principle of the acting, it follows that all act produced by creation is an active power of greater or less perfection according to the part it is destined to fill in the plans of its Maker. This shows that the act by which a creature is, bears a resemblance to the act by which God is, inasmuch as it virtually contains in itself all those acts which it is fit to produce according to its nature. But, since all contingent act is extrinsic to God, divine omnipotence is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by creation than by non-creation; though, if God creates any being, from the term produced he will acquire the real denomination of Creator. Thus the existence of a contingent being is the existence of a real term, which extrinsically terminates the virtuality of God’s act, in which it is eminently contained. Its relation to its Creator is one of total dependence; whilst God’s relation to it is that of first causality. The foundation of this relation is the action which proceeds from God and terminates in the creature.

The first part of the sixth conclusion, that beings produced by creation are extrinsic terms of God’s power, has just been explained. But we say, moreover, that the entitative distances between such beings have an extrinsic foundation in God’s omnipotence. By “entitative distance” we mean the difference in degree between distinct beings--v.g., between a man and a tree--as we have explained in another place.[154] And we say that, as the distance between two material points in space has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s immensity, so also the entitative distance of two beings has its extrinsic foundation in the virtuality of God’s infinite act--that is, in divine omnipotence. In fact, the different degrees of entity conceivable between the tree and the man are all virtually contained in God’s omnipotence, just as all the distinct ubications possible between two points are virtually in God’s immensity. Hence the foundation of such entitative distances is extrinsic to the beings compared in the same manner as the foundation of local distances.

But the terms produced by creative action, inasmuch as they possess a greater or less perfection in their individual constitution, can be compared with one another according to the relative degree of their intrinsic reality; and thus, besides the extrinsic relation just mentioned, they have a mutual relativity arising from an intrinsic foundation. The relative degree of reality of a contingent being becomes known to us through the relative intensity of its active power; which implies that the beings compared have powers of the same species. If they are not of the same species, the comparison will give no result.

Remarks.--Before leaving this part of our subject, we have to notice that, as the ubication, so also the act produced by creation, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. A created act, considered absolutely, is an act intrinsically completed by its essential potency, and constitutes the being as it is in actu secundo. The same act, considered respectively, or as ordained to something else, is a power ready to act, and thus it is in actu primo with regard to all the acts which it is able to produce.

The essential act of a contingent being, be it considered absolutely or respectively, bears no proportion to the perfection of its Creator, no more indeed than a point in space to immensity, or a now of time to eternity. Hence all contingent act or power, whatever be its perfection or intensity, as compared with God, is like nothing. It is only when a created act or power is compared with another of the same kind that we can establish a proportion between them as to degrees of perfection and of intensity. These degrees are measured by comparing the relative intensities of the effects produced by distinct causes of the same kind, acting under the same conditions.

The quantity of efficient power may be conceived as a virtual sum of degrees of power. In this particular the quantity of power differs entirely from the quantity of distance; because this latter cannot be conceived as a virtual sum of ubications. The reason of this difference is that ubications, as being simple points, have no quantity, and therefore cannot by addition make up a continuous quantity; whereas the degrees of power always possess intensity, and are quantities; hence their sum is a quantity of the same kind.

It may be useful to remark that all continuous quantity has a necessary connection with the quantity of power, and that all extension owes its being to the efficacy of some motive principle. In fact, all intervals, whether of space or of time, are reckoned among continuous quantities only on account of the quantity of continuous movement which can be made, or is actually made, in them, as we have explained in a preceding article; but the quantity of movement is itself to be traced to the intensity of the momentum produced by the agent, and the momentum to the intensity of the motive power. As soon as movement is communicated to a point, its ubication begins to shift and to extend a continuous line in space; and its now, too, for the same reason begins to flow and to extend continuous time.

When the quantity of power is expressed by a number, its value is determined, as we have stated, by the intensity of its efficiency in a given time and fixed conditions. The unit of intensity by which the amount of the effect produced is measured is arbitrary; for there is no natural unit for the degrees of intensity, it being evident that such degrees can be divided and subdivided without end, just like the continuum. Hence the numbers by which we express degrees of intensity are only virtually discrete, just as those by which we express continuous quantities. The ordinary unit assumed for the measure of intensity is that degree of intensity which causes a unit of weight to measure a unit of distance in a unit of time. As all these units are arbitrary, it is evident that such is also the unit of intensity.

Let us remark, also, that the power of natural causes has in its action a twofold continuity--that is, with regard both to space and to duration. As long as a natural cause exists, it acts without interruption, owing to its intrinsic determination, provided there be, as there is always in fact, some subject capable of being acted upon by it. This constitutes the continuity of action with regard to duration. On the other hand, the motive power of such natural causes is exerted, according to the Newtonian law, throughout an indefinite sphere, as we have shown in another place;[155] and this constitutes the continuity of action through space. Moreover, if the point acted upon approaches the agent or recedes from it, the continuous change of distance will be accompanied by a continuous change of action; and thus the intensity of the act produced by the agent will increase or decrease in a continuous manner through infinitesimal degrees corresponding to the infinitesimal changes of local relations occurring in infinitesimal instants of time. This relation of changes is the base of dynamics. But enough on this point.

Origin of movement.--We may now pass to the conclusions concerning movement as dependent on its proximate cause. The power by which the natural causes produce momentums of movement is called “motive power.” This power is to be found both in material and in spiritual beings; but as in spiritual substances the exercise of the motive power is subject to their will, and consists in the application of a nobler power to the production of a lower effect, we do not and cannot consider the power of spiritual beings as merely “motive,” for it is, above all, intellective and volitive. Material things, on the contrary, because they possess no other power than that of moving, are characterized by it, and are naturally determined to exercise it according to a law which they cannot elude. It is of these beings in particular that the following conclusions are to be understood.

1st. There is in all material creatures a motive power--that is, a first act of moving--which, considered in its absolute state, has no need of extrinsic termination, that is, of producing a momentum of movement.

2d. This motive power is an objective reality.

3d. The same power is nothing accidentally superadded to the being of which it is the power.

4th. This power is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of the act by which the agent is.

5th. This power is not modified by the production of momentums in extrinsic terms.

6th. The momentums thus produced are second acts of the motive power, extrinsic to it; and though, owing to their intensity, which may be greater or less, they can be related to one another through an intrinsic foundation, yet their entitative distances have only an extrinsic foundation--to wit, the agent’s power.

Some of these propositions are quite evident; but our present object is not only to explain what may require a special discussion, but also, and principally, to dissect our subject in such a manner as to make it manifest that a perpetual analogy exists between the conditions and the principles of all kinds of continuum, and that in all of them the transition from the absolute to the relative, from the cause to the effect, and from the formal reason to its formal result, is made through a like process and through similar degrees. For this reason we think that even those conclusions which seem too obvious to deserve mention become interesting and serve a good purpose; for in the parallel treatment of analogous subjects, those things which are clearer throw light on those which are more abstruse, and about which we often feel a certain hesitation.

The first of our present conclusions needs only a short explanation. When we say that in every creature there is a motive power which, considered in its absolute state, has no need of producing a momentum, we mean that in every creature there is an act which is a principle of activity, but that the exercise of this activity is not required for the substantial perfection and essential constitution of the creature itself, though it may be required for some other reason, as we shall see presently. In fact, every substance has its own complete being independently of accidents; and since the exertion of motive power is an accident, every substance is entitatively independent of it. We conceive that if God had created nothing but an element of matter, such an element would indeed (on its own part) be ready to act and to produce a momentum of movement; but, as there would be no subject capable of receiving a momentum, the motive power would remain in actu primo--that is, without actual exertion. And yet it is evident that the non-existence of other elements can have no bearing on the intrinsic constitution and substantial perfection of the element in the question. Therefore the power of an element of matter is a first act, which, as far as the entity of the element itself is concerned, has no need of producing any second act.

Nevertheless, since all creatures must in some manner glorify God as long as they exist, because such is the true and highest end of their existence, hence to every created power some proportionate term or subject corresponds, in which its exertion is received without interruption. In the same manner as the understanding never lacks an intelligible object, and the sense never lacks a sensible term, about which to exercise itself by immanent operation, the motive power of inferior beings never fails to meet a proportionate--that is, movable--term and to impress upon it a momentum of a certain intensity. Hence, when we regard, not the substance of natural things as such, but the natural necessity they are under of tending constantly to the ultimate end of their creation, we see that their first act of moving must always entail some second act, or momentum, in all the terms which it can reach according to its natural determination.

The second conclusion is self-evident; for, if the principle of real movement were not an objective reality, a real effect would proceed from an unreal cause--which is absurd. Nor does it matter that the power is only a “first” act. For, as we have explained above, it is first as compared with the acts which it can produce, but it is intrinsically complete in the entity of the agent, as it is terminated to its substantial term.

The third conclusion is nothing but a corollary of the well-known axiom that in all things the principle of operation is the substantial act: Forma est id quo agens agit, and Principium essendi est principium operandi. We have proved in another place[156] that no natural accident possesses active power or is actually concerned in any of the effects produced by the agent. This truth should be well understood by the modern scientists who very commonly mistake the conditions of the action for the active principle. Of course no creature can act independently of accidental conditions; but these conditions have no bearing on the active power itself--they only determine (formally and not efficiently) the mode of its application according to a constant law. Thus the distance of two material points has no active influence on their motive power or on their mutual action, but only constitutes the two points in a certain relation to one another; and when such a relation is altered, the action is changed, not because the power is modified, but because its determination to act--that is, its very nature--demands that it should in its application follow the Newtonian law of the inverse ratio of the squared distances.

The philosophers of the old school admitted, but never proved, that, although the substantial form is the main principle of activity in natural things, nevertheless this principle was in need of some accidental entity, that it might be proximately disposed to produce its act. This opinion, too, originated in the confusion of active power with the conditions on which the mode of its exertion depends. What they called “active qualities” is now acknowledged to be, not a new kind of active power superadded to the substantial forms, but merely a result of the concurrence of many simple powers acting under determinate conditions. The accidental change of the conditions entails the change of the result and action, but the active powers evidently remain the same. The ancients said also that the substantial forms were the active principles of substantial generations, whereas the “active qualities” were the active principles of mere alterations. As we have shown that the whole theory of substantial generations, as understood by the peripatetic school, is based on assumption and equivocation, and leads to impossibilities,[157] we may be dispensed from giving a new refutation of the opinion last mentioned.

Our fourth conclusion directly follows from the general principle that the act by which a thing has its first being is its principle of action: Quo aliquid primo est, eo agit. The substantial act, considered as to its absolute entity, does not connote action, but simply constitutes the being of which it is the act. In order to conceive it as an active power, we must refer to the effects which it virtually contains--that is, we must consider its virtuality. In this manner what is a second act with regard to the substance of the agent, will be conceived as a first act with reference to the effects it can produce, according to a received axiom: Actus secundus essendi est actus primus operandi.

The fifth conclusion, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of many philosophers, is quite certain. For all intrinsic modification is the result of passive reception or passion. Now, to produce a momentum of movement is action, not passion. Therefore, when such a momentum is produced, no other subject is intrinsically modified by it except the one which passively receives it. It is therefore the being which is acted on, not that which acts, that acquires an intrinsic modification. The power of the agent is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by action than by non-action. Its action is an extrinsic termination, and gives it nothing but the real denomination of agent, by which it is really related to the term acted on. The patient, by its reception of the momentum, becomes similarly related to the agent, as is evident. And the relation consists in this: that the patient acquires formally an act which the agent virtually contains. This relation is of accidental causality on the one side and of accidental dependence on the other. The foundation of the relation is the accidental action as coming from the one and terminating in the other.

As everything that is in movement must have received the motion from a distinct agent, according to the principle Omne quod movetur, ab alio movetur, it follows that whatever is in movement is accidentally dependent on an extrinsic mover; and, since all material elements are both movers and moved, they all have a mutual accidental causality and dependence.

Our sixth conclusion is sufficiently clear from what has been said concerning the sixth conclusion of the preceding series. The momentum of movement is evidently the second act of the motive power--that is, the extrinsic term of its exertion. The entitative distance between two momentums produced by the same mover is an extrinsic relation; for its foundation is the virtuality of the act by which the agent is, as has been explained above. But the same momentums, as possessing greater or less intensity, can also be compared with one another according to their intrinsic entity or degree; and thus they will be found to have a mutual relation arising from an intrinsic foundation.

Remarks.--As the ubication, so also the momentum produced by accidental action, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. The momentum, considered absolutely, is an act received in a subject--an absolute momentum, an extrinsic term of the virtuality of the motive principle; and, as such a momentum is only one out of the innumerable acts which can proceed from the agent, it has an entity infinitely less than that of the agent. It is evident, in fact, that between a substantial and an accidental act there must be an infinite entitative disproportion, both because no substance can be substantially changed by its accidents, and because the substantial act can never be exhausted, and not even weakened, by the production of accidental acts, as we have established in another place.[158] The momentum is considered respectively when it is compared with another momentum, in which case we can find the relation of the one to the other as to intensity. This intensity is measured by the quantity of the movement to which they give rise when not counteracted.

The unit of intensity is arbitrary in the momentums, as in their principles, for the same reason--that is, because in neither case a natural unit of intensity can be found. The number expressing the relative intensity of a momentum is only virtually discrete, because the momentum is only virtually compounded, since it is not a number of distinct acts, but one act equivalent to many.

Movement and its affections.--The production of a momentum entails movement. The general definition of movement, according to Aristotle and S. Thomas, is Actus existentis in potentia ut in potentia, or, as we would say, an actual passage from one potential state to another. Now, all created being is potential in two manners: first, on account of its passive receptivity; secondly, on account of its affectibility, which is a consequence of its passivity, as we have explained in the “Principles of Real Being.”[159] Hence the momentum of movement, inasmuch as it is received in the patient, actuates its passive potency; and inasmuch as its reception entails a certain mode of being, it affects its resultant potentiality. But besides this double potentiality, which is intrinsic to the subject, there is another potentiality which refers to an extrinsic term, and for this reason movement is considered both as it is a modification of its subject, ratione subjecti, and as it points at an extrinsic term, ratione termini.

With regard to its subject, movement is usually divided into immanent and transient. It is called immanent when it results from immanent acts, as when the soul directs its attention to such or such an object of thought; and it is called transient when it brings about a change in a subject distinct from the agent, as when a man moves a stone, or when the sun moves the earth. But this is inaccurate language; for what is transient in these cases is the action, not the movement.

With regard to its term, movement is divided into two kinds--that is, movement to a place, motus ad ubi, and movement towards a certain degree of perfection or intensity of power, motus virtutis.[160] The first is called local movement, of which we will speak presently. The second is subdivided into intension, remission, and alteration. Intension and remission are the acquisition or loss of some degree of perfection or of intensity with regard to power and qualities; alteration is the passage from one kind of quality or property to another. Thus, in water, heat is subject to intension and remission; but when the cohesive force of the molecules is superseded by the expansive force of vapor, there is alteration.

It is important to notice that there is no motus virtutis in primitive elements of matter. The exertion of their power varies indeed according to the Newtonian law, but the power itself is always exactly the same, as its principle is the substantial act, which cannot be modified by accidental action. It is only in material compounds that the motus virtutis can be admitted, for the reason that the active powers and qualities in them are a result of composition; hence a change in the mode of the composition brings about a change in the resultant. So also in spiritual substances there is no motus virtutis, because their active faculties are always substantially the same. True it is that the intellect has also its passivity with regard to intelligible species, and that it acts by so much the more easily and perfectly in proportion as it is better furnished with intelligible species distinctly expressed and arranged according to their logical and objective connection. But this cannot mean that the active power of the intellect can be increased, but only that it can be placed in more suitable conditions for its operations. And the like is to be said of all acquired habits; for they give a greater facility of acting, not by intensifying the intrinsic power, but by placing the active faculty in such conditions as are more favorable for its operation.

But let us revert to local movement. This movement may be defined as the act of gliding through successive ubications. Such a gliding alters the relations of one body to another, as is evident, but it involves no new intrinsic modification of the subject. As long as the subject continues to move under the same momentum, its intrinsic mode of being remains uniformly the same, while its extrinsic relations to other bodies are in continual change. Hence the local movement of any point of matter merely consists in the act of extending from ubication to ubication, or, as we may say, in the evolution of the intensity of the momentum into continuous extension. The reason of this evolution is that the momentum impressed on a subject has not only a definite intensity, but also a definite direction in space; whence it follows that the subject which receives the momentum receives a determination to describe a line in a definite direction, which it must follow, owing to its inertia, with an impetus equal to the intensity of the momentum itself. And in this manner a material point, by the successive flowing of its ubication, describes a line in space, or evolves the intensity of its momentum into extension.

Hence, of local movement we can predicate both intensity and extension. The intensity is the formal principle, which, by actuating the inertia or mobility of the subject, evolves itself into extension. The extension is the actual evolution of the momentum, and constitutes the essence of local movement, which is always in fieri. And this is what is especially pointed out in Aristotle’s words: Motus est actus existentis in potentia, ut in potentia. The actus refers to the intensity, which is not in fieri, but has a definite actuality; whilst the in potentia ut in potentia clearly refers to the evolution of extension, which is continually in fieri under the influx of said act. Accordingly, local movement is both intensive and extensive. But this last epithet is to be looked upon as equivalent to “extending,” not to “extended”; for it is the line drawn, or the track of the movement already made, that is properly “extended,” whereas the movement itself is the act of extending it.

The formal intensity of local movement is called velocity. We say the formal intensity, because movement has also a material intensity. The formal intensity regards the rate of movement of each element of matter taken by itself, and it is greater or less according as it evolves a greater or a less extension in equal times. The material intensity regards the quantity of matter which is moving with a given velocity, and is measured by the product of the velocity into the mass of the moving body. This product is called the momentum of the body, or its quantity of movement.

Local movement is subject to three affections--viz., intension, remission, and inflexion. In fact, since local movement consists in extending with a certain velocity in a certain direction, it is susceptible of being modified either by a change of velocity, which will intensify or weaken it, or by a change of direction--that is, by inflexion. So long, however, as no agent disturbs the actual movement already imparted to a body, the movement must necessarily continue in the same direction and with the same velocity; for matter, owing to its inertia, cannot modify its own state. This amounts to saying that the tendency uniformly to preserve its rate and its direction is not an accidental affection, but the very nature, of local movement.

This being premised, we are going to establish a series of conclusions, concerning movement and its affections, parallel to that which we have developed in the preceding pages respecting power and its exertions. The reader will see that the chain of our analogies must here end; for, since movement is not action, it affects nothing new, and produces no extrinsic terms, but only entails changes of local relations. On the other hand, the affections of local movement are not of a transient, but of an immanent, character, and thus they give rise to no new entity, but are themselves identified with the movement of which they are the modes. Our conclusions are the following:

1st. There is in all local movement something permanent--that is, a general determination of a lasting character, which has no need of being individuated in one manner more than in another.

2d. This constant determination is an objective reality.

3d. This same determination is nothing accidentally superadded to local movement.

4th. This determination is the virtuality of the momentum of movement, or the act of evolving extension in a definite direction.

5th. This determination is not intrinsically modified by any accidental modification of local movement.

6th. The affections of local movement are intrinsic and intransitive modes, which identify themselves with the movement which they modify.

The first of these conclusions is briefly proved thus: whatever is a subject of real modifications has something permanent. Local movement is a subject of real modifications. Therefore, local movement involves something permanent.

The second conclusion is self-evident.

The third conclusion, too, is evident. For whatever is accidentally superadded to a thing can be accidentally taken away, and therefore cannot belong to the thing permanently and invariably. Hence the constant and fixed determination in question cannot be an accident of local movement.

The fourth conclusion is a corollary of the third. For nothing is necessarily permanent in local movement, except that which constitutes its essence. Now, its essence lies in this: that it must evolve extension at the rate and in the direction determined by the momentum of which it is the exponent. Therefore the permanent determination of which we are speaking is nothing else than the virtuality of the momentum itself as developing into extension. And since the momentum by which the moving body is animated has a determinate intensity and direction, which virtually contains a determinate velocity and direction of movement, it follows that the permanent determination in question consists in the actual tendency of movement to evolve uniformly and in a straight line--uniformly, because velocity is the form of movement, and the velocity determined by the intensity of the actual momentum is actually one; in a straight line, because the actual momentum being one, it gives but one direction to the movement, which therefore will be straight in its tendency. Whence we conclude that it is of the essence of local movement to have an actual tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line.

Some will object that local movement may lack both uniformity and straightness. This is quite true, but it does not destroy our conclusion. For, as movement is always in fieri, and exists only by infinitesimal instants in which it is impossible to admit more than one velocity and one direction, it remains always true that within every instant of its existence the movement is straight and uniform, and that in every such instant it tends to continue in the same direction and at the same rate--that is, with the velocity and direction it actually possesses. This velocity and direction may, of course, be modified in the following instant; but in the following instant, too, the movement will tend to evolve uniformly and in a straight line suitably to its new velocity and direction. Whence it is manifest that, although in the continuation of the movement there may be a series of different velocities and directions, yet the tendency of the movement is, at every instant of its existence, to extend uniformly in a straight line. This truth is the foundation of dynamics.

Our fifth conclusion is sufficiently evident from what we have just said. For, whatever be the intensity and direction of the movement, its determination to extend uniformly in a straight line is not interfered with.

Our last conclusion has no need of explanation. For, since the affections of local movement are the result of new momentums impressed on the subject it is plain that they are intrinsic modes characterizing a movement individually different from the movement that preceded. The tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line remains unimpaired, as we have shown; but the movement itself becomes entitatively--viz., quantitatively--different.

Remarks.--Local movement is divided into uniform and varied. Uniform movement we call that which has a constant velocity. For, as velocity is the form of movement, to say that a movement is uniform is to say that it has but one velocity in the whole of its extension. We usually call “uniform” all movement whose apparent velocity is constant; but, to say the truth, no rigorously uniform movement exists in nature for any appreciable length of time. In fact, every element of matter lies within the sphere of action of all other elements, and is continually acted on, and continually receives new momentums; the evident consequence of which is that its real movement must undergo a continuous change of velocity. Hence rigorously uniform movement is limited to infinitesimal time.

Varied movement is that whose rate is continually changing. It is divided into accelerated and retarded; and, when the acceleration or the retardation arises from a constant action which in equal times imparts equal momentums, the movement is said to be uniformly accelerated or retarded.

Epilogue.--The explanation we have given of space, duration, and movement suffices, if we are not mistaken, to show what is the true nature of the only continuous quantities which can be found in the real order of things. The reader will have seen that the source of all continuity is motive power and its exertion. It is such an exertion that engenders local movement, and causes it to be continuous in its entity, in its local extension, and in its duration. In fact, why is the local movement continuous in its entity? Because the motive action strengthens or weakens it by continuous infinitesimal degrees in each successive infinitesimal instant, thus causing it to pass through all the degrees of intensity designable between its initial and its final velocity. And again: why is the local movement continuous in its local extension? Because it is the property of an action which proceeds from a point in space and is terminated to another point in space, to give a local direction to the subject in which the momentum is received; whence it follows that the subject under the influence of such a momentum must draw a continuous line in space. Finally, why is the local movement continuous in its duration? Because, owing to the continuous change of its ubication, the subject of the movement extends its absolute when from before to after, in a continuous succession, which is nothing but the duration of the movement.

Hence absolute space and absolute duration, which are altogether independent of motive actions, are not formally continuous, but only supply the extrinsic reason of the possibility of formal continuums. It is matter in movement that by the flowing of its ubi from here to there actually marks out a continuous line in space, and by the flowing of its quando from before to after marks out a continuous line in duration. Thus it is not absolute space, but the line drawn in space, that is formally extended from here to there; and it is not absolute duration, but the line successively drawn in duration, that is formally extended from before to after.

With regard to the difficulties which philosophers have raised at different times against local movement we have very little to say. An ancient philosopher, when called to answer some arguments against the possibility of movement, thought it sufficient to reply: Solvitur ambulando--“I walk; therefore movement is possible.” This answer was excellent; but, while showing the inanity of the objections, it took no notice of the fallacies by which they were supported. We might follow the same course; for the arguments advanced against movement are by no means formidable. Yet we will mention and solve three of them before dismissing the subject.

First. If a body moves, it moves where it is, not where it is not. But it cannot move where it is; for to move implies not to remain where it is, and therefore bodies cannot move. The answer is, that bodies neither move where they are nor where they are not, but from the place where they are to the place where they are not.

Second. A material element cannot describe a line in space between two points without gliding through all the intermediate ubications. But the intermediate ubications are infinite, as infinite points can be designated in any line; and the infinite cannot be passed over. The answer is that an infinite multitude cannot be measured by one of its units; and for this reason the infinite multitude of ubications which may be designated between the terms of a line cannot be measured by a unit of the same kind. Nevertheless, a line can be measured by movement--that is, not by the ubication itself, but by the flowing of an ubication; because the flowing of the ubication is continuous, and involves continuous quantity; and therefore it is to be considered as containing in itself its own measure, which is a measure of length, and which may serve to measure the whole line of movement. If the length of a line were an infinite sum of ubications--that is, of mathematical points--the objection would have some weight; but the length of the line is evidently not a sum of points. The line is a continuous quantity evolved by the flowing of a point. It can therefore be measured by the flowing of a point. For as the line described can be divided and subdivided without end, so also the time employed in describing it can be divided and subdivided without end. Hence the length of a line described in a finite length of time can be conceived as an infinite virtual multitude of infinitesimal lengths, just in the same manner as the time employed in describing it can be conceived as an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants. Now, the infinite can measure the infinite; and therefore it is manifest that an infinite multitude of infinitesimal lengths can be measured by the flowing of a point through an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants.[161]

Third. The communication of movement, as we know by experience, requires time; and yet time arises from movement, and cannot begin before the movement is communicated. How, then, will movement be communicated? The answer is that time and movement begin together, and evolve simultaneously in the very act of the communication of movement. It is not true, then, that all communication of movement requires time. Our experience regards only the communication of finite movement, which, of course, cannot be made except the action of the agent continue for a finite time. But movement is always communicated by infinitesimal degrees in infinitesimal instants; and thus the beginning of the motive action coincides with the beginning of the movement, and this coincides with the beginning of its duration.

And here we end. The considerations which we have developed in our articles on space, duration, and movement have, we think, a sufficient importance to be regarded with interest by those who have a philosophical turn of mind. The subjects which we have endeavored so far to investigate are scarcely ever examined as deeply as they deserve by the modern writers of philosophical treatises; but there is no doubt that a clearer knowledge of those subjects must enable us to extricate ourselves from many difficulties to be met in other parts of metaphysics. It is principally in order to solve the sophisms of the idealists and of the transcendental pantheists that we need an exact, intellectual notion of space and of time. We see how Kant, the father of German idealism and pantheism, was led into numerous errors by his misconception of these two points, and how his followers, owing to a like hallucination, succeeded in obscuring the light of their noble intellects, and were prompted to deny and revile the most certain and fundamental principles of human reasoning. In fact, a mistaken notion of space lies at the bottom of nearly all their philosophical blunders. If we desire to refute their false theories by direct and categorical arguments, we must know how far we can trust the popular language on space, and how we can correct its inaccuracies so as to give precision to our own phraseology, lest by conceding or denying more than truth demands we furnish them with the means of retorting against our argumentation. This is the main reason that induced us to treat of space, duration, and movement in a special series of articles, as we entertained the hope that we might thus help in cutting the ground from under the feet of the pantheist by uprooting the very germ of his manifold errors.

NOT YET.

Methought the King of Terrors came my way: Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base. But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay, I stood--and dared to look him in the face. “So soon!” the only murmur in my heart: For I had shaped the deeds of many years-- Ambitioning atonement, and, in part, To reap in joy what I had sown in tears. Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen! ’Twere very sweet already to have won My crown, and pass to see as I am seen, And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son: Yet would I stay--and for myself, I own:-- To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”

SONGS OF THE PEOPLE.

Without going back to abstruse speculations on the origin of music in England (there is a mania in our century for discovering the “origin” of everything, and theorizing on it, long before a sufficient number of facts has been collected even to make a pedestal for the most modest and limited theory), we gather from the mention of it in old English poems, and books on ballads and songs, glees and catches, that it existed in a very creditable form at least eight hundred years ago. Indeed, there was national and popular music before this, and the Welsh songs, the oldest of all, point far back to a legendary past as the source of their being. The first foreign song that mingled with the rude music of the early Britons was doubtless that of the Christian missionaries in the first century of our era, and after that there can have been little music among the converted Britons but what was more or less tinged with a foreign and Christian element. We know, too, that at various times foreign monks either came or were invited to the different kingdoms in England to teach the natives the ecclesiastical chant. Gardiner, in his Music of Nature, says that “as the invaders came from all parts of the Continent, our language and music became a motley collection of sounds and words unlike that of any other people; and though we have gained a language of great force and extent, yet we have lost our primitive music, as not a single song remains that has the character of being national.” He also says that before music was cultivated as an art, England, in common with other countries, had its national songs, but that these, with the people who sang them, were driven by the conquerors into Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This assertion is rather a sweeping one, and the recognized formula about the ancient inhabitants of Britain being all crowded into certain particular districts is one that will bear modifying and correcting. The British Anthropological Society has, during the last ten years, made interesting researches in the field of race-characteristics in different parts of England, and an accumulation of facts has gone far to prove the permanence of some Gaelic, Cymric, and Celtic types in other parts, exclusive of Wales and Cornwall. Dr. Beddoe and Mr. Mackintosh have published the result of their observations, and the latter concludes that “a considerable portion of the west Midland and southwestern counties are scarcely distinguishable from three of the types found in Wales--namely, the British, Gaelic, and Cymrian. In Shropshire, and ramifying to the east and southeast, the Cymrian type may be found in great numbers, though not predominating.… In many parts of the southwest the prevailing type among the working classes is decidedly Gaelic.… North Devon and Dorset may be regarded as its headquarters in South Britain.” Then, again, the district along the borders of Wales, especially between Taunton and Oswestry, and as far east as Bath, shows a population more naturally intellectual than that of any other part of England, and that without any superiority of primary education to account for it. The people are what might be called Anglicized Welsh, and there is among them a greater taste for solid knowledge than in the heart of England. Lancashire is to a great extent Scandinavian, and also somewhat Cymrian, as we have seen, and there the people are known as a shrewd, hardy race, thoughtful and fond of study, and great adepts in music.

At a large school in Tiverton, Devonshire, nine-tenths of the boys presented the most exaggerated Gaelic physiognomy; while at another, near Chichester, the girls were all of the most unmistakable Saxon type. We need not go further in this classification, and only introduced it to show that massing together all British types in Wales and Cornwall is a fallacy, such as all hasty generalizations are. It is not so certain, therefore, that there exists no indigenous element in the old songs that have survived, though in many an altered form, in some of the rural districts of England. Then, again, how is the word “national” used--in the sense of indigenous, or of popular, or of exclusively belonging to one given country? English music was, before the Commonwealth, at least as indigenous as the English language, as that gradually grew up and welded itself together. As to popularity, there was a style of song--some specimens of which we shall give--which was known and used by the poorest and humblest, and a style, too, far removed from the plebeian, though it may have been rather sentimental. Then glees and catches are, though of no very great antiquity, essentially English, and are scarcely known in any other country. If “national” stands for “political,” as many people at this day seem to take for granted, then, indeed, England has not much to boast of. That music is born rather of oppression and defeat, and loves to commemorate a people’s undying devotion to their own race, laws, customs, and rulers. Irish and Welsh and Jacobite songs exhibit that style best, though only the first of the three have any present significance, the two other kinds having long ago become more valuable for their intrinsic or historical merit than for their political meaning. Certain modern English songs, such as “Ye Mariners of England,” “Rule Britannia,” “The Death of Nelson,” might be called national songs in the political sense; but “God Save the King,” though patriotic and loyal, is thoroughly German in style and composition, and therefore hardly deserves the title national.

The Welsh have kept their musical taste pure. Mr. Mackintosh, in his paper on the Comparative Anthropology of England and Wales, says of the quiet and thoughtful villagers of Glan Ogwen, near the great Penrhyn slate quarries, that “their appreciation of the compositions of Handel and other great musicians is remarkable; and they perform the most difficult oratorios with a precision of time and intonation unknown in any part of England, except the West Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford.” The three latter are towns where the musical festivals are so frequent that the taste of the people cannot help being educated up to a good standard. Hereford, too, is very near the Welsh border. “The musical ear of the Welsh is extremely accurate. I was once present in a village church belonging to the late Dean of Bangor, when the choir sang an anthem composed by their leader, and repeated an unaccompanied hymn-tune five or six times without the slightest lowering of pitch. The works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart are republished with Welsh words at Ruthin and several other towns, and their circulation is almost incredible. At book and music shops of a rank where in England negro melodies would form the staple compositions, Handel is the great favorite; and such tunes as ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ would not be tolerated. The native airs are in general very elegant and melodious. Some of them, composed long before Handel, are in the Handelian style; others are remarkably similar to some of Corelli’s compositions. The less classical Welsh airs, in 3-8 time, such as ‘Jenny Jones’ are well known. Those in 2-4 time are often characterized by a sudden stop in the middle or at the close of a measure, and a repetition of pathetic slides or slurs.”

Much of this eulogium might be equally applied to the people of Lancashire, especially the men, who know the great oratorios by heart, and sing the choruses faultlessly among themselves, not only at large gatherings, but in casual reunions, whenever three or four happen to meet. Their part-singing, too, in glees, both ancient and modern, is admirable, and they have scarcely any taste for the low songs which are only too popular in many parts of England.

The songs of chivalry were another graft on the stock of English music, and the honor paid to the bards and minstrels was a mingling of the love of a national institution at least as old as the Druids--some say much older--and of the enthusiasm produced by the metrical relation of heroic feats of arms. The Crusades gave a great impulse to the troubadours’ songs, while the ancient British custom of commemorating the national history by the oral tradition and the music of the harpers, seemed to merge into and strengthen the new order of minstrels. Long before the bagpipe became the peculiar--almost national--instrument of Scotland, the harp held that position, as it has not yet ceased to do, in Ireland and Wales. The oldest harp now in Great Britain is an Irish one, which was already old in 1064. It is now in the museum of Trinity College, Dublin. These ancient instruments were very different from the modern ones on which our grandmothers used to display their skill before the pianoforte became, to its detriment, the fashionable instrument for young ladies; and even now the Irish and Welsh harps are made exactly on the old models, and have no pedals. But the use of the harp was not confined to the Welsh, and in the reign of King John, in the XIIth century, on the occasion of an attack made on the old town of Chester by the Welsh during the great yearly fair, it is recorded in the town annals that the commandant assembled all the minstrels who had come to the place upon that occasion, and marched them in the night, with their instruments playing, against the enemy, who, upon hearing so vast a sound, were filled with such terror and surprise that they instantly fled. In memory of this famous exploit, no doubt suggested by the Biblical narrative of Gideon’s successful stratagem, a meeting of minstrels is annually kept up to this day, with one of the Dutton family at their head, to whom certain privileges are granted. In the reign of Henry I. the minstrels were formed into corporate bodies, and enjoyed certain immunities in various parts of the kingdom. Gardiner[162] says that “the most accomplished became the companions and favorites of kings, and attended the court in all its expeditions.” Perhaps we may refer the still extant office of poet-laureate to this custom of retaining a court minstrel near the person of the sovereign. In the time of Elizabeth the profession of a harper had become a degraded one, only embraced by idle, low, and dissolute characters; and so it has remained ever since, through the various stages of ballad-monger, street-singer and fiddler, in which the memory of the once noble office has been merged or lost. In Scotland the piper, a personage of importance, has taken the place of the harper since the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, who introduced the pipes from France; but in Wales the minstrel, with his harp, upheld his respectability much longer, and even now most of the old families, jealous and proud of their national customs, retain their bard as an officer of the household. The writer has seen and heard one of these ancient minstrels, in the service of a family living near Llanarth, the mistress (a widow) making it her special business to promote the keeping up of all old national customs. She was an excellent farmer, too, and had a pet breed of small black Welsh sheep, whose wool she prepared for the loom herself, and with which she clothed her family and household. In the neighboring town she had got up an annual competition of harpers and choirs for the performance of Welsh music exclusively. The concert was always the occasion of a regular country festivity, ending with a ball, and medals and other prizes were given by her own hand to the best instrumental and vocal artists.

In Percy’s Reliques a description is given of the dress and appearance of a mediæval bard, as personated at a pageant given at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Elizabeth. The glory of the brotherhood was already so much a thing of the past that it was thought worth while to introduce this figure into a mock procession. This very circumstance is enough to mark the decline of the art in those days, but already a new sort of popular song had sprung up to replace the romances of chivalry. “A person,” says Percy, “very meet for the purpose, … his cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsure-wise, fair-kembed [combed], that with a sponge daintily dipt in a little capon’s grease was finely smoothed, to make it shine like a mallard’s wing. His beard smugly shaven; and yet his shirt, after the new trink, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked and glittering like a pair of new shoes; marshalled in good order with a setting stick and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer.[163] A long gown of Kendal-green gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with a white clasp and a keeper close up to the chin, but easily, for heat, to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle; from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging at two sides. Out of his bosom was drawn forth a lappet of his napkin [handkerchief] edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true-love, a heart, and D for Damain; for he was but a bachelor yet. His gown had long sleeves down to mid-leg, lined with white cotton. His doublet-sleeves of black worsted; upon them a pair of poynets [wristlets, from poignet] of tawny chamlet, laced along the wrist with blue threaden points; a wealt towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather stocks, a pair of pumps [shoes] on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns; not new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing-horn. About his neck a red riband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependent before him. His wrest [tuning-key] tyed to a green lace, and hanging by. Under the gorget of his gown, a fair chain of silver as a squire minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men’s houses. From his chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and color, resplendent upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington.” The peculiarities marking his shoes no doubt referred to the long pedestrian tours of the early minstrels.

Chaucer, in the XIVth century, makes frequent mention of music, both vocal and instrumental. Of his twenty-nine Canterbury Pilgrims, six could either play or sing, and two, the Squire and the Mendicant Friar, could do both. Of the Prioress he quaintly says:

“Ful wel she sangé the service devine, Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”

Dr. Burney thinks that part-singing was already known and practised in Chaucer’s time, and draws this inference from the notice the poet takes in his “Dream” of the singing of birds:

“… for some of them songe lowe Some high, and all of one accorde”;

and it is certain that this kind of music was a great favorite with the English people at a very early period, and was indebted to them for many improvements. The same writer says that the English, in their secular music and in part-singing, rather preceded than followed the European nations, and that, though he could find no music in parts, except church music, in foreign countries before the middle of the XVIth century, yet in England he found Masses in four, five, and six parts, as well as secular songs in the vulgar tongue in two or three parts, in the XVth and early part of the XVIth centuries. Ritson, it is true, in his Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution, disputes this, but Hawkins is of the same opinion as Burney. Mr. Stafford Smith, at the end of the last century, made a collection of old English songs written in score for three or four voices; but though the oldest music to such songs is scarcely intelligible, the number collected proves how popular that sort of music was in early times. (Perhaps the illegibility of the music is due to the old notation, in use before the perfected stave of four lines became general--the pneumatic notation, supposed by Coussemaker, Schubiger, Ambros, and other writers on music to have been developed out of the system of accents of speech represented by signs, such as are still used in French.)

Landini, an Italian writer of the XVth century, in his Commentary on Dante, speaks of “many most excellent musicians” as coming from England to Italy to hear and study under Antonio degli organi (a name denoting his profession); while another writer, the choir-master of the royal chapel of Ferdinand, King of Naples, mentions the excellence of the English vocal music in parts, and even (incorrectly) calls John of Dunstable (a musician of the middle of the XVth century) the “inventor of counterpoint.”

One of the oldest compositions of this kind is a manuscript score in the British Museum, a canon in unison for four voices, with the addition of two more voices for the pes, as it is called, which is a kind of ground, and is the basis of the harmony. The words, partially modernized, are as follows (they are much older than the music, which is only four hundred years old):

“Summer is a-coming in, Loud sing cuckoo; Groweth seed And bloweth mead, And springeth the weed new. Ewe bleateth after lamb; Loweth after calf, cow; Bullock sterteth [leaps], Buckè verteth [frequents green places], Merry sing cuckoo; Nor cease thou ever now.”

Dr. Burney says of this song that the modulation is monotonous, but that the chief merit lies in “the airy, pastoral correspondence of the melody with the words”--a merit which many modern compositions of the “popular” type are very far from possessing. Under the Tudors music made rapid strides. Dr. Robert Fairfax was well known as a composer in those days, and a collection of old English songs with their music (often in parts), made by him, has been preserved to this day. Besides himself, such writers as Cornyshe, Syr Thomas Phelyppes, Davy, Brown, Banister, Tudor, Turges, Sheryngham, and William of Newark are represented. Of these, Cornyshe was the best, and Purcell, two hundred years later, imitated much of his rondeau style, most of these composers being entirely secular. Henry VIII. himself wrote music for two Masses, and had them sung in his chapel; and to be able to take a part in madrigals, and sing at sight in any piece of concerted music, was reckoned a part of a gentleman’s education in those days. The invention of printing gave a great impulse to song-writing and composing, though for some time after the words were printed the music was probably still copied by hand over the words; for the printing of notes was of course a further and subsequent development of the new art. A musician and poet of the name of Gray became a favorite of Henry VIII. and of the Protector Somerset “for making certain merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was ‘The hunt is up--the hunt is up.’”[164]

“A popular species of harmony,” says Ritson, “arose in this reign; it was called ‘King Henry’s Mirth,’ or ‘Freemen’s Songs,’ that monarch being a great admirer of vocal music. ‘Freemen’s Songs’ is a corruption of ‘Three-men’s Songs,’ from their being generally for three voices.” Very few songs were written for one voice.

Ballads were very popular, and formed one of the great attractions at fairs. An old pamphlet, published in the reign of Elizabeth, mentions with astonishment that “Out-roaring Dick and Wat Winbars” got twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair, in Essex. It does seem a good deal, considering that the sum was equal to five pounds of the present money, which again is equivalent to about thirty dollars currency. These wandering singers, the lowly successors of the proud minstrels, were in their way quite as successful; but, what is more wonderful, their songs were for the most part neither coarse nor vulgar. Good poets wrote for music in those days; now, as a general rule, it is only rhymers who avowedly write that their words may be set to music. As quack-doctors, fortune-tellers, pedlers, etc., mounted benches and barrel-heads to harangue the people, and thus gained the now ill-sounding name of mountebanks, so too did these singers call over their songs and sing those chosen by their audience; and they are frequently called by the writers of those times cantabanchi, an Italian compound of cantare (to sing) and banchi (benches). Among the headings given of these popular songs are the following: “The Three Ravens: a dirge”; “By a bank as I lay”; “So woe is me, begone”; “Three merry men we be”; “But now he is dead and gone”; “Now, Robin, lend me thy Bow”; “Bonny Lass upon a green”; “He is dead and gone, Lady,” etc. There is a quaint grace and sadness about the titles which speaks well for the manners of those who listened and applauded. Popular taste has certainly degenerated in many parts of England; for such titles now would only provoke a sneer among an average London or Midland county audience of the lower classes. Gardiner says: “The most ancient of our English songs are of a grave cast, and commonly written in the key of G minor.”

Among the composers of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. was Birde, who wrote a still popular canon on the Latin words “Non nobis, Domine,” and set to music the celebrated song ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer, a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, “My Mind to me a Kingdom is.”

Birde’s scholar, Morley, produced a great number of canzonets, or short songs for three or more voices; and Ford, who was an original genius, published some pieces for four voices, with an accompaniment for lutes and viols, besides other pieces, especially catches of an humorous character. George Kirbye was another canzonet composer, and Thomas Weelkes has been immortalized by the good-fortune which threw him in Shakspere’s way, so that the latter often wrote words for his music. Yet doubtless the fame of the one, as that of the other, was chiefly posthumous; and poet and musician, on a par in those days, may have starved in company, unknowing that a MS. of theirs would fetch its weight in gold a hundred years after they were in their graves.

“The musical reputation of England,” says a writer in an old review of 1834, “must mainly rest on the songs in parts of the period between 1560 and 1625.” And Gardiner says: “If we can set up any claim to originality, it is in our glees and anthems.” The gleemen, who were at first a class of the minstrels, are supposed to have been the first who performed vocal music in parts, according to set rules and by notes, though the custom must have existed long before it was thus technically sanctioned. The earliest pieces of the kind upon record are by the madrigal writers, and were, perhaps, founded upon the taste of the Italian school; but there soon grew up a distinction sufficient to mark English glee-music as a separate species of the art. It is said that glee-singing did not become generally popular till about the year 1770, when glees formed a prominent part of the private concerts of the nobility; but their being adopted into fashionable circles only at that date is scarcely a proof of their late origin. The canzonets for three or four voices must have been closely allied to glees, and a family likeness existed between these and the madrigals for four or five voices, the ballets, or fa-las, for five, and the songs for six and seven parts, which are so prodigally mentioned in a list of works by Morley within the short space of only four years--1593 to 1597. The number of these songs proves their wonderful popularity, and we incline to think, with the writer we have quoted, that the English, in the catches and glees, the works of the composers of the days of Elizabeth and James I., and those of Purcell, Tallis, Croft, Bull, Blow, Boyce, etc., at a later period, possess a music essentially national and original--not imitative, as is the modern English school, and not more indebted to foreign sources than any other progressive and liberal art is to the lessons given it by its practisers in other civilized communities. For if national is to mean isolated and petrified, by all means let us forswear nationalism.

Shakspere’s songs are scattered throughout his works, and were evidently written for music. Both old and new composers have set them to music, and of the latter none so happily as Bishop Weelkes and John Dowland, his contemporaries and friends; the latter, the composer of Shakspere’s favorite song (not his own), “Awake, sweet Love,” often wrote music for his words. In his plays Shakspere has introduced many fragments of old songs and ballads; but Ritson says of him: “This admirable writer composed the most beautiful and excellent songs, which no one, so far as we know, can be said to have done before him, nor has any one excelled him since.” This statement is qualified by an exception in favor of Marlowe, a predecessor of Shakspere, and the author of the “Passionate Shepherd to his Love”; and besides, it means that he was the first great poet among the song-writers, who, in comparison with him, might be called mere ballad-mongers. Shakspere’s love for the old, simple, touching music of his native land, shown on many occasions throughout his works, is most exquisitely expressed in the following passage from Twelfth Night:

“Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we had last night: Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times. … O fellow, come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,[165] Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age.”

Though Shakspere’s plays were marked with the coarseness of speech common in his time, and therefore not, as some have thought, chargeable to him in particular, his songs, on the contrary, are of singular daintiness. They are too well known to be quoted here, but they breathe the very spirit of music, being evidently intended to be sung and popularly known. The chorus, or rather refrain, of one, beginning, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” runs thus:

“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly!”

The “Serenade to Sylvia” is lovely, chaste and delicate in speech as it is playful in form; and the fairy song “Over hill, over dale,” is like the song of a chorus of animated flowers. The description of the cowslips is very poetic:

“The cowslips tall her pensioners be, In their gold coats spots you see-- Those be rubies, fairy favors; In those freckles live their savors. I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”

Bishop Hall, in 1597, published a satirical poem in which he complains that madrigals and ballads were “sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail”--that is, by maids spinning and milking, or fetching water; and Lord Surrey, in one of his poems, says (not satirically, however):

“My mother’s maids, when they do sit and spin, They sing a song.”

Now, we gather what was the style of these songs of peasant girls and laborers from the writings of good old Izaak Walton, who mentions, as a common occurrence, that he often met, in the fields bordering the river Lee, a handsome milkmaid who sang like a nightingale, her voice being good and the ditties fitted for it. “She sang the smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago, and the milkmaid’s mother sang the answer to it which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days.… They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I think much better than that now in fashion in this critical age.”[166] He wrote in the reign of Charles I., and already deplored the influx of more pretentious songs; but those he mentions with such commendation were the famous “Passionate Shepherd to his Love” and the song beginning “If all the world and love were young,” two exquisite lyrics of an elegance much above what is now termed the taste of the vulgar.

Izaak Walton was as fond of music as of angling, and quotes many of the popular songs of his day. He was a quiet man, and only describes the pastimes of humble life. He used to rest from his labors in an “honest ale-house” and a “cleanly room,” where he and his fellow-fishermen, and sometimes the milkmaid, whiled away the evenings by singing ballads and duets. Any casual dropper-in was expected to take his part; and among the music mentioned as common in these gatherings are numbers of “ketches,” or, as we should say, catches. The music of one of his favorite duets, “Man’s life is but vain, for ’tis subject to pain,” is given in the old editions of his book. It is simple and pretty; the composer was Mr. H. Lawes. Other songs, favorites of his, were “Come, shepherds, deck your heads”; “As at noon Dulcina rested”; “Phillida flouts me”; and that touching elegy, “Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,” by George Herbert. This is as full of meaning as it is short:

“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night For thou must die.

“Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die.

“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie, My music shows you have your closes And all must die.

“Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber never gives, But, when the whole world turns to coal, Then chiefly lives.”

Sir Henry Wotton’s song for the poor countryman, beginning--

“Fly from our country pastimes, fly, Sad troops of human misery! Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure, azured heaven that smiles to see The rich attendance on our poverty!”

and some verses of Dr. Donne (both these writers being contemporaries of James I.), are also mentioned by Walton as popular among the lower classes in his day. Here is another instance of the power of song over the peasantry in the early part of the XVIIth century. In the spring of 1613, on the occasion of Queen Anne of Denmark’s return from Bath, where she had gone for her health, she was met on Salisbury Plain by the Rev. George Fereby, vicar of some obscure country parish, who entreated that her majesty would be pleased to listen to a concert performed by his people. “When the queen signified her assent, there rose out of the ravine a handsome company, dressed as Druids and as British shepherds and shepherdesses, who sang a greeting, beginning with these words, to a melody which greatly pleased the musical taste of her majesty:

“‘Shine, oh! shine, thou sacred star, On seely[167] shepherd swains!’

We should suppose, from the commencing words, that this poem had originally been a Nativity hymn pertaining to the ancient church; and it is possible that the melody might be traced to the same source.… The music, the voices, and the romantic dresses, so well corresponding with the mysterious spot where this pastoral concert was stationed, greatly captivated the imagination of the queen.”[168] Anne of Denmark admired and patronized the genius of Ben Jonson, the writer of several musical masques often performed at court by the queen and her noble attendants. The really classical time of English poetry and music was before the Commonwealth, and popular music certainly received a blow during the Puritan rule. Songs and ballads were forbidden as profane; and in 1656 Cromwell enacted that “if any of the persons commonly called fiddlers or minstrels shall at any time be taken playing, fiddling, and making music in any inn, ale-house, or tavern, or shall be taken proffering themselves, or designing or entreating any to hear them play or make music in any of the places aforesaid,” they should be “adjudged and declared to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.” Fines and imprisonments were often the penalties attached to a disregard of these ordinances; but this opposition only turned the course of popular song into political channels, and it became a point of honor among the Royalists to listen to, applaud, and protect the veriest scamp who called himself a minstrel. Songs were written with no poetical merit, but full of political allusions, bitter taunts and sneers; and it was the delight of the Cavaliers to sing these doggerel rhymes and make the wandering fiddlers sing them. Many a brawl owed its origin to this. Even certain tunes, without any words, were considered as identified with political principle, and led to dangerous ebullitions of feeling, or kept alive party prejudices in those who heard them. Popular music has always been a powerful engine for good or bad, in a political sense. Half the loyalty of the Jacobites of Scotland in the XVIIIth century was due to inflammatory songs; Körner’s lyrics fired German patriotism against Napoleon; and there has never been a party of any kind that did not speedily adopt some representative melody to fan the ardor of its adherents.

But if music and poetry were proscribed by the over-rigorous Puritans, a worse excess was fostered by the immoral reign of Charles II. The Restoration polluted the stream which the Commonwealth had attempted to dam up. Just as, in a spirit of bravado and contradiction, the Cavaliers had ostentatiously made cursing and swearing a badge of their party, to spite the sanctimoniousness of the Roundheads, so they affected to oppose to the latter’s psalm-singing roaring and immodest songs. Ritson says that Charles II. tried his hand at song-writing, and quotes a piece by him, beginning:

“I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.”

“Though by no means remarkable for poetical merit,” says the critic, “it has certainly enough for the composition of a king.” Molière was not more severe on the attempts of Louis XIV. But though the general spirit of the age was licentious, many good songs were still written. Sedley, Rochester, Dorset, Sheffield, and others wrote unexceptionable ones, and the great Dryden flourished in this reign. One of his odes, “On S. Cecilia’s Day,” is thoroughly musical in its rhythm, the refrains at the end of each stanza having the ring of some of the old German Minnesongs of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries. But his verses were scarcely simple or flowing enough to become popular in the widest sense, which honor rather belonged to the less celebrated poets of his day. Lord Dorset, for instance, was the author of a sea-song said to have been written the night before an engagement with the Dutch in 1665, and which, from its admirable ease, flow, and tenderness, became at once popular with all classes. The circumstances under which it was supposed to be written had, no doubt, something to do with its popularity; but Dr. Johnson says: “Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I have heard from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good hereditary intelligence, that Lord Dorset had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage.” The anonymous writer to whom we have referred[169] tells us that “the shorter pieces of most of the poets of the time of Charles II. had a rhythm and cadence particularly well suited to music. They were, in short, what the Italians call cantabile, or fit to be sung.… In the succeeding reigns, with the growth of our literature, there was a considerable increase in song-writing; most of our poets of eminence, and some who had no eminence except what they obtained in that way, devoting themselves occasionally to the composition of lyrical pieces. Prior, Rowe, Steele, Philips, Parnell, Gay, and others contributed a stock which might advantageously be referred to by the composers of our own times.” Prior was a friend and protégé of Lord Dorset, who sent him to Cambridge and paid for his education there. Parnell was an Irishman. His “Hymn to Contentment” is a sort of counterpart to the old song “My Mind to me a Kingdom is”:

“Lovely, lasting peace, appear; This world itself, if thou art here, Is once again with Eden blest, And man contains it in his breast.”

Gay, the elegant, the humorous, and the pathetic, shows to most advantage in this group. He it was who wrote the famous ballad “Black-eyed Susan,” and many others which, though less known at present, are equally admirable. One of them was afterwards set to music by Handel, and later on by Jackson of Exeter. But music did not keep pace with poetry; and though Purcell, Carey, and one or two other composers flourished in the latter part of the XVIIth and beginning of the XVIIIth centuries, they kept mostly to sacred music, and the new songs of the day were generally set to old tunes. Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, a collection of seventy-two songs, could not boast of a single air composed for the purpose. The music was all old, but the stage, says Dr. Burney, ruined the simplicity of the old airs, as it invariably does all music adapted to dramatic purposes. Indeed, we, in our own day, sometimes have the opportunity of verifying this fact, when old airs or ballads are introduced into operas to which they are unfitted. The “Last Rose of Summer” put into the opera of Martha is an instance in point; but, worse than that, the writer once heard “Home, Sweet Home” sung during the music-lesson scene in the Barbier de Seville. Adelina Patti was the prima donna, and any one who has seen and heard her can imagine the contrast between the simple, pathetic air and words, and the kittenish, coquettish, Dresden-china style of the singer! Add to this the costume of a Spanish señorita and the stage finery of Rosina’s boudoir, not to mention the absurd anachronism involved in a girl of the XVIIth century singing Paine’s touching song. Of course the audience applauded vigorously; for an English audience at the opera goes into action in the spirit of Nelson’s words, “England expects every man to do his duty,” and the incongruousness of the scene never troubles its mind.

Carey tried to stem the downfall of really good popular music by writing both the words and music of the well-known ballad of “Sally in our Alley,” which attained a popularity (using the word in its proper sense) that it has never lost and never will lose. The song was soon known from one end of the country to the other, and, like the old songs, was “whistled o’er the furrowed land” and “sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail.” Addison was no less fond of it than the common people; but the song was an exception in its time, and the poetry of the day never again made its way among the great body of the people, as it had done under the Tudors and the early Stuarts. Music and poetry both grew artificial under the Hanoverian dynasty, and the mannerisms and affectations of rhymers and would-be musical critics were sharply satirized by Pope and Swift. In the reign of Queen Anne the Italian opera was introduced into London, and the silly rage for foreign music, because it was foreign, soon worked its way among all classes. Handel brought about the first salutary return to natural and simple musical expression, and, setting many national and pastoral pieces to music, diffused the taste for good music through the intermediate orders of the people, especially the country gentry, but the masses still clung to interminable ballads, with monotonous tunes and no individuality either of sense or of form. Although England could boast of some good native composers and poets in the XVIIIth century--for instance, among the former, Boyce, Arne, Linley, Jackson, Shield, Arnold, etc.--still no good music penetrated into the lower strata of society; for these musicians mostly confined themselves to pieces of greater pretension than anything which was likely to become popular. Wales and the North of England still kept up a better standard, but the general taste of the nation was decidedly vitiated. Dibdin’s sea-songs broke the spell and reached the heart of the people; but this was rather a momentary flash than a permanent resurrection of good taste and discernment. The custom of writing the majority of songs for one voice, we think, had had much to do with destroying the genuine love of music among the people. It seemed to shift the burden of entertainment upon one member of a social gathering, instead of assuming that music was the welcome occupation and pastime of the greater number; and besides this, it no doubt fostered an undue rage for melody, or, as it is vulgarly called, tune. We have often had occasion to notice how bald and meagre--trivial, indeed--a mere thread of melody can sound when sung by one voice, which, if sung in parts, acquires a majestic and full tone. The fashion of solo-singing, which obtains so much in our day, has another disadvantage: it encourages affectation and self-complacency in the singer. The solo-singer is very apt to arrogate to him or herself the merit and effect of the piece; to think more of the individual performance than of the music performed; and to spoil a good piece by interpolating runs and shakes to show off his or her powers of vocal gymnastics. All this was impossible in the old part-songs, where attention and precision were indispensable.

There are hopeful indications at present that England is not utterly sunk into musical indifference, but, strange to say, wherever the good leaven does work, it does so from below upwards. The lower classes in the North of England have mainly given the impulse; the higher are still, on the whole, superficial in their tastes and trivial and mediocre in their performances. Even as far back as 1834, the writer in the Penny Magazine already quoted gives an interesting account of a surprise he met with at a small village in Sussex. (This, be it remembered, is an almost exclusively Saxon district of the country.) Being tired of the solitude of the little inn and the dulness of a country newspaper, he walked down the street of the village, and, in so doing, was brought to a pause before a small cottage, nowise distinguished from the other humble homesteads of the place, from which proceeded sounds of sweet music. The performance within consisted, not of voices, but of instruments; and the piece was one of great pathos and beauty, and not devoid of musical difficulty. When it was finished, and the performers had rested a few seconds, they executed a German quartet of some pretensions in very good style. This was followed by variations on a popular air by Stephen Storace, which they played in excellent time and with considerable elegance and expression. Several other pieces, chosen with equal good taste, succeeded this, and the stranger enjoyed a musical treat where he little expected one. On making inquiries at the inn, he found that the performers were all young men of the village, humble mechanics and agricultural laborers, who, for some considerable time, had been in the habit of meeting at each other’s houses in the evening, and playing and practising together. The taste had originated with a young man of the place who had acquired a little knowledge of music at Brighton. He had taught some of his comrades, and by degrees they had so increased in number and improved in the art that now, to use the words of the informant, “there were eight or ten that could play by book and in public.”

At that time, and in that part of the country, this was an unusual and remarkable proof of refinement and good taste; but at present, though still the exception, it is no longer quite so rare to find uneducated people able to a certain degree to appreciate good music. Much has been written to vindicate English musical taste within the last thirty or forty years; but still the fact can scarcely be overlooked that, notwithstanding all efforts to the contrary, the standard of taste among the masses is lower than it was in Tudor days.

Every one is familiar with the choral unions, the glee-clubs, the carol-singing, Leslie’s choir, and Hullah’s methods, which all go far to raise the taste of the people and enlist the vocal powers of many who otherwise would have been tempted to leave singing to the “mounseers” and other “furriners,” as the only thing those benighted individuals could be good for. There is, as there has been for many generations, the Chapel Royal, a sort of informal school of music; there is the Academy of Music; there are “Crystal Palace” and “Monday Popular Concerts”; musical festivals every year in the various cathedrals, oratorios in Exeter Hall; and there soon will be a “National School of Music,” which is to be a climax in musical education, the pride of the representative bodies of wealthy and noble England (for princes and corporations have vied with each other in founding scholarships); but with all this, the palmy days of the Tudors are dead and gone beyond the power of man to galvanize them into new activity. True, every young woman plays the pianoforte; you see that instrument in the grocer’s best parlor and the farmer’s keeping-room; but the sort of music played upon it is trivial and foreign, an exotic in the life of the performer, a boarding-school accomplishment, not a labor of love. You can hear “Beautiful Star,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” and Mozart’s “Agnus Dei” sung one after the other, with the same expression, the same “strumminess,” the same stolidity, or the same affected languor, and you will perceive that, though the singer may know them, she neither feels nor understands them. Moore’s melodies, too, you hear ad nauseam, murdered and slurred over anyhow; but both the delicacy of the poetry and the pathos of the music are a dead-letter to the performer. But though a few songs by good writers are popular in the middle classes--for instance, Tennyson’s “Brook” and “Come into the garden, Maud,” the immortal and almost unspoilable “Home, Sweet Home”--yet there is also a dark side to the picture in the prevalence of comic songs, low, slangy ballads, sham negro melodies (utterly unlike the real old pathetic plantation-song), and other degrading entertainments classed under the title of “popular music.” The higher classes give little countenance or aid to the upward movement in music, and still look upon the art as an adjunct of fashion. With such disadvantages, it is a wonder that England has struggled back into the ranks of music-lovers at all, even though, as yet, she can take but a subordinate place among them.

PIOUS PICTURES.

A great deterioration having been observable for some time past in the multitudinous little pictures published in Paris, ostensibly with a religious object, some of the more thoughtful writers in Catholic periodicals have on several recent occasions earnestly protested against the form these representations are taking. Their remonstrances are, however, as yet unsuccessful. The “article” continues to be produced on an increasing scale, and is daily transmitted in immense quantities, not only to the farthest extremities of the territory, but far beyond, especially to England and America, to ruin taste, sentimentalize piety, and “give occasion to the enemy to” deride if not to “blaspheme.”

The bishops of France have already turned their attention to this unhealthy state of things in what may be called pictorial literature for the pious, and efforts are being made in the higher regions of ecclesiastical authority to arrest its deterioration. In the synod lately held at Lyons severe censure was passed on the objectionable treatment of sacred things so much in vogue in certain quarters; and, still more recently, Father Matignon, in his conference on “The Artist,” condemned these “grotesque interpretations of religious truths, which render them ridiculous in the eyes of unbelievers, and corrupt the taste of the faithful.” The eloquent preacher at the same time recommended the Catholic journalists to denounce a species of commerce as ignorant as it is mercenary, and counselled the members of the priesthood to “declare unrelenting war against this school of pettiness, which is daily gaining ground in France, and which gives a trivial and vulgar aspect to things the most sacred.”

This appeal has not been without effect. There appears in the Monde, from the pen of M. Léon Gautier, the author of several pious and learned works, a Letter “Against Certain Pictures,” addressed “to the president of the Conference of T----,” in which the absurdity of these silly compositions is attacked with much spirit and good sense. The Semaine Religieuse de Paris reproduces this letter, with an entreaty to its readers to enroll themselves in the crusade therein preached by the eminent writer--a crusade the opportuneness of which must be only too evident to every thoughtful and religious mind. M. Léon Gautier writes as follows:

You have requested me, dear friend, to purchase for you a “gross” of little pictures for distribution among your poor and their children.…

As to the selection of these pictures I must own myself greatly perplexed, and must beg to submit to you very humbly my difficulties, and not only my difficulties, but also my distress, and, to say the truth, my indignation. I have before my eyes at this moment four or five hundred pictures which have been sold to me as “pious,” but which I consider as in reality among the most detestable and irreverent of any kind of merchandise. A great political journal the other day gave to one of its leaders the title of L’Ecœurement.[170] I cannot give a title to my letter, but, were it possible to do so, I should choose this one in preference to any other. I am in the unfortunate state of a man who has swallowed several kilograms of adulterated honey. I am suffering from an indigestion of sugar; and what sugar! Whilst in the act of buying these little horrors, I beheld numberless purchasers succeed each other with feverish eagerness in the shops, which I will not specify. Yes, I had the pain of meeting there with Christian Brothers and with Sisters of Charity, who made me sigh by their simple avidity and ingenuous delight at the sight of these frightful little black or rose-colored prints. They bought them by hundreds, by thousands, by ten thousands; for schools, for orphanages, for missions. Ah! my dear friend, how many souls are going to be well treacled in our hapless world! It is the triumph of confectionery. “Why are you choosing such machines as these?” I asked of the good Brother Theodore, whom, to my great astonishment, I found among the purchasers; “they are disagreeable.” “Agreed.” “They are stupid.” “I know it.” “They are dear.” “My purse is only too well aware of the fact.” “Then why do you buy them?” “Because I find that these only are acceptable.” And thereupon the worthy man told me that he had the other day distributed among his children pictures taken from the fine head of our Saviour attributed to Morales--a chef-d’œuvre. The children, however, perceiving that there was no gilding upon them, had thrown them aside, gaping. Decidedly, the evil is greater than I had supposed, and it is time to consider what is to be done.

In spite of all this, I have bought your provision of pictures; but do not be uneasy--I am keeping them myself, and will proceed to describe them to you. I do not wish that the taste of your beloved poor should be vitiated by the sight of these mawkish designs; but I will take upon myself to analyze them for your benefit, and then see if you are not very soon as indignant as myself.

In the first place we have the “symbolical” pictures, and these are the most numerous of all. I do not want to say too much against them. You know in what high estimation I hold true symbolism, and we have many a time exchanged our thoughts on this admirable form of the activity of the human mind. A symbol is a comparison between things belonging to the physical and things belonging to the immaterial world. Now, these two worlds are in perfect harmony with each other. To each phenomenon of the moral order there corresponds exactly a phenomenon of the visible order. If we compare these two facts with each other, we have a symbol. There is a life, a breath, a whiteness, which are material. Figurative language is nothing else than a vast and wonderful symbolism, and you remember the marvellous things written on this subject by the lamented M. Landriot. In the supernatural order it is the same, and all Christian generations have made use of symbolism to express the most sacred objects of their adoration. There has been the symbolism of the Catacombs; there has been also that of the Middle Ages. The two, although not resembling, nevertheless complete, each other, and eloquently attest the fact that the Christian race has never been without the use of symbols.

Thus it is not symbolism which I condemn, but this particular symbolism of which I am about to speak, and which is so odiously silly. I write to you with the proofs before me. I am not inventing, but, mirror-wise, merely reflecting. I am not an author, but a photographer.

Firstly, here we have a ladder, which represents “the way of the soul towards God.” This is very well, although moderately ideal; but then who is mounting this ladder? You would never guess. It is a dove! Yes; the poor bird is painfully climbing up the rounds as if she were a hen getting back to roost, and apparently forgetting that she owns a pair of wings. But we shall find this dove elsewhere; for our pictures are full of the species, and are in fact a very plentifully-stocked dove-cote. I perceive down there another animal; it is a roe with her fawn, and with amazement I read this legend: “The fecundity of the breast of the roe is the image of the abundance and sweetness of grace.” Why was the roe selected, and why roe’s milk? Strange! But here again we have a singular collection. On a heart crowned with roses is placed a candlestick (a candlestick on a heart!), and this candelabrum, price twenty-nine sous, is surmounted by a lighted candle, around which angels are pressing. This, we are told underneath, is “good example.” Does it mean that we are to set one for the blessed angels to follow? Next, what do I see here? A guitar; and this at the foot of the cross. Let us see what can be the reason of this mysterious assemblage; the text furnishes it: Je me délasserai à l’abri de la Croix--“I will refresh myself in the shelter of the cross”--from whence it follows that one can play the guitar upon Golgotha. Touching emblem! And what do you say of this other, in which our Saviour Jesus, the Word, and, as Bossuet says, the Reason and Interior Discourse of the Eternal Father, is represented as occupied in killing I know not what little insects on the leaves of a rose-bush? “The divine Gardener destroys the caterpillars which make havoc in his garden,” says the legend. I imagine nothing, but merely transcribe, and for my part would gladly turn insecticide to this collection of imagerie.

This hand issuing out of a cloud I recognize as the hand of my Lord God, the Creator and Father of all, who is at the same time their comforter, their stay, and their life. I admit this symbol, which is ancient and truly Christian; but this divine hand, which the Middle Ages would most carefully have guarded against charging with any kind of burden; this hand, which represents Eternal Justice and Eternal Goodness--can you imagine what it is here made to hold? [Not even the fiery bolt which the heathen of old times represented in the grasp of their Jupiter Tonans, but] a horrible and stupid little watering-pot, from the spout of which trickles a driblet of water upon the cup of a lily. Further on I see the said watering-pot is replaced by a sort of jug, which the Eternal is emptying upon souls in the shape of doves; and this, the legend kindly informs me, is “the heavenly dew.” Heavenly dew trickling out of a jug! And there are individuals who can imagine and depict a thing like this when the beneficent Creator daily causes to descend from his beautiful sky those milliards of little pearly drops which sparkle in the morning sunshine on the fair mantle of our earth! Water, it must be owned, is scarcely a successful subject under any form with our picture-factors. Here is a poor and miserably-painted thread lifting itself up above a basin, while I am informed underneath that “the jet of water is the image of the soul lifting itself towards God by meditation.”

I also need to be enlightened as to how “a river turned aside from its course is an image of the good use and of the abuse of grace.” It is obscure, but still it does not vulgarize and debase a beautiful and Scriptural image, like the next I will mention, in which, over the motto, “Care of the lamp: image of the cultivation of grace in our hearts,” we have a servant-maid taking her great oily scissors and cutting the wick, of which she scatters the blackened fragments no matter where.

The quantity of ribbon and string used up by these symbol-manufacturers is something incalculable. Here lines of string unite all the hearts of the faithful (doves again!) to the heart of Our Blessed Lady; there Mary herself, the Immaculate One and our own incomparable Mother, from the height of heaven holds in leash, by an interminable length of string, a certain little dove, around the neck of which there hangs a scapular. This, we are told, means that “Mary is the directress of the obedient soul.” Elsewhere the string is replaced by pretty rose-colored or pale-blue ribbons, which have doubtless a delicious effect to those who can appreciate it. Here is a young girl walking along cheerfully enough, notwithstanding that her heart is tied by one of these elegant ribbons to that of the Blessed Mother of God, apparently without causing her the slightest inconvenience. Her situation, however, is, I think, less painful than that of this other young person, who is occupied in carving her own heart into a shape resembling that of Mary. Another young female has hoisted this much-tormented organ (her own) on an easel, and is painting it after the same pattern. But let us hasten out of this atelier to breathe the open air among these trees. Alas! we there find, under the form and features of an effeminate child of eight years old, “the divine Gardener putting a prop to a sapling tree,” or “grafting on the wild stock the germ of good fruits.” This is all pretty well; but what can be said of this ciborium which has been energetically stuck into a lily, with the legend, “I seek a pure heart”? These gentlemen, indeed, treat you to the Most Holy Eucharist with a free-and-easyness that is by no means fitting or reverent. It is forbidden to the hands of laics to touch the Sacred Vessels, and it is only just that the same prohibition should apply to picture-makers. They are entreated not to handle thus lightly and irreverently that which is the object of our faith, our hope, and our love.

Hitherto I have refrained from touching upon that very delicate subject which it is nevertheless necessary that I should approach--namely, the representation of the Sacred Heart. And here I feel myself at ease, having beforehand submitted to all the decisions of the church, and having for long past made it my great aim to be penetrated with her spirit. Like yourself, I have a real devotion to the Sacred Heart, nor do I wish to conceal it. When any devotion takes so wide a development in the Holy Church, it is because it is willed by God, who watches unceasingly over her destinies and the forms of worship which she renders to him. All Catholics are agreed upon this point. It is true that certain among them regard the Sacred Heart as the symbol of Divine Love, and that others consider it under the aspect of a very adorable part of the Body of the God-Man, and, if I may so express it, as a kind of centralized Eucharist. Well, I hold that to be accurate one ought to admit and harmonize the two systems, and therefore I do so. You are aware that it is my belief that physiology does not yet sufficiently understand the mechanism of our material heart, and I await discoveries on that subject which shall establish the fact of its necessity to our life. The other day, at Baillère’s, I remained a long time carefully examining a fine engraving representing the circulation of the blood through the veins and arteries, and I especially contemplated the heart the source and receptacle of this double movement, and said to myself, “The worship of the Sacred Heart will be one day justified by physiology.” But why do I say this, when it is so already? Behold me, then, on my knees before the Sacred Heart of my God, in which I behold at the same time an admirable symbol and a yet more admirable reality. But is this a reason for representing the Sacred Heart in a manner alike ridiculous and odious? I will not here enter upon the question as to whether it is allowable to represent the Sacred Heart of Jesus otherwise than in his Sacred Breast, and I only seek to know in order to accept unhesitatingly whatever with regard to this may be the thought of the church. But that which to my mind is utterly revolting is the sight of the profanations of which these fortieth-rate picture-manufacturers are guilty. What right have they, and how do they dare, to represent hundreds of consecrated Hosts issuing from the Sacred Heart, and a dove pecking at them as they are dropping down? What right have they to make the Heart of our Lord God a pigeon-house, a roosting-place for these everlasting doves, or into a vase out of which they are drinking? What right have they to insert a little heart (ours) into the Divine Heart of Jesus? What right have they to represent to us [a Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus on a small scale] three hearts, the one piled upon the other, and cascades of blood pouring from the topmost, which is that of Our Lord; upon the second, which is that of his Blessed Mother; and thence upon the third, which is our own? What right have they to make the Sacred Heart shed showers of roses, or to give its form to their “mystic garden”? Lastly, what right have they to lodge it in the middle of a full-blown flower, and make the latter address to it the scented question, “What would you desire me to do in order that I may be agreeable to you?” Ye well-meaning picture-makers! beware of asking me the same question; for both you and I very well know what would be the answer.

The truth is that these clumsy persons manage to spoil everything they touch, and they have dishonored the symbolism of the dove, as they have compromised the representations of the Sacred Heart. The dove is undoubtedly one of the most ancient and evangelical of all the Christian symbols; but a certain discretion is nevertheless necessary in the employment of this emblem of the Holy Spirit of God. This discretion never failed our forefathers, who scarcely ever depicted the dove, except only in the scene of Our Lord’s baptism and in representations of the Blessed Trinity. In the latter the Eternal Father, vested in pontifical or imperial robes, holds between his arms the cross, whereon hangs his Son, while the Holy Dove passes from the Father to the Son as the eternal love which unites them. This is well, simple, and even fine. But there is a vast difference between this and the present abuse and vulgarization of the dove as an emblem, where it is made use of to represent the faithful soul. No, truly, one is weary of all this. Do you see this flight of young pigeons hovering about with hearts in their beaks? The beaks are very small and the hearts very large, but you are intended to understand by this that “fervent souls rise rapidly to great perfection.” These other doves, lower down, give themselves less trouble and fatigue; they are quietly pecking into a heart, and I read this legend: “The heart of Love is inexhaustible; let us go to it in all our wants.” The pigeon that I see a little farther off is not without his difficulties; he is carrying a stout stick in his delicate beak, and--would you believe it?--the explanation of this remarkable symbol is, “Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me.” Here again are carrier-pigeons, bringing us in their beaks nicely-folded letters in charming envelopes. One of these birds [who possibly may belong to the variety knows as tumbler pigeons] has evidently fallen into the water; for he is shown to us standing to recover himself on what appears to be a heap of mud in the middle of the ocean, with the motto, “Saved! he is saved!” Next I come upon a party of doves again--always doves!--whose occupation is certainly no sinecure. Oars have been fitted to their feeble claws, and these hapless creatures are rowing. Here is another unfortunate pigeon. She is in prison with a thick chain fastened to her left foot, and we are told that she is “reposing on the damp straw of the dungeon.” Further on appears another of this luckless species, on its back with its claws in the air. It is dead. So much the better. It is not I who will encourage it to be so unwise as to return to life. True, in default of doves, other symbols will not be found lacking. Here are some of the tender kind--little souvenirs to be exchanged between friend and friend, wherein one finds I know not what indescribable conglomerations of religious sentiment and natural friendship. Flowers, on all sides flowers: forget-me-nots, pansies, lilies, and underneath all the treasures of literature: “It is a friend who offers you these”; “Near or far away, yours ever”; “These will pass; friendship will remain.” “C’est la fleur de Marie Que je vous ai choisie.” (N.B.--This last is in verse.)

I know not, my dear friend, whether you feel with me on this point. While persuading myself that all these playfulnesses are very innocent, I yet find in them a certain something which strikes me as interloping, and I do not like mixtures.

We have also the politico-religious pictures. Heaven forbid that I should speak evil of the fleurs-de-lys which embalmed with their perfume all the dear Middle Ages to which I have devoted so much of my life; but we have in these pictures of which I am speaking mixtures which are, to my mind, detestable, and I cannot endure this pretty little boat, of which the sails are covered with fleurs-de-lys, its mast is the Pontifical Cross, and its pilot the Sacred Heart. Is another allusion to legitimacy intended in this cross surrounded with flowers and bearing the legend, “My Beloved delights himself among the lilies”? I cannot tell; but if we let each political party have free access to our religious picture-stores, we shall see strange things, and then Gare aux abeilles!--“Beware of the bees.”

One characteristic common to all these wretched picturelings is their insipidity and petty childishness. They are a literature of nurses and nursery-maids. The designers must surely belong to the female portion of humanity; for one is conscious everywhere of the invisible hand of woman. One is unwilling to conceive it possible that any one with a beard on the chin could bring himself to invent similar meagrenesses. These persons are afraid of man, and have wisely adopted the plan of never painting him, and of making everybody under the age of ten years. Never have they had any clear or serious idea of the Word, the God made man--of him, the mighty and terrible One, who pronounced anathema on the Pharisees and the sellers in the Temple. They can but represent a little Jesus in wax, or sugar, or treacle; and alarmed at the loftiness of Divinity, and being incapable of hewing his human form in marble, they have kneaded it in gingerbread.

And yet our greatest present want is manliness. Truly, truly, in France we have well-nigh no more men! Let us, then, have no more of these childishnesses, but let us behold in the divine splendor and perfect manhood of the Word made flesh the eternal type of regenerated humanity.

SUMMER STORMS.

Summer storms are fleeting things, Coming soon, and quickly o’er; Yet their wrath a shadow brings Where but sunshine dwelt before.

On the grass the pearl-drops lie Fresh and lovely day appears; Yet the rainbow’s arch on high Is but seen through falling tears.

For, though clouds have passed away, Though the sky be bright again, Earth still feels the transient sway Of the heavy summer rain.

Broken flow’rs and scattered leaves Tell the short-lived tempest’s power; Something still in nature grieves At the fierce and sudden shower.

There are in the human breast Passions wild and deep and strong, Bearing in their course unblest Brightest hopes of life along.

O’er the harp of many strings Often comes a wailing strain, When the hand of anger flings Discord ’mid its soft refrain.

Tears may pass, and smiles again Wreathe the lip and light the brow; But, like flowers ’neath summer’s rain, Some bright hope lies crushed and low.

Some heart-idol shattered lies In the temple’s inner shrine: Ne’er unveiled to human eyes, Sacred kept like things divine.

Speak not harshly to the loved In your holy household band; Days will come when where they moved Many a vacant chair will stand.

To the erring--oh, be kind! Balm give to the weary heart; Soft words heal the wounded mind, Bid the tempter’s spell depart.

Let not passion’s storm arise, Though it pass like summer showers; Clouds will dim the soul’s pure skies, Hope will weep o’er broken flowers.

Speak, then, gently; tones of strife Lightly breathed have lasting power; Memories that embitter life Often rise from one rash hour.

THE KING OF METALS

FROM THE FRENCH.

There once lived a widow named Mary Jane, who had a beautiful daughter called Flora. The widow was a sensible, humble woman; the daughter, on the contrary, was very haughty. Many young persons desired her in marriage, but she found none to please her; the greater the number of her suitors, the more disdainful she became. One night the mother awoke, and, being unable to compose herself again to sleep, she began to say her rosary for Flora, whose pride gave her a great deal of disquietude. Flora was asleep near her, and she smiled in her sleep.

The next day Mary Jane inquired:

“What beautiful dream had you that caused you to smile in your sleep?”

“I dreamed that a great lord conducted me to church in a copper coach, and gave me a ring composed of precious stones that shone like stars; and when I entered the church, the people in the church looked only at the Mother of God and at me.”

“Ah! what a proud dream,” cried the widow, humbly drooping her head.

Flora began to sing. That same day a young peasant of good reputation asked her to marry him. This offer her mother approved, but Flora said to him:

“Even were you to seek me in a coach of copper, and wed me with a ring brilliant as the stars, I would not accept you.”

The following night Mary Jane, being wakeful, began to pray, and, looking at Flora, saw her smile.

“What dream did you have last night?” she asked Flora.

“I dreamed that a great lord came for me in a coach of silver, gave me a coronet of gold, and when I entered the church those present were more occupied in looking at me than at the Mother of God.”

“O poor child!” exclaimed the widow, “what an impious dream. Pray, pray earnestly that you may be preserved from temptation.”

Flora abruptly left her mother, that she might not hear her remonstrances.

That day a young gentleman came to ask her in marriage. Her mother regarded this proposal as a great honor, but Flora said to this new aspirant:

“Were you to seek me in a coach of silver and offer me a coronet of gold, I would not wed you.”

“Unfortunate girl!” cried Mary Jane, “renounce your pride. Pride leads to destruction.”

Flora laughed.

The third night the watchful mother saw an extraordinary expression on her child’s countenance, and she prayed fervently for her.

In the morning Flora told her of her dream.

“I dreamed,” she said, “that a great lord came to seek me in a coach of gold, gave me a robe of gold, and when I entered the church all there assembled looked only at me.”

The poor widow wept bitterly. The girl left her to escape seeing her distress.

That day in the court-yard of the house there stood three equipages, one of copper, the other of silver, and the third of gold. The first was drawn by two horses, the second by four, the third by eight. From the first two descended pages clothed in red, with green caps; from the third descended a nobleman whose garments were of gold. He asked to marry Flora. She immediately accepted him, and ran to her chamber to decorate herself with the golden robe which he presented to her.

The good Mary Jane was sorrowful and anxious, but Flora’s countenance was radiant with delight. She left her home without asking the maternal benediction, and entered the church with a haughty air. Her mother remained on the threshold praying and weeping.

After the ceremony, Flora entered the golden equipage with her husband, and they departed, followed by the two other equipages.

They drove a long, a very long distance. At last they arrived at a rock where there was a large entrance like the gate of a city. They entered through this door, which soon closed with a terrible noise, and they were in midnight darkness. Flora was trembling with fear, but her husband said:

“Reassure yourself; you will soon see the light.” In truth, from every side appeared little creatures in red clothes and green caps--the dwarfs who dwell in the cavities of the mountains. They carried flaming torches, and advanced to meet their master, the King of Metals.

They ranged themselves around, and escorted him through long valleys and subterranean forests. But--a very singular thing--all the trees of these forests were of lead.

At last the cortége reached a magnificent prairie or meadow; in the midst of this meadow was a château of gold studded with diamonds. “This,” said the King of Metals, “is your domain.” Flora was much fatigued and very hungry. The dwarfs prepared dinner, and her husband led her to a table of gold. But all the meats and all the food presented to her were of this metal. Flora, not being able to partake of this food, was reduced to ask humbly for a piece of bread. The waiters brought her bread of copper, of silver, and of gold. She could not bite either of them. “I cannot give you,” her husband said, “the bread that you wish; here we have no other kind of bread.”

The young woman wept, and the king said to her:

“Your tears cannot change your fate. This is the destiny you have yourself chosen.”

The miserable Flora was compelled to remain in this subterranean abode, suffering with hunger, through her passion for wealth. Only once a year, at Easter, she is allowed to ascend for three days to the upper earth, and then she goes from village to village, begging from door to door a morsel of bread.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE CHURCH IN VIEW OF RECENT DIFFICULTIES AND CONTROVERSIES, AND THE PRESENT NEEDS OF THE AGE. London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1875. New York: THE CATHOLIC WORLD, April, 1875.

(From Le Contemporain.)

I. Renewed Working of the Holy Spirit in the World.--We are, in a religious, social, and political point of view, in times of transition which we are not able to understand, for the same reason that no one can follow the movements of the battle-field who is in the midst of the engagement.

To judge from appearances, especially those which are nearest at hand, we are on the brink of an abyss. The Catholic religion, openly persecuted in Germany, prostrated now for several years in Italy and Spain by the suppression of the religious congregations, attacked in all countries, abandoned by all sovereigns, appears, humanly speaking, to be on the brink of destruction. There are not wanting prophets who predict the collapse of Christianity and the end of the world. There are, however, manly souls who do not allow themselves to be discouraged, and who see grounds for hope in the very events which fill ordinary hearts with terror and consternation.

Of this number is an American religious, Father Hecker, who has just issued a pamphlet in English, wherein, without concealing the difficulties of the present, he avows his expectation of the approaching triumph of religion.

His motives are drawn from the deep faith he professes in the action of the Holy Spirit in the church, outside of which he does not see any real Christianity. It is the Holy Spirit whom we must first invoke; it is the Holy Spirit of whom we have need, and who will cure all our ills by sending us his gifts.

“The age,” he says, “is superficial; it needs the gift of wisdom, which enables the soul to contemplate truth in its ultimate causes. The age is materialistic; it needs the gift of intelligence, by the light of which the intellect penetrates into the essence of things. The age is captured by a false and one-sided science; it needs the gift of science, by the light of which is seen each order of truth in its true relations to other orders and in a divine unity. The age is in disorder, and is ignorant of the ways to true progress; it needs the gift of counsel, which teaches how to choose the proper means to attain an object. The age is impious; it needs the gift of piety, which leads the soul to look up to God as the heavenly Father, and to adore him with feelings of filial affection and love. The age is sensual and effeminate; it needs the gift of force, which imparts to the will the strength to endure the greatest burdens, and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism. The age has lost and almost forgotten God; it needs the gift of fear to bring the soul again to God, and make it feel conscious of its great responsibility and of its destiny.”

The men to whom these gifts have been accorded are those of whose services our age has need. A single man with these gifts could do more than ten thousand who possessed them not. It is to such men, if they correspond with the graces which have been heaped upon them, that our age will owe its universal restoration and its universal progress. This being admitted, since, on the other hand, it is of faith that the Holy Spirit does not allow the church to err, ought we not now to expect that he will direct her on to a new path?

Since the XVIth century, the errors of Protestantism, and the attacks upon the Catholic religion of which it gave the signal, have compelled the church to change, to a certain extent, the normal orbit of her movement. Now that she has completed in this direction her line of defence,[171] it is to be expected that she will resume her primitive career, and enter on a new phase, by devoting herself to more vigorous action. It is impossible to dispute the fresh strength which the definition lately promulgated by the Council of the Vatican has bestowed upon the church. It is the axis on which now revolves the church’s career--the renewal of religion in souls, and the entire restoration of society.

Do we not see an extraordinary divine working in those numerous pilgrimages to authorized sanctuaries, in those multiplied novenas, and those new associations of prayer? And do they not give evidence of the increasing influence of the Holy Spirit on souls?

What matter persecutions? It is they which purify what remains of the too human in the church. It is by the cross we come to the light--Per crucem ad lucem.

A little farther on the author explains in what the twofold action of the Holy Spirit consists.

He acts at one and the same time in an intimate manner upon hearts, and in a manner quite external on the church herself.

An indefinite field of action conceded to the sentiments of the heart, without a sufficient knowledge of the end and object of the church, would open the way for illusions, for heresies of every kind, and would invite an individual mysticism which would be merely one of the forms of Protestantism.

On the other hand, the exclusive point of view of the external authority of the church, without a corresponding comprehension of the nature of the operations of the Holy Spirit within the heart of every one of the faithful, would make the practice of religion a pure formalism, and would render obedience servile, and the action of the church sterile.

Moreover, the action of the Holy Spirit made visible in the authority of the church, and of the Holy Spirit dwelling invisibly in the heart, form an inseparable synthesis; and he who has not a clear conception of this double action of the Holy Spirit runs the risk of losing himself in one or other of the extremes which would involve the destruction and end of the church.

In the external authority of the church the Holy Spirit acts as the infallible interpreter and the criterion of the divine revelation. He acts in the heart as giving divine life and sanctification.

The Holy Spirit, who, by means of the teachings of the church, communicates divine truth, is the same Spirit which teaches the heart to receive rightly the divine truth which he deigns to teach. The measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church; and the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church is the measure of our love for the Holy Spirit. Whence the saying of S. Augustine: Quantum quisque amat ecclesiam Dei, tantum habet Spiritum Sanctum.

It is remarkable that no pope has done so much for the despised rights of human reason as Pope Pius IX.; that no council has done better service to science than that of the Vatican, none has better regulated its relations to the faith; that none has better defined in their fundamental principles the relations of the natural and the supernatural; and the work of the pontiff and of the council is not yet finished.

Every apology for Christianity must henceforth make great account of the intrinsic proofs of religion, without which people of the world would be more and more drawn to see the church only on her human side.

The Holy Spirit, by means of the sacraments, consummates the union of the soul of the believer with God. It is this end which true religion should pursue. The placing in relief the internal life, and the constitution of the church, and the intelligible side of the mysteries of the church--in short, the intrinsic reasons of the truths of the divine revelation combined with the external motive of credibility--will complete the demonstration of Christianity. Such an exposition of Christianity, founded on the union of these two categories of proofs, will have the effect of producing a more enlightened and intense conviction of religion in the souls of the faithful, and of stimulating them to more energetic action; and it will have, as its last result, the opening of the door to their wandering brethren, and gathering them back into the bosom of the church. With the vigorous co-operation of the faithful, the ever-augmenting action of the Holy Spirit will raise the human personality to such an intensity of strength and greatness that there will result from it a new era for the church and for society--an admirable era, which it would be difficult to describe in human expressions, without having recourse to the prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures.

II. The Mission of Races.--In pursuing his study upon the action of the Holy Spirit in the world, the author says that a wider and more explicit exposition of the dogmatic and moral verities of the church, with a view to the characteristic gifts of every race, is the means to employ in order to realize the hopes he has conceived.

God is the author of the different races of men. For known reasons of his providence, he has impressed on them certain characteristic traits, and has assigned to them from the beginning the places which they should occupy in his church.

In a matter in which delicate susceptibilities have to be carefully handled, it is important not to exaggerate the special gifts of every race, and, on the other hand, not to depreciate them or exaggerate their vices.

It would, however, be a serious error, in speaking of the providential mission of the races, to suppose that they were destined to mark with their imprint religion, Christianity, or the church. It is, on the contrary, God who makes the gifts and qualities with which he has endowed them co-operate in the expression and development of the truths which he created for them.

Nevertheless, no one can deny the mission of the Latin and Celtic races throughout the greater part of the history of Christianity. The first fact which manifested their mission and established the influence they were to exercise was the establishment of the chair of S. Peter at Rome, the centre of the Latin race. To Rome appertained the idea of the administrative and governmental organization of the whole world. Rome was regarded as the geographical centre of the world.

The Greeks having abandoned the church for schism, and the Saxons having revolted against her by heresy in the XVIth century, the predominance which the Latin race, united later on to the Celtic race, assumed in her bosom, became more and more marked.

This absence of the Greeks and of a considerable part of the Saxons--nations whose prejudices and tendencies are in many respects similar--left the ground more free for the church to complete her action, whether by her ordinary or normal development, or by the way of councils, as that of Trent and that of the Vatican.

That which characterizes the Latin and Celtic races, according to our author, is their hierarchical, traditional, and emotional tendencies.

He means, doubtless, by this latter expression, that those races are very susceptible to sensible impressions--to those which come from without.

As to the hierarchical sentiment of the Celtic and Latin races, it appears to us that for upwards of a century it has been much weakened, if it be not completely extinct.

In the following passage the author is not afraid to say of the Saxon race:

“It is precisely the importance given to the external constitution and to the accessories of the church which excited the antipathies of the Saxons, which culminated in the so-called Reformation. For the Saxon races and the mixed Saxons, the English and their descendants, predominate in the rational element, in an energetic individuality, and in great practical activity in the material order.”

One might have feared, perhaps, a kind of hardihood arising from a certain national partiality in regard to which the author would find it difficult to defend himself against his half-brethren of Germany, if he had not added:

“One of the chief defects of the Saxon mind lay in not fully understanding the constitution of the church, or sufficiently appreciating the essential necessity of her external organization. Hence their misinterpretation of the providential action of the Latin-Celts, and their charges against the church of formalism, superstition, and popery. They wrongfully identified the excesses of those races with the church of God. They failed to take into sufficient consideration the great and constant efforts the church had made in her national and general councils to correct the abuses and extirpate the vices which formed the staple of their complaints.

“Conscious, also, of a certain feeling of repression of their natural instincts, while this work of the Latin-Celts was being perfected, they at the same time felt a great aversion to the increase of externals in outward worship, and to the minute regulations in discipline, as well as to the growth of papal authority and the outward grandeur of the papal court. The Saxon leaders in heresy of the XVIth century, as well as those of our own day, cunningly taking advantage of those antipathies, united with selfish political considerations, succeeded in making a large number believe that the question in controversy was not what it really was--a question; namely, between Christianity and infidelity--but a question between Romanism and Germanism!

“It is easy to foresee the result of such a false issue; for it is impossible, humanly speaking, that a religion can maintain itself among a people when once they are led to believe it wrongs their natural instincts, is hostile to their national development, or is unsympathetic with their genius.

“With misunderstandings, weaknesses, and jealousies on both sides, these, with various other causes, led thousands and millions of Saxons and Anglo-Saxons to resistance, hatred, and, finally, open revolt against the authority of the church.

“The same causes which mainly produced the religious rebellion of the XVIth century are still at work among the Saxons, and are the exciting motives of their present persecutions against the church.

“Looking through the distorted medium of their Saxon prejudices, grown stronger with time, and freshly stimulated by the recent definition of Papal Infallibility, they have worked themselves into the belief--seeing the church only on the outside, as they do--that she is purely a human institution, grown slowly, by the controlling action of the Latin-Celtic instincts, through centuries, to the present formidable proportions. The doctrines, the sacraments, the devotions, the worship of the Catholic Church, are, for the most part, from their stand-point, corruptions of Christianity, having their source in the characteristics of the Latin-Celtic races. The papal authority, to their sight, is nothing else than the concentration of the sacerdotal tendencies of these races, carried to their culminating point by the recent Vatican definition, which was due, in the main, to the efforts and the influence exerted by the Jesuits. This despotic ecclesiastical authority, which commands a superstitious reverence and servile submission to all its decrees, teaches doctrines inimical to the autonomy of the German Empire, and has fourteen millions or more of its subjects under its sway, ready at any moment to obey, at all hazards, its decisions. What is to hinder this Ultramontane power from issuing a decree, in a critical moment, which will disturb the peace and involve, perhaps, the overthrow of that empire, the fruit of so great sacrifices, and the realization of the ardent aspirations of the Germanic races? Is it not a dictate of self-preservation and political prudence to remove so dangerous an element, and that at all costs, from the state? Is it not a duty to free so many millions of our German brethren from this superstitious yoke and slavish subjection? Has not divine Providence bestowed the empire of Europe upon the Saxons, and placed us Prussians at its head, in order to accomplish, with all the means at our disposal, this great work? Is not this a duty which we owe to ourselves, to our brother Germans, and, above all, to God? This supreme effort is our divine mission!”

It would be impossible to enter into the idea of the Bismarckian policy in a manner more ingenious, more exact, and more striking.

It is by presenting to Germany this monstrous counterfeit of the church that they have succeeded in provoking its hatred of her, and the new empire proposes to be itself the resolution of a problem which can be only formulated thus: “Either adapt Latin Christianity, the Romish Church, to the Germanic type of character and to the exigences of the empire, or we will employ all the forces and all the means at our disposal to stamp out Catholicity within our dominions, and to exterminate its existence as far as our authority and influence extend.”

This war against the Catholic religion is formidable, and ought not to leave us without alarm and without terror.

Truth is powerful, it is said, and it will prevail. But truth has no power of itself, in so far as it is an abstraction. It has none, except on the condition of coming forth and showing itself living in minds and hearts.

What is to be done, then?

No thought can be entertained for a moment of modifying Catholic dogmas, of altering the constitution of the church, or of entering, to ever so small an extent, on the path of concessions. What is needed is to present religious truth to minds in such a manner as that they shall be able to see that it is divine. It is to prove to them that our religion alone is in harmony with the profoundest instincts of their hearts, and can alone realize their secret aspirations, which Protestantism has no power to satisfy. For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete conversion. As to the Saxons, who, in these days, precipitate themselves upon an opposite course, we should try to enlighten their blindness. Already we have seen the persecutors, whether Roman or German, become themselves Christian in their turn. We shall see the Germans of our days exhibiting the same spectacle. It is a great race, that German race. Now, “the church is a divine queen, and her aim has always been to win to her bosom the imperial races. She has never failed to do it, too.”

Already we can perceive a very marked return movement amongst the demi-Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons. It is a great sign of the times.

At different epochs there have been movements of this kind in England. But none exhibited features so serious as that of which we are witnesses in these days. Conversions to the church multiply without number, above all amongst the most intelligent and influential classes of the nation; and that in spite of the violent cry of alarm raised by Lord John Russell, and in spite of the attacks of the ex-minister Gladstone, who has the reputation of being the most eloquent man in England.

The gravitation towards the Catholic Church exhibits itself in a manner still more general and more clear in the bosom of the United States.

The Catholics in that country amounted to scarcely a few hundreds at the commencement of this century. They form now a sixth of the population of the United States. They number about 7,000,000. And the Catholic is the only religion which makes any real progress.

It is, then, true “that the Catholic religion flourishes and prospers wherever human nature has its due liberty. Let them but give to the church rights only equal to those of other confessions, and freedom of action, and we should see her regain Europe, and, with Europe, the world.”

Now, might we not conclude that these two demi-Saxon nations, England and the United States, are predestined by Providence to lead the Saxons themselves in a vast movement of return towards the Catholic Church?

Before concluding, the author returns to the Latin and Celtic nations, and directs towards them a sorrowful glance.

As for France, he regrets that a violent reaction against the abuses of the ancient régime, of which he gives a somewhat exaggerated picture, has brought about an irreligious revolution and a political situation which oscillates ceaselessly between anarchy and despotism, and despotism and anarchy. He deplores still more that the progressive movement has been diverted from its course in Spain and in Italy by the evil principles imported from France.

“At this moment,” says the author, “Christianity is in danger, on the one hand, of being exterminated by the persecution of the Saxon races; on the other, of being betrayed by the apostasy of the Celto-Latins. This is the great tribulation of the church at the present time. Between these two perils she labors painfully.”

According to human probabilities, the divine bark should be on the point of perishing. But perish it cannot. God cannot abandon the earth to the spirit of evil. “Jesus Christ came to establish the kingdom of God on the earth, as a means of conducting men to the kingdom of God in heaven.”

It is thus, in his last chapter, our author surveys the future:

“During the last three centuries, from the nature of the work the church had to do, the weight of her influence had to be mainly exerted on the side of restraining human activity. Her present and future influence, due to the completion of her external organization, will be exerted on the side of soliciting increased action. The first was necessarily repressive and unpopular; the second will be, on the contrary, expansive and popular. The one excited antagonism; the other will attract sympathy and cheerful co-operation. The former restraint was exercised, not against human activity, but against the exaggeration of that activity. The future will be the solicitation of the same activity towards its elevation and divine expansion, enhancing its fruitfulness and glory.

“These different races of Europe and the United States, constituting the body of the most civilized nations of the world, united in an intelligent appreciation of the divine character of the church, with their varied capacities and the great agencies at their disposal, would be the providential means of rapidly spreading the light of faith over the whole world, and of constituting a more Christian state of society.

“In this way would be reached a more perfect realization of the prediction of the prophets, of the promises and prayers of Christ, and of the true aspiration of all noble souls.

“This is what the age is calling for, if rightly understood, in its countless theories and projects of reform.”

The zealous religious who is the author of this important manifesto traversed the seas in order to submit it to the Holy Father. [A mistake. Father Hecker went to Europe for other reasons, and took advantage of the opportunity to submit his pamphlet to the examination of the Roman censors and other eminent theologians.] If we are well informed, the Roman Curia found in it neither error nor rashness.[172] It is a complete plan of action proposed to the apostolate of the church for the future. The old era would close, a new one would open.

On this ground all ancient differences should disappear. Bitter and useless recriminations would be laid aside. All would be moving towards the same future, in accord not only as to the end, but as to the means.

(From Le Monde.)

The Culturkampf advances daily. Its war-cry in precipitating itself upon the church, bent upon her destruction, is: “The doctrine of infallibility has made spiritual slaves of Catholics, who are thus a hindrance to civilization.” In presence of so furious an attack, every voice which suggests means of safety deserves our best attention.

Of this kind is a pamphlet published lately in London, and which has been already translated into French, German, and Italian, and of which the journals of different countries, of the most opposite views, have given very favorable opinions.

The lamented M. Ravelet would, had he been spared, have introduced it to the readers of the Monde; for he had met its author at Rome, and knew how to appreciate the breadth of his views. Father Hecker, its author, the founder of the Paulists of New York, is celebrated in his country for a style of polemics admirably adapted to the genius of his fellow-countrymen. Does he understand Europe, to which he has made prolonged visits, equally well? On that point our readers will soon be able to judge.

How is it that the Catholic religion, which reckons more adherents than any other Christian religion, does not succeed in making itself respected? Evidently because many Catholics are not on a level with the faith which they profess. “We want heroes,” said J. de Maistre at the beginning of our century. At this moment is not the demand the same? There is no lack of religious practices; a number of exterior acts of exterior piety are performed; but the interior life of souls is not exalted; they seem to be afflicted with a kind of spiritual dyspepsia. The crises which threaten terrify them, instead of inflaming beforehand their courage and their confidence in God. It is in the sources of religion itself we shall find energy; it is to them we must betake ourselves to reinvigorate our strength, in the direct action of God upon our consciences, and in the operation of the Holy Spirit upon our souls. From this source issues the true religious life, and our external practices are availing only so far as they are inspired by this internal principle, itself inspired by the Spirit of God. Herein are the primal verities of Christianity. At every epoch of decadence the voices of saints remind the world of them; the spirit of the church inclines us to them; but, distracted by external agitations, we forget to correspond with its suggestions. We do not possess enough of God! Here is our weakness. A little more of divinity within us! Lo, the remedy!

Father Hecker has well written upon the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and upon the men our age wants. Intelligences illuminated from on high, wills divinely strengthened--is not that what is wanted to maintain the struggle? Is he not right when he asserts that one soul adorned with these gifts would do more to promote the kingdom of God than a thousand deprived of them?

This urgent call to a more intensely spiritual life will touch Christian hearts. But the pamphlet foresees an objection. Does not this development of our faculties and of our initiative under the divine influence expose us to some of the dangers of Protestantism? Do we not run the risk of the appearance of strong individualities who, filled with their own ideas, will think themselves more enlightened than the church, and so be seduced into disobeying her authority?

This eternal question of the relation of liberty to authority! Catholics say to Protestants: “Liberty without the control of the divine authority of the church leads insensibly to the destruction of Christianity.” Protestants reply: “Authority amongst you has stifled liberty. You have preserved the letter of the dogmas; but spiritual life perishes under your formalism.” We are not estimating the weight of these reproaches; we merely state the danger. The solution of the religious problem consists in avoiding either extreme.

No Catholic is at liberty to doubt that the Holy Spirit acts directly in the soul of every Christian, and at the same time acts in another way, indirect, but no less precious, by means of the authority of the church. Cardinal Manning has written two treatises on this subject, one on the external, the other on the internal, working of the Holy Spirit. It is these two workings which Father Hecker endeavors to connect in a lofty synthesis, and this is the main object of his work.

The first step of the synthesis is the statement that it is one and the same spirit which works, whether by external authority or by the interior impulse of the soul, and that these two workings, issuing from a common principle, must agree in their exercise and blend in their final result. The liberty of the soul should not dispute the authority of the church, because that authority is divine; the church, on the other hand, cannot oppress the liberty of the soul, because that liberty is also divine. The second step is to prove that the interior action of the Holy Spirit in the soul alone accomplishes our inward sanctification and our union with God. The authority of the church, and, generally, the external observances of religion, having only for their aim to second this interior action, authority and external practices occupy only a secondary and subordinate place in the Catholic system, contrary to the notion of Protestants, who accuse us of sacrificing Jesus Christ to the church, and of limiting Christianity to her external action. The completion of the synthesis is in the following: The individual has not received for his interior life the promise of infallibility; it is to Peter and his successors--that is to say, to the church--that Jesus Christ has conceded this privilege. The Christian thus cannot be sure of possessing the Holy Spirit, excepting in so far as he is in union with the infallible church, and that union is the certain sign that the union of the two workings of the Holy Spirit is realized in him.

We have no doubt that this theory is one of the most remarkable theological and philosophical conceptions of our age. Father Hecker is no innovator, but he seizes scattered ideas and gathers them into a sheaf of luminous rays; and this operation, which seems so simple, is the result of thirty years’ laborious meditation. One must read the pamphlet itself to appreciate its worth. The more we are versed in the problems which agitate contemporary religious thought, the better we shall understand the importance of what it inculcates.

We shall briefly dispose of the application the author makes of his synthesis. One most ingenious one is that Protestantism, by denying the authority of the church, obliges her to put forth all her strength in its defence.

If Luther had attacked liberty, the church would have taken another attitude, and would have defended with no less energy the free and direct action of the Holy Spirit in souls. It is this necessary defence of divine authority which gave birth to the Jesuit order, and which explains the special spirit which animates that society. If, however, the defence of assailed authority has been, for three centuries, the principal preoccupation of the church, she has not on that account neglected the interior life of souls. It is sufficient to name the spirituality, so deep and so intense, of S. Philip Neri, S. Francis of Sales, S. John of the Cross, and S. Teresa. Moreover, does not the support of authority contribute to the free life of souls by maintaining the infallible criterion for testing, in cases of doubt, the true inspirations of the Holy Spirit?

The church, in these days, resembles a nation which marches to its frontiers to repel the invasion of the foreigner and protect its national life; its victory secured, it recalls its forces to the centre, to continue with security and ardor the development of that same life.

According to Father Hecker, the church was in the last extremity of peril. He sees in the proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope the completion of the development of authority provoked by the Reformation, and believes that nothing now remains but its application.

If, since the XVIth century, external action has predominated in the church, without, however, ever becoming exclusive, so now the internal working will predominate, always leaving to the external its legitimate share. Only, this new phase will be, in a way, more normal than the preceding, because, in religion as in man, the internal infinitely surpasses the external, without, however, annihilating it, as does Protestantism. This internal is the essence of Christianity; it is the kingdom of heaven within us, and whose frontiers it is our duty to extend. It is the treasure, the hidden pearl, the grain of mustard-seed, of the Gospel. It is to this interior of the soul that our Lord addressed the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The external church--the priesthood, the worship, the sacraments--are only means divinely instituted to help the weakness of man to rise to the worship in spirit and in truth announced by our Saviour to the Samaritan woman. And the time has come for a fuller expansion of this internal life, for the more general development of the spirit of S. Francis of Sales and of the other saints of whom we spoke above.

As to those outside the church, they will never believe in this evolution, because they suppose that the doctrine of infallibility has condemned us to a kind of petrifaction. But if they study the actual situation, events will undeceive them from this present moment.

The persecutions which deprive the church of her temporalities, of her exterior worship, of her religious edifices, which go the length even of depriving the faithful of their priests and bishops, which suppress as far as they can the external part of Catholicity, do they not reveal the power of its interior?

In the parts of Switzerland and Germany where the populations are robbed of their clergy and worship, do we not see faith developing in sacrifice, and piety becoming more serious and fervent in the privation of all external aid? This example is an additional proof of the opportuneness of Father Hecker’s pamphlet. If God wills that the persecution should increase, we must be prepared to do without the external means which he himself has instituted, and which he accords to us in ordinary times. For we must not forget that no human power can separate us from God, and that so long as this union exists religion remains entire as to its substance.

The merit of the Christian is in the intention which inspires his acts. Religion exists only in the idea which clothes its rites; the sacraments, the channels of grace, are only effective in us as they are preceded by the dispositions of our soul. For a religion not to degenerate, it must perpetually renew the internal life, in order to resist the encroachments of routine.

Here the author asks what is the polemic best suited to help the people of these times to escape from their unbelief, which often proceeds from regarding the church as having fallen into formalism and into a debasing authoritativism. He believes they might be undeceived by disclosing to them the inner life of religion and the internal proofs of her divinity--an idea he shares with the most illustrious writers of our age. Lacordaire wrote to Mme. Swetchine that he had reversed the point of view of the controversy in scrutinizing matters from within, which manifested truth under a new aspect.

Father Hecker quotes in this sense the striking words of Schlegel: “We shall soon see, I think, an exposition of Christianity appear which will bring about union among all Christians, and convert the unbelieving themselves.” Ranke said with no less decision: “This reconciliation of faith and science will be more important, as regards its spiritual results, than was the discovery, three centuries ago, of a new hemisphere, than that of the true system of the universe, or than that of any other discovery of science, be it what it may.”

The pamphlet ends with a philosophy of race. And here the author, whilst acknowledging his fear of wounding susceptibilities, expresses the hope that none of his views will be exaggerated. He inquires what natural elements the several races have offered to the church in the successive phases of her history; and, starting from the principle that God has endowed the races with different aptitudes, he examines in what way those aptitudes may co-operate in the terrestrial execution of the designs of Providence. The Latin-Celtic races, who almost alone remained faithful to the church in the XVIth century, have for authority and external observances tastes which coincide with the more special development of the church since that epoch.

On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon races have subjective and metaphysical instincts which, in a natural point of view, should attract them to the church in the new phase on which she is entering. Father Hecker has been accused with some asperity of predicting that the direction of the church and of the world will pass into the hands of the Saxon races, whose conversion, sooner or later, he anticipates. But he does not in any sense condemn the Latin races to inferiority. He merely gives it as his opinion that the Latin races can only issue from the present crisis by the development of that interior life of independent reason and deliberate volition which constitutes the force of the Saxon races. God has not given the church to the Latin races. He has not created for nothing the Saxon, Sclavonic, and other races which cover the surface of the globe. They have their predestined place in the assembly of all the children of God, and are called to serve the church according to their providential aptitudes.

Father Hecker and Dr. Newman are not the only ones who think that the absence of the Saxon races has been, for some centuries, very prejudicial to the church. J. de Maistre, whose bias cannot be suspected, expressed himself even more explicitly to that effect. The Latin genius, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been and will continue to be of the utmost value to the church. Under the divine influence, the Saxon genius will, in its way, effect equally precious conquests.

In conclusion, we summarize thus the ideas of Father Hecker:

1. We have need of a spiritual awakening.

2. The definition of infallibility has lent such strength to the church that henceforth personality may become as powerful as possible without the risk, as in the XVIth century, of injuring unity.

3. This definition having completed the external system of Catholicity, the initiative of the church proceeds logically to concentrate itself on the aggrandizement of the interior life, which is the essence of religion.

4. This is proved by the persecutions, which augment and strengthen the religious life of Catholics.

5. The result of these persecutions will be to unveil to Protestants and unbelievers the interior view of Catholicity, and to prepare the way for religious unity.

6. This unity will be effected when Protestants and unbelievers see that Catholicity, far from being opposed to the aspirations of their nature, understands them and satisfies them better than Protestantism and free-thinking.

7. This expansion of Catholicity advances slowly, because it meets few souls great enough to admit of the full development of its working, and of showing what it is capable of producing in them.

8. The way to multiply these souls is to place ourselves more and more under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever opinion may be formed of certain details, on the whole, this work manifests a high grade of philosophical thought and theological insight. But to appreciate it fully it must be read and studied.

Exceptions have been taken to it, on the ground that one meets nothing in it but theories, without any practical conclusion. Yet what can be more practical than the exhortation which confronts us on every page, to seek in all our religious acts, in sacraments, worship, and discipline, the divine intention involved therein? What more practical than to urge us to develop all the forces of our nature under the divine influence, and to tell us that the more conscientious, reasonable, and manly we are, the more completely men we are, so much the more favorable ground will the church find within us for her working?

Far from urging any abrupt change, Father Hecker recommends that everything should be done with prudence, consideration being had for the manners of every country. He is persuaded that, by placing more confidence in the divine work in souls, they will become insensibly stronger, and will increase thus indefinitely the force and energy of the whole body of the church. Such a future will present us with the spectacle of the conversion of peoples who at present are bitterly hostile to her--a future which we shall purchase at the cost of many sacrifices. But our trials will be full of consolations if we feel that they are preparing a more general and abundant effusion of divine illumination upon the earth. Per crucem ad lucem.

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF LAMB, HAZLITT, AND OTHERS. The Bric-à-Brac Series. Edited by R. H. Stoddard. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

This volume is a compendium of one of those books of memoirs or personal recollections bequeathed to us by the survivors of the English Renaissance of the beginning of the century--My Friends and Acquaintances, by P. G. Patmore. This the editor has supplemented, in the case of Hazlitt, by some letters and reminiscences culled from the Memoirs published by his grandson, W. Carew Hazlitt. These works, it might be fairly supposed, would be of themselves light enough for the most jaded and flippant appetite. However, the aid of the “editor” is called in--heaven forgive the man who first applied that title, honored by a Scaliger and a Bentley, to the modern compiler of scandal!--the most entertaining and doubtfully moral tidbits are picked out; and the result is the class of books before us, which is doing for the national intellect what pastry has done for its stomach. The mutual courtesies--honorable enough when rightly understood--existing between publishers and the periodical press make honest criticism seem ungracious; and thus the public judgment is left uninstructed by silence, or its frivolous tastes are confirmed by careless approval.

The motives impelling the awful scissors of the “editor” not only deprive the original works which fall under them of the modicum of value they may possess, but affirmatively they do worse. They give an absolutely false impression of the persons represented. Thus, in the case before us the character and genius of Lamb are as ridiculously overrated as his true merits are obscured; and the same may be said with even more justice of the portrait given of Hazlitt. Singularly enough, though the editor derives all he knows, or at least all he presents to the reader, from Mr. Patmore and Mr. Carew Hazlitt, he speaks in the most contemptuous terms of both. One he pronounces “not a man of note,” and the other he terms, with a delightful unconsciousness of self-irony, “a bumptious bookmaker, profusely addicted to scissors and paste”; and both he bids, at parting, to “make room for their betters.” If such be the character of Mr. Patmore and Mr. Hazlitt, what opinion, we may ask, is the reader called upon to entertain of the “editor” who is an accident of their existence? Nor is it in relation only to the authors after whom he gleans that the “editor” shows bad taste and self-sufficiency. The immortal author of the Dunciad, speaking of a kindred race of authors, tells us,

“Glory and gain the industrious tribe provoke, And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.”

“The ricketty little papist, Pope,” is the witticism the editor levels at the brightest and most graceful poet of his age--a master and maker of our English tongue, and a scourge of just such dunces as himself.

Of the writers whose habits and personal characteristics are treated of in this volume we have little or no room to speak, nor does the work before us afford any sufficient basis to go upon. Lamb occupies a niche in the popular pantheon, as an essayist, higher than posterity will adjudge him. His essays are pleasing and witty, and the style is marvellously pure; but they want solidity; they are idealistic, humorous, subjective; they fail to present that faithful transcript of manners, or to teach in sober tones those lessons of morality, which make the older essayists enduring. Lamb’s other works are already forgotten. He was an amiable man in the midst of unhappy surroundings, and his unassuming manners have enshrined his name with affection in the works of his contemporaries.

Hazlitt’s was not a character to be admired, nor in many ways even to be respected. He was devoured with vanity and grosser passions. His work was task-work, and therefore not high. ’Tis true Horace tells us,

“… paupertas impulit audar Ut versus facerem.”

--poverty has often been the sting which urged genius to its grandest efforts. But Hazlitt, though undoubtedly a man of genius, was not gifted with that genius of the first order, which abstracts itself wholly from the miserable circumstances about it. The great body of his work is criticism, brilliant, entertaining, even instructive at the moment in which it was produced, but substantially only the fashion of a day.

Of the poet Campbell and Lady Blessington it would be an impertinence to say anything on the slight foundation this volume gives us.

The editor of the “Bric-à-Brac” Series has placed on the cover of each volume this motto:

“Infinite riches in a little room.”

We will suggest one that will take up even less room:

“Stultitiam patiuntur opes.”

THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF THE STATES, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By P. Cudmore, Esq., Counsellor-at-Law, Author of the Irish Republic, etc., etc. New York: P. Cudmore. 1875.

The author of this work informs us in the preface that his object has been to condense into one volume the colonial, general, and constitutional history of the United States. This volume professes to be a digest of the writings and speeches of the fathers of the Constitution of the United States, the statutes of the several States, the statutes of the United States, of the writings and speeches of eminent American and foreign jurists, the journals and annals of Congress, the Congressional Globe, the general history of the United States, the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the several States, the opinions of the attorneys-general of the United States, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; of extracts from De Tocqueville, the Madison Papers, the Federalist, Elliott’s Debates, the writings of Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Vattel, and of extracts from Jefferson and other eminent authors on parliamentary law. The platforms of political parties are also given. This list is copied verbatim from the author. It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Cudmore has set himself no contemptible task to accomplish, and, as he has executed it in a thin octavo of 254 pages, it may reasonably be conjectured that he possesses a talent for condensation that Montesquieu might have envied. Mr. Vallandigham finds a powerful advocate in this author, and his philippics against Mr. Stanton are proportionately severe. Mr. Cudmore has a fondness for notes of exclamation; and such is the ardor of constitutionalism with which he pursues this latter-day “tyrant of the blackest dye” (we quote Mr. Cudmore) that it often takes three notes of admiration to express his just abhorrence of his measures. The bulk of the work is taken up by a civil and military history of the late conflict, and the disputes that preceded it. If we might venture a hint to Mr. Cudmore, we would say that his tone is a little too warm for this miserably phlegmatic age, which affects a fondness for impartiality in great constitutional writers. The fact is, the questions which the author discusses with the greatest spirit are dead issues. They still preserve a faint vitality for the philosopher and speculative statesman, but they have sunk out of sight for the practical politician and man of to-day. The vis major has decided them. We might as usefully begin to agitate for a re-enactment of the Agrarian Laws. Mr. Cudmore’s Chapters IV. and V., containing a digest of State and Federal law, show much meritorious industry. The history of land-grants, the homestead law, and the laws pertaining to aliens and naturalization, will be found useful.

THE YOUNG CATHOLIC’S ILLUSTRATED TABLE-BOOK AND FIRST LESSONS IN NUMBERS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren St. 1875.

This is a very simple and attractive little book, designed to make the beginning of arithmetic, which certainly is rather a dry study in itself, interesting and capable of fixing the attention of the very young children for whose use the work is intended. We do not remember having seen any prettier or more practical little text-book for beginners, and cannot recommend it too highly. It is also very nicely illustrated.

SADLIER’S EXCELSIOR GEOGRAPHY, Nos. 1, 2, 3. New York: Wm. H. Sadlier. 1875.

As a first attempt in this country to prepare a series of geographies adapted to Catholic schools this is deserving of great praise. The type is clear, the maps and illustrations, and the mechanical execution generally, are excellent. It is based, to some extent, on a geographical course originally known as Monteith’s, and adapted by the insertion of additional matter interesting to Catholics. What we should have preferred, and hope eventually to see, is a series of geographies and histories entirely original, and written from the Catholic point of view, and pervaded by the Catholic tone which we find in this.

SEVENOAKS: A Story of To-day. By J. G. Holland, author of Arthur Bonnicastle. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

It gives us great pleasure to express, with slight qualifications, our entire approval of this work, so far as its moral purport is concerned. Its plot and incidents are all within the range of ordinary life and experience, and therefore not calculated to foster in the youthful reader extravagant anticipations in regard to his own future. There are many good hits at the weaknesses and inconsistencies of human nature, and faithful pictures of the vices and miseries to which an unscrupulous ambition leads. Selfishness and injustice prosper for a time, but eventually reap their reward; while integrity and true manliness, even in the rude and uncultivated, are recognized and appreciated.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

“Almanac,” when applied to this publication, seems to us a misnomer. The popular notion of an almanac is a thin, badly-printed pamphlet, containing incomprehensible astrological tables, delusive prophecies as to the weather, tradesmen’s advertisements, and a padding of stale jokes or impracticable recipes gathered from country newspapers; whereas the Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac is an annual of 144 pages, containing each year enough solid, well-digested information to furnish forth an ordinary volume of three hundred pages, to say nothing of the many fine engravings--and this, too, at a price which should extend its circulation to equal that of the once-famous Moore’s Almanac (published in England about the beginning of the XVIIIth century), which is said at one time to have sold annually more than four hundred thousand copies.

The several volumes of the Family Almanac form a valuable manual for Catholics, containing, as they do, articles of great interest to the literary student, the antiquarian, and the archæologist. Much of the information could be gathered only from exceedingly well-furnished libraries; some of it appears here for the first time in print.

In the Almanac for 1876, among other good things, we find an extended and very interesting biographical sketch of His Eminence Cardinal McCloskey; also, biographical sketches of Cardinals Wiseman and Altieri, of Bishops Bruté and Baraga, of Rev. Father Nerinckx and the Cura Hidalgo--the Washington of the Mexican revolution--and of Eugene O’Curry, the eminent Irish scholar--all of these being illustrated with portraits. The approaching centenary has not been forgotten, for in “Centennial Memorials” is shown the part--a glorious one, which received the public endorsement of the “Father of his Country,” as will be seen by perusal of the article--taken by Catholics of Irish origin in the Revolutionary struggle. In the same article are numerous statistics showing the temporal growth of our country during the century just closing; the article closes with an account of the wonderful growth of the Catholic Church during the same period--the whole being valuable for future reference. “About the Bible” and “The Bible in the Middle Ages” contain information of interest to every Christian, and which is to be got elsewhere only by much reading; the latter article also contains an ample refutation of the old slander that the Catholic Church of the middle ages kept the Scriptures from the laity. Besides the foregoing, there is much curious and entertaining prose and verse, and several pictures of churches and other edifices (among them one of old S. Augustine’s Church, Philadelphia, destroyed in the riots of 1844, and toward the building of which, in 1796, Washington contributed $150; Stephen Girard, $40; George Meade, father of Gen. Meade, $50; and Commodore Barry, $150), a complete and authentic list of the Roman pontiffs translated from the Italian, the American hierarchy, and the usual astronomical and church calendars, postal guide, etc.

MADAME RÉCAMIER AND HER FRIENDS. From the French of Madame Lenormant. By the translator of Madame Récamier’s Memoirs. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1875.

This volume will doubtless be welcome to those already familiar with the Memoirs previously published. The work is largely made up of letters which are of no particular interest, except so far as they throw light on the character of the writers. Endowed by nature with extraordinary beauty, and possessing that knowledge of public events and skill in their interpretation which seems a special gift of Frenchwomen, Mme. Récamier became the centre of an admiring group of statesmen and littérateurs who sought the benefit of her intuitive wisdom.

A very strong testimony to Mme. Récamier’s many virtues is found in the warm friendship which existed between herself and other ladies holding a similar position in French society; in the loving devotion of the child of her adoption, who subsequently became her biographer; and--in the fear and jealousy of the First Napoleon, who paid her the compliment of a temporary exile. The personal attention she gave to her adopted daughter’s education is worthy of imitation.

WAYSIDE PENCILLINGS, WITH GLIMPSES OF SACRED SHRINES. By the Rev. James J. Moriarty, A.M. Albany: Van Benthuysen Printing House. 1875.

Father Moriarty’s work has one merit on which editors place a high value--brevity. A book of travels is not properly a history or topography of the countries visited, and a bird’s-eye view of the most salient features is all that we can reasonably ask at the traveller’s hand. The interlarded extracts with which some authors swell their volumes are often wearisome reading. In the above work the reverend traveller narrates all the important incidents of his journey, with descriptions of the various shrines on his route, in so picturesque a manner, and in so few words, that the reader will have no difficulty in laying up in his memory many pleasant subjects for reflection.

EIGHT COUSINS; OR, THE AUNT-HILL. By Louisa M. Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1875.

An entertaining volume for youthful readers, and one which conveys many useful lessons. The same charming freshness which won for Little Women its wide reputation will render this volume a favorite, notwithstanding its defects--one of which is a spirit of self-assertion in the heroine which is only too true to nature in the average American girl. However reluctant we may be to acknowledge the fact, we cannot fail to see that our so-called progress has had a tendency to weaken veneration for age and respect for authority. Miss Alcott shows her sympathy with this fault by sometimes placing age in a ludicrous light before her juvenile readers. The young people of this generation do not need any encouragement in the belief that age does not always bring wisdom, and we the more regret this mistake in a book otherwise commendable. Destroy the confidence and veneration with which childhood looks up to those placed over it, and you rob parents of that which constitutes a great charm in their offspring, and go far to break down the chief bulwark of society--the family.

MANUAL OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY. A Collection of Prayers compiled for the use of the Society of Sisters of Charity in the Diocese of Louisville, Kentucky. Adapted to general use. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

This is a new volume added to the already large devotional literature of the church. As its title imports, it was prepared especially with a view to the wants of the daughters of St. Vincent, though adapted to those of other religious, and of persons in the world. As it bears the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Baltimore, and has the approval of the Bishop of Louisville, and, in addition, has had the benefit of Mr. Murphy’s careful proofreading--a matter the importance of which can scarcely be over-estimated in devotional works--we deem further comment unnecessary. We would, however, suggest whether the use of a somewhat thinner paper would not make a better proportioned volume.

MISCELLANEA: Comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects. By M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Sixth Edition, revised and greatly enlarged. 1875.

The publishers have added to the value of this edition by incorporating in it a number of papers not contained in previous editions, and which had received the author’s last corrections. Few writers of the present century in the English language have done more to popularize Catholic themes and relieve Protestants from the misconceptions which they had previously entertained regarding the history and doctrines of the church, than the late Archbishop of Baltimore. Those who have not previously possessed themselves of his admirable works have a new motive in the improvements now made.

A FULL COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN EXPLANATION OF THE CATECHISM. By Rev. J. Perry. St. Louis: P. Fox. 1875.

The present edition of Perry’s Instructions differs from the original one in the addition of questions, thus making it a text-book for advanced classes, whereas its use was heretofore limited in a great measure to teachers. The editor (Rev. E. M. Hennessey) has also incorporated an explanation of the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From P. Donahoe, Boston: Theologia Moralis Novissimi Ecclesiæ Doctoris, S. Alphonsi, in Compendium Redacta et Usui Venerabilis Cleri Americani Accommodata, Auctore A. Konings, C.SS.R. Pars Tertia: Continens tractatus de Sacramentis, de Censuris, de Irregularitatibus, et de Indulgentiis. 8vo, paper, pp. x., 433.

From P. O’Shea, New York: Lives of the Saints, with a practical Instruction on the Life of each Saint for every day in the year. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. Part iv., 8vo, pp. 127, flexible cloth.--Life and Letters of Paul Seigneret, Seminarist of S. Sulpice, translated from the French by N. R. 12mo, pp. 311.

From the Author: The Sunday Laws: A Discussion of Church and State, etc. By S. B. McCracken. 8vo, pp. 8, paper.

From P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: Life of S. Benedict, surnamed “The Moor.” The Son of a Slave. From the French of M. Allebert. 18mo, pp. 213.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXII., No. 130.--JANUARY, 1876.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH AT DES MOINES.

The utterances of any person occupying so lofty a station as that of President of the United States demand attention and respect, by reason of the source from whence they emanate. The deliberate judgments of such a man as President Grant have in themselves a special claim to the consideration of his fellow-citizens. He has had opportunities to study the length and breadth of the land. His private convictions have matured amidst the most varied experience of all classes and sections of our people--first in a profession affording ample leisure and abundant means of observation from an independent stand-point, and afterwards in commercial life, which placed him in the midst of daily events, no longer as a theorist, but as one actively concerned in their course and development. His position in military affairs has been that of one of the most celebrated commanders of the age, and his political career has been that of an independent statesman, always wielding supreme influence, and quite beyond the need of vulgar trickery, in order to maintain its power. Having almost completed an illustrious public life, he is now able to express the results of his observations, and no one can lightly question the validity of his conclusions. The country is prepared to receive anything he may have to say to it, with solicitous, intelligent, and earnest consideration.

Those who may differ from him in political convictions, or who may retain a partiality for some of his less successful competitors for the highest prize of military glory, and even those who go so far as to question his greatness--all must admit that he is a true American, formed and moulded by the events in which he has moved, and truly representing the country and the times.

We are disposed, therefore, to attach the fullest importance to his words, whether spoken officially or from the convictions of his heart, and to ponder them respectfully and thoughtfully.

On the 29th of September last His Excellency attended, at Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa, a convention of the “Army of the Tennessee,” one of those military organizations composed of veterans of the late war. The nature of these and kindred associations is not political. Their aim is to keep up a brotherly spirit among those who formerly stood shoulder to shoulder on the battle-field. Nevertheless, the gallant men, who thus risked life and limb for the integrity of the national government, are supposed to retain their patriotism, and to look with pride and zeal upon the continuance and healthy growth of those institutions, which are vitally connected with the nation’s greatness.

In the midst of such an assembly, composed of men of all creeds, our chief magistrate felt called upon to utter a prophetic warning, which has excited much comment at home, and has been extensively published abroad. We print his speech, delivered at the evening session of the “Army of the Tennessee,” as currently reported in the daily press. President Grant, being called for, came forward and said:

“COMRADES: It always affords me much gratification to meet my comrades in arms of ten and fourteen years ago, and to tell over again from memory the trials and hardships of those days--of hardships imposed for the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions. We believed then, and we believe now, that we have a government worth fighting for, and, if need be, dying for. How many of our comrades paid the latter price for our preserved Union! Let their heroism and sacrifice be ever green in our memory. Let not the result of their sacrifices be destroyed. The Union and the free institutions for which they died should be held more dear for their sacrifices. We will not deny to any of those who fought against us any privilege under the government which we claim for ourselves. On the contrary, we welcome all such who come forward in good faith to help build up the waste places, and to perpetuate our institutions against all enemies, as brothers in full interest with us in a common heritage; but we are not prepared to apologize for the part we took in the war.

“It is to be hoped that like trials will never again befall our country. In this sentiment no class of people can more heartily join than the soldier who submitted to the dangers, trials, and hardships of the camp and the battle-field, on whichever side he fought. No class of people are more interested in guarding against a recurrence of those days. Let us, then, begin by guarding against every enemy threatening the prosperity of free republican institutions. I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics; but it is a fair subject for the soldiers, in their deliberations, to consider what maybe necessary to secure the prize for which they battled. In a republic like ours, where the citizen is the sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign, the people, should foster intelligence--that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

“Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago at Lexington. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar appropriated for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the State nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state for ever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.”

Taking all things into consideration, the speech is fully equal to any written production of the President. It is direct. It is plain. It is manly and vigorous, and far superior to any other oration which we have heard of from the same distinguished quarter. Beyond all things it expresses, better than many imagine, the common sentiments of the American people.

We have not been surprised at the general applause with which it has been greeted; and we think that all our readers will agree in the judgments which we are about to express with regard to it.

An impression has been spread abroad that the views of President Grant are hostile to the Catholic Church, and that the speech was fulminated by his zeal against it. It has been averred that he was talked into making a public manifestation of his feelings by the mayor of the city of Des Moines, who called his attention to the political campaign in Ohio, where Catholics were vainly struggling for equal rights in the matter of the public schools. His Excellency is said to have been strongly moved, and hastened home from his ride, in order to prepare his speech for the evening. We have no means of definitely ascertaining the motives of the President’s speech. If he meant to hurl a thunderbolt at us, we honor him for using language, in the main, so just and courteous. But if his friends have sought to make use of him to stir up feeling against us, they must be sadly disappointed at his words; for, if they now repeat them too freely, for the purpose of injuring us, they will find themselves “hoist by” their “own petard.”

Trying as hard as we can to lash ourselves into fury; trying to fancy ourselves insulted, by representing to ourselves that the head of this nation has gone out of his way and abased his dignity, in order to cast an aspersion at a large and respectable class of the community, we are forced to give it up, and to lay down our pen; for we find nothing in the oration with which we are in the least disposed to take issue. On the contrary, we are prepared to join our tribute to the burst of applause which echoes through the land. We are convinced that, if it meets with the attention which it merits, the country at large, and Catholics in particular, will treasure the “Des Moines speech” among the “Sayings of the Fathers.” Like Washington’s Farewell, and Webster’s mighty peroration, and Lincoln’s noble and pathetic Inaugural, it will pass from the vulgar atmosphere of party strife into the pure and serene empyrean of immortality.

We have given the speech at length. We now propose to explain our decision with regard to it, and to examine at greater length those portions of it which seem to us most true, most wise, and most remarkable.

“ENCOURAGE FREE SCHOOLS,” the President says, “AND RESOLVE THAT NOT ONE DOLLAR APPROPRIATED FOR THEIR SUPPORT SHALL BE APPROPRIATED FOR THE SUPPORT OF ANY SECTARIAN SCHOOLS.”

Do we hear aright? Does the President of the United States maintain the proposition which has brought us so much contempt and derision?

WHAT IS A FREE SCHOOL? A free school is one in which every scholar can obtain an education without violating the honest convictions of conscience, or--to use the words of the President--a free school is one where education can be obtained “unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas.”

ARE OUR SO-CALLED COMMON SCHOOLS FREE? Let us glance at the general history of the controversy concerning them. As soon as the public schools had ceased to be purely charitable institutions, a new policy was inaugurated by our people. The government assumed that it was bound to ensure an intelligent use of the franchise, by encouraging the mental activity of its citizens. To this all Catholics agreed, and still agree. But our Protestant fellow-citizens, rightly desiring that some religious instruction should be given their children, wrongly insisted upon having the Bible read in the schools. The government might have permitted such a custom to continue, when no protest was made against it. But it soon became evident that the schools were essentially Protestant institutions, and served as an instrument to prevent the growth of “Popery.” This was no secret. It was openly preached.

About this time Catholics began to see what everybody else was rejoicing over, and were, naturally, alarmed. They had assisted to found and build up the republic, or they had immigrated under the assurance of equal rights. To find it proclaimed a Protestant country was news to them. They insisted that the Government was bound to deny this imputation, and they registered an universal protest against the design of the falsely so-called “common” schools.

We have demanded either that we be relieved from taxation for these sectarian schools, or that such arrangement be devised as shall render them equally desirable for Catholics and non-Catholics.

We were not called upon to explain why we so earnestly desired this. It was nobody’s business but our own. The public schools are not held to be eleemosynary institutions. They are ostensibly for the benefit of all. And even if they were places for the confinement of criminals, or almshouses, both criminals and paupers have consciences, however dull or uninformed. What, then, is the objection to our having a right to direct the policy on which public institutions are to be conducted? None. But if we were to have taken such a position as this, we should, at once, have been indicted, for an insidious and damnable conspiracy.

Therefore we have openly stated the grounds of our convictions, relying on the inherent force of truth to secure our rights. We regard morality as inseparable from religion. In this we merely echo the sentiments of the greatest American statesmen, and notably, of the Father of our republic. We say that, if we are to pay for the education of our children, we should like to have the worth of our money. What fairer demand can a Yankee make? We ask nothing to which every citizen has not a right. We have never met a fair reply to our demands, or a fair discussion of their merits. First we were greeted with silent scorn. The practical operation of the laws was found to force our children into Protestant schools. We proclaimed claimed them to be Protestant schools. It was unblushingly denied. We put the question to the test, by endeavoring to stop the Protestant Bible from being read in them. There was not enough power in our voice, nor enough fairness in our opponents, to enforce even an appearance of consistency. The schools were pronounced “un-sectarian,” a Protestant service was daily carried out, and we were bidden to hold our tongues, and to be thankful. And, now, that we are not willing, either to hold our peace, or to be grateful to those who deny us our equal rights, a loud outcry is raised, and every manner of evil is predicted, unless we are forcibly restrained. The party of malevolence seeks to create an issue where none exists, and to force us into a strife, in which it can avail itself of superior numbers to strike us a cruel and unjust blow. Now, neither this design nor the clamor with which it is urged, can be defended by any true or just plea. And we venture to predict that there is too much intelligence and love of fair play in the American people, to allow it to succeed in its sinister purpose.

What is our position once more? Here we stand, on the same basis with all other American citizens. Is it not so? Where, then, is any legal disability proved against us? We ask for nothing which we are not willing to concede to all our fellow-citizens--viz., the natural right to have their children brought up according to their parents’ conscientious convictions. We want, and we will have, our children brought up Catholics. It can be done in various ways. The state can pay the salaries of our teachers, and the cost of our buildings, and other expenses, securing proper guarantees that the money will be honestly laid out, and the children receive their due amount of secular instruction. Again, the state may pay a pro rata, and allow teachers to compete for scholars. This is done in Protestant England and Prussia, as well as in Catholic France and Austria, and is, obviously, most in harmony with democratic principles. Other ways may be devised which will secure justice to all parties. There is no practical difficulty, except in the smallest country school districts. These are always settled by the citizens themselves. Or, we can educate our children, without the state. The state may let us alone, and may do away entirely with public education, except for those who are utterly without means--in other words, change the common schools into charitable institutions, and let parents provide. But this, we are persuaded, is full of practical difficulties.

But the plan actually adopted has been to tax all alike for the common good, and yet maintain a system, which perfectly suits Protestants, but to which Catholics cannot honestly or conscientiously agree. OUR SO-CALLED COMMON SCHOOLS ARE NOT FREE. Millions of the people rise up and proclaim it. Let those who like them send their children to them. Let those support them who like them by their “private contributions.” Then all honor to President Grant when he says “that not one dollar should be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools.”

The President further says:

“RESOLVE THAT NEITHER STATE NOR NATION, NOR BOTH COMBINED, SHALL SUPPORT INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING OTHER THAN THOSE SUFFICIENT TO AFFORD EVERY CHILD GROWING UP IN THE LAND THE OPPORTUNITY OF A GOOD COMMON-SCHOOL EDUCATION, UNMIXED WITH SECTARIAN, PAGAN, OR ATHEISTICAL DOGMAS.”

Now, what is it that Catholics complain of, except that the state has supported, and does support, “institutions of learning” mixed “with sectarian, pagan, and atheistical dogmas”?

There is no doubt about this fact. Protestants insist upon having the Bible read in the public schools, lest they become irreligious. Catholics maintain that the version used is garbled, and that, even if it were not, no one has a right to teach it, except those who have compiled it, and are to-day the only responsible witnesses to its true meaning. The Jews maintain that the New Testament part of it is not true. Infidels deny it altogether. What right has any school board, or any other purely human institution to decide this controversy; and what right has any man under the Constitution to enforce his religious views or his denial of religion upon others? It is an outrage. It is an inconsistency, which cannot be stated in any terms without transparently manifesting its absurdity. Under the Constitution, and according to the spirit of our government, all men are equal. Under the present system of common schools, and, according to the spirit of those who uphold them, men are not equal, and there is no such thing as regard for conscience; but every majority has a right to enforce upon any minority, no matter how large, its peculiar ideas of instruction, involving, as this always does, the question of religion itself. We have repeated our protest, until we are almost sick and tired of hearing the outrage mentioned; we have never seen our position manfully approached within beat of drum; and, yet, we have constantly been forced to ask ourselves, “Will the American people never see this? Can it be that our enemies are, as some of them hold themselves to be, totally depraved?”

Some time ago, after considerable agitation, the Chicago School Board prohibited the reading of the Sacred Scriptures in the public schools of that city.

Undoubtedly the protest of Catholics had something to do with this. But the action of the board was certainly based upon the idea, that the reading of the Protestant Bible made the schools Protestant, “sectarian” institutions, and therefore unjust towards all other religious bodies. Let it be thoroughly understood, that we fully appreciate the desire of our Protestant fellow-citizens, to hallow secular instruction. But the reading of the Scriptures as a public ceremony is as distinctive to them, as the celebration of Mass would be to Catholics. No one can evade the argument which forces this conclusion. “Such schemes are glass; the very sun shines through them.” And yet it is not a little remarkable, how slowly the light breaks in upon the seat of the delusion.

It is a satisfaction, however, to note the few acknowledgments, tardy and incomplete as they are, of the principle which we have always maintained. Prof. Swing, alluding to the action of the Chicago School Board to which we have referred, gives voice to the following observations of common sense:

“The government has no more right to teach the Bible than it has to teach the Koran. My idea is that the government did, in its earlier life, run according to a sort of Christian common law; but now the number of Jews, Catholics, and infidels has become so greatly increased, the government has to base itself squarely upon its constitutional idea that all men are religiously equal. Even if the genius of the country permitted the teaching of the Bible, I should doubt the propriety of continuing the custom, because no valuable moral results can ever come from reading a few verses hurriedly in a school-house, and social strifes will be continually springing up out of the practice.”

The government, then, according to the professor, has no rights in the spiritual domain--a proposition which we have been condemned to universal derision for maintaining, and yet one that is self-evident to any person who will pause for a moment to consider our institutions.

An ardent advocate of what are called liberal principles, commenting upon the position of Prof. Swing, very properly styles it the only one defensible. The purpose of the Liberal League is, unquestionably, to procure the complete secularization of our public schools, which would, of course, be as unjust towards Catholic tax-payers as any other system. This class is no less hostile to justice and true liberty than any other set of meddlers. Nevertheless, it is not a little amusing to see the unmistakable fear with which it regards the issue of the present anti-Catholic policy. It waves, as its flag of hostility to the Catholics, the threadbare pretext, that we are secretly opposed to all education. It is not necessary for us to repeat the indignant denial and protest, with which we have ever met this gratuitous calumny. We quote from the Boston Index of Oct. 28:

“The public-school system is to-day in the greatest danger, not so much from the fact that it is openly attacked from without by the Catholics, as from the fact that a great inherent injustice to all non-Protestants is made part and parcel of it by its distinctively Protestant character. What is built on wrong is built on the sand; and our school system will certainly fall in ruins by and by, unless it can be grounded on equal justice to all.”

When the avowed heathen, who reap the fullest harvest, fear for the destruction of our present unjust system of education, on the ground that it is too iniquitous to last, is it not time, for people who call themselves Christians, to give a moment’s heed to the petition, which we have for years addressed to them, as most advantageous to all of us, and as doing injustice to none?

It appears, however, that this idea has infiltrated into other minds. Zion’s Herald, a Methodist journal, quoted by the liberal paper to which we have referred, says:

“The state deals only with temporal affairs, and does not attempt to usurp spiritual functions. Therefore the objects and methods of public education are wholly secular, but by no means necessarily, or at all, immoral or irreligious. On the contrary, they are decidedly favorable to piety and morality. But composed denominationally as the American people is, the state ought not to impart religious education. The moment such an attempt should be made, the community would be in conflict as to what form it should take. It may be conceded, without danger perhaps, that the state should not teach ethics, except so far as the great fundamental principles of morals and politics, as to which all Americans are agreed, are concerned. The religious education of children may and should be remitted to the family, the Sabbath-school, and the church--the natural and divinely-appointed guardians of religion and ethics.”

In the face of this growing acknowledgment of the “sectarian” character of our public schools, and knowing that they must give religious instruction or else be “pagan and atheistical,” we are pleased to hear the demand that “neither the State nor nation, nor both combined,” shall support such schools.

The fact is, that a people cannot wholly escape from its national traditions, without forgetting its language, or undergoing some violent revolution. If our fellow-citizens will study the meaning of the terms which they habitually use, they will not lose their traditions of freedom and equal rights, nor will they throw themselves into a violent, perilous departure from them. But we hasten to comment upon another sentence, which is frequently quoted from the President’s oration:

“LEAVE THE MATTER OF RELIGION TO THE FAMILY ALTAR, THE CHURCH, AND THE PRIVATE SCHOOL SUPPORTED BY PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS.”

Precisely so. If it must come to this; if no arrangement can be made, by which religion and morality can be taught in the public schools, then, leave the matter to the family altar and the church, and allow it to be done by private contributions.

In other words, either furnish the people with that which you pretend to tax them for--viz., a fair and equitable system of public schools--or allow them to provide for themselves. But, whatever you do, keep your hands off the sacredness of the “family altar.” Do not set foot into the hallowed precincts of the domestic sanctuary. The family, though subordinate, is not to be violated by the state. Parents have rights, which no government can usurp. You have no more right to force the education of their children out of their hands, than to define the number of offspring by law. You have no more right to establish a system, to which you will endeavor to secure their conformity by violent measures, than you have to establish public wet-nurseries, or, require that voters shall be brought up on government pap and be fed out of a government spoon.

Keep from meddling with religion; you have no authority to teach it.

What a bitter rebuke these words of the President contain for that party, small and contemptible in itself, but powerful by reason of the times, which has ever sought to widen the gulf between us and our true-hearted countrymen! It is not enough that we should be estranged by the traditions of three hundred years. It is not enough to whisper into the popular ear every stale and loathed calumny. It is not enough to bring our holiest rites and beliefs into the obscene literature now circulating amongst the depraved youth of our country. It is not enough to drown with a thousand noisy, insolent tongues, every attempt we make at explanation. It is not enough for this malignant, persecuting power to drop its poison into every crevice of our social and religious system, from the parlor to the sewer, from the temple to the lupanar; but the nation must be organized against us. Our religion must, in some way or other, be dragged into politics. For shame! we cry, with the President. In a country of such varied religious beliefs as ours, there is but one way to order and peace--“KEEP THE CHURCH AND THE STATE FOR EVER SEPARATE.”

To sum up: We agree with the President:

1st. No “sectarianism” in our common schools; and, therefore, “not one dollar” to our present system of schools, because they are sectarian.

2d. “Not one dollar” to “pagan” schools, in which God is ignored.

3d. “Not one dollar” to “atheistical” schools, in which God is denied in the name of “science falsely so-called.”

We now turn to consider the prophecy in which the President warns the American people of its future dangers:

“IF WE ARE TO HAVE ANOTHER CONTEST IN THE NEAR FUTURE OF OUR NATIONAL EXISTENCE, I PREDICT THAT THE DIVIDING LINE WILL NOT BE MASON AND DIXON’S, BUT BETWEEN PATRIOTISM AND INTELLIGENCE ON THE ONE SIDE, AND SUPERSTITION, AMBITION, AND IGNORANCE ON THE OTHER.”

What is meant by superstition?

Formerly it meant seeking for power or knowledge, by dealing with the impure spirits.

Does the President mean to warn us against the delusions and uncleanness of modern spiritism? If so, we are agreed.

But we do not really suppose that the President means any such thing. What does he mean?

We find in the dictionary four other meanings of the word which he has used. Superstition means “an excessive reverence or fear of that which is unknown or mysterious.” But, we observe no such phenomenon among our people; if anything, rather the reverse. Or it means “The worship of false gods.” We see no signs of this except in the “Joss Houses” of San Francisco. Nor do we behold any great belief “in the agency of superior powers in certain extraordinary or singular events, or in omens, or prognostics.” Nor, further, do we behold any “excessive nicety or scrupulous exactness,” as an alarming feature of our present moral condition. There remains but one meaning (and this, we are persuaded, is the sense which the President intended to convey): “Especially, an ignorant or irrational worship of the supreme Deity.”

An ignorant worship of God is one which knows not what to believe concerning him, or one which is unable to state what it does believe; or, further, one which can give no conclusive reason for believing anything. But, outside the Catholic Church, there is no religious body which can tell precisely what it ought to believe, or precisely what it does believe, or precisely why it ought to believe anything. Again, an irrational belief in God is one which recognizes his existence, and, at the same time, denies his attributes. For instance, it is an irrational belief in God, which denies his wisdom; which asserts, that he has not chosen means adequate to accomplish his ends; which represents him, when he has made a revelation to man, as leaving his divine truth in scattered and mysterious writings in an obscure language, requiring men to find them, collect them, and believe their true meaning in order to be saved; or which fancies that reading daily a few pages from these writings, to little children, will be sufficient to prepare them for the duties of life. It is an irrational belief in God which represents him as immoral, as creating man simply to damn him, or, which denies his justice, by wickedly imagining that he will not punish oppression and calumny and those who sow discord in the midst of a free and happy people.

Here again we agree with the President in denouncing such impiety, and in predicting that, if the liberties and institutions of this republic are soon to be jeopardized, it will be by irreverence towards God and the contempt of charity and justice towards men, ever practised by this “ignorant and irrational worship of the supreme Deity.”

Another item of danger which the President foresees in the near future is “ignorance.” Here, again we find him sounding the note of warning, to which we have always given voice. His Excellency says: “In a republic like ours, … where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign, the people, should foster intelligence--that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation.” The liberties of this republic will not be maintained, we say, by an ignorant, debauched, and corrupted generation. Our common people must be educated. They must possess “that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation.” They must know something more than simply how to read and write and “cipher.” Nor will it be sufficient, to add to this a knowledge of music. They must have a sound and thorough moral training. Their conscientious convictions must be grounded on truth daily taught and daily enforced. They must be daily taught to control their passions; they must be taught honesty, and be required to give back that which is unjustly gotten. They must be taught the true purpose of life.

But this training, as the President affirms, belongs not to the state, but to the “family altar and the church.” Either assist all families and all churches, or else encourage them to help themselves. These are our sentiments. But when sectarian bigotry has gotten hold of a system of the falsely so-called “common schools,” and with obstinate purpose, and clamorous intensity and ever-swelling declamation, manifests its resolve to maintain this system, even though it conflicts with the conscientious rights of millions of the people of our country; when, further, it is determined to force a large minority to accept this state of things, or to go without instruction, we, as American citizens, denounce the system as tyrannous; in the full sense of the word, as a reckless and immoral oppression. We assert that those who uphold it, do not desire intelligence, but prefer ignorance; that their aim is not to promote knowledge, but to destroy the religious convictions of our children, and to keep us from growing in the land. We affirm that such self-delusion originates in ignorance, is perpetuated by ignorance, tends to still deeper degradation of ignorance; and we predict that it will bring forth the fruits of ignorance, not only in morality, but in the lower sciences.

We, for our part, will never relax our efforts to show up the dishonesty of this party; we will never withdraw our protest, until justice has been done; and knowing to what lengths men can go when they start without principle, we fully share in the alarm of our chief magistrate, as to the danger of “ignorance.” Have we not, therefore, reason to hope that, in the midst of the struggle, which his sagacious mind perceives to be at hand, we shall find him on the side of patriotism and intelligence, with all true Americans, against that “superstition” and “ignorance,” whose aim is to destroy the “security of unfettered religious sentiments and equal rights” of his fellow-citizens?

There is another item of the future contest, which, according to our President, is

“AMBITION.” WHAT IS AMBITION?

A man has been elected to the highest office in the gift of a free people, the limits of which have been fixed by a custom handed down by the fathers of the nation, and which, to the minds of true patriots, has the force of law. When such a trust does not satisfy the honored recipient, and he, yielding to personal motives, strains every nerve, and seeks by every means at his command, to break down all barriers to continuation of power, thereby abusing the dignity of his post and the confidence of the people--that is ambition.

We do not fully share the apprehension with which the President foresees this threat to the “near future” of our national welfare. But if it be true, we fully agree with him when he says: “Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago at Lexington.”

“Language,” according to a great diplomatist, “was given to man, in order that he might conceal his ideas.” But this maxim has never been accepted by honorable men. In examining, thus briefly, the “Des Moines speech,” we have followed that other canon of criticism, which requires that words shall be interpreted in their literal sense, as far as possible. Submitted to this just criticism, the language appears to us immortal, and worthy of the high place which is even now being prepared for it. Some may marvel, and may wonder how the President came to be filled with so high a degree of the prophetic spirit. Like Balaam, the son of Beor, he was expected to curse us; unlike Balaam, he was not stayed, but rather urged on by the faithful servant with whom he previously conversed. But there is no mystery about it. He has grown up with the instincts of a true American, and he has spoken accordingly. Not only are the words on which we have commented true, but they are in accordance with sound Catholic principles. We are ready to take him at his word, and his words in their true meaning. To those who will join us we say, without disguise or reserve: “Gentlemen, you will never regret having trusted us, and dealt fairly with us, according to the laws and Constitution of this country.” We believe with the President, that, if the only honest meaning of his language be as honestly carried out, “the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee” (which, by the way, a Catholic general once commanded and in whose ranks hundreds of Catholic hearts bled)--we believe, we say, that these battles “will not have been fought in vain.” The children of the soldiers of the Union will at least be the peers of those whom their fathers overcame. The nations’ heroes will not look down, to see their heirs defrauded of equal rights in “the Union and the free institutions for which they died.” The President will yield to his comrades in arms, at least as much as he is so ready to accord to his late opponents. And as for our countrymen throughout the Union, we are prepared to wait, trusting that when fully enlightened, they will agree to our obtaining, independently of all political agitations or party organizations, our just and equal rights as American citizens.

SONNETS IN MEMORY OF THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE, BART.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

I.

To-night upon thy roof the snows are lying; The Christmas snows lie heavy on thy trees; A dying dirge that soothes the year in dying Swells from thy woodlands on the midnight breeze. Our loss is ancient; many a heart is sighing This hour a late one, or by slow degrees Heals some old wound, to God’s high grace replying-- A time there was when thou wert like to these! Where art thou? In what unimagined sphere Liv’st thou, sojourner, or a transient guest? By whom companioned? Access hath she near, In life thy nearest, and beloved the best? What memory hast thou of thy loved ones here? Hangs the great Vision o’er thy place of rest?

II.

“Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to prayer!”[173] The answer man can yield not ye bestow: Your answer is a little Infant, bare, Wafted to earth on night-winds whispering low. Blow him to Bethlehem, airs angelic, blow! There doth the Mother-Maid his couch prepare: His harbor is her bosom: drop him there Soft as a snow-flake on a bank of snow. Sole Hope of man! Sole Hope for us--for thee! “To us a Prince is given; a Child is born!”-- Thou sang’st of Bethlehem, and of Calvary, The Maid immaculate, and the twisted thorn Where’er thou art, not far, not far is He Whose banner whitens in yon Christmas morn!

A MESSAGE.

Is there anything more tantalizing than to be caught with a toothache and swelled face just at Christmas time, when one’s hands are full of work that must be finished, of plans that have been begun in time and carried on prosperously to within a few days of their fulfilment? This is just what befell Mr. Stephen Walpole on the 20th of December in the year of grace 1870. You remember what a terrific winter that was? How the bleak north wind blew over ice and snow, and added tenfold horrors to the poor soldiers fighting in that terrible Franco-German war--how all our hearts shuddered in pity for them, as we sat stitching and knitting in their service by the glow of our Christmas fires! This 20th of December was, perhaps, the bitterest day of the whole season. The snow was deep on the ground, the ice hung in long spikes from rails and roofs, and the east wind blew cruelly over all. Stephen Walpole ought to have been out breasting it, but, instead of this, he sat at home moaning, in a voice that sounded like a fog-bell at sea, through poultices, wadding, and miles of flannel that swelled his head out of all human proportions.

“To think of a man being knocked down by a thing no bigger than a pin’s point!” he grumbled. “A prick of that miserable atom one calls a nerve turns the seat of one’s intellect into a monster calf’s head, and makes one a spectacle to gods and men. I could whip myself for being such a milksop as to knock under to it. I’d rather have every tooth in my head pulled out than play the woman like this.… Och! Whew!”

“Serves you right, sir, for your impertinence!” protested Nelly Walpole, bridling up and applying a fresh hot poultice to her brother’s cheek, which she bade him hold; but Stephen, in his manly inability to bear the toothache with composure, dropped the soft mess under a sudden sting that jerked it out of his hand.

“What an unmanageable baby it is!” cried Nelly, catching the poultice in time to save her pretty violet cashmere dress. “I told you to hold your cheek while I fastened the bandage; make haste now before it cools.”

“O my unfortunate brother! Ill-fated man! Is this how I find you, bound and poulticed in the hands of the Philistines?”

This was from Marmaduke, Nelly’s younger brother, who entered while the operation was going on, and stood surveying the victim in serene compassion.

“Yes,” cried Stephen, “and all the pity a poor devil gets is being bullied for not holding his jaw.”

“Oh! come, you’re not so bad, since there’s vice enough in you for a pun!” said Marmaduke. “How did you catch the thing?”

“What thing--the pun?”

“The toothache.”

“It caught me,” said Stephen resentfully.

“Then it caught you in some of those villanous cut-throat places where you go pottering after beggars and blackguards and the Lord knows what!” said Marmaduke with airy contempt, drawing his slim, beringed fingers gracefully through a mass of remarkably fine curls that clustered over his high, white forehead, and gave a boyish look to his handsome young face, and added to its attractions. He was extremely prepossessing, this perfumed, patent-leather-booted young gentleman of two-and-twenty. You could not look at him without liking him. His eye was as clear as a child’s, his smile as frank, his laughter as joyous and catching. Yet, as it sometimes happens with the graces of childhood, these things were a deceptive promise. The frankness and the joy were genuine; but there was a cold gleam of contempt, a cold ring of selfishness, in the bright eyes and the merry voice that were very disappointing when you found them out. But people were slow to find them out. Even those who lived with Marmaduke, and thus had ample opportunities of judging, remained under the spell of his attractive manners and personal charms until some accident revealed their worthlessness. A false coin will go on passing current through many hands, until one day some one drops it to the ground, and the glittering sham is betrayed. He had not a bad heart; he was kind even, when he could be brought to forget himself for a moment and think of others. But it required a shock to do this; and shocks are, happily, rare in every-day life. So Marmaduke slept on undisturbed in his egotism, hardening unconsciously in self-absorbed enjoyment. He had never taken trouble about anything, made a genuine effort of any sort except for his amusement. He had just the kind of brains to enable him to get through college with a decent amount of success easily--tact, ready repartee, a quick, retentive memory that gave the maximum of result for the minimum of work. He would pass for clever and well informed where an awkward, ugly youth, who had ten times his intellect and studied ten times harder, would pass for knowing nothing. Stephen was eight years older than he, and had not yet discovered his brother’s real value. Perhaps this arose partly from Stephen’s not being of a particularly observant or analytical turn of mind. He took people pretty much at their own valuation, as the world is rather apt to do. Marmaduke set a very high price on his handsome face and limited attainments, and his brother had never dreamed of disputing it. He would sometimes naïvely express his surprise that people were so fond of Duke when he did so little to please them; and wonder how popular he was, considering that he never gave himself the smallest trouble to oblige or humor people.

“I suppose it’s his handsome face that mankind, and womankind in particular, find so taking,” Stephen would remark to Nelly. “He certainly has a wonderful knack for getting on with people without caring twopence whether they like him or not. I wish I knew his secret. Perhaps it’s his high spirits.”

Nelly would sometimes suggest that Marmaduke’s fine temper might count for something in the mystery. And Stephen never contradicted her. His temper was not his best point. He had a heart of gold; he had energy, patience, and endurance to any extent--except in case of toothache; he was unselfish and generous; but he was sensitive and exacting. Like most persons who dispense liberally, he was impatient of the selfishness and ingratitude of men who take all they can get and return nothing. Marmaduke had no such accounts to square with human beings, so he never felt aggrieved, never quarrelled with them. Stephen was working hard at his profession--he was an engineer--and so far he had achieved but moderate success. Marmaduke had been called to the bar, but it was a mere formality so far; he spent his time dawdling about town, retailing gossip and reading poetry, waiting for briefs that never came--that never do come to handsome young gentlemen who take it so easy. His elder brother laid no blame on him for this want of success. He was busy all day himself, and took for granted that Marmaduke was busy on his side. The law was up-hill work, besides; the cleverest and most industrious men grew gray in its service before they made a name for themselves; and Duke was after all but a boy--he had time enough before him. So Stephen argued in his brotherly indulgence, in ignorance of the real state of things.

Nelly was, as yet, the only person who had found out Marmaduke, who knew him thoroughly. She knew him egotistical to the core, averse to work, to effort of every sort, idle, self-indulgent, extravagant; and the knowledge of all this afforded much anxious thought to her little head of nineteen years. They lived alone, these three. Nelly was a mother to the two young men, watching and caring for them with that instinctive child-motherhood that is so touching in young girls sometimes. She was a spirited, elfin little creature, very pretty, blessed with the sweetest of tempers, the shrewdest of common sense, and an energy of character that nothing daunted and few things resisted. Marmaduke described this trait of Nelly’s in brother-like fashion as “a will of her own.” He knew his was no match for it, and, with a tact which made one of his best weapons of defence, he contrived to avoid clashing with it. This was not all policy. He loved his pretty sister, and admired her more than anything in the world except himself. And yet he knew that this admiration was not mutual; that Nelly knew him thoroughly, saw through him as if he were glass; but he was not afraid of her. His elder brother was duped by him; but he would have staked his life on it that Nelly would never undeceive him; that she would let Stephen go on believing in him so long as the deceiver himself did not tear off the mask. Yet it was a source of bitter anxiety to the wise little mother-maiden to watch Marmy drifting on in this life of indolence and vacuity. Where was it to end? Where do such lives always end? Nothing but some terrible shock could awake him from it. And where was the shock to come from? Nelly never preached--she was far too sensible for that--but when the opportunity presented itself she would say a few brief words to the culprit in an earnest way that never irritated him, if they worked no better result. He would admit with exasperating good-humor that he was a good-for-nothing dog; that he was unworthy of such a perfection of a sister and such an irreproachable elder brother; but that, as nature had so blessed him, he meant to take advantage of the privilege of leaving the care of his perfection to them.

“If I were alone on my own hook, Nell, I would work like a galley-slave,” he protested once to her gentle upbraiding. “But as it is, why need I bother myself? You will save my soul, and pray me high and dry into heaven; and Stephen--Stephen the admirable, the unimpeachable, the pink of respectability--will keep me out of mischief in this.”

“I don’t believe in vicarious salvation for this world or the next, and neither do you, Marmy. You are much too intelligent to believe in any such absurdity,” replied Nelly, handing him a glove she had been sewing a button into.

Marmaduke did not contradict her, but, whistling an air from the Trovatore, arranged his hat becomingly, a little to one side, and, with a farewell look in the glass over the mantel-piece, sauntered out for his morning constitutional in the park. Nelly went to the window, and watched the lithe young figure, with its elastic step, until it disappeared. She was conscious of a stronger solicitude about Marmaduke this morning than she had ever felt before. It was like a presentiment. Yet there was nothing that she knew of to justify it. He had not taken to more irregular hours, nor more extravagant habits, nor done anything to cause her fresh anxiety; still, her heart beat as under some new and sudden fear. Perhaps it was the ring of false logic in his argument that sounded a louder note of alarm and warned her of worse danger than she had suspected. One might fear everything for a man starting in life with the deliberate purpose of shifting his responsibility on to another, setting his conscience to sleep because he had two brave, wakeful ones watching at his side.

“If something would but come and wake him up to see the monstrous folly, the sinfulness, of it!” sighed Nelly. “But nothing short of a miracle could do that, I believe. He might, indeed, fall ill and be brought to death’s door; he might break his leg and be a cripple for life, and that might serve the purpose; but oh! dear, I’m not brave enough to wish for so severe a remedy.”

Two months had passed since this little incident between the brother and sister, and nothing had occurred to vindicate Nelly’s gloomy forebodings. Marmaduke rose late, read the newspaper, then Tennyson, Lamartine, or the last novel, made an elaborate toilet, and sauntered down to the courts to keep a lookout for the coming briefs. But it was near Christmas now, and this serious and even tenor of life had been of late broken in upon by the getting up of private theatricals in company with some bachelor friends. What between learning his own part, and hearing his fellow-actors and actresses theirs, and overseeing stage arrangements, Marmaduke had a hard time of it. His hands were full; he was less at home than usual, seldom or never of an evening. He had come in very late some nights, and looked worn and out of spirits, Nelly thought, when he came down to his late breakfast.

“I wish those theatricals were over, Marmy. They will kill you if they last much longer,” she said, with a tender, anxious look on her pretty little face. This was the day he came home and found Stephen in the hands of the Philistines.

“’Tis hard work enough,” assented the young man, stretching out his long limbs wearily; “but the 26th will soon be here. It will be too bad if you are laid up and can’t come and applaud me, Steevy,” he added, considering his elder brother’s huge head, that looked as if it would take a month to regain its natural shape.

“Humph! That’s the least of my troubles!” boomed Stephen through his poultice.

“Civil! Eh, Nell? I can tell you it’s as bad as any toothache, the labor I’ve had with the business--those lazy dogs, Travers and Milford, throwing all the weight of it on me, under pretext of never having done that sort of thing before.”

“That’s always the fate of the willing horse,” said Stephen, without the faintest idea of being sarcastic. “That’s just what I complain of with those idle fellows X---- and W----; they throw the burden of all the business on me, because, forsooth, I understand things better! I do understand that people can’t get work done unless they bestir themselves and attend to it.”

“I wouldn’t be such an ass as to let myself be put on in that way,” said Marmaduke resentfully. “I would not be fooled into doing the work of three people instead of one.”

“And yet that’s what you are doing at present,” replied Stephen.

“Oh! that’s different; it is only en passant,” explained Marmaduke; “and then, you see, it.…”

“Amuses you,” Nelly had it on the tip of her tongue to say; but she checked herself, and finished the sentence for him with, “It is not the same thing; people cannot make terms for a division of labor, except it be in the case of real business.”

“Of course not,” assented Stephen. Marmaduke looked at his boots, and inwardly voted Nelly “no end of a trump.”

Did she guess this mental vote, and did she take advantage of it to ask him a favor?

“Perhaps Marmy would go and see that poor man for you, Stephen?” she said in the most natural way possible, without looking up from her work.

“I wish he would; I should be ever so much obliged to him. Would you mind it, Duke?”

“Mind what?”

“Taking a message for me to a poor fellow that I wanted badly to go and see to-day.”

“Who is he? Where does he hang out?”

“His name is John Baines, and he hangs out in Red Pepper Lane, ten minutes from here, at the back of the square.”

“Some abominable slum, no doubt.”

“The locality is not Berkeley Square or Piccadilly, but it would not kill you to walk through it once,” rejoined Stephen.

“Do go, there’s a dear boy!” coaxed Nelly, fixing her bright eyes on Marmaduke’s face, with a smile that would have fascinated a gorilla.

Marmaduke rose, stretched his arms, as if to brace himself for an effort.

“Who’s your friend John Baines?” he said. “A ticket-of-leave man?”

“Nothing so interesting; he’s only a rag-and-bone man.”

Marmaduke said nothing, but his nose uttered such an unmistakable pshaw! that Nelly, in spite of herself, burst out laughing.

“What the deuce can make him cultivate such company?” he exclaimed, appealing to Nelly, and joining good-humoredly in her merriment.

“To help them and do them good; what else?” she replied.

“Every man to his taste; I confess I have none for evangelizing rag-and-bone men, or indeed men of any station, kind, or degree,” observed Marmaduke emphatically.

“Then you won’t go?” said Stephen.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t. I don’t mind devoting myself for once to oblige you. What’s your message for John Baines? Not a leg of mutton or a bottle of port? I won’t bargain for carrying that sort of article.”

“I don’t want you to carry anything that will encumber you,” replied the elder brother. “Tell him I cannot get to see him to-day, and why, and that I am very sorry for it. Meantime, you can say I have done his commission. See if he wants anything, and, if so I will send it at once.”

“What ails him?” enquired Marmaduke with a sudden look of alarm.

“Poverty: hunger, and cold, and misery.”

“Oh! that’s all! I mean it’s not a case of typhus or small-pox. I should not care to imperil my valuable life by running in the way of that sort of thing,” observed Marmaduke.

“Have no fear. The complaint is not catching,” replied his brother. “Whatever good he may do you, he’ll do you no harm.”

“Dear Marmy! it’s very good of you!” whispered Nelly, as she tripped down-stairs after the reluctant messenger, and helped him on with his fur coat in the hall.

“It’s not a bit good; it’s an infernal bore, and I’m only doing it to please you, Nell,” protested Marmaduke. “What a fool’s errand it is! I sha’n’t know from Adam what to say to the man when I get there. What am I to say to him?”

“Oh! anything,” suggested Nelly. “Say you have come to see him because Stephen is ill, and ask him how he is. You’re never at a loss for something to say, you know that right well; and whatever you say is sure to be right.”

“When I know who I’m talking to; but I don’t know this interesting party, or what topics of conversation he particularly affects. He won’t expect me to preach him a sermon, eh?” And Marmaduke faced round with a look of such comical terror at the thought that Nelly again burst out laughing.

“Heaven forbid! That’s the last thing you need dream of,” she cried. “He is much more likely to preach to you.”

“Oh! indeed; but I didn’t bargain for that. I would very much rather be excused,” protested Marmaduke, anything but reassured.

“You foolish boy! I mean that he will preach to you as the poor always do--by example; by their patience, and their gratitude for the least thing one does for them.”

“I’m not going to do anything for John Baines that I can see; only bothering him with a visit which he would very likely rather I spared him.”

“You will give him Stephen’s message,” suggested Nelly, “and then let him talk. There is nothing poor people enjoy so much as a good listener. They are quite happy when they can pour out their grievances into a willing ear. The sympathy of the rich is often a greater comfort to the poor than their alms.”

“Humph! That’s lucky, anyhow,” grunted Marmaduke. “Well, I’ll let the old gentleman have his head; I’ll listen till he pulls up of his own accord.” He had his hand on the door-latch, when Stephen’s muffled tones were heard calling from the room above. Nelly bounded up the stairs, and was back in an instant.

“He says you are to give Baines half a sovereign from him; he had nearly forgotten it.”

“Where is it?” said Marmaduke, holding out his hand.

“Stephen has not his purse about him, so he begs you will give it for him.”

“Neither have I mine,” said the young man.

“Well, run up for it; or shall I? Where is it?” inquired willing Nelly.

Marmaduke hesitated for a moment, and then said abruptly: “It doesn’t matter where it is; there’s nothing in it.”

“What have you done with your money? You had plenty a few days ago!” exclaimed Nelly in childlike surprise.

“I have lost it; I haven’t a brass farthing in the world!” He said this in a reckless, dogged sort of way, as if he did not care who knew it; and yet he spoke in an undertone. For one moment Nelly looked at him in blank astonishment.

“Lost it?” she repeated, and then, the truth flashing on her suddenly, she cried in a frightened whisper: “O Marmaduke! you have not been gambling? Oh! tell me it’s not true.” She caught hold of his arm, and, clinging to it, looked into his face, scared and white.

“Nonsense, Nell! I thought you were a girl of sense,” he exclaimed pettishly, disengaging himself and pushing back the bolt. “Let me be off; tell Stephen I had not change, so his friend must wait till he can go and tip him himself.”

“No, no; he may be hungry, poor man. Stay, I think I have ten shillings here,” said Nelly; and she pulled out her porte-monnaie, and picked four half-crowns from the promiscuous heap of smaller coins. “Take these; I will tell Stephen you will give the ten shillings.”

Her hand trembled as she dropped the money into Marmaduke’s pocket. He was about to resist; but there was something peremptory, a touch of that will of her own, in her manner that deterred him.

“I’m sorry I said anything about it; I should not if I thought you would have minded it so much,” he observed.

“Minded it? O Marmaduke! Minded your taking to gambling?”

“Tush! Don’t talk nonsense! A man isn’t a gambler because once in a way he loses a twenty-pound note.”

And with this he brushed past her, and closed the hall-door with a loud bang.

Nelly did not sit down on one of the hall chairs and cry. She felt mightily inclined to do so; but she struggled against the weakness and overcame it. Walking quietly up the stairs, she hummed a few bars of a favorite air as she passed the door of Stephen’s sitting-room, and went on to her own room on the story above. But even here, safe and alone, the tears were bravely held back. She would not cry; she would not be seen with red eyes that would betray her brother; she would do her very utmost to rescue him, to screen him even now. While she is wrestling and pleading in the silence of her own room, let us follow the gambler to Red Pepper Lane.

Marmaduke had described the place accurately when he called it an abominable slum. Red Pepper Lane was one of those dismal, frightful dens of darkness and dirt that cower at the back of so many of our wealthy squares and streets--poison-pits for breeding typhus and every social plague that desolates great cities. The houses were so high and the lane so narrow that you could at a stretch have shaken hands across from window to window. There was a rope slung half-way down the alley, with a lantern hanging from it which looked more like a decoration or a sign than a possible luminary; for the glass was too thickly crusted with dirt to admit of the strongest light piercing it. In the middle of the lane was a gutter, in which a few ragged, begrimed, and hungry-looking little mortals were playing in the dirty snow. The east wind whistled through the dreary tenements with a sharp, pitiless cry; the sky was bright outside, but here in Red Pepper Lane its brightness did not penetrate. Nothing but the wind could enter, and that came with all its might, through the crannies in the walls, through the rickety doors, through the window-frames glazed with brown paper or battered old hats--any rag that could be spared to stuff the empty panes. Not a head was seen anywhere protruding from windows or doors; the fierce blast kept every one within who had a roof to cover them. If it were not for the sooty little objects disporting themselves in the gutter, the lane might have been the precincts of the jail, so deserted and silent was it. Marmaduke might have wandered up and down for an hour without meeting any one whom he could ask to direct him to where John Baines lived, but luckily he recognized the house at once by Stephen’s signal of an old broom nailed over the door. He searched for a knocker or a bell; but seeing neither, he sounded a loud rat-ta-ta-tat with the gold knob of his walking-stick, and presently a voice called out from somewhere to “lift the latch!” He did so, and, again left to his own devices, he followed Stephen’s injunctions and went straight up to the second story, where he knocked, and in obedience to a sharp “Come in!” entered.

The gloom of the lane had prepared him gradually for the deeper gloom of the room, and he at once distinguished a person, whom he rightly surmised to be the rag-and-bone man, sitting at the farther end, near the fire-place, wrapped up in a brown blanket, with his feet resting on the hearth-stone, as if he were toasting them. If he was, it was in imagination; for there was no fire--only the ghost of one as visible in a mass of gray ashes, and they did not look as if even a glow of the late warmth remained in them. He had his back to the door, and, when it opened, he turned his head in that direction, but not sufficiently to see who came in. Marmaduke, as he stood on the threshold, took in the surroundings at a glance. There was a bed on the floor in one corner, with no bed-clothes to speak of, the blanket being just now in requisition as a cloak; a miserable-looking table and two chairs--an unoccupied one and the one Baines sat in; a bag and a basket were flung under the window, and some dingy old utensils--a saucepan, kettle, etc.--lay about. There was nothing particularly dreadful in the scene; it was, compared with many such, rather a cheerful one on the whole; but Marmaduke, who had no experience of the dwellings of the poor, thought it the most appalling picture of misery and desolation that could be conceived. He was roused from the stupor of horror into which the sudden spectacle had thrown him by hearing the figure in the blanket ask rather sharply a second time “Who’s there?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Marmaduke, advancing within a step of the chair. “My name is Walpole; I have come to see if there is anything I can do for you--anything that you … that …” he stammered, not knowing how to put it.

“Oh! Mr. Walpole, I am obliged to you for calling, sir. I want nothing; but I am glad to see you. It is very kind of you. Pray take a chair. You must excuse me for not getting up; my leg is still very painful.”

“I am only the brother of the Mr. Walpole whom you know,” said Marmaduke, surprised beyond measure at the good address of the man. “My brother is laid up with a violent face-ache. He was greatly put out at not being able to keep his appointment with you this afternoon, and sent me to see how you were getting on, and to tell you he had done something that you commissioned him to do.”

“Your brother is extremely kind,” said the man. “I am sorry to hear he is ill. This weather is trying to everybody.”

“You seem to be a severe sufferer from it,” remarked Marmaduke. He had opened his fur coat, and sat back in the rickety chair, in mortal fear all the while that it would go to smash under him. This was the most extraordinary specimen of the rag-and-bone tribe--he could not say that he had ever known, for he had never known one in his life, but--that he could have imagined. He spoke like an educated man, and, even in his blanket, he had the bearing of a gentleman. If it were not for his swollen nose and the glare of his red eye-balls, which were decidedly not refined, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate that he belonged to the very dregs of human society. It was impossible to say how old he was, but you saw at a glance that he was more broken than aged.

“Yes, I am suffering rather severely just now,” he replied in a quiet, conversational way; “I always do when the cold sets in. But, added to my chronic complaint of sciatica, I slipped on the ice some time ago, and sprained my left foot badly. Your brother made my acquaintance at the hospital where I was taken to have it set right.”

“And has it been set right?”

“Yes; I can’t get about easily yet, but it will be all right by and by.” And then, dismissing the selfish subject, he said: “I am distressed, sir, that you should have had the trouble of coming to such a place as this; pray don’t let me detain you longer.”

“I’m in no hurry,” replied Marmaduke, whose interest and curiosity were more and more excited. “Is there nothing I can do for you? It’s dismal work sitting here all day with a sprained ankle, and having nothing to do; would you care to have some books?” It did not occur to him to ask if he knew how to read; he would as soon have inquired if he knew how to speak.

Baines looked at him with a curious expression.

“I don’t look like a man to lend books to, do I?” he said. “There’s not much in common between books and a rag-and-bone man.”

“Quite as much, I should say, as there is between some men and rags and bones,” retorted Marmaduke, meeting the man’s eyes with a responsive question in his own.

Baines turned away with a short laugh. Perhaps it was mere accident or the force of habit that made him look up at the space over the mantel-piece; but there was something in the deliberate glance that made Marmaduke follow it, and, doing so, he saw a faded but originally good engraving of Shakspere hung in a frame against the wall. Repressing the low whistle which rose involuntarily to his lips, he said, looking at the portrait:

“You have a likeness of Shakspere, I see. Have you read his plays?”

“Ay, and acted them!”

“Acted them! You were originally on the stage, then? I saw at once that you were not what you seem to me,” said Marmaduke, with that frankness that seemed so full of sympathy and was so misleading, though never less so, perhaps, than at this moment. “Would it be disagreeable to you to tell me through what chapters of ill-luck or other vicissitudes you came to be in the position where I now see you?”

The man was silent for a few minutes; whether he was too deeply offended to reply at once, or whether he was glancing over the past which the question evoked, it was impossible to say. Marmaduke fancied he was offended, and, vexed with himself for having questioned him, he stood up, and laying Nelly’s four half-crowns on the chimney-piece, “I beg your pardon if I seemed impertinent; I assure you I did not mean it,” he said. “I felt interested in you, and curious to know something more of you; but I had no right to put questions. Good-morning.” He made a step towards the door, but Baines, rousing himself, arrested him by a sign.

“I am not offended,” he said. “I saw quite well what made you ask it. You would have every right to catechise me if I had come to you for help; as it is, your kindness and your brother’s makes a claim which I am in no mind to dispute. If you don’t mind shivering in this cold place for half an hour, pray sit down, and I will tell you my story. I have not a cigar to offer you,” he added with a laugh, “but perhaps you don’t affect that vice?”

“I do indeed very considerably,” said Marmaduke, and, pulling out a handsome cigar-case, he handed it to Baines, and invited him to help himself; the rag-man hesitated just for a moment, and then, yielding to the instinct of his good-breeding, took one.

“It’s not an amusing story,” he began, when they had sent up a few warm puffs from their fragrant weeds, “but it may not be uninteresting to you. You are very young; would it be rude to ask how young?”

“Two-and-twenty next week, if I live so long,” replied Marmaduke.

“Humph! I was just that age when I took the fatal turn in the road that led to the honorable career in which I am now embarked. My father was an officer in the line. He had no fortune to speak of; a couple of thousand pounds left him by an aunt was all the capital he possessed. When he was still young, he married, and got three thousand pounds with his wife. I was their only child. My father died when I was ten years old, and left me to the sole care of my mother, who made an idol of me and spoiled me to my heart’s content. I was not a bad boy, I had no evil propensities, and I was not deficient in brains. I picked up things with little or no effort, and got on better at school than many who had twice the brains and four times the industry. I was passionately fond of poetry, learned pages of Byron and Shelley by heart, and declaimed with a good deal of power. There could not have been a greater curse than such a gift to a boy of my temperament and circumstances. When I left school, I went to Oxford. My poor mother strained every nerve to give me a university education, with a view to my becoming a barrister; but instead of repaying her sacrifices by working hard, I spent the greater part of my time acting. I became infatuated about Shakspere, and took to private theatricals with a frenzy of enthusiasm. As ill-luck would have it, I fell in with a set of fellows who were drama-mad like myself. I had one great chum named Hallam, who was stark mad about it, and encouraged me in the folly to the utmost. I soon became a leading star in this line. I was sought for and asked out by everybody in the place, until my head got completely turned, and I fancied I had only to walk on to the stage to take Macready’s place and achieve fame and fortune. The first thing that roused me from the absurd delusion was seeing Charles Kean in Macbeth. I felt utterly annihilated under the superiority of his acting; it showed me in an instant the difference there is between ordinary taste and talent and the divine afflatus of genius. And yet an old friend who happened to meet me in the theatre that night assured me that the younger Kean was not a patch upon his father, and that Macready outshone the elder Kean. I went back to Oxford a crestfallen man, and for a time took refuge from my disappointment in real work. I studied hard, and, when the term came for going up for my degree, I was confident of success. It was a vain confidence, of course. I had only given myself to study for a period of two months or so, and it would have been little short of a miracle if I had passed. My mother was terribly disappointed; the sight of her tears cut me up more than the failure on my own account, and I determined to succeed or die in the effort, if she consented to let me make one more. She did consent, and I succeeded. That was the happiest day of my life, I think.” He drew a long breath, and repeated in an undertone, as if he forgot Marmaduke’s presence, and were speaking aloud to himself: “Yes, the happiest day of my life!”

“You worked very hard to pull up for lost time!” observed Marmaduke.

“Lost time! Yes, that was it--lost time!” said Baines, musing; then he continued in his former tone: “My poor mother was very happy. She declared I had repaid her amply for all her sacrifices. She saw me already at the top of my profession, a Q.C., a judge, the chief of all the judges, seated in robes on the woolsack. I came home, and was in due time called to the bar. I was then just twenty-four. We lived in a pretty house on the road to Putney; but my mother thought it now desirable to move into London, that I might have an office in some central neighborhood, where my clients would flow in and out conveniently. I remember that I strongly opposed the plan, not from dislike, but from some feeling like a presentiment, a dread, that London would be a dangerous place for me, and that I was taking the road to ruin by leaving the shelter of our secluded home, with its garden and trees, away from a thousand temptations that beset a young man in the great city. But my mother’s heart was set on it. She was convinced my character had thoroughly changed, that I had broken off for ever from old habits and old propensities, and that I was strong enough to encounter any amount of temptation without risk. Poor mother! It was no fault of hers if she was blinded by love. The fault was all mine. I fed her with false hopes, and then I betrayed them. She gave in so far to my wishes as to consent only to let the house, instead of selling it, as she first intended; so that our removal to London took the appearance more of an essay than a permanent arrangement. I was thankful for this, and set about the change in high spirits. We were soon comfortably settled in a very small house in Wimpole Street. I found it rather like a bird-cage after our airy, roomy abode in the suburbs; but it was very snug, and my mother, who had wonderful taste, soon made it bright and pretty. She was the brightest and prettiest thing in it herself; people used to take her for my elder sister when she took me to parties of an evening. I was very proud of her, and with better reason than she was of me.”

He paused again, looking up at the Shakspere print, as if he saw his mother’s likeness there. The sunken, red eyes moistened as he gazed on it.

“It is a great blessing to have a good mother,” said Marmaduke. “I lost mine when I was little more than a child.”

“So much the better for both of you,” retorted Baines bitterly; “she did not live for you to break her heart, and then eat out your own with remorse. But I am talking wildly. You would no doubt have been a blessing to her; you would have worked like a man, and she would have been proud of you to the end. It was not so with me. I was never fond of work. I was not fond of it then; indeed, what I did was not worthy of being called work at all. I moped over a law-book for an hour or so in the morning, and then read Shakspere or some other favorite poet, by way of refreshing myself after the unpalatable task, and getting it out of my head as quickly as possible. I went down regularly to the courts; but as I had no legal connection, and nothing in myself to make up for the want of patronage, or inspire confidence in my steadiness and abilities, the attorneys brought me no business; and as I was too lazy, and perhaps too proud, to stoop to court them, I began to feel thoroughly disgusted with the profession, and to wish I had never entered it. I ceased to go through the farce of my law-reading of a morning, and devoted myself entirely to my dilettante tastes, reading poetry, and occasionally amusing myself with writing it. My old longing for the stage came back, and only wanted an opportunity to break out actively. This opportunity was not far off. My mother suspected nothing of the way I was idling my time; she knew the bar was up-hill work, and was satisfied to see me kept waiting a few years before I became famous; but it was matter of surprise to her that I never got a brief of any description. She set it down to jealousy on the part of my rivals at the courts, and would now and then wax wroth against them, wondering what expedient could be devised for showing up the corrupt state of the profession, and forcing my enemies to recognize my superiority as it deserved. Don’t laugh at her and think her a fool; she was wise on every subject but this, and I fear I must have counted for something in leading her to such ridiculous conclusions. I held very much to preserving her good opinion, but, instead of striving to justify it by working on to the fulfilment of her motherly ambition, I took to cheating her, first tacitly, then deliberately and cruelly. Things were going on in this way, when one day, one ill-fated day, I went out as usual in the afternoon, ostensibly to the courts, but really to kill time where I could--at my club, in the Row, or lounging in Pall Mall. I was passing the Army and Navy Club, when I heard a voice call out:

“‘Halloo, Hamlet!’ (This was the name I went by at Oxford, on account of my success in the part.) ‘How glad I am to see you, old boy! You’re the very man I’ve been on the look-out for.’

“‘Hallam!’ I cried, returning his friendly grasp, and declaring how delighted I was to see him.

“‘I’ve been beating about for you ever since I came to town, ten days ago,’ he said. ‘I wrote to your old address, but the letter was sent back to me. Where have you migrated to; and what are you doing?’

“I told him the brief history of my existence since we had parted at Oxford, he to enter the army, I to begin my course of dinners-eating at the Temple. He was now on leave; he had just come from the north, where his regiment was quartered, and he was in high spirits at the prospect of his month’s holiday. I asked him what it was he had been wanting me so particularly for.

“‘I wanted to see you, first of all, for your own sake, old boy,’ he answered heartily; ‘and in the next place I want you badly to help us to get up some private theatricals at the Duchess of B----’s after Easter. I suppose you are a perfect actor--a Garrick and Charles Mathews combined--by this time. You have had plenty of practice, I’ll be bound.’

“I assured him that I had not played since the last time he and I had brought down the house together. He was immensely surprised, and loudly deplored my mistake in burying such a talent in the earth. He called me a conceited idiot to have let myself be crushed by Kean, and vowed a year’s training from a professional would bring me out a better actor than ever Kean was. Amateur acting was all very well, but the finest untaught genius ever born could no more compete successfully with a man who had gone through the regular professional drill than a civilian could with a trained soldier in executing a military manœuvre.

“‘I told you before, and I tell you again,’ he continued, as arm in arm we paced a shady alley of the park--‘I tell you that if you went on the stage you would cut out the best actor we have; though that is not saying much, for a more miserable, ignorant lot of drivelling idiots no stage ever saw caricaturing the drama than our English theatres can boast at this moment.’

“My heart rose high, and my vanity swelled out like a peacock’s tail, pluming itself in this luxurious air of flattery. I knew Hallam meant what he said; but I knew that he was a light-headed young fellow, not at all competent to judge dramatic power, and still less to counsel me. Yet such is the intoxicating effect of vanity that I swallowed his praise as if it had been the purest wisdom. I opened my whole heart to him, told him how insufferably bored I was at the bar, that I had no aptitude for it, that I was wasting my time waiting for briefs that never came--I did not explain what pains I took to prevent their coming--until, kindling with my own exaggerated statement as I went on, I ended by cursing the day I took to the bar, and declaring that if it were not for my mother I would abandon the whole thing and try my luck on the stage to-morrow.

“‘And why should you let your mother stand in your way?’ said Hallam. ‘If she is too unreasonable to see the justice of the case, why, then … well, I can’t for the life of me see why your happiness and fortune should be sacrificed to it.’

“He was not a bad fellow--far from it. He did not mean to play the devil’s advocate. I am certain he thought he was giving me excellent advice, using his superior knowledge of the world for my benefit. But he was a fool--an ignorant, silly, well-meaning fool. Such men, as friends, are often worse than knaves. If he had proposed anything obviously wicked, dishonest, or unprincipled, I should have scouted it indignantly, and walked off in contempt. But he argued with a show of reason, in a tone of considerate regard for my mother’s wishes and feelings that deceived and disarmed me. He represented to me the folly of sticking to a life that I hated and that I had next to no chance of ever succeeding in; he had a score of examples at his fingers’ ends of young fellows teeming with talent, patient as asses, and hard working as negroes, who had gone for the bar and given it up in despair. My mother, like all fond mothers, naturally expected me to prove an exception to the general rule, and to turn out a lord chancellor of the romantic sort, rising by sheer force of merit, without patronage, without money, without any of the essential helps, by the power of my unaided genius. ‘This is simply bosh, my dear fellow--innocent maternal bosh,’ persisted Hallam, ‘but as dangerous as any poison. Cut the bar, as your better genius prompts you to do, and take to your true calling--the drama.’

“‘For aught I know, I may have lost any talent I had,’ I replied; ‘it is two years, remember, since I acted at all.’

“‘That is very easily ascertained,’ said my friend. ‘You will take a part in these theatricals we are going to get up, and we will soon see whether your talent has evaporated or not. My own impression is that it will come out stronger than ever; you have studied, and you have seen something, if not very much, of life since your last attempts.’

“‘My mother has a horror of the theatre,’ I said, unwilling to yield without a show of resistance; ‘it would break her heart to see me take to the stage.’

“‘Not if you succeed; hearts are never broken by success.’

“‘And how if I fail?’

“‘You are sure not to fail,’ he urged. ‘But look here: do nothing rashly. Don’t say anything about this business until you have tried your hand at it in private. We have not settled yet what the play is to be; they left it to me to select, and I will choose one that will bring out your powers best--not tragedy; that never was your line, in my opinion. At any rate, you must for the present confine yourself to light parts, such as.…’

“I interrupted him in high dudgeon.

“‘Why, if I’m not tragic, I’m nothing!’ I exclaimed. ‘Every one who ever saw me in Hamlet declared they had never seen the part so well rendered! And you said many a time that my Macbeth was.…’

“‘First-rate--for an amateur; and I will say it again, if you like,’ protested Hallam; ‘but since then, I have seen real acting.…’

“‘Then mine was not real? I can’t for the life of me see, then…’ I broke in.

“‘Don’t get so infernally huffy,’ said Hallam, shaking my arm with good-humored impatience. ‘If you want to know what real, trained, professional acting is, you must go abroad, and see how the actors of the Théâtre Français, for instance, study and train and drill. If you will start with the English notion that a man can take to the stage as he does to the saddle, give up the plan at once; you will never rise above an amateur. But to come back to our present purpose; we will select a part to suit you, and if the rehearsals promise a genuine success--as I have not a doubt they will--we will invite your mother to come and see you, and she will be so proud of your triumph that the cause will be won.’

“‘My dear Hallam, it was some good fairy sent you in my way assuredly this morning!’ I cried, grasping his arm in delight.

“I was highly elated, and took to the scheme with enthusiasm. We spent the afternoon discussing it. It was settled that the play should be The Taming of the Shrew; the part of Benedict would suit me to perfection, Hallam declared, and I was so subdued by the amount of worldly wisdom and general knowledge of life which he had displayed in his arguments about my change of profession that I yielded without difficulty, and consented to forego tragedy for the present.

“For the next week I was in a whirl of excitement. He took me to the Army and Navy Club, and introduced me to a number of swells, all military men, who were very agreeable and treated me with a soldier-like cordiality that charmed me. I fancied life must be a delightful thing in such pleasant, good-natured, well-bred company; that I was now in my proper sphere; and that I had been hitherto out of place amidst rusty lawyers and hard-working clerks, etc. In fact, I was a fool, and my head got turned. I spent all my time in the day lounging about with Hallam and his aristocratic captains and colonels, and the evenings I devoted to the business of rehearsal, which was carried on at Lady Arabella Daucer’s, the married daughter of the duchess at whose house the theatricals were to be performed. I had been very graciously received by her grace, and consequently all the lords and ladies who composed her court followed suit. I was made as much of as if I had been ‘one of them,’ and my acting soon established me as the leading star of the select company. I suppose Hallam was right in saying that more mature reading and so on had improved my dramatic talent; for certainly it came out with a brilliancy that surprised myself. The artistic, high-bred atmosphere that surrounded me seemed to infuse fresh vigor into me. I borrowed or revealed a power that even my vanity had never suspected. Hallam was enchanted, and as proud of my success as if it had been his own.

“‘I can fancy how your mother will enjoy this!’ he exclaimed one evening, as I walked home with him to his chambers in Piccadilly. ‘She will be beside herself with pride in you, old fellow. Fancy what it will be the night of your first public representation! I expect a seat in her box, mind!’

“It was just two days before the grand night, and we were having our last rehearsal--the final one--in the theatre at B---- House, which was lighted up and filled with a select few, in order to judge of the general effect for the following night. I was in great spirits, and acted better than I had done yet. The audience applauded warmly, the ladies clapping their white-kid hands and shaking their handkerchiefs, that filled the air with the perfumes of Arabia, while the gentlemen, more audible in their demonstrations, cheered loudly.

“When it was over, we sat down to supper, about a hundred, of us. I sat next the duchess, and my beautiful Katharina on the other side of me. She was a lovely girl of twenty, a cousin of the duchess. I had been struck by her beauty at the first, but the more I saw of her the less she pleased me; she was a vain, coquettish young lady, and only tolerated me because I was useful as a good set-off to her acting, which, to be just, was excellent. I never saw anything so good off the stage, and very seldom saw it equalled even there. Flushed with her recent triumph, which had borrowed additional lustre from mine she was more gracious and conversational than I had yet known her. I was flattered, though I knew perfectly how much the caprice was worth, and I exerted myself to the utmost to be agreeable. We were altogether a very merry party; the champagne flowed freely, and with it the spirits of the guests rose to sparkling point. As we rose from the table, some one called out for a dance before we broke up. The musicians had gone to have refreshments after the rehearsal, but they were still in the house. The duchess, a good-natured, easy-going person, who always agreed with everybody all round, at once ordered them in; people began to engage partners, and all was laughing confusion round the supper-table. I turned to my pretty neighbor, and asked if she was engaged; she replied, laughing, that being neither a sibyl nor a clairvoyant, she could not have known beforehand that there was to be dancing. ‘Then may I have the honor of claiming you for the first dance, whatever it may be?’ I said; and she replied that I might. I offered her my arm, and we took our way back into the theatre, which was still brilliantly illuminated. We were to dance on the stage. As we were pushing on with the crowd, I felt a strong hand laid on my arm, and, before I had time to prevent it, Lady Caroline’s hand was withdrawn, and the intruder stood between us. He was a square-built, distinguished-looking man, not very young, but handsome and with the beau stamped all over him.

“‘Excuse my want of ceremony,’ he said in an easy, supercilious tone to me. ‘I claim the first dance with Lady Caroline.’

“‘On what grounds?’ I demanded stiffly. We were still moving on, carried with the crowd, so it was impossible to make him stand aside or to regain my post next Lady Caroline.

“‘On the grounds of her promise,’ he replied haughtily.

“Lady Caroline uttered a laughing ‘O Lord George!’ but did not draw away the hand which he had so unceremoniously transferred from my arm to his.

“‘Lady Caroline made no engagement before she came here to-night,’ I said, ‘and she promised this dance to me. I refer you to herself whether this be true or not.’

“‘Gentlemen are not in the habit of catechising ladies as to their behavior--not, at least, in our set; and while you happen to be in it you had better conform to its customs,’ observed Lord George, without looking towards me.

“I felt my blood boil so that it was an effort not to strike him. Two ladies near me who had heard the passage between us cried, ‘Shame! No gentleman would have said that!’ This gave me courage to maintain my self-command. We were now in the theatre; the orchestra was playing a brilliant prelude to a waltz, and Lord George, as if he had forgotten all about me, prepared to start. I laid my hand peremptorily on his arm.

“‘In my set,’ I said, and my voice shook with agitation, ‘gentlemen don’t tolerate gratuitous impertinence; you either make me an apology, or I shall exact reparation of another kind.’

“‘Oh! indeed. I shall be happy to hear from you at your convenience,’ sneered Lord George, with a low bow. He turned away, and said in a voice loud enough to be heard by me or any one else near, ‘The puppy imagines, I suppose, that I would meet him in a duel. The next thing will be we shall have our footmen sending us challenges. Capital joke, by Jove! Come, we are losing time, Lady Caroline! The waltz is half over.’

“They were starting this time, when a voice behind me called out imperiously: ‘A moment, Lord George Halberdyne! The gentleman whom you have insulted is a friend of mine and a guest of the Duchess of B----; two conditions that qualify him, I think, to be an adversary of yours.’

“‘Oh! he’s a friend of yours, is he?’ repeated Lord George, facing around. ‘That’s a natural phenomenon that I shall not stop to investigate just now; but it certainly puts this gentleman in a new light. Good-evening, sir. I shall have the pleasure, probably, of seeing you to-morrow.’

“‘You shall, my lord,’ I replied; and allowing Hallam to link my arm in his and draw me away, I turned my back on the brilliant scene, and hurried out of the house, feverish, humiliated, desperate.

“‘The idiot! The snob! You shall give him a lesson that he’ll not forget in a hurry,’ said Hallam, who seemed nearly as indignant and excited as myself. ‘Are you a good shot? Have you ever stood fire?’

“I answered both questions in the negative. He was evidently put out; but presently he said in a confident tone:

“‘Well, it does not so much matter; you are the offended party, and consequently you have the choice of weapons. It shall be swords instead of pistols. I suppose you’re a pretty good swordsman?’

“‘My dear Hallam,’ I said, ‘you forget that these things are not in my line at all. I never handled a sword since we flourished them in the fencing hall at Oxford. In fact, if the choice be mine, as you say it is, I think I would do better to choose pistols. I have a chance with them; and if Lord George be a swordsman, I have none with the other.’

“Hallam seemed seriously disconcerted.

“‘It’s not quite such an affair of chance as you appear to imagine,’ he said. ‘Halberdyne is one of the best shots in the service; he never misses his mark; and he is a first-rate swordsman. ’Pon my honor I don’t know what to advise you.’

“‘I must stand advised by myself then, and here goes for pistols,’ I said, trying to put a bold face on it, though I confess I felt anything but cheerful at the prospect. ‘You will stand by me, Hallam, will you not?’

“‘Of course I will! I’ve committed myself to as much already,’ he answered cordially; but I saw he was uncomfortable. ‘I shall take your card to the scoundrel to-morrow morning. I wonder who he’ll have for second--that bully Roper, very likely,’ he went on, talking more to himself than to me.

“‘Is the meeting to take place to-morrow morning?’ I inquired; and a sudden rush of anguish came on me as I put the question. I thought of my mother, of all that might be in store for her so soon.

“‘We must try and put it off for a day,’ said Hallam. ‘It is deucedly awkward, you see, if it comes off to-morrow, because of the play. You may get hit, and it would be a terrible business if you were hors de concours for the evening.’ There was something so grimly comical in the earnestness with which he said this that, though I was in no merry mood, I burst out laughing.

“‘A terrible business indeed!’ I said. ‘How exceedingly unpleasant for Lady Caroline particularly to be left in the lurch on such an occasion! However, if I go to the wall, and Lord George comes off safe, he might get up the part in a hurry and replace me, eh?’ I had hit the mark without knowing it. It was jealousy that had provoked Lord George to the gratuitous attack. I suppose there was something sardonic in my voice that struck Hallam with the inappropriateness of his previous remarks. He suddenly stopped, and grasping my arm warmly--

“‘I’m used to this sort of thing, my dear fellow,’ he said; ‘but don’t fancy from that that my feelings are turned to stone, or that I forget all that is, that may be, unpleasant in the matter. But there is no use talking of these things; they unman a fellow, and he wants all his nerves in working order at a moment like this. Take my advice and go home now, and cool yourself by a quiet night for to-morrow’s work, if it is to be to-morrow. You may have some letters to write or other things to attend to, and they had better be done at once.’

“I replied that I had no letters to write and no business instructions to leave. The idea of facing my home, passing my mother’s door, and then going to bed as if the world had not turned right round; as if all life, the present and the future, were not revolutionized--this was what I did not, at this moment at least, feel equal to, and I said so.

“‘I would rather go for an hour to the club,’ I said, ‘if you don’t mind, and we will have a game of billiards. I don’t feel inclined to go home, and I should not sleep if I went to bed.’

“‘Just as you like,’ he said; ‘but the night is so fine we may as well take a few more turns in the open air. It does one good after those heated rooms.’

“It did me no good. I felt the most miserable man in this miserable world. I would have given any happiness the world could have offered me to undo this night’s work, to be as I was an hour ago, free, guiltless of projected murder or suicide. I repeated to myself that it was not my fault; that I had been gratuitously provoked beyond endurance; that as a gentleman I could not have done otherwise; but these sophistries neither calmed nor strengthened me. Truer voices rose up and answered them in clear and imperious tones that drowned the foolish comforters. Why had I ever entered the society where my position exposed me to such results? What business had I there? What good could it do myself or any one else to have been tolerated, even courted, as I fancied I was, by these fine people, who had nothing of any sort in common with me? I had forsaken my legitimate place, the profession that my mother had made such heavy sacrifices to open to me. I had deliberately frittered away my life, destroyed my prospects of honorable success; and this is what it had brought me to! I was going either to shoot a man who had done me no graver injury than offend my pride and punish my folly, or to be shot down by him--and then? I saw myself brought home to my mother dangerously wounded, dead perhaps. I heard her cry of agony, I saw her mortal despair. I could have cried out loud for pity of her. I could have cursed myself for my folly--for the mad, sinful folly that had rewarded her by such an awakening.

“There is an electric current that runs from mind to mind, communicating almost like an articulate voice the thoughts that are passing within us at certain moments. I had not spoken for several minutes, as we paced up and down Pall Mall, puffing our cigars in the starlight; but this current I speak of had passed from my brain to Hallam’s, and informed him of what my thoughts were busy on.

“‘Don’t let yourself down, old boy,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘No harm may come of it after all; I’ve known a score of duels where both sides came off with no more than a pin-scratch, sometimes with no scratch at all. Not that I suspect you of being faint-hearted--I remember what a dare-devil you were at Oxford--but the bravest of us may be a coward for others.’

“I felt something rise in my throat as if it would choke me. I could not get a word out.

“‘Who knows?’ continued Hallam in his cheeriest tone; ‘you may be bringing down the house to-morrow night, and your mother may be the proudest woman in London, seeing you the king of the company, cheered and complimented by “fair women and brave men!” I feel as sure of it, do you know, as if I saw it in a glass.’

“He spoke in kindness, but the levity of his tone, the utter hollowness of his consolations, were intolerable. They mocked my misery; every word pierced me like a knife. What evil genius had led me across this man’s path? Only a few weeks ago I said it was the work of an angel, a good fairy, or some absurdity of the sort. It was more likely a demon that had done it. If I had never met him, I said to myself, I would never have known this hour; I should have been an innocent and a happy man. But this would not do either. I was neither innocent nor happy when I met him. I was false to my duty, wasting my life, and sick to death of both; only longing for the opportunity which Hallam had brought me. If I had not met him, I should have met or sought out some other tempter, and bitten greedily at the bait when it was offered. Still, I felt embittered toward Hallam. I accused him, as if he had been the sole author of my misfortune; as if I had been a baby or an idiot without free-will or responsibility.

“‘Come into the club,’ I said, dropping his arm and throwing away the end of my cigar.

“He did not notice the impatient movement, but readily crossed over, and we entered the club. The lofty, spacious rooms were blazing with light and filled with groups of men. Some were lounging on luxurious couches, reading the evening papers, some were chatting, some were playing cards. An air of easy grandeur, prosperity, and surface happiness pervaded the place. I felt horribly out of keeping with it all. I had no business amongst these wealthy, fashionable men; I was like a skeleton stalking into the feast. I believe it was nothing but sheer human respect, the fear of making myself ridiculous, that prevented me from turning on my heel and rushing straight out of the house. I mechanically took up the Globe, which a member tossed on to a table near me, and sat down as if I were going to read it.

“‘Leave that alone, and come into the billiard-room,’ said Hallam. And he whipped the paper out of my hands with brotherly unceremoniousness.

“I rose and followed him like a dog. I would have gone anywhere, done anything, he or anybody else suggested. Physically, I was indifferent to what I did; my brain on fire, I felt as if I were walking in a dream.

“We were passing into the billiard-room when a gentleman who was seated at a card-table cried out to Hallam to come and join them. It was Col. Leveson, a brother officer and great friend of his. Hallam replied that he was going on to have a pull at the balls; but he strolled over to see how the game was going. I mechanically followed him. Some of the players knew me, and greeted me with a friendly nod. They were absorbed in the game; it was lansquenet. I knew very little about cards; but lansquenet was the one game that interested me. I had lost a few sovereigns a night or two before at it, and, as the luck seemed set in against the banker, it flashed over me I could not do better than to take a hand and win them back now. I did not, however, volunteer to join the game. In my present state of smarting pride I would not run the risk of being made to feel I was an intruder. Unluckily, Hallam’s friend, reading temptation on my countenance perhaps, said, holding up his cards to me: “I’m in splendid vein, but I must be off. I’ll sell you my hand for half a sovereign, if you like.”

“‘Done!’ I said; and paying the half-sovereign, I sat down. I had scarcely taken his place when there was a noise in the adjoining room announcing fresh arrivals. I recognized one loud, domineering voice above the others, and presently Lord George Halberdyne came in.

“‘Going, Leveson?’ he said. ‘Luck against you, I suppose?’

“‘On the contrary, never was in better vein in my life,’ replied the colonel. ‘I sold my hand for a song, because I have an appointment that I can’t forego.’

“‘Who’s the lucky dog you sold it to?’ asked Lord George.

“‘Mr. Botfield,’ said Col. Leveson. (My real name is Botfield; I only took the name of Baines when I fell into disgrace and misery.)

“Lord George muttered an exclamation of some sort--whether of surprise or vexation I could not tell--and advanced to the table.

“‘Do you mind my joining you?’ he said, appealing to nobody in particular. There was a general assent, and he sat down. Hallam would not take a hand. He hated cards; his passion was for billiards, and he played nothing else. He came and stood behind me to watch the game. I felt him lay his hand on my shoulder, as if to encourage me and remind me that he was there to stand by me and take my part against my late bully, if needs be. It did not seem as if he was likely to be called upon to do so. My late bully was as gracious as man could be--at least he intended to be so; but I took his familiar facetiousness for covert impertinence, and it made my blood boil quite as fiercely as his recent open insult had done. I was not man of the world enough to understand that Lord George was only doing his duty to society; that he was in fact behaving beautifully, with infinite tact, like an accomplished gentleman. I could not understand that the social canons of his ‘set’ made it incumbent on a man to joke and laugh and demean himself in this lively, careless fashion towards the man whom he was going to shoot in a few hours. I grew inwardly exasperated, and it was nothing but pride and an unprecedented effort of will that enabled me to keep my temper and remain outwardly cool. For a time, for about twenty minutes, the luck continued in the same vein; my half-sovereign had been paid back to me more than fifty times. Col. Leveson was right when he said he had sold his hand for a song. Hallam was all this time standing behind my chair, smoking his cigar, and throwing in a word between the puffs. The clock struck two.

“‘Come off now, Botfield,’ he said, tapping me on the shoulder--‘come off while your star is shining; it is sure to go down if you stay too long.’

“‘Very likely, most sage and prudent mentor,’ retorted Lord George; ‘but that cuts both ways. Your friend has been pocketing our money up to this; it’s only fair he should give us a chance of winning it back and pocketing a little of his. That is a law universally recognized, I believe.’ As he said this, he turned to me good-humoredly enough; but I saw where the emphasis pointed, and, stung to the quick, I replied that I had not the least intention of going counter to the law; I would remain as long as the game lasted.

“‘Halloo! That’s committing yourself somewhat rashly,’ interposed Hallam. ‘You don’t know what nefarious gamblers these fellows are; they’re capable of keeping it up till morning!’

“‘If they do, I shall keep it up with them,’ I replied recklessly. I was desperate, and my luck was good.

“Hallam said no more, but sauntered to the other side of the table, where I felt his eyes fixed on me warningly, entreatingly.

“I looked up at last, and met them fastened on me in a mute, impatient appeal. I answered it by a peremptory nod. He saw I would not brook farther interference, so he took himself off to the billiard-room, and did not reappear for an hour.

“I cannot recall clearly what passed during the interval. The luck had turned suddenly against me; but, nothing daunted, I went on playing desperately, losing as fast as I had been winning, only in much heavier sums; for the stakes had risen enormously on the change of luck. There was a large pool, immense it seemed to me--some two hundred pounds. I lost again and again. At last terror sobered me. I began to realize the madness of my conduct, and wanted to withdraw; but they cried out against it, reminded me that I had pledged myself to remain and see the game out. Lord George was loudest in protesting that I must remain. ‘One can’t have luck always,’ he said, ‘A man must put up with it when the tide turns. It is of good omen for you, Mr. Botfield,’ he added pointedly; ‘you will be in splendid luck to-morrow.’

“I shuddered. I can remember the horrible, sick sensation that ran through me as he said this, lightly, pleasantly, as if he alluded to a rowing-match I had in view. I saw my mother’s pale face beckoning me to come away--to stop before I ruined her utterly. I almost made a movement to rise, but something glued me to the chair. The game went on. I again held the bank, and again lost. I had no money about me except the forty pounds or so I had won at the outset; but several leaves out of my pocketbook were strewn about the table bearing I. O. U.’s for nine times that sum. I suppose by this time I had quite lost my senses. I know that I went on betting like a maniac, with the feverish, triumphant impulse of a man in delirium. I was losing tremendously. I remember nothing except the sound of my own voice and Lord George’s calling banco! again and again, and how the cry ran through me like a blade every time, and how I hastily tore out fresh leaves and wrote down the sums I lost, and tossed them to the winner, and went on. All this time we had been drinking deeply of brandy and water. I was naturally abstemious, but to-night I drank recklessly. The wonder was--and I was going to say the pity--that it had not stupefied me long ago, and so made me physically incapable of continuing my insane career. But excitement acted, I suppose, as an antidote, and prevented the alcohol from taking effect as it otherwise must have done. At last Hallam came back. I have a vague recollection of hearing him exchange some remarks in an undertone with one of the players, who had given up and was now watching the game with a number of others who had dropped in from adjoining rooms. I then heard him say, ‘Good God! he is ruined twice over!’ I heard nothing more. I had fallen back insensible in my chair. Everybody started up; the cards were dropped, and all was confusion and terror. It appears that at the first moment they thought I was dead. A young guardsman present declared I was, and that it was disease of the heart; a young kinsman of his had dropped down on parade only a month ago just in the same way. There was a cry for a doctor, and two or three ran out to fetch one. Before he arrived, however, I had given signs of returning consciousness. Up to this moment Lord George had been anxiously looking on, silent and pale, they said. He had borne me with Hallam to a couch in the next room, where the air was free from cigar-fumes, and had opened the window to admit the fresh night-breeze. He had done, in fact, what any humane person would have done under the circumstances; but he had done it in a manner that betokened more than ordinary interest. He drew an audible breath of relief the moment he saw my eyelids quiver and heard me breathe like a man awaking to life. Hallam signed to him to leave the room; he did not wish his face to be the first I saw on opening my eyes. Lord George no doubt understood; for he at once withdrew into the card-room. He drew the door after him, but he did not quite close it, so that I heard dreamily, yet distinctly, all that was said. Lord George’s second for the morrow’s meeting, the Hon. Capt. Roper, inquired eagerly how I was going on. ‘Oh! he’ll be all right presently,’ was the reply, spoken in Lord George’s off-hand way. ‘There was nothing to make such a fuss about; the poor devil was scared to see how much money he had lost, and fainted like a girl--that’s all.’

“‘Hallam says he is quite cleared out by to-night’s ill-luck,’ observed some one.

“‘Served him right,’ said Lord George; ‘it will teach puppies of his kind not to come amongst us and make fools of themselves.’

“‘And do you mean to shoot him to-morrow?’ inquired the same voice.

“‘I mean to give him a chance of shooting me; unless,’ he continued--and I saw in imagination, as vividly as if my bodily eyes had seen it, the cold sneer that accompanied the remark--‘unless he shows the white feather and declines fighting, which is just as likely.’

“While this little dialogue had been going on in subdued tones close by the door which opened at the head of the sofa where I lay, Hallam was conversing in animated whispers with two gentlemen in the window. He was not more than a minute absent, when he returned to my side, and, seeing my eyes wide open, exclaimed heartily: ‘Thank God! he’s all right again!’

“I grasped his hand and sat up. They gave me some sal-volatile and water to drink, and I was, as he said, all right again. But it was not the stimulant that restored me, that gave me such sudden energy, and nerved me to act at once, to face my fate and defy it. I took his arm, and led him, or let him lead me, to some quieter place near, and then I asked him how much he thought I had lost.

“‘Don’t think of that yet, my dear fellow,’ he said; ‘you are too done up to discuss it. We will see what can be done to-morrow.’

“‘Five thousand pounds!’ I said. ‘Do you hear that? Five thousand pounds! That means that I am a beggar, which an’t of much consequence; and that I’ve made a beggar of my mother. She will have to sell the bed from under her to pay it, to save my honor. A curse upon me for bringing this blight upon her!’

“‘Tut! tut! man, don’t take on like a woman about it!’ said Hallam. ‘These things can be arranged; no need to make matters out worse than they are. I’ll speak to Lord George, and see what terms we can make with him.’

“He made me light a cigar, and left me alone, while he went back to parley with the man who held my fortune, my life, my all in his hands. I never heard exactly all that passed between them. I only know that in answer to Lord George’s question, put in a tone of insulting haughtiness, ‘Has the fellow pledged himself for more than he’s worth? Can’t he pay?’ Hallam replied: ‘He can, but it will ruin him’; upon which the other retorted with a laugh, ‘What the devil is that to me?’ and turned his back on my second, who had nothing left but to take Capt. Roper aside and arrange for the morrow’s meeting. He came back, and told me all was settled; that Halberdyne was behaving like a brute, and would be tabooed in the clubs and every decent drawing-room before twenty-four hours. This thought seemed to afford him great satisfaction. It gave me none. Anguish had drowned resentment. I could think of nothing except that I was a ruined man, that I had beggared my mother, and that I was going to fight a duel in a few hours. Richmond Park--6 A.M.--pistols at thirty paces! This was how the appointment was notified by our seconds to both of us. Suddenly a light burst on me--a ray of hope, of consolation: I might be killed in this duel, and, if so, surely my honor would be saved and my debt cancelled. Lord George would not pursue my mother for the money. She should know nothing of this night’s work until after the meeting. If I escaped with a wound, I would tell her; if I died, who would have the cruelty to do so? I told Hallam of this sudden thought as he walked home with me. He approved of it, and cheered me up by almost assuring me that I should be shot. Halberdyne was a dead-shot; it was most likely that I should not leave the field alive.

“The night passed--the few hours of it that must elapse before the time named for the meeting. 0 God! how did I live through them? And yet this was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what was yet in store for me.…

“The duel took place. Lord George wounded me in the hip. He escaped unhurt; I fired in the air. I was carried home on a door, insensible. Hallam had gone before to prepare my mother. For some weeks it was feared I would not live. Then amputation was talked of. I escaped finally with being a cripple for life. Before I was out of danger, Hallam’s leave expired, and he went to rejoin his regiment. He had been very assiduous in calling to inquire for me, had seen my mother, and, judging by her passionate grief that I was in a fair way not to recover, he had forborne mentioning anything about the five thousand pounds. She promised to write and let him know when any change took place. Meantime, she had found out my secret. I had talked incessantly of it in my delirium, and with an accuracy of iteration that left no doubt on her mind but that there was a foundation of truth in the feverish ravings. The doctor was of the same mind, and urged her to give me an opportunity of relieving my mind of the burden, whatever it was, as soon as this was possible.

“The first day that I was strong enough to bear conversation she accordingly broached the subject. I inferred at once that Hallam had told her everything, and repeated the miserable story, only to confirm what I supposed he had already said.

“My mother was sitting by my bedside. She busied herself with teaseling out linen into lint for my wound, and so, purposely no doubt, kept her face continually bent or averted from mine.

“Seeing how quietly she took it, I began to think I had overrated the misfortune; that we had larger resources in some way than I had imagined. ‘Then it is possible for us to pay this horrible debt and save my honor, and yet not be utterly beggared, mother?’ I said eagerly. She looked at me with a smile that must surely have been the reflex of some angel near her whom I could not see. ‘Yes, my boy; he shall be paid, and we shall not be beggars,’ she said gently, and pressed my hand in both her own. ‘You should have told me about it at once; it has been preying on your mind and retarding your cure all this time. I will see Mr. Kerwin to-day, and have it arranged at once. Promise me now, like a good boy, to forget it and think no more of it until you are quite well. Will you promise?’

“I did not answer, but signed with my lips for her to kiss me. She rose and twined her arms around me, and let me sob out my sorrow and my love upon her breast.

“It was about three days after this that she handed me a letter to read; it was from Lord George to Mr. Kerwin, and ran thus:

“SIR: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the sum of five thousand pounds which you have forwarded to my lawyers in the name of Mr. Botfield. I make this acknowledgment personally in order to express my sincere satisfaction at the happy progress of Mr. Botfield’s recovery, and beg you will convey this sentiment to him.--I remain, etc.,

“HALBERDYNE.”

“‘Mother! mother!’ I cried out, and opened my arms to her in a passion of tears. But she laid her finger smilingly on my lips, and made me be silent. In a month hence, when I was well, we should talk it all over, but not now.

“Before the month was out, she was dead!”…

* * * * *

Marmaduke started to his feet with a cry of horror, and Botfield, unable to control the anguish that his own narrative evoked, dropped his head into his hands, and shook the room with his sobs.

“O dear God! that I should have lived to tell it!--to talk over the mother that I murdered! Brave, tender, generous mother! I killed you, I broke your heart, and then--then I brought shame upon your memory! O God! O God! why have I outlived it?” He rocked to and fro, almost shouting in his paroxysm of despair. Marmaduke had never beheld such grief; he had never in his life been so deeply moved with pity. He did not know what to say, what to do. His heart prompted him to do the right thing: he fell on his knees, and, putting his arms around the wretched, woe-worn man, he burst into tears and sobbed with him.

Botfield suffered his embrace for a moment, and then, pressing his horny palm on the young man’s blond head, he muttered: “God bless you! God bless you for your pity!”

As soon as they were both calmed, Marmaduke asked him if he would not prefer finishing the story to-morrow. But he signed to him to sit down; that he would go on with it to the end.

“What is there more to tell?” he said, sadly shaking his head.

“I was lying a cripple on my bed when she was carried to her grave. I was seized with a violent brain fever, which turned to typhus, and they took me to the hospital. The servants were dismissed; they had received notice from my mother. She had foreseen everything, taken every necessary step as calmly as if the catastrophe I had brought upon her had been a mere change of residence for her own convenience. All we had was gone. That brave answer of hers to my question about our resources was a subterfuge of her love. If ever a sin was sinless, assuredly that half-uttered falsehood was. She had directed the lawyer to raise the money immediately, at every sacrifice. She meant to work for her bread, and trusted to me to make the task light and short to her. I would have done it had she been spared to me. So help me God, I would! But now that she was gone, I had nothing to work for. I left the hospital a cripple and a beggar. I did not even yet know to what an extent. I went straight to our old house, expecting to find it as I had left it--that is, before all consciousness had left me. I found it dismantled, empty; painters busy on scaffolding outside. I went to Mr. Kerwin, and there learned the whole truth. Nothing remained to me but suicide. Nothing kept me from it, I believe, but the prayers of my mother.”

“You were a Christian, then?” interrupted Marmaduke in a tone of unfeigned surprise.

“I ought to have been. My father was, and my mother was; I was brought up as one, until I went to the university and lost what little belief I had. For a moment it seemed to come back to me when I found myself alone in the world. I remember walking deliberately down to the river’s side when I left the lawyer’s office, fully determined to drown myself. But before I reached the water, I heard my mother’s voice calling so distinctly to me to stop that I felt myself arrested as by some visible presence. I heard the voice saying, ‘Do you wish never to see me again even in the next world?’ Of course it was the work of imagination, of my over-wrought feelings; but the effect was the same. I stopped, and retraced my steps to Mr. Kerwin’s.”

“It was your guardian angel, perhaps your mother’s, that saved you,” said Marmaduke.

“Oh! I forgot,” said Botfield. “Your brother is a Catholic; I suppose you are too?”

Marmaduke nodded assent; he felt that his Catholicity was not much to boast of. Like the poor outcast before him, he had lost his faith practically, though he adhered to it in name.

“Yes, it was an angel of some sort that rescued me,” said Botfield; “it was no doubt my own fault if the rescue was not complete. I went back to Mr. Kerwin, and asked him to give me, or get me, something to do. My chance on the stage was at an end, even if I could have turned to that: I was dead lame. He got me a situation as clerk in an office; but the weariness of the life and the pressure of remorse were more than I could bear. I took to drink. They forgave me once, twice; the third time I was dismissed. But of what use is it to go over that disgusting, pitiable story? Step by step I went down, lower and lower, sinking each time into fouler depths, drinking more loathsome draughts, wallowing in mire whose very existence such as you don’t dream of. I will spare you all those details. Enough that I came at last to what you see me. One day when hunger was gnawing me, and even the satanic consolation of the public-house was shut against me for want of a sixpence to pay for a glass of its diabolical elixir, I fell in with a man of the trade; he offered me work and bread. Hunger is not a dainty counsellor. I closed with the offer, and so sank into the last slough that humanity can take refuge in.…

“Now, Mr. Walpole, you have heard my history; it was a pain, and yet, somehow, a relief, to me to tell it. It has not been a very pleasant one for you to listen to; still, I don’t regret having inflicted it on you. You are very young; you are prosperous and happy, and, most likely, perfectly free from any of the temptations that have been the bane of my life; still, it never hurts a young man starting in life to hear an older man’s experience. If ever temptation should come near you, dash it from you with all your might; scorn and defy it from the first; hold no parley with it; to treat with perdition is to be lost.”

“You have done me a greater service than you know of,” said Marmaduke, rising and preparing to take leave of his singular entertainer. “Perhaps one day I may tell you.…” He took a turn in the narrow room, and then, coming back to Botfield, resumed in an agitated manner: “Why should I not own it at once? You have trusted me with all; I will tell you the truth.”

Botfield looked up in surprise, but said nothing.

“I stand on the very brink of the abyss against which you warn me. Like you, I am a barrister; like you, I hate my profession, and spend my time reading poetry and playing at private theatricals. They are my passion. A few nights ago I tried my luck at cards, and won. This tempted me; I played last night and lost--precisely the sum of twenty pounds.”

Botfield started and uttered a suppressed exclamation.

“I am in debt--not much--a mere trifle, if it lead to no worse! You see now what a service you may have done me; who knows? Perhaps my mother’s guardian angel prompted you to tell me your story as a warning, to save me before it was too late! I know that I came here to-day at the bidding of an angel; and reluctant enough I was to take the message!”

“I never thought to be of use to any one while I lived,” said Botfield with emotion. “I bless God, anyhow, if my wretched example proves a warning to you. Who sent you to me? I understood it was your brother?”

“So it was; but it was to please my sister that I consented to come. She is one of those angels that people talk about, but don’t often see. You will let her come and see you, Mr. Botfield, will you not?”

He held out his delicate lavender kid hand, and pressed Botfield’s grimy fingers cordially.

When Marmaduke got home, he inquired at once where his sister was, and, hearing she was in her room, he crept up quietly to the door and knocked. He entered so quietly that Nelly had scarcely time to jump off her knees. Marmaduke saw at once that he had taken her by surprise; he saw also that her eyes were red.

“What is the matter?” she asked, with a frightened look. “Has anything happened? You have been away so long! What kept you, Marmaduke? Where have you been?”

“Where you sent me.”

“To Stephen’s poor man? Why, you have been out nearly two hours! It did not take all that time to give your message?” said incredulous Nelly, and her heart beat with recent apprehension.

“No; but Stephen’s poor man had a message for me. Sit down here, and I will tell you what it was. But how cold you are, darling! You are positively perished! Where have you been?”

“Here,” said Nelly.

“Ever since I went out?”

“Ever since you went out.”

“What were you doing?” he persisted, fixing a strange look on her.

She blushed, hesitated, and then said simply, “I was praying for you, Marmaduke.”

He folded her in his arms, and whispered, “I was right to say it was an angel sent me.”

Then, taking a warm shawl that he saw hanging up, he wrapped her in it, and sat down beside her, and told the story as it had been told to him. When it was over, Nelly’s head was on his breast, and the brother’s tears of penitence were mingling with the sister’s tears of joy.

“Let us go down now and tell Stephen,” said Marmaduke, when he had finished.

“Will you tell him everything?” asked Nelly.

“Yes, everything.”

“Dear Marmy! I am so happy I could sing for joy,” she said, smiling through her tears. “Let us kneel down here and say one little prayer together; will you?”

And he did.

“How did you thaw the man and break up the ice he seemed to be buried under?” was Stephen’s amazed inquiry when other more precious and interesting questions were exhausted.

“I merely did what Nelly told me,” said Marmaduke: “I listened to him.”

On Christmas morning Marmaduke announced his intention of dining out. It was a sacrifice to all three, but no one opposed him. Nelly made up a store of provisions, including a hot plum-pudding, which was put with other steaming hot dishes into the ample basket that the gay young man carried off in a cab with him to Red Pepper Lane. There he found a clean hearth, a blazing fire, and a table spread with a snowy cloth, and all necessaries complete. Some fairy had surely been at work in that gloomy place. The host was clean and brushed, looking like an eccentric gentleman in his new clothes amidst those incongruous surroundings. He and Marmaduke unpacked the basket with many an exclamation at its inexhaustible depths. That was the happiest, if not the very merriest, Christmas dinner that ever Marmaduke partook of.

When it was over, and they were puffing a quiet cigar over the fire, steps were heard on the rickety stairs, and then a knock at the door, and a silvery voice saying: “May we come in?” It was Stephen and Nelly.

“I don’t see why you should have all the pleasure to yourself,” said Nelly, with her bright laugh; “you would never have been here at all if I had not teased you into taking the message!”

* * * * *

If this were a romance instead of a true episode, the story should end by the some-time rag-and-bone man becoming a Catholic, rising to wealth and distinction, and marrying Nelly. But the events of real life don’t adjust themselves so conveniently to the requirements of the story-teller. Stephen Walpole got Mr. Botfield a situation in the post-office, where, by good conduct and intelligent diligence, he rose gradually to a position of trust, which was highly paid. He never married. Who knows? Perhaps he had his little romance, and never dared to tell it.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONGRESS.

The second annual Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States was held at Philadelphia during the early part of November. Church congresses are new things in this country, and the Episcopalians are not yet quite at home in them. Their first experiment, made at New York in 1874, was not wholly successful. Some of their leading bishops and presbyters treated it rather cavalierly, apparently in the fear that it was going to weaken the bonds of ecclesiastical discipline, and open vexatious questions which the church for years had been expending all its learning and ingenuity in trying not to answer. But church congresses seemed to be very proper and respectable things for every denomination which laid claim to antiquity: they are common in the mother-church of England; they are efficient and interesting organizations in what our Anglican friends are pleased to call the Roman branch of the church of Christ; Dr. Döllinger has them regularly in the Old-Catholic “branch”; and so the originators of the movement in the American “branch” have persevered in their attempt to establish them here. The meeting in Philadelphia appears to have been all that its promoters could have reasonably expected. The denominational papers of various shades of opinion concur in believing that the permanency of the Congress as an annual institution is now nearly secured; and we find one of these journals rejoicing that the meeting passed off with “entire cordiality,” and that nothing in the proceedings “elicited prejudice or excited hostile action.” This indeed was something to boast of. Perhaps it would have been still more gratifying had not the same paper explained that this unexpected peaceableness of the Congress arose “from the fact that no resolutions were adopted, no legislation proposed, no elections held. When any of these are distinctly in view, those who participate range themselves into parties, and it is almost impossible not to resort to measures to ensure victory which generate unkind feelings and provoke exaggerated statements.” All which gives us a queer idea of the manner in which the Holy Ghost is supposed to operate in the councils of the Protestant Episcopal Church. But no matter. Let us be glad, for the sake of propriety, that this was merely a meeting for talk, and not for action. The strict rules applicable to conventions, synods, and other business meetings were not in force. The topics of discussion were not so much points of doctrine as minor questions of discipline and methods of applying the machinery of the church to the every-day work of religion. And with the knowledge that no vote was to be taken upon any subject whatever, the Congress unanimously agreed to let every man say what he pleased. The great variety of irreconcilable things which it accordingly pleased the gentlemen to say seems to have attracted remark, and denominational papers point to it with pride as a proof of the large toleration allowed within the bosom of the church. If they like it, far be it from us to interfere with their enjoyment.

The Episcopal Church is one of the largest and richest of the Protestant sects. Its clergy are popularly supposed to boast of more general culture and enjoy fuller opportunities for study than those of the other religious bodies, and its people are found in large numbers among the educated and well-to-do classes. A congress of this church, gathered from all parts of the country, representing all shades of opinion, and possessing almost unbounded facilities for talk and deliberation, ought therefore to have elicited a great deal that was worth remembering. The programme of the sessions was stated in an alluring manner by Bishop Clarke, of Rhode Island, who made the introductory address. “We come,” said he, “to consider how the doctrine and organization of the church can be brought most effectually to sanctity”; and then he went on to speak briefly of the particular things, in our daily experience, which the church ought to purify and bless--our business affairs, our amusements, our care of the poor, our family relations, the marriage tie--practical points all of them, and points, too, in which the church and the state are more or less in contact.

Well, having laid out this plan of work, how did the Congress address itself to it? The first session gave a rather curious illustration of the practical spirit of the assemblage; for the reverend gentlemen, by way of “bringing the doctrine and organization of the church most effectually to sanctity,” rushed straightway with hot haste into the subject of “ultramontanism and civil authority,” and pounded upon the doors of the Vatican the whole afternoon. The Rev. Francis Wharton, D.D., of Cambridge, Mass., was careful in the outset to distinguish between ultramontanism and the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The mass of us, he believes, have always been loyal to the territory of whose population we form a part, but our loyalty has no connection with our religion. If we followed the teachings of our church, Dr. Wharton thinks we should be a dangerous set of people. “Ultramontanism teaches that the Pope, a foreign prince, deriving his support from a foreign civilization, is entitled to set aside governments which he considers disloyal, and to annul such institutions as he does not approve.” We confess that we do not know what Dr. Wharton means by the Pope deriving his support from a foreign civilization. If he means his physical support, then the doctor is both wrong and right; for that is derived from the faithful of the whole world. If he means that his authority is derived from a foreign civilization, then the doctor is apparently irreverent; for the papal authority is derived from the institution of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and surely a respectable Cambridge divine would not call that a foreign civilization.

As for the distinction which is drawn between American and ultramontane Catholics, let us repudiate it with all possible warmth before we go any further. Ultramontanism is an objectionable word, because it was invented to localize a school of religious doctrine which is the only catholic school--the school acknowledged all over the world; but if it be understood as defining that spirit of faith and piety which yields all love and obedience to the Vicar of Christ, accepts all the Vatican decrees gladly and without reserve, is not afraid of paying too much respect to the Holy See, or showing too much humility before God, or believing one little particle more than we are commanded to believe under pain of anathema, then the Catholics of America are ultramontane Catholics to a man. Probably there are no Catholics in any country of the world less disposed to compromise in matters of religious duty, and more thoroughly imbued with filial reverence and love for the Head of God’s church on earth, than the Catholics of the United States. The spirit of the church in Rome is the spirit of the church in America; and when Dr. Wharton asserts that “the political tenets of ultramontanism are repudiated by the leading Catholic statesmen of our land,” he makes an utterly erroneous statement, against which American Catholics will be the first to protest. It is very true that with the fictitious ultramontanism conceived of his fears and prejudices neither Americans nor any other sensible people have the slightest sympathy. But show us what Rome teaches, and there you have precisely what the church in the United States accepts. If it is true, therefore that the Pope claims authority “to set aside governments which he considers disloyal, and to annul such institutions as he does not approve,” it must be true that America upholds his pretensions. Dr. Wharton may live in the fear that His Holiness will some day send the Noble Guard to set aside the government of Gen. Grant whenever it becomes “disloyal”; while he may well feel an absolute certainty that our common-school system, our constitutional prohibition of the establishment of a state church, our laws against sectarian appropriations, and various other wicked and heretical provisions found on our statute-books, will sooner or later be “annulled” by a decree from the Vatican. He need not flatter himself that any superior enlightenment among the Catholics of America will save the Protestant community from the miserable fate in store for it. We are not a bit wiser or better than the Pope.

The possible interference of the Vatican with our Congresses and ballot-boxes Dr. Wharton evidently regards as a very remote danger. There are points, however, he thinks, where the Vatican clashes every day with the civil power, and where it ought to be resisted with all the energy at our command. And just at this part of the reverend doctor’s address we should like very much to have seen the face of Bishop Clarke. In his introductory remarks Bishop Clarke told the Congress that one of the most important subjects for churchmen to consider was the influence or authority of the church over the family relations. “The Gospel obtained hold of the family before it touched the state. How does the condition of the marriage bond stand to-day? In some of our States it is as easy to solve it as it is to join it. Is this the religion of which we have made such boast?” But here, before the echoes of the bishop’s words have fairly died away, is the Rev. Dr. Wharton on his feet denouncing as a crime the very interference which Bishop Clarke inculcated as a duty. It is one of the usurpations of ultramontanism, says the Cambridge doctor, to annul civil marriages which the state holds binding, and to treat as invalid divorces which the state holds good. This is one of the most serious conflicts between the state and the Vatican, and it is one, if we understand aright the somewhat imperfect report of his remarks, in which Protestant Episcopalians must prepare themselves to take an earnest part, remembering that, while their church is free, it is “a free church within a free sovereign state, and that this state, in its own secular sovereignty, is supreme.” Here, then, we have a distinct declaration that the family relation is not a proper subject of religious regulation. If the state sees fit to make it as easy to loose the marriage bond as to tie it, the church has no right to object; it is a secular matter, and the free sovereign state is supreme in its own secular sovereignty. If the state sanctions an adulterous connection, the Protestant Episcopal Church must revise its Bible and bless the unholy tie; it is a secular matter, and the free sovereign state is supreme in its own secular sovereignty. The sanctity of the family relation is under the protection of the church, says Bishop Clarke. No such thing, replies Dr. Wharton--that is an insolent ultramontane pretension; the Protestant Episcopal Church knows its place, and does not presume to interfere with the legislature. “The Gospel obtained hold of the family before it touched the state,” says the bishop. “Oh! well, we have changed all that,” rejoins the doctor; the glory of the Protestant Episcopal gospel nowadays is that it lets the family alone. In point of fact, Episcopalianism is not quite so bad as this hasty advocate would have us believe; for it does censure, in a mild way, the laxity of some of the divorce laws, and does not always lend itself to the celebration of bigamous marriages. But Dr. Wharton is correct in his main position--that his church leaves to the state the control of the family relation; and if she shrinks from the logical consequences of her desertion of duty, that is only because a remnant of Catholic feeling remains to her in the midst of her heresies and contradictions. The time must come, however, when these illogical fragments of truth will be thrown away, and the Protestant Episcopal Church will take its place beside the other Protestant bodies in renouncing all right to be heard on one of the most important points of contact between the law of God and the concerns of every-day life. It is impossible to allow the civil power to bind and loose the family tie at pleasure, without admitting that the subject is entirely outside the domain of ecclesiastical supervision. The attempt of the Episcopal Church to compromise on adultery is an absurdity, and in the steady course of Protestant development it will surely be abolished.

Is there any particular in which the Protestant Episcopal Church fairly takes hold of the family? We have seen that she abandons to politicians the sacred tie between the parents; what has she to do with the next domestic concern--the education of the child? Dr. Wharton holds it to be one of her distinguishing claims to public favor that she abandons this duty also to the secular power. The right to control education, according to him, is, like the right to sanction the marriage tie, one of the insolent pretensions of the Vatican usurper. The state, he thinks, is bound not only to educate all its subjects, but to decide what points a secular education shall cover, while the church may only add to this irreligious training such pious instruction as the child may have time and strength to receive after the more serious lessons are over. “The church,” he says, “concedes to the state the right and duty to require a secular education from all, while for itself it undertakes, as a free church in a free state, the right and duty to give a religious education to all within its reach.” Expressed in somewhat plainer English, this means that thirty hours a week ought to be given to the dictionary and multiplication table, and one hour to the catechism and the ten commandments. Send your children to schools all the week where they will hear nothing whatever of religion, where that most vital of all concerns will be a forbidden subject, where the idea will be practically, if not in so many words, impressed upon their tender minds that it is of no consequence whether they are Christians, or Jews, or infidels, so long as they master the various branches of worldly knowledge which promote success in the secular affairs of life; and then get them into Sunday-school if you can, for a wild and ineffectual attempt to counteract the evil tendencies of the previous six days’ teachings. This is trying to give a Christian education without the corner-stone of Christian doctrine; building a house upon the sand, and then running around it once a week with a hatful of pebbles and a trowel of mud to put a foundation under the finished structure. Dr. Wharton seems to embody in his own person a surprising variety of the inconsistencies for which the Protestant Episcopal Church has such a peculiar celebrity. For here, after he has claimed credit for his church as the champion of a secular education, he tells the Congress that secularism is one of the great dangers of the age, against which the church must fight with all her strength. “The battle with secularism has to be fought out.” It must be fought “by the church, and eminently by our own church. Our duty therefore is to fit ourselves for the encounter, and we must do this with the cause of religion, undertaking in its breadth and embracing all branches of religious, spiritual, and ethical culture.” Well, but, dear sir, you have just said that during the most important period of man’s intellectual development, when the mind is receiving impressions which are likely to last through life, the church ought to stand aside and let the state teach secularism without hindrance. Are you going to cultivate secularism in the young until it becomes firmly rooted, and then fight against it with sermons and essays which your secularized young men will not listen to? How do you expect to impart religious, spiritual, and ethical culture when you have formally renounced your inestimable privilege and your sacred duty as a guide and teacher of children? You propose to wait until your boys have come to man’s estate before you attempt to exercise any influence upon them; and then, when they have grown up with the idea that religious influence ought to be avoided as one avoids pestilence, you wonder and complain that they are indifferent to the church and will not hear you. “The battle with secularism has to be fought out.” Your way of fighting is to abandon the outposts, leave front and rear and flanks unprotected, and throw away your arms.

It was one of the peculiarities of the Congress that whatever error was promulgated in the essays and debates, somewhere in the course of the sessions an antidote was sure to be furnished--this being an illustration, we suppose, of the extreme toleration of opinion to which Bishop Clarke referred as “somewhat singular” in a church “so fixed in its doctrines.” Hence we need not be surprised to find in the second day’s proceedings a refutation of the educational theories propounded during the first. Dr. Wharton made use of the principle of secular schooling as a weapon of offence against the Vatican. But when the delegates had relieved their minds and vindicated their Protestant orthodoxy by giving the poor Pope about as much as he could stagger away with, they turned their attention to their own condition, and one of their first subjects of inquiry was what secular education had done for them. The topic of consideration on the second morning was “The Best Methods of Procuring and Preparing Candidates for the Ministry.” Dr. Schenck of Brooklyn began by stating that the supply of candidates for holy orders was not only inadequate to the needs of the church, but it was falling off--a smaller number offering themselves to-day than six or seven years ago. This, said he, should excite the gravest concern of the church; and nobody seemed disposed to contradict him. Dr. Edward B. Boggs indeed presented some uncomfortable statistics which tell the whole story. In 1871, the number of resident presbyters of the Episcopal Church in the United States was 2,566; in 1874, it was only 2,530. Here, then while the population increases the clergy are diminishing. A great many reasons were suggested for the phenomenon. One thought the question of salary was at the bottom of the evil. Another blamed mothers for not giving their boys a taste for the ministry while they were young. A third believed the trouble was too little prayer and too much quarrelling over candles and ecclesiastical millinery. And more than one hinted in the broadest terms that the ministry was discredited by having too many fools in it.[174] The truth, however, which had been vaguely suggested by some of the earlier speakers, was plumply told by Dr. Edward Sullivan of Chicago. “The church,” said he, “must learn to supply the ranks of the ministry from her own material”--that is to say, by giving the children of the church a Christian education. He lamented the exclusion of the Bible from some of the common schools as a national calamity--not, if we understand him, because he has any overweening faith in the efficacy of Bible-reading per se, but because he knows that when positive religious teaching is banished from the school, the children can hardly fail to grow up without any religious feeling whatever. “Until we establish parochial church schools,” he continued, “we can never solve this problem.” And he might have added that if the teaching of secularism is to be continued for a generation or two longer, the problem will solve itself: there will be no need of preachers when there cease to be congregations.

If such an alarming phenomenon as an actual falling off in the numbers of the clergy were noticed in our own holy church, it would perhaps occur to good Catholics to inquire whether the bishops were doing all that they ought to do for the souls of their people. But the Episcopal Congress at Philadelphia seems to have been vexed with the idea that the bishops were doing entirely too much. Looking at the assemblage from the outside, we cannot pretend to see the under-currents of opinion, or to comprehend the denominational politics; but it was plain both from the tone of the addresses in the session set apart for considering the “Nature and Extent of Episcopal Authority” and from the manner in which some of the remarks of the speakers were received, that a jealousy of episcopal authority prevailed with considerable bitterness. Dr. Vinton of Boston drew a parallel between the government of the church and the government of the state; both were ruled by executives appointed by law and controlled by law, and in each case the chief officer acted by the assumed authority of those he governed. The bishops therefore, we infer, have just as much power as the people choose to give them, and we see no reason why the congregations should not enlarge and restrict that power at pleasure--make a new constitution, if they wish, every year, and treat their prelates as the savage treats his idol, which he sets upon an altar for worship in the morning, and if things go not well with him, kicks into the kennel at night. Indeed, since the foundation of the Anglican Church the episcopate has always been treated with scant ceremony. Dr. Vinton tells us that it is a reflex of the political organization, and as that has varied a great deal in England and America, and is not unlikely in the course of time to vary a great deal more, we must not be surprised to find the system undergoing many strange modifications and holding out the promise of further change indefinitely. In the primitive church, the episcopacy was a despotism. In the Anglican Church, it is “merely an ecclesiastical aristocracy.” In the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, where the exigencies of politics have to be considered, it is--well, that is just what the Congress tried in vain to determine. For one thing, Dr. Vinton and other speakers after him laid great stress upon the fact that its authority was carefully circumscribed by statute, and that the church was a corporation--though whence it derived its charter nobody was good enough to tell us. In truth, we did not find the day’s proceedings edifying. Dr. Vinton declared that an organic evil of the church constitution, “boding more of mischief and sorrow to the body of Christ than any or all of the evils besides that our age makes possible,” was the liability of bishops to grow arrogant of power, to make their authority troublesome, to put on idle pomp, and set themselves “in conspicuous difference from the taste, the traditions, the educated and intelligent convictions which the providence of God has caused to rule in this land.” Dr. Fulton of Indianapolis inveighed with warmth against any bishop who ventured to intrude into another man’s diocese, and remarked that “some bishops were never at home unless they were abroad.” A bishop, continued the doctor, is subject to civil law. He should be tried for violation of the ninth commandment if he wilfully slander a clergyman either in or out of his own diocese. Bishops must not affect infallibility in doctrinal utterances. They must remember that in more than one respect they and their presbyters are equals. A bishop who would be respected must respect the rights of other bishops--not being an episcopal busybody in other men’s sees. Dr. Goodwin of Philadelphia thought that what our Lord meant to have was “a moderate episcopate.” Dr. Washburn of New York believed that even the powers granted to the apostles were not exclusive, and that ever since the apostolic age these powers had been gradually more and more distributed, until now, we should think, they must be so finely divided that no fragment of them is anywhere visible in the Episcopal Church.

Dr. J. V. Lewis convulsed the house with laughter by a speech in which he declared that the bishops had been so “tied hand and foot by conventions and canons that it was wonderful they had time to do anything but find out what they must not do”; and he called upon the church to “cut those bands and let the bishops loose.” We quote from the report of his remarks in the Church Journal: “What will they do? He would tell them what they would do. He had at home in his yard six chickens about half-grown. He had placed among them a turkey big enough to eat any of them up. But they all flew at him. One little fellow pecked him and spurred him savagely. The turkey looked on in perfect astonishment, apparently; but at length he spread out his wings and literally sat down upon him. From that day to this, whenever that turkey stirs, these chickens cannot be kept from following him. And this is just what will happen in the church, if we will only let our bishops loose.” All this was the cause of much innocent hilarity among the brethren; but we fear that it was to Dr. Lewis that the Churchman referred the next week in the following solemn strain: “It is a sad circumstance that the ministry has in it, here and there, a professional joker and cheap story-teller and anecdote-monger, one of the most tedious and least estimable types of foolishness that try Christian endurance and vex religious families. It is to be hoped no such melancholy-moving buffoon will ever propose himself as clown to the Church Congress; and, short of that, will it be wise to confer the award of the heartiest and loudest applause on a sort of comic pleasantry and ‘jesting not convenient’ which, at best, is outdone in its own line in whole columns of daily newspapers? We may smile, because it cannot be helped, but we can surely reserve our plaudits--if they must be given at all--for that species of superiority which manifests a chaste refinement and suits tastes that are intellectual rather than jovial.”

Clearly there was a great deal more in these essays on the limitations of episcopal authority than met the profane eye. Who are the trespassers upon other men’s sheepfolds, and the busybodies, and the slanderers, and the pompous bishops, and the infallible bishops, and the bishops who think themselves better than their presbyters, it is not for us to inquire. Neither perhaps would it be decorous to ask how the ten or twelve bishops in the Congress--none of whom opened their mouths during the debate--enjoyed the session. But there is excellent reason to believe that the presbyters had a very pleasant day, singing the opening hymn in the morning, “Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly dove,” with peculiar unction, and joyously dismissing their right reverend fathers in the afternoon with the verses, “Go forth, ye heralds, in my name.”

If the bishops are in disrepute and the inferior clergy are falling away, it can hardly be necessary to tell us that the church has no real hold upon the people; that follows as a matter of course. Accordingly, the most interesting of the debates were on the best methods of giving vitality to the work of the church--on ministrations to the laboring classes, on free churches and free preaching, on the abuses of the new system, and on the need of something equivalent to the preaching Orders and Congregations of our own church. Of all the papers read at the Congress the only one which was received with what we may fairly call enthusiasm was an essay by Mr. Francis Wells, editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, on the “Parochial System and Free Preaching,” at the close of which one of the reverend delegates jumped upon a bench and led the assembly in three cheers. We have seen no report which gives a fair abstract of Mr. Wells’ paper, or even explains what practical suggestions he had to offer, so that it is impossible to understand what it was that moved the feelings of the Congress. But if he drew a faithful picture of the average Episcopal Church of our day he may well have startled his audience. “The chief trouble,” he said, “lies in the spirit of exclusiveness which eyes the fashion of the dress and warns off strangers with a cold stare.” He was quite right in holding that the renting of pews and the expenditure of large sums of money for the adornment of the house of God are not necessarily obstacles to the influence of the church over the masses. Our own experience proves that. What poor and ragged sinner was ever repelled from a Catholic Church by imposing architecture, or gorgeous windows, or the blazing magnificence of lighted altars, or the strains of costly music? The rich have their pews--at least in this country, where it is only by pew-rents that we can meet the necessary expenses of the parish--but the most wretched beggar feels that he is welcome at all times in the splendid temple, and he may kneel there, feasting the senses, if he pleases, as well as refreshing the soul, without fear that his more comfortable neighbor will stare at his humble garments. Whatever the character of our churches, it is always the poor who fill them. It never occurs to a Catholic that the people who pay pew-rents acquire any proprietorship in the house of God, or have any better right there than those who pay nothing. The sermons are never made for the rich, and the Holy Sacrifice is offered for all indiscriminately. But in the Episcopal Church how different it is!

Imagine the feelings of a mechanic who approaches one of the luxurious Fifth-Avenue temples in his patched and stained working trowsers and threadbare coat. Carriages are setting down the haut ton at the door, every lady dressed in the extreme of fashion, every gentleman carefully arrayed by an expensive tailor. A high-priced sexton, with rather more dignity than an average bishop, receives the distinguished arrivals just inside the lobby, and scrutinizes strangers with the air of an expert who has learned by long experience in the highest circles just what kind of company every casual visitor has probably been in the habit of keeping. The interior of the church somehow suggests a Madison-Avenue parlor, furnished in the latest style of imitation antique. The upholstery is a marvel of comfort. The pleasantly subdued light suits the eyes and softens the complexions of Christians who have been up late dancing. A decorous quiet pervades the waiting congregation, broken only by the rustle of five-dollar silks sweeping up the aisles. Such a handsome display of millinery can be seen nowhere else for so little money. What is a working-man to do in such a brilliant gathering as this? He looks timidly at the back seats, and he finds there perhaps two or three old women, parish pensioners, Sunday-school boys, or young men who keep near the door in order to slip out quietly when they are tired of the services, but nobody of his class. The prosperous people all around him listen to the choir, and the reader, and the preacher, with an indescribable air of proprietorship in all of them. The sermon is an elaborate essay addressed to cultivated intellects, not to his common understanding. He goes away with the uncomfortable consciousness that he has been intruding, and feels like a shabby and unkempt person who has strolled by mistake into the stockholders’ row at the Italian Opera, and been turned out by a high-toned box-keeper. “It is indeed hard to imagine,” said The Nation the other day, “anything more likely to make religion seem repelling to a poor man than the sight of one of the gorgeous edifices in which rich Christians nowadays try to make their way to heaven. Working out one’s salvation clothed in the height of the fashion, as a member of a wealthy club, in a building in which the amplest provision is made for the gratification of all the finer senses, must seem to a thoughtful city mechanic, for instance, something in the nature of a burlesque. Not that the building is too good for the lofty purpose to which it is devoted, for nobody ever gets an impression of anything but solemn appropriateness from a great Catholic cathedral, but that it is the property of a close corporation, who, as it might be said, ‘make up a party’ to go to the Throne of Grace, and share the expenses equally, and fix the rate so high that only successful businessmen can join.”

But we heed not enlarge upon the prevalence of this evil. The speakers at the Congress recognized it frankly, and they are undoubtedly aware, though they may not have deemed it prudent to confess, that the case is growing more and more serious all the time. As wealth concentrates in the large cities and habits of luxury increase, the Protestant Episcopal Church is continually becoming colder and colder towards the poor. No remedy that has been proposed holds out the faintest promise of stopping this alarming decline. No remedy proposed even meets the approbation of any considerable number of the Episcopal clergy. One speaker proposes a greater number of free congregations, and is met by the obvious objection that the result would be a still more lamentable separation between rich and poor, with a different class of churches for each set. Another recommends the bishops to send missionary preachers into every parish where there seems to be need of their labor, but does not tell us where the missionaries are to be found, and forgets that almost every parish in the United States would have to be supplied in this way before the evil could be cured. A third advises the rich and poor to meet together, and fraternize and help each other; and a fourth calls for more zeal all around. All these proposals are merely various ways of stating the disease; they do not indicate remedies. Perhaps it may occur to some people that if the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church correspond so closely in their outward operations, both striving to celebrate divine worship with all possible splendor, both building costly churches and supporting them by pew-rents, both employing highly paid choirs, both keeping up a system of parishes, and if all the while the one gathers people of every rank and condition into her fold, offering health and consolation to all alike, while the other is constantly losing the affections of the multitude and becoming a lifeless creature of forms and fashions, the explanation of the difference after all may be that the Holy Ghost lives and works in the one, while the other is only the device of man.

YULE RAPS.

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

We once saw a picture of a wide, undulating snow-landscape, overspread with a pale rosy tint from the west, and we thought it a fancy picture of an Arctic winter. It hung in a pretty room in a Silesian country-house. The weather was lovely, warm but temperate; it was mid-June, and the woods were full of wild strawberries, and the meadows of forget-me-nots. Yet that landscape was simply Silesia in the winter; the same place, six months later, becomes a wilderness of snow. What shall we say of Mecklenburg, then, so much farther to the north of Silesia? But even there winter brings merriment; and as in these snow-bound countries there is less work to be got through in the winter, their people associate the ideas of pleasure and holiday with the cold rather than the warm weather. In Mecklenburg spring, summer, and autumn mean work--ploughing, sowing, haying, harvesting; winter means fun and frolic, peasants’ dances, farmers’ parties, weddings, christenings, harvest-homes, Christmas, New Year’s, and Epiphany presents, gatherings of friends, fireside talk, innocent games, and general merriment.

In a little village in this province the house of Emanuel Köhler was famous for its jollity. Here were old customs well kept up, yet always with decorum and a regard to higher matters. Emanuel was virtually master of the estate of Stelhagen, the absentee owner of which was a gay young officer who never wrote to his agent, except for a new supply of money. Clever and enlightened an agriculturist as old Köhler was, it was sometimes difficult for him to send the required sums, and yet have enough to farm the estate to his satisfaction. In the language of the country, he was called the inspector, and his house, also according to the local custom, was a kind of informal agricultural school. At the time of our story he had four young men under him--who were in all respects like the apprentices of the good old time--and two of his own relatives, his son and his nephew. His only daughter was busy helping her mother, and learning to be as efficient a housekeeper as the young men to be first-rate farmers; and this nucleus of young society, added to the good Köhler’s hearty joviality and the known good-cheer always provided by Frau Köhler, naturally made the large, cosey, rambling house a pleasant rendezvous for the neighborhood. The Köhler household was a host in itself, yet it always loved to be reinforced on festive occasions by the good people of the village and farms within ten miles round. So also the children, whether poor or pretty well off, were all welcome at old Emanuel’s, and knew the way to the Frau Inspectorin’s pantry as well as they knew the path to the church or the school. All the servant-girls in the neighborhood wanted to get a place in this house, but there was scarcely ever a vacancy, unless one of the dairy-maids or the house-girls married. Frau Köhler and her daughter did all the kitchen work themselves, and the latter, a thoughtful girl, though she was only fifteen, studied books and maps between-whiles. But her studies never interfered with the more necessary knowledge that a girl should have when, as Rika,[175] she has to depend upon herself for everything. In the country, in the Mecklenburg of even a very few years ago, everything was home-made, and a supply of things from the large town twenty or thirty miles off was the event of a life-time. Such things came as wedding-gifts; and though fancy things came every Christmas, even they were carefully and sacredly kept as tokens of that miraculous, strange, bewildering world outside, in which people wore their silk dresses every day, and bought everything they wanted at large shops a few steps from their own houses. Frau Köhler often wondered what other women did who had no farm-house to manage, no spinning, or knitting, or cooking, or dairy-work to do; and when her daughter Rika suggested that they probably read and studied, she shrugged her shoulders and said: “Take care, child; women ought to attend to women’s work. Studying is a man’s business.”

The honest soul was a type of many an old-fashioned German house-mother, of whose wisdom it were well that some of our contemporaries could avail themselves; and when Rika gently reminded her of the story of Martha and Mary, she would energetically reply:

“Very well; but take my word for it, child, there was a woman more blessed than that Mary, and one who was nearer yet to her Lord; and we do not hear of her neglecting her house. I love to think of that house at Nazareth as just a model of household cleanliness and comfort. You know, otherwise, it could not have been a fitting place for Him; for though he chose poverty, he must needs have surrounded himself with spotless purity.”

And Rika, as humble and docile as she was thoughtful, saw in this reverent and practical surmise a proof that it is not learning that comes nearest to the heart of truth, but that clearer and directer knowledge which God gives to “babes and sucklings.”

This particular Christmas there was much preparation for the family festival. The kitchen was in a ferment for a week, and mighty bakings took place; gingerbread and cake were made, and various confectionery-work was done; for Frau Köhler expected a friend of her own early home to come and stay with her this last week of the year. This was the good old priest who had baptized her daughter; for neither mother nor daughter were natives of Mecklenburg, though the latter had grown up there, and had never, since she was six months old, gone beyond the limits of the large estate which her father administered. Frau Köhler was a Bavarian by birth, and had grieved very much when her Mecklenburg husband had taken her to this northern land, where his position and wages were so good as to make it his duty to abide and bring up his family. But the worthy old creature had done a wonderful deal of good since she had been there, and kept up her faith as steadfastly as ever she had at home. Frederika had been her treasure and her comfort; and between the mother’s intense, mediæval firmness of belief, and the child’s naturally deep and thoughtful nature, the little farm-maiden had grown up a rare combination of qualities, and a model for the young Catholic womanhood of our stormy times. The old priest whom Frau Köhler had looked up to before her marriage as her best friend, and whom Rika had been taught to revere from her babyhood, had been very sick, and was obliged to leave his parish for a long holiday and rest. His former parishioner was anxious that he should see Christmas kept in the old-fashioned northern style, more characteristic than the Frenchified southern manners would now allow, even in her remote native village. Civilization carries with it the pick-axe and the rule; and when young girls begin to prefer Manchester prints and French bonnets to homespun and straw hats, most of the old customs slip away from their homes.

In the sturdy Mecklenburg of twenty years ago, even after the temporary stir of 1848, things were pretty much as they had been for centuries, and it was Emanuel’s pride that his household should be, if needful, the last stronghold of the good old usages. He heartily acquiesced in his wife’s invitation to the southern guest, and resolved to have the best Christmas that had been known in the country since he had undertaken the care of the Stelhagen estate. In truth, he lived like a patriarch among his work-people; his laborers and their families were models of prosperity and content, and the children of all the neighborhood wished he were their grandfather. Indeed, he was godfather to half the village babies born during his stay there.

The sleighs of the country were the people’s pride. Some were plain and strong, because their owners were not rich enough to adorn them, but others were quite a curiosity to the visitor from the south. They partook of the same quaintness as the old yellow family coaches that took the farmers to harvest-homes and weddings before the early snows came on. Lumbering, heavy-wheeled vehicles these were, swinging on high like a cradle tied to a couple of saplings in a storm; capacious as the house-mother’s apron-pockets on a baking day; seventy years old at least, barring the numerous patchings and mendings, new lining or new wheel, occasionally vouchsafed to the venerable representative of the family dignity. The sleighs were much gayer and a little less antiquated, because oftener used, and therefore oftener worn out; besides, there were fashions in sleighs even in this remote place--fashions indigenous to the population, each individual of which was capable of some invention when sleighs were in question. On Christmas Eve, long before it grew dark, many of these pretty or curious conveyances clattered up to the farm-house door. Some were laden with children two rows deep, all wrapped in knitted jackets, blankets, boas, etc., and here and there covered with a fur cap or furred hood; for knitting in this neighborhood supplied all with warm winter wraps, even better than woven or machine-made stuffs do nowadays. There were no single sleighs, no tiny, toy-like things made to display the rich toilet of the occupant and the skill of the fast driver by her side; here all were honest family vehicles, full of rosy faces like Christmas apples; hearty men and women who at three-score were almost as young as their grandchildren on their bridal day; and young men and maidens who were not afraid to dance and move briskly in their plain, loose, home-spun and home-made clothes, nor to fall in love with German downrightness and honest, practical intentions. Most of these sleighs were red, picked out with black, or black liberally sprinkled with red; some were yellow and black, some yellow and blue, and in most the robe and cushions were of corresponding colors. Some of these robes had eagles embroidered in coarse patterns and thick wool, while others were of a pattern something like those used for bed-quilts; and some bore unmistakable witness to the thrift of the house-mother, and were skilfully pieced together out of carpet, curtain, blanket, and dress remnants, the whole bordered with some inexpensive fur. One or two sleighs bore a sort of figure-head--the head of a deer, or a fox, or a hawk--carved and let into the curling part of the front; while one party, who were gazed upon with mingled admiration and disapproval, went so far as to trail after them, for three or four feet behind the sleigh, and sweeping up the snow in their wake, a thick scarlet cloth of gorgeous appearance, but no very valuable texture. This was the doing of a young fellow who had lately been reading one or two romances of chivalry, and been much pleased with the “velvet housings of the horses, sweeping the ground as the knight rode to the king’s tournament.” His indulgent old mother and admiring sisters had but faintly remonstrated, and this was the consequence. The horses were not less bedecked than the vehicles. Silver bells hung from their harness and belted their bodies in various places; shining plates of metal and knobs driven into the leather made them as gay as circus-horses; while horse-cloths of variegated pattern were rolled up under the feet of their masters, ready for use whenever they stopped on the road.

Emanuel himself had gone to the nearest town at which a stage-coach stopped, to welcome his wife’s friend and special guest, and entertained him with a flow of agricultural information and warm eulogy of the country through which they were speeding on their way home. He arrived at Stelhagen before the rush of country visitors, and was triumphantly taken through every part of the well-kept farm, while his meal was being prepared by Rika and the maids. But more than all, Frau Köhler, in her delight, actually made him “free” of the sacred, secret chamber where stood the Christbaum, already laden but unlighted, among its attendant tables and dishes. The old man was as innocently charmed as a seven-year-old child; it reminded him so of his own Christmas-tree in days when the simple customs of Germany were still unimpaired, and when it was the fashion to give only really useful things, with due regard to the condition and needs of the recipients.

“But at the feasts to which my people ask me now,” said he, “I see children regaled with a multitude of unwholesome, colored bonbons in boxes that cost quite as much as the contents, and servants given cheap silks or paste jewelry, and the friends or the master and mistress themselves loaded with pretty but useless knick-knacks, gilded toys that cost a great deal and make more show than their use warrants. Times are sadly changed, Thekla, even since you were married.”

“Well, Herr Pfarrer, I have had little chance, and less wish, to see the change; and up here I think we still live as Noah’s sons after they came out of the ark,” said good Frau Köhler, with a broad smile at her own wit. As the day wore on, she and Rika left the Pfarrer (curé) to Emanuel’s care, and again busied themselves about the serious coming festivity. She flew around, as active as a fat sparrow, with a dusting-cloth under her arm, whisking off with nervous hand every speck of dust on the mantel-piece or among the few books which lay conspicuously on the table in the best room; giving her orders to the nimble maids, welcoming the families of guests, and specially petting the children. Emanuel took the men under his protection, and gave them tobacco and pipes, and talked farming to them, while his own young home-squad whispered in corners of the coming tree and supper.

At last Rika came out from the room where the mystery was going on, and, opening the door wide, let a flood of light into the dark apartment beyond. There was a regular blaze. The large tree stood on a low table, and reached nearly up to the ceiling. There were only lights, colored ribbons, and gilded walnuts hung upon it, but it quite satisfied the expectation of the good folk around it. Round the room were tables and stands of all kinds, crowded together, and barely holding all the dishes apportioned to each member of the party. The guests had secretly brought or sent their mutual presents; one family generally taking charge of its neighbor’s gifts, and vice-versa, that none might suspect the nature of their own. The tree, too, was a joint contribution of the several families; all had sent in tapers and nuts, and this it was that made it so full of bright things and necessitated its being so tall.

On the middle table, under the tree itself, were dishes for the Köhler household, each one having a liberal allowance of apples, nuts, and gingerbread. Besides these, there were parcels, securely tied, laid by the dishes, and labelled with the names of their unconscious owners. Köhler was seized upon by his wife and daughter before anyone else was allowed to go forward--for in this old-fashioned neighborhood the head of the house is still considered in the light of an Abraham--and a compact parcel was put into his hands by Rika, while Thekla kissed him with hearty loudness. Next came the guest, whom Rika led to the prettiest china dish, and presented with a small, tempting-looking packet. Leaving him to open it at his leisure, she joined her young friends, and a good-natured scramble now began, each looking for his own name in some familiar handwriting, finding it, and opening the treasure with the eagerness of a child. It would be impossible to describe every present that thus came to view; but though many were pretty and elaborate, none were for mere show. Presently Frau Köhler was seen to take possession of her husband, and, pulling off his coat, made him try on the dressing-gown he had just drawn from his parcel. She turned him round like a doll, and clapped her hands in admiration at the perfect fit; then danced around to the other end of the room, and called out to the maids:

“Lina! Bettchen! it is your turn now; you have not been forgotten. Those are your dishes where the silver dollars are sticking in the apples.” The maids opened their parcels, and each found a bright, soft, warm dress, crimson and black. Then came George, the man who did most of the immediate work round the house, and found a bright red vest with steel buttons in his parcel. Frau Köhler was busy looking at other people’s things, when her husband slipped a neat, long packet on her dish, and, as she turned and saw the addition, she uttered an exclamation of joy. Rika helped her to unfold the stiff, rustling thing, when it turned out to be a black silk dress. Not every housewife in those days had one, and her last was nearly worn out. Then the old priest came forward to show the company his Christmas box; and what do you think it was? There was no doubt as to where it came from. It was a set of missal-markers, and in such taste as was scarcely to be expected in that time and neighborhood. Rika had designed it, and her mother had worked it; but many an anxious debate had there been over it, as the Frau Inspectorin had been at first quite vexed at what she called its plainness. It was composed of five thick gros-grain ribbons, two inches wide and fifteen long. There was a red, a green, a white, a purple, and a black ribbon; and on each was embroidered a motto--on the red and green, in gold; on the white, in red; and on the black and purple, in silver. The letters were German, though the mottoes were in Latin, and each of the five referred to one of these events: our Lord’s birth, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost. At the end of each ribbon, instead of fringe or tassels, hung a cross of pure silver, into the ring of which the ribbon was loosely gathered. Every one crowded round this novel Christmas gift, and examined it with an admiration equally gratifying to the giver and the receiver. But Emanuel’s jolly voice soon broke the spell by saying:

“These fine presents are very delightful to receive, no doubt, and the women-folk would not have been happy without some such thing; but we are all mortal, and I have not forgotten that my guest has feet and hands, and needs warmth and comfort as much as we of grosser clay.”

And with this he thrust a large parcel into the Pfarrer’s arms. Every one laughed and helped him to open it; every one was curious to see its contents. They were, indeed, of a most substantial and useful kind: a foot-muff of scarlet cloth, lined and bordered with fur, and a pair of huge sealskin gloves.

Scarcely had the parcel been opened when a hum of measured sound was heard outside, and presently a Christmas carol was distinctly audible. Everyone knew the words, and many joined in the song before the singers became visible. Then the door opened, and a troop of children came in, dressed in warm white furs and woollen wrappings, and carrying tapers and fir-branches in their hands. They sang a second carol, quaint and rustic in its words, but skilfully set to anything but archaic music, and then, in honor of their southern guest, they began the song of the evening, a few stanzas from the “Great Hymn” to the Blessed Virgin, by the Minnesinger, Gottfried of Strasburg, the translation of which, according to Kroeger, runs thus:

XXV.

“God thee hath clothed with raiments seven; On thy pure body, drawn from heaven, Hath put them even When thou wast first created. The first one Chastity is named; The second is as Virtue famed; The third is claimed As Courtesy, well mated; The fourth dress is Humility; The fifth is known as Pity; The sixth one, Faith, clings close to thee; The seventh, noble Modesty, Leads gratefully Thee in the path of duty.

XXVII.

“Thou sun, thou moon, thou star so fair, God took thee from his own side there, Here to prepare The birth of Christ within thee. For that his loved Child and thine, Which is our life and life’s sunshine, Our bread and wine, To stay chaste, he did win thee; So that sin’s thorns could never touch Thy fruitful virtue’s branches. His burning love for thee did vouch, He kept thee from all sins that crouch: A golden couch, Secured by his love’s trenches.

XLVII.

… “Rejoice now, thou salvation’s throne, That thou gavest birth to Him who won Our cause, thy Son, Our Saviour and our blessing. …

XLVIII.

“Rejoice now, O thou sunshine mild, That on thy blessed breasts there smiled God’s little Child-- Its earthly destination. Rejoice that then drew near to thee From foreign lands the wise kings three, Noble and free, To bring their adoration To thee and to that blessed Child, With many a graceful off’ring. Rejoice now, that the star beguiled And to that place their pathway smiled Where, with thy Child, They worshipped thy sweet suff’ring.”

“You are not so utterly unknowing of all gentle and learned pursuits as you would have had me believe,” said the Pfarrer to Frau Köhler. “It is not every child in Bavaria that could sing so well this Old-World poem, so graceful in its rhyming and so devout in its allusions. Our old XIIth-century poetry, the most national--i.e., peculiar to our country--is too much superseded by noisy modern rhymes or sentimental ballads copied from foreign models. Have you any unknown scholar among your farmers and agents, who, you told me, made up a hearty but not a learned society here?”

“Well,” said Frau Köhler, “there is the school-master, Heldmann, who is always poring over old useless books, but never can have a good dinner unless his friends send it to him, poor man! He is a bachelor, and cannot afford to have a housekeeper. And then there is one of our young gentlemen, who Köhler says is always in the clouds, and who spends all his spare time with Heldmann, while the other boys spend theirs with their pretty, rosy neighbors. By the way, Heldmann is coming to-night; but he said he could not come till late, as he had some important business which would detain him for an hour or two.”

“You forget our Rika, mother,” said Emanuel, not heeding the last part of his wife’s sentence; “she is as wise as any of them, though she says so little. She knows all the old legends and poetry, and more besides, I warrant.”

“Rika designed that missal-marker,” said the Frau Inspectorin proudly (she had found out, since it had been so admired, that her daughter’s instinct had guided her aright in the design).

But Rika, hearing her name mentioned, had slipped away among the white-wrapped children, and was laying their tapers and fir-branches away, preparatory to giving them cakes and fruit. This was quite a ceremony, and when they were ready Frau Köhler, handing the large dish of nuts to the Pfarrer, begged him to distribute them, while she took charge of the gingerbread and Rika of the apples.

It was funny to see the solemn expectancy with which the children brought out dishes, mugs, pitchers, etc., in which to receive these Christmas gifts. Some of the girls held out their aprons, as more convenient and capacious receptacles than anything else they could lay hands on. One boy brought a large birthday cup, and another a wooden milk-bowl; another a small churn, while a fourth had carried off his father’s peck-measure, and a fifth calmly handed up a corn-sack, which he evidently expected to get filled to the brim. As Frau Köhler came to one of the children, she said:

“Fritz, I saw you in the orchard last autumn stealing our apples. Now, naughty boys must not expect to get apples at Christmas if they take them at other times; so, Rika, don’t give him any. He shall have one piece of gingerbread, though.” A piteous disclaimer met this sentence; but the Pfarrer thrust a double quantity of nuts into the culprit’s basket, and passed on. Then once again Frau Köhler stopped and said; “Johann, didn’t I see you fighting with another boy in the churchyard two weeks ago, and told you that Santa Claus would forget you when he came to fill the stockings on Christmas night? I shall not give you any gingerbread.”

“Franz knows we made it up again,” whined the boy, and Franz, with a roguish look, peeped out from his place in the row and said: “Yes, we did, Frau Inspectorin”; so both got their gingerbread. At last, this distribution being over, the children, laden with their gifts, went home to their own various firesides, not without many thanks to the “stranger within the gates” and his parting reminder, as he showed them the stars:

“Look up at God’s own Christmas-tree, lighted up with thousands of tapers, children, and at the smooth, white snow spread over the fields. That is the white table-cloth which he has spread for the beautiful gifts which spring, and summer, and autumn are going to bring you, all in his own good time.”[176]

Then came another batch of visitors--the old, sick, and infirm people of the village; the spinning-women, the broom-tyers, the wooden bowl and spoon carvers, and the makers of wooden shoes; and some who could no longer work, but had been faithful and industrious in their time. They had something of the old costume on: the men wore blue yarn stockings and stout gray knee-breeches (they had left their top-boots outside; for the snow was deep and soft, and they needed them all the winter and through most of the spring); and the women had large nodding caps and black silk handkerchiefs folded across their bosoms. Each of these old people got a large loaf of plain cake and some good stout flannel; and these things, according to the local etiquette, the inspector himself delivered to them as the representative of his young master. This distribution was an old custom on the Stelhagen estate, and, though the present owner was careless enough in many things, he wished this usage to be always kept up. Even if he had not, it is not likely that as long as Köhler was inspector the old people would not have been able to rely on the customary Christmas gift. After this some bustle occurred, and two or three people went and stationed themselves outside the door. Presently the expectant company within were startled by a loud rap, and the door flew open, a parcel was flung in, and a voice cried out:

“Yule rap!”

This was a pair of slippers for the inspector. No one knew where they came from; no one had sent them. Yule raps are supposed to be magical, impersonal causes of tangible effects; so every one looked innocent and astonished, as became good Mecklenburgers under Christmas circumstances.

“Yule rap!” again, and the door opened a second time; a smoking-cap, embroidered with his initials, was evolved out of a cumbrous packet by one of the young apprentices, and scarcely had he put it on than another thundering knock sounded on the door.

“Yule rap!” was shouted again, and in flew a heavy package. It was a book, with illustrations of travel scenes in the East, and was directed to Rika.

“Yule rap!”

This time it was only a little square envelope, with a ticket referring Frau Köhler to another ticket up in the bureau drawer in her bedroom; but when one of the boys found it, that referred again to another ticket in the cellar; and when another boy brought this to light, it mysteriously referred her to her husband’s pocket. Here, at last, the hidden thing was revealed--an embroidered collar, and a pair of larger cuffs to match. Köhler had no idea what sprite had put it there, so he said.

“Yule rap!” and this time it was for the guest--a black velvet skull-cap, warm and clinging. Then came various things, all heralded by the same warning cry of “Yule rap!” and a knock at the door, generally in George’s strong voice. The two maids got the packages ready, and peeped in at the keyhole to see when it was time to vary the sensation by throwing in another present. Again, a breakfast-bell came rolling in, ringing as it bounded on, with just a few bands of soft stuff and silver paper muffling its sound. Once a large meerschaum pipe was laid gently at the threshold of the door, and one of the apprentices fetched it as carefully. Then a violin was pushed through the half-open door, and the eager face of the one for whom it was intended peeped anxiously over his neighbor’s shoulder, wondering if any one else were the happy destined one, and as much surprised as delighted when he found it was himself. That violin has since been heard in many a large and populous town, and, though its owner did not become as world-known as Paganini or Sivori, he did not love his art less faithfully and exclusively. We cannot enumerate all the gifts which Yule brought round this year; but before the evening was over, a different voice cried out the magic words, “Yule rap!” and the door being slightly opened and quickly closed again, a tiny, white, silky dog stood trembling on the carpet. Rika jumped up and ran to take it in her arms; then pulling open the door, “Herr Heldmann! Herr Heldmann!” she cried. “I know it is you!”

The schoolmaster came forward, his rough face glowing with the cold through which he had just come.

“I promised you a dog, Rika,” he said rather awkwardly, “but they would not let me have it till this very day, and I had no time to go for it but this evening. I kept it under my coat all the time; so it is quite warm. It is only two months old.”

Rika was in ecstasies. She declared this was worth all her Christmas presents, and then rewarded Herr Heldmann by telling him how well the children had done their part, and how delightfully surprised the Pfarrer had been. The two men were soon in a deep conversation on subjects dear and familiar to both, and the company gradually dissolved again into little knots and groups. Many took their leave, as their homes were distant and they did not wish to be too late; but for all an informal supper was laid in the vast kitchen, and by degrees most of the good things on the table were sensibly diminished. The host’s wife and daughter, and the Herr Pfarrer, with half a dozen others and a few children, did not leave the Christmas-tree, whose tapers were constantly attended to and replaced when necessary. Other “Christmas candles” were also lighted--tall columns of yellow wax, made on purpose for this occasion. As the household and its inmates were left to themselves, the children began asking for their accustomed treat--the stories that all children have been fond of since the world began. No land is so rich in the romance of childhood as Germany, both north and south. There everything is personified, and as an English writer lately said, wonderful histories are connected with the fir-trees in the forests, the beloved and venerated Christbaum. “Though it be yet summer, the child sees in fancy the beautiful Weihnachtsbaum, adorned with sparkling things as the Gospel, is adorned with promises and hopes; rich in gifts as the three kings were rich; pointing to heaven as the angel pointed; bright as those very heavens were bright with silver-winged messengers; crowned with gold as the Word was crowned; odorous like the frankincense: sparkling like the star; spreading forth its arms, full of peace and good-will on every side, holding out gifts and promises for all.”

Weihnacht, the blessed, the hallowed, the consecrated night, is the child-paradise of Germany. That land of beautiful family festivals has given Christmas a double significance, and merged into its memories all the graceful, shadowy legends of the dead mythology of the Fatherland. The German child is reared in the midst of fairy-tales, which are only truths translated into child-language. Besides the old standard ones, every neighborhood has its own local tales, every family its own new-born additions or inventions. Every young mother, herself but a step removed from childhood, with all her tender imaginations still stirring, and her child-days lifted into greater beauty because they are but just left behind, makes new stories for her little ones, and finds in every flower a new fairy, in every brook a new voice.

And yet the old tales still charm the little ones, and the yearly coming of King Winter brings the old, worn stories round again. So Emanuel Köhler told the fairy-tale which the children had listened to every Christmas with ever-new delight, about the journey of King Winter from his kingdom at the North Pole, and how he put on his crown with tall spikes of icicles, and wrapped himself in his wide snow-mantle, which to him is as precious and as warm as ermine.

“And now,” said the host, “there is some one here who can tell you a far more beautiful story than mine. Some One, greater than the Winter-King, comes too every year--a snow-Child, the white Christ whom our ancestors, the old Norse and Teutonic warriors, learned to see and adore, where they had only seen and worshipped the God of War and the God of Thunder before. Ask him to tell you a story.”

And the old, white-haired Pfarrer stroked the head of the child nearest to him, as the little one looked shyly up into his face, mutely endorsing Emanuel’s appeal. He told them that they must already know the story of the first Christmas night, and so he would only tell them how the news that the angels told the shepherds on the hills came long centuries after to others as pure-minded as the shepherds, and by means almost as wonderful. He repeated to them from memory the words of an English prose-poet, which he said he had loved ever since he came across them, and which made the picture he best loved to talk on at Christmas-time: “That little infant frame, white as a snow-drop on the lap of winter, light almost as a snow-flake on the chill night air, smooth as the cushioned drift of snow which the wind has lightly strewn outside the walls of Bethlehem, is at this moment holding within itself, as if it were of adamantine rock, the fires of the beatific light.… The little white lily is blooming below the greater one; an offshoot of its stem, and a faithful copy, leaf for leaf, petal for petal, white for white, powdered with the same golden dust, meeting the morning with the same fragrance, which is like no other than their own!”[177]

There was a more marvellous tale than any they had heard about talking-flowers. The Christkind was a flower, and his blessed Mother was a flower--holy lilies in the garden of God, blossoming rods like Aaron’s, fruitful roots, stately cedars, and fruit-giving palm-trees. It was a very happy thing to know and feel all this, as we do; but many millions of men know nothing of it, and centuries ago even our forefathers in these forests knew nothing of it. “But,” he continued, “there was a distant island, where men of our race lived, which did not receive the faith till long after Germany and France and Britain were Christian, and even had cathedrals and cloisters and schools in abundance. It was two hundred years after Charlemagne, who was a Frankish, and therefore a German, sovereign, founded the Palatine schools and conferred with the learned English monk, Alcuin. This distant, pagan island was Iceland. The Norsemen there were a wild, fierce, warlike people, free from any foreign government, and just the kind of heroes that their old mythology represented them as becoming in their future, disembodied life. They had their scalds, or saga-men, their bards, who were both poets and historians, who kept up their spirit by singing wild songs about their ancestors and the battles they had won. They were all pagans, and thought the forgiveness of injuries very mean. Well, one day, the eve of Yule-tide, when it was terribly cold and cheerless, an old scald sat in his rough hut, with a flickering light before him, chanting one of his wild, heathen songs, and his daughter, a beautiful girl, sat at the plank table near him, busy with some woman’s work. During an interval of his song she raised her eyes and said to him:

“‘Father, there must be something beyond all that--something greater and nobler.’

“‘Why, child,’ said the old man, with a kind of impatient wonder, ‘why should you think so? Many things different there may be, just as there are different kinds of men, and different kinds of beasts, and different kinds of plants; some for mastery and some for thraldom; some for the chase, and some for the kitchen or the plough; some for incantations and sacrifices, and some for common food. But anything nobler than our history there could not be; and as for our religion, if there were anything different, or even better, it would not suit our people, and so would be no concern of ours.’

“‘But if it were true, father, and ours not true, what then?’

“‘Why ask the question, child? What was good enough for the wise and brave Northmen who fled here that they might be free to fight and worship according to their fancy, is good enough for their descendants.’

“‘But you know yourself, father,’ persisted the maiden, ‘that those whom our poetical traditions call gods were men, heroes and patriots who taught our forefathers various arts, and guided them safely across deserts and through forests in their long, long migration--but still only men. Our chieftains of to-day might as well become gods to our great-grandchildren, if the old leaders have become so to us. Wise as they were, they could not command the frozen seas to open a way for their ships, nor make the sun rise earlier in the long winter, nor compel the cutting ice-wind to cease. If they could not do such things, they must have been very far from gods.’

“‘It is true,’ said the old man, ‘that those great chieftains were, in the dim ages we can scarcely count back to, men like us; but the gods who taught them those very arts took them up to live with them as long as their own heaven might last, and made them equal to themselves. You know even Paradise itself is to come to an end some day.’

“‘So our legends say, father; but that, too, makes it seem as if these gods were only another order of mortal beings, stronger but not better than we are, and hiding from us the true, changeless heaven far above them. For surely that which changes cannot be divine. And then our legends say that evil is to triumph when heaven and earth come to an end. True, they say there will be a renewal of all things after that, and that, no doubt, means that good will be uppermost; very likely all the things spoken of in our Eddas are only signs of other things which we could not understand.’

“The daughter continued these questionings and speculations, the scald answering them as best he could.

“He had listened with evident admiration and approval to her impassioned speech, but he was willing to test her faith in her own womanhood to the utmost. She now seemed wrapt in her own thoughts, but after a short pause said:

“‘It would not be another’s inspiration in which I should believe; it would be a message from Him who has put this belief already into my heart. Some One greater than all has spoken to my inmost heart, and I am ready to believe; but the messenger that is to put it into words and tell me what to do has not come.’

“There was a silence, and the wind and the sea roared without. The old man shaded the flickering light with his hand, and gazed at his daughter, who was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap. He thought that she herself must have received some divine illumination; for the Norsemen believed in the prophetic gifts of some of their women. His own mind, more cultivated than that of the warrior’s, saw through the symbolic character of many of the very myths he sang, and tended vaguely to belief in a higher and hidden circle of things infinite, true, and eternal. But then the northern mind was naturally simple, not prone to metaphysical distinctions, not analytical and subtle, dividing as with the sword that pierceth between soul and spirit; and the old man saw no use in raising theological problems for which he could offer no rational solution, save through the dreams of a young girl. Presently the old man rose, shaking off his meditations, and said:

“‘It is time for me to go to the Yule-night festival, and I shall have a stormy trudge of it to the castle. I must leave you alone here till to-morrow night. But, my child, I know that there is safety for the scald’s daughter wherever she may be; the very sea would not hurt her, and the wildest men would kneel before her; so farewell, and a father’s blessing be upon you.’

“His daughter rose and fetched his cloak and staff, wrapped the former around him, and fastened it over the rude musical instrument that answered the purpose of lyre and harp; but I am not very learned in such things, and cannot tell you exactly what it was. The young girl stood long on the threshold of the hut, shading the light, and looking out after her father into the darkness. The wind was sharp and icy, and blew from the frozen sea. As she held the light, she thought she heard a cry come from the direction of the sea. She lingered before closing the door, although the wind was very chill; for the cry seemed repeated, and she thought it was a human voice calling. A moment’s reflection told her it could not be so; for the whole sea was frozen for miles outward, and no boat or wreck could come so near land. She sat down again to her work, and mused on the conversation she had held with her father. He had studied their national books all his life, and she was not yet twenty. He must know best. Was she likely to be right? She had little experience of the way in which the old system worked; only her own dreams and fancies showed her any other possibility; and yet--she could not shake off the thought: she thirsted for another revelation. The far-off, unknown Godhead must have some means of communicating with men; why should he not speak to her, who so passionately and blindly longed for a message, a command, from him?

“The cry from the sea sounded again. Surely, this time there could be no mistake; the voice was human, and it had come nearer since she had left the door. She took up the light again, and went outside, shouting as loud as she could in return. She was answered, and a strange awe came upon her as she heard this cry. Was it that of a man or a spirit? The latter supposition seemed to her unsophisticated mind quite as likely as the former, but it did not frighten her, as it would most of her countrywomen. She went in again, wrapped a thick fur cloak around her, and, taking another on her arm, sallied out once more with another stronger light. It was barely possible to keep the resinous torch alight, and she looked anxiously out towards the sea, to try and catch some glimpse of a human figure. The cries came again at intervals; but she knew that in the clear air a seemingly near sound might yet be far distant. She had to walk briskly up and down the shore, in the beaten path between walls of snow, to keep herself warm, and occasionally she lifted the flaring torch and waved it as a signal. She could do no more, but she longed to see her unknown visitor, and to go out to meet him on the frozen waters. Was it some wrecked sailor, who had clambered from ice-floe to ice-floe, in the desperate hope of reaching land before he died of cold and hunger, or some unearthly messenger from an invisible world? If he were a mere man, from what coast could he have drifted. No Icelander would be out at this time and place; it was Yule-tide, and there were no wandering boats out among the ice-cliffs and floes. At last she thought she could discern a shadowy form, blacker than the surrounding darkness, but surely no human form; it was like a moving cross, one upright shape, and one laid across near the top, and both dark and compact. But the cry was repeated, though in a more assured and joyful tone, and the maiden waited with bated breath, wondering what this marvel could mean. A field of unbroken ice stretched between her and the advancing figure, which now hastened its steps, and came on like a swift-sailing bird, cleaving the darkness. She thought she could distinguish a human face above the junction of the two arms of the cross, and she held up the light, still uncertain what kind of visitant this approaching form might be. At last it flashed upon her that it was a man bearing a child. But why so rigid? Why did he not hug him close to his bosom to keep him warm, to keep him alive? Was the child dead? And a shuddering awe came upon her, as she thought of its dead white face upturned to heaven, and of the faithful man who had not forsaken it, or left it to the seals and wolves on the ice, or buried it in the chill waters beneath the ice-floes. What a cold it must have struck to the heart of the man carrying it; how his hands must be well-nigh frozen in supporting this strange burden!

“She hardly knew whether she was still imagining what might be, or witnessing real movements, when the figure came straight up to her, and, stooping, laid the child at her feet. She lowered the torch, and, as the glare fell on the little face, she saw that it was no breathing one; the man had sunk down beside it, hardly able to stir, now the supreme effort was over and his end was accomplished. She dropped the cloak she held over the little body, and caught up a handful of snow, wherewith she energetically rubbed the face and hands of the stranger, then half dragged, half supported him to the door of the hut. He had only spoken once, just as he dropped at her feet, but she did not understand him: he spoke in a foreign tongue. Once more she went out and brought in the stiffened, frozen body of the child, which she laid on a fur robe just outside the hut; for it was warm within the small, confined dwelling. It was an hour before the stranger’s eye told her that her simple, quick remedies had succeeded. He was not very tall, but immensely strong and powerful, and there was a fire in his dark gray eye that gave the clew to his strange, weird pilgrimage over the ice-floes. His hair was dark brown, with a reddish tinge, but already mixed with a few gray streaks; it had been shorn close to his head some time since, as appeared from its irregular growth at present. Beneath his cloak he wore a long black robe, with a leathern girdle round the waist. The child was very beautiful, even in death; his eyes were closed, but his black, curling hair hung round his neck, and the lips had a sweet though somewhat proud outline. The scald’s daughter set some simple food before her silent guest, and made him a sign to eat. He was evidently very hungry, but before he began he moved his lips and made the sign of the cross on his forehead, lips, and breast. She asked him in her own language what that ceremony meant, not hoping to make him understand her speech, but trusting to her inquiring looks for some explanatory sign that she might interpret as best she could to herself. To her surprise, he answered in a few, slow, labored words, not in Icelandic to be sure, but in some dialect akin to it; for she could make out the meaning. It was, in fact, the Norse dialect that was spoken in the Orkney Islands, but she did not know that. As he spoke, her guest pointed upwards, and she knew that he referred to God. A great longing came into her heart, and she asked again if his God were the same the Icelanders worshipped. He shook his head, and she eagerly questioned farther, but grew so voluble that he could not follow her, and the conversation ceased. Then the stranger rose and went out to the little corpse, which he addressed in impassioned terms in his own language, making over it the same sign that had drawn the maiden’s attention before. He then described to her--mostly in pantomime, and with a few Norse words to help him on, and a few slowly-pronounced questions on her part--how the boy and he had been in a boat that was wrecked many days’ journey from their own country, and how he had carried him and fed him for three or four days, and then seen him die in his arms. The boy was the only son of a great chief, and he was taking him to his uncle in the North of Scotland. His own country was south of Scotland, a large island like Iceland, but green and beautiful, and there was no ice there.

“The girl made him understand that she was alone for a day or two, but when her father came back he would help him. He evidently understood her better than she did him.

“The next morning, when she again set food before him, she imitated his sign of the cross, and said she wished to believe in the true God; and if his God were the true one, she would believe in him. She looked so earnest and anxious that he again began to try to explain; but the few words he could command, though they sufficed to hint at his worldly adventures, and made clear to her that he had been wrecked, were scarcely adequate to tell her of the new religion she longed to understand.

“But at noon that day another guest and traveller passed by the scald’s dwelling. He was hurrying to the same castle where the girl’s father had gone in his capacity of minstrel, but a violent snow-storm had come on that morning, and he had lost his way. He stopped a moment to refresh himself, and noticed the stranger. He was himself known as a great traveller, and the figure in the coarse black robe seemed not unfamiliar to him. He addressed the stranger in the latter’s language, guessing him at once to be an Irish monk. He said he had seen such men in the Scottish islands, where he had been storm-driven with his ship two years ago, and he had picked up a little of their speech. When the maiden discovered that in this stray guest she had found an interpreter, she pressed him, implored him, almost commanded him, to stay.

“‘I must ask him the questions my father could not solve yesterday,’ she said; ‘and my father’s friend will not refuse to speak in my name, for I believe that the unknown God has answered my prayer in sending this holy man over the sea to my very feet.’ And she told him how the stranger had come to her, out of the darkness, in the shape of a cross--the same sign he made to propitiate his God.

“‘Ask him to tell us what he believes,’ she said impetuously; and the interpreter, compelled by some instinct that he could not resist, began his office willingly.

“‘Tell him,’ she said, ‘that yesterday, before he came, I was all day thinking that the high, true, unknown God had a message for me, and a truer faith to teach me, because he had put into my heart a longing for something higher than what our books and songs have taught us. And tell him that I believe God sent him in answer to my doubts and prayers.’

“‘The traveller faithfully translated all this. The monk’s face glowed as he replied, in his own language, which he used with the grace and skill of a poet:

“‘Tell the maiden that she is right; the true God did send me, and now I know why such things happened to me; why I was wrecked with my lord’s only son, a precious freight, a sacred deposit, which the Lord of lords has now taken upon himself to account for to the earthly father, bereaved of his one hope. But God sent me here because to this pure-hearted virgin I was to explain the faith he had already put into her heart. It is not I who bring her the true faith, but God himself who has spoken to her and inclined her to believe; me he has sent to put this message into practical form. Tell her that this is the birthday of the Lord, and that a thousand years ago, almost at the same hour when I set my dead burden at her feet, a living Child, God’s own Child, lay at the feet of a pure Virgin in a little village far away in the land of the rising sun. And as this maiden’s torch which I saw over the wild, frozen sea, and followed, was an emblem of the faith that dwelt already in her heart, so, too, a marvellous star led three wise men, the scalds of the East, to where this Child lay, and the star was the emblem of their firm faith, which led them to cross rivers and deserts to reach the Child. And tell her that the way in which this wonderful birth was celebrated was by a song which held all the essence of truth in it: “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good-will.”’

“All this the interpreter told the maiden, and both marvelled at it. The stranger told them more and more of that wonderful tale, so familiar to us, but which once sounded to our warlike forefathers like the foolishness of babes and sucklings, or at most like some Eastern myth good enough for philosophers to wrangle over, but unfit for sturdy men of the forest. To the Icelandic maiden it seemed but the fulfilment of her own dreams; and as she listened to the story of the Child, grown to be a wise but obedient Boy, and then a wandering, suffering Man, her soul seemed to drink in the hidden grandeur of the relation, to pierce beyond the human stumbling-blocks which confronted the wise and learned of other lands, and go at once to the heart of the great mystery of love, personified in the Man-God. All the rest seemed to her to be the fitting garment of the central mystery, the crown of leaves growing from the fruitful trunk of this one doctrine. All day long the three sat together, the two Icelanders hanging on the words of the stranger; and so the scald found them on his return. He, too, wanted to know the news which the monk had brought; for he said he had always believed that behind their national songs and hymns lay something greater, but perhaps not expedient for Norsemen to know. He shook his head sadly when he learned the monk’s precepts of love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and said he feared his countrymen would not understand that, but for his part it was not uncongenial to him. As the weather was such that no vessel could put to sea before the ice broke up, he constrained the monk to stay the rest of the winter with him, and in the spring promised to go over with him to the nearest Scottish coast, and carry the body of his little charge to the uncle to whom he had been on his way when he was wrecked.

“Before the New Year began, the monk baptized the first Icelandic convert, the daughter of the scald, and gave her the name of the Mother of the Babe of Bethlehem, Mary. Many others heard of the new religion before he left, but that does not belong to my story. The new convert and her father accompanied him to Scotland, and were present at the burial of the Irish chieftain’s son at the castle of his Scottish uncle. The latter’s son married the Norse maiden, but she never ceased to lament that it had not been given to her to convert many of her own countrymen, or at least shed her blood for her new faith. All her life long she helped to send missionaries to Iceland; and when her son grew up to manhood, the palm she coveted was awarded to him, for he went to his mother’s native country, founded a monastery there, labored among the people, converted many, and taught reading and the arts of peace as well as the faith to his pupils; became abbot of the monastery, and was finally martyred on the steps of the altar by a horde of savage heathen Norsemen.

“This is the best Christmas story I know, children,” concluded the Herr Pfarrer; “and you, Rika, I can wish you no better model than the fair maiden of Iceland.”

It was nearly midnight when the old priest finished his tale, and Frau Köhler, rising, and thanking him cordially for this unwonted addition to ordinary Christmas stories, led him to a door which had been locked till now. It opened into a room decked as a chapel, with an altar at the end, which was now decorated with evergreens. A few chairs and benches were ranged before it, and on a table at the side was everything in readiness for saying Mass.

“It is long since I have heard a midnight Mass,” said the good hostess, growing suddenly grave and reverential in her manner, “and my Rika never has; and you know, Herr Pfarrer, I told you I had a greater surprise in store for you yet, after all the local customs in which you were so much interested.”

So the beautiful Midnight Mass was said in the Mecklenburg inspector’s farm-house, and a more impressive one Frau Köhler had never heard in any southern cathedral; for though there was no music and no pomp, there brooded over the little congregation a spirit of reverence and peace, which comes in full perfection only through a deep silence. The hostess and her daughter received Communion together, and the attentive household could not help thinking of the beautiful Icelandic convert when she came back from the altar, her hands folded over her breast, and her long, fair hair plaited in two plain, thick tresses.

Herr Heldmann had stayed too, and from that day he never ceased his study of theological problems and his correspondence with the Herr Pfarrer, till he became a Catholic, and was married to Rika in this same little chapel-room a year later by the same kind old priest. One of the young apprentices of Emanuel Köhler had been his secret rival; but notwithstanding that Heldmann was ungainly, shy, and twice her age, Rika decidedly thought that she had the best of the bargain.

And it was true; he had a heart of gold, and she made him a model wife.

CHRISTMAS CHIMES.

The clear starlight, of a southern night, Shone in Judæa’s sky, The angels sang, and their harp-strings rang With “Glory to God on high.” Through the pearl gates streamed, ere the morning beamed, The radiance of Heaven’s day; And the shepherds led to the lonely bed Where the holy Child-God lay.

The Yule-log’s light gleams warm to-night In many an English home, And no spirits dare--so the wise declare-- In the light of its beams to come; The weird mistletoe and the holly glow On castle and cottage wall; While the jest and song ring all night long, Through the merry banquet-hall.

And in other climes at the ringing chimes There are scenes of joy and mirth: E’en round the dead is its beauty shed Who at Christmas pass from earth. On this holy day, so the old tomes say, Heaven’s portals open wide, And the soul glides in, freed from all its sin By the birth of the Crucified.

In our own fair land there is many a band Whose home is filled with glee, Whose hearts beat high, as the fleet hours fly, With thoughts of the Christmas-tree. May the Christ-Child weave, on this Christmas eve, New hopes as the years go by, And around His throne may at last each one Sing “Glory to God on high.”

ANGLICANS, OLD CATHOLICS, AND THE CONFERENCE AT BONN.

Under the title of Anglicanism, Old Catholicism, and the Union of the Christian Episcopal Churches, an essay has recently been published by the Rev. Father Tondini,[178] Barnabite, whose intimate acquaintance with the respective languages of England, Germany, and Russia, as well as the religious history and literature of those countries, peculiarly qualifies him for dealing with the questions just now exciting so much attention in Western Europe. We shall, therefore, not only make his treatise, which merits more than ordinary notice, the basis of the present article, but shall reproduce such portions of it as are particularly suggestive at the present time, and conclude with some account of the Conference at Bonn and the considerations it suggests.

In the Introduction to his treatise the reverend author gives the reasons which called it forth, the last being the promise made on the tomb of a friend[179] to leave nothing untried which might promote the return of the Greco-Russian Church to Catholic unity; an unexpected opportunity being given for fulfilling this promise by the reference made more than once by Mr. Gladstone, in his recent publications, to the organization of the Eastern as contrasted with that of the Catholic Church. Moreover, the sympathy displayed by Mr. Gladstone for the Old Catholics and their Conference at Bonn serves to complete the argument.

There are two passages in Mr. Gladstone’s Vaticanism with which Father Tondini has more especially dealt. One is the following:

“Of these early provisions for a balance of church power, and for securing the laity against sacerdotal domination, the rigid conservatism of the Eastern Church presents us, even down to the present day, with an authentic and living record.”[180]

These valuable “provisions” are set forth at length in the second edition of a former work by Father Tondini, The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Oriental Church.[181] In a special preface he there says: “There is much to be learned from them, especially if we take into consideration their recent date, and the ecclesiastical canons of which the Eastern Church has not been indeed a rigid conservator.”

In the quotations there given at length from the original documents, we find abundant evidence of the manner in which the ancient canons have been set aside, wherever convenient to the czar, for his own regulations.

The second passage requiring comment is the following:

“The ancient principles of popular election and control, for which room was found in the Apostolic Church under its inspired teachers, and which still subsist in the Christian East.”[182]

This, as we shall see, is disposed of in the third chapter of the present essay, into which has been collected trustworthy information as to the non-popular mode of election of bishops resorted to in the Oriental Orthodox Church.[183]

Towards the close of the Introduction the writer remarks that if the statements made by Mr. Gladstone respecting the Catholic Church were true, she could not be the true church of our Lord, and, if not, he asks, where then is the true church to be found? The Oriental Church could not solve the question, because she is in contradiction to the doctrine contained in her own liturgy,[184] and also for other reasons, to which for some years past he has been directing public attention.[185] There remain to be considered the Anglican Establishment--this being the church to which belongs the writer who accuses the Catholic Church of having changed in faith, and deprived her children of their moral and mental freedom--and the newest sect of all, namely, the so-called Old Catholics, owing to the same writer’s admiration of those who figure in its ranks.

Reason, so loudly appealed to by Mr. Gladstone, has been strictly adhered to by Father Tondini in his careful examination of the credentials of the two latter bodies, and we will give, in as concise a form as may be consistent with clearness, the result of his inquiry. He especially addresses those who admit the existence of a visible Church of Christ, and still more particularly those who, rather than reconcile themselves to the Catholic Church, say that neither the Roman Catholic Church, nor the Anglican Establishment, nor the Old-Catholic Society, but the Oriental Orthodox Church, is the true visible church of Christ.

I.

The claims of the Anglican Church are first examined, her vitality being an argument that we are in presence of an institution adhered to, at least by a large portion of her members, with conviction and devotedness, as a valuable medium between unbelief and superstition, worldliness and sanctity; and of a state church as solidly framed as human genius could devise.

“Bodies,” says Mr. Gladstone, “are usually held to be bound by the evidence of their own selected and typical witnesses.”[186] Now, the selected and typical witnesses of the Church of England are the sovereign, who is “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church in her Dominions,” and the episcopate. If the whole clergy is consulted, the evidence becomes as undeniable as it can possibly be.

This perfect evidence is found in the Thirty-nine Articles, which are thus headed: “Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, assembled in convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions,” etc., etc.

The Ratification is to the same effect, with the addition of the assent and consent of the queen (Elizabeth), after their final rehearsal in the General Convocation of bishops and clergy in 1571. They are, moreover, reprinted in the Book of Common Prayer, with the Declaration of King James I. affixed, and which runs as follows:

“Being by God’s ordinance, according to our just title, Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the church in these our dominions, … we will that all curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God’s promises as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them; and that no man hereafter shall either print or preach to draw the article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof, and … shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.”

“Following this last admonition, and bearing in mind that the Church of England considers herself to be a branch of the universal church of Christ, we open the Book of Common Prayer, and turn to those among the Articles which treat of the universal church, that we may see how, without renouncing our Italian nationality--which to us is very dear--we could belong to the universal church of Christ. We see an article headed ‘Of the Authority of General Councils,’ and, on reading it, find to our astonishment the definition, not indeed of the infallibility of the Pope, but of the fallibility, without any exception, of the universal church of Christ! It is: Article XXI.--‘General Councils may not be called together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.’”

“Thus” (we give Father Tondini’s words) “the Church of England has defined, in two plenary national councils, that the universal church of Christ, even when assembled in a general council, may err, and ordain, as necessary to salvation, things which have neither strength nor authority; and a king, ‘Defender of the Faith,’ has declared that this is the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s word, and required all his loving subjects to submit to this article ‘in the plain and full meaning thereof,’ and to take it ‘in the literal and grammatical sense’!

“We can hardly trust our own eyes. Again: What does the word ‘declare’ mean in the concluding words of the article? This word may convey two senses--that of proving and of making a declaration.

“In the first case, who is to offer the proofs that ‘the thing ordained as necessary to salvation’ is taken out of Holy Scripture? This the Church of England has forgotten to tell us!… Moreover, an authority whose decrees, in order to have a binding power, must be proved to be taken out of Holy Scripture, is by that very fact subordinate to those who are called to examine the proofs.[187] The chief authorities of the church assembled in a general council are thus rendered as inferior to the faithful as the claimant is inferior to the judge who is about to pronounce sentence upon his claims. The teaching and governing body of the church is consequently no more than an assembly commissioned to frame, ‘as necessary to salvation,’ laws to be submitted to the approbation of the faithful!

“Is this serious? Is it even respectful to human intelligence?”

Again, if the word “declare” must be taken in the sense of a declaration, Father Tondini asks: “But by whom is such a declaration to be made? Assuredly not by the council itself--‘judice in causâ propriâ.’ An authority liable to err, ‘even in things pertaining unto God,’ and to ordain ‘as necessary to salvation’ things which have ‘neither strength nor authority,’ is liable also to mistake the sense of Holy Scripture. To seek such a declaration from this fallible authority would be like begging the question.

“The declaration must, then, be made by some authority external to the general council. But the ‘archbishops, bishops, and the whole clergy of England’ have omitted to inform the faithful where such an authority is to be found. Moreover, since a general council--that is, the ‘selected and typical witnesses’ of the whole Church of Christ--may err (according to Article XXI.), it necessarily follows that portions of the whole church of Christ may err also. In fact, this natural consequence is explicitly stated in Article XIX. The zeal displayed by the Church of England in asserting the fallibility, both of the whole church of Christ and of portions of that church, may be said to rival that of the most fervent advocates of the infallibility of the Pope.”

This XIXth Article modestly asserts that, “as the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”

Whereupon “a legitimate doubt arises whether the Church of England, too, might not have erred in issuing the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. This doubt is very material. These Articles ordain several things as ‘necessary to salvation.’ Are they, or are they not, ‘taken out of Holy Scripture’? Have they, or have they not, ‘strength and authority’?”

Shortly after their promulgation, we have it upon the authority of King James I. himself that this doubt gave rise to “disputations, altercations, and questions such as may nourish faction both in the church and commonwealth,” and his majesty adds that “therefore, upon mature deliberation,” etc., he “thought fit” to make the declaration following:

“That the Articles of the Church of England … do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s Word, which WE do therefore ratify and confirm.”

“May we” (with Father Tondini) “be allowed respectfully to ask whether King James I. was infallible?”

And if so, why should Catholics be charged with having forfeited their mental and moral freedom, etc., etc., because they admit the infallibility of the Pope, which results, by the law of development, from several passages of Holy Scripture; whereas, on the contrary, no “brain power” will ever be able to discover a single word in Holy Scripture which can, by the most vigorous process of development, bud forth into the infallibility of a King of England?

On the other hand, if King James were not infallible, by what right could he then prohibit and will in matters of faith for his subjects?

His only right was this: that the Church of England had been made a powerful instrumentum regni in the hands of her sovereigns,[188] just as the Church of Russia is in the hands of her czars.

After this, observes the writer, no inconsistency ought to astonish us.

In Article XVIII. it is declared that “the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the [Lord’s] Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner”; and again, at the end of the “Order of the Ministration of the Holy Communion,” that “the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here.” How can these declarations be made to agree with the following, which is taught in the Little Catechism?--“The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.”

Again, in Article XI. we find: “That we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort”; whereas in the order for the visitation of the sick we read as follows:

“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort,” etc., etc.

“But,” asks Father Tondini, “by what strange metamorphosis can the above-quoted doctrine of justification by faith only, declared to be ‘most wholesome and very full of comfort’ while we are in good health, cease to possess the power of comforting the conscience of a sick person? And how can confession, which through life is to be considered by Anglicans as ‘grown of the corrupt following of the apostles’ (see Article XXV.), become suddenly so transfigured by the approach of death as to obtain the power of relieving a conscience ‘troubled with any weighty matter’?”

Although it may not be matter of much surprise that a church which has so carefully defined her own fallibility should have one doctrine for her children in their days of health and vigor, and another for the time of their sickness and death, still it does surprise us that a man of education like Mr. Gladstone should be so unconscious of his own extraordinary inconsistency in appealing--as he does throughout his attacks against Catholics and the Catholic Church--to “mental and moral freedom,” “logic,” “consistency of mind,” “manliness of thought,” etc., etc.

Already arise from all sides echoes of the question singularly enough asked by Mr. Gladstone himself: “Is the Church of England worth preserving?”[189]

“The Church of England,” said Laud, “is Protestant.” And Mr. Gladstone, true to “the church of his birth and his country,” protests, like her, against the church which made his country a Christian nation. The Ritualists, the latest sect within her, still boast that they “help to keep people from the Church of Rome,” and reject the imputation of sympathy with her as an insupportable calumny.[190] “They will give communion in Westminster Abbey to an Unitarian, flatter Jansenists and Monophysites, remain in communion with bishops whom they themselves proclaim to be heretics; but one thing they will not do--tolerate the creed of the church to which they owe every fragment and crumb of truth that remains to them.” “Take the great Anglian divines,” writes Mr. Marshall: “Bull scorned and preached against the Catholic Church; Barrow wrote a book against it; Sandys called the Vicar of Christ ‘that triple-crowned thief and murderer’; Hooker sent for a dissenter on his death-bed; Morton, Bramhall, Andrews, and the rest avowed the opinion that the Protestant sects of the Continent were as true churches as their own. Episcopal ordination, as the late Mr. J. Keble confessed, was not made a condition for holding Anglican preferment until the latter half of the XVIIth century; and it was then adopted as a weapon against the growing power of the dissenters. Then Anglicans who had always argued as Protestants against the church began to argue as Catholics against dissent.”

At the present time, however, the English episcopate seems veering round again to the Protestant quarter, against the pseudo-Catholic innovations of a portion of the clergy. The Church Herald, which, up to the time when it ceased to exist, a few weeks ago, had been protesting for many months previously, with good reason, against the implacable opposition offered by the Anglican bishops to the so-called “Catholic revival,” gravely told its readers, while asserting once more that “no one trusts the bishops,” and that “of influence they have and can have next to none,” nevertheless that “their claims as Catholic bishops were never so firmly established.” (!) Certainly Anglican logic is peculiar. Their bishops were never more vehemently opposed to the Catholic faith; but no matter, “never were they more truly Catholic.” (!)

“I have very reluctantly,” says Dr. Lee (as reported in the John Bull), “come to a conclusion which makes me melancholy--that the passing of the Public Worship Bill has to all intents and purposes sealed the fate of the Church of England.” Its end, he thinks, is very near, because no church can last unless it be a true portion of the one family of God--not a mere human sect, taking its variable opinion from the civil government, and its practice from a parliamentary officer without the faintest shadow of spiritual authority. “The point that gravely perplexes me,” he writes, “with regard to the new law, is that our bishops, one and all, have, with their eyes open and deliberately, renounced their spiritual jurisdiction, which, for both provinces and every diocese, is placed in the hands of Lord Penzance, ex-judge of the Divorce Court.” For which reason certain Ritualist papers lament it as “strange and sad” that Dr. Lee should say of the bishops and their bill exactly the same after their victory as they themselves had said before it. These papers, after the example of some learned Anglican professors, etc., are ready enough beforehand to threaten, in the event of such and such a decision, to “reconsider their position.” The decision is made; they then discover that, after all, it is not so very serious, and compose themselves, for the third, or fourth, or fifth time, just where they were before.

It is stated that the first case under the Public Worship Regulations Act is now being brought before Lord Penzance. It is a suit against the Rev. J. C. Ridsdale, incumbent of S. Peter’s, Folkestone. According to the new law, three inhabitants made a representation to the Archbishop of Canterbury as to the manner in which the services were conducted at S. Peter’s. A copy of the representation was forwarded to Mr. Ridsdale, and, no agreement to abide by the decision of the archbishop having been made, the proceedings will be determined by the judge, from whom there is an ultimate appeal to her Majesty in council. There are, it is said, three cases pending under the new law; and fresh proceedings are about to be commenced against the clergy of S. Alban’s, Holborn. The bill bids fair to be as one-sided in its application as it avowedly was in its intention. “The Puritan triumph in the XVIIth century,” said the Bishop of London, “would not be more disastrous than a pseudo-Catholic triumph now,” and the rest of the episcopal bench are evidently of the same mind.

Nor can it be matter of much surprise that such repression should be exercised against men, many of them truly earnest and self-denying, who are the means of reviving a certain amount of Catholic doctrine as well as practice (however illegal) in their communion, when Dr. Lee is able to write as follows to an episcopal correspondent: “The Catholic faith, Archbishop Tait, in the presence of his suffragans, frankly declared that neither he nor they believed, and his grace--to give him all credit--has done his worst to get rid of it.”

Here again can we wonder at the result, even to her highest dignitaries, of the uncertain teaching of a church which, from its very beginning, was intended to be a compromise?

And, again, how can a church which is essentially a compromise be expected to sympathize with that unchanging church which is “the pillar and ground of the truth”?

II.

To return to Father Tondini’s essay. We come now to consider the newest among the sects, the so-called Old Catholics, who, after the manner of many other schismatics, appropriate the name of “Catholic” with an affix of their own, which is a proof that theirs is a base metal, unworthy of the “image and superscription of the King” or his appointed vicegerent.

Mr. Gladstone’s judgment of these people is thus expressed: “When the cup of endurance,” he says, “which had so long been filling, began, with the Council of the Vatican in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and learned living theologian of the Roman communion, Dr. von Döllinger, long the foremost champion of his church, refused compliance, and submitted, with his temper undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the extreme and most painful penalty of excommunication. With him many of the most learned and respected theologians of the Roman communion in Germany underwent the same sentence. The very few who elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered in like manner deserve an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness.

“It seems as though Germany, from which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that even now echoes through the land, still retained her primacy in the domain of conscience, still supplied the centuria prærogativa of the great comitia of the world.”[191]

After giving this quotation, Father Tondini, in the exercise of his “mental freedom,” proceeds to examine whether Old Catholics really deserve this highly laudatory and enthusiastic passage, and in what their merit consists.

Their merit consists “in having rebelled against the church to which they previously belonged, on the ground that, in their conviction, she had changed her faith.

“Not one single bishop, not one out of the teaching body of the church, has expressed the same conviction. Old Catholics are, then, a mere handful … protesting against the Pope and the whole episcopate, preferring their own private judgment to that of the whole teaching body of the Catholic Church, and fully decided to do everything in their power to bring about the triumph of their private personal judgment. Their first act was to raise a schism in the church. They had openly and freely separated themselves from her long before the sentence of excommunication was notified to them. They then became the occasion of a severe persecution against their former fellow-Catholics; and now, whilst the persecution is raging, and Old Catholics, supported by governments and the press, have suffered neither in person nor property, nor in their individual liberty, we are called upon to bestow upon those who suffered ‘in like manner’ an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness!”[192]

But why is this? and what is the Expostulation itself but a cry of alarm to prevent British Catholics from rebelling against the queen? Why, then, is the rebellion of some private individuals to be extolled in terms like these? Or if, indeed, strong private religious convictions (taking it for granted that the Old Catholics have such) make it praiseworthy to rebel against the church, why should not strong private political convictions make it equally praiseworthy to rebel against the state? The field of similar applications is fearfully wide, and many a parental admonition to an indolent or disobedient child might be met by the young rebel in Mr. Gladstone’s words, that “with temper undisturbed, with freedom unimpaired,” he had no intention to do as he was bid.

The first official document of the Old Catholics is the “Declaration” of Dr. von Döllinger and his adherents, dated Munich, June, 1871,[193] and which bears the signatures of Dr. von Döllinger, sixteen professors or doctors, seven magistrates, three private gentlemen, two manufacturers, one “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and one “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”--thirty-one signatures in all, to which was added later that of the unhappy Loyson.

The second document is a French manifesto or appeal, “Aux fidèles de l’Ancienne Eglise Catholique,” signed “E. Michaud, Docteur en Théologie,” dated 1872, and widely circulated in France, with a request that every reader will help to make it known and gain as many additional adherents as possible.

The style of both documents is peculiar. They alike belong to those literary productions which betray an almost feverish excitement of mind. A small number of persons, till lately belonging to the Catholic Church, declare themselves “determined” to do their utmost towards bringing about “the reform of ecclesiastical affairs, so long desired and henceforth so inevitable, in the organization as well as in the life of the church.” In fact, the authors of both these documents show a faith in their own infallibility, both doctrinal and practical, at least as strong as their conviction of the fallibility of the Pope. They are peculiarly unfortunate in their choice of the fathers they quote, as well as in their appeal to the authority of S. Paul. Their style is certainly wholly unlike that of this great apostle, who, with so much earnestness and humility, begs the prayers of the faithful, while the necessity of prayer for such an undertaking as that which the Old Catholics call the “regeneration of the church” is not even once alluded to in their manifestoes.

There is another consideration which presents itself. Every practical man is careful to ascertain the competency, in any particular subject, of those who give him their advice upon it. A sick man would not consult a lawyer for his cure, nor an aggrieved man seek legal advice of his baker or shoemaker. The distinguished magistrates who signed the German Declaration must be supposed to have done so, not in consequence of a clear and detailed knowledge of the grounds of the assertions it contained, but in consequence of their confidence in Dr. von Döllinger, which led them to adopt his views. In the same way must be explained the adhesions given by the respectable manufacturers, “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”; for though these pursuits need not be in themselves an obstacle to a man being well acquainted with religious matters, still they are an undeniable argument against his having made it the chief object of his studies.

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