The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877 (part 5 of 5)

The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877 (part 5 of 5)

The history of Cluny has a very great importance in connection with the general history of the mediæval period, but especially with the great ecclesiastical reformation of Gregory VII., which was prepared by the interior working of the order within the church. For many prudential reasons the fact that the great ecclesiastical movement of the eleventh century had its source in the monastery of Cluny was kept out of sight as much as possible; but it is proved by abundant evidence, and Gregory VII. himself, who was its prior when St. Leo IX. persuaded him to return with him to Rome in 1049, speaks of the peculiar and intimate relations between Cluny and the Holy See.

THE BRIDES OF CHRIST.

VII. ST. AGATHA.

“She hath no breasts—is cruelly maimed withal: What shall we do for her, when spoken for, Our little sister? Sheathe her, if a door, In boards of cedar; if she be a wall, Build up a house of silver,[116] and instal Her worship”—so the monks. O bleeding core Of maidenhood, thy Spouse and King shall pour Balm in thy wounds, the lilies’ growth recall!

When Etna belched forth Phlegethon, and rolled Its molten flanks upon Catania, The saint’s veil they did reverently unfold And wave it in the face of fire—Behold! Piled black against the convent’s wall to-day, That Red Sea curdled by Saint Agatha!

Footnote 116:

Song of Solomon viii. 8, 9.

VIII. ST. LUCIA.

“What’s this? Two human eyes upon a dish? Wretch! what dost mean?” “Lucia sends thee these; She greets thee: 'Be no longer ill at ease; They are thine! When mine, a spirit devilish, With them, with pink bloom and pale limbs, did fish For men’s souls.’” Quick! to her—ere horror freeze. Her wan lips smiled beneath the bandages: “Thou hast languished for mine eyes—have, then, thy wish!”

She raised the fillet—the youth dropped as dead. “Look up!” a sweet voice spake, “and praise the Lord!” He obeyed trembling—O illumined head! Low with an altered spirit he adored. Thenceforth an angel’s eyes, her own instead, Lighted her to her martyrdom’s reward.

IX. ST. URSULA.

A bower of woven palms! In white arrayed, Marshalled beneath that verdant canopy By fair-haired Ursula of Brittany, Eleven thousand martyrs, each a maid! For England’s heir, Etherius, had obeyed His bride’s will, honoring her virginity. To Rome on pilgrimage, by river and sea, They sailed, and prettily the bold mariner played.

Saint, dear to tender years! thou and thy doves Fell pierced with many arrows, and the Rhine With blood of innocents ran red as wine— Still teach that to the pure Death’s kiss is Love’s! Still teach it, though thy mortuary shrine May moulder, while the stream to ocean moves!

THE UNKNOWN EROS.[117]

Footnote 117:

The Unknown Eros, and Other Odes. London: George Bell & Sons. 1877.

There seems a growing and lamentable tendency among English poets in these days to divide themselves up into schools. We have the Tennysonian, the Swinburnian, the Rossettian, as a little earlier we had the Lake school, the Byronic, and so on. In these schools of poetry, as in schools of painting, there are certain marked features peculiar to each and forming, as it were, the common property of that one. Certain tones and colors belong to this: subdued grays, royal purples, dim and far-away lights on meadow and mere. Another is a lustier flesh-and-blood school: its men and women are decidedly, though musically, improper. The choice expressions and tender care that the other lavishes on the beauties of nature this one devotes to a maiden’s hair, or her cheek, or her nose, the droop of her lashes, or the arch of her brow. A third affects the mystic in matter and form; the more incomprehensible it is, the finer the poetry. It is like the “vague school” in painting. One is sometimes puzzled to know whether the picture be a battle-piece, a landscape, a portrait, or a nightmare on canvas. And so they go on.

This follow-my-leader tendency is unquestionably a mark of feebleness. It would be so in any art; it is obviously so in an art that springs from inspiration, and is thus necessarily original. A poet is comprehensible; a school of poets is absurd. Imagine a school of Homers, of Virgils, of Dantes, of Shaksperes, of Miltons, of Byrons! Why, the world could not hold them.

Weak as our days may be in original poets, they are strong at least in numbers. Probably, unless in the days of good Queen Anne, never before did such a constant and voluminous stream of English verse roll through the press. Most of it falls still-born on the market; yet nothing seems to discourage the poets. From Tupper to Tennyson they publish and publish and publish all the time. Yet there is not a living English poet to-day—unless Aubrey de Vere, whose best work has been his latest—who did not establish whatever fame he has almost a quarter of a century ago, and whose poems since that period have not shown a marked and steady decline.

In the author of The Unknown Eros we find a man who has certainly something new to say; who follows no leader; who has thoughts, and a mode of expressing them, all his own; who cares less for how than for what; whose work compels attention, and who depends in nowise on the jingle of words, the tricks of adjective and rhyme—the ballet-dancing, so to say, of the English language—for his attraction. Indeed, in respect of form he is far behind the other poets of the time. He almost disregards it. Yet, as will be seen, the strange dress that he has chosen for his creation fits it admirably, and moulds itself at will to the strenuous freedom of the combative athlete, the scorn of a man of fine feelings and bright intelligence, the meditative mood of the student, or the softer movements of a lover. His instrument is now a clarion call to battle, now a lover’s lute, now a dirge. It has the strength and simplicity of the Gregorian chant, which in a few notes and changes expresses the heights of inspiration and exultation, the depths of dread, the saddest sorrow of the human heart.

The volume is a collection of odes, written at various and long intervals apparently, and in a style of metre resembling somewhat that of the minor poems of Milton. It has often the regular irregularity of the Greek chorus, with much of the latter’s elasticity, brightness, flexibility, and crystalline texture. In all this it is novel—markedly and successfully so. It is more novel, however, in subject-matter. It is refreshing to come across a man, a poet especially, who can drop out of the commonplace, and do it without affectation. So accustomed have we grown, however, to the commonplace that we follow him at first with difficulty. His “Eros” is indeed an unknown god to the run of readers. He is no Cupid rosy-red, with flowery bow and fire-tipped dart to smite and melt the hearts of sweet young lovers. He does not slumber in summer meads, or rove listlessly by laughing streamlets, or roguishly haunt the bosky dells, or float adown the slanting sunbeam to flame on the unwary and capture their hearts and kindle them into passion while they languish in the soft arms of Mother Nature. His God is not this pagan deity. He is remote, obscure, harsh-seeming. The poet’s song is no pleasing love-tune. It is martial, high, far away, up on crags remote and to be reached only by thorny paths with bleeding feet and straining eyes, and hearts that faint many times on the way. True love is banished from the earth, the poet seems to think; and in place of him, high, pure, serene, with his head lifted up and bathed in the clear light and refulgence of heaven, and his feet only touching the earth, men have set a toy, a plaything, a fair bestiality.

“What rumored heavens are these,” he asks,

“Which not a poet sings, O, Unknown Eros? What this breeze Of sudden wings Speeding at far returns of time from interstellar space To fan my very face, And gone as fleet, Through delicatest ether feathering soft their solitary beat, With ne’er a light plume dropp’d, nor any trace To speak of whence they came, or whither they depart?

* * * * *

O, Unknown Eros, sire of awful bliss, What portent and what Delphic word, Such as in form of snake forebodes the bird, Is this? In me life’s even flood What eddies thus? What in its ruddy orbit lifts the blood Like a perturbed moon of Uranus Reaching to some great world in ungauged darkness hid; And whence This rapture of the sense Which, by thy whisper bid, Reveres with obscure rite and sacramental sign A bond I know not of nor dimly can divine; This subject loyalty which longs For chains and thongs Woven of gossamer and adamant, To bind me to my unguess’d want, And so to lie, Between those quivering plumes that thro’ fine ether pant, For hopeless, sweet eternity?”

The hard questions here put the poet answers, to some degree at least, in other odes. In the “Legem Tuam Dilexi” (p. 43) he sings:

“The 'Infinite.’ Word horrible! at feud With life, and the braced mood Of power and joy and love; Forbidden, by wise heathen ev’n, to be Spoken of Deity, Whose Name, on popular altars, was 'The Unknown,’ Because, or ere It was reveal’d as One Confined in Three, The people fear’d that it might prove Infinity, The blazon which the devils desired to gain; And God, for their confusion, laugh’d consent; Yet did so far relent, That they might seek relief, and not in vain, In dashing of themselves against the shores of pain.”

Was there ever a truer picture painted by man of the curse of lost souls and the hopeless relief they find “in dashing of themselves against the shores of pain”—that relief that the demented seek in beating their weary brains out or letting out the stream of the tired and useless life into the dark ocean of infinity, severing with maddened and sacrilegious hand the little knot that separates Time from Eternity? And what stronger picture of the prevalence of evil and the inherent tendency in the fallen world to rebel than this:

“Nor bides alone in hell The bond-disdaining spirit boiling to rebel. But for compulsion of strong grace, The pebble in the road Would straight explode, And fill the ghastly boundlessness of space. The furious power, To soft growth twice constrain’d in leaf and flower, Protests, and longs to flash its faint self far Beyond the dimmest star. The same Seditious flame, Beat backward with reduplicated might, Struggles alive within its stricter term, And is the worm.”

And here follows the response to the search after the “Unknown Eros”:

And the just Man does on himself affirm God’s limits, and is conscious of delight, Freedom and right, And so His Semblance is, Who, every hour, By day and night, Buildeth new bulwarks ’gainst the Infinite. _For, ah, who can express How full of bonds and simpleness Is God, How narrow is He_, And how the wide waste field of possibility Is only trod Straight to His homestead in the human heart, And all His art Is as the babe’s, that wins his mother to repeat Her little song so sweet!

* * * * *

Man, Darling of God. Whose thoughts but live and move Round him; Who woos his will To wedlock with His own, and does distil To that drop’s span The attar of all rose-fields of all love! Therefore the soul select assumes the stress Of bonds unbid, which God’s own style express Better than well, And aye hath borne, To the Clown’s scorn, The fetters of the three-fold golden chain....”

What “the three-fold golden chain” is that binds “the soul select” to God no Catholic needs to be told. Free and loyal self-sacrifice, in a world where self-sacrifice, whether we like it or not, is necessary and must be endured, brings us nearest and makes us likest to Him, the true Eros who “emptied himself for us.” These lines will help us to read the riddle of the “Unknown Eros,” “some note” of whose “renown and high behest” the poet thinks might thus “in enigma be express’d”:

“There lies the crown Which all thy longing cures. Refuse it, Mortal, that it may be yours! It is a spirit though it seems red gold; And such may no man, but by shunning, hold. Refuse it, though refusing be despair; And thou shalt feel the phantom in thy hair.”

This thought again is more fully wrought out in the conclusion of the same ode, “Legem Tuam Dilexi”:

“... For to have naught Is to have all things without care or thought!

* * * * *

And lastly bartering life’s dear bliss for pain; But evermore in vain; For joy (rejoice ye Few that tasted have!) Is Love’s obedience Against the genial laws of natural sense, Whose wide self-dissipating wave, Prison’d in artful dikes, Trembling returns and strikes Thence to its source again, In backward billows fleet, Crest crossing crest ecstatic as they greet; Thrilling each vein, Exploring every chasm and cove Of the full heart with floods of honeyed love, And every principal street And obscure alley and lane Of the intricate brain With brimming rivers of light and breezes sweet Of the primordial heat; Till, unto view of me and thee, Lost the intense life be, Or ludicrously display’d, by force Of distance, as a soaring eagle, or a horse On far-off hillside shown, May seem a gust-driv’n rag or a dead stone.”

To those who read these lines carefully it will not be necessary to say that the author is a Catholic. His name, though modestly withheld from the present volume, is not unknown. It is many years ago since Coventry Patmore sang his sweet love-songs, The Betrothal and The Espousals.

They were received favorably enough by the critics—far more favorably, indeed, than have been many higher and greater poems on their first appearance: Keats’ Endymion, for instance. Then a strange silence struck the poet, and he was dumb.

If the present volume is the growth of all these silent years, Mr. Patmore has not suffered by his solitude. Between his earlier work and the present there is no comparison. Indeed, it takes a very careful reading of the first to detect therein the germ of the strong growth and most beautiful flower that compel admiration to-day. Those were nothing more than the story, told with all the fond minuteness of a gentle, ardent, intelligent, and chivalrous young lover, of his first true love; of the flowery paths and pleasant ways that led up to it; of the gracious nothings that make that time so sweet and ever memorable to the lovers; the lone communings, the tremulous doubts, the bitter-sweet emotions, the sun and shade, the laughing April showers that weave Love’s many-colored web and make a brief paradise for the new Adam and Eve, with no serpent lurking in the grass—all this is told delightfully and with delight. The verse is sweet and pleasant and flowing as the subject; but it is a song to while away a drowsy hour, not to cause us to halt and listen in the busy march and fierce strife of life. We glance over them with lazy pleasure as we watch the gambols of children in the sun.

These later poems are of a far different and more solemn nature. The poet has lived much, felt much, suffered much, joyed much, thought and meditated much in this long interval. He has been lifted to the heights of heaven; he has been dashed back to the gates of hell. He has been tossed on the waves of Doubt and felt the brotherhood of Despair. He has lost her who first taught him to sing; whose gentle glances thrilled the tender chords of his nature and moved them to utter sweet music. Here is her picture:

“But there danced she, who from the leaven Of ill preserved my heart and wit All unawares, for she was heaven, Others at best but fit for it. I mark’d her step, with peace elate, Her brow more beautiful than morn, Her sometime air of girlish state Which sweetly waived its right to scorn; The giddy crowd, she grave the while, Although, as ’twere beyond her will, About her mouth the baby smile That she was born with linger’d still. Her ball-dress seemed a breathing mist, From the fair form exhaled and shed, Raised in the dance with arm and wrist All warmth and light, unbraceleted. Her motion, feeling ’twas beloved, The pensive soul of tune express’d, And, oh, what perfume, as she moved, Came from the flowers in her breast!”[118]

Footnote 118:

“The Angel in the House,” The Espousals, p. 61.

Here is she ten years later:

“Her sons pursue the butterflies, Her baby daughter mocks the doves With throbbing coo: in his fond eyes She’s Venus with her little Loves; Her step’s an honor to the earth, Her form’s the native-land of grace, And, lo, his coming lights with mirth Beauty’s metropolis, her face! Of such a lady proud’s the lord, And that her happy bosom knows; She takes his arm without a word, In lanes of laurel and of rose.”[119]

Footnote 119:

The Espousals, p. 73.

And here at last is her “Departure,” as told in the latest volume:

“It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have naught other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten’d eye, Upon your journey of so many days, Without a single kiss or a good-by? I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; And so we sate, within the sun’s low rays, You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Your harrowing praise. Well, it was well, my Wife, To hear you such things speak, And see your love

Make of your eyes a growing gloom of life, As a warm south wind sombres a March grove. And it was like your great and gracious ways To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash To let the laughter flash, Whilst I drew near, Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. But all at once to leave me at the last, More at the wonder than the loss aghast, With huddled, unintelligible phrase, And frighten’d eye, And go your journey of all days With not one kiss or a good-by, And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d, ’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.”[120]

Footnote 120:

The Unknown Eros, pp. 63-65.

It goes without saying that such a loss must tell with incalculable force on a man of intense sensibility. Trials of this kind best prove a man. Some they crush; others they humiliate only to exalt. If we may judge by the silent testimony of the book before us, his great loss made this man greater. He felt, if not for the first time, more keenly than ever before, how uncertain and passing is all merely human happiness. The known Eros that had charmed his life suddenly passed away “with sudden, unintelligible phrase,” and in the darkness that fell upon his soul his humbled eyes were opened to the unknown Eros who was near him all the while.

But, beyond and beside this, between the publication of his earlier poems and the latest his conversion to the Catholic faith took place. So we judge, at least, from internal evidence in the books. Here was a new and most powerful agent introduced to act upon his nature. Moreover, the world had moved in the interval. Many and mighty changes had taken place in the world, and they did not pass unfelt or unobserved by the silent poet. But before we come to these we will give one more response to his questioning of the oracle before whom of all he burns his incense. In the “Deliciæ Sapientiæ de Amore” he sings joyously:

“Love, light for me Thy ruddiest blazing torch, That I, albeit a beggar by the Porch Of the glad Palace of Virginity, May gaze within, and sing the pomp I see....

* * * * *

Bring, Love, anear, And bid be not afraid Young Lover true, and love-foreboding Maid, And wedded Spouse, if virginal of thought; For I will sing of naught Less sweet to hear Than seems A music in their half-remember’d dreams.

* * * * *

... The heavens themselves eternal are with fire Of unapproach’d desire, By the aching heart of Love, which cannot rest, In blissfullest pathos so indeed possess’d. O, spousals high; O, doctrine blest, Unutterable in even the happiest sigh; This know ye all Who can recall With what a welling of indignant tears Love’s simpleness first hears The meaning of his mortal covenant, And from what pride comes down To wear the crown Of which ’twas very heaven to feel the want.

* * * * *

Therefore gaze bold, That so in you be joyful hope increas’d, Thorough the Palace portals, and behold The dainty and unsating Marriage-Feast. O, hear Them singing clear 'Cor meum et caro mea’ round the 'I am,’ The Husband of the Heavens, and the Lamb Whom they for ever follow there that kept, Or, losing, never slept Till they reconquer’d had in mortal fight The standard white.

* * * * *

Gaze and be not afraid, Young Lover true and love-foreboding Maid. The full noon of deific vision bright Abashes nor abates No spark minute of Nature’s keen delight. ’Tis there your Hymen waits! There where in courts afar all unconfused they crowd, As fumes the starlight soft In gulfs of cloud, And each to the other, well-content, Sighs oft, '’Twas this we meant!' Gaze without blame, Ye in whom living Love yet blushes for dead shame. There of pure Virgins none Is fairer seen, Save One, Than Mary Magdalene.

* * * * *

Love makes the life to be A fount perpetual of virginity; For, lo, the Elect Of generous Love, how named soe’er, _affect Nothing but God, Or mediate or direct_, Nothing but God, The Husband of the Heavens: And who Him love, in potence great or small, Are, one and all, Heirs of the Palace glad And only clad With the bridal robes of ardor virginal.”

The Love that our poet has been seeking, has found, and here hymns in strains that at times are truly little short of seraphic, will now be known to the reader; and we leave this high, ethereal Court of Love that is human indeed, yet more than human, to glance at other and more ordinary, though still lofty, subjects which the poet has touched.

In a sense it is really refreshing to find that he is not always in the skies; that he is very human and made of flesh and blood like ourselves. Indeed, so human is he that he openly confesses, in a poem of matchless beauty and delicacy, to having found a substitute for his dead wife. Ordinary men, who are not poets, yet who nevertheless have hearts, will give a rough reading to the exquisite ode, “Tired Memory” (p. 93), wherein the poet, lamenting his wife, and confessing truthfully, albeit sadly, that

“In our mortal air None thrives for long upon the happiest dream,”

and seeking round “for some extreme of unconceived, interior sacrifice, whereof the smoke might rise to God,” cries in agony:

“My Lord, if thy strange will be this, That I should crucify my heart, Because my love has also been my pride, I do submit, if I saw how, to bliss, Wherein She has no part.”

“And I was heard,” he adds, let us hope untruthfully; for the “crucifixion of his heart” took the shape apparently of a second wife, thus:

“My heart was dead, Dead of devotion and tired memory, When a strange grace of thee In a fair stranger, as I take it, bred To her some tender heed, Most innocent Of purpose therewith blent, And pure of faith, I think, to thee; yet such That the pale reflex of an alien love, So vaguely, sadly shown, Did her heart touch Above All that, till then, had woo’d her for its own. And so the fear, which is love’s chilly dawn, Flush’d faintly upon lids that droop’d like thine, And made me weak, By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn, And Nature’s long-suspended breath of flame, Persuading soft, and whispering Duty’s name, Awhile to smile and speak With this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine...”

But this is not so much the humanity to which we referred. We think that three characteristics will strike the readers of these odes: 1, the high spiritual nature of many; 2, the deep pathos and human love of others; 3, the lofty scorn and fierce sarcasm displayed, mistakenly sometimes, in certain of the odes.

The poet is an Englishman of Englishmen, and, only for his Catholic faith, it seems to us that he would be one among the prophets of despair, whose name is legion and whose day is the present.

“O, season strange for song!”

he cries in the Proem;

“Is’t England’s parting soul that nerves my tongue As other kingdoms, nearing their eclipse, Have, in their latest bards, uplifted strong The voice that was their voice in earlier days? Is it her sudden, loud and piercing cry, The note which those that seem too weak to sigh Will sometimes utter just before they die?”

To speak frankly, we do not think it is. We do not think England’s soul is parting yet. We think there is much good left in this world for England to do; at the very least there is much atonement to be made for the many and great evils and national crimes—among others that greatest of all, apostasy—for which that soul has to answer. She can do much, she has done something, toward making this atonement; and the time of grace was never nearer to her than at present. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny the intense pathos and exquisite beauty of the following sad lines:

“Lo, weary of the greatness of her ways, There lies my Land, with hasty pulse and hard, Her ancient beauty marr’d, And, in her cold and aimless roving sight, Horror of light....”

In the sixth ode, entitled “Peace,” he returns to this theme:

“O England, how hast thou forgot, In dullard care for undisturbed increase Of gold, which profits not, The gain which once thou knew’st was for thy peace! Honor is peace, the peace which does accord Alone with God’s glad word: 'My peace I send you, and I send a sword.’

* * * * *

Beneath the heroic sun Is there then none Whose sinewy wings by choice do fly In the fine mountain-air of public obloquy, To tell the sleepy mongers of false ease That war’s the ordained way of all alive, And therein with good-will to dare and thrive Is profit and heart’s peace?

* * * * *

Remnant of Honor, brooding in the dark Over your bitter cark, Staring, as Rispah stared, astonied seven days, Upon the corpses of so many sons, Who loved her once, Dead in the dim and lion-haunted ways, Who could have dreamt That times should come like these!”

We do not altogether go with Mr. Patmore in this invective, however much we may admire its form. England has certainly acted meanly in many important European questions of late years. She will probably so act in many more in the future, if she finds it advisable or profitable. And it is a poor excuse to ask what other European nation has not acted or would not act, had it the chance, equally meanly with England. We may be very wrathful about the matter; we may have some very hard things to say against England for not drawing the sword in certain cases; yet between the nation that is too ready to fight and the nation that guards severely what are strictly its own primary interests without fighting, we certainly prefer the latter. The bloody road is a sad road to glory, and its end is never seen. While, then, we may for the moment side with the passionate poet who sits down in his studio and hurls his wrath in words of flame against the ministry for not leading the country into war and reviving ancient glories, as they are called, on second thoughts, while still, perhaps, thoroughly disgusted with the ministry and the meanness of their ways, we become gradually reconciled to the situation, and thank Heaven, though of course not the ministers, that we can sleep quietly in our beds. It may be an ignoble sense—doubtless it is; yet if it prevailed a little more generally throughout the world just now, the world would not, in the long run, be the sufferer from it.

There is another peace against which Mr. Patmore declaims in no measured terms in “The Standards.” This was written soon after the launching of Mr. Gladstone’s first pamphlet, not so much against “the English Catholics,” as the author states in a note—he would do well to remember that the world is a little larger than England—but against Catholics: against the Catholic Church and its chief.

“... That last, Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills, Was no uncertain blast! Listen: the warning all the champaign fills, And minatory murmurs, answering, mar The Night, both near and far, Perplexing many a drowsy citadel Beneath whose ill-watch’d walls the Powers of Hell, With armed jar And angry threat, surcease Their long-kept compact of contemptuous peace! Lo, yonder, where our little English band, With peace in heart and wrath in hand, Have dimly ta’en their stand, Sweetly the light Shines from the solitary peak at Edgbaston, Whence, o’er the dawning Land, Gleam the gold blazonries of Love irate ’Gainst the black flag of Hate.”

This call is most spirited and trenchant and bold. We can only find space for the strong end:

“The sanction of the world’s undying hate Means more than flaunted flags in windy air. Be ye of gathering fate Now gladly ware. Now from the matrix, by God’s grinding wrought, The brilliant shall be brought; The white stone mystic set between the eyes Of them that get the prize, Yea, part and parcel of that mighty Stone Which shall be thrown Into the Sea, and Sea shall be no more.”

“1867” is a poem strongly written and of marked character, but with which we cannot agree. It was called out apparently by the passage of the bill extending the suffrage by the conservative ministry under the leadership of Mr. Disraeli. It is—so we read it, and we see no possibility of reading it otherwise—a direct and bitter attack on a rational extension of the popular liberties, which we take to be radically wrong in conception:

“In the year of the great crime, When the false English Nobles and their Jew, By God demented, slew The Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wrong, One said, Take up thy Song, That breathes the mild and almost mythic time Of England’s prime! But I, Ah, me, The freedom of the few That, in our free Land, were indeed the free, Can song renew?”

* * * * *

Let us here say that if a man cannot attack Mr. Disraeli, or the Earl of Beaconsfield, on higher and fairer ground than on that of his being “a Jew,” he may as well let that statesman alone. A man who adopts this very small, very cheap, and very common mode of attack is not worthy the hearing of sensible men. Addressing the “outlawed Best”—by the bye, the poet is very arbitrary and perplexing in his use of capitals—England’s nobles, presumably, Mr. Patmore says:

“Know, ’twas the force of function high, In corporate exercise, and public awe Of Nature’s, Heaven’s, and England’s Law, That Best, though mix’d with Bad, should reign, Which kept you in your sky!”

Does he mean that the “Best” are restricted to the English nobility? If he does mean this, he is quite wrong; if he does not mean it, then the lines immediately following are meaningless:

“But, when the sordid Trader caught The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught, And soon, to the Mechanic vain, Sold the proud toy for naught, Your charm was broke, your task was sped, Your beauty, with your honor, dead.”

And so the ode goes on to hope that

“Prayer perchance may win A term to God’s indignant mood And the orgies of the multitude, Which now begin....”

We cannot help thinking, if God’s name must be introduced in the matter, that he is not especially indignant with Mr. Disraeli and the English nobles and people at the extension of the suffrage, and that for this reason to stigmatize 1867 as “the year of the great Crime” is nonsense. As for “the sordid Trader,” there has always been a considerable admixture of the “Trader” in the composition of the English government, noble or ignoble. The first Napoleon’s estimate of the English as “a nation of shopkeepers” was not an ill-judged one; and never was that government, at least since Reformation times, so pure and its members so honest as to-day, when “the sordid Trader” has a large hand in the administration. We do all honor to the spirit of chivalry; we do not object to class distinctions in countries where such distinctions are historic and hereditary; but we recognize manhood wherever we find it, and set it above all accidents of time or clime or artificial restrictions. At the end of the ode, however, the poet rises above his smaller self to a strain that is noble and true:

'And now, because the dark comes on apace When none can work for fear, And Liberty in every Land lies slain, And the two Tyrannies unchallenged reign, And heavy prophecies, suspended long At supplication of the righteous few And so discredited, to fulfilment throng, Restrain’d no more by faithful prayer or tear, And the dread baptism of blood seems near That brings to the humbled Earth the Time of Grace, Hush’d be all song, And let Christ’s own look through The darkness, suddenly increased, To the gray secret lingering in the East.”

We could linger with delight over many passages in these odes, and dwell with pleasure on the peculiar depth, conciseness, and expressiveness of the phrases used, the mere words often which the poet chooses. His power of condensation and deep philosophic comprehension and observation constantly strikes one. The concealed art of the whole is marvellous. But this, we have no doubt, will, from the copious extracts we have given, strike the reader as it has struck us. And we hasten on to quote a few more passages and take leave of the book.

We have called attention to the poet’s scorn. It is very bitter, and is at its best when it attacks not so much persons or matters which are at least open to question as when it deals with obvious shams and pretentious littleness. What could be better than this placid treatment of the modern scientific school which can see nothing more than its telescope and its instruments disclose to it?

“Not greatly moved with awe am I To learn that we may spy Five thousand firmaments beyond our own. The best that’s known Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small. View’d close, the Moon’s fair ball Is of ill objects worst. A corpse in Night’s highway, naked, fire-scarr’d, accurst; And now they tell That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst Too horribly for hell. So, judging from these two, As we must do, The Universe, outside our living Earth, Was all conceiv’d in the Creator’s mirth, Forecasting at the time Man’s spirit deep, To make dirt cheap. Put by the Telescope! Better without it man may see, _Stretch’d awful in the hush’d midnight, The ghost of his eternity_. Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye The things which near us lie, Till Science rapturously hails, In the minutest water-drop, A torment of innumerable tails. These at least do live. But rather give A mind not much to pry Beyond our royal-fair estate Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great. Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are, Pressing to catch our gaze, And out of obvious ways Ne’er wandering far.”

At other times his strong humanity seems to die in him, the struggle of life seems small and profitless, and the many ends that move us weak and purposeless as children’s plans. “Here, in this little Bay,” he says:

“Full of tumultuous life and great repose, Where, twice a day, The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, I sit me down. For want of me the world’s course will not fail; When all its work is done, the lie shall rot; The truth is great, and shall prevail, When none cares whether it prevail or not.”

Of course we need not remind the poet that it is just the duty of honest men to see that the truth prevails and the lie rots, for his poems are a very pæan of Truth and its high offices; but in this as in others of the odes he gives complete expression to the weariness that at times creeps over all who are struggling for the right. It is like the song of the tired mariners in Tennyson’s Lotos-Eaters.

Again he sings:

“Join, then, if thee it please, the bitter jest Of mankind’s progress; all its spectral race Mere impotence of rest, The heaving vain of life which cannot cease from self, Crest altering still to gulf And gulf to crest In endless chase That leaves the tossing water anchor’d in its place! Ah, well does he who does but stand aside, Sans hope or fear, And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear, And prophesies ’gainst trust in such a tide: For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught, Whose message is that he sees only naught! Nathless, discern’d may be, _By listeners at the doors of destiny, The fly-wheel swift and still Of God’s incessant will_, Mighty to keep in bound, tho’ powerless to quell, The amorous and vehement drift of man’s herd to hell.”

We can quote no further at any length, though we find something to attract us in every ode; and the more we read the odes the more we find in them, the more we admire them, and the clearer they become. Though independent of each other, a secret string of purpose, of aim and aspiration, of a yearning after something that the poet has not yet quite caught or cannot as yet fully express, becomes apparent. To this is due much of the obscurity and dimness that at first offend the eye. Closer study, however, reveals a throbbing passion, a high ideal, gleams of light from heaven, the flashes of a bright intelligence warmed by a pure heart and looking from and through all things earthly heavenwards. We have seen no man of late who can lash the follies and lay bare the falsehoods of the time so thoroughly. A man of intense and rooted convictions, he may make mistakes sometimes, but at least he makes them nobly. He is very human, as we have already said. Indeed, there are touches here and there in some of the odes that are strongly sensuous, and the two last poems, “The Rosy Bosom’d Hours” and “The After-Glow,” were better omitted from the volume. Their littleness offends and breaks with a discordant jar on the high and serene atmosphere through which we have been passing. It is almost like what the introduction of one of Offenbach’s airs would be into a solemn Mass. From the poet whose “Proem” is pitched in so high a key as this:

“Therefore no 'plaint be mine Of listeners none, No hope of render’d use or proud reward, In hasty times and hard; But chants as of a lonely thrush’s throat At latest eve, That does in each calm note Both joy and grieve; Notes few and strong and fine, Gilt with sweet day’s decline, And sad with promise of a different sun,”

we certainly expected no such stuff as the following, addressed to his bride:

“At Dawlish, 'mid the pools of brine, You stept from rock to rock, One hand quick tightening upon mine, One holding up your frock.

* * * * *

I thought, indeed, by magic chance, A third [day] from Heaven to win, But as, at dusk, we reach’d Penzance, A drizzling rain set in.”

There is so much that is high and noble and full of great promise in this new writer—for such he really is—and we have been so honest in our admiration of it, that we feel all the more at liberty to point out some of the blemishes that mar a work of rare excellence and strange beauty. Here and there throughout the volume are lines and couplets that linger lovingly in the memory; as, for instance:

“Pierce, then, with thought’s steel probe the trodden ground Till passion’s buried floods be found....”

And again:

“Till inmost absolution start _The welling in the grateful eyes, The heaving in the heart_.”

What could be more tenderly and naturally expressive than those two last lines? Or than this:

“Winnow with sighs, and wash away With tears the dust and stain of clay.”

Often have we heard aspirations of the following kind, but never sweeter than this:

“Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go, Ye Winds that westward flow, Thou heaving Sea That heav’st ’twixt her and me, Tell her I come....”

The poet yokes all Nature to the wings of his fancy, and makes it the loving slave of his Love.

How simple, yet how subtly told, is this great truth:

“Who does not know That good and ill Are done in secret still, And that which shows is verily but show!”

And this deep reflection contains a volume:

“How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood: _But not all height is holiness, Nor every sweetness good_.”

Here is a proverb, only too often verified:

“One fool, with lusty lungs, Does what a hundred wise, who hate and hold their tongues, Shall ne’er undo.”

In “Victory in Defeat” he says—how truly!—

“Life is not life at all without delight, Nor has it any might; _And better than the insentient heart and brain Is sharpest pain_; And better for the moment seems it to rebel, If the great Master, from his lifted seat, Ne’er whispers to the wearied servant, 'Well!’”

We hope to hear again and soon from Mr. Patmore. If he can avoid a certain obscurity that will repel many who would be sincere and honest admirers of so noble a writer, it will be better for himself and those whom he addresses. Even as his work now stands we are happy to say of it, in closing our review, what a true poet whose name often adorns these pages has said: “Many parts of the book seem to me both to ascend higher and descend deeper than almost anything we have had for a long time.”

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

PRIESTHOOD IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By E. Mellor, D.D. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co.

The author in the preface of the book before us says that his lectures were prepared at the request of the Committee of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and though not considered as exhausting the subject, yet they furnish a contribution toward the settlement of the question of the priesthood and its claims; which settlement in the author’s aim means toward doing away altogether with the priesthood and its claims. After a careful perusal of the volume, we must confess that we think the contribution exceedingly small, and not calculated to settle anything at all in the reverend gentleman’s sense. For the doctor’s lectures are a rehash of all the old objections brought forward against the priesthood, from the time of the Reformation downwards; and which have been time and again triumphantly refuted by our controversialists; but of which refutation the author takes no heed, as if such men as Bellarmine, Petau, Suarez, Thomassin, and a host of others down to our day had never existed. If the author had wished to bring towards the settlement of the subject a real contribution, the proper course for him to pursue would have been to state the objections, to bring forward the answer to each one of them given by our controversialists, to show the futility and untenableness of their answer, and to conclude that the objections yet hold good against the subject. His having, therefore, of a set purpose, or most innocently, ignored those answers leaves the question just where it was, and no one the wiser or better by the author’s lectures.

It is not possible for us in the brief space of a passing notice to attempt a refutation of all the objections he rehashes so carefully. It will suffice to remark that all his objections, even if nothing at all could be said against them, would prove nothing positive against the priesthood. For they may be classified under two heads. The first are those of purely negative character, which, as they prove nothing in favor of the priesthood, neither do they prove anything against it. Under this head we put the old objection, drawn from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, which exalts the priesthood of Christ above the Jewish priesthood, and which says at least nothing against the Christian priesthood, which is identical with that of Christ.

The other class of objections is when our author examines the positive proofs brought in favor of the Christian priesthood. These proofs, so clear, so satisfactory, so weighty, the author dismisses very summarily by throwing doubt on the meaning of the words, after the fashion of the Protestant method. One example will suffice to prove our assertion. Examining the text, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained,” he disposes of it as follows: “It is not needful to enter into a consideration of the meaning of the words [as if the question was not just about the meaning of the words; or as if our Lord was speaking merely for a joke] which set forth the high powers of the apostles; whether the sins they were to remit or retain were spiritual sins [are there any corporal sins?], or ecclesiastical ones, or both. The question before us is, be the function here referred to what it may, to whom was it accorded and by whom was it meant to be exercised? Almost every word in the passage has been a battle-field.” We would remark on this passage that there is no reason for waiving the question, be the function here referred to what it may, when our Lord says expressly it is to remit or to retain sins; that it is evident from the text, if words or language mean anything any more, that this function was to be exercised by those to whom our Lord spoke, and by those whom they preceded, as the apostles were essentially first and representative men; but it is useless. We only wish to call the attention of our readers to the fact that, if a text clear and palpable in itself, proving a truth or a dogma, can be disposed of in this manner, no Christian truth can stand any longer, and we may as well have done with all Christian revelation. For suppose we want to bring a contribution towards the settlement of the question of the Divinity of Christ, all we have to do is to throw doubts on the meaning of the words of those texts which assert it, and the contribution is made, and so on to the end of the chapter.

We think we have made our statement good, that our author has proved nothing in his book against the Christian priesthood, as all his objections are of a negative character.

But we will exceed him in liberality, and grant for a moment that those texts by which we assert the nature and prerogatives of the priesthood prove nothing in its favor, as his negative objections prove nothing against it. What then? Has he gained anything by our concession, or has he made any step forward towards the settlement of the question? Not at all. There will always be the fact of the existence of the priesthood, in the full exercise of all its claims, staring him in the face. How to account for that fact? Our author sees the difficulty, and admits that to account for it by urging an ambitious conspiracy on the part of the presbyters or bishops is absurd, that such a conspiracy could not have succeeded in establishing itself (page 74), and endeavors to account for it by a bias of humanity towards the priesthood identical with a bias towards selfishness and sins. And he goes on developing the thought by saying that the priesthood was called into being by ill-defined terrors of the future, by a fear of God not yet cast out by love, by the irksomeness of the duties of self-discipline, by the intolerable oppressiveness of the sense of personal responsibility seeking relief by its transference to others.

Whether all these reasons can produce a bias towards the priesthood in humanity identical with the bias it has unfortunately towards selfishness and sin, we will leave to the author to assert. We think that all those reasons, when well understood and stated properly, dispose humanity towards the priesthood—in fact, create an instinct for it—and that that instinct is a legitimate, noble, generous craving of the human heart; and to say that they create a bias identical with a bias to sin is to show the most supine ignorance of human nature, of the history of mankind, and the true philosophy of history. But let that pass; do all these reasons account for the existence and claims of the priesthood? According to the author himself they do not. For he says himself all this contributed to prepare the way for a transformation of that religion which knows no earthly mediator (page 75).

Well, Dr. Mellor, you have accounted for the preparation of the way, but not for the fact of the existence of the priesthood. When and how did it come into existence? Who were the first who hatched it? Where was it established first? Who were the first Christians they imposed it upon? How did they succeed in persuading them to accept it? Was there any opposition on the part of the Christians who first heard of such a thing? Must not the imposition on any Christian people of a priesthood well organized into a compact body, strong and valiant, and exceedingly sensitive about its rights and claims, have been brought about by a conspiracy of somebody or other? And have you not said—page 74—that to account for the existence of the priesthood by a conspiracy is absurd?

We wish to advert to another theory before closing these remarks. He is not satisfied to have proved more suo that the priesthood has no place in the New Testament; he strives to prove that it was congenial with the whole spirit and nature of it, and the proof, he alleges, is drawn from the words to the Samaritan woman: God is a spirit, and in spirit and truth he must be adored; that is, by having recourse to an invisible church, is the sense he attaches to those words. Of course, if the church is not a visible body, the mountain placed on the top of mountains, we must necessarily do away with the priesthood and sacraments, etc., for they can have no scope in an invisible, abstract thing. But in that case why not abolish Christ the Emmanuel, the God-man?

We could easily enough prove the congeniality of the priesthood with Christianity by showing to the reverend doctor that all the works of God are permanent. That the Incarnation is permanent in the church, and that Christ the High-Priest is permanent in the Catholic priesthood, and discharges all the functions necessary to bring all men to salvation in all time and space, in it, and through it, and so forth. But we fear the reverend gentleman has not philosophy enough to understand us, and we forbear. We will not, however, conclude our remarks without thanking the reverend lecturer for the polite courtesy which he uses towards the Catholic priesthood: first, using the nom de guerre popish whenever he has occasion to make mention of it; and, secondly, for associating it with the priesthood of the English Episcopal Church. In the lecturer’s mind, perhaps, it was to do honor to the Catholic priesthood by confounding it with the other. It is a goodly company, no doubt, and we ought to be highly flattered; but we respectfully decline through excess of modesty such unmerited honor, and would rather keep by ourselves, if it is all the same to the reverend doctor.

THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK, FOR THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1876.

Much has been written on the school question within the past few months; not, however, by opponents of the public schools as they exist here, but by those who pay for them—the taxpayers. Four million dollars for the Department of Public Schools alone is a great load. This tax increases yearly, and no doubt will soon reach the fifth million. The strange enthusiasm that led sects to trample on the religious convictions of their neighbors also led them to make light of the burden that came with the victory. But five millions is terrifying. Why not six? Will there be no end to the increase?

Perhaps the originators of the present school system recognized the moral baseness of severing the instruction which may enable the child to act with judgment from the training which teaches him moral responsibility for the judgment as well as for the action springing from it. They certainly desired to accomplish indirectly the chief end of education by placing the school machinery in the hands of philanthropists who serve without pay or emolument.

The result has been a gradual complication of the common-school system, so as to include technical education, and even the higher branches of learning. Years ago a Free College was successfully engrafted. Next came a Normal College for young ladies. In order to render this latter offshoot permanent, it was deemed necessary to provide the graduates with positions in the common schools. The first step was to raise the standard of proficiency for a teacher’s certificate; the next, to declare that the college diploma was sufficient evidence of qualification, without a public examination by the city superintendent. The report tells us that “under the by-law by which the graduates are licensed to teach without a second examination, the city superintendent and the president of the college have performed their duties in perfect harmony.”

When the mode of testing the qualification of applicants who are not Normal College graduates is discussed, the report states, “a system of rigid examinations in the superintendent’s office precludes the possibility of incompetent persons being foisted upon the system through political or social influence.”

Nor is this the only injury to the common schools. The favored graduates are not to be allowed to work for the low salaries received by primary teachers during the past thirty-five years. An adjustment of salaries is demanded. These primary teachers must receive as large a sum as grammar-school teachers. This simply means an increase in the cost of the common-school system.

If that system, as it now exists here, answer to the purposes for which it was intended, it is high time for that fact to appear. Yet the gentlemen who have charge of the board, from the president down, seem strangely to disagree on most important matters. Without committing ourselves to one side or the other in the discussion, we take a few instances. The grammar schools surely form a very important branch of the system. Here is how the president treats of them in the report: “Our primary-school teachers have a lower rate of pay than our grammar-school teachers, and the primary schools have been used as training places for the better-paid positions in the grammar schools. The plan for uniformity in salaries in these two departments has received serious consideration by a committee of the board, and deserves to be carried out. The majority of our pupils receive all the education they have in the primary, and never enter the grammar schools. This majority deserves the first consideration. Instruction and discipline are no more difficult in one than in the other, and in neither department is the range of knowledge required to be mastered extensive.”

The president asserts that the common-school system only succeeds in furnishing primary instruction to a majority of pupils, and he would seem to imply that the enormous sum of four million dollars should be spent on the primary schools, reserving, of course, a sufficient sum for the Normal College.

Lest his opinions as to the range of knowledge required in a teacher should dishearten those who are toiling through Normal College, he inserts a few lines for their benefit: “An erroneous idea seems to prevail that a primary teacher can dispense with the higher studies. The truth is that this class of teachers more than any other class needs trained faculties and sound judgment, and these are only obtained by the discipline of hard and close study. Normal study and normal practice, to be effective, must be based on the broad foundation of a liberal education.”

Compulsory education the city superintendent pronounces a complete failure, while those who are paid to enforce it consider it successful. In the discussion some interesting facts are brought to light. The city superintendent states: “Many parents, finding that our schools are unable to govern their wilful and unruly children, send them to the parochial schools. In connection with this, it is proper to call the attention of the board to the fact that, while the average attendance of pupils in the schools immediately under its care has, during the past year, increased less than two and a half per cent., in the corporate schools it has increased more than five per cent. It is also of interest to observe that, at the close of 1875, the number of pupils enrolled in the Catholic parochial schools was 30,732, while in 1867 it was only 16,342, showing an increase, in less than ten years, of nearly 90 per cent.; while the increase in the attendance of the pupils in the public schools has, during the same time, been only about 13 per cent. The increase in attendance at the corporate schools, during the same period, has been more than 57 per cent.... The question, therefore, very properly suggests itself, why should a system for compelling pupils to attend the schools be sustained at great expense to the city while there is no effective means of controlling and educating those children after they have been brought into the schools?”

These are but a few of the spots uncovered in this interesting report. Never was the want of harmony in the system more manifest. The iniquity of taxing a people for what it cannot use, and turning over the amount collected to the keeping of gentlemen who care more for pet schemes than for the real object for which the tax was levied, becomes more and more apparent. Higher education, technical education, and compulsory education are battling vigorously for larger shares of the funds; and the battle seems likely to end when the funds are made large enough to satisfy all demands. In the meantime the common-school system is slowly dying out. The primary schools are becoming departments for the employment of normal school graduates, and the grammar schools feeders for the colleges.

A QUESTION OF HONOR: A NOVEL. By Christian Reid, author of A Daughter of Bohemia, Valerie Aylmer, Morton House, etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

A well-written novel, thoroughly American in its tone, its incidents, and its characters, and yet availing itself of none of the peculiar “isms” which form the chief stock in trade of our native novelists—shunning alike the “woman question” and the shallow metaphysics of “free thought,” depending for no share of its interest upon suggested immorality or social license, and vivacious in its dialogues without any reliance upon the slang which generally does duty in place of wit—was something for which some sad experience in recent fiction had forbidden us to hope. That Christian Reid is already well known to the novel-reading public is evident from the title-page of A Question of Honor, but that is the only one of her stories which we have read. We find in it everything to praise and nothing to condemn. It is thoroughly well written, to begin with, its descriptions of scenery being particularly artistic and well done. The author attempts nothing ambitious in the way of character-drawing, but her men and women live and have a true individuality. Their souls are not dissected after the manner with which the New England school of fiction has made us too familiar for our comfort, but their manner of life and speech and thought is indicated with a firm, graceful, and un-provincial touch which is extremely pleasant. Altogether, the book belongs to the best class of light literature. There is nothing in it to shock taste or to jar prejudice, and everything in the way of grace of style and purity of thought to recommend it. So much being said by way of praise, we may add that the author, who is evidently a Catholic, has drawn a picture of social life which is, no doubt, true to a reality of a better kind than the ordinary novel of the day aims at, but which is nevertheless un-Christian. Her characters are neither underbred nor vicious; with two exceptions, they are simply a rather pleasing variety of pagans. We do not quarrel with that, considered as a faithful transcript of reality. But we shall find it a cause for real regret if a writer so graceful and possessing so much genuine ability does not some day give us something better than a mere transcript of lives that might have been lived and ideals that might have been attained had the Creator never stooped to the level of his creatures in order to show them the one way in which he would lift them to himself.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. By the graduating class of St. Joseph’s Academy, Flushing, L. I. (Translated from the French of Mme. Foa.) New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

Translation from the French is a literary exercise which cannot be too highly commended to young students. The publication in book-form of such students’ translations can scarcely be too severely condemned. Young ladies and young men “graduate,” as it is called, at an age ranging from seventeen to twenty or twenty-one. They are then popularly supposed to have “finished” their education, whereas not much more has been done than to set them on the right road of learning and appreciating what real education is. Indeed, if so much has been accomplished, both the pupils and their teachers may be congratulated.

To set these young persons straightway at book-making is a grave mistake—how grave may be gathered from the following specimens of translation which half a glance at the volume before us reveals.

The cover informs us that these are “Gems of Biography.” The first gem is entitled “Michael Angelo Buonarotti.” The opening page introduces us to “an old domestic” and “a young man of fifteen or sixteen” “at the door of the Castle of Caprese.” In page 2 the “young man” of fifteen is a “young interlocutor.” In the same page “to intercept the passage” is used in the sense of to block up the passage. In page 3, “to cover his curiosity” is used in the sense of to hide or conceal his curiosity. In page 4 we have this elegant sentence: “I don’t think that either of you does anything wrong in the place you go.” In page 5 the young man of fifteen, who was an Italian of four centuries back, indulges in this peculiar bit of slang: “One is not perfect at it right away.” A little lower on the same page he says of Michael Angelo: “He is even quicker than I in piecing his man.” “Mr. Francis Graciana” and “Mr. Michael Angelo Buonarotti” occur quite frequently. “Canosse” is always made to do duty for Canossa, “Politien” for Politian or Poliziano, etc. Such phrases as “You are not de trop, Signor Graciana,” constantly occur; but we have no patience to examine further.

Expressions such as these—and they characterize the book, with the exception of “The Mulatto of Murillo,” which runs fairly enough—should not have been allowed to pass in a written composition; but to embalm them in a printed volume is simply an act of cruelty. The sketches in themselves are good for nothing and were not worth the trouble of translating, inasmuch as they have been far better given in English over and over again. “Flushing Series” is the threatening legend on the cover. If this volume be a specimen of what is to come, we trust sincerely that we have seen the last of the “Series.” Catholic education is too serious a subject for trifling.

THE WONDERS OF PRAYER: A remarkable record of well authenticated answers to prayer. By Henry T. Williams. New York: Henry T. Williams, Publisher.

It is not often that an author is his own publisher. In the present case this may have been a matter of necessity; but it should not have been so, for the volume is interesting enough. It is a collection of anecdotes, the authenticity of which Mr. Williams personally vouches for, showing that God answers in an immediate and direct manner the requests of those who in faith ask him for temporal blessings. “They demonstrate,” says the author, “to a wonderful degree the immediate practical ways of the Lord with his children in this world; that he is far nearer and more intimate with their plans and pursuits than it is possible for them to realize.” We have no disposition to scoff at the stories related by Mr. Williams, although the style in which they are told often provokes one to mirth. There is but one true faith in the world, but there are many people who hold more or less of this faith without knowing it. “Souffrons toutes les religions, puisque Dieu les souffre,” said Fénelon; and our Holy Father, the Pope, has not unfrequently expressed his affection as well as his pity for good Protestants. No doubt many of the people who are spoken of in this book were very good Protestants. And we are glad to observe in it this passage: “The present is the age of miracles as well as the past. Fully as wonderful things have been and are constantly being done this day by our unseen Lord as in the days of old when he walked in the sight of his disciples.”

THE LITTLE PEARLS; OR, GEMS OF VIRTUE. Translated by Mrs. Kate E. Hughes. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

Will be found very entertaining and instructive reading for our young folks, and we recommend it as suitable for a present at the distribution of school prizes. We think, however, that the name of the writer whose work is translated should have appeared on the title-page.

BESIDE THE WESTERN SEA: A Collection of Poems. By Harriet M. Skidmore (“Marie”). New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

This gifted lady has done well to collect her scattered poems into a volume. They are chiefly of a devotional character, and, though unequal, none of them are without merit, some of a very marked kind. She has the gift of song, and she sings easily and gracefully on almost any subject. The following, though one of the shortest and least ambitious of the collection, strikes us as a very sweet poem, and affords a fair idea of the author’s powers. Its title is “The Mist”:

“I watched the folding of a soft white wing Above the city’s heart; I saw the mist its silent shadows fling O’er thronged and busy mart. Softly it glided through the Golden Gate And up the shining bay, Calmly it lingered on the hills, to wait The dying of the day. Like the white ashes of the sunset fire, It lay within the West, Then onward crept above the lofty spire, In nimbus-wreaths to rest. It spread anon—its fleecy clouds unrolled, And floated gently down; And thus I saw that silent wing enfold The Babel-throated town. A spell was laid on restless life and din, That bade its tumult cease; A veil was flung o’er squalor, woe, and sin, Of purity and peace. And dreaming hearts, so hallowed by the mist, So freed from grosser leaven, In the soft chime of vesper bells could list Sweet, echoed tones of heaven; Could see, enraptured, when the starlight came, With lustre soft and pale, A sacred city crowned with 'ring of flame,’ Beneath her misty veil.”

ROMAN LEGENDS: A Collection of the Fables and Folk-lore of Rome. By R. H. Busk, author of Sagas from the Far East, etc. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1877.

These are very graceful and interesting legends. They furnish glimpses that could not otherwise be well obtained of the peculiar constitution, habits of mind and thought, of the common people in and about Rome. For the most part they are such as have not hitherto found their way into literature, being taken as they fell from the lips of narrators to whom they had been household words, handed down from one generation to another. The task of eliciting them seems to have been no easy one, but its results are pleasant enough to earn honest gratitude for the years of labor which have been spent in gaining them. The tales themselves range under four categories, concerning which the author notes that the Romans are rigidly exact in adhering to, never by any chance giving a fairy-tale if asked for a legend, or a fairy-tale if inquired of concerning ghosts. They comprise legends; ghost-stories and local and family traditions; fairy tales and ciarpe, or gossip. The book is particularly rich in stories of St. Philip Neri.

PHILIP NOLAN’S FRIENDS: A story of the change of Western Empire. By Edward E. Hale. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

This volume traces the course of a journey into the heart of the great South-west at the beginning of the present century. This tract was still the border-land of the Aztec kings. Throughout its vast extent Spanish heroes had wasted their lives in ignis-fatuus searches. Rich discoveries of gold did not reward their diligence, and they resigned so inhospitable a region to a new order of pioneers. Even to this day the names of places bear token that the zeal of the Spanish missionaries was in no way inferior to that of the sons of Loyola along the St. Lawrence. Such was their indomitable perseverance that twenty-seven missions had been established in this region previous to 1626, and a century later the missionary spirit carried the Gospel among the Apaches, Moquis, and Navajoes.

The heroine’s escort through this terra incognita to Americans is ample, the weather delightful, and we do not care to question the adequacy of the motive for the expedition. Nor does it matter that we are led to believe that Philip Nolan possesses a sterling character, though what he says or does, or what apparent influence he has over the course of events, would hardly justify this conclusion.

The novel is readable, but not by any means artistic. The author lacks the power to create a character that can think and act like a human being. He wishes us to believe his heroine possesses beauty, sensibility, and vivacity; but he lacks the subtle power to invent actions and conversations which impress individuality, and we gather our notions of the lady more from his suggestions than from the movement of the story. This seems to be the author’s weakness: his figures act and he suggests the motives and impulses.

His male characters miss no opportunity to abuse the missionaries. They regard the “black-gowns” as the cause of Indian rascality and Spanish treachery. Ill-luck is always traced to them, and the torrents of abuse poured on the servants of God lend the only touches of nature that may be found in the author’s passive figures. Of course these outbursts of hatred reveal the true character of the adventurers. They are border ruffians.

The book is partly historical. It treats of a transition period. The allegiance of the inhabitants had suffered a violent dissolution. A border element existed, mainly recruited from the United States. This element was of service in manufacturing public opinion, and, in this way, might have hastened the transfer of the Louisiana tract to its natural owner, the United States. We are inclined to the opinion that Southern interests would have brought about the transfer without the assistance of European complications or scenes of border treachery.

REPLY TO THE HON. R. W. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, ADDRESSED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., of the Society of Jesus. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

In this pamphlet of eighty-six pages Father Weninger has undertaken the almost unnecessary task of replying to Mr. Thompson’s book, The Papacy and the Civil Power. If there is anything in that book to refute, it refutes itself. Mr. Thompson, however, over and above the rashness of attempting such a book at all, was rash enough to quote Father Weninger. The natural result is the present pamphlet. The pamphlet is addressed to “the American people.” If the American people take it up, they will be rewarded by some lively reading. The reverend author says at the conclusion: “We have handled our adversary throughout the whole discourse without gloves.” No reader of the pamphlet will be inclined to dispute that statement.

THE PEARL AMONG THE VIRTUES; OR, WORDS OF ADVICE TO CHRISTIAN YOUTH. By P. A. De Doss, S.J. Translated from the original German by a Catholic priest. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1877.

This work, written by one of the Jesuit Fathers banished from Germany, is an excellent treatise on the angelic virtue, which he considers from almost every point of view in a solid, instructive, and highly interesting manner. No more useful book could be placed in the hands of the youth of either sex.

GOD THE TEACHER OF MANKIND: A PLAIN, COMPREHENSIVE EXPLANATION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis: Benziger Brothers. 1877.

We have received advance sheets of this new and most interesting work by the indefatigable Redemptorist father to whom Catholics in this country are so much indebted for works that are really useful as well as popular. The book is too important in itself and on too important a subject to be dismissed with a hasty notice. We shall return to it later.

EDMONDO: A Sketch of Roman Manners and Customs. By Rev. Fr. Antonio Bresciani, S.J., author of The Jew of Verona, etc., etc. Translated from the Italian. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1877.

This is a powerfully-written story that cannot but excite the liveliest interest on account of its faithful and beautiful description of Roman scenery and vivid delineation of Roman life and customs.

The translation is well rendered, but we do not approve of the omission of two chapters from the writings of such an author as the learned Bresciani. Such men do not write anything that can be cast aside without loss to their readers and admirers.

DORA. By Julia Kavanagh.

BESSIE:

SILVIA. By the same author. D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

We have not read any one of these three stories, and can only acknowledge their receipt. From others that we have read by the same author we think it safe to recommend these to persons who are fond of novels. Julia Kavanagh is, to our thinking, one of the purest, most graceful, and most interesting story-writers of the day.

THE CATHOLIC KEEPSAKE. A gift-book for all seasons. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1877.

The best encomium we can bestow on this collection is to say that it is worthy of its name. The numerous sketches and stories are short, entertaining, and very agreeably written, even though a little ancient.

BESSY; OR, THE FATAL CONSEQUENCE OF TELLING LIES. By the author of The Rat-Pond; or, The Effects of Disobedience. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1877.

A plain, simple story for children, and, as the title designates, with a moral attached.

THE STORY OF FELICE. By Esmeralda Boyle. London: Trübner & Co. 1873.

SONGS OF THE LAND AND SEA. By Esmeralda Boyle. New York: E. J. Hale & Son. 1875.

In these poems Miss Boyle displays much true poetic feeling and a gift of melodious utterance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXV., No. 150.—SEPTEMBER, 1877.

AMONG THE TRANSLATORS. VIRGIL AND HORACE.

The number of versified translations of Greek and Latin poets which the English presses continually put forth must be a never-ending surprise to the practical American mind—if, that is to say, the practical mind ever thinks of so manifestly useless and absurd a thing at all. Authors are supposed to write and publishers to print for the purpose of making money; that either should work to any other end is a proposition which to the practical mind is simply bewildering. Yet one would think there can be but little money in laboriously turning into English a quantity of school-books which no one reads except at school, and whose only value is in their being in a foreign tongue. Original poetry is bad enough; the verdict of the practical mind on that point is pretty apt to be one with the view taken by Heine’s rich uncle, to whom the poet, at the height of his fame, was but a Dummkopf (may not the uncle, alas! have been right?); but poetry at second hand, the “old clo’” of the Muses, Apollo’s second table, the cold victual of Parnassus, a disaerated Helicon—the practical mind can only gasp at the notion (which, by the way, strikes it in quite another shape than the poetical one we have chosen to give it, but just as effectively) and seek to renew its faith in human nature over the credit column of its ledger.

Another class of minds, too, not quite so practical—a class that has been at college, we will say, that knows Virgil and Horace by name, or even by certain quotations (arma virumque, pallida mors pulsat, atra cura, etc.), and can read Greek letters at sight, but on the whole thinks Huxley a greater force in the world to-day than Homer—the cultured class, in short, about which some of our newspapers make so much to-do—can understand why the great classic poets should be turned into English verse (for the benefit of those who have not been at college), but not at all why such versions should be multiplied. If you want Virgil in an English dress, there’s your Dryden; or Homer, there’s Pope—say our person of culture is from an extreme northern latitude, geographically or mentally, he will perhaps put Chapman here, and pooh-pooh Pope with a reference to Bentley. Do you desire Horace in the vulgar, there’s good old Francis—pray, what better do you ask? What better, indeed, can you expect to get? Just look at your Cyclopædia Septentrionalis and see what it tells you! So what is the use or the meaning, what is the reason of being, of your Theodore Martins and your Coningtons, your Morrises and Cranches? What is there to be had of them all but vanity and vexation of spirit, and time and money mislaid?

Somewhat in that way, we take it, a good many folks, even of the book-buying, nay, of the book-reading, sort, must feel over every fresh announcement of a translation of one or other of the favorite classic poets. And as the supply of such things is in the long run, by a beneficent law of nature, tempered to the demand, and the mind of the book-buying many reacts upon, and often rules, the ardor of the book-making few—“book” in Lamb’s sense, be it understood—it is not surprising that the list of American translators should be of the scantiest. Mr. Cranch’s bold venture of last year—a blank-verse rendering of the Æneid—had few precursors or precedents. There is Mumford’s blank-verse Homer, which Professor Felton praised, and Professor Arnold, strange to say, seems not to have seen; and Mr. Bryant’s blank-verse Homer, which everybody praised and a smaller number read. Then, some years since, a Philadelphian gentleman put forth still another version of the Iliad in what he said was English verse, although the precise metre of such lines as

“For Agamemnon insulted Chryses”; “But Agamemnon was much displeased”; “Wounded is Diomed, Tydeus’ son, Ulysses, also, and Agamemnon.”

unless it be hexameter—everything you cannot scan in English verse is hexameter, just as everything you cannot parse in Greek is second aorist—we have been unable to determine. We have heard, also, of a version of Horace by a professor in some Southern university, but this we have not seen. Are there any others? Mr. E. C. Stedman ten years ago printed specimens of a projected translation of Theocritus, in English hexameters, of considerable merit; but his reception does not seem to have encouraged him to go on. And that is all, a little Spartan band of four or five to oppose to the great host of British translators from Phaer to Morris. The practical mind may feel reassured of its country.

It is true that these English versions are often reprinted here; but it is only the chiefs of the army—those who shine pre-eminent among their fellows,

“sicut inter ignes Luna minores,”

or who are already known to fame for triumphs in other fields. Prof. Conington made something of a critical furor by the bold breaking away from rule and precedent in his choice of a metre, though Dr. Maginn, in his Homeric ballads, had given him the hint. In like manner our booksellers have reprinted and our book-buyers bought Mr. Morris’ Æneid (we beg his pardon—Æneids), not because it was a new translation of Virgil, but because it was a new work of the latest popular poet; just as they printed and bought Mr. Bryant’s Homer because it was the latest work of our oldest living poet, as they printed and bought Lord Derby’s Iliad because it was the work of a nobleman, and not only that, but of a leading European statesman, and therefore, in both aspects, a very surprising and desirable thing for our people, who have never been used to connect that sort of accomplishment with the idea they had formed of a nobleman, still less with their notion of a statesman. But we did not reprint or buy Mr. Worsley’s, or Prof. Newman’s, or Prof. Blackie’s, or Mr. Wright’s Homer; and even if we printed, it is to be feared we did not extensively buy, Mr. Cranch’s Æneid, although in the way of buying English Æneids we might have done worse. Why? Not, certainly, because any of the versions named lacked merit, but because they appealed to us on their merits simply, without any outside helps to popularity, and we would none of them. The fact is, we do not care in the least for Homer or Virgil, and we care a great deal for Morris and Bryant—that is to say, while they are topics of talk; and it is one of the social duties, which persons of culture would die almost sooner than fail in, to have something, or even nothing, to say about the ordained subjects of fashionable gossip.

But in England it is otherwise. There is in that country a large class always to be counted on to buy any translation of a favorite classic which has successfully run the gauntlet of the reviews. This class is made up of diverse elements. First, the translators themselves, who in England form no inconsiderable percentage of the literary public; for every other graduate of either university who has not been a stroke-oar—that is honor enough to win or give—seems to feel within him a sacred void unfilled, a mysterious yearning unsatisfied, a clamorous duty unperformed, until he has translated some classic author in whole or in part. Every translator, of course, buys the publications of every other translator to chuckle over his failures or—let us do them justice—to applaud heartily and generously the happy dexterity which conquers a difficult passage. Then, too, even scholars who have Homer and Horace at their fingers’ ends, who think in Latin and dream in Greek, who dare to take liberties with the digamma and speak disrespectfully of the second aorist—even they to whom the best translation of a classic is as corked claret? or skim-milk—may still buy Prof. Conington’s Æneid or Lord Lytton’s Horace for a better reason than the pleasure of finding fault with it. They know, none better, that, as the former puts it, a translation by a competent hand is itself an “embodied criticism” and commentary; and even scholars, after twenty centuries or so of criticism and commentary, and even of mutual vituperation, have not yet quite made up their minds as to the meaning, or at least the shades of meaning, straight through of any poet of antiquity. This is not to say that we have not here, too, scholars who might buy a translation for the same reason; but in neither country, perhaps, are there so many as to be much of a stand-by in themselves.

But the mainstay of the English translator is that sort of fashionable sentiment in favor of classical learning necessarily fostered in a country where the university is a working element and influence in political, social, and literary life. This sentiment is not so powerful or wide-spread as it once was; as it was, let us say, when a couplet made Mr. Addison a secretary of state, or a burlesque made Mr. Montague a minister and Mr. Prior an ambassador—an improvement still on the age when Sir Christopher Hatton danced himself into the chancellorship. But it is still powerful; and the university is still such a force in English life as it never has been, as it probably never will be, here. The Oxford and Cambridge debating clubs used to be regularly looked to, and are still, perhaps, now and again beaten up, by experienced huntsmen for embryo statesmen, much as the metropolitan manager will scour the provincial stage for an undiscovered star. University men edit the leading organs of public opinion; university men fill the desks in Downing Street and the Parliamentary benches in Westminster Hall; university men yawn day after day in the club-windows of Pall Mall, and night after night in the dancing and supper rooms of Belgravia—no, not the supper-rooms; that is, perhaps, the one spot of the fashionable world where young England forgets to yawn. Like enough, the learning of many of these sages is no deeper than the lore of our own pundits from Yale and Harvard; and not a few of them, no doubt, would be far more at home criticising the boat-race in the Fifth Æneid (the contestants in which they would probably characterize, in their delightful idiom, as “duffers”) than construing the Latin it is told in. Such is the proud result of modern university education in a free and enlightened Anglo-Saxon community. Nevertheless, though the university may not actually give learning, it creates a sentiment in favor of learning; it develops almost unconsciously a taste for it. One may say that it is next to impossible for any man to go through college without taking in some sense of classical culture—through the pores, as it were—which shall ever after give him a feeling of companionship, a kind of Freemasonry, with authors he could never read. To have lived among books, in an atmosphere of books, is itself in some sort an education.

Now, with this feeling for learning diffused throughout a great nation, showing itself in its chief organs of public opinion, in its selection of public officers, and even to some extent in its popular elections, and centring above all in a great city, the headquarters of all the social, political, and literary activity of the nation—its book-making, book-branding, book-buying centre—we come to see why translations from the classics should have more vogue across the water than with us. If a cabinet minister choose to beguile his leisure by turning Aristophanes into English, it is but fit that society, before having him in to dinner, should know something about it, if only to avoid such a slip as is told of Catalani. The prima donna was seated, as a great compliment, next to Goethe at a state dinner, but not knowing the divine Wolfgang—or, indeed, much of anything but some operatic scores—gave her mind to the potage rather than to the poet. A friend nudged her: “Why do you not talk to M. Goethe?” “I don’t know him, and he’s stupid.” “What! not know M. Goethe, the celebrated author of the Sorrows of Werther?” “The Sorrows of Werther! Ah! M. Goethe,” cried the diva with empressement, turning to the great man, “how can I ever thank you enough for your charming Sorrows of Werther! I never laughed so much at anything in my life.” She had seen a parody of that immortal work in a farce at Paris. Here, when our cabinet minister lets loose his intellectual surplus on exposures of Popery, society runs no great risk. Everybody can talk a little Popery—an easier subject, on the whole, to talk or write about than Aristophanes; and one knows pretty well what our cabinet minister’s book is about without the fatigue of failing to read it.

Of the feeling we have mentioned the taste for quotation in Parliamentary debate is a good test. An apt illustration from Horace or Virgil had at one time almost the force of an argument. “Pitt,” says the late Lord Lytton, in the excellent preface to his unrhymed version of Horace’s Odes, “is said never to have more carried away the applause of the House of Commons than when, likening England—then engaged in a war tasking all her resources—to that image of Rome which Horace has placed in the mouth of Hannibal, he exclaimed:

“'Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido, Per damna, per cœdes, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro.’”[121]

Footnote 121:

“Even as the ilex, lopped by axes rude Where, rich with dusky boughs, soars Algidus, Through loss, through wounds receives New gain, new life—yea, from the very steel.”

—Horat. Carm. iv. 4, Lord Lytton’s Trans.

Pitt, indeed, is famous for such felicities. In his speech on resigning the chancellorship in 1782, after claiming “to have used his best endeavors to fulfil with integrity every official engagement,” he continued: “And with this consolation, the loss of power, sir, and the loss of fortune, though I affect not to despise, I trust I shall soon be able to forget.”

“Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quæ dedit ... ... probamque Pauperiem sine dote quæro.”[122]

Footnote 122:

“Constant I praise her, but resign With equal mind her gifts. When, swift deserting me and mine, Her ready wing she lifts, And, wrapped up in my virtue, wait Fair Poverty’s undower’d estate.”

—Horat. Carm. iii. 29.

The original of the line italicized Pitt modestly omitted.

Sir Robert Walpole had worse luck in attempting a like feat on his retirement, made not so gracefully in the shadow of a threatened impeachment.

“Nil conscire sibi, nulli pallescere culpæ,”[123]

Footnote 123:

“Conscious of no wrong done, no crime to pale at remembered.”

—Horat. Ep. 1. i.

he quoted, and was at once taken up by his rival, Pulteney, who offered to bet him a guinea that the line read Nulla pallescere culpa. Walpole lost, and, tossing the coin to Pulteney, the latter, before pocketing it, held it up to the House with the grim remark: “It is the first money I have received from the treasury for many years, and it shall be the last.”

It may well be that there is less of this sort of thing nowadays, when Parliamentary illustrations, among the younger members at least, seem to be drawn more extensively from natural history than from ancient poetry. Yet it is but a few years since Mr. Gladstone, on going out of office, created a sensation in his turn by his application of Virgil’s fine line,

“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.”[124]

Footnote 124:

“Rise from our ashes thou unknown, the predestined avenger.”

We cannot very well imagine a leading Congressman summoning Horace to enforce his argument, say, on the vital necessity to the nation of repealing the Seventh Commandment until such time as his constituents at Podunk can get enough of their neighbors’ currency to make resumption and patriotism convertible terms. Not only would he be doubtful of being understood, but he would be awed by that practical-minded public opinion at home which severely discourages in its chosen representatives such frivolities as unknown tongues. He would see behind the Speaker’s desk the grim phantom of the honest Granger transfixing him with a spectral finger, and asking him in hollow tones if he was sent to Congress to talk gibberish or to get that little appropriation; he would see the still more appalling phantom of the local editor grimly sharpening his quill and squaring himself for another of those savagely sarcastic articles about our erudite Congressman, who spends his time—the time we pay for, etc.—muddling his brains—the few brains, etc.—over obsolete rubbish in the Congressional Library, while he neglects his constituents’ interests and allows that little bill, etc., etc. He sees all this, and, instead of Horace, he quotes Josh Billings, and everybody is satisfied.

Now, this is not meant to the dispraise of either the Congressman or his constituents, but only to show that here political is divided from literary life in a way quite unknown in England. The scholar in politics is a fond illusion of youthful enthusiasm. Our politicians do not write; our literary folks do not go to Congress. A stray editor, to be sure, now and then gets in, tumbling over, as it were, from the Reporters’ Gallery, or a flourish is made of sending Mr. Motley or Prof. Lowell minister to some foreign court; but these are spasmodic exceptions, and usually result in a way to confirm the rule. We have no counterparts to Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mr. Lowe, or Sir George Cornewall Lewis, or the Duke of Argyle. Perhaps, however, a new era is dawning with the present Secretary of the Navy, who spells his literature with a “P.”

We have said enough—the reader may think more than enough—to show why translations from the classics should flourish better in England than here, and also, by implication at least, why of all classic authors, with the one exception of Homer, Horace and Virgil should most have taken the translators’ attention. From one or other of these are all the Parliamentary quotations we have given; and it is indeed, we believe, considered what our English friends call “bad form” to quote in debate any other Latin or Greek. The cause of this popularity it is easy to see. Horace and Virgil, in the usual college curriculum, are put into the student’s hands just as he has got over his initial struggles with the language, and his mind is a little freed to feel some of the beauties as well as the difficulties of the author—to know that the rose has fragrance as well as thorns. Homer, on the contrary, from his comparative ease, comes much earlier in the Greek course, and becomes so much the more distasteful to the learner as Greek is harder than Latin; its very letters are aliens to his eyes, its alphabet is a place of briers and brambles. It is hard to get over these early dislikes. St. Augustine confesses a hatred for Homer thus implanted in his school-days which he could never overcome, while he declares Virgil to be the greatest and most glorious of poets—a censure echoed by Voltaire, who pronounced the Æneid, le plus beau monument qui nous reste de toute l’antiquité, and asserts that if Homer produced Virgil, it was his finest work.

Both in Virgil and Horace there is much to captivate a youthful mind and everything to keep the affections won. The story of the Æneid is not only full of life and color and motion, with plenty of fighting, which all boys love of course, but, despite its later-discovered want of a reasonable hero or heroine, its episodes—the Trojan horse and the sharp street-fight in fallen Ilium, the mysterious journey through the shades under a spectral moon, the races in the Fifth Book, the midnight scout of Nisus and Euryalus, the plucky young Iulus fleshing his maiden shafts at the siege in Book Ninth, the gallant onset and tragic fate of the young champions Lausus and Pallas—all are apt to take the boyish imagination; and in older years the haunting melody of the verse, the pensive grace that suffuses the telling of the story, renew and rivet the early charm.

Horace, too, is full of matter that even boyhood can taste and manhood never tires of. The lovely bits of rural landscape scattered like so many cabinet pictures through the odes—the sweltering cattle standing knee-deep under the oak-boughs in the pool of Bandusia, the bickering, pine-arched rivulet by whose side Dellius takes his nooning; the sunny slopes of Lucretilis dotted with sheep; the romantic beauty of the Happy Isles—do we not all recall the delight we felt when these enchanting little sketches first smiled on us from the weary drudgery of Tacitus and Thucydides like vistas of fresh meadow and woodland and cascade caught by the wayfarer from the hot and dusty highway? We did not so well relish then, in that out-door time of life, the warm little interiors that contrast and set off these: the glowing fire-side piled high with logs, made merry with old Falernian, and laugh and joke and friendly talk, while the rain beats upon the roof and the snow whirls about Soracte, and, drawing closer to the cheery blaze, we hug ourselves in the “tumultuous privacy of storm”; the jolly dinner-parties, where we help to quiz Quinctius for his gravity or chaff that harebrain Telephus out of his affectation of wisdom; the more sober feasts with Mæcenas or Virgil at the little Sabine Farm—but these, too, we soon get to know, and linger over them with fond familiarity. Then, too, we win to the secret of that genial though pagan philosophy which comes home to the “business and bosoms” of all of us, and whose precepts are so pithily expressed we cannot forget them if we would: that there is a time when folly is the truest wisdom; that he alone is happy who is content with little; that a wise man takes care of the present and lets the future take care of itself, because, as Cowley puts it,

“When to future years thou extend’st thy cares, Thou dealest in other men’s affairs”;

that we must pluck the blossom of to-day, or we may never have a chance at the morrow’s.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying,”

says Herrick, a later Horace. As we grow older and graver his sympathetic companionship keeps pace with us still, and in his deeper tones there are hints which even Christian civilization need not disdain to add to its scheme of a lofty and noble life.

So it is that England for three centuries back—indeed, ever since she began to have a literature to house them in—has been trying to naturalize and domesticate these Roman poets. In this, however, Virgil had nearly a century the start of Horace, owing, no doubt, to the nature of his great work, which appealed to the romantic impulses of that early time. Indeed, long before either the Æneid or the Iliad was generally known in Europe, the stories of both had been made over into the form of romances: the former by Guillaume de Roy in French, the latter by Guido de Colonna in Spanish. De Roy’s Livre d’Eneidos, translated into English and printed by Caxton, “no more resembles Virgil,” cries the good Bishop of Dunkeld wrathfully, “than the devil does St. Austin.” It was probably to clear the fair fame of his beloved poet that the bishop brought out his own quaint and spirited Scotch version in 1513. The first complete English translation came out in 1558; but in the previous year appeared the Second and Fourth Books, done into blank verse by the Earl of Surrey, notable as the first-known blank verse in the language, unless we are to take as such the unrhymed, alliterative metre used by Longland in The Vision of Piers Ploughman. It is thought to have been Surrey’s design, had he lived, to translate the remaining books. Had he done so, he would have added an ornament to our literature.

As it is, the distinction of giving the first full translation of the Æneid to the language rests with a Welshman—Dr. Thomas Phaer. He himself, however, did only the first nine books and part of the Tenth; when dying, the work was taken in hand and finished, with the Thirteenth or supplementary book of Maffeo Veggio, by another physician, Dr. Thomas Twynne. English doctors then and afterwards seem to have had a propension towards the Muse. Dr. Borde, Dr. Thomas Campion (“Sweet Master Campion”), and Dr. Thomas Lodge—they seem to have had a propensity to be named Thomas also—were only the first of a long line of tuneful leeches, ending with our own Drs. Holmes and Joyce. Is there any occult connection between physic and Parnassus, between rhyme and rhubarb, between poetry and pills? and is Castaly a medicinal spring? Phaer’s version, which is printed in black-letter, is in rhymed fourteen-syllable verse, or “long Alexandrines”—a metre which Chapman afterwards took for his Homer, and to which Mr. Morris, the latest translator of the Æneid, has reverted.

The long Alexandrine has perhaps as much right as any to be called the English national metre in the sense in which we call the Saturnian verse the national metre of the Latins. Chaucer took his heroic couplet from the Italian or French, and Surrey, no doubt, had from the same source, or perhaps the Spanish, the hint for his blank verse. A curious parallel might be drawn between Surrey and Ennius, who, like him, introduced a new or “strange metre—the Greek hexameter—and, like him, by doing so revolutionized the versification of his country. Another point in common is that each has been reproached for his action. Ascham impliedly finds fault with Surrey because he did not choose hexameters or unrhymed Alexandrines instead of his unrhymed verse of ten or eleven syllables; and certain of those dreadful German scholars, who know everything and a few things besides, assure us that Ennius dealt a fatal blow to Latin poetry when he foisted on it a metre unsuited to its genius. One can hardly help speculating on the result had Virgil had to content himself with the horridus numerus Saturnius as the vehicle of his tenderness and elegance, or if Hamlet had had to soliloquize in the metre of Sternhold and Hopkins. Would the rude instrument have cramped the player, or would the genius of the player have elevated the instrument? As Macaulay points out, the old nursery line,

“The queen is in her parlor eating bread and honey,”

is a perfect Saturnian verse on Terence’s model:

“Dăbūnt mălūm Mĕtēllī Nævĭō pŏētæ.”

How would Mr. Gladstone’s menace,

“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,”

have sounded in that shape? Should we recognize, do you think, those

“Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty,”

done up in long Alexandrines or in such hexameters as those of Master Abraham Fraunce, which moved Ben Jonson to dub him a fool:

“Now had fiery Phlegon his dayes revolution ended, And his snoring snout with salt waves all to be-washed,”

or even in Sidney’s or Spenser’s, which were, in truth, little better? No doubt Virgil and Shakspere, being great poets, would have subdued what they worked in to their own artistic uses. Yet all the same let us be thankful to the humbler artisans who furnished to their hands pipes fit for them to play on, and to make such music as the world shall never tire of hearing. It should be added that the likeness between the English and the Latin reformer does not extend to the degree of refinement attained by each. In this respect Surrey is much the more advanced. Ennius never got over the barbarism of excessive alliteration which seems to mark the early metrical efforts of all peoples.

“Sicut si quando vincleis venatica velox”; “Sicut fortis equus spatio qui forte supremo”; “Quai neque Dardaneis campeis potuere perire Nec cum capta capei, nec cum combusta cremari.”

The last passage Virgil copied, as he did many others, and it is instructive to see how his more polished taste tones down his predecessor’s jingle:

¸ “Num Sigæis occumbere campis, Num capti potuere capi? num incensa cremavit Troja viros?”[125]

Footnote 125:

“Was there no dead man’s place for you on that Sigeian plain? Had ye no might to wend as slaves? Gave Troy so poor a flame To burn her men...?”

—Æneid, vii. 294 seq., Morris’ Trans. p. 175.

Surrey’s blank verse has the quaintness of his age, but not its defects of taste. Martial, writing about two centuries after Ennius, sneers at him, much as Ennius had sneered at his predecessor, Nævius—he who lamented that Latin poetry was to die with him!

“Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi Roma Marone.”[126]

Footnote 126:

“And Rome reads Ennius while Virgil lives!”

Pope, writing nearly the same length of time after Surrey, has only praise for him: “Surrey, the Grenville of a former age“—at least, Pope meant it for praise.”

To return to Phaer. It may be of interest to the reader to contrast the manner of the earliest and latest English translators of the Æneid. Venus’ admonition to Æneas (ii. 607) is thus given by the Welsh doctor:

“Then to thy parent’s hest take heede, dread not, my mind obey: In yonder place where stones from stones and bildings huge to sway Thou seest, and mixt with dust and smoke thicke stremes of reekings rise, Himselfe the god Neptune that side doth furne in wonders wise: With forke three tinde the wall vproots, foundations allto shakes; And qvite from vnder soile the towne, with ground-works all uprakes. On yonder side with Furies most, dame Juno fiercely stands, The gates she keeps, and from the ships the Greekes, her friendly bands, In armour girt she calles. Lo! there againe where Pallas sits, on fortes and castle-towres, With Gorgon’s eyes, in lightning cloudes enclosed, grim she lowres, The father-god himself to Greekes their mightes and courage steres, Himselfe against the Troyan blood both gods and armour reres. Betake thee to thy flight, my sonne, thy labours’ ende procure, I will thee never faile, but thee to resting-place assure. She said, and through the darke night shade herselfe she drew from sight; Appeare the grisly faces then, Troyes en’mies vgly dight.”

Mr. Morris gives it thus:

“And look to it no more afeard to be Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother’s word disown. There where thou seest the great walls cleft and stone turn off from stone, And seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled, There Neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their hold With mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base. There by the Scæan gates again hath bitter Juno place The first of all, and wild and mad, herself begirt with steel, Calls up her fellows from the ships. Look back! Tritonian Pallas broods o’er topmost burg on high, All flashing bright with Gorgon grim from out her stormy sky; The very Father hearteneth on, and stays with happy might The Danaans, crying on the gods against the Dardan fight. Snatch flight, O son, whiles yet thou mayst, and let thy toil be o’er; I by thy side will bring thee safe unto thy father’s door.

“She spake, and hid herself away where thickest darkness poured. Then dreadful images show forth, great godheads are abroad, The very haters of our Troy.”

The half-lines respond to the imperfect verses in Virgil, which, in the fashion of the Chinese tailor, both Mr. Morris and his forerunner conscientiously copy. Phaer has other oddities, such as “Sybly” for Sibylla, “lymbo” for Hades, “Dei Phobus” for Deiphobus, and “Duke Æneas”; while every book is wound up with a Deo Gratias by way of colophon. Let us hope it was not too fervently echoed by his readers. Indeed, Phaer’s version is better than its fame.

“After the associated labors of Phaer and Twynne,” says Warton in his History of English Poetry, “it is hard to say what could induce Richard Stanihurst, a native of Dublin, to translate the first four books of the Æneid into English hexameters.” The remark shows less than the wonted perspicuity of the historian of English poetry. What induces any translation, except the belief (the fond belief!) that the work it aims to do has not yet been done? Master Stanihurst, like many other learned men then and since, was firmly persuaded that the hexameter was your only measure for a translation of Virgil. But there are hexameters and hexameters, and Master Stanihurst’s were unluckily of the other sort. A poet who proclaims his intention to “chaunt manhood and Garboiles,” and gives us

“With tentive list’ning each wight was settled in hark’ning”

for

“Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant,”

or

“You bid me, ô princesse, to scarifie a festered old sore”

as an equivalent for

“Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem,”

must be content with “audience fit though few.” Sir Philip Sidney and Gabriel Harvey and a few other choice spirits, all bitten with the same flea, patted poor Stanihurst on the back and told him that what Nash called “his [and their] foul, lumbring, boisterous, wallowing measures” had “enriched and polished their native tongue.” But the rest of the world laughed with Nash, and may still for that matter; for Stanihurst’s version is full of conceits even droller than Phaer’s. “Bedlamite” for furiatâ mente, “Dandiprat hop-thumb” for parvulus, Jupiter “bussing his pretty, prating parrot”—i.e., Venus—and Priam girding on his sword Morglay, are some of them. The last shows how the glamour of the Gothic romances, in which Virgil figured sometimes as a magician—the Sortes Virgilianæ long outlived their origin—still hung about even the learned, of whom Stanihurst was indisputably one— “eruditissimus ille nobilis” Camden calls him. It may be interesting to add that he was a Catholic, a friend of Campion the martyr, and died in exile because of it.

Stanihurst seems to have played the part of horrible example to all after-translators; for although Surrey’s metre has been repeatedly used, and Phaer’s of late by Mr. Morris, and we might add by Prof. Conington (for his octosyllabic verse is but a variation of the Alexandrine, which skipped capriciously from twelve syllables to sixteen[127]), the hexameter has never again, so far as we know, been applied to rendering the Æneid. Yet the measure which in English goes by that name seems far better adapted, pace Mr. Arnold, to the pensive grace of Virgil than to the grave majesty of Homer. It may be true, as scholars contend, that it by no means reproduces the effect of the Greek or Roman hexameter, and it may be equally true, as other scholars tell us, that we have no conception of what was the effect of the Greek or Roman hexameter on the Greek or Roman ear—though the second objection might, in malicious hands, prove an embarrassment for the first. Yet as we read Homer and Virgil there is no doubt that hexameters can be—indeed, that such have been—constructed which do go far to reproduce the effect of Homer and Virgil, according to the modern reading, upon the modern ear. Grant that this is an entirely wrong effect; that either Homer or Virgil, hearing his verses read in modern fashion, would be sure to clap hands to ear, and cry out in an agony with Martial:

Footnote 127:

See Warton, Hist. E. P. sec. 1.

“Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus; Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus”;[128]

Footnote 128:

“My piece you’ve been spouting! I ne’er should have known: Next time, if you love me, do say it’s your own.”

—Mart. Epigr. i. 39.

it is yet the only effect we are ever likely to get until the day of judgment; and what are you going to do about it? Of course it is hopeless to try to imitate Homer’s sonorous harmonies—the καλὰ τὰ Ὁμήρον ἔπη, as Maximus Tyrius calls them, the lovely Homeric words—the πολυφλοίς βοιο θαλάσσης and ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο. It is not in ours or any other tongue but Homer’s own to do it. But Mr. Arnold has shown that we can imitate afar off his rhythm and metrical effect, and why should we not do that? If anybody can give us hexameters that please the English ear and make it fancy, without being conscious of too much elongation, that it is listening to the faintest echo of Homer’s mighty lyre or Virgil’s silver string, why, let us have them, prithee, and a fico for the grammarians.

In this desultory review of Virgilian translators we mean to confine ourselves to the Æneid; but we may say in passing that the Eclogues were, about 1587, put into unrhymed Alexandrines by Abraham Fleming, who thus nearly anticipated the metre Prof. Newman, after much experimenting, hit on as the proper one to render Homer, and which, as Prof. Marsh says, has the disadvantage (or the merit?) to American ears of suggesting our own epic strain of Yankee Doodle. Fleming, however, as will be seen from the following quotation, taken from the beginning of his Fourth Eclogue, only dropped into our national music occasionally:

“O Muses of Sicilian ile, let’s greater matters singe! Shrubs, groves, and bushes lowe delight and please not every man. If we do singe of woods, the woods be worthy of a consul.”

While Virgil was thus engrossing the attention of Elizabethan scholars Horace lay comparatively neglected, although it was an era of translation, as transitional periods in the literature of a country are apt to be. Nearly all the Latin poets then extant were done into English before the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the Greek series began sonorously with Chapman’s Homer soon after. Even that most perfect of all actual or possible poets, as her courtiers called her—Queen Elizabeth—tried her hand at it in a translation of part of the Hercules Œteus of Seneca. But no complete version of Horace seems to have appeared prior to Creech’s towards the end of the seventeenth century. In 1567, however, Thomas Drant published Horace, his Arte of Poetrie, Pistles, and Satyres Englished. In his preface is one quaint remark, to the truth of which all Horatians will bear witness: “Neyther any man which can judge can judge it one and the like laboure to translate Horace and to make and translate a love booke, a shril tragedie, or a smooth and platleuyled poesye. Thys I can truly say, of myne owne experyence, that I can sooner translate twelve verses out of the Greeke Homer than sixe out of Horace.”

The first version of the Odes was that of Sir Thomas Hawkins, about 1630. This, though it seems to have been popular enough to go through several editions, was far from complete, the lighter odes being omitted as being “too wanton and loose.” Our own edition, which is the fourth, dated 1638, contains about two-thirds of the odes and epodes. Here and there we find a tolerably good verse:

“What man, what hero [Clio] wilt thou raise With shrillest pipe or Lyra’s softer lays? What god whose name in sportive straine Echo will chaunt thee back againe?”[129]

Footnote 129:

Carm. i. 12.

This will compare not too disadvantageously with the latest version—Lord Lytton’s—which, indeed, is not especially good:

“What man, what hero, or what god select’st thou, Theme for sweet lyre or fife sonorous, Clio, Whose honored name shall that gay sprite-voice, Echo, Hymn back rebounding?”

As a rule, however, Sir Thomas is stiff—a fault common to almost all translations of the easiest of lyrists up to a much later period. Yet in this century there were many versions of single odes, epistles, and satires, some of which have scarcely ever been surpassed. Such, for instance, were Ben Jonson’s rendering of Ode IV. 1, Ad Venerem, and Milton’s of I. 5, Ad Pyrrhum, severally included by Mr. Theodore Martin and Lord Lytton in their respective versions as beyond their skill to better; Dryden’s fine paraphrase of III. 29, To Mæcenas, which Mr. Martin, non sordidus auctor, pronounces finer than the original; and, on a lower plane, however, Roscommon’s version of the Art of Poetry. Of these, Milton’s has been said to touch the high-water mark of translation, and is indeed very elegant and close.

Ben Jonson’s set translations are often injured by a rigid strictness which Horace might have warned him against:

“Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus Interpres,”[130]

Footnote 130:

“Nor word for word translate with painful care.” —Horat. De Arte Poet., Francis’ Trans.

and which evoked Dryden’s protest against “the jaw-breaking translations of Ben Jonson.” Yet even in fetters he danced better than most; and some of his translations, notably the one mentioned above and one of Martial, Liber, amicorum dulcissima cura tuorum, it would be hard to pick flaws in.

In Jonson’s day, however, there was no mean between word-for-word rendering and the loosest paraphrase, until Denham laid down something like the true rule in his verses to Fanshawe on the latter’s translation of Guarini:

“That servile path thou nobly dost decline Of tracing word for word and line for line.... A new and nobler way thou dost pursue To make translations, and translators too. They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, True to his sense, but truer to his fame.”

Cowley, who translated largely from Horace, runs to the opposite extreme from Jonson: his versions are as much too free as Jonson’s are too close. Yet some of his single lines are unmatched for felicity and force:

“Hence ye profane, I hate ye all, Both the great vulgar and the small”

(a phrase which has passed into a proverb) for Odi profanum vulgus et arceo; “The poor rich man’s emphatically poor” for Magnas inter opes inops; “From his toucht mouth the wanton torment slips” for Fugientia captat Flumina; and, best of all, perhaps, “He loves of homely littleness the ease” for Martial’s Sordidaque in parvis otia rebus amet—which shows how a deft translator can, without leaving his original, breathe into it, so to speak, a beauty it scarcely had—such lines as these make us regret either that Cowley did not translate more or that he was unable to transfer to his own poetry more of the same simple elegance of thought and word.

All of Cowley’s contemporaries were not so happy, however, as he in their attempts to better Horace, though many tried it. One of them, Sir Edward Sherburne, claps a periwig on Mt. Soracte:[131]

Footnote 131:

Horat. Carm. i. 9. One of the best versions of this ode is that of Allan Ramsay, in the Scotch dialect.

“Seest thou not how Soracte’s head (For all his height) stands covered With a white periwig of snow, While the laboring woods below Are hardly able to sustain The weight of winter’s feathered rain?”

He had evidently been reading and, with Dryden, admiring Sylvester’s Du Bartas:

“And when the winter’s keener breath began To crystallize the Baltic Ocean, To glaze the lake, to bridle up the floods, And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods.”

The conceited style then in vogue was not well fitted to do justice to Horace’s simplex munditiis, although he was now universally read and esteemed—“The next best poet in the world to Virgil,” Cowley calls him—and has left the mark of his genial influence on all the writers of the time. One finds the Horatian sentiment running like a golden thread through the minor poetry of James and Charles I., at times informing whole poems with a pithiness of phrase and a dignity which Horace might call his own. Such are Marvell’s ode on The Return of Cromwell, such Shirley’s “The glories of our blood and state” and “Victorious men of earth, no more”—all three among the finest productions of their kind in the language.

After the Restoration the business of translation was resumed with vigor. Dryden in his Virgil, and, somewhat later, Pope in his Homer, set a fresh model which was followed by all their successors until Cowper’s Miltonic Iliad came to break the spell and pave the way to the modern style, which aims to combine freedom with fidelity, ease of manner with correctness of meaning, and so far as possible to reproduce the author himself, form as well as matter. Creech’s Horace was hardly a success, being stiff and ungainly without being particularly close, and, while showing in its metre some sense of the poet’s rhythmical grace, scarcely attempted to render the characteristic delicacy of his wording—that curiosa felicitas we all have heard of. In this—and indeed in every—respect the version of Dr. Francis, which came out about half a century later, was greatly superior as a whole to any previous one, and took with Horatians a position the best of its successors has found it hard to shake. Indeed, with such of the poet’s lovers as date from the golden age of Consul Plancus, Francis is still the paramount favorite, and you will talk to them in vain of the merits of Robinson or Lytton, of Conington’s fluent ease or Martin’s sprightly grace. Francis is in the main faithful, generally pleasing, and always respectable at least, but, like most of his rivals, he lacks a certain lightness of touch, an airy gayety of treatment in the minor odes which no one, we think, has hit off so well as Mr. Theodore Martin. They are, as that accomplished writer says, in many instances what would be called now vers de société, and their chief value rests in the poet’s inimitable charm of manner. Unless some notion of this can be given, the translator’s labor is lost, and he offers his readers but a withered posy from which color and perfume alike are fled.

ALBA’S DREAM. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” ETC. PART III.

Gondriac had seen many strange things come to pass of late years: stupendous things, as when M. le Marquis climbed up the cliff like a common man to condole with old Caboff; wonderful things, as when M. le Marquis was rescued by old Caboff in the storm; tragic things, as when he went forth and died in the place of young Caboff; but nothing so untoward as this had ever happened at Gondriac before: M. le Marquis was going to marry Alba. The wonder was both lessened and heightened by the romantic story concerning Alba’s birth, which was spread through the village simultaneously with the announcement. The fatherless girl, who had owned no name but Alba, was the daughter of a nobleman, who had been affianced by his family to a great heiress, but who fell in love with a penniless orphan and married her secretly; a few months after his marriage he was ordered off to Egypt with Bonaparte and was killed in his first engagement. The young wife lived to give birth to her child, and then died, leaving it to the care of an old friend of her mother, a childless widow, whom the Revolution had ruined, and who now gained her bread by needlework. Virginie accepted the charge, and adopted as her own the little one, whose sole provision was a pittance which the father had been able to secure to his wife as a dower. Her heart, hungering for some one on whom to lavish its great capacity for loving, bestowed upon the baby more than a mother’s tenderness; she loved it with a love that seemed to gather up into one passion all the loves that a woman’s heart can hold. She left the shelter of her native place, where all had known her from her childhood, and where, in spite of her poverty, she held her head high, and went to live at Gondriac, where no old familiar face would smile upon her, but where her secret would be secure, and none would know that she was not Alba’s mother. This was the story she told Hermann when he asked her for Alba’s hand.

“I thought to let the secret die with me,” she said, “and that the child might have loved me to the end as her own mother; but now she must hear the truth. To me she will always be my child, my very own—as truly mine as if I had given her birth.”

“Let her know nothing until she is my wife, and then I will break it to her,” replied the young lord; “and I doubt but she will love you more dearly still when she learns the truth.”

Alba was very happy—so happy at times that it was more than she could bear; she would often heave great sighs for very bliss as she sat upon the rocks, her hand clasped in Hermann’s.

“Why do you sigh, my Alba?” he asked her once reproachfully. “Are you afraid I shall not make you happy?”

“I am afraid of being too happy; I am so happy now that I could die of it. And by and by, when I am your wife, and you will never leave me, and that all I used to long for when I believed in fairies shall be mine—I feel as if the joy of it must kill me. Hermann, we will try to be very good together, will we not? We will do our best to make everybody good and happy. There shall be no poor people here, and when they are sick we will have a good doctor to come and take care of them, and I will go and nurse them myself. I hope they will all love me. Do you think they will? Sometimes I am frightened lest they shouldn’t care for me any more when I am a great lady, living in a castle.”

“You foolish child! They will care ten times more for you then,” said Hermann, “because you will be able to do so much for them.” Then, looking at her with a smile at once tender and suspicious, “What a greedy little thing it is for love!” he said. “You can’t care for me as I do for you, Alba, or else my love would be enough for you; I don’t long for anybody’s love but yours.”

“It is not so much that as that I long to make them happy,” explained Alba; “and how can I do that until I can make them love me?”

They quarrelled over this philosophy of hers, and then made plans for the future.

“You will take me to see all the beautiful places you have told me of, will you not?” said Alba.

“I will take you round the world, if you like it—that is, if you don’t get tired of it before we are half way.”

“Tired! with you? I should never be tired—never, never, never.” She repeated the word in a low voice, as if speaking to herself, while looking dreamily out over the sea, where a ship, with her white sails set, was drifting away into the sunset.

“Where shall we go to first?” said Hermann.

“To Egypt, I think; or perhaps to Italy—I am dying to see the city with the streets of water, and Spain, where the palaces grow, and Moorish temples; but let us go first of all to Germany and see the countries where you won the battles. I should like that best. O Hermann, Hermann! how happy we shall be.” And then, as if her heart were overfull of joy, she began to sing. Hermann liked this better. Those silent, rapturous moods sometimes frightened him, as if they were a demand for something that he could not give. M. de Gondriac was as much in love as a man could be, and so far he would have no difficulty in making his wife’s happiness his chief concern; but he was quite aware that this was not to be achieved by the usual commonplace means. Something more than ordinary love, let it be ever so tender and chivalrous, was needed to satisfy the cravings of a heart like Alba’s. She worshipped him as the noblest of men; and it was no easy thing to realize this ideal. Would he be able to achieve it, to live up to her exalted standard through the coming years, when the glamour of young love’s idealizing mists should have cleared away, and his wife would be at leisure to observe him with her clear, intelligent eyes?

But a cloud was gathering over these sunny days of courtship. M. de Gondriac was summoned to Paris by the chief of the War Office. The call, of course, brooked no delay. His arm, though nearly healed, still incapacitated him from joining his regiment; but he must go in person and certify to this. Though they might admit him unfit for active service, he might be retained in attendance on the emperor; Bonaparte liked to have high-sounding names upon his personal staff. But Hermann would not alarm Alba by suggesting this possibility. They parted in sweet sorrow, looking forward to meeting soon again.

Alas! is it a decree of fate that the course of true love never shall run smooth? Are poets prophets, or do the loves of all humanity conspire to make their voice an oracle? The days went by, and Alba waited; but Hermann neither came nor wrote, and they could get no tidings of him. Had he been ordered to the frontier, in spite of his disabled arm, and killed or taken prisoner? Doubts crowded upon Alba’s heart until they almost stopped its pulses. But Virginie feared even worse than this, and, if her fears were true, there was no comfort in store. M. de Gondriac had felt strong enough to brave the emperor’s displeasure at a distance; but how when he stood face to face with it, with the power of that magnetic will, with the ridicule of his equals, with the blandishments of refined court ladies? Was his love of the metal to challenge these antagonistic forces and prevail?

Spring passed, and summer, and now it was harvest-time; the reapers waded through the yellow fields, the sickle was singing in the corn, the grapes hung heavy on the vine. But no news came from Hermann. Alba pined and drooped, and at last fell ill. The doctor came from X—— and saw her, and said that it would be nothing; it was weakness and oppression on the heart; she wanted care and nourishment. But no care revived her. She grew weaker and weaker, and the low fever came, and there was no strength left to battle with it. But Virginie would not see the danger; when the neighbors came for news, she would answer, with a smile on her wan face: “Thank God! no worse. The child is very weak; but last night she slept a little.” Thus twenty days went by, and then there came a change, and on the twenty-first day, as the Vesper bell was tolling, the curé came, and Alba was anointed as a bride for heaven. The old man wept like a child as he blessed her and departed. “God comfort you, Mère Virginie!” he said, laying his hand heavily on the mother’s head. But Virginie was like one in whom the faculty of pain or of despair was paralyzed. “She will not die, M. le Curé. God is merciful; his heart is kind,” she said. When the sun was going down, Alba spoke: “Mother, bring me his picture and the pearls he gave me; I should like to wear them once before I go....” They brought the pearls and decked her in them; they smoothed back the moist, dark hair and crowned her with the queenly coronet; they clasped the necklace round her throat and the bracelets on her arms, while she lay quite passive, as if unconscious of what they were doing. Never had she looked so beautiful as at this hour in the deepening twilight, with the shadow of death stealing on her and touching her features with a celestial pathos. Virginie could not but see it now. Alba was going from her. But, no! it should not be. No, there was a God in heaven, a merciful, all-powerful God; it should not be. He would save her child even at this extremity. She had not cried to him loud enough before, but now she would cry and he should hear her, now that she knew how dire was her need of him. She knelt down at a little distance from the bed and began to pray. It was terrible to see her; to see how despair and faith wrestled within her. The agony of the strife was visible in her face; it was pale as death, and the big drops stood upon her brow, that was contracted as by breathless pain; her eyes were open, fixed in a rigid stare as on some unseen presence; her white lips, drawn in, were slightly parted, as if to let the words escape that she could not articulate; her hands were locked together, bloodless from the fierce grip of the fingers. Old Jeanne cowered in the corner as she watched her.

An hour went by. The tide was coming in; the waves were washing on the shore with the old familiar sound. The moon rose and stirred the shadows on the plain; its light stole through the latticed window and overflowed in a silver stream upon the bed, illuminating it like a shrine in the darkened chamber.

“Mother!” murmured Alba faintly.

“My child!”

“Kiss me, mother.... I am going....”

“Alba! my child!... O God! O God! have pity on me....”

But Alba had passed beyond the mother’s voice.

* * * * *

There are cries, we sometimes say, that might wake the dead—cries that sound like a disembodied spirit, as if a human soul had broken loose with all its terrors and hopes and concentrated life of love and agony, and, escaping in a voice, traversed the void of space and pierced into the life beyond. Those who have heard that cry will remember the silence that followed it—a silence like no other, infinite, death-like, as if the pulse of time stood still, hearkening for the echo on the other side.

The neighbors came and grieved. “How beautiful she is!” they whispered to one another, as they stood by the couch where Alba lay smiling in her death-sleep and decked in her bridal pearls. “No wonder our young lord loved her. How strange that he should have left her! Has she died of love, I wonder?” Many thought more of Virginie than of Alba. “She will die of grief,” they said. For Virginie had not shed a tear, not uttered one wail of lamentation, since that great cry that followed Alba into the dark beyond. She and Jeanne had arrayed her in her bridal dress—those splendid robes of silk and lace which her lover in his pride had prepared for her; it was a foolish fancy, but the mother, remembering how her lost one had loved these splendors, seemed filled with a vague idea that they might even now give her some pleasure. When this was done she sat with her hands lying loosely locked together on her knees, gazing on the dead face, as mute and motionless as if she were dead herself. Yet some said they noticed a strange look like a gleam of disbelief in her eyes now and then, as if she thought death but mocked her with some kind intent.

The night and the day passed, and the night again, and to-day at noon the dead bride was to be borne away. Friends crowded in for a last look; then, as the hour drew near, there was a movement without, a sound of voices chanting in the distance, the tramp of feet approaching, and they knew it was time for them to go. But Virginie still sat there, pallid, immovable, like a statue set up to stir pity and reverence in the hearts of the beholders. Mme. Caboff laid a hand upon her arm and pressed her gently to come away. “The child is not dead, but sleepeth,” she said; “take comfort in that thought.”

Then Virginie rose like one waking from a trance, and that strange gleam of disbelief which some had noticed in her eyes was now visible to all. “Go ye away, my friends,” she said, “and leave me here awhile with my child and God.” There was no murmur of dissuasion, though many thought that grief had made her mad; the majesty of grief subdued them to obedience, and one by one they passed out of the room in silence.

Then Virginie knelt down and lifted up her voice in a last supreme appeal to God.

“She is not dead, but sleepeth! Was that a message from thee, Lord? Thou hast whispered it to my heart before. And what if she were dead—are not death and sleep alike to thee? Canst thou not wake from one as easily as from the other? She is not dead, but sleepeth! When the Jews laughed thee to scorn, thou didst glorify thy Father and raise the dead girl to life again, and all the people blessed thee. Thou didst pity the widow and restore her son, though she knew not of thy presence nor believed in thee. Wilt thou be less pitiful to me, who believe and cry to thee? Son of David, look down upon me, have pity upon me, and awake my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Canst thou not wake her from this sleep as readily as thou didst raise Lazarus from the grave where he had lain four days? Christ crucified! Redeemer! Saviour! Father! hearken to my prayer and have mercy on me! By thy pity for the widow, and for Lazarus’ sisters, and for thy own Mother at the foot of the cross, and for John and Magdalen, and for thy murderers, have pity on me and call back my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Father! by the birth of thy dear Son, by his thirty-three years’ toil and poverty, by his bloody sweat, by his scourging, by the nails that were hammered into his hands and feet, by the lance that cut into his heart, by his death and sleep in the sepulchre, by his victory over the grave, by his resurrection and his reign of glory at thy right hand, hear me and give me back my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Lord! I believe in thy name, I believe in thy love, I believe in thy mercy and omnipotence. I believe; O God! help thou my unbelief. The child is not dead, but sleepeth.”

She rose from her knees, and, pressing the crucifix with one hand on the breast of the dead, she held the other uplifted with priest-like solemnity. There was a pause of intense and awful silence; the chanting without had ceased; every ear was strained, every heart stood still, listening to the prayer they dared not say amen to. Then Virginie’s voice arose again, sounding not like hers, but rather like a voice that came from some depth of life within, beyond her, and making the mute void vibrate to its solemn tones: “Alba! in the name of the living God, awake!...”

Then silence closed upon her speech, and every pulse was stilled to a deeper hush.... The white lids quivered, the sleeper’s breast heaved beneath the pressure of the cross, sending forth a soft, long sigh, and Alba was awake.

“Mother!”

And now a cry arose from without the cottage which must surely have been heard in heaven; for the rocks took it up and bore it out to sea, and the waves rolled it back to the reverberating shore, and deep called unto deep, and louder and louder it rose and rang, until it thrilled the welkin, and heaven sent back to earth the shout of jubilee and praise.

But there was one who did not join in it. When the first ecstasy of her thanksgiving was past, and Virginie had clasped the loved one in her arms, and felt the warm blood returning to the cold lips under her kisses, she saw that Alba was like one whose spirit was not there; her eyes were open in a wide, intense gaze, as if straining to see beyond their ken, her ears were deaf to the sounds around her, hearkening for a voice that others could not hear.

“My child, my darling, let us give thanks together!” Virginie said when they were once more alone. But Alba turned her eyes upon her mother with that far-off gaze that seemed to reach beyond the veil. “Mother,” she said, speaking in low, fearful tones—“mother, why did you call me back? Did you not know I was with God? I was with God,” she continued in the same hushed tones; “I was in heaven with the angels and all the blessed ones, so full of happiness that I have no words to speak of it.”

“Tell me what you saw, my child. It was a dream; but God sometimes gives us visions in a dream.”

“It was no dream, mother. I was dead. My soul had left my body and taken flight into eternity. I stood before the throne and saw the vision of God. But of this I cannot speak.”

Alba paused like one whom reverence made dumb, and then continued: “I sang. O the joy of victory that thrilled through me as I lifted up my voice, and heard it amongst all the voices of the blessed! That was the wonder. Voice upon voice uprose, till all the hosts of heaven were singing, and yet you heard each singer distinct from all the rest; each voice was different, as star differeth from star when all are shining. And there was room in the vast space for silence. I heard the silence, deep, palpitating, as when we hold our breath to listen, and I heard the songs as they rolled out in full organic numbers from the countless choir. I heard my own voice, clear and sweet and loud like the clarion of an archangel; thousands of nightingales singing as one bird in the stillness of the summer night were nothing to it! And then the joy of recognition and of love—the very air was warm with love. Every spirit in the angelic host—the saints, the prophets of the old law, the martyrs and confessors and virgins—all loved me and knew me with an individual knowledge, and I knew them. And—I know not how it was—though all were resting in a halcyon peace, none were idle; they were busy at some task in which the faculties of mind and soul, new-born and glorified and quickened a thousand-fold, were eagerly engaged. I seemed to see that they were governing the world and caring for the souls of men—of those chiefly whom they loved on earth. For this I know: that no true bond is broken by death; the loves of time live on into eternity; the sorrows of earth are felt and pitied up in heaven, and the blessed clasp us in their cherishing sympathies closer than they did on earth. For the life in heaven is manifold, and, while the blessed citizens toiled, and sang as if their very being were dissolving into music, their souls were dwelling in the light of the vision of God, feeding on its beauty in unbroken contemplation. All was activity, and a fulness of life compared to which our life is death, yet all was steeped in peace, in rest unutterable. O mother! why did you call me back from it?”

“It was a dream, my child; your soul was in a trance; perhaps it was at my prayer God woke you from it in time. But, Alba, are you not glad to be with me again? It seems to me that even in heaven I should have missed you!”

“I did not feel that I was parted from you; you seemed nearer to me there than when I was on earth. But, mother, I saw standing near the martyrs, yet not of them, a soul arrayed in crimson—that flaming light that I call crimson, not knowing its real name—and she stretched forth her arms to greet me with a greater joy than all the rest, and she called herself my mother?”

Virginie’s heart stood still. Had heaven betrayed her secret? If so, it were vain to try to hide it any longer. She told the truth to Alba. “And now,” she said, “you will love that mother in heaven better than you love me!” There was a look of humble, beseeching misery in her face as she said this that was most pitiful. But Alba did not answer; that far-off gaze was in her eyes again. At last, slowly turning them upon Virginie, she said: “Now I can understand why you called me back. If you had been my real mother you would have let me go; your love would have been brave enough to part with me, to suffer when you knew that I was happy.”

There was no anger in her voice, no reproach in her look; but the words held the bitterness of death to Virginie, and pierced her heart like blades of poisoned steel.

* * * * *

The mystery of the young lord’s silence ceased to occupy the first place in local gossip, now that a more exciting theme had been provided, but it held its place in Virginie’s mind and was seldom out of her thoughts.

“Would it not be a great joy to you to see him again?” she said to Alba.

“I should be glad of it, mother; but the time is so short it matters little whether I see him here or not.”

“You never loved him, Alba.”

“I loved him with my whole soul; I loved him too well. I would have died for love of him.”

She had died for love of him, the mother thought.

“And yet you do not care to see him again?”

“I am satisfied to wait until we meet in heaven.”

The spark was dead; it was useless trying to blow the cold ashes into a flame. Virginie devoured her heart in uncomplaining silence. If Alba’s reproach was merited, if her love had been at fault, tainted in its origin with egotism and cowardice, then it was meet that she should suffer and expiate the sin.

But Hermann, meantime, was on his way to Gondriac. He had not been killed or wounded or faithless; he had been confined at Vincennes by order of the emperor, in hopes that solitude might help him to see the folly of this intended marriage, and bend his stubborn fancy to the reasonable will of his imperial master. The experiment had failed. The emperor was dethroned, a captive now himself, and M. de Gondriac was free and speeding on the wings of love to claim the reward of his fidelity.

Before he reached the cottage on the cliff he had learned the story of Alba’s—resurrection, was it?—of her having passed in spirit through the gates of death, and come back to life so changed men hardly knew her for the same. “It was a trance,” the curé said, when Hermann stopped on the road to take his greeting.

“It was death, monseigneur,” said the fishermen who gathered round his saddle-bow. “She died of love, and the mother’s prayer called her back to life; but the child left her heart in heaven and pines to be gone again.”

Hermann sent his horse on to the castle and made his way up the cliff, pondering this strange story. She had died of love of him, they said in their simple superstition, and was pining to die again. Sweet Alba! He would make her life such a paradise of love that she should have no reason to regret her glimpse of heaven. As he drew near the low, thatched cottage the purr of Virginie’s spinning-wheel came to him with the old familiar welcome. He opened the door and entered unannounced.

“Monseigneur!” She dropped her yarn with a cry.

The glad surprise subsided, Hermann in a few words explained all, and then heard the details of the wonderful tale Virginie had to tell.

“You will find her somewhere on the rocks,” she said. “It may be that the sudden sight of you will startle her dead heart into life and bring back a thrill of the old happiness; if not, I pray God to take her to himself, for the sight of the child’s patient misery is killing me.”

But M. de Gondriac had no such dismal apprehensions as he went out to seek his beautiful one. How would she meet him? Would it be with the old shy glance of pleasure, giving him her hand to kiss, and forbidding any tenderer caress by that air of virgin pride that sat on her so queenly? Or would joy break down the barriers and send her bounding into his arms? He trod the sandy grass with a quick, strong step, but the sound of his footfalls fell upon her ear unheeded; she sat motionless, with her face set towards the sea till he was at her side.

“Alba!”

Then she looked up, and a pale blush, faint as the heart of a white rose, clouded her face.

“Hermann!”

He caught her in his arms and kissed her, and she took his caress as she might have done a brother’s. The placid tenderness of her manner chilled him.

“Alba! my wife! You are glad to see me back again!” he said, still holding her close to him and looking into her eyes for some answering sigh, some flash of the old coy, shrinking fondness; but they looked back into his limpid, calm, passionless as a dove’s. She smiled and lifted up her face to kiss him. He bent down to receive it, but that proffered kiss was like the iron entering into his soul. The Alba whom he had left was not here; she had gone, he knew not whither, and in her place another being had come—a shadow of the woman who had loved him with all a woman’s tenderness. He sat down beside her and related the history of his life since they had parted, all he had suffered for her sake, and how light he held the suffering now that the reward was his; and she listened calmly, and spoke her gratitude with a gentle humility that was very touching. Then they were silent for a while, Alba apparently not caring to speak, Hermann longing to do so, but not daring to say what his mind was full of. At last Alba broke the spell.

“You know that I was dead,” she said; “I should be in heaven now, if mother had not called me back.”

“My darling! I will make a heaven for you on earth.”

“I once thought that was possible. I thought that heaven could give me nothing better than your love; but now I know that all the love of earth is but a shadow, a mockery compared to the love of heaven. It is nothing, nothing beside it! O Hermann! when we talk of happiness we are like blind fools. We don’t know what happiness means.”

“Alba! you have ceased to love me, or you would not speak so!”

“I love you as well as ever—nay, better than I did before; but, O Hermann! I should have loved you so infinitely better up in heaven. If you knew what the life of love is there!”

She clasped her hands, and her dark eyes shone with a supernatural light, as if the brightness of glory, invisible to him, were reflected there.

“You will tell me about it, darling, but not now,” he said, a terrible dread seizing him. “I want you to think of me a little now, and not so much of heaven. We must fix our wedding-day; it shall be soon, shall it not? There is no need for any delay.”

“No, there is no need,” she repeated. Then, after a pause, she said, looking calmly into his face: “Hermann, why should we not wait to wed one another in heaven?”

“There is no marrying or giving in marriage there,” he replied: but he had grown ashy pale, and the chill of a horrible fear was in his heart, deepening with every word that Alba spoke.

“You are angry with me,” she said, misunderstanding his pallor and the changed expression of his face. “O Hermann! don’t think that I have ceased to love you. I love you with all my heart. I have never loved any one, never could love any one, but you. Say you are not angry with me!”

“No, darling, I am not angry; but I thought we were to be so happy together, and I see that you are changed. But, Alba, I will not hold you to your promise; you shall not marry me unless you wish it.”

“I do wish it. I wish to make you happy. I have no other wish on earth now.”

He kissed her without answering, and they went home.

The terrible fear which for a moment possessed him was soon dispelled. Alba was not mad. Whatever was the mysterious change that had come over her, her reason was unimpaired. But all else was changed: the conditions of life had become reversed, the spiritual relations between the seen and the unseen were in some way disturbed, and things thrown out of their natural proportion. But the nature of the experience by which this change had been wrought eluded Hermann’s grasp, baffling reason while it compelled belief. Belief in what? Had Alba’s spirit, infringing the laws that rule our mortal state, broken loose from its prison, and been permitted to stand before the gates of pearl and taste of those joys which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive, and then been sent back to earth, home-sick as an exiled angel? Was this thing possible? Is anything not possible to Him who bids the lilies blow and the stars shine, and who holds the sea in the hollow of his hand? Hermann de Gondriac did not stop to investigate the mystery. His was one of those human souls whose deepest convictions lie dormant in their depths, not only unanalyzed but unrecognized, for want of a voice to question them. He loved Alba, and he would trust to his love to mend the broken spring and reconcile to the happiness of earth this heart enamored by the bliss of heaven.

* * * * *

The wedding-day rose bright and fair; a golden glow was on the flood; the sun shone on the breakers, turning the green to sapphire blue, while the tide flowed in, swelling the anthem of the dawn; the yellow woods round Alba’s home glistened like a golden zone, fit symbol of the enchanted life awaiting her within their magic ring. No sad Vesper bell was tolling; merrily the silver-footed chimes, like messengers of joy, tripped on to meet her on the morning air, as she came forth, once more arrayed in bridal pearls. A train of little children, clad in white and piping canticles, went on before, strewing flowers upon her path.

Pale as a lily in her snow-white robes was Alba, her dark eyes glowing with a light that was most beautiful; and when the bridegroom turned to greet her at the altar, her smile, they said, was like the smile of an angel.

The wedding rite began; the ring was passed, the solemn words were spoken: “Until death do part ye....” Then Alba, with a cry of joy, as when we greet some vision of delight, fell forward and was caught in Hermann’s arms.

“Farewell, beloved!... Mother, farewell!...”

“Alba! my wife! O God! can it be possible?...”

But loud above the lover’s wail and that of all the people Virginie’s voice was heard in tones more of jubilee than lamentation: “Thy will be done, O Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

* * * * *

That night the moon rose late; the sea-gulls, poised above the purple flood, heard the waves wash softly on the noiseless shore; the stars came out and looked into the shining sea below; the rocks gleamed white as snow-peaks in the moonlight, and all the land lay listening to the silver silence. From out its depths a voice was calling, though only those who hearkened heard it, and the voice said: “Thou shalt see His face, ... and night shall be no more, and they shall not need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them, and they shall reign for ever and ever.”

THE END.

ITALY. WRITTEN AFTER READING “POEMS OF PLACES—ITALY,” EDITED BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

I.

Amid those shining ways of Italy I thought of one who walks with bandaged eyes, Led by some loving guide who, in sweet guise Of eloquent speech, makes blinded vision see The very lines that make tall towers fair, The peaceful saints that guard cathedral door— In death still keeping watch the people o’er— Lifting tired souls to holy heights of prayer. Even frail nest familiar form doth wear Built far above upon the shoulders broad Of sculptured friar, bearing light the load His brother birds give, trustful, in his care. So, poet-led, seemeth scarce need of eyes, Pictured earth’s loveliness in words so wise.

II.

The blinded wanderer sees the far-off light Of shadowy Alp, and his the lingering glow That breathes in western skies along the low And gleaming marshes darkening with the night. Not bluer to fond eyes that see most clear Are Naples’ waves than break they in his sight; Nor floats St. Peter’s dome in softer light, Seen from the Pincian, than its image fair Rests in the pilgrim’s heart that in Rome sings Its Nunc dimittis, whether it hold dear For Brutus’ sake the city, or revere The holier presence shadowing with strong wings The mighty one, earth’s new Jerusalem, Whose virtue fills her very garment’s hem.

III.

He sees the shadows o’er the valley creep— Nay, even knows he, through his guide’s clear speech, Where, at each hour, the ilex shade shall reach. Though blinded, he can feel the sunshine steep The hill he climbs; fair Italy’s soft air Grow yet more soft with pity for poor eyes That only feel the brightness of her skies, Not know the infinite depths that glisten there. And quick his ears catch sound of falling stream, Twitter of leaves in Vallombrosan woods, Bird-carol flung from chestnut solitudes; While soft-voiced waves, like music in a dream, Now tread with rippling touch Sorrento’s shore, Now rise and fall Venetian stairway o’er.

IV.

He hears in Roman mouth the Tuscan speech; Hears Naples chant the light of Syracuse, Siena’s tongue, in guileless praise let loose, In its pure utterance ancient glory teach. And tells the poet to the wondering heart Old histories of older Latin days; Of distraught Italy’s sad, stormy ways When feud and treason tore her sons apart, When Dante ate the exile’s bitter bread, When eagles dark swept down upon the land, And lilies white, that should all stain withstand, With deeds unworthy were discolorèd. While from the Vaudois’ shivering mountain crown The echoes of their bard-sung wars sweep down.

V.

Singeth the poet of still nearer days When all the little lands fade one by one, Like wan stars melting 'neath Sardinia’s sun— While, for her crowning, 'mid the strangers’ praise, Hastes Italy unto the Capitol. Life of her sons laid down for her new life, Maidens their soldiers arming for the strife, Weeping the field where love and banner fall. Sings he of carbine and of bayonet That gleam and darken on Perugian hills, Of sorrow that a frightened city fills, And priestly robe with blood defenceless wet. White Roman robe earth’s shadow marketh dark— World-licensed target for the poets’ mark!

VI.

The pilgrim hearkens to his guide’s strong words, Basks in their sunshine, thanketh for their dew, Yet wonders, could his eyes behold the blue As well as ears can mark the song of birds, If something still he lacks he might not find— Some perfect key of heavenly harmony That should attune all sad discordancy, In true accord the clashing fragments bind. Soft fall the Angelus bells on listening ear, The Miserere, in distress divine, Wails from the heart of city Leonine. Feels he the light that makes his darkness clear, Grasps he the chord of pure and infinite blue His picture lacks to make its color true.

VII.

So, poet-led, I trod Italian ways, Seeing the glimmer of pale olive-trees, Drifting, entranced, o’er warm Sicilian seas, Hearkening Siena’s perfect speech of praise, Drinking of Trevi’s fountain, o’er and o’er, Yet craving ever something still more rare, Some gift of grace that Italy must wear To make her so the heart’s-best evermore; Some crown above her hills, than her blue seas More luminous, beyond her painters’ fame, Or passionate poets’ soaring words of flame, More than all proudest earthly destinies. So drowned, amid the peal of Saxon bells, Thought of that life wherein her true soul dwells.

VIII.

Seemed it as if the poet built a shrine— Lifting its towers in the radiant air The doves might haunt to make it seem more fair, Lifting its columns that an art divine With watching saints should crown, setting its floor In firm mosaic, where, alas! inwrought Should forms misshapen of ungentle thought Sadden the Roman sunshine wandering o’er, That, creeping onward, still should hope to kiss The gladder sunshine of St. Philip’s feet. Heaped high the altar with all flowers sweet— Rich Italy’s unstinted loveliness— Kindled the lamp before the inmost shrine, Withheld the presence of the Guest Divine!

THE SEVEN VALLEYS OF THE LAVEDAN.

On the 4th of July, 1876—the day after the coronation of Notre Dame de Lourdes, la plus noble dame qui fut jamais, to use the expression of an old chronicler—we set out for the springs of Cauterets. South of Lourdes the mountains seem to stand apart to afford a passage to the headlong Gave. Here begins the Lavedan, the old Pagus Lavitanensis, which comprises seven valleys that extend to the very frontier of Spain. This was the ancient country of the Sotiates, who were famous for their horsemanship, as Lavedan has always been for its horses. In the middle ages it became a vicomté, which dated from the early Carlovingians and flourished for more than seven centuries. The vicomtes of Lavedan figured in all the great wars of their time, particularly against the Moors in Spain, and became so powerful as to defy the Count of Bigorre, their own liege lord. They displayed great valor, too, against the English, who for sixty years held the citadel of Lourdes that commanded the entrance to their valleys, as well as several fastnesses among the mountains. We find members of their race among the bishops, abbots, and Knights-Templars of the province, as if able in every path of life to assert their capacity. The last of the old lords fought with Dunois the brave under the banner of Joan of Arc at Orleans. His only grandchild married Charles de Bourbon, a favorite of Henry IV.’s. The glory of this family, however, is mostly confined to the Pyrenees, and might never have come down to modern times had it not been for the faithful chroniclers of the Lavedan monasteries. It is, in fact, first mentioned in 945 in a cartulary of the abbey of St. Savin, of which it was a benefactor.

Hardly had we entered the valley of the Lavedan before we saw, on an isolated mount at the left, the dismantled tower of Hieou, one of the signal-towers that, in times of border warfare, used to transmit messages from the Spanish frontier to the heart of France. The shores of the Gave were deliciously fresh, but the mountains on both sides are at first treeless and uninteresting. Nothing grows on them but the purple heather, and patches of odorous shrubs that perfume the valley. Here and there on their sides are great heaps of black slate from the numerous quarries. But these mountains have a certain austere charm of their own, not unbefitting sentinels that guard the approaches to the grotto of the Virgin. We passed group after group of pilgrims returning from the recent celebration, with red crosses fastened to their breasts, or blue-and-white badges of the Immaculate Conception, saying their rosaries or singing a hymn. They invariably saluted us politely as we drove past, and two bronzed mountaineers whom we stopped for information sped us on our way with the pious wish: “May God accompany you!”

After several leagues the mountains became wooded, and a bend of the river, along which we kept, brought us into the delightful basin of Argelés, one of the valleys of the Lavedan. This is the Eden of the Pyrenees. On the mountain slopes grow the walnut and the oak. The roads are shaded with long lines of ash-trees. The meadows were covered with rich harvests. The thickets were blooming with roses. The houses were almost buried among fruit-trees of all kinds. Every now and then we came to a tall cross with the insignia of the Passion, or some wayside niche with its Virgin and fresh flowers before her. We passed the square tower of Vidalos on a height, and farther on came to the ancient castle of Vieuzac, once a military post that kept alive the signal-fires in troubled times. On every hand were quaint-looking villages with pretty chapels half-hidden in the folds of the mountains, each with some old monument, or older tradition, to which it fondly clings. From Agos to Pierrefitte, only about six miles, there are ten charming villages set in a framework of mountains no poet could describe. They close around this happy valley, as if to shield it from all outward influences. During the Huguenot ascendency in the neighboring province of Béarn it is said no taint of the new religion ever found its way into this valley. At the north is Mount Balandraü, easily ascended, that affords a fine view of the country, which is full of wonderful contrasts. The Gave winds swiftly through the most beautiful of valleys; on every hand are the mountains, sometimes like a vast rampart of verdure, sometimes swelling up, one after the other, like great waves, with a high peak occasionally, jagged as a saw, and in the distance the eternal glaciers glittering in the sun and feeding the numerous cascades and torrents that lash the mountain sides.

To this peaceful valley came St. Orens from his native Spain, in the fourth century, before whom, according to the Spanish legend, a supernatural light burned and a mysterious hand pointed the way. And it was yonder umbrageous mountain that, when he sought to escape from the fame of his sanctity, opened at his approach and hid him in its bosom.

Here, too, four centuries after, came St. Savin, son of the Count of Barcelona, when he forsook the grandeurs of the world for a cell in the wilderness. A few years since there were vestiges of his cell at Pouey Aspé, after a thousand years; and tradition points out the fountain that sprang up from a blow of his staff when the stream that flowed past his cell dried up in the summer. His tomb is still honored in the abbey church of St. Savin, which is one of the most conspicuous objects in the landscape, with its queer steeple, shaped like an extinguisher.

No tourist fails to visit St. Savin: the archæologist on account of its old Romanesque church of the tenth century; the artist for its picturesque site; the pious to honor one of the most popular saints of the seven valleys; and the political economist because, in the middle ages, this abbey was the nucleus of a little republic of eight villages, called the Pascal of St. Savin, the inhabitants of which had from time immemorial the right of universal suffrage, and where even the women, without the advantages of modern progress, were admitted to vote!

The abbey of St. Savin—that is what remains of it—stands on the side of a mountain amid dense groves of chestnut-trees. According to the old cartularies, it was founded by Charlemagne on the site of the Palatium Æmilianum erected by the Romans after the conquest to keep the country in subjection, but ruined by the Saracens. Roland himself is said to have received hospitality from the monks. Pulci, in his Rotta di Roncisvalle, relates how he delivered them from the giants Alabastre and Passamonte, and their brother Morgante only escaped being cleft in two by submitting to be baptized in the church. This monastery, renowned in legend and song, was burned to the ground by the fierce Normans, and it was more than a century before it rose from its ashes. It was restored by Raymond I., Count of Bigorre, about the middle of the tenth century. He gave the house to the monks of St. Benedict, and bestowed on them the valley of Cauterets, on condition that they would build a church there in honor of St. Martin, and provide accommodations for those who should frequent the springs. He also made over to them his rights to the game in the pascal valleys, as well as certain claims on the produce of the dairy. The abbey became likewise an object of bounty to other neighboring lords, who confided in St. Savin when alive, and in death wished to lie near his hallowed shrine. Cornelia de Barbazan, grandmother of a Vicomtesse de Lavedan, had great devotion to St. Savin, and gave the monastery one-half the abbey of Agos. The other half belonged to Arnaud de Tors, a lord who only had two children, and they were deaf mutes. He offered them both to God and St. Savin, and subsequently his wife, himself, and all he possessed. Cornelia’s husband outlived her, and on his death-bed asked the monks of St. Savin for the monastic habit, and gave them also all he owned at Agos. The kings of Navarre, the vicomtes of Béarn, and Henry IV. himself proved themselves the zealous patrons of this monastery.

The abbey of St. Savin became the intellectual as well as moral centre of the valleys around. Several of the abbots were noted for their sanctity, and most of them were from good families. They figured among the great lords of the province, and when they visited the little states of their republic the people came out to meet them with young maidens bearing flowers in a basket. They had certain feudal rights over the eight villages, but bound themselves, on taking possession of their office, to respect the customs and privileges of the inhabitants, believed to have been handed down from the beginning of time. The people were none of them serfs, but all free citizens who had the right of deciding by majority of votes every question that affected the interests of the republic. Each village was a little state by itself, and sent its representatives to the general assembly, which was held in the cloister of St. Savin. The women themselves, as we have said, had a voice in public affairs. An old record of 1316 says that when the people of Cauterets came together in the porch of the church to decide whether they should yield to the abbot’s proposition to change the site of the town and baths, they all consented, except one strong-minded woman, named Gaillardine de Fréchou, who stoutly held out against the lord abbot. Women seem to have been regarded in these valleys as something sacred. In the old statutes of the country, drawn up by the abbot of St. Savin and other dignitaries of the province, one of the articles declared that if a criminal took refuge under a woman’s protection, his person was safe, on condition of his repairing the damage. She gave him asylum, as if a temple, or had something of the nature of a divinity! This code also forbade the creditors seizing the oxen and agricultural implements of the laborer. The people elected seven judges to try all criminal cases, but the abbot exercised the higher prerogatives of justice. He never stained his hands with blood, however; it was the Count of Bigorre alone who could impose the sentence of death. The abbot had special rights, also, which he jealously guarded as a means of revenue. The pastors of the eight villages could say Low Mass for their flocks and administer the Holy Communion, but High Mass had to be attended at St. Savin, where the children were also brought to be baptized and the dead for burial, unless in exceptional cases. The obligation of baptism and burial at St. Savin was not confined to the Pascal, but extended to the sixty villages of the valleys of Argelés and Azun. The people had the privilege of hunting in the forests and fishing in the streams—and the game and trout are not to be despised in these days—but the abbot had a right to the skins and a shoulder of certain animals, and an annual tribute of fish.

The monks of St. Savin were noted for their hospitality, and they often received visits from those who frequented the baths of Cauterets. In the sixteenth century they welcomed Catharine of Navarre in spite of her Contes and taste for the doctrines of Calvin; and in the seventeenth the poet Bertin, who, in his light, scoffing way, has celebrated “the long dinner and short Mass of the good abbot of St. Savin,” though he does not seem to have attended the latter, brief as it might have been.

Margaret of Navarre had been staying at Cauterets, where she is said to have composed the Heptaméron. She set out thence for Tarbes, but the bridges had all been carried away by rains, which she says were “so marvellous and great that it seemed as if God had forgotten his promise to Noe not to destroy the earth again by water.” The preface to her work says: “After riding all day she and her suite towards evening espied a belfry, where, as well as they could, but not without great trouble and difficulty, they succeeded in arriving, and were kindly received by the abbot and monks of the abbey, called St. Savin. The abbot, who was of an excellent family, lodged them very honorably, and, as he conducted them to their rooms, made inquiries as to the dangers they had undergone. After listening to their account he told them they were not alone in their misfortunes, for there were two young ladies in another apartment who had escaped great danger. These poor ladies, at half a league from Pierrefitte, had met a bear descending from the mountain, from which they fled at such speed that their horses fell dead on arriving at their place of refuge.”

When the princess left St. Savin the abbot furnished her party with “the best horses in Lavedan, thick Béarn cloaks, substantial provisions, and excellent guides across the mountains, which they were obliged to traverse partly on foot, in spite of the horses, and, after great sweat and labor, arrived at Notre Dame de Sarrance.”

The sceptical poet Bertin, too, thought his visit worthy of recording: “We chose that day to pay our brief devotions at the Abbey of St. Savin; that is to say, to dine there at the expense of St. Benedict. The steeple of the Abbey comes in sight between Pierrefitte and Argelés. The road ascends amid the trees, a little rough, but cool, impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and watered by an infinite number of living streams that come down from the mountains. It may be well to say that some of us were in a carriage and others on horseback, but the greater part were perched, well or ill, as the case might be, on donkeys. Our arrival was triumphant. The ladies were received by the prior to the sound of the organ, the only instrument he could strike up, thanks to the talent of his cook. He likewise presented them a bouquet of flowers and made them a compliment.... The house is well built, spacious, and in the finest position in the world. From the upper terrace of the garden the eye wanders over the magnificent plain of Argelés, which bears comparison, to say the least, with the famous valley of Campan. The day was spent very agreeably, but almost wholly at table. We returned a little late in the evening, without any other accident but the loss of one of our donkeys, which took it into its head to die on the way, under the pretext that he had been overworked in the morning and could go no farther. We celebrated in couplets, half sad, half merry, to which every one contributed:

“'Le trépas de la veielle ânesse, Qu’on magnétisa, mais en vain (Trop sotte était la sotte espèce); Le long dîner, la courte messe, La chère fine, et le bon vin, L’enjoûment et la politesse Du bon prieur de St. Savin.’”

None of the local traditions or documents contain anything to the disparagement of the monks of St. Savin, and their memory is still dear to the inhabitants of the valley. Madame de Motteville, lady of honor to Anne of Austria, when she came to the Pyrenees on the occasion of Louis XIV.’s marriage, visited St. Savin, and thus speaks of it: “There is an abbey here of great importance and renown. It is well built and the monks lead an exemplary life.”

The abbatial church escaped at the Revolution, and the tomb of St. Savin was respected. But it became the property of the government, and it was not till 1874 that it was purchased by the Bishop of Tarbes. The greater part of the abbey has disappeared. The old chapter-hall, however, is still standing. It is of the twelfth century, and has six low arches supported by two central pillars, cylindrical in form. This hall opened into the cloister, which has been totally destroyed. The fine Romanesque church is in good preservation. Around the deep embrasures of the entrance are symbolic animals of evil import somewhat coarsely sculptured, such as the scaly dragon of adverse influence, a bear devouring a sinless child, and the screech-owl, symbol of Jews, traitors, and the foul fiend:

“En cest oisel sunt figuré Li felon Jeve maleur”

—by this bird is figured the felon Jew malign. And, in fact, the Jews closed their eyes, like the owl, to the light, not to recognize the Messias.

We descended by several steps into the church, into which the sun was streaming from the rose window at the west. The tomb of St. Savin is at the apsis, beneath a gilded canopy of rich design. It is of schist, about six feet long and three broad, and rests on double columns of marble, which have carved capitals. It was long used as an altar, according to the custom of the early church. Above is an ancient statue of the Virgin, said to have been brought from the East by the Crusaders, and in another part of the church is a revered crucifix of great antiquity. One of the most interesting ornaments is a painting in eighteen compartments that presents a complete epitome of St. Savin’s life, and is curious for its details of costume and architecture. Here we are told how St. Savin was sent by his mother, the Countess of Barcelona, to complete his education at the brilliant court of her brother, the Count of Poitiers, who received him with great favor and entrusted his son to his care. St. Savin, for whom, young as he was, life had no illusions, inspired his cousin to lead a simple, unostentatious life in the midst of worldly luxuries, and the latter, not satisfied with this taste of self-renunciation, soon betook himself to the convent of Ligugé, near Poitiers. His mother, in despair, threw herself at St. Savin’s feet, crying: “Give me back my child! It is you who have robbed me of him. You have a mother; think of her grief should you abandon her for ever.” Alas! this was the very thing the saint was thinking of, but he could not resist a higher will. He soon followed his cousin’s example, and they took the monastic habit together. St. Savin’s heart, however, yearned for a more profound solitude, and a celestial inspiration directed his steps toward the Pyrenees. Coming to the valley of the Gave, he followed its windings till he reached a spot overshadowed by three lofty mountains that were covered with snow nearly all the year round—cold, stern, wrapped in gray mists, and infested with wild beasts. Here he looked down on the lonely valley once inhabited by his countryman, the great St. Orens, and resolved to build his cell in a place so favorable to meditation and prayer, and give himself up to a life of austerity. He trod the rough mountain paths with bare feet—he who had been brought up in the court of princes. His only garment lasted him thirteen years. He dug a grave seven feet long and five deep, and there he slept, or lay buried in divine contemplation. Chromasse, a neighboring lord, angry to see a stranger on his lands, sent a servant to drive him away, but the latter only rendered St. Savin incapable of obeying by the blows he inflicted on him. Both master and servant were punished for their cruelty. The former was struck blind, and the latter became possessed by the devil. The moral condition of the servant particularly excited the compassion of the saint, who obtained his deliverance by the power of prayer.

An old legend says that when St. Savin wished to have a light in his cell he used to hold a torch to his breast, and in that furnace of divine love it was at once lighted. This torch used to burn all night long without being consumed, and only grew pale when the morning light came to surprise the saint lost in prayer.

St. Savin, in his last illness, was attended by Sylvian and Flavian, two monks from the neighboring abbey. When he felt his end was drawing near he requested to see Abbot Forminius, who, detained by important business, sent word that he would come on the following day. The dying hermit replied that the morrow would be too late, for then a higher occupation would engross him. As soon as his condition became known a great number of priests and monks hastened to his cell. He received the Body of the Lord, and, with his arms stretched towards heaven and a face radiant with joy, he fell asleep in the midst of a prayer which he finished in heaven.

All the people of the neighboring valleys followed St. Savin’s body to the grave. The repentant Chromasse himself joined the procession, and, pressing close to the bier, he touched with trembling hands the body of the saint, and his eyes, so long closed to the light, instantly recovered their sight.

Such is the legend of St. Savin, who became of so much repute in these mountains that it is not surprising his name should be given to the abbey where he was buried.

From a terrace before the church is a superb view of the vale of Argelés, around which rises mountain above mountain; the lowest rich with vegetation, the upper peaks bare and covered with eternal frosts. Not far off are the remains of the old feudal castle of Baucens, formerly inhabited by the Vicomtes de Lavedan, lords of the Seven Valleys. Madame de Motteville, who stopped here, compares it in her Mémoires to the palace of the fairy Urgande.

Just below St. Savin is the village of Adast with the château de Miramon, the heiress of which married Despourrins, the bucolic poet of the Pyrenees, who composed here, in the idiom of the valley, pastoral songs full of grace and feeling, which have made his name popular in the mountains, where they are still sung by the herdsmen. Béarn and Bigorre contend for the honor of being his birthplace, as the Greek cities of old for that of Homer. Here Boieldieu, struck by the beauty of the country and its poetic associations, wished to found an academy of artists. His plan was, as he wrote his friend Berton in 1832, “to buy an old château in the beautiful valley of Argelés, as finely situated as that of the poet Despourrins. The sight of so glorious a landscape would rouse the torpid imagination, and perhaps awaken in the exhausted brain fresh inspirations that might rival the vagaries of certain artists of the new school. The sky of the Pyrenees ought to be as propitious as that of Italy. The Pic du Midi is not a volcano, but it is covered with flowers. And Marboré, the Brèche de Roland, and the Cirque de Gavarnie, with its cascade that falls down twelve hundred feet, are monuments capable of electrifying the imagination as well as St. Peter’s, the Coliseum, and the Pantheon at Rome.”

On a promontory near Miramon is the votive chapel of Piétad, with its Romanesque lucarnes and low arches, that dates from the ninth century. It was saved at the Revolution by the mountaineers, among whom, as in Spain, Our Lady of Sorrow (or of Pitié, as she is called here) is especially popular. There is, too, the chapel of Soulon, with its crenellated tower, and near by the hermitage of St. Aoulari, with its Roman apsis—a rural oratory, once supported by the offerings of pilgrims and a field that yielded three sacks of wheat, but where services are now held only on certain festivals of the Virgin.

On the other side of the Vale of Argelés stood the hermitage of St. Orens between two cliffs, where, in the tenth century, the Countess Faquilie of Bigorre built a monastery, that this great saint might come to her aid on the dread day of judgment; but only a few picturesque ruins now remain on the edge of a frightful abyss. An old charter enumerates the gifts of the countess for the support of this abbey, called St. Orens of Lavedan: fields, vineyards, books, vestments, and sacred vessels. Nay, more: twenty cows with their calves, six horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and a donkey. The neighboring lords verified the boundaries of the land she gave, and swore thereto by six saints popular in the mountains: St. Saturnin, St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. Martin, and St. Orens.

St. Orens rivals St. Savin in popularity in southwestern France, where many churches and convents still bear his name. Nor is his fame confined to this region. St. Hugo consecrated a chapel to his memory in the magnificent church of Cluny. In Spain there is a church bearing his name at Huesca, which claims to be his native place. In it is the tomb of St. Patience, his mother. And we remember seeing a marble statue of St. Orens beside the shrine of St. Isidro in one of the finest churches of Madrid. The Spanish say St. Orens was the brother of the great St. Lawrence, so honored by the church universal; but the traditions of France only speak of him as the son of the Duke of Urgel, who crossed the Pyrenees to bury himself in the solitude of the mountains. Here he found a cave in a melancholy valley—the Val Caprasie—where the only noise to break the everlasting silence was the torrent that escaped from Lake Isaby. No place could have been better suited to the poetic soul of St. Orens; for a poet he was. His hymns and other writings are still admired in our day, and his Latin poem, entitled Commonitorium, has recently been translated into French. Fortunatus mentions it:

“Paucaque perstrinxit florente Orientius ore.”

This is a treatise of Christian morality in elegiac measure. It is pleasant to read it in the place where it was written and among people whose ancestors probably first read it. We quote one passage, worthy of being written over the doors of the hospitable monasteries that bear his name, in one of which we have so often found shelter: “Fail not to receive under thy hospitable roof the traveller overtaken by darkness. When thou art naked, thou desirest a garment to cover thee; thirsty, a cup to refresh thee. Let similar wants, therefore, excite thy compassion. Share thy mantle, thy loaf with the unfortunate.”

It is said that this saint, so benevolent to others, exercised such severity towards himself as to gird his body with an iron chain and recite the Psalter daily standing in the icy waters of Lake Isaby. He may be cited as an early example of the benefit of hydropathy, for he lived to a good old age in spite, or in consequence, of the rigors of penance. He erected a flour-mill on the borders of the lake for the use of the people around, which tradition says lasted most miraculously seven centuries without ever needing the slightest repair. The remains of it are still pointed out with respect by the herdsmen of the valley. And the stone on which the saint used to kneel in his cave has been carefully preserved; for nothing can exceed the tenacity with which these mountaineers cling to their ancient traditions and memorials. It is worn by the knees of generation after generation who have knelt to pray where St. Orens prayed fourteen hundred years ago.

St. Orens became noted throughout the province for his sanctity and eminent abilities, and the inhabitants of Auch, after three days of fasting and prayer, chose him as their bishop. The messengers they despatched to the mountains found him cultivating the earth. “Deign, O Lord!” cried he, planting his spade in the ground, “deign, I beseech of thee, to manifest thy will in an unmistakable manner.” And in an instant the handle became a bush, which put forth branches and was covered with foliage. The saint no longer hesitated, but departed with the messengers. When he entered the city of Auch all the sick are said to have been instantly healed. He found his diocese partly under the influence of paganism, and showed his zeal in demolishing the altars of the false gods. He saved it also from the ravages of the Vandals at the beginning of the fifth century, and was deputed by the king of the Visigoths to avert the danger that threatened Toulouse, on which the Romans were marching. He is believed to have saved that city by his prayers, and his statue was afterwards placed over one of its gates out of gratitude. A portion of his relics is likewise borne through the streets in the magnificent annual processions for which Toulouse is famous.

St. Orens is said to have regretted the solitude of this peaceful mountain valley, and once, when overwhelmed with the responsibility of his office, he secretly escaped and fled to his cave. His people, however, went in pursuit of him and succeeded in bringing him back. But the time of release came. On his death-bed he had a wondrous vision of Christ surrounded by a multitude of angels, and while in mystic converse with them his soul took flight for heaven. He was buried in the church of St. Jean de l’Aubépine at Auch, and his tomb became famous for miracles, particularly in cases of epilepsy and diabolical possession.

A Benedictine monastery was built here in the tenth century and called St. Orens’ Priory. Its third prior, Bernard de Sédirac, afterwards Archbishop of Toledo, had the remains of St. Orens exhumed and placed in a coffer covered with silver bas-reliefs relating to the saint’s life. This châsse was suspended on the wall of a chapel behind the high altar, and could only be reached by means of a ladder. Notwithstanding, it was robbed of its silver covering some time after by two soldiers, one of whom exclaimed in the true modern spirit: “What! workest thou miracles at this late hour?” But he speedily expiated his sacrilege. He was seized inwardly with a terrible fire that soon consumed him. After this the pavement beneath was covered with bristling iron spikes to prevent another profanation. But the relics of St. Orens, that had escaped the Moor and the Norman, and were even spared by the iconoclasts of the sixteenth century, were less fortunate at the Revolution, when the church of which they were the glory, with its tombs of the early bishops, and the mausoleum of Sancho Mitarra, the scourge of the Moors, from whom sprang the great family of the Armagnacs, so celebrated for their power and their misfortunes, was mostly destroyed, together with a part of St. Orens’ Priory.

The last prior of this monastery was a member of the illustrious house of Montesquieu, one of the most ancient in the province. His brother, a writer of some merit, when the family name and arms were claimed by the sires of Boulbène, instituted a lawsuit against them, and wrote a work to prove his descent from Clovis, which led the Count de Maurepas to exclaim with affected alarm after M. de Montesquieu had gained his suit: “Now, we really hope you are not going to claim the throne of France!” And among the epigrams that rained on him when he was made a member of the French Academy was the following:

“Montesquiou-Fezensac est de l’Académie. Quel ouvrage a-t-il fait? Sa Genéalogie!”

The prior was one of the deputies of the Etats-Généraux, and made himself conspicuous for his mild, persuasive eloquence. One day Mirabeau, perceiving the effect of his discourse, cried out: Méfiez-vous de ce petit serpent: il vous séduira! After being in exile twice he was, at the Restoration, made a duke and peer of France.

How dear St. Orens’ memory still is in the diocese he once governed we well know who have spent several years of our life there. How joyous is the 1st of May, on which his festival falls! His relics are exposed at the priory, a procession, with lights and music, gathers around the place where his shrine once stood, and at night bonfires are lit on the other side of the Gers and the people dance in the open air.

But to return to the pastoral valleys of the Lavedan. Out of Argelés you pass into the valley of Azun, one of the least known, but one of the most picturesque in the Pyrenees. It is high up among the mountains and divided by the deep and turbulent Gave.[132] The entrance was once defended by the castle of Vieuzac, the ruins of which remain, associated with the memory of the too famous Barère. The valley is inhabited by people of primitive manners with few artificial distinctions. Here every year, at Carnival time, is to be seen the peculiar dance of the country called the Ballade, performed by the young men, who often assemble from different villages in short vests gaily adorned with ribbons, with the most efficient balladeur at their head, playing on the fife and tambourine and waving their flags. The tambourine of the Pyrenees is a primitive instrument of pine wood, as simple as the lyre of Apollo, and with the same number of strings, which the performer beats with a little rod. These dancers are escorted to the edge of their villages by young girls, who welcome them at their return and lavish praises on those who have distinguished themselves. They are presented with eggs, ham, and butter in all the villages they pass through, on which they feast the following day.

Footnote 132:

Gave is the general name of these mountain streams.

Among the curious old usages of this valley, before 1793, was the tribute of butter to the shrine of St. Bertrand of Comminges, a popular saint in the Pyrenees, where he labored in the eleventh century. The people of Azun were then almost out of the bounds of civilization, and for what religious instruction they had they were chiefly indebted to the holy hermits of the neighboring mountains. It is said that when St. Bertrand came to preach among these rough mountaineers, he was treated with so much indignity that the tail of his mule was cut off, for which the land was cursed with sterility for several years. Touched by the repentance and sad condition of the inhabitants, the saint, by his prayers, obtained the cessation of their punishment, and they, in their gratitude, promised to give him henceforth all the butter made the week before Whitsuntide. This vow was kept for nearly seven centuries. A canon and two prebends from St. Bertrand’s came every year to the valley in acknowledgment of this tribute, bringing with them water that had been passed through the saint’s pastoral staff while chanting some orison in his honor. This they gave to the people as a remedy for disease among cattle. These deputies never failed to pass before the house, which is still standing, where St. Bertrand had been so disrespectfully treated. The master stood in the door and humbly prayed them to enter and partake of the refreshments he had prepared, which they did with emotion, like angels of peace and reconciliation.

At the farther end of the valley of Azun, not far from the Spanish frontier, rise the dome and square tower of Notre Dame de Pouey-la-Hun, that stands on an isolated peak overlooking the village of Arrens, between the two roads that lead to Spain and the province of Béarn. The present edifice is comparatively modern, but its foundation is so remote as to be lost in obscurity. You enter by a fine porch supported by four marble pillars, and are at once surprised at the richness of the interior. The walls are brown and gold, and the pillars, carvings, statues, and the very mouldings of the blue arches are all gilded, producing a most brilliant effect. Around the nave are two galleries, one above the other, for the men, who are generally separated from the women in the churches of Bigorre; at least, in the villages. The pavement is the unhewn granite cliff, which is worn quite smooth by the feet of so many generations of worshippers. It descends like an amphitheatre, enabling every one to see the altar distinctly. Across it is a groove, worn by a mountain stream at certain seasons of the year. All the joys and sorrows of the valley are brought to the feet of Notre Dame de Pouey-la-Hun, and numerous pilgrimages are made here at certain seasons of the year.

In 1793 orders came to destroy this venerated chapel, but when the emissaries entered it they were saluted by mysterious voices among the arches, as if reproaching them for their blasphemies and imprecations, and, terrified by the unearthly sounds, they at once made their escape. There was nothing supernatural in this, however. It was a mere stratagem on the part of the peasants to save their beloved chapel, and they boast of it to this day.

During the troubles with Spain this chapel was used as a military post, and consequently much injured. As soon as it was no longer needed for this purpose the government again decided to demolish it and sell the materials. The people became excited, and the women assailed with stones the agents sent to examine the building, who fled for their lives. Then a pious widow, to save it from further profanation, bought it for about fifteen thousand francs, which was nearly all she had, and, when she died, bequeathed it to her nephew, a priest, till better days should arrive. Time and neglect were beginning to leave their traces on the chapel when Queen Hortense came to the Pyrenees. She had just lost her son, the Prince Royal of Holland, and the wild, melancholy grandeur of these mountain valleys harmonized with her sadness. She was particularly pleased with the quaint village of Arrens and its picturesque chapel, and made a sketch of the landscape herself. The devotion of the people to the Virgin of Pouey-la-Hun touched her, and she sympathized in their wish it should be reopened for public worship. She went there to offer her vows, and founded an anniversary Mass for her son, which was to be celebrated with all possible solemnity, as recorded by the authorities of the place. This was shortly before the birth of Louis Napoleon. She never forgot her visit to Pouey-la-Hun. She alludes to it in her travels, and excited the interest of the government in its neglected condition. In 1836 it was made over to the Bishop of Tarbes, who founded a seminary here under the care of missionaries from Garaison, who have rendered it one of the most popular chapels in the Pyrenees.

But to return to the basin of Argelés. The valley of Cauterets begins at Pierrefitte. A carriage-road has been hewn along the steep mountain side on the very edge of a precipice, three or four hundred feet deep, at the bottom of which rushes a fierce torrent that breaks into foam over the sharp rocks that encumber its bed. On each side of this gulf rise steep cliffs almost perpendicularly, down which dash here and there miniature cascades, all in a foam. A bend in the river enables you to look back through the gorge over the wild Gave, the waters of which are of the color of beryl. Nothing could be more delicate than the tint of the foam. Beyond the bold arch of the bridge at Pierrefitte can be seen the fair vale of Argelés, forming a lovely picture framed by the lofty palisades of this wild pass. We left the carriage and wandered on afoot, gathering the eglantine and other wild flowers, inhaling the delicious mountain air, and drinking the cool waters of its numerous streams. By moonlight the scene is particularly sublime. The gloom of this narrow gorge shut in by the lofty mountains, the deep shades of the forests that cover them, and the abyss below, with the ceaseless rush of the mad stream, produce a profound impression on the mind. We remember driving through it on one occasion at midnight. The full moon hung over the mountains of Gavarnie, its light streaming down here and there into the gorge with mysterious, enchanting effect. Before us was the peak of Péguère, like an enormous pyramid with one tremulous star above, its summit bathed in the soft radiance, while its furrowed sides and unfathomable gulfs were veiled with a thousand shadows. As you wind up the Côte du Limaçon, the whole Gave is beaten into spray among the huge rocks. Here the lateral mountains recede somewhat, and you shortly come to the triangular valley of Cauterets, completely shut in among majestic mountains. Its springs were well known to the Romans, and some pretend that Cæsar himself visited them. It is more certain that the kings of Aragon and Navarre did, as well as the ancient lords of Bigorre and Béarn. The little town is more sumptuous now than when under the rule of the abbot of St. Savin. Wooden cabins have been replaced by marble edifices, and the artificial appliances of modern times substituted for the primitive observances of St. Orens. But one gives a sigh now and then for the good old simple days when the lord abbot, to prevent all imposition on the stranger and the poor, forbade the sale of provisions except on the public square. The wine, too, which had to be of good quality, could only be sold a liard more on a pint than at St. Savin, and if false measure was given a fine of ten crowns was imposed on the vender, one-half of which went to the poor and the rest to the abbot.

Cauterets is a very agreeable residence in the season. Here you meet strangers from all parts of the world, and there is a certain charm in the unrestrained intercourse. At certain hours, of course, every one goes to partake of the waters and to bathe. There are pleasant walks along the banks of the Gave, and fatiguing ones up the steep mountain sides. At table you have trout from the river and game from the forests, fowl and vegetables from Argelés, apples and plums from St. Savin’s, peaches from Béarn, and berries of rare flavor from the mountains. Buried in this quiet valley, away from all human agitations, in daily communication with nature, that puts on here its fairest aspect, the invalid returns to a simple, inartificial life which produces more effect than the waters. Rousseau thought no violent agitation whatever, no vapors of the mind, could long resist such a place of residence, and he was astonished that the salutary air of the mountains was not numbered among the chief remedies of medical and moral science.

The valleys of Barèges and Gavarnie also belong to the Lavedan. Another gorge near Pierrefitte leads to them, which is even gloomier and more savage than that of Cauterets. A little more than a century ago it was inaccessible to carriages, but since, by a miracle of engineering, a road has been constructed along the edge of the precipice, and when it cannot find room on one side it springs boldly across the abyss to the other by means of a bridge from which you look down a terrific depth at the Gave, that roars and struggles along with scarcely room enough in its bed. The road thus crosses and recrosses the river seven times. It was completed in 1746, when a carriage was for the first time seen in the gorge. Anything more wild and melancholy than this defile cannot be conceived. The mountains rise perpendicularly up on both sides, with nothing growing on them but a few wretched pines twisted by the winds. The height of these grim walls, the depth of the abyss over which you hang, the gloom, the silence only broken by the roar of the torrent, appall. From time to time you see an isolated house, and at length the village of Viscos, hanging like an eagle’s nest on the rocks. There are two ferruginous springs in the gorge, but they cannot be utilized on account of their position.

Just as you are beginning to yield to the horrors of this wild pass, it opens, and you soon come to the sweet, fresh valley of Luz, one of the most beautiful in the Pyrenees. It is three thousand feet higher than the Vale of Argelés. Here the Gave is a peaceful, well-behaved stream. Its shores are planted with long lines of decorous poplars. The meadow is dotted with trees and covered with harvests. Lofty mountains keep guard around, the lower ones wooded and crowned with the ruins of some old castle, the upper covered with glaciers. In the depths of this valley is the town of Luz, with narrow, tortuous streets, and at the right, on the side of the mountain, is the fashionable watering-place of St. Sauveur. The church of Luz, built by the Knights-Templars in the twelfth century, looks like a fortress with its battlements and great square tower. As in many churches of this region, there is a low, narrow door, now walled up, by which the Cagots—those unhappy pariahs of the Pyrenees—were once obliged to enter. This proscribed race is known to have existed in the time of the early French monarchy. It is said that they descended from the Goths or some vanquished nation, which made them an object of contempt. They were denied citizenship and obliged to live apart and wear a red badge on their breasts, shaped somewhat like a duck’s foot. The church endeavored to triumph over this prejudice by reminding the people that all men are brethren. She would not allow the Cagots, though they were deemed infectious, to be banished from the churches, but gave them a separate place till they should be regarded with more favorable dispositions. They had their own stoup, and it was a defilement to pass through their door. In one church of the diocese of Tarbes the archdeacon with the other clergy, to do away with this odious distinction, passed through their door at some public procession, and the people were obliged to follow. From that time they passed indifferently through either door. The race is nearly extinct now, or has gradually become almost identified with the other inhabitants.

Ascending one of the church towers to the battlements, you find broken lances, stirrups, and other accoutrements—perhaps left behind by the old Knights. There are also four cannons placed here by the Leaguers to defend the edifice against the Huguenots, who always made churches the principal object of attack.

East of Luz, on a high mount, are the picturesque ruins of the Castle of Sainte Marie, which once defended the valley, likewise attributed to the Templars. This was one of the last holds of the English in Bigorre. It is also associated with Burke of the “Sublime and Beautiful,” who surely found both in this incomparable valley. Was it in France that he found reason to prefer “the furniture of ancient tyranny, even in rags,” to the torrent of liberty that swept it violently away?

St. Sauveur is built in a curve of the mountain side, and its houses on the cliffs and terraces produce a charming effect. It is only ten minutes’ walk from Luz, through a long avenue of Lombardy poplars, across a marble bridge over the Gave, and then up a spiral rampe which affords a new and more extensive view at every step. You see the verdant meadow, pretty hamlets on the mountain slopes, foaming cascades, on every hand a landscape varied, brilliant, and imposing.

The first to discover the virtues of the thermal springs of St. Sauveur was a bishop of Tarbes who took refuge here when his diocese was ravaged by the Huguenots of Béarn in the sixteenth century. Surely he had need to drink of their soothing waters! After experiencing their virtues he placed the following inscription over the principal spring: Vos haurietis aquas de fonte Salvatoris, whence the name of St. Sauveur. But the place did not become a fashionable resort till the present century. At the Restoration the French aristocracy, diplomatic highnesses, and military officers flocked hither to enjoy the scenery and allay the fever of their uncertain political life by drinking of the sulphurous waters.

Not far from Luz, on a verdant hill, are the ruins of a hermitage where from time immemorial lived a succession of hermits down to the end of the eighteenth century. Beside it was the chapel of St. Pierre, held in great veneration by the mountaineers, who, on solemn occasions, went there to pray for some special blessing or be delivered from some evil. The statutes of Luz forbade under severe penalty any person over twelve years of age to ring the bells of this chapel without orders. They required, moreover, a general procession to be made here on St. Mark’s day in order to “obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, peace with the neighboring valleys, power to resist the devil and all wickedness, and strength to perform those works agreeable to God by means of which is attained the glory of Paradise—Amen.” When the bells rang out on the 25th of April, the master and mistress of every house in the valley were to present themselves, as well dressed as possible, in the church of Luz, and thence proceed, reciting a prescribed number of Paters and Aves, to the hermitage, where the Mass of St. Mark was said and a portion of the four Gospels read. Those who failed to take part in the procession of “Monsieur Saint Marc,” without a legitimate excuse, were obliged to pay a fine of two quarts of wine and half a pound of wax.

St. Peter’s chapel was latterly restored by Napoleon III. under the name of St. Pierre de Solferino. The last hermit who lived here was a Capuchin named Father Ambrose, who consecrated himself to God at the age of sixteen and was all his life a model of holiness. When he took possession of his cell he exclaimed: “I wish to live here as in a tomb—to be counted as nothing—to live unknown, a simple, prayerful, abject life, in utter ignorance of all that is passing in the world.” How complete his renunciation of the world was, how profound the peace he found here, may be seen by two works he left behind, which breathe the deep piety of his nature. They are entitled: Traité de la Paix Intérieure and Traité de la Voie de l’Ame. In the latter he says: “It is in the silence of the passions, interior calmness, exemption from unruly desires, and the government of one’s self that true happiness consists.” This work acquired great renown. The Queen of France accepted the dedication, and nine or ten editions were published during the author’s life without disturbing his profound humility or love of solitude. He died here in the odor of sanctity, in 1778, at the advanced age of seventy.

One of the excursions generally made from Luz is to the hermitage of St. Justin, the first bishop of Tarbes, who fled from persecution to the summit of this lofty mountain, where he and his companions built three cells and gave themselves up to austerities and prayer. They were succeeded by other hermits for ages. The ruins of their cells are still to be seen. St. Justin, says the Martyrology, “rendered himself glorious by the multiplication of his talents.”

At the foot of the castle of Sainte Marie is the gorge to the valley of Barège along the river Bastan, which you follow a few miles, through the poplars and willows, till you come to the village at the head of the valley, which is here so narrow as to leave barely room for a single street. Nothing could be sterner and wilder, and the place would long ago have been abandoned to the bears and the elements but for the reputation of its mineral waters. It is, in fact, nearly abandoned in the winter, when a part of the village is generally carried away by the avalanches or the inundation of the most insubordinate of streams. It was Madame de Maintenon who came here with the Duc du Maine, that gave a reputation to the springs of Barèges. Louis XV. built a military hospital here, as the waters are efficacious in the healing of wounds.

The heiress of Barèges in the middle ages married a knight named D’Ossun, but the mountaineers, unable to tolerate the rule of a stranger, resolved to slay him. He was warned and took flight. All the mountain passes were guarded, but he had, says the legend, a wonderful horse, by means of which he leaped from cliff to cliff, and thus made his escape. This place is still called the Pas d’Ossun. The house of Ossun was famous for its warriors. Pierre, a member of this family in the sixteenth century, was a great captain and chiefly contributed to the victory at Dreux. Disheartened at one moment, he followed the example of his fellow-soldiers who were flying from the battle-field, but a feeling of honor brought him back and he covered himself with glory. He could not, however, forgive himself for a moment of weakness, and, in punishment, suffered himself to die of hunger.

There are numerous hollows among the Pyrenees called Oules (a word in patois signifying a large pot or kettle), around which the mountains rise almost perpendicularly. These basins are also called Cirques. The most famous, as well as most perfect, is that of Gavarnie, surrounded by the mighty walls of Marboré with its towers and embattled summit. The emotion that seizes one in this sublime spot is unparalleled. But its chaos of terrific aspect, its mountains with their glaciers, the famous Brèche de Roland, and the thread-like cascade that falls down so many hundred feet—the source of the Gave that flows past the grotto of Lourdes—have too often been depicted to need repetition. The scene is to be felt, not described. Here end the seven valleys of the Lavedan on the very boundaries of Spain.

JOB AND EGYPT.[133]

Footnote 133:

V. Le Rédempteur et la Vie Future, dans les Civilisations Primitives. Par M. l’Abbé Ancessi. Paris: Leroux.

There is perhaps no fact more important in the history of the human race, or which, in its striking corroboration of revealed truth, is worthy of higher consideration, than the accumulation of proof, resulting from the exhumation of past ages by modern research, that there are certain beliefs which are the inalienable inheritance of the great human family—beliefs which modern scepticism attacks by a process of false reasoning incomprehensible to any simple and upright nature.

For some years past the sacred texts have been put to the proof by tests of a character as severe as they were unexpected; and thus, from the moment that the key was obtained for deciphering the inscriptions of a far-remote antiquity, it was not without eager anxiety that the judgment was awaited which science was about to pronounce.

But on this occasion, as always when interests of this description are at stake, the first conclusions were too hastily arrived at, and precipitation led to mistakes.

After the vain attacks made on the one hand, and the groundless anxieties raised on the other, with regard to the question of the zodiacs, it was soon found that greater circumspection as well as more accurate criticism must be brought to the examination of evidence before it could be quoted in proof or disproof of any theory. Since that time the lapse of a century has witnessed a vast accession of documentary testimony, and it may be affirmed that up to this moment the whole concurs in establishing the veracity and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. As the inscriptions of the kings of Assyria bear witness to the fidelity of the Bible narrative, and the Babylonian tradition of the Creation, the Fall, the Tree of Life, the Tower of Babel, and the Deluge confirm the grander, more logical, and simpler account given in the Book of Genesis, so do the annals and theological teachings of ancient Egypt testify to the truth of those doctrines contained in the inspired writings of which they are the traditional echo—an echo mute for ages, and but now reawakened as if to add its protest against the miserable scepticism which is one of the signs of a degenerate and decaying world.

M. l’Abbé Ancessi, whose work on the sacerdotal vestments of Israel and Egypt we have already noticed,[134] has lately published one of more extensive interest, the object of which is to establish from the most ancient documents in existence, outside the Holy Scriptures, that the dogmas necessary to the religious and moral life of man were, from the very origin of society, the heritage of our forefathers, and that, more than a thousand years before Moses, well-nigh all our doctrines and all our hopes existed in the most remote civilization in the universe; and from thence to draw the conclusion that these doctrines and principles would not have remained indestructible in the human mind, diversified and restless as it is, had they not been a part of itself, the foundation of its nature, and one final reason of its being.

Footnote 134:

THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Nov., 1876, p. 213.

The author proceeds to group the Egyptian belief with respect to God, a Redeemer, and the life to come around the well-known text in which Job, overwhelmed by the reproaches of his friends and the weight of his misfortunes, despairing of consolation in this world, declares his certainty of a life to come, where, after death, he will meet with a powerful Avenger, who will put his enemies to shame and make his cause triumph, end his trials, and recompense his virtues by the supreme blessedness of the Vision of God.

The argument of Baldad the Suhite, put briefly, is that The impious man is always unfortunate in this world, with its counterpart, Whoever is unfortunate is impious; but, in spite of this most imperturbable of theorists, Job is conscious of his own innocence, and after listening to a long outpouring of eloquent imagery, amid the desolate splendors of which there shines no ray of hope or comfort for him, he bursts forth like a tempest:

“How long, then, will you afflict my soul, and break me in pieces with your words?... Have pity, have pity upon me, at least you my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.... Who will grant me that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book with an iron pen, and in a plate of lead; or be graven with an instrument in the rock? For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at last upon the dust. That these bones shall again be covered with their skin; that in my flesh I shall see God. I myself shall behold him; mine eyes shall behold him, and not another.”

This rapid incursion into the world beyond the tomb, with which the Semitic races were never familiar, and which they appeared in thought to avoid with a singular reserve, contains all the solution of the redoubtable problem; but though the question was settled, the arguments of the pitiless sages began again with renewed volubility, until the voice of God himself interposed, on behalf of his servant, to silence them.

The words quoted above contain evident allusions to traditions and dogmas which appear to have become obscure or been forgotten among the Semitic races. This profession of faith remains isolated, without a precedent which explains it; there is, in fact, nothing analogous to it in the most ancient texts of the Pentateuch, in the Songs of Israel, or the promises and teachings of the prophets.

In the family of Israel, with the Mosaic legislation, the primitive world closes and another begins. The doctrines and hopes freshly implanted by God develop like a plant from its seed, each part being necessary to the other parts; but amidst all the Hebraic literature the Book of Job and his profession of faith remain isolated, and on this account the value of both have been disputed by persons interested in lessening their importance. From this point of view, therefore, it is of moment to find an analogous doctrine in the outlying records of a remote antiquity, and to discover the edifice from which this fragment has been detached.

On the rolls of linen and papyrus preserved in the tombs of Thebes or of Serapeum we find not only the belief mentioned in the Book of Job, but the very expressions there made use of. On these rolls not only is this belief repeated in a multitude of forms, but a community of traditions in the two great families of Sem and Cham is also proved.

Long centuries had elapsed since their dispersion; they were separated not only by their intervening deserts, but by their difference of language, customs, laws, and worship; and yet, where the Semitic text is obscure, we have but to compare it with the writings left by the old Egyptians to make clear its meaning.

The opening words of the quotation above apparently allude to some contemporary usage well known to the patriarch and his friends, but still not in use among themselves: “Who shall grant that my words may be written ... and engraved in the flint-stone?” M. Ancessi asks if we have not here an allusion to the styles or small obelisks which then abounded in the temples and tombs of Egypt, and which, if not in use among the tribes of the land of Uz, had nevertheless been seen by these families of shepherds in their distant wanderings. Besides the great inscriptions commemorating the conquests of the Pharaos, there are, in or near the Egyptian temples, at the gates of the tombs, or within the sepulchral chambers, innumerable smaller monuments placed there by private individuals, and inscribed with their confession of faith. Of this we shall speak further on.

Numerous passages in the Book of Job seem to indicate that he had visited the land of Egypt,[135] and, among these, allusion is made to the tombs of the “kings and counsellors of the earth,” with whom he would fain “be at rest,” and “with princes, who possess abundance of gold and fill their dwellings with silver”[136] (alluding to the Egyptian custom of heaping precious objects in the tombs for the use of the departed at the resurrection). Like them, Job desired to leave his tablet, in which, after the manner of the commemorative obelisks of the valley of the Nile, he would declare the innocence of his life, his faith in a divine Avenger, in the resurrection of the body, and the vision of Him who recompenses the just and punishes the wicked.

Footnote 135:

Job viii. 2. Take, for instance, the description of the papyrus (Job viii. 11); the allusion to the rush-boats which are used on the Nile (ch. ix. 26), and to the hippopotamus, under the name of Behemoth, the Hebrew translation of the Egyptian pihémout, or river-horse, and which is described as “sleeping in the shadow of the lotus, in the covert of the reeds, and in the marshes;... compassed about by the willows of the brook” (Job xl. 16). Again, in ch. xxviii. 1-11, there may be an allusion to the mines worked by the Egyptians on Mt. Sinai, where also are numerous inscriptions left by that people on the rocks.

Footnote 136:

Job iii. 13-15. In the papyri of Neb-Qed in the Louvre, in a gallery parallel to the great hall where the sarcophagus is placed, we see a coffer, a mirror, a collyrium-case, a pair of sandals, a cane, a vase for unguent, another for ablutions, a third for perfumes. The kings and queens took with them into the tomb also their jewels and richest garments, so sure were they of their resurrection. The ordinary dwellings of the Egyptians were small, built of wood or unbaked bricks, but their tombs, the “Eternal Abodes,” were of granite. Not a house, not a palace of ancient Egypt is now standing, but their tombs and sepulchral pyramids will probably last as long as our planet. The Hebrews, after the example of the Egyptians, appear to have had treasure buried with them. Josephus relates that Herod, being in want of money, made a nocturnal descent into the tomb of King David. He found there no money, but “aurea ornamenta multumque supellectilis prætiosæ, quæ omnia abstulit.”—Ant. Jud. lib. xiv. cap. vii. p. 724, Ed. Oxford.

The funereal inscriptions of ancient Egypt are of two kinds: those written on rolls of papyrus or linen bands, enveloping the body of the mummy or enclosed with it inside the sarcophagus; and the incised monuments of stone or granite, erected in the chambers or cut in the walls of the tombs and temples and at the entrance of the pyramids.

Almost all the texts[137] found upon the mummies are extracts from a book which Champollion called the Ritual, but which is now styled the Todtenbuch, or Book of the Dead; the term “ritual” being confined to the liturgical manuals relating to the ceremonies of inhumation, etc., some curious copies of which may be seen in the Louvre.

Footnote 137:

The faithful in the middle ages were frequently interred with their profession of faith, the Credo and Confiteor, or sometimes also the very text from the Book of Job which we are about to consider.

The Todtenbuch is a collection of hymns, prayers, and theological instructions, divided into one hundred and sixty-five chapters, with their titles and rubrics. These rubrics, as in the Catholic missals and breviaries, consist of a few words in red ink to guide the celebrant. The titles of the chapters are also in red. The lines are usually vertical, and, in the richer copies, the upper margin of the roll is adorned, by the side of the title of each chapter, with an illustration or vignette representing the subject there treated. Finally, a whole page is taken up by a picture of the judgment of souls and the ingathering of the harvest in the blessed fields of Ker-Neter.

These texts were to be recited by the soul during its journey, as a safeguard from danger and to purify it at the moment of the solemn judgment which should decide its eternal destiny. The manuscript is intended to assist the memory of the departed. Under the twelfth dynasty these texts were often engraved on the sarcophagus itself.

Thoth, the God of Wisdom, was said to have dictated the Book of the Dead, the greater portion of which Bunsen does not hesitate to relegate to prehistoric times.[138]

Footnote 138:

Bunsen, Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. v. p. 110.

In support of this supposition, M. Deveria notices two very ancient annotations. The first of these, at the sixty-fourth chapter, states that this portion of the Book of the Dead was found at Hermopolis, written in blue, on a cube of Baakes, under the feet of the god, where the royal son Hardanouef found it in the time of King Menkera when making the inventory of the temple. The second annotation tells that chapter one hundred and thirty was found[139] in the pylone of the great temple in the reign of King Housapti, who was the fifth monarch of the first dynasty, and Menkera built the third pyramid. Thus, at these periods, certain parts of the Todtenbuch were discovered as antiquities, the memory of which had been lost; and certainly we find on the wooden mummy-coffins of the eleventh dynasty long passages from it, proving, therefore, its composition to have been long anterior to the Shepherd Kings, and consequently long before Abraham.

Footnote 139:

Catalogues des MSS. Egyptiens, p. 51.

The obelisks, or inscriptions in stone, have not, however, the impersonal and theological character of the writing on the rolls. On the obelisks the name of the departed is usually inscribed side by side with the names of his family, parents or children, and his titles and occupation are there given. At the head of the monument he is represented making an offering to Osiris, his judge, or his children are there depicted offering libations before the image of their father and reciting the liturgical hymns for his soul.

It is not rare to find the dead himself asking for prayers. The funereal obelisk of Neb-oua at Boulag ends thus: “To the living; to the ancients of the earth; to the priests; to the panegyrists; to the divine fathers; to all who see this obelisk: make for me your songs, beloved of Osiris, the Eternal King. Say: May the delicious breath of life breathe in the face of Neb-oua, the first prophet of Osiris, the acknowledged just one.”[140]

Footnote 140:

Notice des Princip. Monum. Par M. Mariette.

Again, on the lid of a sarcophagus in the same museum (No. 978) we find a “Prayer to be said by every person who draws near to this tomb: May God give thee light,[141] and may its beams shine into thine eyes; may he breathe into thy nostrils the breath which thou must breathe to live.”

Footnote 141:

As this formula recalls the Lux perpetua liceat eis of the Catholic, so also we find on the tombs of Egypt the Requiescat in pace.

The personal details, which vary upon every obelisk, are accompanied by formulæ taken from the Book of the Dead, which recall the faith of the departed in the resurrection of the body; the rewards and punishments of a future life; the judgment, presided over by Osiris, his redeemer; and the hope of an eternity of happiness flowing from the beatific vision.

Here we have, in fact, the profession of faith of the patriarch Job, a further examination of which will show us that the analogy is carried into the minutest details. In regard to it we will first consider briefly the Egyptian doctrine about God and the Redeemer.

Although nothing was originally more simple than the theology of Egypt, yet nothing could well be more confused and perplexing than it became as the commentaries of the schools and the mythological superfetations of each temple developed in the course of time. From its earliest to its latest days Egypt believed in one God, personal, uncreated, almighty, the author and watchful preserver of the universe. How, then, it may be asked, can its exuberant polytheism be reconciled with this doctrine? In traversing the galleries filled with long ranks of the Egyptian deities—Thoth with the head of an ibis and the hawk-headed Horus being conspicuous among them—we pass along the stony piles of these antique and impenetrable monstrosities as if under the influence of a nightmare, while the words of liberated Israel echo from distant ages in our ears: “Os habent et non loquentur; oculos habent et non videbunt; manus habent et non palpabunt; pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in gutture suo.” And we ask what there can be of just and true behind the strange forms of these old-world phantoms.

The answer is contained in the fact that the Egyptians attributed to God different names and forms, according to the aspects and attributes to which they wished to give prominence, while, under each of these names and forms, God, in his inalienable infinity, remained always the same; and, as if they had anticipated our perplexities at the sight of these battalions of divinities, they have taken exceeding pains to instruct us on this point. As the Eternal, God had one name; as Creator, he had another; as Providence or Preserver, another; and as Judge and Redeemer of souls, the name of Osiris. In each sanctuary the one God of the whole country, living in a Triad which, without division of substance, expressed the phases of his threefold existence, was worshipped under a particular form and name. He had a special worship, rites, chants, and ceremonial, unknown in the neighboring temples; but the hymns and inscriptions constantly dwell on the fact that each temple and each ritual was in honor of the only God, to whom belong all temples, and to whom all prayers are addressed.[142]

Footnote 142:

An historical fact which exercised considerable influence on the religion of Egypt, and which helps to explain the multiplicity of the names given to the Deity, was that the whole of Egypt which Menes united under his sceptre was divided into nomes, each having its capital city; and each of these regions had its principal god, designated by a special name, but under these different names the same doctrine always remains of a divine unity. Thus by the side of the political there was also a kind of divine feudality. Tum reigned at Heliopolis, Osiris at Theni and later at Abydos, Ammon was over Thebes, and over Memphis Phtah. Each of these gods, identical in substance with the gods of the other nomes, easily allowed this fundamental identity. Ammon of Thebes gave hospitality in his temple to Min or Khem of Coptos, to Tum of Heliopolis, and to Phtah of Memphis, who on their part received Ammon with equal readiness into their own sanctuaries.

The Egyptians knew that the Deity is an unfathomable mystery and can have no name. “His name,” say the texts, “is mysterious as his being.” Considered from this point of view, he is called The Hidden One—Ammon, whose image is enveloped in an impenetrable veil. In his uncreated essence God is invisible, but he has revealed himself in his acts, expressive of his wisdom, power, and goodness, and each of these attributes presents an accessible side, by which the mind can take hold of the incomprehensible, see the invisible, and name the nameless One. Having in himself all powers and every form of greatness, his names and forms are without number, and the texts, as in the Hymn to Ammon, expressly designate him as The Many-Named—the Multitude by the Names.[143]

Footnote 143:

“The habit of reuniting in one worship the different forms of the Divinity continually led to their fusion into one personality. Sevek, of Fayom, associated with Ra, became Sevek-Ra; Phtah was fused with Sokari under the name of Phtah-Sokari, and Osiris, being afterwards joined to these, made Phtah-Sokar-Osiris. All the divine types were reciprocally interpenetrated and absorbed into the supreme deity. The names and forms of God were indefinitely multiplied, but God, never.”—G. Maspero, Hist. Anc., ch. i. p. 29.

The true name of God appears to have been, with the Egyptians as with the Hebrews, the greatest of mysteries. Probably it was not allowed to be written; in any case, as in the papyrus Harris, its utterance was forbidden. “I am He who makes trial of the warriors, he whose name is known to none. His name must be kept in silence on the borders of the river: whoso shall utter it, he shall be consumed. His name must be silent upon earth.”

We find this in the hymn to Ammon,[144] and the remainder of this text leads us further into the doctrine of a Trinity which Egyptian theology had preserved amidst other primeval traditions.

Footnote 144:

See papyri in the museum of Boulag.

“Creator of the pastures whereon the cattle feed, and of the plants which nourish man; he who provides for the fishes of the sea and the birds of heaven, who gives the breath of life to the germ yet hidden in the egg, who feeds the flying insect and the creeping thing, who provides the stores of the mouse in his retreat and of the birds in the forest[145]—homage to thee, the author of all, who alone art, ... who watchest over men when they repose, and seekest the good of thy creatures; God, Ammon, the preserver of all; Tum and Armachis worship thee in their words, and say, Homage to thee, because of thy immanence in us; prostration before thy face, because thou producest us; ... the gods bow before thy majesty, and exalt the soul of him by whom they were produced, happy in the immanence of their generator,” etc.

Footnote 145:

Conf. Job xxxviii. 39-41.

It will be perceived that Tum and Armachis appear to form, with Ammon, a triad, of which the persons are distinct without being separate, each person being represented as reposing in one divine substance, of which each is an aspect, of which each expresses an attribute, and of whose indivisible essence each forms a part.[146]

Footnote 146:

At Heliopolis the divinity appears under three forms: Atoum, the Inaccessible God; Choper, the Creator (the scarabæus God); and Ra, the Manifestation of God—the visible sun. It was not until later that we find a feminine divinity.

It is not to be supposed, however, that this lofty and abstract conception was appreciated by the multitude, with whom, on the contrary, the numerous names and forms of their deity degenerated into a monstrous polytheism, and who, in spite of the reiterated affirmations of the hymns and inscriptions, crowded their altars with fantastic idols.

But for the depositaries of the sacred doctrine there was but one God, living in the midst of the divine triads, uncreated, and the principle of life. He was also the principle of truth: “Hold nothing as truth but the Eternal and the Just.... Man is only the appearance; and the appearance is the supreme lie.... What is the First Truth? He who is one and alone, the Lord of Truth and Father of the gods.”

The explanation to this formula is to be found in the other text which supposes the Word to be the principle of the divine persons:

Hermes Trismegistes, commenting upon the above, says: “He who made the world made it not with his hands, but with his word.” And again:

“The luminous Word (Verbum), which emanates from the Intelligence, is the Son of God.... The Intelligence of life and light engendered, by the Word, another creative Intelligence, the god of fire and fluids, who in turn formed seven ministers, enveloping in their circles the sensible world, and governing it by what is called destiny. This spirit is necessary to all; he gives life to all, sustains all. He flows from the holy source, and unceasingly comes to the aid of the spirits and of all things living.”[147]

Footnote 147:

We seem to have here a vague idea of the Holy Spirit, with his Seven Gifts, which are resplendent in the world of nature as well as in the world of grace.

This spirit, Tum, or Tum Cheper (creator), is described in the texts as “Master of understanding, ... giving to all things their motion: when he wrought in the abyss of the waters,[148] then was produced the gladsomeness of the light. The gods rejoiced at its beauty.”

Footnote 148:

“And the spirit of God moved over the waters” (Gen. i. 2). “And God saw the light that it was good” (Gen. i. 4).

The Author of the universe is also worshipped as the principle of Goodness under the name of Oun Nofrè—the Good Being; and the inscriptions reiterate the appellation:

“His love is in the south: his graces in the north: all hearts are transported with his beauty.... When he traverses the heavens in his bark, and travels in peace through celestial space, his rowers are in gladness.”[149]

Footnote 149:

Hymn to Ammon-Ra.

Again, in the wisdom of his secret counsels, God is described as holding in reserve all that may happen in the future. “He is that which is, and that which is not,” says the Todtenbuch; “for that which is, is in my hand, and that which is not is in my heart.”

It has been necessary to dwell at some length on the Egyptian doctrines respecting the nature of God and his relation to the world before approaching another feature of exceeding interest in their theology—namely, the history and office of the Redeemer.

This mighty Liberator, the first hope of whom was given by God to our first parents, appears under various forms in the traditions of all the peoples of a distant antiquity, and among these traditions the most ancient and the most pure is certainly that of Osiris, whose noble and beneficent attributes raise him above all the divinities of other nations, represented as coming to bring succor to man. The Doctors of the church were themselves struck with admiration before this august figure, and did not hesitate to identify the name of Osiris with that of our Lord Jesus Christ,[150] being convinced that the belief respecting him was but an echo of the primitive revelation. It would indeed be difficult to explain otherwise its correspondence to the Messianic prophecies given later to the chosen people, or the analogies of the Osirian teaching with the accomplishment, in the life of our Lord, of the hopes which, during long centuries, it kept alive in the countless generations of Egypt.

Footnote 150:

This fact, which appeared inexplicable temerity on the part of Tertullian, is justified by what has of late years been discovered from original documents, which correct the classical misrepresentations of Egyptian theology.

The special attribute of Osiris is goodness; it is he who is Oun-Nofre the Good Being par excellence; it is he who, with Tum (or Phtah) and Thoth, partakes of the divine essence, and is called, like Ammon, Neb-oua—the Lord alone.

In the papyrus 3292 in the Hall of Tombs in the Louvre is the following passage: “Hail to thee, Osiris, ... the great eldest Son of Ra, Father of fathers,... King of immeasurable time and lord of eternity.... None knows his name; innumerable are his names in the cities and the nomes.[151]... Hail to thee, ... the one who didst rise from the dead. He is the lord of life, and we live by his creations; none can live without his will.” The second aspect of the life of Osiris is his sojourn upon earth in human form, his death, and passage into the land of the departed. Plutarch tells us that Osiris, lord of time, made himself man and reigned on earth, giving his people wise and holy laws; that he taught them agriculture and reverence to the gods, going through all the country to instruct his subjects, whose attention he won and whose manners he softened by the penetrating charm of his words and by music.[152]

Footnote 151:

It is of these innumerable names that the Egyptians formed their long litanies, which are, as it were, the type of those of the Catholic Church. M. Ancessi mentions having heard at Cairo some wandering musicians chanting under his window an old legend in the simple rhythm in which the melodic phrase, incessantly repeated, has a close resemblance to the Catholic litanies.

The following is a comparatively small portion of the papyrus of Neb-Qed, where the departed, arrived in the hall of Supreme Justice, enumerates the faults which he has avoided, proclaiming, at the same time, some of the titles of Osiris:

“O thou who marchest, [who art] come forth from An! I am without fault.

“O consumer of shadows! come forth from the double retreat; I have not slain any man.

“O purity of the face! come forth from Rastou; I have committed no fraud on the measures of corn.

“O Two Lions! come forth from heaven; I have committed no fraud in the dwelling of justice.

“O Flame! come forth in turning backwards; I have told no lie.

“O Rampart! come forth from the mysterious abode; I have done nothing worthy of condemnation.

“O thou that vivifiest the flame! come forth from Hat-Phtah; my heart has had no evil intentions.

“O thou that turnest back the head (etc)!... I have been no detractor.

“O mystery of the leg! come forth from the night; I have not given way to anger.

“O light of the senses! come forth from the mysterious region; I have had no intercourse with a married woman.

“O blood! come forth from the chamber of the lotus; I have not been depraved.

“O thou who perpetually renewest that which is! issued from Khem; I have not been violent....

“O thou who hidest words!... I have not been prodigal of words.

“O Nofre-Toum in Ha-Phtah-Ka. I have not committed abomination.

“O thou who art unchanging! issued from Dadou; I have done no outrage against the gods.

“O thou who sendest forth the heavenly river! come forth out of Saïs; I have not made the slave to be maltreated by his master.

“O thou who vivifiest intelligent beings! I have not defrauded the loaves in the temple.

“O beautiful Neb-Ka! I have not profaned the meat of the gods.... I have not taken off the wrappings of the mummies.... I have not taken away milk from the mouth of the infant.

“O thou whose eyes are like a sword! I have committed no fraud in the abode of justice.”

Each title given to Osiris alludes to some mystery or teaching in the Egyptian theology.

Footnote 152:

Music amongst the ancients was, far more than it is with us, an agreeable pastime. Socrates declares that philosophy is nothing but a sublime music: ὡς φιλοσοφίας μεν οὔσης μεγίστης μουσικῆς. In the third book of his Republic Plato goes much further, and affirms that the musician alone is truly a philosopher: ὄτι μόνος μουσικός ὁ φιλόσοφος. The chanted poems and traditions were for ages the depositaries of the laws, ritual and history of a nation.

Even according to the myths, however, righteousness does not long prosper upon earth. The Principle of Evil, enraged against him, compassed his painful death when his life upon earth had attained twenty-eight years[153]—often represented by twenty-eight lotus-flowers in the inscriptions, and fixed by the traditional age of the Apis.

Footnote 153:

It has hitherto been difficult to discover the circumstances of the death of Osiris, or the primitive tradition of his sufferings, about which several legends have successively prevailed. The one given by Plutarch cannot be of great antiquity. In the Isle of Philæ, which, if we may so express it, had a special devotion to Osiris, the history of his life is given in a series of bas-reliefs in a small sanctuary on the west of the great temple, his death and resurrection forming the principal subjects.

There is a splendid passage relating to this god in Plutarch, ch. lxxix., Treatise on Osiris and Isis.

But for Osiris, as for the true Saviour, the hour of death is the hour of victory. He rises again, and reigns henceforth, king of an eternal kingdom.

The priests and faithful of Osiris could not endure the attempts made by travellers and philosophers to find a resemblance between this pure and lofty divinity to any of their own disreputable gods, or to fix in the depths of the earth and the abode of the dead the dwelling-place of him who had “no kind of communication with substances subject to corruption and death.” No other god had in Egypt so many temples and worshippers as this the favorite deity of the country, since, besides its own local divinity, each of the nomes worshipped Osiris and Isis, and thus the “Protector of souls” was, from the Mediterranean to the cataracts, the god of all the Egyptians.

The anniversary of the death of Osiris[154] was every year observed with lamentations throughout the land, until the hour of his resurrection, which was hailed with joy, festivities, and triumph; this people, always so anxious and interested about the future beyond the tomb, having for the “Lord of the life to come” the most deep and tender devotion. For, of all the phases of his worship, that which occupied the largest place and exercised the profoundest influence on the religious life of this great nation is connected with the office of Osiris in regard to each separate soul. All the funereal inscriptions dwell upon this. Osiris was not only their saviour but their judge. In the paintings and sculptures, and the vignettes of the ritual, he is usually represented enthroned in the Hall of the divine Justice, where, enveloped, all but the face and hands, in the shroud which had enfolded him in the tomb, and holding in his right hand the hyk, or pastoral staff (not unlike an episcopal crosier), and in the left a double-thonged scourge, he awaits the soul of the departed. At his feet are the divine balances, wherein will be weighed the heart of the dead. At the threshold of the hall Maat, the symbol of justice and truth, receives the soul and presents it to the Judge.

Footnote 154:

Most nations of antiquity have known the traditional mystery of a god suffering, dying, and rising again. The worship of Adonis, long prevalent among the Syrian races, penetrated, under the name of Thammuz, even into the sanctuary of Israel (Ezek. viii. 14). Macrobius speaks of it also among the Assyrians, and of the lamentations of Proserpine; and the same belief is to be found in the long poems of India. It is also probable that the Moabite worship of Beelphegor was analogous to that of Osiris, Adonis, and Thammuz (see Numb. xxv. 2). Women are here, as in Egypt, at Byblos, and Athens, especially charged with his worship.

The soul’s first words on being brought into the presence of its God were: “I am the Osiris [such a one],” giving his earthly name.[155]

Footnote 155:

In the papyrus Neb-Qed we find as follows: “Words, on entering the Hall of Double Justice to see the face of the gods, spoken by the Osiris Neb-Qed. He said: Hail to thee, great God, Lord of justice! I come into thy presence to behold thy beauties ... on the day of the giving account of words before the Good Being. I place myself in your presence, my lords; I bring you the truth.”

This assimilation of the faithful worshipper with his divine type is one of the most elevated and touching characteristics of the Egyptian doctrine; nor does anything analogous to it exist in any other religion of antiquity—it is only in Christianity that we find it again. In the same way that the Christian is a living member of Christ, sharing in his life, rights, and merits, bearing his name, taking refuge behind the person of his Saviour, so does the worshipper of Osiris become a living member of his liberator, and another Osiris; and at the hour of death the soul calls for aid from him who had also passed its dark portal and come forth again victoriously.

Nothing is more touching than the prayers addressed by these suppliant souls to their protector; thus we read, in a papyrus of the Louvre: “Amensaouef the departed says to Osiris: Receive in peace this Osiris, Amensaouef justified.... Open to him thy gates, that I may enter there when my heart shall desire: may the guardians of thy pylones not fight against me, and may I not be thrust back by thy guards, that I may see God in his beauty; that I may serve him in the place where he dwells.”

To obtain a right to these favors, the soul, as in the litany already quoted from the Book of the Dead, recalled its innocent life; in the Book of the Breathings the dead continues his justification by enumerating his good works: “O gods who dwell in the lower hemisphere! listen to the voice of the Osiris [such a one]; he is come before you. There is in him no fault; no testimony arises against him.... He gave bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty; he gave clothes to the naked;[156] he offered peace-offerings to the gods and oblations to the manes.”

Footnote 156:

Cf. Job xxix. 12-17, and xxxi. 16-22.

According to the result declared by the unerring balances, judgment was given, and the name of the righteous written down by Thoth in the Book of Life. The just had right to enter into the “Mysterious Retreat,” the place of eternal bliss, to eat the fruit of the tree of life, Astu, and rest in its shadow; to drink the waters of the river of life, to sit down at the heavenly feast with Osiris, and to find the fulness of happiness in the contemplation of the face of God. The impious were driven to endless punishment in the fiery gulfs of Amma, while “intermediate souls” were purified, by an expiation proportioned to their faults, in the Lake of Fire.

The most curious document, after the Todtenbuch, which Egypt has bequeathed to us on the subject is the long MS. entitled The Book of that which takes place in the Lower Hemisphere.[157] The author there describes, as if he himself had visited them, all the various localities of these regions of darkness. In it we advance, with Osiris and his dead, along the gloomy paths which frequently remind us of the wanderings of Dante. The way is divided into twelve “Hours” with their corresponding stations, and is peopled with mysterious phantoms and mythological forms, who sometimes stop the travellers and at others favor their progress. It is said at the seventh hour: “Who knows this, the panther devours him not.”[158] The name of this hour is, “He who repulses the reptile, who wounds the serpent Ha-her.”[159]

Footnote 157:

M. Deveria has given a summary of this book, in his Notice des Manuscrits du Musée du Louvre.

Footnote 158:

It is also a panther that Dante encounters at the entrance of the forest which is the commencement of the mysterious realm of Death. The Egyptian texts mention also the lion, of which the Catholic liturgy retains the remembrance in the Offertory for the Mass for the Dead: Domine Jesu Christe, libera animas defunctorum ... de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas Tartarus.

Footnote 159:

Each hour of this night has a name, according to the mystery accomplished in it. The eighth hour is characterized by the defeat of the great serpent, cast into the abyss. One of his names is Apep—he who lifts the head, the proud one, represented by a serpent pierced with arrows.

The most detailed description of the Egyptian hell is given in the third register of the eleventh hour. There we are shown seven goddesses standing, each armed with a sword;[160] the flames which spring from their mouths fall into seven gulfs, wherein condemned souls, hieroglyphic symbols of spirits, heads cut off, etc., are confusedly mingled amidst the fire. Each gulf is designated in retrograde characters by the word Had, reminding one of the Greek Hades; and each goddess has a name which indicates her powers and functions. It was this hell that was called also the second death—an expression preserved by tradition to the days of Christianity, and repeated by St. John in the Apocalypse, in which we find almost all the ancient formulæ of the religious beliefs of primitive times.

Footnote 160:

“In that day, fear ye before the sword; the vengeance of the sword is burning; that ye may know that there is a judgment” (Job xix. 29).

We have now briefly to consider Osiris under the aspect of the Risen One. When, like the sun overcoming the shades of night, he rises from the dead, he is called Horus; and although the texts insist upon the absolute identity of the divine personality who manifests himself under these two aspects, Horus nevertheless, in the mythological form of the doctrine, is called his son—the Avenger of his father Osiris.

This formula, “I am Horus, the Avenger of his father,” occurs repeatedly throughout the Todtenbuch; the Avenger being the God himself awakening from the tomb under a new form, and taking possession of the second life that knows death no more; that which happened to Osiris being repeated in each departed soul, of whom he was the type and the Saviour.

Later on Egyptian mythology furnished Osiris with assistants for this combat with death. The Book of the Lower Hemisphere represents, at the tenth hour of the journey through the lands beyond the tomb, and at the moment when the trial is about to end, four gods, each bearing a bow and arrows, with the legend: “These with their bows and arrows, going before the great God, open to him the eastern horizon of heaven. This great God says: Choose out your arrows, draw your bows; wound for me mine enemies who are in darkness at the gate of the horizon.”[161] This combat is renewed for each soul, and the avenging God invariably intervenes with his attendant spirits. M. Ancessi considers that we have here an unexpected and natural commentary upon the words of Job, “I know that my Avenger liveth,” and proceeds to examine the sense of the word goel, or avenger, of the Hebrew text.

Footnote 161:

Cat. of Egypt. MSS., Book of the Lower Hemisphere, p. 15.

In the social order of the wandering tribes a traditional law regulated that, in case of murder, it rested with the family of the victim to take vengeance on the murderer. It was for the son to avenge his father, or, in default of a son, the nearest relative, who thus became the goel of the slain. It is easy to imagine the terrible effects of this fatal law, which still prolongs itself through centuries, and sometimes does not end before a whole tribe has been cut off.

But besides the earthly avenger, there was another—God himself, who intervened at the hour of death to adjudge the punishment of the wicked and take in hand the cause of the departed. Such is, in fact, the character of the mysterious protector whose aid is claimed by Job when he exclaims, “I know that my Goel is living”; he can count upon him, as in his tribe he counts upon the never-failing avenger of the cause of the oppressed.[162]

Footnote 162:

Osiris surrounded his children with so much solicitude that he is represented as even sending his attendants to visit their sepulchres. We find, for instance, the following in papyrus 3283 of the Louvre: “Said by Osiris to the gods of his suite: Go, then, and see this dwelling of the departed, that it may be thus constructed; hasten it for the moment of his heavenly birth with you; respect him; salute him, for he is honorable.” It is curious to find so early the dies natalis of our martyrologies.

We need only allude to the frequency with which, in all poetical and imaginative nations, a metaphor becomes a myth, to perceive the facility with which the idea of the resurrection of Osiris became the birth of Horus in the cradle of his father’s tomb. Thus there was a violent death; there was a son; the next step naturally transforms Horus into the avenger.

How often is it the case that a word of apparent unimportance, having found its way into a dogmatic explanation, ends by entirely disfiguring its sense, like a graft left by an unknown hand in the bark of a tree, and which produces a complete change in its fruit![163] Thus, as time goes on, we find grouped around Osiris, Horus the Avenger, who is called his son, Isis and Nephtys, who are his sisters, forty terrible assessors who surround his tribunal and aid him as judge, besides a multitude of details which compromise and disfigure the ancient doctrine; while the text of Job preserves the mysterious germ of the Osirian doctrine in its simplicity and grandeur, and then applies it in prophetic allusion to the death and resurrection of Messias the Redeemer.

Footnote 163:

“How often would the Catholic faith have hopelessly foundered amidst the innovations which the heretics and sectaries of all times have attempted to foist upon her, had not an infallible authority watched over her and secured her integrity! I know nothing more convincing as to the necessity of this doctrinal magistracy than the incessant variation of the religions of antiquity. From a distance, and at first sight, they seem to have changed the least; whereas, on the contrary, their history has been nothing but a gradual and perpetual change, the laws of which it may not be impossible some time to discover.”—Le Rédempteur et la Vie Future.

An additional probability that the words of Job contain an allusion to this doctrine is to be found in the remarkable identity of the remaining portion of this text with the formula of the Egyptian papyri. After his affirmation of faith in a living Redeemer Job immediately adds, with the theologians of Egypt: “In my flesh I shall see God, whom I, I shall see for myself; mine eyes shall see him, and not [those of] another.”

The passages in the Todtenbuch and funereal inscriptions are numberless in which we find it said of the departed:

Again: “I come to thee, Lord of gods and men; I come to contemplate thy beauties.” “I behold the great God in the interior of his tabernacle; in this day of the judgment of souls.”

The resemblance is so striking between the Hebrew and Egyptian texts that comment is needless; nevertheless, we would guard against the supposition that the ideas uttered by the patriarch were borrowed from Egyptian theology; for, besides that in the words of Job there is the absence of any myth or secondary personage whatever, it appears certain that these doctrines, preserved in greater purity in their primitive form among the Semitic races, may be traced back to the time of the separation of the families of Sem and Cham, whom they respectively accompanied into their distant wanderings as their most precious heritage; but whilst the scribes and doctors of Egypt gradually enveloped them in an exuberant mythology, the pastoral tribes of Sem preserved them in the simplicity of the first ages.

And yet all these doctrines, which are proved to be the heritage of humanity, would have been lost and buried with the Egyptian dead had it not been for the intervention of Christ. In vain for three centuries did the loftiest intelligences of Greece weary themselves in studies whose result was to prove that man was incapable of forming true notions of God, the soul, and our destinies from the chaos of systems which enveloped the original revelation when our Lord brought to the human race the realization of its venerable traditions and the faith of its earliest days.

Let it not be objected that the doctrines of the Redeemer were more ancient than his advent and known to man before he taught them upon earth; for man having always had the same duties to fulfil in regard to his future destiny, of necessity God did not leave him in ignorance of them from the time of his origin; and when, later on, they were forgotten, and the whole world lay in darkness, then arose the Light of which a faint reflection in the firmament had long heralded the approach, though clouded most before the dawn.

MILLICENT.

I.

About two years ago we were sitting in our sunny salon in the Avenue Gabrielle, my mother and I, she reading, I at my harp, when Tomlins, our English maid, opened the door, her face all alight with suppressed laughter.

“Well, Tomlins?” said my mother.

“Please, ma’am, it were such a joke!” said Tomlins. “I was a-comin’ past the porter’s lodge when I 'eard a gentleman trying that 'ard to explain himself, and he 'adn’t 'alf a dozen words o’ French, he 'adn’t; and the concierge he could make neither 'ead nor tail of what he was wanting to say; and it was that funny I couldn’t for the life of me but burst out a-laughin’!”

“That was a shame! You should have gone to the gentleman’s assistance, instead of laughing at him,” said my mother reprovingly; “he would have done so had he seen you in a difficulty.”

“I think he was Hamerican, ma’am,” said Tomlins, in a tone which clearly indicated that she thought this fact an extenuating circumstance of her misbehavior.

“That makes no difference,” said my mother; “you know enough of French, such as it is, to have been useful to him, and you should have come forward. But how do you know he was an American?”

“He wore a white 'at, ma’am, and that’s what Henglish gentlemen don’t use to, leastways not this time of year. He be the family that has took the flat down-stairs for the winter.”

“Oh! he is a neighbor, then!” remarked my mother; and, turning to me, she added: “Perhaps I ought to go down and see if we can be of any use to them?”

“Indeed, mamma,” I replied hastily, “you will do nothing of the sort! We have had enough of American acquaintances. These are most likely enormously rich people, whose neighborhood, if we knew them, would be nothing but a bore.”

“We have known some very rich ones who were exceedingly pleasant,” urged my mother.

“Yes, and that is why I have registered a vow never to know another—not if I can help it, at least,” I replied. “Just as you have grown to care for them they sail away across the Atlantic, and you never see them again! No, please, let us have nothing to do with these people down-stairs! They may be perfectly charming, and, if they are, all the more reason for keeping clear of them.”

“This is all very selfish and not at all like you,” persisted my mother. “These people are at our door, strangers, and at the mercy of the concierge, who will fleece them and worry them till they are driven wild; it is a real act of charity to come to their rescue. I will send Tomlins down with my card.”

I gave up the contest. I knew that, when there was an act of kindness to be done, it was no use trying to oppose my mother, especially on such selfish grounds as my present ones. The card was sent accordingly with a message, and about ten minutes later up came the whole tribe—Dr. Segrave, Mrs. Segrave, and Miss Sybil Segrave. They were simply beside themselves with gratitude. Their delight on discovering that there was a deliverer at hand, under the same roof with them, was quite affecting. How they ever found the courage to come and face the situation at all, with such a lively horror of its consequences, was a matter of great surprise to us. Miss Segrave spoke French fluently, but this accomplishment apparently was reserved solely for ornamental purposes; her disconsolate parents had evidently not thought of pressing it into such vulgar service as parleying with the concierge and the cook—two domestic enemies before whom they had already learned to shake in their shoes.

There was something about the three that smote my heart at once. There was a freshness, a frankness, a spontaneous trustfulness that it was difficult to resist. I made a stand for it, nevertheless, and was as coldly unresponsive to their exuberant warmth of manner as was consistent with politeness. The doctor, however, took me by storm, and in one minute and a half I had capitulated.

He was only doctor by courtesy; he had taken every degree that could be taken, but he had only practised as an amateur, being, as my prophetic soul had warned me, “enormously rich.” He was about fifty-five years of age, tall, slim, dark, but he had a quizzical expression of face, a twinkle in his eye, and a spring in his manner that made you forget he was not a boy.

Mrs. Segrave was a complete contrast to him. Middle-sized, stout, and unfashionable in appearance, she had the gentleness and the kindliness of half a dozen mothers rolled up into one; her voice was low, her manner simple almost to homeliness, but full of that easy self-possession that stamped her at once as a lady—a most winning woman.

Sybil—O Sybil! How shall I describe her? She was not a beauty, and yet she made the effect of being one. There was a brilliancy about her that is indescribable; it lighted up the room the moment she entered. Pull her to pieces, and she was nothing; take her as a whole, and she dazzled you. Her features were irregular, her complexion was nothing particular, but there was a sparkle, a glow, a grace about her altogether that were more striking than the loveliest coloring or the most perfect symmetry. I can see her now as she appeared to me that first day, standing on her high heels, a little behind the doctor and Mrs. Segrave, her black eyes glancing right and left like flashes of lightning, her scarlet feather, set like a flame in her black velvet hat, illuminating her olive skin, and her gold-brown silk dress glistening like a separate patch of sunshine in the sunlit room. A most picturesque creature she looked. I longed to hear her speak. No one was kept long waiting for this in Sybil’s presence.

“This is the very kindest thing I ever heard of!” said Mrs. Segrave, holding out her fat little hand to my mother.

“You have saved a family man from suicide, my dear madam!” said the doctor in the heartiest tone.

“Father!” protested Sybil, “there you are making such a character for us! Mrs. Wallace will set us down as a family of mad Americans. I assure you, Mrs. Wallace, we are all perfectly in our right minds, and very grateful to you.”

This sortie broke the ice into splinters. We all laughed, shook hands, and sat down, and the doctor began forthwith to pour out his troubles. Their name was legion. He had not been twenty-four hours in the house, and the concierge had already driven him to the verge of insanity.

“If I could speak to the rascal, I’d be a match for him, and soon make him know I would stand no nonsense,” he went on to explain. “But that’s where he has me on the hip, as Shakspere says; he keeps jabbering on, and I can’t answer the fellow. I know what he’s driving at, I know he’s robbing me; but what aggravates me most is that he thinks he’s fooling me.”

My mother poured all the oil she could on these angry waters, and in ten minutes I could see that she and the doctor were sworn friends.

Sybil listened so far to the conversation with an air of amused interest, just as I was doing; then abruptly turning from it, as if she had had enough of the subject, “You are a musician, I see,” she said—my harp and piano stood open ready for action. “I am perfectly devoted to music! I will come up and play duets with you, if you let me?” I said I should be delighted.

“But I like talking ten thousand times better than music,” she went on. “Music is a way of expressing one’s self with another instrument than one’s tongue; but one tires of it after a while. One never tires of talking; I never do.”

I could readily believe this, but assented as to a general proposition.

“Do you read a great deal?” she continued. “I don’t. I find life is too absorbing, too full; one has no time left for reading. Have you? Human beings are the books I enjoy most. I am so intensely interested in my fellow-creatures! I like to study them, to turn them inside out, to analyze their characters, to exchange views with them. I do so enjoy discussing life. Don’t you?”

This time she did “pause for a reply,” and I was able to make one. It was not very satisfactory.

“No, really! You don’t care for discussing life! Well, I am surprised at that. Dangerous! What a funny idea! But if it were, that would only make it ten times more interesting to me; there is such an excitement in danger! If I had been a man I should have been passionately devoted to tiger-hunting. Now, life is a kind of tiger-hunt, when one comes to think of it; one can always get some excitement out of it—watching other people at the hunt, I mean. Don’t you think so? People take such different views of life. Good gracious! one would never get to the end of one’s friends’ views, if one began, even on one particular subject. Take love and marriage, for instance; what can be more intensely interesting than to discuss marriage with a person who holds views diametrically opposite to one’s own?”

She rattled on in this way for half an hour: it was very amusing. I felt very tame beside her, and I fancied she must have found me insufferably dull and unsympathetic. I found out afterwards that I was mistaken in this; her estimate had been very flattering. On reflection it need not have surprised me; there is nothing a great talker likes so much as a good listener.

We all parted most cordially, with mutual congratulations on the chance that had brought us together.

“I feel as bold as a lion,” said the doctor as he shook hands with my mother. “I am ready to brave an army of concierges.”

“Oh! keep the peace; keep friends with him at any cost. If you make him your enemy, he will worry your life out,” was her parting injunction.

“Well,” she said, when the door had closed on our new acquaintances, “what do you think of them?”

“I think them perfectly odious!” I replied.

“My dear Lilly!”

“Yes. They are just the kind of people we are sure to get fond of, to make a friendship with, and then away they will fly, and we shall never hear or see them for the rest of our lives.”

“You are determined to make a tragedy out of it, so I will not contradict you,” said my mother. “Meantime, I shall enjoy the pleasant neighborhood, and trust to its not ending so badly. They are here for six months certain, and if they like it, and the countess likes to renew their lease, they may remain for six months more. They intend to make themselves very comfortable, meantime, and to receive a good deal.”

“Humph! They will be sending us invitations to their entertainments, I suppose,” I said.

“That is very likely.”

“They will have their share in their thanks, as far as I am concerned,” I said; and I sat down to my harp again. “I have no fancy to go and figure as a housemaid amongst their magnificent American toilettes.”

“I am vain enough to flatter myself that my child would look like a gentlewoman, whatever her surroundings might be,” observed my mother quietly, “and that she does not depend on dress for her individuality.”

What else could I do but jump up and kiss her for this speech, and declare myself ready to go and sport my white muslin and pink ribbons in the midst of all the latest wonders of Worth & Company?

It was not many days before I had an opportunity of putting this heroic resolve into execution.

You may laugh; but it was heroic. I realized this distinctly, even before the supreme crisis of the eventful evening came. Sybil herself came up with the card of invitation.

“Mamma was putting it into an envelope to send it by Pierre,” she said; “but I said that was the veriest nonsense, and that I would take it myself. Of course you are disengaged? You must be disengaged!”

“Unfortunately, we are,” I replied.

“Why, Lilly Wallace, what do you mean!” screamed Sybil.

“Just this: that I am a trifle proud, and just vain enough not to care to look a guy wherever I go, and that I am pretty sure to look that at your house on the 22d. You will all be dressed to kill, as you say—rigged out in the very newest fashions by the most expensive dressmakers in Paris—and I shall have to appear like a school-girl in plain white muslin. I never wear anything else; mamma can’t afford it. I shall have a new one, and she will give me a handsome sash and fresh flowers; but that is all. She will appear herself in plain black velvet, without either old point or diamonds. If you think we will make too hideous a blot on your splendor, say so honestly, and we will spare you the disgrace.”

“Lilly, you are the very oddest girl I ever came across in the whole course of my life!” protested Sybil. “Why, how can you talk so? You will look perfectly lovely in your sheer white muslin. I only wish we Americans were not such fools as to spend all our money on our backs as we do; I can tell you most of us hate it and think it awfully hard to have to do it. But we can’t help it; we should get so laughed at if we went to a ball in white muslin that we should die of shame.”

“Well, that’s a pleasant lookout for me!” I remarked.

“Oh! it’s quite a different thing with you,” Sybil declared, and with a warmth I felt was sincere; indeed, I felt she was sincere all through. “You are English, and we know perfectly well you have a different standard in those things.”

“And my mother?” I said. “What sort of effect is she likely to produce in her plain black velvet?”

“She will look like a queen—that’s all; you know she will, Lilly.”

I did know it; I had known it as long as I could remember. I had been brought up by my mother in a black velvet dress, and believed, nay, knew, that she looked as beautiful and queenlike in it as if its soft and sombre simplicity had been embroidered in gems and beflowered by all the Worths in Christendom.

I confess, nevertheless—and I do so with shame—that I felt mortified at her having to present herself in this splendid gathering of Transatlantic rank and fashion in the attire which had borne her triumphantly through many a stately Parisian crowd. I was really dazzled by the splendor of the dresses when we stood in the midst of them. There was no distinguishing the young from the old, the maid from the matron; silks, satins, laces, jewels glistened indiscriminately on all. There was a great deal of beauty amongst the women—there is sure to be in an American assembly; but the richness of their dresses surpassed anything I ever beheld. In a French salon you may expect to meet a great deal of elegance—some dresses that stand out from the common level of taste and becomingness by their more brilliant hues and elaborate trimmings; but here all were brilliant, all were elaborate, all were magnificent. I really did feel an anachronism as I stood there in my innocent, fluttering muslin, while these superb, many-colored birds-of-paradise floated and rustled all round me, sweeping the dark carpet with miles of silk, and satin, and velvet, and lace of every hue in the rainbow. It was like being shut up in a kaleidoscope; the pattern shifted, flashing into new forms before my eyes at every turn, until I felt fairly bewildered by the moving glory. What kind of conversation could go on under external conditions like these? How were people, women at any rate, to collect their thoughts to converse on any possible subject except the one that was under their eyes, brought before them in such victorious, fascinating guise? If they were not talking of dress, their own dress, their friend’s dress, dress in general or in particular, they were most assuredly thinking of it. And small blame to them. I know I, for one, could think of nothing else.

Nothing could exceed the courtesy of our hosts. They led up guest after guest to introduce to us; all the magnates were presented to my mother, all the young ladies to me. They were very gracious, every one of them, but we did not get on well after the first exchange of commonplaces. How could we? What interest could a white-muslin creature like poor me have in the eyes of these sumptuously-attired young ladies? I said simply nothing to them, I suggested nothing; I was a blank. Sybil never sat down for a moment. She was untiring in her efforts to make everybody happy and pleasant and at home. She kept flitting about from room to room, bringing young gentlemen up to young ladies, seeing that no one was overlooked, that congenial elements were drawn together, that antagonistic ones were kept asunder. There probably were some antagonistic ones, though they were invisible beneath the gay, harmonious surface—that pale, stately-looking girl, for instance, whom I had noticed sitting apart beside a large console that separated her from the gaudy group standing close by. I knew she was a great friend of Sybil’s, because I had seen her photograph in a dainty gilt frame in the place of honor on her writing-table. I saw Sybil making a dart to her side every now and then, and interchanging a few hurried words in a tone of close confidence; and yet she took no pains to bring her forward or to introduce people to her. There was something peculiar about the girl’s air and countenance that drew my attention and made me wish to speak to her. I seized the first opportunity to whisper this wish to Sybil.

“The pale girl in the corner? Whoever do you mean? Oh! Millicent Gray. Yes, by and by. I don’t think you would care much to talk to her; I mean I don’t think you and she would hit it off very well,” said Sybil in a hesitating way; and somehow it was borne upon me that she thought exactly the contrary; that we should hit it off too well, and that she preferred, for reasons of her own, not to bring us together. I there and then resolved that I would make Millicent Gray’s acquaintance before I left the room—or die.

Did Sybil see this in my face, I wonder? She had a way of flashing a look at you with her round black eyes that suggested a power of reading you through and through which was sometimes uncomfortable. I felt it so now, and, trying to assume an air of supreme indifference, I observed, looking in another direction:

“Then never mind. I only fancied talking to her because no one else has been doing so; she looked lonely.”

Sybil’s rose-colored skirts floated away in the direction of Millicent Gray, and for a moment I half-expected she was going to bring her up to me. I was mistaken; she bent over her friend, and began talking in animated tones, gesticulating with her fan in an excited manner. Millicent listened apparently with more surprise than approval; there was a faint expression of sarcastic resentment on her pale, thoughtful face, and an imperceptible movement of her shoulders seemed to shrug away some remark of Sybil’s with smiling dissent; as she did so, her eyes turned towards me and our glances met. There was a mute recognition in them which we both felt. I blushed, feeling rather guilty for watching her so closely; she smiled, and, in spite of myself, I obeyed a law of nature and smiled too. The rooms were now so full that it was difficult to move about; there was small chance of the crowd swaying me across towards Millicent, and she sat on, surveying the scene from her nook with a face that was more expressive of quiet observation than enjoyment. She was dressed in white silk, with waves of tulle flowing over it, but without further ornament—neither ribbons nor flowers; she wore one large crimson rose in her hair, a long trainée of leaves dropping down from it and entangling a rich curl of her dark hair. The relative simplicity of the dress singled her out as a very remote cousin to my white muslin, and I felt more than ever convinced we should prove sympathetic to each other. How was I to make good my vow to speak to her or die? The chances were that I should die, for just at this moment Sybil bore down on me from the rear, and took me in tow through the billows of silks and lace into her own boudoir, which was two rooms off from the central salon where my pensive heroine abided.

“Are you having a good time of it, Lilly?” she inquired, darting her bright black eyes through me, when we came to a little breathing space. “What do you think of our American society? Are our women as handsome as yours? Are our young men as agreeable?”

“Four questions in one breath!” I cried, pretending to gasp. “Let me answer the first—the only one I can meet on such short notice: I am having a capital time of it. You are the best hosts I ever saw, all three of you. But, Sybil, do introduce me to that girl in white silk.”

“No, I won’t,” said Sybil. “You must want some refreshment. I don’t believe you’ve taken so much as an ice; I’ve seen you let the trays pass a dozen times untouched. Come into the supper-room and have something. Stay,” and she bent close to me and went on in a whisper: “I will make Mr. Halsted take you in. You see that young man with the fuchsia in his buttonhole? He is perfectly charming. I have had such a delightful talk with him just now!”

“About what?”

“Good gracious! About everything.”

“You have been discussing life with him?”

“Precisely.”

“And what has come of it? Has he proposed, or is he only hovering on the brink, poor wretch?”

“How absurd you are, Lilly, with your English ideas!” cried Sybil, still in a sotto voce, although the music drowned everybody’s voice. “You won’t understand that one may discuss life with a young man without meaning any harm!”

“Harm? To his heart, do you mean?”

“Or to one’s own.”

“Have you got one, Sybil?” I asked quite seriously.

“Yes, I have, and a very sensitive one too, let me tell you,” she said in her vehemently emphatic way. “Mr. Halsted, will you take my friend to have some refreshment? Mr. Halsted—Miss Wallace.”

And off I went with this perfectly charming young man.

The first person I met in the supper-room was my mother, whom the doctor had just taken in and was plying with some delicious nectar of an American drink.

“My dear, I was beginning to wonder what had become of you,” she said. “It is growing rather late, is it not?”

The doctor protested, but we made good the opportunity as soon as his hospitable back was turned, and disappeared from the brilliant scene.

And Millicent Gray? I was of course in honor bound to die, as I had not spoken to her; but I thought it better to live, and try and make good my resolution in some other way. Chance favored me unexpectedly. A few days after the magnificent reception on the first floor I went down to discuss life quietly with Sybil for half an hour, when the servant said she had been obliged to run out for a few minutes to her aunt’s, next door, but that she would be back presently, and had begged I would go in and wait for her.

I had not been many minutes in the salon when the doctor came in. He had been “down town” to Galignani’s, and had gleaned all the news that was abroad, what steamers were signalled, which had come in, which had sailed, and who had come in by the last arrival. The doctor was a terrible flirt. He sat down on the sofa beside me, and began to repeat verses from Tommy Moore about my “bright eyes that were his heart’s undoing,” and I know not what besides. Mrs. Segrave heard us laughing, and came in to see what it was all about.

“Ah! my dear,” she said, “he whispered those very same verses to me five-and-twenty years ago. Don’t believe him; he’s a gay deceiver. Charles dear, did you ask Mrs. Wallace what we were going to do about this claim the concierge is making of twenty francs a month extra for bringing up our letters?”

“No, I did not,” said the doctor. “In fact, I had not time yet; but I dare say Miss Lilly can tell us just as well!”

“Oh! if it’s anything about the concierge you had much better appeal to mamma,” I said to Mrs. Segrave. “She is at home now, and if you go up you will find her alone.”

“I see how it is: you want to get me out of the way!” said Mrs. Segrave. “You want to hear what more Charles has to say about your bright eyes. Well, well, I’ll go; I’ll not be a spoil-sport.”

She was going to open the door when Pierre opened it, and in walked—Millicent Gray. After the usual greetings Mrs. Segrave said, turning to me:

“You know Sybil’s friend, Miss Gray, of course? No! I was sure you had met. Then let me introduce you—”

As soon as we had got “well into conversation,” the doctor proposed that he and Mrs. Segrave should leave us young ladies together, and go up to consult my mother about this new imposition of the concierge.

When Millicent and I found ourselves alone there was an awkward pause for a moment; we felt as conscious as a pair of lovers thrown together for the first time. At last we looked at each other and began to laugh.

“I am so pleased to meet you,” I said.

“Not so much pleased as I am,” she replied. “I have been entreating Sybil to make me acquainted with you, and she would not. We came near quarrelling over you the other evening.”

“So did she and I! What could have been her motive?” I said.

“Did she not tell you?”

“No.”

“And you don’t guess?”

“No! Pray tell me, if it is not a secret,” I said.

“Oh! no, it’s no secret,” replied Millicent, laughing. “You are a Catholic. She was afraid to let me know you.”

“Lest I should contaminate you!”

“Lest you should convert me.”

I was silent from sheer surprise.

“You see what a dangerous person she thinks you!” said Millicent, laughing.

“I don’t see why she should,” I replied, rather nettled. “I never tried to convert her.”

“Perhaps because you felt it was a hopeless case,” said Millicent, who could not apparently see the thing in a serious light; for she was laughing still, and looked altogether highly amused.

“I don’t know whether I felt about it one way or the other,” I said. “I am utterly bewildered that Sybil should have laid hold of the idea of my being so dangerous in that line; from the moment I discovered what her notions on religion were I avoided even touching on the subject directly or indirectly, and yet she looks upon me as a lion or a fox going about and seeking whom I may devour!”

“No, no; you must not think that,” protested Millicent. “She looks upon you as dangerous, but in quite another sense from proselytizing. She suspects me—very unjustly, I assure you—of having what she calls Roman Catholic proclivities; and when I expressed a wish to know you—she raves about you in the most enthusiastic way—she said nothing would induce her to make us acquainted; that you were just the kind of person to whisk me into the Catholic Church before I knew where I was.”

There was something at once so absurd and so thoroughly characteristic of Sybil in this remark that, in spite of myself, I burst out laughing.

“I promise solemnly,” I said, “that I will not whisk you in without giving you due warning, and, moreover, having your full and free consent to the operation beforehand.”

“Thank you. That is generous,” said Millicent; “and to prove my sense of it I solemnly promise not to whisk you into my church without having your full and free consent beforehand.”

“Yes, by the bye,” I said, “it never seems to have occurred to Sybil that the danger might be mutual; that I ran a risk as well as you by our becoming acquainted?”

Millicent was hesitating in her answer when we heard a loud ring at the door, and in an instant Sybil burst into the room. She stood for an instant looking at us, and then cried out in her ringing tones:

“Well, is it all over with you? Has she done it?”

“Done what?” I said. “Miss Gray has not attempted to do anything except to make herself exceedingly agreeable.”

Sybil laughed merrily.

“I call that exceedingly smart—quite worthy of a Yankee!” she cried. “By the way, it puts the thing in a new light. Milly, turn on the guns and try and convert her.” And she pointed to me with her chinchilla muff. “That would be a feather in one’s cap! Good gracious!”

“Then why should you not try for it yourself?” I inquired. “Sybil, I am inclined to be very angry with you for making me such a reputation. You know perfectly well I have never had a word of controversy with you since we have known each other; never done the least thing to try and make a Catholic of you. You know I have not!”

“I know nothing of the sort,” protested Sybil. “I know this: that you and your mother are the very most dangerous pair of Catholics I have ever met—just the kind of Catholics to knock one’s prejudices on the head with one blow.” And she banged the table with her pretty little muff. “You never preach, either of you, or talk controversy, or do any mortal thing to put one on one’s guard; but you do every conceivable thing to make one fall in love with your religion: you are the very milk of human kindness, you never speak ill of any one, you are always ready to help people, you spend your time going after the poor, nursing the sick, and heaven knows what besides; for you are up at cock-crow, and out by candlelight saying your prayers, when we are fast asleep in our beds. Milly Gray, now mark my words”—and she faced round and confronted Millicent with uplifted muff, in a Sibylline attitude of warning—“mark my words: this is none of my doing, and whatever comes of it is not to be laid at my door.”

“Sybil, I promise that, whatever catastrophe the future of this day may have in store, it shall not be visited on you,” said Millicent. “You have warned me of my peril, and, you know, he who is forewarned is forearmed. Tell me, now, what have you done with Mr. Halsted?”

“Done with him? What did you want me to do with him?”

“Either kill him or cure him.”

“I should kill him, if I could,” said Sybil. “I never knew so perverse a man in the whole course of my life.”

She dragged out the last words with an emphasis that might have led one to suppose the course of her life embraced a period of at least ninety-nine years.

“What is he perverse about?” inquired her friend.

“He won’t change his politics, he won’t go back to the States, and he won’t marry the girl he ought to marry.”

She enumerated these grievances with a gusto of indignation that made us scream with laughter.

“I thought his politics were on the right side—that is, on your side,” said Millicent when she had recovered her gravity.

“That’s the wrong side,” said Sybil; “her politics are strongly Democratic, and there is not the ghost of a chance for him, unless he turns Democrat too.”

“But if he does not want a chance?” I ventured to put in.

“But he ought; I want him to want it. She’s the very sweetest girl in the whole of the United States; and her father is the dearest old man, and would give her a splendid fortune if Mr. Halsted would marry her. And everybody believed he would; only old Nick put it into his head to come out to Europe, and he has gone and fallen in love with another girl!”

“Who won’t marry him?” suggested Milly.

“_Cer_tainly not!” declared Sybil.

At this juncture Dr. and Mrs. Segrave came in, bringing my mother with them. She was dressed for me to go out with her, so I had to run off to equip myself, having first cordially invited Millicent Gray to come and see me as soon as possible.

She came the next day, and on a strange errand, considering the warnings of Sybil.

“I am anxious to be of some use to the poor,” she said, after we had talked some little time, “and I don’t know how to go about it here. I suppose there are no Protestants to visit, or at least they must be very few; would there be any objection to my visiting Catholics?”

“Not the slightest,” I replied, “unless you intend to whisk them into the Protestant Church before they know where they are; in that case I don’t think M. le Curé would care to enlist your services.”

“I have no sinister designs of that sort, I assure you,” said Millicent; “and to prove it, I want you to let me go with you on your rounds. I will make myself useful in any way you appoint, and I will do exactly as you tell me—as far as I know how, that is.”

I said, of course, that I should be delighted to have her as a companion, and that we should begin our partnership to-morrow; but my mother came in as we were settling about the hour we were to meet, and unexpectedly put a spoke in the wheel.

“Does Mrs. Gray approve of this arrangement, my dear?” she inquired.

“I have not mentioned it to her,” replied Millicent, her American ideas of independence evidently a little shocked by the question; “but she is sure to approve of it when I do. Is there any reason why she should not?”

“There may be. You are a Protestant, and this scheme of visiting the poor with my daughter must bring you in contact with Catholics of various classes—the poor, the Sisters of Charity, perhaps incidentally with M. le Curé and other priests. Before you embark on these perils I should prefer that your mother’s consent was secured. We English mothers have Old-World prejudices about parental authority, you perceive,” added mamma, smiling; “you will not mind humoring mine in this case.”

Millicent declared her perfect readiness to do so. She looked like one who would gladly humor everybody’s wishes. I was already in love with her. The charm which attracted me that night amidst the gay crowd had not fled “like the talisman’s glittering glory” on a nearer approach. I was at a loss to see where the point of mutual attraction lay between her and Sybil; but Sybil was one of those creatures who spirited away your sympathies before you had time to challenge the thief or lay a protecting hand upon your treasure. She was a siren, who drew you to her cave and did not devour you. Millicent was a complete contrast to her in appearance as well as in character; her eyes were deep blue, and her hair, which was very dark, whitened her fair complexion to the transparency of alabaster, and gave a stronger individuality to her delicate features than blond hair, which seemed their natural birthright, could have lent them. She was very tall, and her small, beautifully-formed hands and feet put the seal on the character of singular refinement which pervaded her whole exterior.

My mother was greatly taken with her. “You have committed yourself more seriously in this case, it strikes me,” she remarked when Millicent had taken leave.

“They are settled in Paris permanently,” I replied; “I asked her that at once. I should not have embarked on an intimacy with her, if they had been only birds of passage.”

Mrs. Gray made no difficulty about Millicent’s joining me in my visits to the poor; she observed, indeed—very naturally, I thought—that “Mrs. Wallace ran just the same risk in allowing her daughter to associate with Millicent.” Millicent returned next morning quite jubilant with this message, and we set out on our first walk together. We agreed that we were not to improve this or any future opportunity to convert each other. Was I quite sincere when I entered on this agreement? Looking back on it, I think I can honestly say I was. I meant that I would not discuss religion or say anything to prejudice Millicent against her own; that I would rigidly avoid controversy; and in all this I kept my word. But I did not disguise from myself that I had a great longing to see her a Catholic, and that I should do my best in another way to bring about this result. For this purpose I had her name put down at Notre Dame des Victoires for prayers. I asked several of my friends to pray for the same intention, and I made a point of praying every day for it myself. I took her to see Sœur Lucie, a Sister of Charity I was very fond of, and I interested her in the same object. I counted a good deal, too, on the impression which the faith of the poor was likely to make on her.

I was just then much occupied with a poor woman named Mme. Martin, who was dying, who had been dying these five years of a very painful malady. I think she was the first person I took Millicent to see. She lived in a room on the sixth floor—that is, in the attic—of a house where her mother was concierge. She had been better educated than the generality of her class, having been brought up as a teacher of singing. This pursuit had subsequently thrown her into the society of persons much above her in position, and the contact had contributed still more to educate and refine her. She had consequently acquired something of the varnish of a lady, and, without being really educated, she had gained that increased capacity for suffering which even imperfect education gives. Her illness had thrown her back into her original position and surroundings, and these were perfect misery to her. She could not bear the society of the servants—her constant one now, owing to that horrible French system of stowing away the servants of every flat in the same house into pigeon-holes under the roof, old and young, men and women, innocent, honest girls and vicious old veterans in dishonesty, all crammed higgledy-piggledy in a proximity full of dangers to both soul and body. This population of the pigeon-holes was insupportable to Mme. Martin; she had nothing in common with them nor they with her. They pitied her—for the French are always kind-hearted—but they resented her evident superiority, and often showed their pity in a way that hurt more than it soothed. She writhed under the compassion of these coarse, vulgar-minded men and women, whose conversation turned chiefly on the domestic concerns of their masters, how they cheated them, the tricks they practised on them.

They came to see, after a while, that she did not care for their society, and they ceased to inflict it on her, and Mme. Martin came gradually to be as isolated as if she had been living in a desert. She was glad of it in one way. We most of us prefer solitude to unsympathetic company; we had rather be left alone than intruded on by those loud voices and heavy steps that jar so painfully on the nervous atmosphere of a sick-room; but there were times when her loneliness weighed terribly on her, when she longed for any hand that would but raise her paralyzed limbs from a posture that had grown agonizing from prolonged immobility, that would give her the drink that was just beyond the reach of her arm. Her mother could come to her but very seldom; she dared not absent herself during the busy portion of the day from her lodge downstairs. Sœur Lucie was very kind, and came as often as she could; it was she who had taken me to her and begged me to look after her. I was the better able to do so that Mme. Martin lived only five minutes’ walk from our house. I don’t think I ever came in contact with a sufferer who edified me more than this poor woman. It was not that she was so wonderfully pious, or heroic, or resigned; she was all three by turns, but none constantly. Perhaps it was this very fluctuation that made one realize so vividly the supernaturalness of the struggle she was carrying on. You saw the power of the sacraments, the action of grace working on her soul, almost as visibly as that of medicine on the body. She was a woman of very strong passions, acute sensibilities, and ardent imagination; you can fancy what it was to such a nature to be immured in a room about twelve feet long by eight, with a roof slanting to the floor at one side, and a window in the slant, incapable of moving in her bed without help, dependent on charity for even that bed and for the bread she ate. For the first years of her illness this misery was so unendurable, she told me, that she thought it would have driven her mad, and the terror of this prospect was the most unbearable thing of all. She had not the consolations of religion then. Her artist life, with its alluring perils, its wild companions, its passionate aspirations, had led her away from the realities of the faith and gathered a mist before her eyes. But she fell ill, and then the mist began to clear away. The Sisters of Charity found her out, and the old sacred memories of childhood were awakened; her First Communion, with its sweet, pure joys, its lovely, solemn pageant, the bright companionship of kindred hearts starting with the fervent promise to the divine Guest whose first coming was the grand event, the supreme crisis of their little lives, the goal to which, thus far, their lives had tended—all this came back like a well-remembered dream at the sight of the gray habit and the white cornette. It was the old, old story: the prodigal had wandered into a strange country, and had grown homesick and turned back, and the Father had met him half way on the road. She had not fed upon the husks of swine, poor Mme. Martin; only “forgotten to eat her bread,” and hunger had driven her home. She spoke to me of her conversion in terms of such deep humility and compunction that I might have fancied her the most appalling sinner who had ever lived, if Sœur Lucie had not told me the exact history of it.

But it was not all sunshine and smooth waters even after this blessed welcome home. There were dreadful battles to be fought yet. She fought bravely, but not always with a smiling face and a glad heart. Oh! no. There were days, of such terrific anguish, such utter, black despair, that it used to seem to me sometimes that her faith must fail this time, that nothing short of a miracle could save her now. And nothing else did. What greater miracle is there than the triumph of God’s grace over our corrupt and fallen nature, the victory of sacraments over the devil that holds our soul? It was a greater wonder to me every time I witnessed it in Mme. Martin. This presence of an evil spirit in her—a real though invisible presence of tremendous, almost omnipotent power—was so palpable that I used to feel something like the kind of terror one would feel near a person possessed. I always felt perfectly helpless while the crisis lasted, and would sit there and listen dumbly while she uttered her bitter, fierce words, not raving in loud, wild accents, but with a sort of hard, suppressed anger, a deep-down rebellion against the cruel, all-powerful will that was torturing her. There was no use arguing or preaching, or trying to make her see the sinfulness and the stupidity of it all; one could do nothing but bear with it, praying silently to God to come to her, and lay his finger on the wounded soul, and speak with his voice, and bid the winds be still.

One thing struck me with peculiar significance: no matter how fiercely rebellious she was towards God, she could always turn with a softened glance towards his Blessed Mother. There was an old print of the Mater Dolorosa on the wall over her bed, and it was the strangest thing to see the poor sufferer lift her dark, vindictive eyes to it with a tender, compassionate, entreating glance, while words of almost savage petulance against the Son were still hot on her lips. Once I remember her bursting into tears as she turned towards it in one of these sudden appeals. The fiend was exorcised for that day. I sat beside her till she had cried herself to sleep like a tired, naughty child.

These terrible days were invariably followed by periods of compunction, humble self-reproach, and love so fervent and consoling that it used to seem to me they could never pass away, that the darkness could never return, that this time the rescue was complete and irrevocable. The humility with which she would beg my pardon for the scandal she had given me, the way she would upbraid herself for her base ingratitude to our Blessed Lord, were more touching than I can describe. She would look up fondly towards the Mater Dolorosa with such an expression of tenderness on her haggard, sunken face, and say, as if apostrophizing it: “Ah! I knew she would gain the victory. I knew she would not desert me! Pauvre mère! Elle a tant souffert!”

The first day that I took Millicent Gray to see her she was in one of these blessed, penitential moods. It had lasted through several days—days of fearful suffering, and nights of sleepless weariness. She uttered an exclamation of joyous welcome when I appeared.

“Que le bon Dieu est bon! I knew he would not keep me waiting much longer. My little stock of patience was just coming to an end!” And she smiled good-humoredly.

“What is it you want?” I inquired.

“I was dying with thirst,” she said, “and I managed to draw this cup to me by hooking my finger in the handle, but I was in such a hurry to drink it that it slipped from me, and I am all wet and half-perished!” And, indeed, she was trembling with cold; her hands were like ice and her teeth chattered. I hastened to lift her up on her pillows and repair the accident, Millicent helping very dexterously. I had prepared Mme. Martin for her visit, so merely introduced her as a friend of mine, who would be glad to come and see her sometimes, if she allowed it.

When we had settled her in some degree of comfort, Millicent and I sat down and began to converse. Mme. Martin was in too great pain to join in the conversation, except by throwing in a word now and then to show she was following it, but one could see she was interested in what we were saying. There was an unusual brightness and peace about her, in the expression of her face and the tone of her voice; I rejoiced that Millicent should see it, for I knew it could not fail to impress her.

“Was last night as bad as the preceding ones?” I said when we were going away.

“Yes; it was very bad. I did not get a moment’s rest till it was daylight,” she said; and she smiled quite serenely.

“My poor friend! How cruelly tried you are!” I could not help exclaiming. “May God give you courage!”

“He does! he does!” she cried fervently. “It is a miracle how good he is to me—a miracle.”

“We must ask him for another one, that your courage may be rewarded by a cure,” said Millicent kindly.

“Oh! no. Don’t ask for that! I don’t want it!” said Mme. Martin quickly, as if she were frightened the miracle was going to be wrought on the spot. “I don’t want to be cured, only to be sustained, and to go on suffering a long time—as long, that is, as He likes—that I may prove I am not ungrateful; that I love him a little bit after all he has done for me! All he has done for me!” There was a look almost of ecstasy on her features as she said this, her face slightly upturned, but her eyes closed as if she were looking within her, into that sanctuary of her soul where God was present. I felt, rather than saw, Millicent turn a sudden, startled glance towards me.

“That is the most precious and most beautiful of all miracles,” I said presently, “that our hard hearts should be softened by the cross, and that we should come to love it for His sake; is it not?”

“Yes,” she replied; “it is the one I have most prayed for. It is to her I owe it.” And she turned to the Mater Dolorosa. “In my worst moments I always felt for her; that my cross was nothing compared to hers—nothing! Pauvre mère!”

When we were out of earshot, on the landing about half way down the narrow stair, Millicent stopped, and, looking round at me, said: “Her brain has begun to be affected; she is a little mad, poor creature, is she not?”

“Yes,” I replied, “she is; she has got what we call the madness of the cross. Many of our saints have died of it: la folie de la croix.”

Millicent stared at me for a moment with an expression that suggested some vague alarm as to my own sanity, but she made no further remark until we had got out into the street.

“What did she mean by saying it was the Virgin Mary that worked the miracle for her?” she then asked.

“She meant that the Mother of Sorrows had prayed for her and obtained a great grace for her.”

“But God would have given it to her, if she had asked him, without going to any creature for it, would he not?” answered Millicent.

“Perhaps; but he would be more willing to grant it to a creature who was sinless and his Mother, and who had stood by the side of his cross, than to a poor weak, rebellious creature who had sinned a thousand times and more. Does it not seem likely?”

“Oh! putting it in that way,” said Millicent dubiously. “But he is God, our Saviour; he must love us more than she does. He died for us; the Virgin Mary did not die for us?”

“Well, really, Millicent—almost,” I said, and, stopping, I looked her straight in the face. “Fancy a mother that loved her son, her only son, as Mary must have loved him, standing by while he was being executed—I don’t say scourged, and beaten, and hammered with nails to a gibbet, murdered piecemeal with the rage of devils let loose from hell, but simply hanged, or even beheaded; would it not be worse to her than any death that ever a mother died? And then fancy her blessing the men that murdered him, praying for them, adopting them! And you can say the Mother of God did not die for us?”

Millicent made no answer, but walked on in silence. We said no more until we got to my door, and then I asked if she would not come up and rest a while.

“No, I prefer to go home, thank you,” she said, putting out her hand. She held mine for a moment, as if she were going to say something; but she did not, and we parted silently.

She seemed strangely moved.

II.

I did not see Millicent until the following Sunday, when she came to ask me if I would go for a walk in the afternoon.

Sybil happened to be there when she came in.

“What hour do you go to church, Milly—the morning or the afternoon?” asked Sybil. I saw the drift of the question: she suspected Millicent had been to church with us.

“I generally go in the morning; mamma likes it best,” replied Millicent. “She was not well this morning, so we are going to late service. And you?”

“Me? I don’t go to late or early. I stay at home and think it over,” said Sybil.

“Think what over?” I asked. “The service?”

“Services in general, religion in its cause and effect—life altogether, in fact,” summed up Sybil. “Will you two let me join you in your walk this afternoon, or shall I be in the way?” We both protested we should be delighted to have her; and at four o’clock we were assembled down-stairs in her boudoir, ready to start, when a loud ring sounded at the door.

“Good gracious!” screamed Sybil; and she dropped into a chair, the picture of astonishment and vexation. “I’ll bet any mortal thing you like that that is Mr. Halsted! Was there ever anything so provoking! I so wanted to have a walk with you!”

“Why need his coming prevent you?” I said. “The doctor and Mrs. Segrave are at home, are they not?”

“Why, Lilly, how can you talk so!” she exclaimed. “What does that matter to Mr. Halsted? He comes to see me!”

“Then you throw us overboard?” I said. “That’s complimentary. What do you say, Millicent?”

Millicent laughed. She was not sorry at heart, I could see, that we were to be left to a tête-à-tête. Perhaps Sybil saw it, too, for she said, starting up suddenly:

“I won’t throw you overboard. Let him call again. Let him come with us, if he likes. Have you two any objection?”

Millicent said she had none. I, however, demurred.

“You will think it absurdly priggish,” I said, “but you know I am half-French—at least, I live amongst the French, so I can’t afford to knock against their hautes convenances; and if I were seen walking with a gentleman without my mother or some married chaperon, it would make quite a scandale.”

“How inconceivably ridiculous!” cried Sybil, staring at me with round, shining eyes. “What a grand privilege it is to be a free-born American woman! I wouldn’t be a slave like you—no, not for the empire of France, Lilly!”

Pierre came to the door to announce Mr. Halsted’s arrival, and we all sallied into the drawing-room. Sybil burst out into regrets at having to go out, and then, pointing a finger of scorn at me, “Only fancy!” she cried—“you’ll hardly believe it, but it’s a fact—Miss Wallace says she dare not come out for a walk with you without her mother, lest it should make a scandal in the town! Did you ever hear anything so pre_pos_terously absurd, Mr. Halsted?” I crimsoned to the roots of my hair, and longed to choke Sybil on the spot. Happily, gentlemen being the same in all countries, Mr. Halsted saw my embarrassment and turned it off with easy good breeding.

“Miss Wallace has been brought up in France,” he said. “It is quite natural she should have adopted the notions and manners of the country; but it’s rather hard on us poor fellows. We are cut off from our most cherished prerogatives here in this centre of civilization. May I call this evening? You promised to teach me the Polish mazurka?”

Sybil hesitated. There was to be a dinner-party that evening, so the dancing lesson could hardly take place, and I knew he wanted to figure in the mazurka at a Polish house the next night.

“I can’t this evening,” she said musingly; then, as if moved by a sudden inspiration, she flung down her muff. “I see I must victimize myself for my country’s sake, and give up my walk to save you from making an exhibition of yourself to-morrow before the assembled nations. You two go and take your walk alone.”

Mr. Halsted entered a feeble protest, which Sybil did not even so much as notice, but proceeded to take off her bonnet and prepare for the dancing lesson.

We were not long on the road together when Millicent opened the subject of religion; Sybil’s idea of “thinking it over” being the ostensible pretext.

“I wonder you don’t talk to her about it,” she said; “you might do a good work in that direction, if you tried.”

“By making a Catholic of Sybil?”

“By making a Christian of her.”

“Poor Sybil! Is she as bad as that?” I said, laughing. “She is more in your line than mine, at any rate. She hates popery like fire; I would as soon try to convert the Great Mogul.”

“You are a great puzzle to me, do you know,” said Millicent, looking at me with a glance of searching curiosity. “Catholics as a rule are such ardent proselytizers, and you seem to have no taste in that direction at all.”

“Have you known a great many Catholics before me?” I asked.

“You are the first I may say I have ever known.”

“Then how can you answer for what we are as a rule?”

“I have always understood it,” she replied.

“You have understood, or rather misunderstood, many things about us,” I remarked. “Is Mr. Halsted in love with Sybil, do you think?”

“Mr. Halsted is nothing of the kind. Nice conversation for the Sunday afternoon!” said a sharp, bright voice, and Millicent and I leaped half a mile asunder as Sybil popped her scarlet feather in between us.

“I made sure you would be discussing theology,” she cried, “instead of which I find you discussing me!”

“And why are not you discussing the mazurka with Mr. Halsted?” demanded Millicent and I together.

“Because I thought better of it,” was Sybil’s terse explanation, nor could we extract any other from her.

“What were you talking about before you began about Mr. Halsted and me?” she inquired, flashing her lightning glances from one to another.

“We were talking about you and the Great Mogul,” I replied, “and I was considering which of you I should first set about converting.”

“You had better begin with him,” said Sybil. “Have you done for Milly already?”

“Not—quite—” I said.

“I should like to have it out with you once for all, Lilly,” she said, “and just hear from beginning to end what your religious views are, and how far exactly they differ from mine.”

“You have views on religion, then?” I said in a tone of surprise.

“Certainly I have, Lilly Wallace,” retorted Sybil with indignant emphasis, “and I should like very much to compare them with yours.”

“That would be difficult,” I replied, “for I have no views.”

“What!”

“Not the ghost of one,” I repeated. “We Catholics never have; we listen to the church and accept all she teaches. There is not such a thing amongst us as a view; we would not know what to do with one.”

“Good gracious! That reasonable beings should let themselves be so gul—so—that you should—in fact, it’s beyond belief!”

“No, that’s just what it is not beyond; it is our belief that binds our reason and puts views out of the question,” I said. “We have our faith propounded to us by the church, and the church is the infallible witness of the truth; we have not to make out a creed for ourselves, as you Protestants have.”

“Then why did God give us brains, if we are not to make use of them?” demanded Sybil. “I would not hand over my conscience to any man or any body of men living; I would rather take my Bible and make out the right and the wrong of it myself.”

“Suppose you make it out all wrong—for you admit there is a right and a wrong to it—what then?” I said.

“It does not much matter, so long as our intention is good. God Almighty does not expect us to be infallible.”

“Certainly not!” I replied; “that is precisely why he made his church infallible, to save us from our own fallibility and teach us what to believe and what not to believe. If I believe black and you believe white, we can’t both of us be right; one or other must be in error, and God, who is Truth itself, can’t approve equally truth and error?”

“I tell you what it is, Milly,” said Sybil, turning round sharply on Millicent, who was walking on the other side of her, “it is very bad for you to be discussing theology with Lilly Wallace in this way. Mind what I tell you, no good will come of it!”

“Why, I’ve not opened my lips!” protested silent Milly. “It is you who are discussing it; it was you began it!”

“If I had not, you would,” retorted Sybil; “you are perfectly crazed on religious discussion. I see how it is going to end!”

I burst out laughing. Millicent, however, looked amazed.

“I will tell you what I see,” I said: “that you had much better have stayed at home and discussed life with Mr. Halsted than come out here to bully us. It would be serving you right if I made a papist of you on the spot.”

Sybil saw that Millicent was vexed, and, adroitly dropping the subject, burst out into vehement denunciation of French conventionalities. If it had been any other country in the universe, Mr. Halsted might have come out for a walk with us, and we should have had an excellent time of it; for he was the very best company she knew. We continued, nevertheless, despite his absence, to enjoy a very pleasant walk, and to steer clear of burning subjects the rest of the way. The incident, however, left its mark on us all three, and from that day forth there was an imperceptible but a very decided change in Millicent’s “views.” As to Sybil’s, I never got a glimpse of them, so it may not be rash judgment to express a doubt whether she had any.

I kept to my promise of avoiding controversy with Millicent, and she, seeing my reluctance to gratify her curiosity on this point, gave up trying to overcome it. We talked very freely on religious customs and institutions, but whenever she demanded my reasons for believing this or that I evaded controversy by that inexorable Catholic answer so aggravating to a Protestant—“The church teaches it.”

The winter passed, and the spring, and my mother and I were preparing to leave Paris to spend the month of June in London. One of my greatest difficulties in going away was how poor Mme. Martin was to get on in my absence. Millicent had come with me once a week to visit her. She would continue to do this when I was gone, I had no doubt; but the poor soul was in a state that required a visit every day, and I hardly dare ask or expect that Millicent would break from her mother and her own occupations regularly every day for this purpose, or that Mrs. Gray would allow it. I told her of my trouble, and the next morning she ran in looking quite radiant.

“Mamma says she will allow me to go every morning from eleven to twelve and sit with Mme. Martin and do all she wants; is it not good of her!” she exclaimed, embracing me.

“It is!” I cried, “and very good of you, dear Milly. You can’t think what a relief it is to my mind! I was miserable at the thought of leaving her without some one to take my place of a morning; and she is so fond of you, poor soul! She is so touched by your charity—above all in a heretic!” I added, laughing.

“Charity covereth a multitude of sins,” said Millicent. “I suppose the sin of heresy is included?”

It was quite true: Mme. Martin was wonderfully taken with her. She admired her grace, the quiet distinction of her manner, the subdued elegance of her dress—a Frenchwoman has an eye for la toilette so long as the breath of life is in her—and most of all the gentle kindness with which Millicent performed the little services of the sick-room. It was quite beyond her comprehension that so much sweetness and goodness should exist in anybody who was not a Catholic; it was most amusing to see her naïf wonder at this phenomenon, and her surprise that I did not abolish it.

“But, mademoiselle, why do you not explain to her how dreadful it is not to be in the true church?” she would urge again and again; and to my answer, “I have tried, but she cannot see it,” she would return the same wondering exclamation, “Est-il-possible!”

She evinced as much pleasure as surprise when I told her that Millicent was to come every day during my absence, and read to her and put things tidy in the little room.

“Now,” I said, “you must pay back all this kindness by getting the grace of the faith for her.”

“Oh! if I could but do it,” she exclaimed heartily.

“You may do a great deal,” I said; “your prayers ought to be very powerful with our Blessed Lord, because you are on the cross.”

She shook her head.

“If I lay on it lovingly, as he did,” she said; “but I don’t—not always, at least. I wriggle, and kick, and try to slip off it every now and then.” And she heaved a deep sigh.

“You are not a saint,” I said; “of course you have your ups and downs, but you would rather stay on the cross for any length of time than get off it, if you could, against the will of God, would you not?”

“Oh! yes, that I would,” she answered impulsively.

“Then you are all right,” I said. “Never mind the wriggling and the kicking; your heart is loyal to God, and that’s what he looks to. Set about asking for Mademoiselle Gray’s conversion, and he will not refuse it to you. Offer up all your sufferings for it from this time forth, and I feel perfectly certain our Lord will grant it to you.”

“Well, I will try,” she said, in an accent of simplicity and earnestness that sounded already like a guarantee of success; and then, looking at her Mater Dolorosa, she added suddenly: “I will ask her to get it!”

I had brought some fresh flowers, and was arranging them in a pretty vase that Millicent had given her, when my eye fell upon a new book that lay beside it. It was Notre Dame de Lourdes, which Sœur Lucie had brought her the day before.

“I will get Mademoiselle Gray to read me some of it every morning,” said Mme. Martin; “they say it is beautiful. Do you think she will mind reading it?”

I thought not, and was delighted with the suggestion.

“I have a beautiful life of St. Francis de Sales which I will bring you,” I said, “and you will ask her to read it to you when this is finished. He was a charming saint, and had a great deal to do with converting Protestants; ask him to help you.”

We consulted what other books it would be advisable to get, and what snares were to be set in other ways for Millicent. Sœur Lucie was, of course, to be actively established in the service, the orphans were to be set to pray—nothing was to be left undone, in fact, for the capture of the unsuspecting soul. Of course this was all very treacherous and base, and we were no better than a pair of designing Jesuits—so our Protestant friends will say, if they should happen to light on my little story. I cannot help it if they think so.

We left Paris, my mother and I, and during the three months of our absence Millicent devoted herself like a real Sister of Charity to the service of our poor friend. The weather became intensely hot, but she never let this deter her; she never missed a day. She was inexhaustible in her devices for amusing and comforting the poor paralyzed invalid: she made her bed, and dusted her room, and kept it fragrant with flowers; she brought her little delicacies of every sort; she read to her by the hour—for, though it had been understood that she was only to devote from eleven to twelve to this visit of charity, she managed generally to spend double that time there. All this kindness called out passionate love and gratitude from Mme. Martin. She longed with the most intense longing to requite it by drawing down a blessing upon Millicent; she told me afterwards that the yearning to obtain the faith for her grew to be a kind of thirst that never left her day or night. She offered her sufferings—and they were manifold and terrible—her weary, sleepless nights, her long days of feverish loneliness, every pain and trial of soul and body, not once nor many times a day, but constantly, for her dear benefactress’ conversion, till it became an idée fixe that was never absent from her mind, and found vent continually in interior aspirations or ejaculatory prayers; waking or sleeping, there it was, a part of herself, something that never left her. If she lay awake at night, restless and throbbing with pain, she comforted herself with the thought that it was so much suffered for this dear object; she fell asleep praying for it, and woke up to pray for it again.

We returned to Paris just as Mrs. Gray and Millicent were getting ready to start for some watering place, from which they were to proceed to the south and not return until the spring. Their departure was a real sorrow to me. I had grown sincerely attached to Millicent, and she to me. I had struggled at first to keep my feelings within the proper bounds, not to let myself slip into bondage and so prepare the day of reckoning that waits on all human affections; but the chains had coiled round me unawares, and when it came to saying good-by I found myself hopelessly a captive. We parted with full hearts and promises of mutual remembrance. Millicent was afflicted with that common vice, hatred to letter-writing, which so many of our friends make us suffer from, so we exchanged no vows in this respect, I steadily refusing to write unless my letters were answered. Our separation was therefore likely to be complete.

“You will pray for me, at all events?” she whispered as we embraced.

“Yes,” I said, “but on condition that you pray for me.”

Sybil went with me to the railway station to see the Grays off. She was sorry to lose Millicent, but I could see at the same time that she was glad to have her out of the way.

“I never expected to see Milly come so safely out of it!” she exclaimed as we turned away, after watching the train puff out of the station. “I could have staked my head on it that you would have made a Romanist of her by this.”

“You would have lost your head, then, and, such as it is, you would be worse off without it,” I answered crossly. “One really would imagine, to hear you talk, Sybil, that the faith was a disease that people caught like measles or the small-pox.”

“And so it is—that is—I don’t mean exactly that—but it certainly is contagious; everybody says it is, and that there is nothing so dangerous as living amongst good Catholics. I was terrified out of my life for Milly; I told her so over and over again, and did my very best to protect her. But I must say you have behaved very honorably, Lilly; I suppose there is hardly a Roman Catholic you know who would have behaved as well.”

“You mean to be complimentary, so I suppose I ought to say 'thank you,’” I replied, while I could not but laugh at her impertinence. “Just tell me one thing, Sybil,” I said: “You admit the right of private judgment, don’t you?”

“Do I? Why, I admit nothing else!” screamed Sybil.

“Then if Protestants, in right of their private judgment, choose to believe in the Catholic Church, what have you to say against it?”

“Only this: that in becoming Catholics they don’t exercise their private judgment, they renounce it,” said Sybil.

“After they become Catholics; but in the first instance? The act of renunciation involves an exercise of the judgment, does it not?”

“Oh! if you are going to be metaphysical, I give in,” said Sybil; “I hate and detest metaphysics!”

“Well, just answer me this much,” I pleaded: “Do you think Catholics are all certain to be damned?”

“Good gracious! I don’t believe one of them will be damned. Not the good ones, at any rate—not such as you, Lilly!” replied Sybil with extraordinary vehemence.

“Then why, in the name of wonder, should you have such a horror of any one becoming a Catholic?” I asked.

“Why? Why, because it’s a dreadful thing to ... change one’s religion, and the Roman Catholic religion is full of superstitions, of mistakes of all sorts.... But look! I declare that’s Mr. Halsted on the other side of the street, and he sees us and is coming across!”

“In time to rescue you from metaphysics,” I said. “I hope he won’t stand and speak to us; do you think he will?”

“I won’t let him; I’ll make him walk on at once with us,” said Sybil.

“O Sybil!” I cried, “you must not do that; mamma would be very angry if I were seen walking with him alone.”

“What nonsense! You’re not alone; I'm here,” said Sybil.

“You don’t count,” I said; “you know you don’t.”

“Well, you talk of being complimentary,” protested Sybil, “but that beats all I ever said in the way of polite compliments.”

“You must dismiss him at once,” I said hurriedly, for he was close on us now; “if you don’t, I’ll call a cab and go home alone.”

Mr. Halsted, serenely unconscious of being a cause of terror or contention, approached, smiling, with his hat in the air. He rather affected the extreme of French courtesy in his demeanor towards ladies; which was a mistake, for his native American urbanity, frank and free from grimace and palaver, was much more formidable, if he had but known it. Strange to say, it had not occurred to me before that he was here on invitation; but this fact flashed on me suddenly as I noticed Sybil’s embarrassment. It was certainly hard on her to have to turn him away after inviting him to meet her. I saw but one way to rescue her and myself.

“I am so glad you have come; you will accompany Miss Segrave,” I said. “I am rather tired, and shall be thankful now to drive home. Will you kindly call a cab?”

There was a little pretence of protest, from Sybil, of offering that we should both drive, but I overruled this and had my own way. I was glad to be alone. I wanted to think about Millicent, to look back over the short history of our intercourse, to look forward to its possible issue. I felt disappointed. I had hoped to find her, if not a Catholic, at least very near it, on my return; I had built so much on Mme. Martin’s prayers, on the example of her patient piety, and the living triumph of the faith which she presented. Then I began to reflect that after all I was quite in the dark as to how far these hopes had been disappointed. I had had scarcely any opportunity of judging. Millicent and I had not been once entirely alone since my return, and it was impossible to enter on the subject in a room where others were present. By the time I reached home I had cheered up, and began to take a more hopeful view of things. God works slowly, I said to myself; what are three months to his eternal patience? Mme. Martin was full of hope, though, like myself, the delay seemed long to her.

Her own day of trial was drawing to a close. I found her very much weaker, and altogether more worn and exhausted than when I left. Her soul, on the contrary, seemed to have risen to a higher and purer region, and to be breathing the air from the heavenly hills; her spirit of detachment, her love of the cross, had reached those heights where I could only follow her with a gaze of wondering, awe-stricken admiration. I had always felt a poor creature by the side of her, but I had felt justified in offering her sometimes what little help I could, reminding her of consolations and truths that temptation or overpowering physical pain had momentarily obscured. From this time forth I never dared to do so. Indeed, the opportunities which she herself had formerly furnished for it never occurred. That folly of the cross which had been a source of mild scandal to Millicent on the occasion of their first meeting had come to be her normal state. She had chewed the bitter wood until it had become sweet. The winter wore on and brought no change in her condition, except the gradual, almost imperceptible decay of strength which foretold the approaching close of the struggle. She continually asked for news of Millicent; I was able to tell her that she was well and happy. There were some American families at Cannes who wrote now and then to the Segraves, and generally reported of mutual friends; but Millicent herself perversely refrained from writing to me. I half suspected that there was a motive in this. I said so to Mme. Martin, and it consoled her greatly.

“Yes, it is very possible,” she remarked. “I often fancied Mademoiselle Gray wished to speak more openly to me than she did; the life of St. Francis of Sales evidently made a great impression on her. Sometimes, when she was reading to me, she would stop and look up as if she were going to ask a question, but, after hesitating a moment, she would go on without saying anything.”

“You must pray harder than ever,” I said; “there is nothing else to be done.”

“When I am in purgatory, please God, I will pray for her,” she replied.

“I hope you may go straight to heaven without going through purgatory at all,” I said; “you have suffered so long and so patiently!”

But she shook her head, and answered, with a look of austere humility I shall never forget:

“What are my sufferings compared to my sins—compared to the holiness of God?”

“Do you long very much to see heaven—to know what it is like?” I said, after we had been silent a while.

“No; I can’t say I do,” she replied. “I only long to see God.”

“Do you realize at all what the vision will be?” I asked.

“No,” she said, and her black eyes, so deep-sunk in their sockets, were lifted up with an expression of eager, tender yearning that was indescribable. “I realize nothing; but when I try to do so, I feel the most wonderful peace stealing over me—a sense of safety, of rest, of happiness. I can’t describe it; but it is like a foretaste of the bliss of Paradise—to see God! That is what makes Paradise!”

She was speaking rather to herself than to me, in a low voice, scarcely above a murmur. I felt that God was very near to her; the low-roofed attic was filled with an august, unseen Presence that touched us with a thrilling solemnity.

Presently I said: “You will remember me when you see God, will you not? You will pray for me by my name?”

“Oh! yes, that I will,” she answered, with a loving smile; “after my mother, you are the first person I shall name. I shall tell our Lord how kind you have been to me for his sake; I shall beg him to pay it all back to you.”

“There is very little to pay,” I said; “it has been a privilege and a delight to me to come and see you. But I will ask you to do some commissions for me the first thing when you get into heaven.”

I gave her the commissions. There were three. Millicent Gray’s conversion was the second on the list. She promised me solemnly that she would execute them, either in heaven, if she was so happy as to go there straight, or else in Purgatory, if this were possible.

It was wonderful to see the calmness with which she lay there discussing the prospects of the life beyond, the simplicity and childlike fearlessness with which she watched the approach of death, while at the same time her soul was filled with a sort of awful reverence at the thought of appearing before God. It was impossible to witness it without having one’s faith quickened.

Christmas came. The winter was unusually severe, and the intense cold, from which it was impossible to protect her fully in her miserable room close under the thin roof, brought terrible aggravation to Mme. Martin’s sufferings. It interfered, too, with my daily visits; when the snow came I was compelled to limit them to one or two a week. This was a privation to both of us. I had grown not only deeply interested in her, but sincerely attached to her, and she, on her side, had come to love me with a love of sympathy as well as gratitude that was very precious. It was like being in the companionship of a soul in purgatory; she seemed so loosened from this life, so lifted up, as if the nearness of God were all but a visible reality to her. The more the shadow of death closed round her, the more fully the light from the heavenly mount seemed to shine upon her. My visit was the solitary break in her long day—the only little breeze of human sympathy and comfort that came to refresh her. I knew it was a great trial to her to be deprived of it; she had often said the sound of my steps on the stairs was like a drink to her when she was parched with thirst; sometimes she greeted me playfully with the salutation, “Bonjour, mon verre d’eau fraîche!” But she had now grown so strong in sacrifice that it was difficult to trace the slightest symptom of regret in her. She would reproach me for coming out in the severe weather, declaring that she would rather never see me than have me take cold; that it was wrong of me to run such risks; and that there was no necessity for it, because she wanted for nothing, her mother came up twice a day to look after her, and so on.

One day she asked me if I had any news of Millicent. I had heard that very morning from Sybil that she was figuring with great success in some private theatricals at Mentone. But I did not like to tell Mme. Martin this; I feared it might shock her, or at least jar painfully on her present mood.

“She is very well,” I said. “You know she is very bad at writing letters; I only hear of her through friends.”

“I was dreaming of her last night,” she answered musingly. “How I wish she might become a Catholic before I die! It would be such a consolation to me to hear of it!”

“You will hear of it in the next world, please God,” I said.

“You think souls know what goes on on earth?” she inquired.

“Of course they do!” I said. “How could there be joy in heaven for the return of the sinner unless they heard of it?”

“Ah! yes, in heaven, to be sure; but I was thinking of purgatory. Do you think they know there what happens here below?”

“I see no reason for not believing it,” I replied. “Many saints and doctors have believed it; why should not our guardian angels carry messages from us to the angels of holy souls, if not to themselves direct, and tell them when we are helping and praying for them, and ask their prayers for us in return? It is a belief that fits in perfectly with the doctrine of the communion of saints.”

“It is a most consoling idea,” she said. “I shall be longing for a message from your guardian angel to tell me I have obtained all your requests.”

“Pray hard, then, that you may not have long to wait,” I said, kissing her face, that was looking up at me with a smile. I smoothed her pillows once more, and fussed about the bed and the room, with a pretence of busily setting things to rights, but in reality to hide an emotion that I could neither explain to myself nor master. I remember turning back, as I was closing the door, to have a last look at her. She made a sign with her head, and answered me with an affectionate smile.

On the stairs I met Sœur Lucie.

“She seems just the same, ma sœur,” I said. “How long do you think it will last like this?”

“Oh! not very long now,” she replied. “This cold will soon bring it to an end. She may be carried off at any moment.”

My heart gave a great thump against my side. I could not realize it, and yet it had been borne in upon me that this was the last visit I should pay her. The longing to kiss her once more, to say good-by with the full consciousness that it was to be for the last time, was so strong that I could not resist it. I turned back with Sœur Lucie, and went up again to her room. She did not seem surprised—at least, she said nothing about my reappearance. I waited a moment while Sœur Lucie questioned her, and then kissed her and said good-by.

“Au revoir,” she said, “au revoir. I will not forget your commissions; and mind you pray for me always.”

I was laid up with a violent attack of neuralgia for several days after this. One afternoon, about four days after I had seen her, a messenger came from Sœur Lucie to say that Mme. Martin was dying; she was to receive the Viaticum and Extreme Unction in an hour, and had expressed a wish that I might be present. The doctor was in the room when the message was delivered. I entreated him to let me get up and go, if it was possible.

“You will do as you wish,” he replied, “but you will do it against my emphatic prohibition. I won’t answer for the consequences, if you attempt it.”

Of course this settled the question. Had I been rash enough to try to disobey him, my mother was there to prevent it. I was greatly distressed. I had looked forward for so long to being with her at the last, to receiving her last kind word of farewell, and helping her with my love and my poor prayers through the great passage. My mother saw how pained I was, and volunteered to go and take my place, and tell Mme. Martin how grieved I was at being prevented. She just arrived as the room was being made ready for the coming of the priest. The dying woman had insisted on being taken out of bed and placed sitting up in a chair, that she might receive our Lord more befittingly on this his last visit to her; this was done accordingly with great difficulty and immense suffering to herself. She insisted, too, on being washed, and dressed in her best clothes, and, what struck me as still more characteristic at such a moment, she entreated her mother to put on her Sunday clothes, and to wear a cap which was only taken out on very great occasions. When all was ready, and the three assistants sat praying in silence, Mme. Martin signed to my mother that she wished to speak to her. “Give my love and thanks to Mlle. Lilia,” she whispered, “and tell her I will not forget her commissions.” Then, after a short silence, she said, as quickly as she could gasp out the words: “He is coming! Make haste! Light the candles!”

They did so, but waited still full ten minutes before the tinkle of the silver bell was heard on the stairs. Sœur Lucie told me this incident was not such a rare occurrence with the dying; that frequently they announce the approach of the Blessed Sacrament when the priest is yet a long way off, as if their senses were quickened by some spiritual faculty that is only awakened in death. The solemn, magnificent rite was performed, but it was too late to think of Holy Communion. The priest gave the last absolution and began the prayers for the dying. Before he had finished them the long struggle was over. Mme. Martin was at rest.

About five weeks after her death I received a letter from Millicent, informing me that she had become a Catholic. “It has been all so quickly done; I seem to have been so completely taken up and lifted into the church,” she said, “that I cannot help thinking some powerful supernatural agent has been at work all along overruling my own will. I had no more idea of becoming a Catholic than I had of turning Mohammedan—although all my sympathies had been quite gained over to the church by you and Mme. Martin—when one evening I went to act Racine’s Athalie at the house of a friend here. When it was all over, and the people were crowding round me with compliments and congratulations, a gentleman, a Catholic priest, came up and spoke to me; he thought I was a Catholic, and began at once to discourse on the grandeur of the Bible narrative and Racine’s interpretation of it. I undeceived him as soon as I had the chance; he seemed sorry and surprised, but went on talking very pleasantly, and, when we were saying good-evening, I said: 'My mother will be happy to see you, M. l’Abbé, if you would not object to call upon a heretic!’ I cannot to this day tell what moved me to say this. The next moment I thought I must have been out of my mind. He replied good-humoredly that he was not afraid of heretics, and was very glad when they were not afraid of him. My dear Lilly, if the heretics only knew, they would fly from that man as the devil does from holy water! He came to see us next day; it so happened mamma was out, so I saw him alone. I met him several times again, and—well, dear, before the month was out I was a Catholic. When I look back on it, it seems to me that I was in a dream, and that I was led on and on without any conscious will or action of my own, but just let myself follow the lead of some invisible attraction, some magnet that drew me in spite of myself, and here I am safe in St. Peter’s net and happily landed in his bark. Are people often converted in this way? Tell me if the church has invisible fishermen who go about casting nets and catching wayward, silly souls thus, or is it a special dispensation of mercy invented for me?”

“Dear, grateful Mme. Martin! How quickly and well you have executed my commission! Make haste and fulfil the others now!” I cried out to my dead friend on reading Millicent’s letter. She has kept me waiting for the other two; but I have not a doubt they will come in good time.

You can imagine Sybil’s feelings on hearing of this event. I shall certainly not attempt to depict them. Yet, in the midst of her genuine displeasure, there was a high note of satisfaction—the exultation of a prophet who had lived to see his prophecy fulfilled. I am sure this was a great comfort to her. We did not quarrel, though she let me plainly see she looked upon me as a kind of spiritual murderer. On the other hand, she took a more merciful view of it: It was to be, it was written; I was the appointed, or the permitted, instrument of Millicent’s destiny, and if I had not come some one else would; Millicent was doomed from the beginning.

In the spring my fears were realized: the doctor and Mrs. Segrave and Sybil sailed away to New York.

A few days before they left Paris Sybil burst into my room in high excitement.

“Will you believe it!” she cried. “Mr. Halsted has taken his place in the Tiger and is going back with us!”

“Well, and why not?” I said. “You and he will have delightful opportunities for discussing life on deck every day.”

Soon after their arrival I had a letter from her informing me that they had discussed it to the issue I had long since foreseen: she was to be married to him in a month.

THE MADONNA-AND-CHILD A TEST-SYMBOL.

Among the most beautiful of American lakes is one in the northern part of New York State. The old Indian name for it was Horicon, or Holy Lake—called so, perhaps, from the transparency of its water. Its banks abound with historic memories. They have been a battle-ground for English and French, and again in the war of Independence. But what specially endears it to Catholics is its consecration by the Jesuit missionary Father Jogues, who gave it, on the Eve of Corpus Christi, in the year 1646, the name of Lac du Saint-Sacrement—Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. Unhappily, the name it bears at present is the one conferred upon it by Sir William Johnson, who, courtier-like, dubbed it Lake George, after George I. of England.

May its Catholic name soon be restored! As an earnest whereof there now stands on the right shore—about a mile and a half from the head—a building known as “St. Mary’s of the Lake,” from which, through the summer months, a silvery bell rings out the Angelus at morning, noon, and evening. Strangers are informed that this building is “the monastery”; but a front view of it presents one feature which dispenses with all need of inquiry as to the creed of its occupants: not the cross upon the roof—for heresy has stolen that; but an unmistakable “encroachment of popery” in the shape of a Madonna-and-Child.

Among the curious who have ventured upon visiting “the monastery,” a certain good woman was one day discovered standing before the house and looking up at the statue. On being asked what she thought of it she replied, in the accent of Vermont: “Waal, it gives me a feeling as if something was crawling all over me to see the Virgin so big and the Saviour so small! It’s the Saviour that ought to be big.” Now, this sentence, absurd as it sounds, contains, we may say, an entire theology. To one who has never been a Protestant it is unintelligible, no doubt; but to one who has, or has had, that misfortune it expresses, though poorly, an idea of which he is, or has been, himself conscious. Our friend was sufficiently familiar with the Gospel story to know that the figures before her represented the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. Her remark, too, evidenced her belief in that story. She meant to tell us, in her simple way, that we made almost everything of the Virgin and almost nothing of the Saviour. Perhaps, had she been better educated, she would have expressed a preference for seeing the Saviour alone, and not as a child but as a man. Such, at least, would have been the writer’s own sentiment, years ago, when he was a Protestant. Not but that we should have felt more at ease had there been no image there at all; for the genius of Protestantism dislikes images: it is essentially iconoclastic. But, certainly, we would rather have seen any image than a Madonna-and-Child.

Here are two points for investigation: Why Protestantism is essentially iconoclastic; and why it is particularly uneasy and bitter in the presence of a Madonna-and-Child.

The heresy of the Iconoclasts, or Image-breakers, was Eastern, and raged in the eighth and ninth centuries; even reviving, for a time, after its condemnation by Pope Adrian I. and the Seventh Œcumenical Council. It sought to abolish sacred images and pictures, on the ground of their being idolatrous. Originating with an ignorant soldier, Leo the Isaurian, who had become Emperor of Constantinople, and “manifesting itself” (to borrow the words of Döllinger) “as a blind and senseless hatred of the imitative arts,” we wonder that such a fanaticism could gain footing at all. But, in fact, it developed into a persecuting heresy which “shed more blood,” says the same writer, “than any which had preceded it.”

Now, Protestantism has been said to partake of all the previous heresies; and we, for one, can testify to the truth of the accusation; for, after becoming a Catholic, we discovered, in the course of study, that our mind had entertained, at some time or other—though not always culpably, we trust—nearly every heresy ever known. But that Protestantism has especially distinguished itself by its iconoclastic zeal will be questioned by no one who is acquainted with its history.

We say, then, that Protestantism, as such, is necessarily iconoclastic. And, first, from the negative attitude which its very name implies—from its principle of asserting the right of private judgment to the rejection of extrinsic authority. Man, having a body as well as a soul, and living in an order of the visible and the palpable, naturally seeks to image his ideas—to place them outside of himself in a representative form. And particularly does he feel this need in matters of religious belief. Whence we find the use of symbolic representations in all the ancient religions. The Egyptian, Greek, and Roman minds were peculiarly fertile in symbolism—most so the Greek (the word “symbol” is Greek). But a creed, if it can be called a creed, which consists of negations—which finds its vitality in protesting against authority—cannot consistently use symbols; for, obviously, it has nothing to symbolize. Protestantism, therefore, instinctively dislikes images, seeing in them the symbolic representation of what is positive, affirmative, dogmatic.

Again, Protestantism started with another principle which gave it a tradition of iconoclasm—the principle of a false supernaturalism. The supernatural was exaggerated, to the destruction of the natural. Our nature was declared to be totally depraved, so that even free-will was wanting to us. Consequently, instead of being able to co-operate with grace and acquire merit, we had to be justified by “faith only”; the righteousness of Christ had to be “imputed” to us—thrown over our depravity like a cloak over a leprous body. Now, of course, as an immediate result of this doctrine, away went the saints; for they were no better than ordinary mortals—possessing no merit of their own and nothing to be venerated for. And with them away went their images.

Furthermore, this exaggerated supernaturalism involved elimination of the visible and the material from the economy of grace. For the natural being evil, the visible and the material were evil too, as a part of the natural, and therefore incapable of forming a system intermediary and sacramental between the soul and grace. Hence, away went the idea of a visible church, and away went sacraments and sacramentals. Now, images—representations of any kind—come under the sacramental system, inasmuch as, by raising our thoughts to their originals, they help us to commune with the unseen, and put us in mind the more constantly to invoke that mercy or intercession from or through which graces flow to us. Therefore, again, away went images with the rest of the sacramental system.

But, now, does not all this hostility to the visible and the material as elements of religion look very much like a misunderstanding on the subject of the Incarnation? If Christ is God-Man, he is God made visible—God with a human soul and a material body. Surely, then, to maintain that Christianity has nothing to do with the visible or the material is to betray an unfamiliarity with the meaning of the Incarnation.

This unfamiliarity will become the more apparent when we shall have considered an objection to what has been said on the iconoclastic tendencies of Protestantism. We may not unreasonably be reminded that Protestantism has passed through various important changes in the course of its career, and especially within the last half-century; that the doctrine of total depravity has long gone out of fashion and is practically extinct; and, again, that Protestants do use symbols now—such as the cross and the triangle—while some of them encourage painted windows, and even images, in their churches. Very true. And the change is not surprising—what with unnaturalness of doctrine on the one hand and conflict of principle on the other. “Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,” says Horace—“You may drive nature off with a pitchfork, yet she will keep running back.” Then, as to principles, logic, like murder, “will out.” The doctrines of the Reformation, though negations of Catholic dogmas, took a positive aspect for themselves; and the right of private judgment, which had made them, was only consistent in destroying them. Within the last half-century—and particularly within the last quarter—the principle of self-sufficiency has found its extreme in the complete rejection of the supernatural. Its votaries who have not reached that terminus are drifting thither, if unconsciously. And hence a reaction, in favor of what are called “orthodoxy” and “churchmanship,” is perceptible among all earnest Protestants who retain belief in Christianity as something more than philanthropy, something with a divine meaning. Not that they at all suspect (except those in the front ranks of the movement—the Ritualists, who openly avow it) that they are going back upon the Reformation. But they are. And as they advance they take in ideas which are less and less compatible with genuine Protestantism. One of these ideas is symbolism, the representation of doctrines by signs or images—as the triangle signifies the Blessed Trinity and the cross the Redemption.

Our argument, therefore, that Protestantism, as such, is necessarily iconoclastic or hostile to images, holds good in spite of the fact that modern Protestants are returning to the use of symbols. This return means that they have abandoned the position taken by the Reformers, and have set their faces—how little so ever they think so—Romeward and homeward.

Here, then, comes in a very appropriate question. If Protestants are gradually relinquishing their old iconoclastic spirit—if nowadays they set up the cross to express their faith in the Atonement, and use the triangle as an affirmation of their belief in the Trinity—where is their symbol for the Incarnation? Of course they acknowledge the Incarnation. They bracket it with the Trinity as a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. Then why do they not equally symbolize it? Evidently, their not even attempting to do so—their having no symbol for it—is abundant proof of what has been just said, that, while they profess to receive the doctrine, they are strangers to its meaning. They understand by it merely the divinity of Christ, and beyond this keep it in the background and give it no practical bearing. The Atonement is everything with them; the Incarnation nothing. But Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation. For call it, if you will, the religion of the cross, that term does not designate it as a whole. The truth expressed by the cross depends on the truth of the Incarnation; and so does every other Christian dogma. Christianity, therefore, is either the religion of the Incarnation or it is nothing. As that it must stand or fall. And if we would express it as a whole, we must symbolize the Incarnation. Now, the crowning proof (were any needed) that the Incarnation, rightly understood, has no place in Protestant theology lies in the fact that, besides not attempting to symbolize the doctrine themselves, all Protestants agree in a common aversion (not to say abomination) to the only symbol possible, which is—the Madonna-and-Child.

And why is the Madonna-and-Child the only symbol of the Incarnation? Because the Incarnation means that God is man; but how can we express the truth that God is man, except by showing that he has a Mother? In his divine nature he has no mother; then, if he has a mother, he is man. Whence the creeds do not merely say that Christ is the Son of God, or that the Son of God was made man, but affirm that he was “born of the Virgin Mary”; “Incarnate of (or from) the Virgin Mary”—thus setting forth the same divine Person as at once the Son of God and the Son of Mary. That is, they show us Incarnate God as a Child in his Mother’s arms; they symbolize the Incarnation (a creed is called a “symbol”) by the Madonna-and-Child.

* * * * *

Thus far, then, we have seen that the genius of Protestantism is hostile to images in general, and to the Madonna-and-Child in particular, because it is out of joint (so to speak) with the genius of the Incarnation. We have here a very singular spectacle: a vast body of professing Christians, who hold, with us, the doctrine of the Incarnation, and have not formulated any heresy about it in their “confessions of faith” (we are not including Unitarians among Christians; for they have no more right to the name than Mohammedans); a body of Christians who say with us that they “believe in Jesus Christ ... born of the Virgin Mary”; who keep “merry” Christmas, too, with us—Christmas, the feast of the Madonna-and-Child—who yet, for all this, instead of dwelling with delight on a representation of the Infant Saviour in the arms of his Blessed Mother, invariably show that they are not at home with it as a religious symbol.

Can it be that they are insensible to what is beautiful and touching? No; their hearts are as human as ours. Any other mother and child by an artist of moderate skill could scarcely fail to interest them. Moreover, it is fashionable with cultivated Protestants to admire this Mother and Child where the question is one of art, not of religion. They display a very creditable taste for the Madonnas of Raphael and other great painters. Or if the association of religion add a charm, it is nothing more to them than the glamour which invests a symbol of pagan superstition. And in saying this we speak from experience. When, as a school-boy, the writer became acquainted with the mythologies of Greece and Rome, he found them full of poetry, and soon came to envy the religion of those old pagans—a religion so much in contrast with the aridity of his own. So, too, when, a year or two later, he first saw Catholic worship (it was Benediction, of all lovely rites), he remarked as he came away: “That religion is full of poetry.” “Yes,” was the answer—“of pagan poetry.” And then he was told how all the “corruptions” of Rome had been introduced from paganism; and, as an instance, the Madonna was cited. “They call her the Mother of God,” said the informant (a clergyman of the Church of England, who had learnt his lesson well). “You remember Cybele, the 'mother of the gods’? Well, there’s their Madonna—the Virgin Mary in place of the goddess Cybele.” He was told this and other things of like nature, and so became imbued with the idea that the Catholic religion was a paganized Christianity. Still, for this very reason (as we are free to confess), it had a fascination for us; and the greatest charm of all was its supposed goddess-worship.

At sixteen, again, our attraction to the Madonna was greatly increased by some stanzas of Lord Byron, in which that most wonderful of poets, inspired by the beauties of the Mediterranean twilight, and with some famous painting in his mind, thus apostrophizes Our Lady:

“Ave Maria! Over land and sea, That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee!

“Ave Maria! ’Tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! ’Tis the hour of love! Ave Maria! _May our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son’s above!_ Ave Maria! O that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath th’ Almighty Dove! What tho’ ’tis but a pictured image strike, That painting is no idol—’tis too like!

“Ave Maria! Blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o’er the earth, so beautiful and soft! As swung the deep bell in the distant tower, And the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft: While not a breath crept thro’ the rosy air, Yet all the forest leaves seem’d stirred with prayer!”

Perhaps, too, we were even more impressed by a single stanza in another canto of the same poem, where, in his description of Norman Abbey (his own Newstead), he recalls a solitary Madonna-and-Child which had been standing amid the ruins:

“But in a higher niche—alone, but crown’d— The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child, With her Son in her blessed arms, look’d round: Spared, by some chance, when all beside was spoil’d. She made the place beneath seem holy ground. This may be superstition, weak or wild: But ev’n the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.”

Lord Byron, it is true, was not a Protestant, but a deist. But this makes it all the more evident how full of poetry the Catholic religion is—and particularly in its worship of the Madonna—when it could so attract a mind that rejected Christianity altogether. Other non-Christian poets have proved the same thing, and none more so than our own great Unitarian poet, Longfellow, whom, when we first read “Evangeline” and “Hiawatha,” we supposed to be a Catholic. But Protestant poets, too, and of various persuasions, have evinced a sympathy with particular features of the Catholic religion as it appears to those outside of it, and especially with the Madonna. These see an ideal in our Virgin-Mother. And none has expressed this higher view so well as Wordsworth in his celebrated sonnet—to which, perhaps, we are indebted for our own first glimpse of her as an ideal. It is one of his Ecclesiastical Sonnets, and comes among a series in which, as a true poet, he is forced to lament the destructive work of the so-called Reformation.

“Mother, whose virgin bosom was _uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied:_ Woman above all women glorified— Our tainted nature’s solitary boast! Purer than foam on central ocean tost: Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn With fancied roses: than the unblemished moon, Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast! Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend, As to a visible Power, in which did blend All that was mix’d and reconciled in thee Of mother’s love with maiden purity— Of high with low—celestial with terrene!”

Clearly, therefore, it is not an obtuseness to the beautiful, or even to the ideal, that alienates the Protestant mind from our symbol of the Incarnation. No; the key to the puzzle is this: that the system of Christianity known as Protestantism cannot see in the Madonna-and-Child a symbol of itself—has nothing in it capable of being symbolized by either Madonna or Child.

* * * * *

The Incarnation, once more, is God made visible. As such it must needs create for itself a visible kingdom on earth: a kingdom over body as well as over soul—a kingdom in the world of mind, and equally into the world of sense and matter. The kingdom thus created will, of course, be in harmony with that which created it—the Incarnation—and, therefore, with the symbol of the Incarnation—the Madonna-and-Child; and so will find in the Madonna-and-Child the symbol of itself—the mould upon which it was cast.

Here, then, the reader will perceive what we mean by calling the Madonna-and-Child a test-symbol. Whatever system of Christianity is not at home with this symbol, or not entirely in harmony with it, is thereby convicted of being false, as not the kingdom of the Incarnation. So that, to demonstrate the true Christianity, out of all existing systems calling themselves Christian, we have only to confront them with the Madonna-and-Child.

Let us do this. And, first, we will call up all the Protestant communions, and particularly the two most important and respectable—the state church of England and her daughter in America; excluding on the one hand whatever sects deny the divinity of Christ, and on the other that party in the said Episcopalian churches which is working, more or less consciously, to bring back “popery without the pope.” Neither of these extremes is genuine Protestantism.

All classes of genuine Protestants, when confronted with the Madonna-and-Child, acknowledge it, of course, the representation of an historic fact in which they believe—the birth of Jesus Christ from the Virgin Mary—but instinctively feel that it means a great deal more. They principally object to the Madonna, as giving the Blessed Virgin too much prominence. “We all know,” they argue, “that she is the Mother of our Saviour; but, beyond this, what is she to us?” They are not accustomed to speak of her, except when they mention her in the Creed; or even to think of her, except when they pity or abuse their “idolatrous” fellow-Christians. At the same time neither do they care to see the Child, particularly in Mary’s arms or by her side. “He did not remain a child all his life,” they say. “It was not as a child that he came out in public to work miracles and preach the Gospel; it was not as a child that he suffered and died. Then what is his childhood to us?” In a word, our symbol of the Incarnation reminds them of nothing with which they are familiar.

The secret is, they are not within the visible kingdom of the Incarnation; they are outside the visible church. Each sect will call itself a church, no doubt; and the Episcopalians have something to show for theirs, because, in its outward form, it is a fair imitation of a real hierarchy. But when they say in the Creed, with us, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” they do not mean at all what we mean. To them the Catholic Church of the Creed is the collective multitude of omnigenous believers in Christ, instead of signifying a visible institution divinely endowed to teach and govern, and standing to them in the relation of a mother—carrying them in her arms and feeding them at her breast. If they did mean this by the Catholic Church, they would recognize at once in the Madonna-and-Child a symbol of that church with them in her arms, and would, so far, feel at home with the Madonna-and-Child.

Neither, again, have they the Blessed Sacrament—that lovely “second infancy” of Jesus—or they would joyfully acknowledge in the Madonna-and-Child an image of the church with the Blessed Sacrament in her keeping.

But especially would their attitude towards Our Lady be different from what it is now. Believing in a visible church, they would not insist, as now, on having nothing between themselves and Christ, who, by instituting the church, chose to place an entire system between himself and them. And, seeing the type of this church in Mary, they could not vituperate our doctrine of the latter’s maternal mediation; not only because of the church’s mediation, but also because Mary, as the type of mother church, must needs be Mother Mary.

Now, to the writer this is all the more clear because it is the history of his conversion. Having come—and, thank God! not so late as it might have been—to feel the necessity of a visible church as a mother and guide, at whose feet we could sit child-like and learn from her “the words of eternal life”—to hear whom would be to hear Christ; to go to whom, to go to Christ—we gradually discovered that the Church of England, in which we had been reared, and to whose ministry we were looking forward, was no such mother and guide, nor ever could be. We found that she did very well as a state church, a moral police, a “part of the civil service”; but that her success in being fashionable was owing—not to any divine commission, not to her speaking “as one having authority,” not to her teaching one definite body of doctrine—but, on the contrary, to her being the creation of Parliament; to her disclaiming all authority to teach, except as a fallible human witness; and to her leaving the utmost latitude for every variety and contradiction of opinion, so that her clergy were equally at liberty to hold or deny such vital doctrines as baptismal regeneration, the Real Presence, sacerdotal absolution, and apostolical succession. Added to these doctrines—which we had come to believe from joining first the moderate High-Church party, and then the extreme, or the Ritualists—was a parallel attraction to the Blessed Virgin, whom we had discovered to be truly the Mother of God. And the two ideas of a mother in the church and a Mother in the Blessed Virgin rose together and grew together, till we found them both realities in the kingdom of the Incarnation.

* * * * *

And now we may let Protestantism go. Its votaries are loud in exhorting us to return with them to the purity of primitive Christianity. But when we take them back with us over the centuries to the very cradle of Christianity—to the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem—and enter that sanctuary on the first Christmas morning, are they or we more at home there, in the presence of the Madonna-and-Child? So far, then, from establishing its clamorous pretensions to be the only unalloyed Christianity, Protestantism is ruled out of court by our test-symbol, as neither the kingdom of the Incarnation nor any part of that kingdom, and therefore—virtually and logically—not Christianity at all.

The Catholic Church, however, has not the field all to herself yet. There is the Russo-Greek, including some half-dozen independent communions. Is not she in harmony with our test-symbol?

While on the road to Rome we were much attached to the Greek Church. Most Anglicans of the “High” school are—because they know very little about her. (A case where “distance lends enchantment”—and a very hazy distance, to boot.) There is one thing, though, which Anglicans ought to know about the Greek Church, and which we did know: the fact that her worship of the Blessed Virgin is more “excessive” (to use their own phrase) than that of the Roman Church. We say we knew this, and confess that, instead of being repelled by it, we were the more attracted. So far, therefore, the writer was consistent, at least—unlike other Anglicans, who protest especially against our “Marian system” (as they call it), and at the same time babble and dream (for dream it is) of union with the Greek Church. What we were afraid of in the Roman Church was not the Blessed Virgin, but the Pope. We had been so thoroughly imbued from boyhood with the notion that the Pope was “Antichrist” and the “Man of Sin,” that the influence of this monstrous superstition haunted us, in some shape, to the very eve of our conversion. We say in some shape. We had come, since a Ritualist, to believe that Antichrist was yet to appear, and that the Pope could not possibly be he. Nevertheless, we took it for unquestionable that the Papacy was a usurpation; had caused the separation of the Greek Church from the Latin; and was also to blame, in a great degree, for England being out of communion with the other western churches. While under instruction for reception into the church we read Mr. Allies’ See of Peter; and our amazement at the evidence for the Papacy was only equalled by our indignation at the unblushing impudence which had assured us, and with such pretence of patristic learning, that there was not a single proof from the first six centuries for the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome.

Well, then, the Greek Church is in harmony with our test-symbol to a certain and considerable extent. In the first place, she holds the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, and by no means keeps it in the background, but gives it due prominence in her catechism and liturgy. And since she teaches the devotional use of representations, particularly of pictures, her people are no less familiar than we are with the Madonna-and-Child as the symbol of the Incarnation. Secondly, although (as must be the case) they have not the same tender mother in their church that we have in ours, still, all who are in good faith being by intention Catholics, they can speak, with us, of “our mother the church.” And, again, though they are made much less familiar with the Blessed Sacrament than we are, yet, having a true priesthood (not a sham one like the Anglican), a true altar, and a true Mass, the Real Presence is a living fact with them. So that they may see in the Madonna-and-Child the church and the Blessed Sacrament as we do.

The Madonna-and-Child, however, being, as we have said, the mould upon which the church is cast, makes a law which must not be violated in any single particular. If, therefore, this self-styled “orthodox” Greek Church be found out of harmony with our test-symbol in even one point, she is no more the kingdom of the Incarnation than if she were in harmony with it at no point.

Now, she does fail to correspond with it in one most important point: viz., in her theory of the church as a whole. She holds, like the Anglican Ritualists, the theory of a divided church. But the Madonna can no more represent a divided than an invisible church, and those who say, with us, in the Nicene Creed, “I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church,” yet maintain that she need not be visibly “one,” are more illogical than those who use the words in the sense of an invisible church. That a visible church, of which oneness is a mark, need not be visibly one!—could absurdity, in the shape of theory, go further?

Again, if this theory of the church as a whole—that she is no longer visibly one as her divine Author made her—renders it impossible to see the type of such a church in the Madonna separately, what meaning will it find in the Madonna-and-Child together? It beholds in the Madonna a unity which it denies; and in the Child—either nothing at all, or something which it consciously rejects.

What makes a church, according to the apostolic constitution? All churches which have that constitution agree that the essentials of a church are a bishop with a clergy and laity in his communion. The bishop is its nucleus, and makes the church in the sense in which the head makes the body. A bishopless church is a headless body. We say this is what all Christians agree upon who believe in apostolical succession. So that even the recent contemptible sect calling themselves “Old Catholics” were bound to procure a bishop for their schism, albeit they set at defiance both authority and logic.

A bishop, then, and the church in his communion are the normal or representative church. Now, we see in this representative church the form of the Madonna-and-Child. To some this may seem fanciful. It is not. Every priest is “another Christ”—in the celebrated words of St. Bernard; and the bishop is the complete priest, as having the power to confer the priesthood. If, then, the Madonna typifies the church, the Christ-child typifies the priesthood, and, if the priesthood, still more the episcopate. Again, as Christ has in Mary not only a Mother, but a Daughter and a Spouse—for he is her Father by creation (whence Chaucer and Dante exclaim, “Daughter of thy Son!”) and her Spouse as the Spouse of all elect souls, among whom she is “as the lily among thorns”—so, too, has the priest in the church at once a mother, a daughter, and a spouse; and therefore still more does the bishop stand in this threefold relation to the church. And, once more, as Christ is “the first-born among many brethren,” his Mother being ours also, so is the priest an elder brother, ruling his brethren from the arms of their common mother; and, if the priest, much more the bishop.

There is nothing fanciful, then, in our view of the Madonna-and-Child as a symbol of the normal or representative church. But what does this mean, if not that the collective church, consisting as it must of a multitude of single churches, has equally the form of the Madonna-and-Child—is equally capable of being symbolized thereby? or, in other words, that all single episcopates must be subordinated to one universal episcopate? Now, the Russo-Greek Church, while affecting (at least in theory) the principle of hierarchical subordination from the bishop up to the patriarch, stupidly contradicts her own assertion of this principle, and destroys the church as a whole, by rejecting the supremacy of the Pope. She is, therefore, in this all-important point, as much out of harmony with our test-symbol as the Anglican and the other Protestant sects; and is ruled out of court, in her turn, as neither the kingdom of the incarnation nor any part of that kingdom.

* * * * *

So at last we have only the Roman Church to contrast with the Madonna-and-Child. And small need have we to show how harmoniously at all points she corresponds with our test-symbol. The Catholic recognizes in the Madonna-and-Child not only the Incarnation but its kingdom. He sees there the church with the Blessed Sacrament in her hands; and, again, the church our mother with her Christ-child at her breast; and, lastly, this same mother as our lady and queen, with her eldest son the Pope ruling his brethren from his throne on her heart, the Sancta Sedes.

With regard to this last point we think it strange that controversialists have made so little use of the Madonna-and-Child of the Apocalypse.[164] We proposed to conclude our subject with a proof of the Papacy from this vision, but must reserve it for a separate article.

Footnote 164:

Chap. xii.

COLLEGE EDUCATION.

The schools of the country have held their days of exhibition or of graduation, the young men are enjoying their holidays, and the teachers are preparing themselves for a new year of work. It would seem to be a favorable moment to say a word about the question that more or less occupies all who think seriously of the future—education. This word, so often used, conveys different ideas, according to the person who speaks. Its etymology undoubtedly gives it a certain definite meaning: educo, erudiri are two words that signify the bringing forth from a negative state to a positive one—from ignorance and rudeness to knowledge and culture. But this general idea does not cover the whole matter. We have to consider the end to which this process is directed in order to have an adequate idea of what it should be. Now, this end we shall have clearly before us if we call to mind the end for which man is here on earth. Christians all acknowledge and teach that man is here to know, love, and serve God and save his soul. These two, therefore—redemption from ignorance and a rude state, and the end for which man is here—give us the right idea of what education ought to be. The appreciation of both will enable us to avoid two fatal obstacles—presumption and error. The proper state of mind of any one beginning a course of education is the recognition of his want of knowledge. There is nothing so hurtful as a spirit of pride; for this blinds the mind, makes one overweeningly confident of his powers, attached to his own opinions, and loath to receive instruction. We have heard in our day young people discussing the question whether a man were not able to work out the most difficult problems of human science of himself; whether he absolutely stood in need of the guidance of others; and whether there were any branch of human knowledge or achievement of past times any one might not be able to attain to or accomplish, provided he turned his attention to it, and circumstances were favorable. And when a young man had succeeded in mastering a certain amount of learning or science, we have been witnesses of the very remarkable phenomenon of seeing him set himself up as one whose opinion should cut short every discussion, and form the law of belief or action for those around him. Any one having had any experience of truly learned men, who even may not have been models of virtue, must have been struck at the humility of mind they give proof of. They, more than others, appreciate how little they know of what it is possible to know; they see the vast field of knowledge of which they individually can but cultivate a part, and common sense keeps them from thinking themselves possessed even of all that can be known of what they are actually engaged in. They agree in spirit with the celebrated master of Plato, whose saying is familiar to us: “I know only this: that I know nothing.” The first requisite, therefore, for sound education is a humble state of mind, a disposition to be taught and receive the lessons with docility—a disposition not only needful in a beginner, but required even more the further one advances into the domain of knowledge. When one adds to the original and relative ignorance of us all the further fact of the ease with which we go astray, fall into error—a facility so great as to have given rise to the adage in universal use, “Humanum est errare”—it is impossible a man of sense should not recognize the necessity of keeping down the spirit of pride and self-confidence, and confess that, in not having controlled himself in this respect, he has given the most complete proof of the adage in his own case. We are therefore all in the same condition, all in need of learning, and stand in want of a teacher to instruct us and lead us in the path of truth. What is the truth we are to seek after, who the teacher we are to go to, results from the study of the end to which education is to be directed. We have seen that the end of man is to know, love, and serve God and save his soul, and this tells us what education should be. Anything that conflicts with this end is to be rejected; whatever aids us in attaining it is to be embraced; and as all truth is in harmony with that end, it follows that education can embrace all sciences that are truly such, while it must eliminate all error; for error has a logical effect of keeping us from the attainment of that end, especially where that error regards the higher branches of speculative education.

Here, then, comes in the most important element in the education of man—religion; religion, that is, to teach his head and train his heart. If, as is most certainly the fact, man was made for God and for immortal life hereafter, education that would exclude this element—religion—which regulates the relations of man with God, and teaches him how he may gain that everlasting state for which he has been created, is wanting most deplorably in the one thing needful. Such an education fits a man only for matter; is of the earth earthy. It has no higher aim than the objects around him; it is a guide that does not bring into the presence of the King, but takes one no further than the domain over which the King’s power is exercised. However much it may delight the eye with grandeur of scenery, proofs of power and of wisdom, it has no right or ability to introduce into a close communion with the Sovereign, the source of all it beholds. It is simply an unworthy servant banished for ever from the face of his Master. This kind of education, which we shall style secular, professedly excludes all religious control of any kind whatsoever, and it consequently relies only on reason and scientific examination. Now, reason has been found wanting. In the brightest examples of pagan times, familiar to students of history, are to be found not only actions nature itself condemns, but principles laid down by them subversive of natural society and of all Christian virtue—pantheism and immorality. And we owe it to Christianity that we have been rescued from the social life in which such principles prevailed and were in practice. Any one nowadays who knows something of men will bear witness to the fact that both the one and the other—pantheism and immorality—are on the increase and show themselves publicly in the speech of the men and women of to-day. This can be owing only to one cause—the divorce of religion from education. And because this is so, because secular education does not lead us to God, but takes us from him, a dividing line must be drawn between religious education and secular education; an insuperable barrier exists between them, which must and ought to keep all that believe in revelation on the side of a training under the eye of religion. And if this be the case with regard to all who profess belief in Christ, how much truer is it with reference to those who have given their names to the Catholic Church and look to her infallible voice for their guidance! In saying this we do not wish to speak disparagingly of the learning, the ability, or the zeal of those engaged in the cause of education who are not with us. We respect all those who are striving to increase the treasure of human knowledge or dispense it to their fellow-men. We join hands with all who are earnest in their study of true science, and rejoice in their success. We have no right to question their sincerity. But between their efforts and success in discovery, or in acquiring and imparting learning, and the way in which they educate, there is a difference most vital and essential. The one investigates the works of the Creator, while the other leads men practically, where it does not absolutely tell them as much, to ignore the Creator himself. Godless science can only fill a man with himself, while it offers no guarantee for the preservation of his morals and the attainment of his last end.

On the other hand, religion goes before the education which is allied with her. With her torch of faith she illumes the darkness of men’s minds. She shows them how much more beautiful is the Author of all the beautiful things they contemplate than are the objects themselves. She makes them behold in him the original essential beauty of which the universe is only a faint participation, and yearn for the possession of that Beauty and sovereign Good she tells them is within their reach; and she shows them how, under her direction, they may not be carried away by transient allurements, by what they see around them, but attain to an indissoluble union with that Beauty and sovereign Good—with God himself.

But it may be said religion has nothing to do with natural science; it cramps man’s mind, fetters his intellect, stops his investigation. It will do well enough in its sphere, but its action is hurtful to scientific pursuits.

Is this true? It is not true; and we can refute the charge by principle and by fact.

All that exists belongs to God. All science, all truth comes from him, the great First Cause, from whom all things proceed, in whom there can be no contradiction. His works, therefore, cannot contradict him nor contradict each other. Natural truth and revealed truth must, then, be in harmony, and we do not fear a conflict between them. The Catholic student of science is as fearless an investigator as is his rationalist confrère; but the former will not rashly give himself up to speculations the other’s further experience will oblige him to retract. The facts of science will never be in opposition to revelation, though the interpretation of scientific men may be, to their discomfiture later on. Even if the teacher of revelation, the church, should by any possibility, as is asserted in the case of Galileo, fail in a disciplinary decree with regard to scientific research, such decrees not being infallible utterances of the Holy See, there remains always the remedy of a reversal when the incontestable proof of the contrary, such as he did not bring forward, shall be produced. So spoke Cardinal Bellarmine, one of Galileo’s judges. Though we may safely say that those in charge of the interests of the church do well in being exceedingly careful how they interfere with scientific investigation, it nevertheless may become necessary at times to curb the license of those who undertake to interpret the truths of revelation according to their ideas or appreciation of science. How many scientific theories fall to pieces every day! And is it not reasonable that those who believe in a revelation should not be left at the mercy of every clever scientific man who is pleased to have a tilt against it? Let any scientific truth be fully proved, and the Catholic Church will be the first to applaud, for it redounds to the glory of her Head.

We need not, however, confine ourselves to this negative way of advocating the cause of revelation as friendly to science, for there is no dearth of positive proof of the fact.

Revelation is positively of advantage to the study of science. It is clear that any one who keeps me, when on a journey, from going out of my way saves me an amount of time and trouble. Instead of wandering in the woods and bypaths, I am enabled to keep the highway and so reach sooner my destination. This is one of the important services revelation renders science. It tells us: Don’t direct your attention hither or thither; for you will find out you are wrong, after losing precious time and making yourself a laughing-stock. Don’t go in search of the “missing link,” for you won’t find it. Don’t divide the unity of the human race, for it is one—of one man and one woman. Don’t grovel with the materialists; for man has a spirit, and he is destined for a better life hereafter. Such like warnings we have from revelation, and, instead of going astray with evolutionists and so-called philosophers, we employ our time and talents on points that are serious and practical in science and nature; and Heaven knows there are plenty of these to engage us. The result is useful knowledge that does not undo but builds up society and perfects civilization. For this our grateful thanks are due revelation.

Then, again, revelation opens up to us new fields of thought. It gives us an insight into what we could not otherwise know. It is as if chance discovered to us some principle of art or science no one had before suspected. Once presented, reason can occupy itself on it, explore it as far as possible, make deductions and applications. How much human ethics have gained in clearness and usefulness by the light of the command to love our neighbor, and by the example of the Redeemer of man! How much speculative philosophy with regard to personality, responsibility, good and evil, and the future life! The crude theories of pagan times excite our compassion nowadays, though we honor the ability of their original propounders; yet these same theories we see now broached by those who have cast aside revelation, but often with less depth and less wisdom than the pagan in whose mind not all the light of natural religion was quenched. No! revelation is the friend of science; science divorced from religion, the vaunted glory of to-day, is the enemy of progress; retrograde in all save the energetic talent that is lost in its service.

A few examples will show what revelation or the church has done and is doing for the cause of education; whether it has checked the development of man or favored it.

We will go to the “dark ages,” in which those who oppose the church as an educator are wont to find their cheval de bataille, their bugbear to frighten off those inclined to trust her. We say nothing of the unfairness of Protestants who wilfully ignore the sad state of the Roman world consequent on the barbarian invasions of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, and the struggles with the Saracens, who penetrated even into Italy—a condition of things most inimical to the quiet requisite for study; who pass over the conquest of those barbarians and their civilization by the church; who pretend to know nothing of what was done by the monks to preserve learning in their monasteries, to whom the preservation of the classic, philosophic, and ascetic works of antiquity and of the early church—the Bible among them—is due. We come to the thirteenth century. There we see, burning with a light that is celestial, a luminary not of the church only but of human reason—St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor. There was hardly a branch of intellectual pursuit of which he was not a master. His works are wonderful, and have always been a precious and useful legacy in every subsequent age. His great work, the Sum of Theology, has remained the text-book of theologians. In fact, no theologian is master of his subject who has not made St. Thomas the object of his constant study. Though at times somewhat neglected, we may safely say that at present there is an increasing appreciation of his works. Certainly this is true of his philosophical treatise Contra Gentiles. There is now a wide-spread movement in all civilized nations to return to the use of the metaphysical and ethical teachings of St. Thomas, and it will be the means of regenerating such philosophical studies in this epoch of individual self-assertion, of ipse dixits, when every man of talent who lists puts forth his own hazy speculations as the truth, and strives to force down his deductions as the ne plus ultra of science. Domenico Soto, at the Council of Trent, defined scholastic theology to be reason illumined by faith; we may, like him, style scholastic philosophy reason kept in its right path by the torch of faith. In the works of St. Thomas will be found the refutation of the pantheism of Spinoza and the present German school, of the materialism of Hobbes and Büchner, of the utilitarian ideas of Mill, Spencer, and others of the followers of Puffendorf. We shall find, too, in his writings the ablest defence of revelation, and the sound principles that will enable us to put to flight the whole host of mythical theorists of the age. So much for theology, metaphysics, and ethics.

If we wish to speak of the work of the church in poetry, science, and literature, we have a monument of what she could do, even in the middle ages, in Dante. We hardly know which to admire most in this extraordinary man—his native genius, his extraordinary powers of imagination, the beauty of his imagery, the remarkable knowledge of theology and philosophy he exhibits in his writings, or the beauty of the language he created. His culture was due to the church; his inspiration was drawn from revelation; and his science he drank in at the great schools established and carried on by the church in Italy, in France, and in England. So pre-eminent is this writer, philosopher, and poet, that even in the nineteenth century our own poet whose works are read and justly appreciated wherever the English language is spoken—Henry W. Longfellow—has deemed it well worthy of his own genius to be his translator. Yet Dante is the product of the Catholic Church.

But the fashion to-day is to extol physical science. Of a truth, physical science does not hold, and should not hold, the first place. If man were only matter, it might and should; but he has a soul, and the spiritual and intellectual world is his proper sphere. Scientific knowledge is useful for the arts that serve to make commerce prosper, and should be sought after; but to make commerce and what pertains to it, and the material comforts of man, the main object of his thoughts and aims is a monstrous disorder.

However, even in this sphere of physical science the church is not afraid of her competitors. We leave to one side old Friar Bacon and other patriarchs of science, and we come to our own day. The church can point to Angelo Secchi, one of the first of living astronomers and physical scientists, and a member of a society that counts among its members men distinguished in every branch of human knowledge—the Society of Jesus. So great is the pre-eminence of this distinguished savant in his native Italy that, since the city of Rome has been in the hands of the present rulers, they have left nothing undone to gain him over to their side. And it is a pleasure to us to pay this public tribute to the noble fidelity he has shown to his faith, his church, and his society, giving as he does a splendid example of the alliance between the most advanced physical science and the Catholic Church.

As faithful adherents to revelation, though not Catholics, we may mention the late Prof. Faraday and the no less distinguished Dr. Carpenter, who show that revelation and science do not war against each other.

But we need not content ourselves with showing that the church is not hostile to human learning. It is easy to bring forward facts that put her before the world in her true character as the real friend of man, the guardian of his dignity, the zealous protectress of the truth of his intellect and of the freedom of his will. In medio stat virtus—Virtue avoids extremes. Our tendency to go wrong is by doing too much or too little, and we need something to keep us from either of these two extremes. It is here the church comes in to fulfil this friendly and much-needed office.

There was in the fourth and fifth century an intellectual movement that attributed more than its due to human nature. The Pelagian errors gave to man a power he does not possess, and those errors are very widely spread in this nineteenth century. They ignore the efficacy of grace, or the help the will stands in need of to serve God. Grace, according to their most favorable view, was only a light for the intellect. Here was an excess; too much was claimed for human nature. Such doctrine is contradicted by Scripture and by the Fathers. Our Lord tells us: “I am the vine, and you are the branches; without me you can do nothing.” And St. Paul says: “We are not able to think of anything [conducive to salvation] of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.” And St. Augustine, against those who spoke of some of the precepts as impossible, writes: “God does not command what is impossible; but commanding [thereby] counsels us to do what we can, to ask for aid to do what is beyond our power, and aids us that we may be able to do it.” In this case we have the church curbing human pride and keeping the intellect and will within its true limits.

In the sixteenth century there was a movement, resulting from pride and rebellion, that had its own punishment in the degradation to which it reduced man’s nature. Luther’s dogmatic system had, and has—for it lives in Protestantism—the effect of so debasing human nature as to deny light to the intellect and power to the will to do anything that was not sinful; for he held that the will of man is essentially changed, so that it depends on who directs it, God or the devil; and, besides, whatever it does is sinful, though covered by the merits of Jesus Christ, which, like Esau’s garments, prevent the knowledge or sight of the true state of things and the imputation of sin.

Here was a defect; human nature was denied some of its powers.

The church fulminated this doctrine, and taught formally that man’s intellect and will, though weakened by sin and passion, are not essentially changed, and that all man’s acts are not sinful. She recognized something of his original dignity in man. Hers is the spirit of the great St. Leo, whose eloquent words made the Christians and Romans of his day remember their origin, and the height to which they had been raised by the Incarnation. He exclaims: “Remember, O man! thy dignity, and, having been made a partaker of the divine nature, return not by degenerate conversation to thy former vileness.” She bade man remember that his nature, never essentially corrupt, had been purified by the grace of God, and that “in those that please God there is nothing defiled.”

Luther’s teachings shed a sinister influence far and wide that tainted even Catholic universities and affected writers who still professed to be in union with the church.

In the former University of Louvain Jansenius went so far as to say that some of the gospel precepts were impossible, and that no grace was given to fulfil them. The words that were used by St. Augustine to refute the Pelagians were turned against Jansenius, and the voice of the church was heard anew vindicating man from the necessity of committing sin. Later on came Baius, of the same university, teaching also a doctrine of universal depravity; and the Sovereign Pontiff proclaimed that negative infidelity—that is, idolatry in good faith—is not a sin; that consequently those who have not grace or the illumination of faith can do many good actions, though such actions have not the merit of those which are made available through the merits of Christ. Thus again did the church prove herself the friend of human dignity.

Further on we meet those who, suffering the infection of the air caused by the doctrines of universal depravity, deny to the intellect the power of discovering the truth by itself. The traditionalists wish to trace everything to an original revelation; man has nothing he has not received from outside. Even his knowledge of God comes from tradition. And this doctrine the church, through her supreme teacher, discountenanced. She bade them recall to mind the words of the Book of Wisdom and of St. Paul, where we are told that God can be known from the contemplation of this visible world.

We will crave indulgence if we go so far as to venture the assertion that the doctrines of Malebranche and his school had their origin in this same depreciation of the powers of the human intellect. It may be said that the idea of intuition is a nobler one than that of painful analysis and deduction; that intuition—vision—is the lot of the blessed, and therefore a higher state. But this is a state above nature, for the blessed; not a natural state in our present condition. Moreover, there are reasons to make us believe that Malebranche did not escape the infection of the world of thought prevalent in his day—the disesteem of human nature; an infection not, indeed, logically connected with the system of Luther. It was, if we may be permitted so to speak, a psychological effect—a habit of mind being induced, whereby one was led so to think. This would appear to be evidenced by his doctrine of occasionalism, which made God always acting because man could not—a doctrine the authority of the church obliged him to modify, for he would thereby have made God the author of sin. Though no official condemnation of the theories of Malebranche, regarding the primary mode of knowing truth, has ever been given by the church, or is at all likely to be given, the deductions of certain of his followers have been condemned; and it is well known that the weight of the influence of the Holy See has been cast in the scale of the psychological theories of St. Thomas, whose principle, clearly laid down, is: “Operatio intellectus præexigit operationem sensus”—“The operation of the intellect prerequires the operation of sense”—I. 2, quæst. iii. art. 3, resp. And in his first part, quæst. xviii. art. 2, he writes: “Intellectus noster qui proprie est cognoscitivus quidditatis rei ut proprii objecti, accipit a sensu; cujus propria objecta sunt accidentia exteriora. Et inde est, quod ex his quæ exterius apparent de re, devenimus ad cognoscendam essentiam rei”—“Our intellect, that properly takes cognizance of what a thing is (its essence) as its proper object, receives of the senses, the proper objects of which are external accidents. Hence it is that from what appears externally in a thing we come to know its essence.” Of course sense is to be taken in its widest meaning, so as not to exclude the perception of the modifications going on in our internal being, which are the accidents of our spiritual essence. Man, therefore, has no natural revelation, but he arrives at knowledge by the essentially inherent powers of his mind—perception, abstraction, generalization. God sees by intuition everything in himself—this is essential in him; created intellects see what is, or intellectual truth, the archetype in God, reflected from creation as from a mirror.

From these instances, then, it is evident that the church has always been the friend of human nature, asserting for it the possession of faculties denied it, protecting it from error, and guiding it in the search of truth. She is, therefore, worthy of the gratitude of mankind for what she has done in the cause of education, as well as of the confidence of men as an instructor of youth in the future.

We come now to a more directly practical part of our assumed task, and shall consider it our duty to speak plainly, and perhaps in a way to be censured by some; but we do it in what seems to us the interest of our people and country. The Rev. Father. T. Burke, O.S.D., while in this country some years ago, addressing a society of young men, told them that Americans could not expect to take their position among the civilized nations of the world unless they studied, and studied not superficially but well. For our part, we thank him for this word. It is time to put out of our heads that we are the most cultivated, civilized, well-informed people of the world. We are not. Alongside the generality of the educated men of Europe the generality of the educated men of America do not appear to advantage. Who and what is to blame for this?

In the first place, we blame parents. They ought to know better; they have had experience of the world. They are the natural guardians of their offspring, and should provide by their experience a remedy for the inexperience of youth. Yet they, and especially Catholic parents, are those who put the greatest obstacles in the way of those engaged in teaching. They want their boys hurried through school; they can’t see the use of Latin, much less of Greek. As for philosophy, a man can make a fortune without philosophy; as if a fortune were the only thing worth living for! If that were the case, your California stage-driver who has struck a “bonanza” is the type of what a man should be intellectually. Heaven save the mark! We have had such men say to us: “I assure you, sir, it is a very great misfortune my education was neglected; I have wealth and don’t know how to enjoy it.” There are numbers of unhappy wealthy Americans travelling in Europe whose children are looking forward to brilliant futures, but who themselves rush from one place to another, tortured by the necessity of having to come in contact with educated people and learn daily their own inferiority. We have met such people, and, out of sheer pity for their unhappy lot, have done what was in our power to make them forget for a while their troubles.

The fact is, no greater boon can a wealthy parent bestow upon his child than a thorough, careful education, and every effort should be made to secure such education. And one of the first steps to be taken is that parents second the efforts of zealous educators in our Catholic institutions. These institutions have their defects, but those defects can hardly be remedied without the co-operation of parents. What that co-operation should be will be seen further on.

There are defects in our institutions of education. This is our next point. These defects are in the manner of teaching and in what is taught.

We acknowledge that there have been great improvements in the manner of teaching since we were boys; but with all this the want of uniformity, scarcely attainable in this country, will always leave the door open to defects in teaching. As a rule, the mind of a boy is too much taxed with speculative matter, and his memory comparatively neglected. The memory is one of the first faculties to show itself active, and it is also capable of wonderful development. In the earlier education of the child the exercise of the memory should predominate; as little strain as possible should be put on the mind yet tender. As the education progresses the exercise of the memory should be kept up; choice extracts from the best poets and writers should alternate with the useful storing in the mind of facts and definitions. The preliminary education should consist in the learning of languages, which are means of acquiring further knowledge by intercourse and reading, not by any means the sum total of education. We wish our Catholic parents would understand this; for when a boy succeeds in knowing a little French and German they seem to think everything done. These languages are only the keys to the treasures locked up in the writings of other nations. They are principally to be acquired by memory; and, in fact, this is the way the most successful and generally used method—that of Ollendorf—adopts. There is no reason why the boy should not be put at a very early age to learning foreign languages. There is, too, one great advantage in this: that his work at such languages will be lighter and less absorbing when he comes to be engaged in scientific study. Again, care should be taken not to put into the hands of a child books of an abstruse or relatively difficult character; for excessive caution against straining the mind of such a scholar can scarcely be taken. A great deal of harm is sometimes done from the too high standard exacted by school-boards of the various categories of boys. We have never ceased to praise the judicious interference of our father, who, finding us with an analytical arithmetic put into our hands at seven years of age, took it away and placed it on the highest shelf of his closet.

When a boy is well under weigh in the languages—we do not speak of religious education, which we take for granted—he may very properly be introduced to the study of experimental science and the more difficult problems of analytical arithmetic and mathematics. But these branches should not be arranged in such a way as to compete, as it were, with that much-neglected study, so lightly thought of—mental philosophy. If one visits our different Catholic institutions of learning, and examines their system, still more looks into the practical working of it, he will find that the year of philosophy, much talked of, is employed in a most perfunctory manner. We would not be understood as attributing any culpa theologica to the instructors. We consider this state of things owing first to parents, and consequently to their children, and in part to the want of appreciation of the need of such philosophical training on the part of the teachers; though also, sometimes, to want of competency in the teachers themselves, whose previous education has been on the old plan. We conceive that too great attention and zeal cannot be expended in the correction of these defects. Corrected they can be, and they must be, if we wish to take and keep our proper standing. We cannot have a university for the present, and therefore it is all important that the one essential thing a university can give—a higher mental training—should be given to our young Catholic men. They must receive this in our colleges; they will not have it elsewhere. Of the need of it there can be no question. The great number of able, educated Europeans who, from political causes, have had to leave their native country and come to us, and the large number of Americans who nowadays study in European universities, all of whom, in conversation and through the press, retail to us the wildest phases of infidel, metaphysical, and social doctrine, is a sufficient argument to decide the matter, should any one hesitate. The church, to be sure, is our infallible guide, but there are many questions she does not treat, or, if she has treated them, her decisions can be understood only by careful study and explanation in the language of philosophy. So far from discouraging the study of philosophy, of metaphysics, and of ethics—possibly the more important of the two—she encourages us to make a good use of this handmaid of theology. It is therefore a duty incumbent on those in whose hands is placed the education of our young men to pay more attention than ever to this kind of instruction. We know of efforts in some instances that have been made in this direction, but which have failed. We are afraid they were not very numerous. In some instances a tincture of metaphysics was deemed enough; ethics were wholly neglected. How this could be has always been a puzzle to us. But it should not be any longer. A careful course of metaphysics that would embrace particularly the refutation of pantheism and materialism, besides establishing thoroughly the existence of God and the spirituality and immortality of the soul; and an equally careful course of ethics that would refute the utilitarians and socialists of the day, while making clear the claims of authority, the nature of law, the origin of right in the eternal fitness of things as seen in the divine Mind, and such kindred questions, should be the object of the most earnest solicitude of the superiors of our Catholic colleges. The young students should be made to apply their knowledge thus received either by short compositions in addition to the repetition of the lessons taught; or, far better still, by academic exercises in which one student defends in the school-room before his teacher and fellow-students a thesis or proposition already explained, while one or two others object against it all they can think of or learn, and this, too, in strict syllogistic form. Exercises such as these would be of the greatest advantage in training the mind to the ready use of logic, and to refuting the arguments possible to be urged against sound doctrine. Nothing better than this would tend to take away the reproach so often, and perhaps in some cases most unjustly, made against our educational institutions, of incompetency for thorough education. Did it depend on us to have the recasting of the system of education, we should be inclined to add on a year of further study as a requisite for graduation, and during the last two years of a young man’s course we would employ him entirely in the study of metaphysics and ethics, including the principles of political economy, of the philosophy of history—in which the great questions of history, as far as possible, might be reviewed—and in the further polish of his literary English training. The philosophy of history is most important, for it is a powerful teacher. History is not to be studied as a bare narrative of facts; the facts have a language of their own which needs an interpreter. The polish of literary education is of great necessity, as it is the one thing those educated in the non-Catholic colleges may be said to excel us in. We do not dwell much on scientific education, because that is really of secondary importance, and it is impossible to give boys more than an elementary training in this branch, which may serve as a ground-work for further pursuit of it, if one is destined to turn his attention in that direction. To enable the superiors of our colleges to carry out such a plan would depend upon the parents of young students having the fortitude to oblige their sons to remain the requisite time and make a diligent use of their opportunities. Herein lies their co-operation in the great work of the future education of the young Catholic men of America; and our word for it, if they follow this counsel, they will never have cause to repent. They will give us, too, far abler champions of truth than our young men have shown themselves to be in the past.

THE DANCING PROCESSION OF ECHTERNACH. FROM THE REVUE GENERALE.

In the year of our Lord 690 a vessel from the island of Britain left upon the coast of Catwyk, in Holland, twelve young Anglo-Saxons who had abandoned their newly-converted country to carry the blessing of the Gospel to their brethren of the Continent. Chief among these young men, several of whom were of noble birth, was Willibrord, predestined from his mother’s womb to be a glory to the church and famous in the estimation of men. The young strangers separated, to work, each in his own way, in the vineyard of the Father. Willibrord began that very day the long and heroic apostolate of fifty years which ceased only with the pulsations of his heart. If we except his two journeys to Rome, where the great servant of the Papacy twice received the blessing and encouragement of the Sovereign Pontiff, he did not relax for a single day his labors in the vast region which stretches from the mouths of the Elbe and the Rhine to the banks of the Moselle. At his voice nations sitting in darkness rose up to behold the light, idols crumbled before the amazed eyes of their worshippers, churches arose from the soil and gathered about their altars multitudes of Christians, lay society organized itself little by little after the model of spiritual society.[165]

Footnote 165:

V. Alcuin in Vita Willibrordi ap. Mabillon. Acta Sanctorum, Ord. S. Benedicti, t. iii. p. 567, Venetian edition.

Tradition and history show us by turns the great Anglo-Saxon apostle in Friesland as the master of St. Boniface; in Denmark, preceding by more than a century the famous St. Anscarius; in the island of Helgoland, destroying the idol of Fosite and braving King Radbod’s wrath; in the Isle of Walcheren, where he nearly fell a victim to his heroism and apostolic zeal; in Campine as the friend of St. Lambert, another untiring athlete of Christ; and, finally, in Luxembourg, where even more than elsewhere his name is glorified and revered. For half a century he stood with Lambert and Boniface in the breach, the father of civilization in Western Germany and one of the most signal benefactors of mankind.

The common people, though they forget great poets and great generals, preserve the memory of saints. Seventeen churches in Belgium and fifty-eight in Holland are under his patronage, without counting those in the valleys of the Moselle and the Rhine, where his fame is equally wide-spread. Sixty-three leagues apart, a small section of St. Willibrord’s vast itinerary, two villages to-day preserve in their own names the undying memory of his works: Wilwerwiltz on the sterile moors of the German Ardennes, and Kleemskerk on the low, fertile plains of maritime Flanders.[166] Drawn, as it were, from nothingness by this great man, these two localities, were other witnesses wanting, would tell to later ages the glory of their sublime founder. Answering one to the other across the whole extent of Belgium, they testify to his vast labors and his devotion to the Roman Church, which we unworthily defend to-day against the barbarism conquered by him twelve centuries ago.

Footnote 166:

Wilwerwiltz is a contraction of Willibrordswiltz. As to Kleemskerk (Clement’s Church), we know that in Rome Willibrord received the name of Clement, as did Winfrid that of Boniface, under which he is venerated.

I.

During his apostolic missions through the forests of Luxembourg Willibrord remarked one of the most charming and romantic spots in that fine country. It was at a turn of the Sûre, which even to-day flows on beneath the shade of savage rocks and deep forests. The valley, widening at this place, must at that time have presented a most imposing aspect, while it offered every facility for a settlement of human habitations. Indeed, the dwellings were even then of ancient date. The place bore a name recalling incontestably its first Celtic occupants: Epternacum. There, too, the Romans had left traces of their passage. A short league from Echternach archæologists may still read beneath the great shadowy oaks and thick brushwood that half hide it the following inscription engraved on the base of a monument:

DEÆ DIANÆ Q. POSTVMIVS POTENS. V. S.

The upper part of the monument is gone, but enough remains to show that it represented two persons—no doubt the goddess and her worshipper, with a hunting-dog crouched at Diana’s feet. He who overthrew the false gods of Helgoland and Walcheren must have crushed in holy ire this monument of the paganism he had just destroyed.[167] At all events, the image of Diana, once proudly throned above the valley at the edge of the wood, now hides, degraded and mutilated, in the dank gloom of brambles and brushwood—an eloquent emblem of St. Willibrord’s work in this country. Echternach, where even then two little Christian oratories stood on the site of the two churches of to-day, attracted the great man’s attention and heart. He built there a Benedictine monastery, which was favored from its foundation by the bounty of two royal families, the Merovingians and Carlovingians. Around this focus of Christian life habitations gathered, and, as always happened, the monastery expanded and became a town. Such was the origin of the commune of Echternach, one of the most flourishing in that happy country of Luxembourg which knows neither great cities nor great miseries.

Footnote 167:

This, at least, is the plausible conjecture of a scholar of the first rank—F. Alexander Wiltheim—in his fine book, Luxemburgum Romanum.

The monastery of Echternach was always dearer to its founder than his other foundations. There he loved to pass his rare hours of repose. There, on the 6th of November, 739, at the age of eighty-one years, he reached the term of his mortal career. His remains were laid in the basilica of the abbey among his monks and his people. Even in the tomb he continued to be the father of that country and to exercise over men the sovereign authority which his virtues and labors had won. Death has no hold upon the saints; when we lower their bodies into the grave we rear their images upon our altars. St. Willibrord, more than any other patron of the country, is one whose sepulchre may be called glorious. Few tombs have inspired a veneration so extraordinary, attracted the faithful in such crowds, excited acts of faith so intense. No sooner was he laid in his grave than multitudes came to invoke the apostle of Luxembourg, and frequent miracles bore witness to his powerful protection. A century had not elapsed when this wonderful devotion was spoken of by the greatest writer of his time—Alcuin, the biographer of our saint.[168] His festival was celebrated by an immense concourse, who filled the air with his praise. “See, brethren,” says St. Alcuin. “Behold the glory of serving God. Our holy patron, for love of Christ, left his native country and led the life of a pilgrim. He trampled under foot the riches of this world; he loved, he clung to poverty. And you know the glory he acquired among men. But preferable far is that which he possesses for all eternity among the angels.”[169] And the illustrious friend of Charlemagne, speaking to his contemporaries of facts of which he had been an eye-witness, told of the iron fetters on the wrists and ankles of devout pilgrims which burst asunder when they came to do penance for their sins at the venerated tomb.[170]

Footnote 168:

Ibi usque hodie divinâ operante misericordia signa et sanitates ad sancti viri et sacerdotis reliquias fieri non cessant.—Alcuin O.C., iii. p. 571.

Footnote 169:

Id. in Mabillon, iii. p. 575.

Footnote 170:

Id. ib. iii. p. 572.

Two centuries afterward the voice of Theofrid, St. Willibrord’s successor and later biographer, echoes the powerful voice of Alcuin and tells of the ceaseless devotion which brings crowds to Echternach every year. He, too, bears witness to the saint’s miracles—so numerous, he says, that a yoke of oxen could not drag the chariot that would hold the votive offerings of wax and metal. And among these wonders, as in Alcuin’s day, were to be seen broken chains and instruments of torture worn by slaves, which were shattered into splinters.[171] No miracle is oftener recorded of our saints than this one. I confess I never read the record in the quaint and simple narrative of our ancient hagiographers without emotion. Wherever they went the breakers of idols were also breakers of fetters; that word which called men to the knowledge of the true God called them also to the enjoyment of true liberty. Christus nos liberavit. Therefore the church has been honored by the opposition of all the tyrants who have wished to subjugate nations. They have felt that liberty could be easily destroyed, if they could destroy her who is the fertile mother and the fearless guardian of freedom. But nothing can avail against the church nor against the liberty which is her offspring, which her voice called into life, which she has bathed in the blood of her idol-breakers.

Footnote 171:

Theofridus vita S. Willibrordi, c. 24 (sæc. xii.) This life of St. Willibrord is still unpublished; only a few fragments having appeared in Mon. Germ. Hist., t. xxiii. Script. The fact I mention is taken from M. Krier’s pamphlet, Die Springprocession, p. 33, from the MS. life.

It was St. Willibrord’s destiny to see crowned heads bow among the crowds that pressed around his altars, and the imperial purple of Germany trailing in the dust before his coarse robes of haircloth. In the imposing procession of generations marching towards the saint’s tomb it is difficult to distinguish the royal forms mingling with the crowd of pilgrims, so petty seem to him who gazes from the altar the earthly grandeur which sets them apart from other Christians.

Many a time in earlier days the Carlovingians had come to pray and humble themselves in the sanctuary at Echternach. They came with hands filled with gifts, and, by one of those strange vicissitudes which the finger of Providence points out, it was one of their number who, blind, outcast, and bereft, came later to eat the bread of St. Willibrord and seek refuge in the shades of his monastery. History hardly mentions the wretched Carloman, rebel son of Charles the Bald, whose eyes were put out by his father’s orders, and who received in charity from his uncle Louis the Abbey of Echternach ad subsidium vitæ.[172] The families who succeeded the Carlovingians in Germany never forgot the saint or the duty of paying him homage. In the year 1000 the list of imperial pilgrimages was opened by Otto III., the young and brilliant prince who planned so many great expeditions, and whom death had already marked with his mysterious seal. Lothaire of Saxony, and Conrad of Hohenstaufen, came in their turn to pray before the saint’s relics, the one in 1131, the other in 1145. Then, in 1512, Maximilian joined in the procession, and in memory of his visit gave to the town the bell which bears his name and still rings on feast days. Thus, except the sacrilegious house of Franconia, all the dynasties of the German Empire seem to have been represented at Echternach, and to have paid court to this prince of peace, greater and more respected than they.

Footnote 172:

M. G. xxiii. Script., Catalogus abbatum Epternacensium primus.

Echternach was always the capital of St. Willibrord’s peaceful realm. There was his tomb; there rose convent and basilica, perpetual heralds of his great deeds. The convent was a city in itself, and the basilica is a most precious relic of eleventh-century architecture—a veritable pearl which alone would make the reputation of a town. I will not be drawn into further details, for fear of leaving my subject.[173] It suffices to remember that this wonderful monument, a victim of revolutionary vandalism, had been sold as national property, and was falling into decay, when the piety and patriotism of the people of Echternach snatched it from certain destruction. They formed, under the name of Willibrordus Verein, a society whose aim was to recover the basilica and restore it to worship. This society, founded in 1862 by a few citizens in a little town of four thousand souls, now numbers its members by hundreds. It has already devoted more than one hundred thousand francs to the basilica, and will soon crown its work by bringing back the shrine of the saint, now preserved in the parish church. All reverence to the intelligent Christian people who guard their honor so faithfully and understand so well the interests of their own glory! Inspired by the three-fold love of religion, country, and art, the Willibrordus Verein is one of the finest institutions that I know. It does honor to the whole of Luxembourg, and will leave a lasting memory. Of how many associations of our day can as much be said?

Footnote 173:

On the basilica of Echternach read a good notice by Prof. Namur inserted in t. xxii. of Annals of the Archæological Academy of Belgium; and another by M. Bock, in Rheinlands Baudenkmale des Mittelalters.

The entire town of Echternach has retained that stamp of antiquity so eagerly sought by artists, and so much despised by our petty, material generation. Surrounded by the fantastic hills that form the valley, whose strange summits look like crumbling castles; still enclosed by three-quarters of its ancient fortifications, with here and there a ruined tower, it strikes the beholder with a surprise which only increases as he penetrates to the interior of the town. Passing through crooked and narrow streets, where each house has an architecture of its own which is often very impressive, he reaches the public square, where stands the antique town-hall, known by the more ancient name of Dingsthal, an interesting building which rests on Gothic arcades. The parish church is equally worthy of attention for its old Romanic architecture and its beautiful position upon the summit of an eminence overlooking the town.

What especially tends to give to Echternach its peculiar character is the habits of its population, so in harmony with the tranquil, cheerful country and its mediæval monuments. Here more than elsewhere Catholic faith has impregnated the life of the people. All their actions reflect its powerful simplicity, its generous hardihood, its customs of ten or fifteen centuries back. The poetry of the past, that exquisite influence of ancient times which we inhale with delight, is here an incense ever ascending from this happy valley. In this respect nothing can equal the dancing procession of Echternach, which takes place always on Whit-Tuesday, in honor of St. Willibrord, and attracts those who come especially to invoke his aid for nervous diseases. This procession has taken place for more than five hundred years. It can be traced back to the fourteenth century, and may be perhaps of even earlier origin. The dance has been explained in various ways: sometimes as expressing the joy of a Christian people coming to venerate the relics of their patron saint; sometimes as a symbolical representation of nervous attacks, epilepsy, and other maladies of the kind, from which the country was delivered by St. Willibrord’s intercession in the fourteenth century.

It is this ceremony, whose original and picturesque character is quite unique in the Christian world, which I am about to describe to the reader.

II.

When Whit-Sunday comes an amazing animation rouses the little town from its habitual tranquillity, and the excitement only increases on the Monday. Hotels and private houses are thronged with guests; many travellers, unable to get lodgings, camp out in the neighboring villages or go back to die Kirch, to return by railway the next day. The streets are thronged with dusty tourists: gentlemen of leisure regarding everything with a patronizing smile, peasants in rustic garb, rich strangers arriving in spruce equipages, and respectable jaunting-cars with three rows of seats, conveying the opulent farmers of the neighborhood. Booths are planted everywhere, blocking up the streets and setting their backs against every available corner. Mountebanks and charlatans, who come to levy their tithe on public piety, stun with their piercing outcries the busy folk running about to look for lodgings. Religion preludes the imposing solemnities of the following morning. The faithful flock to religious offices and sermons. All day long they are at prayer before the sarcophagus where lies the body of the saint. There you will see the most fervent; and by their attitudes, the expression of their faces, and the ardor of their gaze, it is plain that they have some great favor to implore and hope not to go away unsatisfied. Prostrate before the altar, these rude laborers from the Eyfel and the Ardennes, with their great horny hands and tanned faces, opening their whole hearts to God and absorbed in prayer, are beautiful to look upon. They seem to symbolize the destiny of mankind, born to labor, to suffer, and to pray. It is pleasant to ponder and pray in the stillness of that little Romanic church, beside the greatest man of the country.

It was an humble church with vaulted roof, The church we entered in, Where for eight hundred years the sons of men Had wept and prayed ’gainst sin.

There, on the hill sacred for so many ages, under the shade of the lindens that screen the courtyard of this modest edifice, in the presence of the wide and peaceful landscape, the heart feels at ease, the mind is in repose. It is like a haven of rest or like some enchanted country. The hideous, infernal tumult of the church’s enemies dies away in this Catholic oasis. Man and nature are in harmony; the serenity that reigns in this lovely country sinks into the most stormy heart. Here Dante would have found the peace he sought under the vaulted roof of the monastery at Monte Corvo.

Evening fell; the chants for Benediction rang through the church as I entered. Thousands of voices, accompanied by the grave and solemn tones of the organ, were singing the beautiful litany of St. Willibrord, which is like the national air of Echternach, and has a peculiar sweetness in a language that admits of saying thou to God and to the saints:

St. Willibrord, shining star of our country, St. Willibrord, ornament of the Roman Church, St. Willibrord, breaker of idols, Pray for us.

I cannot describe the effect of this chant, rising on so many voices in accents of plaintive supplication, penetrating the heart with its expression of love and trust. These people love St. Willibrord and treat him with a sweet familiarity. “Who and what was he that men should come every year to kneel before his relics and pay him honors so exceptional? What had he more than others, and by what was he distinguished? By beauty, genius, science, riches?” Such was the idea of the sermon which followed Benediction, and was heard by that whole multitude in breathless attention, some standing, others kneeling on the flags—for all the chairs had been taken away. The sacred orator developed his theme with remarkable skill, and, after proving that St. Willibrord had shone by none of these gifts, he concluded that he had reached this exceptional glory on earth and in heaven because he had understood and applied better than others the divine command, “Love God above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself.”

O grandeur of Christianity! O eternity of the church! A thousand years ago Alcuin said the same in his panegyric; the modern preacher’s noble words were like the lingering echo of the same Christian voice sounding through ages—of that voice which ever repeats itself, and yet is always fresh, for it is the voice of truth. Thus, at the two extremities of this decade of centuries, the friend of Charlemagne and the young priest of Luxembourg were the two ends of a chain whose every link is an extinct generation, and which brings down to our own day the unchangeable, immortal tradition. One thousand years hence other pilgrims will come to contemplate these great lessons of time and pray before the sacred tomb, treading beneath their feet the ruins of our civilization and modern society.

After Benediction I went to walk on the heights above the town. The night was clear and the moon hung calmly serene in the heavens. Every time I pass through Echternach I climb these hills; the place is full of calm and refreshment, and I always feel happy there. Looking down upon the town, with its spires and ancient roofs mirrored in the peaceful river, I listened to the last sounds dying away in the streets; for the town went to rest as early that night as on any other. Heaven and earth seemed so quiet, so infinitely peaceful! If at that hour propitious to dreams you would evoke in spirit the memory of the past, it would rise like a gigantic phantom. One glance cast into the domains of fancy would show the wild valley heaped with Druidic stones, crowned with altars and Roman monuments, and traversed by the swift, silvery flood of the Sûre, which seems to pierce like a dart the mysterious depths of the ancient Ardennes. On the summit of the height appears a wonderful man, who breaks the Gallic and Roman idols, and with their fragments builds Christian oratories; he levels the forest and cultivates the valley; builds dwellings around the church, calls men, and they come at his bidding; and this new Orpheus, with no lyre but his voice, leads in his train Barbarism, conquered, charmed, converted.

The next day I breakfasted between five and six o’clock in one of the many pretty pleasure-gardens of the town. The evening before had been very warm; the day dawned under the same auspices, but perfectly clear. The people of Echternach declare that it cannot rain on the day of their procession, or, at least, that the rain must stop before they enter the church. On all sides resounded clear and full the voices of pilgrims coming in procession from villages near by and chanting the litany of St. Willibrord. These aerial tones, coming to us in the freshness of dawn through blossoming trees, opened the day very pleasantly. I went out. Through every street there poured a stream of country people, preceded by crosses and banners. Whole parishes came with their pastors; they had left home at daybreak and walked several leagues, with prayers and chants rousing the wondering birds, unused to hear human voices praise the Creator in advance of them. The nearest villages came in procession; others, who could not send a solemn train, furnished a large number of pilgrims, who marched in isolated groups. Without counting the pilgrims of the Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Russia are represented every year. The number of devout Christians whom each anniversary brings to the sacred tomb varies from 12,000 to 15,000, leaving out those who come without having made a vow, some from religious feeling, others from mere curiosity. About 20,000 strangers in all crowd into the narrow precincts of the little town every Whitsuntide. For whole hours you see the flood of humanity ascend and descend the steps of the parish church; for all the pilgrims on their arrival go first to kneel at the saint’s shrine. About eight o’clock the multitudes pass over to the other bank of the Sûre, where the procession is to begin. The Sûre forms the boundary between the territory of Luxembourg and Prussia. Just there the procession falls into line of march. At the foot of the hills, beside a little stone cross, they erect a temporary pulpit, from which a priest addresses the people before the ceremony begins. Thousands had collected to await the coming of the clergy. Some walked about, others sat along the edge of the road or leaned against the parapet of the bridge. The crowd, scattered in picturesque confusion and disorder, buzzed like a hive of bees. The throng increased; along every road came hosts of pilgrims ploughing their way. From afar came vague, indistinct sounds of singing, and along the valley, through the narrow road traced between the Sûre and the hills, there advanced a long column. Banners floated in the sunshine and gleamed through the trees; the procession undulated and unrolled its length as it followed the windings of the river. The voices, as they drew nearer, became distinct, and soon the head of the procession appeared. They were pilgrims from Prüm, in the Eyfel, more than twelve leagues from Echternach, coming to make their annual devotions to St. Willibrord. These good people had set out on Sunday evening; they had walked part of that night and of the next day, praying and chanting. On Monday evening they had disbanded, scattering about through fields and in barns a few leagues from Echternach, and had resumed their march early in the morning. Tanned, heated, dusty, clad in coarse raiment, they came on in good order, forming an almost interminable train. It seemed as if the whole village had come. Their accoutrements were rustic, fantastic even; the men carried crosswise over their backs an umbrella fastened by a string which passed over their breasts, crossing the strap of a large leathern valise hanging on the other side. The women had baskets on their arms. These valises and baskets held the provisions for that journey of four or five days. It is remarkable that this pilgrimage of the people of Prüm is voluntary and a popular movement; the clergy take no part in its organization, and seldom join it, the parishioners making it their own affair. On this occasion, indeed, a priest was with them, but the order of march and the devotions were directed by a certain number of men placed at intervals in the procession. They carried, as the insignia of office, a red staff surmounted by a little copper cross. The priest, who closed the procession, walked between two young men clad in quaint and antique garb, with hats turned up and trimmed with flowers. One carried the cross, the other a large votive candle adorned with emblems, the annual gift of their village to the patron of Echternach. The procession advanced in perfect order. Indifferent to curious looks, turning their eyes neither to the right nor to the left towards the human hedge that lined their path, they passed on, saying their rosary aloud and repeating after each Ave this familiar salutation, full of simplicity and grace: “St. Willibrord, we are coming to thy tomb!” I loved to see and hear them. Their fervor in prayer and contempt of fatigue, their rustic dress and primitive manners, their indifference to all but their one object, made these peasants a people set apart, and their pilgrimage a type of the pilgrimage of human life as it ought to be made. I watched the pious train until it entirely disappeared on the other side of the bridge; for, before returning to the Prussian bank to take part in the sacred dance, the people of Prüm were going to kiss the shrine and pray before the relics of the saint.

At last, about nine o’clock, a numerous band of clergy appeared, and the ceremony opened with the accustomed sermon. Fancy the scene: the lovely morning and beautiful country, the vast host of listeners intent on the words of the priest. For a frame there were the high hills on one side, on the other the silvery course of the Sûre, and below the spires of the town.

Not less wonderful was it to hear on Prussian ground a Catholic voice calling upon thousands of the faithful to pray for the Holy Father and the persecuted church. And while the priest was speaking there came from all the heights belated pilgrims hastening to the ceremony. They were seen afar off, coming down the steep paths bordered with flowering hedges; and the bells rang out full peals, and the word of God was scattered among the multitude with the song of birds.

When the sermon was ended, the clergy, in white surplices, formed in line of march and opened the procession. Behind them came the musicians, and afterwards the immense throng of those who were to join in the dance. At first there was much crowding. Leaning against the parapet of the bridge, I had to ply my elbows lustily to prevent the multitude from suffocating me, and farther on, when the train began to defile through the narrow street which leads to the Sûre, the pressure was quite frightful. There were not ushers enough to preserve order. A few firemen and policemen had to be everywhere at once, and were swallowed up in the billows of the confused crowd. The cause of the disorder was the impatience of some people, who, instead of waiting until the street should be cleared for the beginning of the dance, went forward to post themselves higher up in the procession. This choked the way in some places, and there was terrible pushing. Women screamed; several were nearly suffocated. I saw some men, who, as they awaited their turn with philosophic patience, set their backs against walls and rowed with their arms against the human flood to save themselves from wreck. A hospitality, as unexpected as it was welcome, rescued me from the tumult to become a peaceful spectator in a neighboring house instead of an actor in the scene. “It is sweet,” says Lucretius, “when the sea is swollen and tossed by rough winds, to look from the shore upon the distress of others, not finding pleasure in their troubles, but in our own exemption from them.” I felt, in selfish enjoyment, the spirit of these lines, gazing at my ease from an upper window upon the undulation of several thousand heads floating apparently upon a liquid expanse. Actually, a needle thrown from above would not have reached the ground.

Order was soon restored. The police got angry and used their fists unsparingly to force back into their places the intruders, who continued to leave the ranks and insinuate themselves in among the front rows of the procession. All this went on while the head of the cortége disappeared at the turn of the street, dancing to the traditional air played by the musicians. It was a quaint tune, rather quick in measure and old-fashioned. It was hard to say whether it expressed joyful excitement or the emotions of grief; for music, with its wonderful suppleness, may sometimes speak to us of our joys and sorrows, according to the mood in which we listen. And now this melody, centuries old, set in motion a dancing multitude. The sight was strange, striking, indescribable. To an unaccustomed spectator the first moment is of stupefied amazement. His fancy enters a new world; the movement of all these heads bending and rocking in a rhythmic measure produces a fantastic effect that no words can convey. I do not know whether I can tell exactly what I saw, or if my sketch will give even a faint idea of a scene which defies analysis and description.

Think of a stream of twelve thousand persons in a street where only eight can walk abreast; fancy all these people, in rows of four, six, or eight, advancing, held together by handkerchiefs or staves to keep order in the ranks and measure in the dance; fancy them, I say, executing a dance which consists of three steps forward and two back, and which moves the whole multitude from end to end with one unceasing action of ebb and flow. The interminable train stretched over about fifteen hundred metres from the bridge of the Sûre to the parish church. It took not less than four hours to accomplish that quarter of a league by dancing, and under the direct rays of the sun, without a moment’s rest. It is easy to imagine that order and regularity were sometimes disturbed, but what was lost in symmetry was gained in picturesque originality of detail. There were almost as many different styles of dancing as there were various groups, everybody managing his own affairs. The groups just behind the musicians succeeded best, being kept in step by the music; and in general the people of Echternach danced more harmoniously and correctly than the others. As the bands were few and stationed quite far apart, the pilgrims who could not hear them hopped about in utter confusion, while the rest had a certain harmony of movement. These eccentricities of choreographic movement were worth seeing; here they glided with light step, elegantly and smoothly; there they jumped about with heavy tread and immense exertion. Watching carefully those who seemed to have best preserved the tradition, I thought that the most pure and “classic” rhythm consisted in five steps of a dance, quite slow and without turning, three forward and two back, made by gliding rather than bounding. The whole character was grave, solemn, and suited to a religious dance. A band from Echternach opened the march and played the tune for the first pilgrims. The others danced to the strains of a few isolated instruments. Each cortége had its own musicians, and, as each parish danced separately, they had their local players. It is needless to say that variety reigned among the instruments—drums, violins, flutes, clarionets, and hautboys—all hard at work and producing combinations hardly grateful to musical ears. But the good fellows did not pretend to be artists. They worked for conscience’ sake; they piped and they blew, they beat and they scraped, with all the accumulated force of lungs, fists, and bows. St. Willibrord is not fastidious; he takes the will for the deed, and if there be here and there some cockney scandalized by this cacophony, so much the worse for him. Ill though they play the melody, it is a good work to make the attempt, and the worthy pilgrims accommodate themselves to circumstances. Formerly no fiddler was allowed to play in village fairs, if he had not paid for the privilege at the procession of Echternach that same year. This custom, with many others, is obsolete, but many musicians remain faithful to tradition.

This year, while the procession was crossing the town, there came marching through a cross-street a brilliant band of music preceded by a banner; it was a philharmonic society from Remich on the Moselle, and was received with acclamation. It joined the procession, and its fine execution came as a welcome reinforcement to the poor musicians, who were nearly exhausted.

I could not take my eyes off the wonderful scene, sometimes taking in the whole picture at a glance, sometimes pausing to examine details in all their picturesque variety. Most attractive of all was the sight of the children of Echternach, dancing at the head of the procession just behind the village band; they put such life into the affair, and felt it such a festive occasion. It was refreshing to watch the rosy-cheeked, laughing rogues, usually in their shirt-sleeves, bounding merrily “for St. Willibrord.” Then came the grown folk of Echternach, then the various parishes, each, as I said, forming a distinct group with its own musicians. The sexes were separated. Formerly the pilgrims from Prüm and Waxweiler, who came from the most distant points, had the right of opening the procession, while the inhabitants of Echternach, through courtesy, took the last place. Now there is no fixed order; the parishes take their places at hap-hazard, and many people leave the ranks to join the front rows at the risk of throwing the whole procession into confusion. I saw the good people of Prüm, with their monumental green and blue umbrellas capable of sheltering whole households. Now they were unstrung from their proprietors’ backs, and, bound two and two, served as a balustrade to be grasped by three or four persons to keep them even in the ranks and regulate their step. Here and there, amid the rhythmic movement of these thousands of heads, I descried some unhappy being afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance, shown by wild, spasmodic springs, violent excitement, and the pitiful rocking of all the limbs. They were usually women, young girls stricken with this terrible disorder. I noticed one in particular whom every one looked at with earnest sympathy. She leaped in a wild, feverish way, supported under the arms by her mother, whom I knew by the look of anxiety and sadness imprinted on her face. The kind people of the town stood ready at their doors with refreshing beverages for these poor creatures; but they hardly stopped to drink before continuing their dance under the whip of the sun, as the great Alighieri says, whose words came to my mind more than once at sight of these miseries. So drawn along by this weird dance, the pilgrims appeared and vanished, as wave follows wave, and the monotonous melody carried on ten thousand people to the sound of its fantastic cadences. Add one or two thousand pilgrims who, not joining in the dance, followed the procession, saying their beads or reciting the litany, and you have in all twelve thousand Christians of both sexes and of every age and rank, who, through four whole hours, formed St. Willibrord’s triumphal procession and visited his sacred tomb.[174]

Footnote 174:

According to the Echternachter Anzeiger of June 5, the number of dancers was 10,600; of other pilgrims 1,800. This does not include 188 musicians, 72 priests, 1,100 chanters, and various corporations. There were, moreover, 14,000 or 15,000 spectators, making a total of about 30,000 people. Comparing these numbers with those of former years, we shall see that the ancient ceremony increases in importance and éclat. This conclusion is correct, as M. Krier’s statistics show, Die Springprocession, p. 148. Since the beginning of this century the number of dancers had not before reached 10,000.

All the energy of the vigorous Luxembourg sinews is required to bring to a successful close this long and fatiguing pilgrimage, whose difficulties increase as they near their end; for I forgot to say that the procession danced up the sixty-two steps which lead to the parish church. Not every one can go to Corinth, says the proverb. The same is true of Echternach, though in a different sense, thank God! But it would be a mistake to think that the famous ceremony demands anything excessive or superhuman. The calm, grave character of the dance, and the numerous pauses which are made necessary by the blocking of the way, suffice to husband the pilgrim’s strength. Their vow, though hard and laborious, is not impossible or dangerous. The proof of this is that many children in the procession dance the whole length of the way twice over. No sooner do they reach the church at the head of the procession than they scamper back to join the rear and begin the exercise over again. Pilgrims who, on arriving at Echternach, do not feel equal to executing their vow, and yet wish to contribute to the brilliancy of the festival, give a few sous to one of these children, and the indefatigable little fellows acquit themselves of their task with imperturbable seriousness and charming grace. But prodigious people are again the people of Pürm. They arrive at the town, to use a familiar expression, with twelve leagues in their heels; and at once they set to work and dance four long hours. Then, when their devotions are ended, they take barely time to eat their modest fare out doors or at an inn table, and go home singing and praying to the high table-lands and extinct volcanoes of their wild country.

One should be in the church when the procession pours in by traditional custom through the left aisle, to pass round the altar in the choir and go out through the right aisle. The dance does not cease an instant as they pass through the sanctuary; the orchestra goes on playing the quaint, archaic melody, the dancers make the old Romano-vaulted roof ring with the clang of their measured steps. The pilgrims do not think their vow fulfilled until, after making the tour of the church, they find themselves in the courtyard before an old wooden cross, where they break ranks. Nothing can be more fantastic than this irruption of dancing and music in the house of God. The spectacle in the church is beyond description; you feel as if you were dreaming, and your spirit floated in the domain of the impossible. What do the people mean? Have they come to pillage and destroy? Is this tumultuous throng the prey of a sudden delirium, of a dancing mania? Or, if it be worship, does it not revive the solemn orgies of ancient Greece, where certain deities of Oriental origin were honored by the leaps, the cries, and the races of their idolaters? No; to the first instant of amazement there succeeds a more correct and complete judgment. Beneath the external agitation, beneath the noise and movement, you see the religious calm which fills these souls, and the solemnity pervading the expression of their inner feelings. It is this contrast which gives to the singular ceremony its character of deep originality. No doubt we have lost the sense of mysterious symbolism in the sacred dance; we no longer see its true motive or significance; we only know or divine that the devout thought which first inspired it animates it at the present day.

Among various ideas suggested by this astonishing experience, there was one that I could not get rid of, and which returned to me on the festival and its eve again and again. While multitudes knelt before the altar, kissed the shrine, touched it with objects of devotion, and filled the church with their prayers, you would have said that the great man must be there, present among the faithful, speaking to them and listening to them. What glory equals that of the saints? What other son of Adam enjoys such honors? Those whom the Catholic Church has crowned with eternal palms do not reign only in heaven; the human glory which they despised is given to them abundantly, and these little ones, who passed through life obscure and despised, see themselves suddenly surrounded with an amazing glory with which Cæsar, Homer, Archimedes, and Plato do not shine. The world rings with their name, and the least and most ignorant of human beings know, love, and revere them. They are not only illustrious, they receive solemn veneration, they share in a certain way the honors of God himself. Their names are uttered with bended knee, nations flock to their tombs, and they are gloriously enthroned in Christian hearts. Beside such a destiny is it worth while to try to immortalize one’s name and to flutter, as the poet says, upon the lips of men? What is the greatest name on earth, unless it be encircled with the aureole of sanctity? Ignored by the crowd, uttered coldly by most of those who know it, respected by a few, but invoked by no one with clasped hands and heart uplifted to him who bore it. The name of the least saint prostrates in the dust all human generations through the long succession of ages, and resounds like a word of life on all lips. The church alone is the dispenser of glory, and even among secular names the noblest and most lasting are those of Catholic associations.

III.

The reader asks, no doubt, what is the final impression produced by the spectacle of the dancing procession, and how we should estimate this strange ceremony? I will try to answer the double question clearly. In the first place, one must see the procession with one’s own eyes to judge it fairly. The public must beware of newspaper reports, which are numerous and usually wholly incorrect, not to use a more uncivil term. There is no name which certain papers have not applied to the subject; for correspondents of a farcical turn amuse themselves every year at the expense of a credulous public. We may say, en passant, that no class of beings can be more contemptible than reporters hunting for a sensation—travelling bagmen of the press who are allured by scandal as the vulture is by a carcase. It is easy to fancy what the ceremony at Echternach must have become under their pen. The very name of dancing procession makes them scent a topic, and, devoid of all religious feeling, they describe first and judge afterwards a spectacle they are incapable of understanding. Their descriptions are so unfaithful that you doubt whether the good people ever saw the procession, or whether they did not write the account before going to the ceremony. They give caricatures of a mass of humanity entangled in frightful confusion and bounding with all their strength to the sound of a gigantic hubbub. The ranks get mingled; the dancers crush each other and spring about, regardless of the toes of their neighbors, who scream for mercy. With rubicund faces streaming with perspiration, and with eyes starting from the sockets, these wretched fanatics would die rather than pause. On all sides numbers give up in despair and drop breathless among their barbarous companions. Sometimes they are drawn out of the crowd by compassionate persons and restored to life, but no one in the procession stops for anything, and the pitiless Catholic bamboula goes on and on, sowing devastation at every step. I spare the reader further details and give only the canvas of an embroidery more or less varied according to the imaginative powers of the correspondent. In short, despite the diversity of some details easy to add, this fancy sketch has appeared in nearly all the anti-religious papers in Belgium, and will end in being stereotyped. It is needless to say that it is false throughout. Among ten thousand persons who were dancing I did not see one give out. Also, contrary to another assertion, the number of epileptics and other invalids in the procession is very small. I saw in all five or six persons evidently afflicted with nervous diseases.

After reading this high-toned description, flavored with a few Voltairean jests of the old type, it is natural to pronounce the procession of Echternach an absurdity. The sarcasms of free-thinkers annually assail the venerable ceremony, but without injuring it. In fact, it is irreverent enough in this nineteenth century to increase in importance. Eye-witnesses of the strange spectacle always retain an impressive memory of it. I confess to having been rather prejudiced against the grotesque scenes I expected to see. At the end of a quarter of an hour I was convinced of the powerful religious character of this great public act, and I remarked that all the spectators shared my feeling. Any one must have a singularly empty mind and heart not to be struck by the grandeur of the scene. Those who always take a petty view of things, because they can take no other, may laugh at the discordant music and the clumsy dancing of some of the pilgrims. For myself, when I see the same belief, centuries old, translated by thousands of men into bold, spontaneous action, I cannot restrain my admiration. Before the intrepidity with which these men, trampling under foot all human respect, honor with consecrated rites their patron saint, I feel moved and impressed. Where is there such faith left in Israel? “When I hear the old tune,” said one of the most honorable bourgeois of Echternach to me, “and when I see the first pilgrims arrive, I feel something circulate between my flesh and skin that makes me fairly shiver.” A young student of the town said to me very prettily: “I do not care much for the dancing of the grown people, but the sight of the dancing children carries me back to my own happy childhood, and my eyes fill with tears.”

These feelings are unanimous. You see once in a while in the crowd a travelling clerk on his vacation hazarding a timid and colorless sarcasm which a generous public passes over unnoticed. Beyond dispute, the sight of the procession exercises a moral and religious influence. Like incredulity, faith is contagious; timid spirits feel strengthened in this region where the breath of Catholic life circulates so freely; sick hearts come out renewed from the spectacle of thousands of Christians revealing the true remedy for human woe. The people of Luxembourg, essentially serious and meditative, understand the aim of the ceremony; its quaintness does not prevent them from seeing it as it really is—a great and solemn affirmation of faith, at once an act of penance and a prayer, to be preserved in the original form out of respect to their ancestors and veneration for the saint. Whatever the origin of this ancient custom,[175] it deserves to be preserved not only because it fosters and develops religion in the people, but because it revives before our eyes, in the most picturesque way, the manners of our fathers, whose least traces historians and archæologists are jealous to discover. A Luxembourg writer says well on this subject: “We preserve with scrupulous fidelity old monuments and objects of antique art. Why not do our best to preserve in its original type this remarkable procession, this monument graven in the living hearts of our brethren?”[176]

Footnote 175:

I have given the two current opinions on the origin of the dancing procession. I share neither, and hope my different explanation clear by weight of proof.

Footnote 176:

Krier, Dancing Procession, p. 55. This author wrote his work first briefly in French, then in German with more details. The latter is a serious and interesting work as regards the ceremony. It is also an edifying appeal from a Christian priest to his brethren.

The intelligent town of Echternach perfectly understands that it is incumbent upon its honor to respond to this wish. It has neglected nothing in the cause, and at various times has had to surmount great obstacles. The administrative prohibitions of Joseph II., the brutalities of the French Revolution, the petty opposition of the Dutch government, have not discouraged them; they have held faithfully to their patriotic tradition, and have no cause to repent it, for they find in this devotion a source of great prosperity. Their unalterable attachment is the more remarkable because even the clergy have often been opposed to the procession. In 1777 the Prince Elector of Treves, Clement Wenceslaus—under the reign of the Febronians, I should add—actually forbade the dance, and thus furnished excuse to Joseph II. to forbid it also a little later. To-day quite a number of the clergy look unfavorably on these extraordinary demonstrations of faith. They think religion is compromised by associating it with practices which, without being bad in themselves, may provoke the mockery of the incredulous and alienate them farther from the church. This opinion, based, of course, on a sincere devotion to religious interests, appears to me an unconscious and useless concession to the petty spirit of the age, which is never satisfied with half-measures. Anti-religious fanaticism will not be appeased by our throwing to it as a sop a small portion of Catholic treasure. What it wants is the entire suppression of religion. To yield any point whatever will only serve to whet its appetite and augment its pretensions.

Far from sharing these fears, I think that in these days of struggle it is important to oppose the faith as a whole to unbelief as a whole, and not yield an inch of ground, unless we wish to lose all. From the earliest days of Christianity there have been people who took scandal at faith which goes beyond what is strictly necessary; among Christ’s apostles there were those who blamed Magdalen for anointing the feet of her Master with precious ointment. It is instructive to remember that it was Judas who showed himself most shocked by what he called useless expense. We may be sure that, as a general rule, the enemies of the church detest all her practices and would like to see them every one abolished. Give them the dance of Echternach to-day; to-morrow they will demand the suppression of the procession itself, and soon after they will wish to close the church where the saint’s relics are venerated. We know something of this in Belgium. Because we submitted to the proscription of jubilee processions last year, we have had to resign ourselves this year (1876) to seeing God in the Eucharist confined to the temple; and we shall see worse things still, if we do not guard against them in time. It would, therefore, be mere folly to sacrifice to interested claimants a venerable custom, dear to whole populations and full of poetry and originality. “But why dance?” you ask. “Cannot faith be shown in some other way?” Of course it can. Do not let us kneel down to pray, or stand uncovered before holy images, or make the sign of the cross, or do a hundred other things equally useless, strictly speaking. Yet who would propose to give them up? There is in the heart of man a powerful, mysterious tendency to express the inner feelings of the soul by symbolical actions. Thence come these many ceremonies which have no sense in themselves, and all owe their worth to a hidden significance. The dance of Echternach has no other origin; it is the symbolical representation of the sentiments of joyful confidence which the people feel in the holy patron of their town. In every age joy has been expressed by dancing, and among those who blame the custom of Echternach may there not be some one who has danced for joy at hearing good news? Many examples could be cited since David danced before the Ark of the Alliance down to our own days, so readily do these impetuous emotions of the soul translate themselves into movements of the body.

Still, the church, while introducing into her ceremonies a rich and varied symbolism, has never admitted dancing; and this prudent reserve is to be admired because dancing, harmless in itself, is one of those dangerous things which can, according to time and place, produce deplorable abuses. With the same wise moderation she has not absolutely forbidden it; and where the practice has been introduced naturally, and has become a part of popular devotion, she has tolerated it, as at Echternach, and even encouraged it because she saw in it clearly a religious element. Nothing is more wonderful in the church than this perfect wisdom, this superior good sense, with which she regulates great social and political questions and decides the petty details of individual life. Her attitude towards this ancient ceremony is as clear and correct as possible; she mildly favors it in spite of its strange forms, and refuses to blame these unless they become an occasion of scandal. From the moment that the dance should lose its traditional character of austere and respectable devotion, and become a pretext of pleasure and disorder, it would be at once condemned by the church and would fall into discredit. Thank God! that day is not near, and the procession of Echternach will still outlive many a kingdom and empire.

As a matter of course, it will be discussed as long as it lasts, and will always have adversaries and partisans. Prose and poetry will for ever dispute over human society, and will seek to model it after two opposite fashions. We live to-day in a prosaic age. Prose triumphed with the French Revolution and has passed through western Europe with a hammer, destroying, together with works of art, all the flower of Catholic institutions and habits. They will revive, but slowly, and this generation will not see their complete restoration. Now, despoiled of all which lent a charm to existence, society languishes in a desert of monotony. Rhythm, so to speak, has disappeared from our lives with that glorious succession of festivals, customs, memories, and hopes which surrounded us from the cradle to the grave. All that was Catholic poetry; it enlivened the existence of the poor laborer, and made of a peasant, attached to the soil and toiling for his master, a happier man, more contented with himself, than workmen in the cities who get a good salary and enjoy their independence. There is in the human soul a sublime aspiration after beauty and poetry which nothing can destroy, and its wings grow strong as they meet with resistance. Does not the tedium which has devoured the last generation betray a sense of want and an aspiration after Catholic life with its artistic magnificence and poetic influences? Humanity is tending in that direction, and has already met the enemy who would bar the way. Thence comes the loud and terrible struggle which tears the whole earth, and of which we may, without presumption, hope to see the close.

The procession of Echternach, like the mysteries of Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria, is a precious relic of the old popular poetry of Catholicity translated into the habits of life. That is its true and complete meaning. It is neither more nor less; it is not an act of worship nor a vulgar profanation. It stands on that boundary line where the church condescends to popular feeling and makes the hard road through life easier by her help. It is the natural fruit of popular devotion which sprang from a religious feeling and has been preserved with respectful piety. It could not be imitated or transplanted; like generous wine, it would lose the flavor of the soil if it were cultivated on strange land. It is only possible there where all is harmonious with it. One must have a studied hostility towards religious things to fail to see its æsthetic character, even without recognizing the sincerity and the venerable tone of the old custom. Some people fall into ecstasies over Grecian theories and the beautiful religious dances sculptured on the metopes of the Parthenon. Others devote their lives to the study of the chorus in ancient tragedies and its evolutions on the stage. I do not say that the dance of Echternach, as such, is comparable to these choreographic works of art, but why refuse to a Christian practice in use among our fathers the benevolent attention lavished on pagan society? Has it not a double claim to study in the fact that we received it from our Catholic ancestors? For five centuries, at least, it has lived and flourished among the populations of the Ardennes and its surroundings. Every year it draws from their homes thousands of these sedentary peasants; it furrows with the steps of pilgrims the long, white, desert roads of Luxembourg; it draws together in fraternal relations men far removed from each other, by the same prayers and the same emotions; it lifts towards heaven in unalloyed joy their faces bowed pitilessly earthward all the rest of the year. It teaches them to know beyond their own fireside and parish the great Christian family of which they are members, and leaves in their memory for all the rest of the summer and through the long winter evenings ineffaceable impressions of peaceful happiness. That is poetry, it seems to me, and of the best kind; more is the pity for those who cannot feel it. As the name of pèlerinard is not one that frightens or mortifies me, I will assert that the ancient procession of Echternach inspired me with unlimited admiration, that it edified, moved, and consoled me, and appeared to me a most charming episode in the great, mournful epic of human life.

THE PAN-PRESBYTERIANS.

After two years of careful preparation the great Pan-Presbyterian Council has assembled; has eaten seven luncheons in public and at the public expense, and a corresponding number of breakfasts, dinners, and suppers in private and at private cost; and has dispersed; its members talked much—but these were their only deeds. The labor of the Pan-Presbyterian mountain brought forth not even a mouse. Its promise was large; its performance was ludicrously small—so small that the leading journals of England appear to have been almost unaware of the existence of the Pan-Presbyterians, while the principal organ of opinion in the Scotch city where the council was held—“close to the grave of John Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism”—gave to the record of its proceedings not so much space as it often devotes to the report of a local synod, and dismissed it at its close with good-humored but contemptuous ridicule. Here, however, the ingenuous reader may inquire, “Who are the Pan-Presbyterians, and for what purpose were they in council?” The question would be a natural one, and he who propounds it need not blush for his ignorance. The people of Scotland may be presumed to know all that is worth knowing about Presbyterianism in all its forms; but it appears that in certain rural districts of that very Presbyterian land the impression prevailed that Pan-Presbyterian was the title of a new sect indigenous to America, and recently smuggled into Scotland like the Colorado beetle; while in the more learned circles of Edinburgh this bucolic delusion was derided by erudite philologists, who explained that “Pan-Presbyterianism is a learned form of stating that Presbyterianism is Everything, and that a Pan-Presbyterian is a person who holds that comprehensive yet exclusive doctrine.” In point of fact, however, the Pan-Presbyterians were simply three hundred and twenty-five gentlemen, most of them with the handle of reverend to their names, who claimed to be the delegated representatives of the various Presbyterian sects throughout the world. From time to time some of the almost innumerable Protestant sects show that they are ashamed of their sectarianism. Those of them who recognize at all the fact that Jesus Christ established one church in the world are uneasy when they remember that they are members only of a sect which has a human origin. This feeling, if rightly nurtured and obeyed, would lead those who entertain it into the fold of the church; but prejudice, pride, ignorance, and self-interest too often stand in the way, and lead to attempts to satisfy the natural Christian yearning for unity by projects for the amalgamation of a few of the sects into one body. Thus we have had a Pan-Anglican Congress, a Bonn Conference, and an Evangelical Alliance; and now this Pan-Presbyterian Council. Presbyterianism has a history of about three hundred and twenty-five years, and in this period it has succeeded in dividing and subdividing itself, until even its own doctors do not know with exactness how many different kinds of Presbyterians there may be, or in what manner the points of doctrine which separate them should be formulated. It was suggested at the council that accurate information upon this subject was desirable, and the task of obtaining it was entrusted to a committee, who hope they may be able to report in three years’ time. The project for the Pan-Presbyterian Council was originated by an eminent American Presbyterian minister—President McCosh, of Princeton (New Jersey) College; and it took definite shape at a meeting held in London in 1875, when “the alliance of the reformed churches throughout the world holding to the Presbyterian system” was organized. Before the council could be summoned, however, careful precautions had to be taken in order to prevent the assemblage, which was to meet for the promotion of unity, from breaking up in a row and resulting in the establishment of one or more new schisms. A charm of novelty was thus imparted to the undertaking; every one felt that a Presbyterian synod which could hold its sessions without a free fight would indeed be a new spectacle. The harmony of the council was to be assured beforehand by forbidding it to exercise any authority whatsoever. It was especially prohibited from attempting to “interfere with the existing creed or constitution of any church in the alliance, or with its internal order or external relations.” Thus the door was opened for the admission of the representatives of sects who are almost as wide apart from each other in what they believe and teach as they are from the church. So long as they called themselves Presbyterians, or “held to the Presbyterian system of church government,” it was enough. There is a Presbyterian sect in Holland whose pastors, at least, teach that the Bible is not an inspired book, and who deny the divinity of Christ; there is a Presbyterian sect in France which avows the boldest rationalism; there are Presbyterian sects in the United States who rejoice with exceeding great joy in the belief that there are millions of infants not a span long frying in hell; and there are others who have recoiled so far from Calvinism that they have fallen into Universalism. In Scotland itself bitter strife prevails between the various Presbyterian sects on such questions as the connection of the state with the church, the binding force of the “Standards,” and the extent and nature of the Atonement; and there is a large party which is declaring that if a certain reverend professor, who has written to prove that parts of the Bible are forgeries, myths, or fables, is disciplined for that expression of opinion, they will revolt and help him to set up a sect of his own. But the Pan-Presbyterians resolved to concern themselves with none of these things. Everything unpleasant was to be avoided; unity was to be talked about, but no attempt to effect it by defining truth or denouncing error was to be made. Even with these restrictions the promoters of the council realized the danger of their experiment, and at the last moment they diminished its perils by enacting that no one should speak twice on the same subject, and that the discourses should be limited from twenty to ten minutes each. The latter provision, which was stringently enforced, more than once saved the council from painful scenes. We had occasion, when writing in these pages six months ago,[177] to show that in the Presbyterian body in Scotland theoretical infidelity had made such headway and had obtained so firm a foothold that to deny the inspiration of the Bible, and to cast doubt upon the authenticity of the miraculous events recorded in its pages, was regarded by a powerful section as an evidence of profound scholarship and of a fearless love for truth, rather than as a proof that the advocates of these opinions had ceased to be worthy of the name and position of Christian teachers. In a word, the condition of the Presbyterian sects throughout the world was such that a general council of its leading men was highly desirable, provided that there remained in the sects anything worth saving, and they possessed in themselves the power of saving it. For ourselves, we believe that the mutilated fragments of Christian truth still retained by the majority of the Presbyterian laity and by a considerable number of the Presbyterian ministers are well worth saving; but we fear that the Presbyterians themselves will not, or cannot, save them. If these Pan-Presbyterians were truly representative men, then, we should say, it is all up with Presbyterianism. The spirit which conceived the council and which governed its proceedings was the spirit of cowardice, of temporary expediency, of prophesying smooth things, and, if we must speak with entire plainness, the spirit of utter and base unfaithfulness to God’s revealed truth, even to that version of his revealed truth which the Presbyterians profess with their lips, and which they have formulated in their own creeds, confessions, and catechisms. In the face of the fact that on the Continent of Europe their co-religionists are rapidly becoming Unitarians, rationalists, and infidels; that in Scotland German rationalistic philosophy has won its way into their theological schools and poisoned the very fountains of their ecclesiastical learning, so that it has now become notorious that a large share of their ministers either do not believe what they preach or else preach that which is in irreconcilable antagonism to the “Standards”; and that in America the Presbyterian bodies are drifting into Socinianism on one hand, and back into the hardest and most repulsive form of Calvinism on the other—in view of all these undeniable facts, or rather with assumed and predetermined blindness to them, the chosen representatives of the Presbyterian sects assemble, spend seven days in talking with each other, and separate without uttering a word or performing an act in affirmation or defence or vindication of absolute and divine truth. No! That was not in the programme; it was only on condition that nothing of the kind should be attempted that the council was got together at all; it was only because this promise was observed that the council managed to do its talking and to disperse in peace. At one of its meetings a curious scene occurred. A woman—an earnest Presbyterian of the old sort, a spiritual descendant of Jennie Geddes—had made her way into the council, and had listened to the debate for some time in silence; but her emotions at last overcame her, and, rising to her feet, she politely informed the chairman that she hoped God’s lightning would come down and strike the assembly for its unfaithfulness. This irate lady was indiscreet; but she only expressed, we suppose, the feelings of many an honest Presbyterian. The council, however, was wise in its generation, and it must be confessed that it acted upon strictly Protestant principles. The essence of Protestantism is a revolt against supreme authority; it is the affirmation of the idea that one man’s opinion is as good as another’s, and perhaps better. An attempt to provide means for an organic unity of the sects represented would have ended in a free fight; the affirmation of positive truths condemnatory of the heresies which honey-*comb the sects was impossible so long as the bargain by which these heresies were to be ignored was carried out.

Footnote 177:

See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for April.

The official programme of the work of the council was thus conceived:

“To consider questions of general interest to Presbyterians; to strengthen and protect weak and persecuted churches; to explain and extend the Presbyterian system; and to discuss subjects of church work—evangelization, training of ministers, use of the press, colportage, suppression of intemperance, observance of the Sabbath, systematic beneficence, and the suppression of Romanism and infidelity.”

We must here record, with a grateful heart, that “Romanism” came off very lightly. We are not certain that for this crowning mercy we are not indebted to those wily fellows, the Jesuits. For it was observed that, whenever one of the speakers began to adduce evidence that the Pope was Antichrist, the chairman suddenly discovered “that time was up”; and it was likewise remarked that more than one soul-stirring revelation of the diabolical seductions of the Scarlet Woman was cut short by the announcement that “the luncheon hour had arrived, and that Bailie McTavish would preside”—an intimation which never failed to empty the hall. Now, there are Jesuits in Scotland—no less than a score of them—and that they are quite equal to the task of devising means like these for their protection cannot be doubted by any enlightened Protestant mind. As for the twin sister of Romanism—infidelity—that escaped almost scot free. The learned and pious delegates fought shy of the subject; it was felt to be a dangerous one.

The council began its sessions in the Free Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, on the 4th of July. It was found to consist of 325 members, of whom 238 were regularly-appointed delegates, and 87 were honorary, or associate, delegates. Thirty-one of the delegates were from the Continent of Europe; Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland sent 92 delegates; the colonies 30; and the United States 85. The American delegates had brought with them 32 “associates”; and it was, perhaps, in order to guard against bulldozing on the part of the Americans that the Scotch delegates appointed on the spur of the moment 48 “associates” to sit with their delegates and thus maintain a proper balance of power. The precaution was not unnecessary; even after it had been adopted the Americans did far more than their share of the talking. The established church of Scotland, in appointing its delegates to the council, had instructed them to take a high and mighty attitude, and to refrain from doing or saying anything which would imply that they had been sent there to treat on terms of equality with the representatives of the other sects. The American delegation was respectable for its ability, and the ultra-orthodox element was dominant in it. The two hostile camps into which the handful of French Presbyterians are divided were both represented; and so were the two Presbyterian sects of Holland. There were enough Presbyterians in Belgium to send one delegate, and no more. The German Presbyterians declined to be officially represented, and the three German members of the council came as volunteers. Bohemia and Hungary had their delegates; Switzerland sent some gentlemen who were rather sat upon; the modern inheritors of the old Waldensian heretics were the constituents of a delegate who had little to say; and the remainder of the thirty-one European delegates were representatives of “the missionary churches” in Italy, Spain, and Greece. As nearly as could be ascertained, there are about fifty different Presbyterian sects, and it was estimated that more than half of these were represented in the council. But the delegates were not endowed with any power to act, or even to speak officially, in the name of their respective constituents. Those of the sects in Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary which have a connection with the state had either refused to be represented at all or had permitted their members to attend only as individuals. This complete absence of everything like legislative or judicial power in the council is a sufficient apology for its failure to promulgate new decrees or to define any dogma. But had the Pan-Presbyterians been of one mind and heart, they might at least have lifted up their united testimony, in some shape or other, in defence of those cardinal truths of Christianity which are now assailed, all the world over, by men in their own ranks. This they did not venture to do, for the reason that, had they tried to do it, their congress would have ended in a row.

The opening sermon of the council was preached by Professor Flint, who took for his text the prayer of our Lord for the unity of his church, and whose discourse was an argument to the effect that when the Founder of the church prayed that his followers “all may be one,” he intended that they should be all divided. “A universal church,” says Professor Flint, “was as grandiose and diseased a dream as was a universal empire”; and he warned the council against striving after organic unity even among the fifty separate Presbyterian sects. The adoption of the rules of order, which provided that the meetings “should be opened shortly with prayer,” caused a member to complain that it was very awkward to use the word “shortly” in connection with prayer; but the chairman replied that while it was awkward it was very necessary, else they would have nothing but praying. The first subject of discussion was “Harmony of Reformed Confessions,” which were divided into three classes—ante-Calvinistic, Calvinistic, and post-Calvinistic. These originally were not intended to be formulas, but only apologies—“vindications of the Protestant faith against Romish misrepresentation and slander.” For a while these confessions maintained their supremacy, but now “they have lost their authority in almost every country except England, Scotland, and the United States”; and each church interprets the Scriptures to suit itself, even upon such grave questions as “reprobation and infant salvation.” Should the council@ leave this matter in its present indefinite state, or should it undertake to formulate a new confession to which all Presbyterians should subscribe? A Swiss delegate ventured the startling suggestion that if such a confession were formulated “the Divinity of Christ should be the central stand-point in it”; and another delegate produced the draught of a new dogmatic constitution, in thirty-one articles, which had been obligingly formulated by Professor Kraft, of Bonn, who had patched it up from the various confessions and had sent it to the council with his compliments. Principal Brown, of Aberdeen, remarked that it would be extremely desirable that this or some other similar constitution should be adopted, or something else done, chiefly “in order to silence—no, it would not do that—but to put to shame the calumny of the Church of Rome, which said that the Reformed churches were divided into as many distinct and conflicting religions as there were sects of them. The more intelligent Romanists knew this was false” (then we cannot be classed among the more intelligent Romanists), “but it suited them all the same to say it and repeat it, because it had a certain pithy and plausible sound. And Presbyterians were there to testify that it was false, and that in all that was substantial and vital in Christianity the Reformed churches were practically one.” After this bold declaration it would have been naturally in order to take the step necessary to prove it. But canny Professor Brown hastened to add that, on second thoughts, he was of the opinion that the council had better leave the matter alone and not attempt any unity save that of “sympathy.” Professor Candlish lamented that “there was not now that lively sense of the unity and harmony of the Reformed confessions that there once was.” In fact, no one knew exactly what changes the various churches had made in the “Standards,” and he thought it would be interesting, at least, to collect information on that point, so as to ascertain how many different Presbyterian beliefs there were. Dr. Lang, of Glasgow, warned the council that it was treading on dangerous ground. “There were deeper issues involved than merely touching the surface of their confessions: there was the whole question as to the authority and place of the Bible, and behind that the whole question of the supernatural.” The widest differences of opinion existed on these questions—every one knew that—but as long as possible let them be kept in the background. By covering them up, and avoiding “a restless and continual nig-nagging at the matter,” a sufficient degree of harmony could be maintained, at least for the present. A lay delegate, a lawyer, said that if the council once ventured to deal “with the very complicated, delicate, and difficult question of creeds,” there might be found many who would propose to solve the difficulty by dispensing with all creeds. Dr. Begg at this point boiled over, and read the council a severe lecture, expressing the disgust with which he had listened to some of the statements which had been made and apparently accepted.

“Every age had its own theology!—(laughter and applause)—he did not in the least believe that. Theology had been the same since the days of Eden. The idea of having a new theology at every stage was a blunder. (Laughter.) They heard of discoveries being made; but these discoveries were only resurrections of old errors. (Laughter.) He found a revolt against the divine authority and the divine Word—and the rebels were the discoverers of these new theologies.”

The discussion was now growing warm, but as it was announced that “the hour for luncheon had arrived, and that Mr. Stevenson, M.P., would preside,” the threatened fight was averted, and the subject was disposed of at a subsequent meeting by the passage of the following resolution:

“That this council appoint a committee with instructions to prepare a report to be laid before the next General Council, showing, in point of fact—1. What are the existing creeds and confessions of the churches composing this alliance, and what have been their previous creeds and confessions, with any modifications thereupon, and the dates and occasions of the same from the Reformation to the present day. 2. What are the existing formulas of subscription, if any, and what have been the previous formulas of subscription used in those churches in connection with their creeds and confessions. 3. How far has individual adherence to those creeds by subscription or otherwise been required from the ministers, elders, or other office-bearers respectively, and also from the private members of the same. And the council authorize the committee to correspond with members of the several churches throughout the world who may be able to give information; and they enjoin the committee, in submitting their report, not to accompany it either with any comparative estimate of those creeds or with any critical remarks upon their respective value, expediency, or efficiency.”

There was an unhappy and heated controversy concerning the appointment of some of the members of this committee, but this excitement was unnecessary. The information can all be obtained by the purchase of a few books and pamphlets; and as the committee is forbidden to accompany its report with “any critical remarks,” the presence upon it of a few rationalists or Universalists can do no mischief.

The remainder of the time of the council—and it sat thrice a day for a week—was occupied with talk. Nothing was done that was worthy of the name of action. Extracts from scores of religious essays were read; hundreds of little religious or semi-religious speeches were made; and that was all. We do not know what the Presbyterians here and elsewhere expected; but if they expected anything practical they have been sadly disappointed. Some of the little speeches were comic—as, for example, that of “the Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Louisville, U. S.,” who seems to have pursued antiquarian researches with startling results, since he has ascertained that Presbyterianism began with Abraham; that Moses was a member of the presbytery of Egypt; and that Elisha and Ezechiel were the moderators of the Presbyterian synods of Samaria and Jerusalem. Presbyterianism was the true form of government in the Jewish Church, and it was the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Judea that passed sentence of death on Jesus of Nazareth. Nay, according to this sprightly Kentucky divine, heaven itself will be a Presbyterian community, governed by a presbytery of four-and-twenty members. To listen to such excellent fooling as this; to read the essay laboriously prepared at home in Peoria or Dundee, and carefully rehearsed to admiring wife and wondering bairns for months before starting; to discuss, even in ten-minute speeches, such thrilling and novel themes as the uses of elders, the sinfulness of Sabbath-breaking, the advantages of assemblies, the wickedness of the Pope, and the unquestionable mental, moral, and religious superiority of Presbyterians in general, and Pan-Presbyterians especially, over all the rest of mankind—all this, no doubt, was pleasant enough to the participants; but it was scarcely the entertainment to which the outside world had been invited. True, there was voted, at the close of the council, and after an unusually hearty luncheon at which the brethren tarried long, “an address to the queen,” accompanied by what an Edinburgh journal irreverently describes as “unanimous votes of thanks to the Deity, Mr. A. T. Niven, C.A., and the lord provost.” Probably her majesty will never read the address, as it is a long one and does not call for a reply. But if she should peruse it, she will scarcely thank its authors for suggesting that she, too, is a Pan-Presbyterian, or that she changes her religion every time she crosses the Tweed. It appears something like an impertinence in the Pan-Presbyterians to write thus to the queen:

“We venture to indicate the deep interest which we take in the circumstance that, while residing in Scotland, your majesty joins in the Presbyterian worship and communion.”

The queen goes to a Presbyterian church when in Scotland because Presbyterianism is the religion of the state in Scotland, of which she is the head; and she goes to an Episcopalian church when in England because episcopacy is the religion of the state in England. If she were in India, and Mohammedanism were the state religion there, she would probably go to a mosque with the same good grace that she displays when sitting under the parish minister near Balmoral. The council also appointed a committee to see whether money could be raised for the publication of a mass of old treatises and essays upon Presbyterianism which no private publisher has ever thought of reprinting; and another committee to “consider” what could be reported to the next council—which, by the way, is to be held at Philadelphia in 1880, if the world and Pan-Presbyterianism be then in existence. That portion of the programme which promised “the suppression of infidelity” was not carried out; a day was spent in talking about the best methods of getting the better of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Bradlaugh, and the like, but the matter ended with the acceptance of the remark of Prof. Cairns, that disputation with such people is rather worse than useless, since they are well skilled in argument, and that the only thing to be done with them is to pray for them. As Americans we record with justifiable pride the encomiums bestowed upon the American delegates by the great Dr. Phin, and the still greater Dr. Begg. “Sound Christian doctrine,” said the first, “in this land has received a most powerful impulse from the addresses of the American brethren”; and Dr. Begg “rejoiced because of the firm tone which had characterized the addresses of the American speakers, as we require in Scotland an ecclesiastical tonic to brace us up to a firm maintenance of our own Scriptural principles.” The firm tone was not backed up by firm action, nor by any action at all; but, all the same, Dr. Begg is of the opinion that if the orthodox Presbyterians in Scotland could talk as their American brethren do, there would soon be an end to the croaking of “the frogs of infidelity that are coming into our churches like the frogs that went into Pharao’s bed-chamber.” But it may prevent some disappointment in the future to our American Presbyterian friends if we convey to them the warning uttered by the Edinburgh Scotsman at the end of the council—a journal whose opinion on the affair is all the more valuable from the fact that its editor is a Presbyterian clergyman of renown who has abandoned the pulpit for the press:

“Meanwhile,” says the Scotsman, “what with choking 'frogs’ and covering up disputable subjects, the appearance of a complete, if not a completely beautiful, harmony was unquestionably produced. But it is only right to warn the Pan-Presbyterians that if they leave us with the notion that, because all is peaceful now, unity is established, they are the victims of a delusion. They may depart to their Swiss hamlets or their Transatlantic cities with psalm-tunes sounding peace within Jerusalem ringing in their ears, and imagine that after this most refreshing time the millennium has come when Dr. Phin and Dr. Blaikie will lie down together, and Dr. Marcus Dods and Dr. Moody Stewart will kiss each other. But, alas! shortly after they have told their deeply-affected flocks at home of the harmony which prevails in Bible-loving Scotland, some morning when Dr. Rufus Choate examines his Chicago Trumpet, and Dr. Brunnelhanner lays down his meerschaum to take up his paper, they will find that all the old dissensions have broken out again with alarming violence; that ministers who agreed on a platform of wood can agree upon no other; that Dr. Blaikie has attacked Establishments from love of their members, and has Dr. Pirie’s head in Chancery; that Dr. Phin has a new scheme to 'dish’ the Dissenters; that those who led the devotions are now leading the fray; that those who were at peace are not on speaking terms, or on terms in speaking which are very bad indeed; while those who lauded the agreement between confessions cannot agree amongst themselves as to what these confessions mean to say. The visit of the Pan-Presbyterians may, after all, share the fate that generally overtakes the other numerous excursionists who appear among us about this season. For the moment we may be struck by their numbers and their banners with their strange devices, and be moved to the heart, or even deeper, by their bass-drum and their instruments of brass; but when they have gone, if any memory of them remains, it is only of something that was loud and singular, but what it was or what it did there is nothing palpable to show.”

The Pan-Presbyterians repeated very often that, while they did not expect, or even desire, to effect “organic unity” between their various sects—that unity being, in their opinion, opposed to the will of God—they were, all the same, “one in spirit and in sympathy.” But the hollowness of even this pretence was manifested when an attempt was made to induce them to unite in what they call “partaking of the Lord’s Supper.” Toward the close of the council it was announced that “Dr. Moody Stewart and his session invited the members of council to communion at half-past twelve on Saturday.” Now, from a Catholic, or “Romanist,” point of view, it is rather surprising that a convention of eminent Christian ministers, assembled for what they professed to regard as the most important purposes, should have already spent several days without performing this supreme act of Christian devotion. But Pan-Presbyterian ways are not as our ways. Nevertheless, one would have supposed that, being thus invited to do what they had neglected, they would at least have received the invitation kindly. On the contrary, a most unhappy scene followed. The Orthodox Pan-Presbyterians were willing to talk with their unorthodox colleagues; they would eat luncheons with them, make speeches and read papers to them, and even listen to their speeches and papers in return; but when it came to “partaking of the sacrament” with them, they would not do it at any price. Dr. Phin at once protested against the idea that he, for one, could thus be yoked unevenly with unbelievers. “He happened to entertain certain old-fashioned ideas with respect to the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper” which would prevent him from joining in it unless he knew his company. For instance, there should be “the fencing of the tables”; and this fencing would surely shut out either the sheep or the goats. The “fencing of the tables,” it appears, is a curious custom prevalent in Scotland, and may be thus explained: an invitation to “the communion” is given, and then every one who wishes to receive it is scared off either by terrific denunciations of the awful guilt incurred by those who partake unworthily, or is compelled to pass a severe competitive examination as to the soundness of his faith and his acceptance of the “Standards.” Dr. Phin was, no doubt, correct in supposing that the application of these tests would produce unpleasant results, and his conscience would not permit him to assist at a communion where they were not applied. Dr. Begg took the same view, and “regretted that the invitation had been given.” The chairman—who on this occasion happened to be Dr. Ormiston, of New York—sought to get over the difficulty by suggesting that “it would be understood that nobody was committed except the gentlemen who took part in it,” and he added the remarkable declaration that “as members of council not one of them had any responsibility to the weight of a hair.” A lay member “protested against any administration of free communion in connection with the council”; and Dr. Blaikie said the committee had “taken every precaution that the council should not be committed in any way.” With this assurance the subject “was allowed to drop,” and when the time for the communion arrived only one hundred and thirty of the three hundred and twenty-five Pan-Presbyterians presented themselves to receive it—and among these neither Dr. Phin nor Dr. Begg was seen.

The Continental Pan-Presbyterians made a pitiful show for themselves during the council. Few of them could speak English; and the linguistic accomplishments of the majority of their colleagues being limited, they were compelled, when they spoke at all, to express themselves through an interpreter, which is not generally an exhilarating process. One of the French delegates said there were forty Presbyterian congregations in France without pastors, and he suggested that a collection might be made to aid in hiring men to fill these vacancies; but this hint was not taken. A volunteer member from Berlin read a sensible paper upon “missions,” in which he ridiculed the present system of Protestant missions, and said that their only fruits were the inculcation of hypocrisy and of pauperism among the so-called converts. On this same subject, by the way, one of the members put forth the novel idea that the conversion of one Jew was worth more than the salvation of a hundred pagans. Dr. Hoedemaker, of Amsterdam, said that the Presbyterians there had long been poisoned with the virus of rationalism, and that forty years ago “there were very few who preached the living Christ in his church”; but now, he hoped, there was some improvement. M. Decoppet, of the French Presbyterian body, complained that the sect could make no progress there, “because they were not allowed by the law to give a tract on the street or to deliver public lectures”; but still he was confident that “France would soon become a Protestant nation”—by the aid of M. Gambetta and the Reds, we presume. The representative of the Waldensian heretics apologized for the bad character of some of its ministers, but said that as fast as the false shepherds were detected they were expelled from the fold.

Politeness, perhaps, would command us to express our acknowledgments of certain courteous, sensible, and truthful things which were said about the church—as, for example, that “she was the mother of infidelity” and the fountain and origin of all civil, moral, and religious evil. But, on the whole, we think our readers will have had enough of the Pan-Presbyterians. Dr. Begg, at the last meeting of the council, said that “they saw the shadow of the great eclipse of Romanism again cast over the country.” We take this to be the Beggonian method of expressing the fact that the few Christians who remain in Scotland are on the way to return to the church of their forefathers—the church which civilized and Christianized Scotland, and which had the unhappiness to nurture in her bosom the apostate priest who was the father of Scotch Presbyterianism. Dr. Begg is not an infallible prophet, but such events as the Pan-Presbyterian council are calculated to hasten the event which he predicts. For the council has shown that the Presbyterian Church throughout the world, as represented by its chosen men, is undermined by infidelity, and that its existence, in their opinion, depends upon concealing this fact and pretending that no one has the right to proclaim it.

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE. ODE 14, BOOK 2.

Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume!

Alas! my Posthumus, our years Glide silently away; no tears, No loving orisons, repair The wrinkled cheek, the whitening hair, That drop forgotten to the tomb: Pluto’s inexorable doom Mocks at thy daily sacrifice; Around his dreary kingdom lies That fatal stream whose arms enfold The Giant race accursed of old; All, all alike must cross its wave, The king, the noble, and the slave. In vain we shun the fields of war, And breakers dashed on Adria’s shore; Vainly we flee, in terror blind, The plague that walketh on the wind; The sluggish river of the Dead, Cocytus, must be visited; And Danaüs’ detested brood, Foul with their fifty husbands’ blood; And Sisyphus, with ghastly smile Pointing to his eternal toil. All must be left: thy gentle wife, Thy home, the joys of rural life; And when thy fleeting days are gone, Th’ ill-omened cypresses alone Of all those fondly-cherished trees Shall grace thy funeral obsequies, Cling to thy loved remains, and wave Their mournful shadows o’er thy grave. A lavish but a nobler heir Thy hoarded Cæcuban shall share, And on the tessellated floor The purple nectar madly pour, Nectar more worthy of the halls Where Pontiffs hold their festivals.

S. E. DE V.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; their History, Condition, and Management. Special Report. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. 1876.

In 1874 the Commissioner of the Bureau of Education in the Department of the Interior at Washington began the preparation of a complete Report on the Public Libraries in the United States; on the 31st of August, 1876, the report was submitted; it was printed, and it makes a volume of 1,187 pages. A careful study of the contents of this unique work compels us to express, in the first place, our most cordial appreciation of the great labor which has been expended upon it, and of the value of the information which it contains. The size of the volume, we fear, has deterred many into whose hands it has fallen from more than glancing over its pages; we confess for ourselves that we shrank, for a while, from the task of reading it. But we have been amply repaid for our toil, which soon became a pleasure; and we may say here that we have seen in foreign periodicals and journals a number of highly eulogistic and discriminating reviews of the report. We propose to make our readers share in the satisfaction we have derived from our study of this work; but our space will permit us only to give a condensed summary of a portion of its contents.

No less than 132 pages of the report are taken up with a table giving the statistics of all the “public libraries” in the United States and Territories numbering 300 volumes or more, excepting common or district school libraries. The table is as complete as it could be made from the returns received in 1875-76; but it is incomplete, because many of the libraries named in it do not report the date of their foundation, their average annual increase in books, their financial condition, or their yearly expenditures. But with all these defects the table is extremely valuable. It shows, to begin with, that the total number of these libraries is 3,647, having as their total number of volumes 12,276,964. We pause here for a moment to say that the report also shows that in the district-school libraries, not included in the table, there are 1,365,407 volumes, and that in all the libraries there are about 1,500,000 pamphlets not classed as “volumes.” The census of 1870 showed that there were 107,673 private libraries, containing 25,571,503 volumes, exclusive of those which may be in the State of Connecticut, from which State no returns on this subject were received. Here, then, we have a total of 39,213,874 volumes of books in the public, private, and school libraries of the country—a mass of printed matter large enough, estimating each volume to weigh a pound, to fill nine merchant vessels of 2,000 tons burden each. Let us also in this place give the following list of the number of volumes in several noted libraries in other countries, with the remark that, as the statistics of these libraries differ widely according to different authorities, we have in each case taken the highest number given, and that this number relates only to books, and not to manuscripts or pamphlets, fugitive publications, etc.:

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 2,000,000 Mazarin Library, Paris 160,000 Royal Library, Madrid 200,000 Convent Library of the Escorial, Madrid 130,000 Vatican Library, Rome 1,000,000 Magliabecchíana Library, Florence 200,000 Laurentian Library, Florence 120,000 Museo Borbonico, Naples 200,000 University Library, Bologna 200,000 Brera Library, Milan 200,000 Ambrosian Library, Milan 140,000 University Library, Turin 150,000 Royal Library, Berlin 700,000 Royal Library, Dresden 500,000 University Library, Breslau 350,000 University Library, Göttingen 400,000 Ducal Library, Wolfenbüttel 300,000 University Library, Freiburg 250,000 Royal Library, Stuttgart 450,000 Royal Library, Munich 900,000 Royal Library, Copenhagen 550,000 Bodleian Library, Oxford 700,000 Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh 300,000 University Library, Edinburgh 130,000 Imperial Library, St. Petersburg 1,100,000 City Library, Augsburg 150,000 University Library, Cambridge 400,000 City Library, Frankfort 150,000 Ducal Library, Gotha 240,000 City Library, Hamburg 300,000 City Library, Leipsic 170,000 University Library, Leipsic 350,000 British Museum, London 1,020,000

In these 33 libraries in the Old World there are 14,110,000 volumes, exclusive of manuscripts, or 1,833,176 more volumes than we have in all of our 3,647 public libraries. We say nothing of the comparative value of the collections, for of course there is no comparison between a collection which has been accumulating for a thousand years and one which was made yesterday. But we have no reason to be ashamed of our American public libraries; on the contrary, as the report which we are reviewing abundantly shows, we have every reason to be proud of them. We take from this report the following table:

Whole number of public libraries 3,647

Whole number of volumes 12,276,964

Average number of volumes 3,366

Yearly additions (1,510 reporting) 434,339

Yearly use of books (742 reporting) 8,879,809

Amt of permanent fund (1,722 reporting) $6,105,581

Yearly income (830 reporting) $1,398,756

Yearly expenditures for publications $562,407 (769 reporting)

Yearly expenditures for salaries, etc. $682,166 (643 reporting)

The 3,647 libraries are distributed among the various States and Territories as follows; and here we make our only complaint against the report—to wit, that its laborious and faithful editors have not furnished the footings, which we have been compelled to make for ourselves:

Alabama, 31 libraries; Alaska, 1 (the post library at Sitka, and now removed since the garrison has been withdrawn); Arizona, 3 (two of them being military libraries); Arkansas, 6; California, 87; Colorado, 8; Connecticut, 125; Dakota, 4 (two being military libraries); Delaware, 18; District of Columbia, 57 (31 of them belonging to the federal government); Florida, 6; Georgia, 44; Idaho, 1; Illinois, 177; Indiana, 133; Indian Territory, 4 (two of them military libraries); Iowa, 80; Kansas, 19; Kentucky, 72; Louisiana, 31; Maine, 85; Maryland, 77; Massachusetts, 453; Michigan, 89; Minnesota, 39; Mississippi, 23; Missouri, 87; Montana, 2; Nebraska, 14; Nevada, 6; New Hampshire, 86; New Jersey, 91; New Mexico, 4 (one of them a military library, and two of the others belonging to Catholic academies); New York, 617; North Carolina, 37; Ohio, 223; Oregon, 14; Pennsylvania, 367; Rhode Island, 56; South Carolina, 26; Tennessee, 71; Texas, 42; Utah, 5; Vermont, 65; Virginia, 63; Washington Territory, 2 (one of them a Catholic library); West Virginia, 23; Wisconsin, 73; and Wyoming Territory, 3.

These figures are suggestive in various ways, and many interesting and valuable inferences might be drawn from them. But a careful analysis of the other portions of the table would also be necessary in order to avoid mistakes; and the wholly unknown quantity in the problem—the comparative value of different collections—would imperil the accuracy of any deductions which might be made from the statistics in this table. For instance, the 31 libraries in Alabama contain 60,615 volumes—nearly 5,000 less than are in the New York Society Library alone. A library is a library, for the purposes of this report, if it contain 300 or more volumes, just as a book is a book although there may be nothing in it. Who is to say whether some of the smaller collections in the South are not really more valuable than the larger and newer libraries in the North? We fear it is not so; but there is no test by which to decide the question. If we leave this point, and turn our attention to the statistics relating to the principal libraries, we shall come upon more satisfactory ground.

The thirty-eighth chapter of the report, filling 273 pages, is devoted to a review of the public libraries of ten principal cities—Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Charleston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Francisco. In these ten cities there are 471 public libraries with 3,447,628 volumes, viz.:

Name of City. No. of Libraries Volumes. Charleston 6 26,600 Chicago 23 141,910 San Francisco 30 164,228 Brooklyn 21 165,112 St. Louis 31 170,875 Cincinnati 30 197,890 Baltimore 38 230,342 Philadelphia 102 707,627 Boston 68 734,741 New York 122 906,203 —- ————- Total 471 3,445,528

To this list we add, in order that the South may have justice done to her:

Name of City. No. of Libraries Volumes. New Orleans 15 94,080 Louisville 6 65,897 Richmond 17 63,526

A library containing 10,000 volumes or more, if well selected, may be said to be a respectable collection. Now, there are no less than 266 libraries of this class in the United Slates, and they contain a total of 6,984,882 volumes—an average of 26,259 volumes in each. These 266 libraries, it will be seen, account for more than one half of the total number of volumes in all the public libraries, and they reduce the average number of volumes in the remaining 3,381 libraries to 1,565. But even a library with 1,500 good books is not to be despised.

The largest library in the United States is that of the National Congress at Washington, which has 300,000 volumes; and then follow:

Social Law Library, 299,869 Boston

Harvard University 227,650

Mercantile, New York 160,613

Astor, New York 152,446

Mercantile, Philadelphia 125,668

House of Representatives, 125,000 Washington

Yale College 114,200

Athenæum, Boston 105,000

These are the only libraries which have 100,000 volumes and more. Those which have 50,000 and less than 100,000 volumes are the

State Library at Albany 95,000

New York Society, New 65,000 York

Antiquarian Society, 60,497 Worcester

Peabody Institute, 57,458 Baltimore

Apprentices’, New York 53,000

Dartmouth College 52,550

Mercantile, Brooklyn 50,257

State University, Baton 50,000 Rouge

There are 10 libraries having more than 40,000 and less than 50,000 volumes; 23, with more than 30,000 and less than 40,000; 49, with more than 20,000 and less than 30,000; 52, with more than 15,000 and less than 20,000; 100, with more than 10,000 and less than 15,000; 264, with more than 5,000 and less than 10,000; 156, with more than 4,000 and less than 5,000; 236, with more than 3,000 and less than 4,000; 362, with more than 2,000 and less than 3,000; 762, with more than 1,000 and less than 2,000; and 925, with more than 500 and less than 1,000.

Of the whole number of 3,647 public libraries mentioned in this report, we find 221 which we recognize as those of Catholic institutions. There are no doubt others in the list, but there is no mark by which they can be certainly recognized. Of these 221 distinctively Catholic libraries the following are the chief:

Place. Name. Origin. Vols.

San Francisco, St. Ignatius’ College, 1855 11,000

Santa Clara, Santa Clara College, 1851 10,000

Georgetown, Georgetown College, 1791 32,268

Washington, Gonzaga College, 1858 10,000

New Orleans, Libraire de la famille, 1872 15,000

Baltimore, Archiepiscopal, .... 10,000

Baltimore, Loyola College, 1853 21,500

Baltimore, St. Mary’s Seminary, 1791 15,000

Hagerstown, St. James’ College, 1842 11,000

Worcester, College of the Holy Cross 1843 12,000

St. Louis, College of the Christian 1860 22,000 Brothers,

Brooklyn, St. Francis’ College, .... 13,970

Fordham, St. John’s College, 1840 15,000

New York, St. Francis Xavier’s 1847 21,000 College,

Cincinnati, Mount St. Mary’s, 1849 15,100

Cincinnati, St. Xavier’s College, 1840 17,000

Latrobe, Penn., St. Vincent’s College, 1846 13,000

In these 17 Catholic libraries there are 264,838 volumes. It is a very respectable number, and, when the probable quality of the books contained in these collections is taken into account, the value of such comparatively small libraries will be seen to be great. The number of volumes in the other 204 Catholic libraries, as we have ascertained by a laborious examination of the tables, is 448,688, so that the total number of volumes in the distinctively Catholic libraries is 713,526. It is a large number of books; but one might complain that it was not larger. We are not sure that these complaints would be well founded. As Catholics we establish our own libraries, but as citizens we aid in the labor and share the cost of forming the general libraries, and we have our part in the advantages which they afford. It will always be our duty, of course, to exert our influence in preserving these collections of books from the contamination of the works of authors whose aim is to undermine morals and to destroy faith; and to introduce to their shelves the writings of the best and most able defenders and advocates of truth and religion. But this duty being well performed, we are free to aid in the work of building up our general libraries and in enjoying the pure intellectual delights which they may afford.

Thirty-eight pages of the report before us are devoted to a chapter upon Theological Libraries. A table is given of 44 of the principal theological libraries in the United States; they contain 528,024 volumes. Eight of them belong to Catholic theological seminaries and contain 71,600 volumes. The two largest of the theological libraries are those of the Union Theological Seminary of New York, and the Andover Theological Seminary, each of which contains 34,000 volumes. The report states that, with a few exceptions, the public theological libraries in this country are the libraries of theological seminaries. The exceptions are the General Theological Library in Boston, established in 1860, and now containing 12,000 volumes; and the library of the Congregational Association in the same city, which contains 22,000 volumes and 80,000 pamphlets. None of the theological libraries are 100 years old. The eldest of all of them is the library of St. Mary’s Theological Seminary of St. Sulpice in Baltimore, founded in 1791 by the Sulpician Fathers. It now contains 15,000 volumes. The report devotes considerable space to a dissertation upon “Catholic Libraries,” and its remarks upon this head are conceived in a kindly and enlightened spirit. “All learning,” writes the reporter, “is welcome to the shelves of Catholic libraries, and nothing is excluded from them that should not equally be excluded from any reputable collection of books. Nor will anti-Catholic works be found wanting to them, at least such as possess any force or originality. The history of the church being so interwoven with that of the world since the days of Augustus Cæsar, there is no period which is not redolent of her action, and consequently no history which does not have to treat of her, either approvingly or the reverse. In regard to general literature, she preserved ... all that has come down to us from classic sources, and therefore works of this character can be no strangers to shelves of Catholic libraries. Still less can the Sacred Scriptures be, which Catholic hands collected, authenticated, and handed down for the use of the men of our time. Nor will the sciences be overlooked by ecclesiastics in forming their libraries; for in past ages it was the care of their brethren, with such limited facilities as were at their command and in days inauspicious for scientific investigation, to cultivate them.” No new truths these; but they are well expressed, and it is worth something to have them set forth in a volume prepared by federal authority and published with federal approval. The report goes on to speak of the general characteristics of Catholic theological libraries. They contain, it says, abundant versions of the Sacred Scriptures in all languages, with copious commentaries and expositions; and the writer adds that the professors of our Catholic theological institutions “are generally graduates of the best theological schools in Europe.” He thus proceeds:

“Next in authoritative rank come the Fathers and Doctors of the church, from those who received instruction from the apostles themselves and committed their doctrine to writing, down to almost our own day; for St. Alphonsus Liguori, the latest on whom the Holy See has conferred the title of Doctor of the Universal Church, died only in the latter part of the last century, and his authority is that which is principally followed in the treatment of moral questions. Works also by later writers, principally on dogmatic subjects, are constantly appearing. The study of dogma embracing an investigation into all revealed truths, and therefore essential to those who are to instruct others authoritatively, involves a reference to many learned books in which proofs and illustrations are elaborated to the last degree of exactness, side by side with every possible difficulty or objection that can be brought to bear against each doctrine treated of. Some works are occupied with the discussion of but a single point; others take in a wide range, and some voluminous authors have published an entire course of dogma....” “The study of moral, the other great branch of Catholic theology, embraces a scrutiny into every question of morals that needs to be investigated by those who have the direction of consciences, or whose duty it is, in the tribunal of penance, to adjudicate upon matters affecting the rights of others. As solutions in these cases are sometimes attended with considerable difficulty, and a grave responsibility is attached to the delivery of an opinion, authorities for reference must be ample and exhaustive. Such authorities will be found in the theological libraries, and are relied upon in proportion to their world-wide repute, as representing the opinions of prudent, learned, and experienced men.”

The report goes on to speak of the reasons why every complete Catholic library must have copies of the published acts of the general councils of the church, and of national and provincial councils, as well as of the decisions and solutions of the various congregations at Rome, and other documents emanating from the Holy See. The supply of “works on ritual,” and those necessary for a thorough course of rational philosophy, must be ample, and there must be works on mathematics, physics, astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, and other sciences. We again quote:

“The attention given in these schools to sacred eloquence—for practice in which students are required to prepare and deliver sermons in presence of the community—calls for the best models of sacred oratory, besides works on rhetoric and elocution. As models of composition, arrangement, and intrinsic solidity, the sermons of the ancient fathers share equal attention with those of the great French orators of the last century, and no library for the use of ecclesiastics will be without a copious supply of the works of those and others of the best pulpit orators in the church. Catholic libraries in general—and not those alone which are attached to theological schools—will be found amply supplied with controversial works written by Catholic authors. These are needed, however, not so much for the use of the owners as for that of non-Catholic inquirers who wish to be enlightened in regard to some controverted point, or who desire to learn the evidences upon which the Catholic Church bases her claims to the credence of mankind. Catechetical works, of which there are a great number, answer this purpose still better when the polemic spirit has been allayed, and it is impossible to conceive of a Catholic library, large or small, without an abundance of both these classes of books. The controversial works discuss every objection which can be alleged against the church or the practice of members of it, and are necessarily very numerous. Every age has left behind it these testimonies to the controversies that agitated it, and the present age is no less prolific than its predecessors, though the grounds of dispute are shifting now rather from dogma to historical questions and matters of science, indicating the lessening hold which doctrine has on the non-Catholic mind.”

And again:

“Ecclesiastical history, of course, forms an important element in Catholic libraries; but this history not only includes the exhaustive tomes of writers who take in the whole history of the church, but of others who illustrate a particular age, country, event, or transaction. Works concerning the history of the church in the United States, or in particular States, form a growing collection. The current of contemporary Catholic history is well shown forth through the monthly and weekly publications which appear in many countries and languages. The Catholic quarterlies, however, and some of the monthly publications, are devoted chiefly to literary or scientific criticism. The Catholic weeklies in this country are now so numerous that their preservation in libraries is seldom attended to. If this apology is needed for the absence from such libraries of publications that will form an important reference hereafter for others besides Catholics, it ought to be coupled with the suggestion proper to be made in a work which will be placed in the hands of persons of all religions: that a general Catholic library ought to be established at some central point where every Catholic publication, at least among those issued in this country, may have a place. Materials for history would gather in such a collection that might not readily be found combined in any other.

“Having thus touched upon the more important characteristics of Catholic libraries, it would be well, perhaps, to observe that while the leading ones in this country are attached to seminaries, colleges, or religious houses, there are many private collections of considerable value, especially those in episcopal residences, or belonging to gentlemen of the clergy or laity who, together with literary tastes, possess the means to gratify them. Catholic libraries are also beginning to be formed in cities and towns, chiefly under the auspices of associations that seek to provide a safe and pleasant resort for young men in the evenings. In these libraries will be found the lighter Catholic literature, to which no reference has so far been made in this paper—travels, sketches, poems, tales, etc., a few of which are by American and some Irish authors, but the majority by English writers, chiefly converts, or translated from the French, German, Flemish, and other Continental languages. Finally, it would be well to observe that Catholic libraries are accessible for reference, if not for study, to all inquirers. In most cases non-Catholic visitors would doubtless be welcomed to them with great cordiality. Those who have these libraries in keeping rather invite than repel scrutiny into whatever is distinctively Catholic in their collections.”

We regret that the limits of our space forbid us to dwell further upon the contents of this really fascinating volume. To use such an adjective in speaking of a “Blue-Book,” or an official report, may seem extravagant, but in this case it is not so. Its chapters upon the growth of libraries in the United States; college libraries; law, medical, and scientific libraries; libraries in prisons and reformatories; libraries of the general and State governments; libraries of historical societies; and upon “catalogues and cataloguing,” are crammed with useful and important information; and whatever may have been the sins of omission or commission that may be laid at the door of the “Department of the Interior at Washington,” we are willing to bear witness that its Bureau of Education, in the preparation and publication of this report, has done much to atone for them.

ELEMENTS OF GEOMETRY. By G. M. Searle, C.S.P. With an Appendix containing Problems and Additional Propositions. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1877.

The object of this work is to place geometry on a more perfectly logical basis than it has been usually considered worth while to adopt in text-books. Geometers at the present day generally agree as to the unsatisfactory nature of the axioms usually adopted, some being superfluous, and others, especially the famous one about parallels, not being clearly self-evident.

The reduction in the number of axioms has of course introduced some complexity into the reasoning in this book, and the difficulty about parallels is not completely removed; nor does the author pretend completely to remove it. Some new views, however, are presented which may be worthy of consideration.

ELEMENTS OF ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. Adapted especially to the Discipline of the Church in the United States. By Rev. S. B. Smith, D.D., formerly Professor of Canon Law, author of “Notes,” etc., etc. New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Einsiedeln: Benziger Brothers, Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 1877.

This work of Dr. Smith’s cannot fail to be a welcome addition to any theological library. There are a great many works on canon law, it is true, but very few which give much information on the discipline of the church here, which is what priests in this country and those who are preparing for the priesthood principally need to understand.

The present volume goes far to supply this deficiency, and the author promises to supplement it soon by another, for which we shall look with interest. He has made a good choice in writing in English; there seems to be no need of choosing Latin for a book on this subject, and intended for this nation chiefly.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

Typographical errors were silently corrected.

Spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant form was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.

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