CHAPTER V.

[Transcriber's notes]

This text is derived from

http://www.archive.org/details/catholicworld03pauluoft

Although square brackets [] usually designate footnotes or

transcriber's notes, they do appear in the original text.

This text includes Volume III;

Number 1--April 1866

Number 2--May 1866

Number 3--June 1866

Number 4--July 1866

Number 5--August 1866

Number 6--September 1866

[End Transcriber's notes]

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

_Monthly Magazine_

of

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

VOL. III.

APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1866.

NEW YORK:

LAWRENCE KEHOE, PUBLISHER,

145 Nassau Street.

1866.

CONTENTS.

All-Hallow Eve; or The Test of Futurity, 97, 241.

Abbey, Glastonbury, 150.

Animal Life, Curiosities of, 232.

Alexandria, Christian Schools of, 354, 484.

Abbeville, a Day at, 590.

Asses, Dogs, Cats, etc., 688.

A Celtic Legend, 810.

Benedictines, Rise of, 150.

Buried Alive, 805.

Curiosities of Animal Life, 232.

Catholic Publication Society, The, 278.

Christian Schools of Alexandria, The, 354, 484.

Cuckoo and Nightingale, The, 543.

Cardinal Tosti, 851.

Dr. Spring, Reminiscences of, 129.

Dreamers and Workers, 418.

De Guérin, Eugénie, Letters from Paris, 474.

Eirenicon, Reply to, by Very Rev. Dr. Newman, 46.

Eirenicon, Pamphlets on the, 217.

Eve de la Tour d'Adam, 366.

Ecce Homo, 618.

Episcopal Church, Doctrine on Ordination, 721.

France, Two Pictures of Life in, 411.

Franciscan Missions on the Nile, 768.

Glastonbury Abbey, 150.

Gerbet, l'Abbe, 308.

God Bless You, 593.

Gipsies, The, 702.

Haven't Time, 92.

Hürter, Frederick, 115.

Heaven, Nearest Place to, 433.

Ireland and the Informers of 1798, 122.

Irish Folk Books of the Last Century, 679.

Jenifer's Prayer, 17, 183, 318.

Kilkenny, a Month in, 301.

Legend, a Celtic, 810.

Miscellany, 137, 421, 570, 853.

Madeira, Tinted Sketches in, 265.

Newman, Very Rev. Dr., Saints of the Desert, 16, 170, 334.

Newman, Very Rev. Dr., Reply to Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, 46.

New York; Religion in, 381.

Necklace, the Pearl, 693.

Nile, Franciscan Missions on the, 768.

Nile, Solution of the Problem of the, 828.

Old Thorneley's Heirs, 404, 443, 599, 738.

Our Ancestors, Industrial Arts of, 549, 780.

Patriarchate of Constantinople, Present State of, 1.

Prayer, Jenifer's, 17, 183, 318.

Problems of the Age, 145, 289, 518, 577, 758.

Perico the Sad, 497, 660, 787.

Perreyve, Henri, 845.

Reminiscences of Dr. Spring, 129.

Religion In New York, 381.

Reading, Use and Abuse of, 463.

Rome the Civilizer of Nations, 638.

Saints of the Desert, The, 16, 170, 334

Steam-Engine, Proposed Substitutes for, 29.

St. Paul, Youth of, 531.

Sealskins and Copperskins, 557.

The Age, Problems of, 145, 289, 518, 577, 758.

Turkestan, A Pretended Dervish in, 198, 370.

Two Pictures of Life In France before 1848, 411.

Three Women of our Time, 834.

Tosti, Cardinal, 851.

Unconvicted, 404, 443, 599, 738.

Use and Abuse of Reading, 463.

Virtue, Statistics of, 731.

Weddings, East Indian, 635.

--------

POETRY.

Bury the Dead, 379.

Banned and Blessed, 306.

Christine, 32, 171, 335.

Claims, 556.

Carols from Cancionero, 692.

Christian Crown, The, 736.

D«y-Dreams, 483.

Hymn, 548.

Holy Saturday, 634.

Lockharts, Legend of the, 127.

Lost for Gold, 826.

Mater Divinae Gratiae, 216

May Breeze, 442.

Our Neighbor, 317.

Our Mother's Call, 462.

Poor and Rich, 240.

Peace, 410.

Requiem AEternam, 263.

Shell, Song of the, 96.

Sapphics, 517.

Sacrilege, the Curse of, 656.

Sonnet, 850.

The King and the Bishop, 528.

Therein, 597.

The Martyr, 617.

Thy Will be Done, 778.

Words of Wisdom, 121

------

{iv}

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Archbishop Hughes, Life of, 140.

Apostleship of Prayer, 428.

Agnes, 431.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 719.

Army of the Potomac, Medical Recollections of, 854.

Biology, Spencer's Principles of, 425.

Blessed Virgin, Devotion to in North America, 574.

Biographical Dictionary, 574

Books for Young People, 720.

Criterion, Tuckerman's, 143.

Christ the Light of the World, 144.

Christus Judex, 288.

Christian Examiner, 427.

Christine,717.

Cosas de Espana, 858.

Dictionary, Webster's, 143.

Draper's Text Books of Chemistry, etc, 576.

Darras' Church History, 719.

Eirenicon, Dr. Pusey's, 283.

Eugénie de Guérin, Letters of, 859.

English Language, Practical Grammar of, 860.

Faber's New Book, 287.

Froude's History of England, 718.

Grahams, The, 288.

Grant, Headley's Life of, 575.

Hughes, Archbishop, Life of, 140.

Holy Childhood, Report of, 573.

Headley's Life of Grant, 575.

Homes without Hands, 860.

Kennett, Story of, 431.

Keating's Ireland, 432.

Mount Hope Trial, 430.

Marshall's Missions, 430.

May Carols, De Vere's, 432.

Marcy's Army Life, 716.

New-Englander, The, 855.

Prayer, Apostleship of, 428.

Priest and People, Good Thoughts for, 431.

Poetry of the Civil War, 576.

Queen's English, A Plea for the, 857.

as

Spencer's Principles of Biology, 425.

Spalding's Miscellanea, 571.

Shakespeare on Insanity, 860.

Wyoming, Valley of, 859.

------

{1}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. III., NO. 1.--APRIL, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE

PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: "L'Eglise Orientale, par Jaques G. Pitzipios, Fondateur

de la Société Chrétienne Orientale." Rome: Imprimerie de la

Propagande, 1855.]

In the year 1841, the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal dioceses of

Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Maryland,

and Pennsylvania, professing to speak in the name of their church in

the United States, addressed the following language to the

schismatical Patriarch of Constantinople, whom they style "the

venerable and right reverend father in God the _Patriarch of the Greek

Church,_resident at Constantinople:"

"The church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the

triune God for his blessings upon its efforts for unity in the body of

Christ, turn with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, _the

spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church._"

[Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: Quoted in the "Memoir of Rev. F.A. Baker," p. 47.]

This is by no means the only instance of overtures of this kind,

looking toward a union between Protestant Episcopalians and Eastern

schismatics, with the view of concentrating the opposition to the

Roman See under a rival Oriental primacy. The Non-jurors, who were

ejected from their sees at the overthrow of the Stuarts, proposed to

the Synod of Bethlehem to establish the primacy in the patriarchate of

Jerusalem; but their proposal was met by a decidedly freezing refusal.

The American bishops who signed the letter from which the foregoing

extract is taken show a remarkable desire to bow down before some

ecclesiastical power more ancient and venerable than themselves; and

in their extreme eagerness to propitiate the Eastern prelates, they

acknowledge without scruple the most arrogant titles usurped by the

Patriarch of Constantinople, although from their want of familiarity

with the ecclesiastical language, they do it in a very unusual and

peculiar style. Whatever may be at present the particular views of

those who are seeking to bring about a union between the Protestant

Episcopal churches and the Easterns, in regard to the order of

hierarchical organization, they are evidently disposed to pay court to

the successor of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and to espouse {2}

warmly his quarrel against Rome. His figure is the foremost one in the

dispute, and there is every disposition to take advantage as far as

possible of the rank which the See of Constantinople has held since

the fifth century, first by usurpation and afterward by the concession

of Rome, as second to the Apostolic See of St. Peter. We do not accuse

all those who are concerned in the union movement of being animated by

a spirit of enmity against Rome. Some of them, we believe, are seeking

for the healing of the schisms of Christendom in a truly Catholic

spirit, although not fully enlightened concerning the necessary means

for doing so. We may cherish the same hope concerning some of the

Oriental prelates and clergy also, especially those who have

manifested a determination not to compromise a single point of

Catholic dogma for the sake of union with Protestants. We are quite

sure, however, that the loudest advocates of union in the Protestant

ranks, and their most earnest and hearty sympathizers in the East, are

thoroughly heretical and schismatical in their spirit and intentions,

and are aiming at the overthrow of the Roman Church, and a revolution

in the orthodox Eastern communion, as their dearest object. While,

therefore, we disclaim any hostile attitude toward men like Dr. Pusey

and other unionists of his spirit, and would never use any language

toward them which is not kind and respectful, we are compelled to

brand the use which other ecclesiastics in high position have sought

to make of this Greek question as entirely unprincipled. Their

cringing and bowing before the miserable, effete form of Christianity

at Constantinople, dictated as it is chiefly by hatred against Rome,

is something unworthy of honest Christians and intelligent Englishmen

and Americans. Many very sincere and well-disposed persons are no

doubt misled by their artful misrepresentations. On that account it is

very necessary to bring out as clearly as possible the true state of

the case, as regards Oriental Christendom, that it may be seen how

little support Anglicanism or any kind of Protestantism can draw from

that quarter; and how strongly the entire system of Catholic dogma is

sustained by the history and traditions of the Eastern Church.

We may possibly hereafter discuss more at large some of these

important subjects relating to the Eastern Church and the schism which

has desolated its fairest portions for so many centuries. On this

occasion we intend merely to throw a little light on the present

actual condition of the patriarchate of Constantinople, in order to

dissipate any illusion that may have been created by high-sounding

words, and to show how little reason there is to "turn with hope to

the spiritual head of the Oriental Church" for any enlightening or

sanctifying influences upon the souls which are astray from the fold

of St. Peter. We waive, for the time, all consideration of past

events, anterior to the period of Turkish domination, and all

discussion of the remote circumstances which have brought the See of

Constantinople into its present state of degradation, and of obstinate

secession from the unity of the Church.

We take it as we find it, under the Mohammedan dominion, and will

endeavor to show how it stands in relation to other churches of the

East, and what are its claims on the respect and honor of Western

Christians.

The Patriarch of Constantinople is not the Patriarch of the "Greek

Church." There is no designation of this kind known in the East. The

style there used is, the "Holy Eastern Church." The Greek rite, or

form of celebrating mass and administering the sacraments in the Greek

language, is only one of the rites sanctioned by the Catholic Church

which are in use among those Christians who are not under the Latin

rite. What is usually called in the West the Greek Church has several

independent organizations. {3} The Patriarch of Constantinople, who

very early subjugated the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and

Jerusalem to his dominion, now rules over the same patriarchates,

which have dwindled to very insignificant dimensions, and over all the

separated orthodox Christians of the Turkish empire. The Russian

Church, which was erected into a distinct patriarchate by Ivan III.,

is under the supreme jurisdiction of the imperial governing synod. The

Patriarch of Constantinople is treated with respect and honor, and

referred to for advice and counsel, by the Russian authorities; but he

has no more jurisdiction in Russia than the Archbishop of Baltimore

has in the province of New York. The Church of Greece not only threw

off all dependence on the See of Constantinople after the revolution,

but renounced all communication with it, for reasons to be mentioned

hereafter. The separated Greek Christians of the Austrian empire are

governed by the Patriarch of Carlovitz, and there is at least one

other separate jurisdiction in the Montenegrine provinces. The

Patriarch of Constantinople possesses, therefore, an actual

jurisdiction over a fraction only of the Eastern Church. Within the

proper limits of his own patriarchate this jurisdiction is absolute,

both in ecclesiastical and civil matters, subject only to the supreme

authority of the sultan. Immediately after the capture of

Constantinople by the Turks, the Sultan Mahomet II. conferred upon the

Patriarch Grennadius the character of _Milet-bachi_, or chief of a

nationality, giving him investiture by the pastoral staff and mantle

with his own hands. The reason of his doing so was, that the

Mohammedan law recognizes only Mohammedans as members of a Mohammedan

nationality. In more recent times, the sultans, disgusted by the venal

and tyrannical conduct of the patriarchs, have refused to confer this

investiture in person, and it is now done by the grand vizier. Eight

metropolitans, namely, those of Chalcèdon, Ephesus, Derendah,

Heraclèa, Cyzicus, Nicomedia, Caesarèa, and Adrianople, form the

supreme council of the patriarchate, and, with the patriarch,

administer the ecclesiastical and civil government of the Christians

of their communion throughout the Ottoman empire. They have the

control of the common chest or treasury of the Oriental rite in

Turkey, and of that of the provinces; two great funds established

originally for helping poor Christians to pay the exactions levied on

them by the Mussulmans, but at present diverted to quite other uses by

their faithless and rapacious guardians. They are also exclusively

privileged to act as ephori or financial agents and bankers for the

other one hundred and thirty-four bishops of the Turkish provinces,

each one of them having as many of these episcopal clients as he can

get.

Possessed of such an amount of ecclesiastical and civil power as the

patriarchate of Constantinople has been within the Ottoman empire for

several centuries, it is plain that it might have become the centre of

an incalculable influence for the spiritual, moral, and social good of

its subjects. Everything would seem to have combined to throw into the

hands of the patriarch and his subordinate bishops the power of being

truly the protectors and fathers of their people, and to furnish them

with the most powerful motives for being faithful to their trust. The

oppressed, despised, and impoverished condition of their poor,

miserable people, slaves of a fanatical, barbarous, anti-Christian

despotism, was enough to have awakened every noble and disinterested

emotion in their bosoms, had they been men; and to have aroused the

most devoted, self-sacrificing charity and zeal in their hearts, had

they been Christians worthy of the name or true Christian pastors.

Moreover, if they had been true patriots, and really devoted to the

interests of Christianity and the church, there was every inducement

to avail themselves of their position {4} and to watch the opportunity

of cultivating unity and harmony with the Catholic Church and the

powerful Christian nations of the West, in order to secure their

eventual deliverance from the detestable Moslem usurpation, and the

restoration of religion among them to its ancient glory. All causes of

misunderstanding and dissension had been done away at the Council of

Florence. The perfect dogmatic agreement between the East and the West

had been fully established. The Greek and other Oriental rites, and

the local laws and customs, had been sanctioned. The patriarchs and

hierarchy had been confirmed in their privileges. The Patriarch of

Constantinople was even tacitly permitted to retain his high-sounding

but unmeaning title of ecumenical patriarch without rebuke, and

allowed to exercise all the jurisdiction which other patriarchs or

metropolitans were willing to concede to him, subject to the universal

supremacy of Rome. The remembrance of the gallant warfare of the Latin

Christians against their common Moslem enemy, and especially of the

heroic devotion of the cardinal legate and his three hundred

followers, who had buried themselves under the walls of Constantinople

at its capture, ought to have effaced the memory of former wrongs

[Footnote 3] and subdued the stupid, fanatical, unchristian sentiment

of national antipathy against Christians of another race. Everything

concurred to invite them to play a noble and glorious part toward

their own Christian countrymen and toward Christendom in general. We

are compelled, however, to say, with shame and pain, that they have

proved so recreant to every one of these trusts and opportunities,

their career has been one of such unparalleled infamy and perfidy, as

to cover the Christian name with ignominy, and to merit for themselves

the character of apostates from Christianity--seducers, corruptors,

oppressors, and robbers of their own people.

[Footnote 3: The Crusaders undoubtedly committed some great

outrages, in revenge far the treachery of the Byzantines, and some

Latin missionaries imprudently attacked the Oriental rites and

customs, but these acts were always disapproved and condemned by the

Popes.]

We will first give a sketch of the line of conduct they have pursued

in relation to ecclesiastical matters, and afterward of their

administration of their civil authority.

It is notorious that the schismatical bishops and clergy of Turkey

neglect almost entirely the duty of preaching the word of God and

giving good Christian instruction to their people. The sacraments are

administered in the most careless and perfunctory manner, and real

practical Christian piety and morality are in a very low state both

among clergy and laity. The clergy themselves are grossly ignorant and

unfit for the exercise of their office, taken from the lowest class of

the people, without instruction or preparation for orders, and treated

by their superiors as menial servants. The bishops and higher clergy

do not trouble themselves to remedy this gross incapacity of their

inferiors, or to supply it by their own efforts. Consequently, the

common Christian people of their charge have fallen into a state of

moral degradation below that of the Turks themselves, by whom they are

despised as the outcasts of society. The striking contrast between the

schismatical clergy, monasteries, and people, and the Catholic, is

proverbial among the Turks, and an object of remark even by Protestant

travellers. It is probable that there have been many exceptions to the

general rule of incompetence and supine neglect; but, viewing the case

as a whole, it must be said that the patriarchs of Constantinople and

their subordinate prelates have completely failed to do their duty as

pastors of their people and their instructors and guides in religion

and virtue. Their unfortunate position furnishes no adequate excuse,

as will be seen when we examine a little further into the enterprises

they have actually been engaged in, and see how well {5} they have

succeeded in accomplishing what they have really desired and

undertaken, which is nothing else than their own selfish

aggrandizement. Look at the contrast between their conduct and that of

the Catholic hierarchies of Russia, Poland, and Ireland under similar

circumstances of oppression, and every shadow of excuse will vanish.

No doubt there were many causes making it difficult to elevate the

character of the ordinary clergy and the people, and tending to keep

them down to a low level of intelligence and knowledge. This would

furnish an excuse for a great deal, if there had been an evident

struggle of the hierarchy to do their best in remedying the evil.

Instead of doing this, they are the principal causes of the

perpetuation and aggravation of this degraded state. Since the decay

of the Ottoman power commenced, the clergy have had it in their power

to bid defiance in great measure to the Turkish government. They have

been able to control immense sums of money and to wield a great

commercial and financial influence. They might have employed the

intervention of Christian powers, and especially of Russia, if they

had been governed by enlightened and Christian motives, in order to

gain just rights and the means of improvement for their people. The

Ottoman government, itself, has come to a more just and liberal

policy, in which it would have welcomed the aid of the Christian

hierarchy, had there been one worthy of the name. Their complete

apathy at all times to everything which concerns the spiritual and

moral welfare of their subjects will warrant no other conclusion than

that they have practically apostatized from the faith and church of

Christ, and are mere intruders into the fold which they lay waste and

ravage.

In their attitude toward the Catholic Church and the Holy See, the

hierarchy of the patriaichate are ignorantly, violently, and

obstinately schismatical, and even heretical. The public and official

teaching of the Eastern Church is orthodox, and therefore no one is

adjudged to be a heretic simply because he adheres to that communion.

One who intelligently and obstinately adheres to a schism as a state

of permanent separation from the See of St. Peter, is, however, at

least a constructive heretic, and is very likely to be a formal

heretic, on several doctrines which have been defined by the Catholic

Church. The nature of the opposition of the clergy of Constantinople

to the Roman Church, the grounds on which they defend their

contumacious rebellion, and the dogmatic arguments which they employ

in the controversy, are such as to place them in the position of the

most unreasonable and contumacious schismatics, and as it appears to

our judgment, in submission to that of more learned theologians, of

heretics also. So far as their influence extends, and it is very

great, they are chiefly accountable for the isolated condition of the

entire non-united Eastern Church. As the ambition of the Patriarch of

Constantinople was the original cause of the schism, so now the

ignorant and violent obstinacy of the clergy of the patriarchate, and

their supreme devotion to their own selfish and narrow personal and

party interests, is, in connection with a similar though less odious

spirit in the chief Muscovite clergy, and the worldly policy of the

Russian czar, the chief cause of its perpetuation.

The clergy of Constantinople have not hesitated to resort to forgery

in order to do away with the legal and binding force of the act of

their own predecessors in subscribing and promulgating throughout

their entire jurisdiction the act of union established at the Council

of Florence. Gennadius, the first patriarch elected after the Turkish

conquest, was one of the prelates who signed the decree of the Council

of Florence, a learned and virtuous man, and is believed to have lived

and died in the {6} communion of the Holy See. Actual communication

between Constantinople and Rome was, however, rendered absolutely

impossible by the deadly hostility of the conquerors to their

principal and most dangerous foe. The slightest attempt at any

intercourse with the Latin Christians would have caused the

extermination of all the Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire. It

is difficult to discover, therefore, when and how it was that the

supremacy of the Roman Church, whose actual exercise was thus at first

impeded by the necessity of the case, was again formally repudiated by

the patriarchs. There is a letter extant, written in the year 1584 by

the Patriarch Jeremiah to Pope Gregory XIII., in which he says that

"it belonged to him, as the head of the Catholic Church, to indicate

the measures to be employed against the Protestants," and requests him

in virtue of this office to point out what measures can be taken to

arrest the advance of Protestantism. This is the last official act of

the kind of which there is any record. The patriarchs and their

associates have relapsed into an attitude toward the Holy See which is

equally schismatical and arrogant, though through their degraded

condition far more ridiculous than that which was assumed by their

predecessors before the Council of Florence. In order to nullify, as

far as possible, the legal force of the act of union promulgated by

that council, they have resorted to a forgery, and have published the

acts of a pretended council under a patriarch who never existed and

whom they call Athanasius. There is no precise date attached to these

forged acts, but they are so arranged as to appear to have been

promulgated soon after the return of the emperor and prelates from

Italy, and before the Turkish conquest; and in them, some of the

principal prelates what signed the decrees of the Council of Florence

are represented as abjuring and begging pardon for what they had done.

They are said to have been moved to this by the indignation of their

people and a sedition in Constantinople in which the rejection of the

act of union was demanded. The forgery is too transparent to be worthy

of refutation, and could never have been executed and palmed off as

genuine in any other place than in Constantinople. They have also put

out a book called the "Pedalium," in which they revive all the

frivolous pretexts on account of which the infamous Michael Cerularius

and his ignorant ecclesiastical clique of the _Bas Empire_ pretended

to prove the apostacy of the Bishop of Rome and all Western

Christendom from the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and

the consequent succession of the Bishop of Constantinople to the

universal primacy. The clergy of the patriarchate have taken the

position that the Catholic Church at present is confined to the limits

of what we call the Greek Church. They claim for themselves,

therefore, that place which they acknowledge formerly belonged to the

See of Rome, and thus seek to justify and carry out the usurpation of

supreme and universal authority indicated by the title of ecumenical

patriarch. The absurdity of this is evident, from the very grounds on

which the title was originally assumed, and the traditional maxims

which directed the policy of the ambitions Byzantine prelates

throughout the entire period of the Greek empire. The original and

only claim of the bishops of Constantinople, who were merely

suffragans of the Metropolitan of Heraclèa before their city was made

the capital of the empire, to the patriarchal dignity, was the

political importance of the city. Because Constantinople was new Rome,

therefore the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be second to the

Bishop of ancient Rome; and not only this, but he ought to rule over

the whole East with a supremacy like that which the Bishop of Rome had

always exercised over the whole {7} world. This false and schismatical

principle is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic church

organization, viz., that the subordination of episcopal sees springs

from the divine institution of the primacy in the See of St. Peter,

and is regulated by ecclesiastical canons on spiritual grounds, which

are superior to all considerations of a temporal nature. The Patriarch

of Constantinople has long ago lost all claim to precedence or

authority based on the civil dignity of the city as the seat of an

empire. According to the principles of his predecessors, the primacy

ought to have been transferred to the Patriarch of Moscow, when the

Russian patriarchate was established by Ivan III. Nevertheless, he

still continues to style himself ecumenical patriarch, and the eight

metropolitans who form his permanent synod continue to keep the

precedence over all other bishops of the patriarchate, although their

sees have dwindled into insignificance, and other episcopal towns far

exceed them in civil importance. In point of fact, the baselessness of

his claim to universal jurisdiction has been recognized by the Eastern

Church. His real authority is confined to the Turkish empire, where it

is sustained by the civil power. Russia has long been independent of

him. The Church of Greece has completely severed her connection with

him. The schismatical Greeks of the Austrian empire, and those of the

neighboring provinces, are severally independent. The false principle

that produced the Eastern schism in the first place thus continues to

work out its legitimate effect of disintegration in the Eastern

communion itself, by separating the national churches from the

principal church of Constantinople, which would itself crumble to

pieces if the support of the Ottoman power were removed. The

privileges of the See of Constantinople have now no valid claim to

respect, except that derived from ecclesiastical canons ratified by

time, general consent, and the sanction of the Roman Church. The

instinct of self-preservation ought to compel its rulers to fall back

on Catholic principles, and submit themselves to the legitimate

authority of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Catholic Church

throughout the world. They are following, however, the contrary

impulse of self-destruction, to which they are abandoned by a just God

as a punishment for their treason to Jesus Christ and his Vicar, and

in every way seeking to strengthen and extend the barrier which

separates them from the Roman Church.

This policy has led them to do all in their power to establish a

dogmatic difference between the Oriental Church and the Church of

Rome. Not only do they represent the difference in regard to the

procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as expressed by the

"Filioque" of the Creed, which was fully proved at the Council of

Florence to be a mere verbal difference, as a difference in regard to

an essential dogma, but they have brought in others to swell their

list of Latin heresies. The principal dogmatic differences on which

they insist are three: the doctrine of purgatory, the quality of the

bread used in the holy eucharist, and the mode of administering

baptism. Only the most deplorable ignorance and factiousness could

base a pretence of dogmatic difference on such a foundation. In regard

to purgatory, the Roman Church has defined or required nothing beyond

that which is taught by the doctrinal standards of the Eastern Church.

The difference in regard to the use of leavened or unleavened bread,

and the mode of baptism, is a mere difference of rite. In regard to

the last-mentioned rite, however, the clergy of Constantinople have

even surpassed their usual amount of ignorance and effrontery. They

pretend that no baptism except that by trine immersion is valid, and

consequently that the vast majority of Western Christians are

unbaptized. This position of theirs, which will no doubt be {8} very

satisfactory to our Baptist brethren, makes sweeping work, not only

with the Latin Church, but with Protestant Christendom. Where there is

no baptism, there is no ordination, no sacrament whatever, no church.

What will our Anglican friends say to this? The clergy of

Constantinople rebaptize unconditionally every one who applies to be

received into their communion, whether he be Catholic or Protestant,

clergyman or layman. It would be folly to argue against this

sacrilegious absurdity on Catholic grounds. It is enough to show their

inconsistency with themselves, by mentioning the fact that the Russian

Church allows the validity of baptism by aspersion, and that even

their own book of canons permits it in case of necessity. But why look

for any manifestation of the learning, wisdom, or Christian principle

which ought to characterize prelates from men who have bought their

places for gold, and who sell every episcopal see to the highest

bidder? The simony and bribery which have been openly and unblushingly

practised by the ruling clerical faction of the Turkish empire since

the time when the monk Simeon bought the patriarchal dignity from the

sultan, make this page of ecclesiastical history one of the blackest

and most infamous in character. As we might expect under such a

system, virtuous and worthy men are put aside, and the episcopate and

priesthood filled up from the creatures and servile followers of the

ruling clique. Such men naturally disgrace their holy character by

their immoral lives, and bring opprobrium on the Christian name. The

history of the patriarchate of Constantinople, therefore, since the

period of Gennadius and the first few successors who followed his

worthy example, has been stained with blood and crime, and darkened by

scenes of tragic infamy and horror. We will relate one of the most

recent of these, as a sufficient proof and illustration of the heavy

indictment we have made against the patriarchal clergy.

At the time of the Greek revolution, the patriarch and principal

clergy of Constantinople received orders from the sultan to use their

power in suppressing all co-operation on the part of the Christians in

Turkey with their brethren in Greece, and to denounce to the Ottoman

government all who were suspected of conniving at the insurrection.

Their political position no doubt required of them to remain passive

in the matter, to refrain from positively aiding the revolutionists,

and also to suppress all overt acts of the Christians under their

jurisdiction against the government. Nevertheless, as a people

unjustly enslaved by a barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, they owed

nothing more to their masters than this exterior obedience to the

letter of the law. They could not be expected to enter with a hearty

and zealous sympathy into the measures of the government for

suppressing the revolution; and, indeed, every genuine and noble

sentiment of Christianity and patriotism forbade their doing so, and

exacted of them a deep, interior sympathy with their cruelly oppressed

brethren who were so nobly struggling to free their country from the

hated yoke of the Moslem conqueror. The really high-minded Greeks of

the empire did thus sympathize with their brethren. The ruling clergy,

however, manifested a zeal for the interests of the Ottoman court so

_outré_ and so scandalous that it not only outraged the feelings of

their own subjects, but, as we shall see, aroused the suspicions of

the tyrants before whom they so basely cringed, and brought

destruction on their own heads. They accused a great number of

Christians of complicity in the insurrection, seizing the opportunity

of denouncing every one who had incurred their hatred for any reason

whatever, so that the prisons were soon crowded with their unfortunate

victims, all of whom suffered the penalty of death. The patriarch

pronounced a sentence of major excommunication against Prince

Ypsilanti, and all the Greeks who {9} took part in the revolt. A few

days afterward, on the first Sunday of Lent, during the solemnities of

the pontifical mass, the patriarch, his eight chief metropolitans, and

fifteen other bishops, pronounced the same sentence of

excommunication, together with the sentence of deposition and

degradation, against seven bishops of Greece, partisans of Prince

Ypsilanti, and all their adherents, signing the decree on the altar of

the cathedral church. Such a storm of indignation was raised by this

nefarious act, that the prelates were obliged to pacify their people

by pretending that they had acted under the compulsion of the

government. A few days after, the patriarch and the majority of the

bishops who had signed the decree were condemned to death and

executed, on the charge of participating in the revolution. Even after

the great powers of Europe had acknowledged the independence of

Greece, the ruling clergy of Constantinople endeavored to curry favor

at court by sending a commission, under the presidency of the

metropolitan of Chalcèdon, to recommend to the Greeks a return to the

Turkish dominion! It is needless to say that this invitation was

declined, although we cannot but admire the self-control of the Greek

princes and prelates when we are told that it was declined, and the

ambassadors dismissed, _in the most polite manner_.

One more intrigue, the last one they have been left the opportunity of

trying, closes the history of their relations with the Church of

Greece. The clergy and people of the new kingdom were equally

determined to throw off completely and for ever the ecclesiastical

tyranny of Constantinople. At the same time they were disposed to act

with diplomatic formality and ecclesiastical courtesy, as well as in

conformity with the laws and principle of the orthodox church of the

East. The second article of the constitutional chart of the kingdom

defines in a precise and dignified manner the position of the national

church. "The orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus

Christ as its head, is perpetually united in dogma with the great

Church of Constantinople and every other church holding the same

dogmas, preserving, as they do, immutably the holy canons of the

apostles and councils, and the sacred traditions. Nevertheless, it is

autocephalous, exercising independently of every other church its

rights of jurisdiction, and is administered by a sacred college of

bishops." This article was established in 1844. In 1850, the clergy

obtained from the government the appointment of a commission, composed

of one clergyman, the archimandrite Michael Apostolides, professor of

theology in the University of Athens, and one layman, Peter

Deligianni, _chargé d'affaires_ at Constantinople, to establish

concordats with the patriarchate and the governing synod of Russia, on

the basis of the above cited article of the Greek constitution. In

lieu of this proposed concordat, the Greek commissioners were duped by

the patriarchal synod into signing a synodal act, in which the

Patriarch of Constantinople, qualifying his see as the vine of which

other churches are the branches, and styling himself and his

associates [Greek text]--"Watchful shepherds and scrupulous guardians

of the canons of the church"--pretends by his own authority to grant

independent jurisdiction to the Church of Greece as a privilege. At

the same time he designates the Archbishop of Athens as the perpetual

president of the synod, ordains that the holy chrism shall always be

brought from Constantinople, and imposes other obligations intended to

serve as signs of dependence on the Patriarchal Church. The Greek

parliament, however, annulled this concordat, and the synod of Greek

bishops at Athens determined that henceforth there should be no

relation between the Church of Greece and that of Constantinople,

subsequently even forbidding priests ordained out of {10} the kingdom

to officiate in the priesthood. Although the Greek clergy had shown

themselves so forbearing and patient, it seems that the arrogance and

perfidy of the clergy of Constantinople had at last roused their just

indignation. The learned archimandrite Pharmacides published a book

against the synodal act and the policy of the Constantinopolitan

clergy, entitled "Antitomos; or, Concerning the Truth," in which he

ridicules the pompous pretensions which they make to pastoral

vigilance and fidelity in these words:

"Since you obtained the sacerdotal dignity by purchase, if you had

really the intention in becoming bishops to watch and to fatigue

yourselves by guarding the Church, no one of you would be a bishop;

for you would not have spent your money in buying vigils and labors."

Such being the nature of the solicitude of these watchful pastors and

scrupulous guardians of the canons for the welfare of those over whom

they claim a patriarchal authority, we need not be surprised at any

amount of reckless contempt which they may show for the general

interests of Christendom, and the admonitions they from time to time

receive from the veritable pastor of the flock of Christ.

Nevertheless, we cannot but wonder that the respectable portion of the

Oriental episcopate should permit themselves to be compromised by an

act which seems to cap the climax of even Byzantine stupidity and

effrontery. We refer to the reply to the noble and paternal encyclical

of Pius IX. to the Oriental bishops, put forth by Anthimus, the late

patriarch. Anthimus himself was notorious throughout the city for his

habits of drunkenness, which were so gross as to incapacitate him from

all business and expose him to the most ignominious insults even from

his own subordinates. The letter which he and several of his bishops

subscribed and sent to the Holy Father was written by the monk

Constantine OEconomus, and, in answer to the earnest and affectionate

appeals of the Holy Father to return to the unity of the Catholic

Church, makes the following astounding statement:

"The three other patriarchs, in difficult questions, demand the

fraternal counsels of the one of Constantinople, _because that city is

the imperial residence_, and this patriarch has the synodal primacy.

If the question can be settled by his fraternal co-operation, very

well. But if not, the matter is _referred to the government_ (_i.e._,

Ottoman), _according to the established laws_."

We think that the reason of the grave charge of schism, heresy, and

apostacy from the fundamental, constitutive principles of the Catholic

Church, which we have made against the higher clergy of

Constantinople, will now be apparent to every candid reader. The

history of their action in relation to the Church of Greece proves

that their principles and policy tend to disintegrate within itself

still more that portion of Christendom which they have alienated from

the communion of Rome and the West, and thus to increase the force of

the movement of decentralization, and to augment the number of

separate, local, mutually independent, and hostile communions. That

the natural tendency of this principle is to produce dogmatic

dissensions, and to efface the idea of Catholic unity, is too evident

from past history to need proof. It is only neutralized in the East by

the stagnation of thought, and the consequent immobility of the

Oriental mind from its old, long established traditions. The

essentially schismatical _virus_ of the principle is in the

subordination of organic, hierarchical unity to the temporal power and

the civil constitution of states, or the church-and-state principle in

its most odious form, which was never more grossly expressed than in

the letter above cited of Anthimus. This principle not only tends to

increase disintegration in the church, but to bar the way to a

reintegration in unity, and to destroy all desire of a return to

unity, as is also amply proved by the acts of the clergy of

Constantinople. A schismatical principle held {11} and acted on in

such a way as to make schism a perpetual condition, and thus not

merely to interrupt communion for a time but to destroy the idea of

Catholic unity, becomes heretical. Moreover, when doctrinal forms of

expressing dogmas of faith, or particular forms of administering the

rites of religion, are without authority set forth as essential

conditions of orthodoxy, and made the basis of a judgment of heresy

against other churches, those who make this false dogmatic standard

are guilty of heresy. This is the case with the clergy of

Constantinople, who make the difference respecting the use of

"Filioque" in the Creed the pretext for accusing the Latin Church of

heresy, and who deal similarly with the doctrine of purgatory, and the

questions respecting unleavened bread in the eucharist and immersion

in baptism. They have constantly persisted in their effort to

establish an essential dogmatic difference between the Latin and Greek

Churches and to make the peculiarities of the Greek rite essential

terms of Catholic communion, in order to widen and perpetuate the

breach between the East and West, and to maintain their own usurped

principality. They have been the authors of the schism, its obstinate

promoters, the principal cause of thrusting it upon the other parts of

the Eastern Church, and the chief instrument of thwarting the

charitable efforts of the Holy See for the spiritual good of the

Oriental Christians. They have done it in spite of the best and most

ample opportunities of knowing the utter falsehood of all the grounds

on which their schism is based, in the face of the example and the

writings of the best and most learned of their own predecessors, and

with a recklessness of consequences, and a disregard of the interests

of their own people and of religion itself, which merits for them the

name not only of heretics, but of apostates from all but the name and

outward profession of Christianity.

This last portion of the case against them we must now prosecute a

little further, by showing what has been their conduct in the exercise

of their temporal power over their fellow-Christians in Turkey.

The reasons and extent of the civil authority conferred upon the

Patriarch Gennadius by Mahomet II. have already been exposed. It is

obvious that although this authority would have enabled the governing

clergy to succor and console their unhappy people in their condition

of miserable slavery, if they had been possessed of truly apostolic

virtue, it opened the way to the most frightful tyranny and

oppression, by presenting to the worst and most ambitious men a strong

motive to aspire to the highest offices in the church. No form of

government can be worse than that of privileged slaves of a despot

over their fellow-slaves. Accordingly, but a short time elapsed before

the unhappy Christians of Turkey began to suffer from the effects of

this terrible system. Simoniacal bishops who bought their own dignity

by bribing the sultans and their favorites, and sold all the inferior

offices in their gift to the highest bidder; who were careless and

faithless in the discharge of their spiritual duties; and who had

apostatized from the communion of the Catholic Church, would, of

course, exercise their civil functions in the same spirit and

according to the same policy. They associated themselves intimately

with the Janissaries, on whom they relied for the maintenance of their

power; gave their system of policy the name of the "System of

_Cara-Casan_," that is, "Ecclesiastical Janissary System;" enrolled

themselves as members of the _Ortas_ or Janissary companies, and bore

their distinguishing marks tattooed on their arms. This redoubtable

body found its most powerful ally in the clergy up to the time of its

destruction by Mahmoud II. The author of the work whose title is

placed at the head of this article, James G. Pitzipios, is a native

Christian subject of the Sultan of Turkey, and was the secretary of an

imperial commission appointed to examine into the {12} civil and

financial administration of the Christian communities, as well as to

hear their complaints against their rulers. His position and

circumstances, therefore, have enabled him to investigate the matter

thoroughly. His estimate of the civil administration of the clergy of

the patriarchate from the time of Mahomet II. to that of Mahmoud II.--

that is, from the Turkish conquest to the projected reformation in the

Ottoman government--is expressed in these words:

"We have seen why it was that the Sultan Mahomet II. delegated the

entire temporal power over his Christian subjects to the Patriarch

Gennadius and his successors; gave to the religious head of the

Christians of his empire the title of _Milet-bachi_, and rendered

him the absolute master of the lot of all his co-religionists, as

well as responsible for their conduct and for their fulfilment of

all duties and obligations toward the government. Such an

arrangement was calculated to produce in its commencement some

alleviations and even some advantages to these unfortunate

Christians, as in point of fact it actually happened. But it was

sure to degenerate sooner or later into a frightful tyranny, such as

is naturally that of privileged slaves placed over those of their

own race. Accordingly, as we have stated in several places already,

the clergy of Constantinople made use of all the means of

oppression, of vexation, and of pillage of which the cunning, the

depraved conscience, and the rapacity of slaves in authority are

capable. The clergy of Constantinople having become in this way the

absolute arbiters of the goods, the conscience, the social rights,

and indirectly even of the lives of all their Eastern

co-religionists, continued to abuse this temporal power not only

during the period of the old regime, but even after the destruction

of the Janissaries, and, again, after the reform in Turkey, and up

to the present moment" [Footnote 4] (1855).

[Footnote 4: "L'Eglise Orientale," p. iv., pp. 17, 18.]

The allusion to the reform in the lost clause of this extract requires

a fuller explanation, and this explanation will furnish the most

conclusive evidence of the degradation of the patriarchate, by showing

that not only have its clergy submitted to be the tools of the Ottoman

government when it was disposed to oppress the Christians in the worst

manner, but that they have even resisted and thwarted the efforts of

that government itself, when it was disposed to emancipate the

Christians from a part of their bondage.

The Sultan Mahmoud I I., a man of superior genius and enlightened

views, devoted all the energies of his great mind to the effort of

restoring his empire, rapidly verging toward dissolution, to

prosperity and splendor. He devised for this end a gigantic scheme of

political reformation, one part of which was the abolition of all

civil distinction between his subjects of different religions. He was

unable to do more, during his lifetime, than barely to commence the

execution of his grand project. His son and successor, Abdul-Medjid,

continued to prosecute the same work, and, at the beginning of his

reign, published a decree called the _Tinzimat_, enjoining certain

reformations in the manner of administering law and justice in the

provinces. The Christian inhabitants of Turkey were the ones who ought

to have profited most by this decree. On the contrary, the very

privileges which it accorded them, by withdrawing them in great

measure from the authority of the local Mussulman tribunals, deprived

them of their only resource against the oppressions and exactions of

their own clergy, and rendered their condition worse. The bishops

succeeded in getting a more exclusive control than ever over all cases

of jurisdiction relating to Christians, and made use of their power to

fleece their people more unmercifully than they had ever done before.

Encouraged by the publication of die Tinzimat, these unhappy Christian

communities ventured to send remonstrances to the Ottoman {13}

government against their cruel and mercenary pastors. In consequence

of these remonstrances, the Porte addressed the following official

note, dated Feb. 4, 1850, to the Patriarch of Constantinople:

"Since, according to the Christian religion, the bishops are the

pastors of the people, they ought to guide them in the right way,

protect them, and console them, but never oppress them. As, however,

many metropolitans and bishops commit actions in the provinces

_which even the most despicable of men would not dare to

perpetrate_, the Christian populations, crushed under this

oppression, address themselves continually to the government,

supplicating it to grant them its assistance and protection.

Consequently, as the government cannot refuse to take into

consideration these just complaints of its own subjects, it wills

absolutely that these disorders cease. It invites, therefore, the

patriarch to convoke an assembly of bishops and of the principal

laymen of his religion, and, in concert with them, to consider

fraternally of the means of doing away with these oppressions and

the just complaints in regard to them, by regulating their

ecclesiastical and communal administration in conformity with the

precepts of their own religion and with the instructions the

Tinzimat." [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. iii., p. 144.]

A very edifying sermon this, from a Mohammedan minister of state to

the "spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church!"

Like many other sermons, however, it did not produce a result

corresponding to its excellence. The good advice it contained was

followed up by levying a new tax. The patriarch sent immediately to

all the bishops a circular in which he prescribed to them "to admonish

the people, that since the government had imposed upon the church the

obligation of conforming to the demands of certain dioceses, and

applying everywhere the system of giving fixed salaries to the

bishops, the most holy patriarch is obliged to conform himself to the

orders of the government and to put them in execution as soon as

possible. But since both the general commune of Constantinople and the

particular ones of the several dioceses are burdened with debts which

amount to about 7,000,000 of piastres, it is just that the people

should previously pay off these debts; the bishops are, therefore,

ordered to proceed immediately to an exact enumeration of all the

Christian inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, without

excepting either widows or unmarried persons. In this way the

patriarchate, taking the census as its guide, can assign to each

Christian the sum which he is bound to pay for the pre-extinction of

the communal debts, and afterward apply the system of fixed episcopal

revenues." [Footnote 6]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 144., p. 145.]

The poor people, terrified by this enormous tax, and by the

persecution which overtook the prime movers in the remonstrance, as

the secretary of the commission on the Tinzimat informs us, "swallowed

painfully their grievances and no longer dared to continue their just

reclamations to the government." The Ottoman government, intimidated

by the threats of the ecclesiastical Janissaries of the Cara-Casan,

"was obliged to yield to the force of circumstances, as they were used

to do in the time of their terrible _confrères_, and abandoned the

question completely."

The Greek revolution has also in one way aggravated the lot of the

Christians of Turkey, by causing the compulsory or voluntary removal

from the capital of the principal merchants and other Christians of

superior station and influence, who formed the greatest check upon the

unworthy clerical rulers. Under the name of "primates of the nation,"

they had a share in the management of ecclesiastical finances and

other temporal affairs, and as their compatriot, Mr. Pitzipios,

affirms, "these good citizens, inspired by their charitable {14}

sentiments, and encouraged by the influence which they had with the

Ottoman government, repressed greatly the abuses of the clergy, and

moderated, as far as they were able, the vexations of the people."

[Footnote 7] The men of this class who remained in Constantinople were

removed by the government, as foreigners, from all share in the

administration of Christian' affairs, and their places filled with the

creatures of the patriarchal clique, men of the lowest rank and

character, who were ready tools for every nefarious work.

[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 147.]

As a natural consequence of the faithless abuse of the sacred

religious and civil trust committed to the higher clergy, they and

their inferior clergy are detested and despised by their people, who

are held in subjection to them only by physical coercion. Mr.

Pitzipios assures us that there is among them a very strong

predisposition to Protestantism. A form of deism, introduced by

Theophilus Cairy, a Greek priest, who died in prison in the year 1851,

made great progress before it was suppressed by the civil power, and

is now secretly working with great activity in Greece and Turkey.

We cannot but think that the last and most degraded phase of the

Byzantine _Bas Empire_, impersonated in the schismatical patriarchate

of Constantinople, is destined soon to pass away. We hope and expect

soon to see the end of the Ottoman power, which alone sustains this

odious ecclesiastico-political tyranny. The signs of the political

horizon appear to indicate that Russia is destined to gain possession

of the ancient seat of the Greek empire. However this may be, if the

Church of Constantinople, and the other far more ancient churches

within her sphere of jurisdiction, are ever to be restored to a

healthy Christian vitality, and made to reflourish as of old, it must

be by a thorough ecclesiastical reformation, which shall sweep away

the present dominant clique in the clergy and the whole policy which

they have established.

The beginning of this reformation has already been inaugurated in the

kingdom of Greece. The bishops of that kingdom, in recovering freedom

from the odious yoke of Constantinople, have recovered the character

of Christian prelates and pastors. The severe remarks which we have

made respecting the Oriental hierarchy must be understood as

applicable only to that particular clique who have heretofore made

themselves dominant through intrigue and violence. There no doubt have

been, and are, among the higher clergy of the Turkish empire, some

exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and moral unworthiness.

The Greek bishops themselves who were established in their sees under

the old regime, manifested by their open or tacit concurrence in the

revolution that virtue had not completely died out under the pressure

of a long slavery. Since the establishment of Grecian independence,

the measures they have taken, in concert with the other members of the

higher secular and monastic clergy and the government, for the

amelioration of religion, are such as to reflect honor on themselves,

and to give great promise for the future. They live in a simple and

frugal manner, and some of them, instead of leaving millions of

piastres to their relatives, like their Turkish brethren, have not

left behind them enough money to defray their own funeral expenses.

They endeavor to select the best subjects for ordination to the

priesthood and to give them a good theological and religious training.

Professorships of theological science are established in the

University of Athens. The catechism is carefully taught to the young

people and children, and every year ten of the most competent among

the clergy are sent at the public expense to preach throughout all the

towns and villages of the kingdom. Such is the happy result of the

successful effort of these noble Greeks, so endeared to every lover of

learning, valor, and {15} religion for the memories of their glorious

antiquity, to shake off the yoke of the sultans and the patriarchs of

Constantinople. It is this miserable amalgam of Moslem despotism, and

usurped or abused spiritual power in the hands of a degenerate clergy

at Constantinople, which is the great obstacle in the way of the

regeneration of the East. We have already seen that the ecclesiastical

tyranny of the patriarchate is now confined to the one hundred and

forty-two small bishoprics, and the few millions of people included in

them, which are situated in Turkey. Nevertheless, the political views

of the Russian emperors, and the traditional reverence of the Russian

clergy, still maintain the patriarch and his synod in a modified

spiritual supremacy over the Russian Church, to which two-thirds of

the Oriental rite belong. If Constantinople should fall into the hands

of any of the great powers of Western Christendom, of course the

Cara-Casan, or system of mixed ecclesiastical and civil despotism,

will be overturned, the patriarch will become a mere primate among the

other metropolitans of the nation, and the patriarchate be reduced to

a simply honorary dignity like that of the Western patriarchs of

Venice and Lisbon. If the Czar becomes the master of European Turkey,

the same result will take place, with this only exception, that the

See of Constantinople will become the primatial see of the Russian

empire, and the Russian hierarchy will take the place of the effete

Byzantine clergy, which they are far more worthy, from their learning

and strict morality, to occupy.

What is to be the political and ecclesiastical destiny of the East,

and Russia, its gigantic infant, who can foretell, without prophetic

gifts? If the Russian emperors prove that they are destined and are

worthy to begin anew and to fulfil the grand design of Constantine,

Theodosius, Justinian, Pulcheria, and Irene, by creating a thoroughly

Christian empire of the East, we shall rejoice to see them enthroned

in Constantinople. If they are destined to restore the cross to the

dome of St. Sophia, and to renovate the ancient glory of that temple,

desecrated by Christian infamy more than by the Moslem crescent, we

shall exult in their achievement. If new Chrysostoms and Gregories

shall rise up to efface the dishonor of their predecessors, we will

forget the past, and give them the homage due to true and worthy

successors of the saints. We have no desire to see the Church of

Constantinople degraded, or the Eastern Church humiliated. The

Oriental Church is orthodox and catholic in its faith, and its several

great rites are fully sanctioned and protected by the Holy See. The

heresies which are found among a portion of its clergy are personal

heresies, and have never been established by any great synod, or

incorporated into their received doctrinal standards. We do not

condemn the great body of its people of even formal schism, but rather

compassionate them as suffering from a state of schism which has been

forced on them by a designing and unworthy faction, and is perpetuated

in great part through misunderstanding, prejudice, and national

antipathies. The causes and grounds of this unnatural state must

necessarily come up among them very soon for a more thorough

investigation. Study, thought, discussion, and contact with Western

Catholicism, as well as Western Protestantism and rationalism, will

compel them to place themselves face to face with their own hereditary

and traditional dogmas; and either to be consistent with themselves,

and submit to the supremacy of the Roman See, or to give up their

orthodoxy and open the doors to a religious revolution. We cannot deny

that the latter alternative is possible, although we are sure that Dr.

Pusey, and men like-minded with him, would deplore it as a great

calamity. We trust it will be otherwise. The Easter morning of

resurrection, which {16} we are now celebrating, dawned for us in _the

East_. It is the land, of Christ and his apostles, the birth-place of

our religion. We hope the day of resurrection for its decayed and

languishing churches may not be far distant.

------

From The Month.

SAINTS OF THE DESERT.

BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Abbot Antony pointed out to a brother a stone, and said to him,

"Revile that stone, and beat it soundly."

When he had done so, Antony said, "Did the stone say anything?" He

answered, "No."

Then said Antony: "Unto this perfection shalt thou one day come."

2. When Abbot Arsenius was ill, they laid him on a mat, and put a pillow

under his head, and a brother was scandalized.

Then said his attendant to the brother: "What were you before you were

a monk?" He answered, "A shepherd." Then he asked again, "And do you

live a harder or an easier life now than then?" He replied, "I have

more comforts now." Then said the other, "Seest thou this abbot? When

he was in the world he was the father of emperors. A thousand slaves

with golden girdles and tippets of velvet waited on him, and rich

carpets were spread under him. _Thou_ hast gained by the change which

has made thee a monk; it is thou who art now encompassed with

comforts, but he is afflicted."

3. When Abbot Agatho was near his end, he remained for three days with

his eyes open and steadily fixed.

His brethren shook him, sayings "Abbot, where are you?"

He replied, "I stand before the judgment seat."

They said, "What, father! do you you too fear? think of your works."

He made answer: "I have no confidence till I shall have met my God."

4. Abbot Pastor was asked, "Is it good to cloak a brother's fault?"

He answered: "As often as we hide a brother's sin, God hides one of

ours, but he tells ours in that hour in which we tell our brother's."

5. The Abbot Alonius said: "Unless a man says in his heart, I and my

God are the only two in the world, he will not have rest."

6. Abbot Pambo, being summoned by St. Athanasius to Alexandria, met an

actress, and forthwith began to weep. "I weep," he said, "because I do

not strive to please my God as she strives to please the impure."

7. An old monk fell sick and for many days could not eat, and his

novice made him some pudding. There was a vessel of honey, and there

was another vessel of linseed oil for the lamp, good for nothing else,

for it was rancid. The novice mistook, and mixed up the oil in the

pudding. The old man said not a word, but ate it.

The novice pressed him, and helped him a second time, and the old man

ate again.

When he offered it the third time, the old man said, "I have had

enough;" but the novice cried, "Indeed, it is very good. I will eat

some with you."

When he had tasted it, he fell on his face and said: "Father, I shall

be the death of you! Why didn't you speak?"

The old man answered: "Had it been God's will that I should eat honey,

honey thou wouldst have given me."

{17}

From The Literary Workman.

JENIFER'S PRAYER.

BY OLIVER CRANE.

IN THREE PARTS.

I.

He and she stood in a room in an inn in the town of Hull--and how she

wept! Crying as a child cries, with a woman's feelings joining

exquisite pain to those tears; which tears, in a way wonderful and

peculiar to beautiful women, scarcely disordered her face, or gave

anything worse to her countenance than an indescribably pathetic

tenderness.

He was older than she was by full ten years. He only watched her. And

if the most acute of my readers had watched _him_, they would have

been no wiser for their scrutiny.

At last she left the room; he had opened the door and offered his hand

to her. It was night; and she changed her chamber-candle from her

right hand to her left, and gave that right hand to him. He held it,

while he said: "I spoke because I dread the influence of the house we

are going to, and of those whom you will meet there."

"Thank you. Good night" And so she got to a great dark bed-room, and

knelt down, like a good girl as she was, and cried no more, but was in

bed and asleep before he had left the place he had taken by the side

of the sitting-room fire, leaning thoughtfully against the

mantel-shelf, when her absence had made the room lonely.

Then he ran down stairs and rushed out into the streets of the kingly

Hull--Kingston of the day of Edward I. The man we speak of was no

antiquary, and he troubled himself neither with the Kingston of the

royal Edward nor the _Vaccaria_ of the abbot from whom the place was

bought; he walked at a quick pace through streets dim and streets

lighted, toward the ships, or among the houses; to where he could see

the great headland of Holderness, or behold nothing at all but the

brick wall that prevented his going further, and told him by strong

facts that he had lost his way. So he wandered, walking fast

often--again, walking slowly; his head bowed down, his features

working, and his eyes flashing--clenched hands, or hands clasped on

his breast, as if to keep down the surging waves of memory, which

carried on their crests many things which now he could only gnash his

teeth at in withering vexation.

He and she had come from Scotland. I have said that she was

beautiful--she was English, too; but he was Scotch born and bred, and

not dark and stem, or really wild or poetic, as a Scotchman in a story

ought to be. He was simply a strong, well-formed man, of dark, ruddy

complexion, and fine, thick, waving brown hair. He might have been a

nobleman, or a royal descendant of Hull's own king. He looked it all,

without being downright handsome. But he was, in fact, only one of the

many men who have come into a thousand a year too soon for the

preservation of prudence. Between sixteen, when he succeeded to it,

and twenty-one, when he could spend it, he had committed many follies,

and found friends who turned out worse than declared enemies--since

twenty-one he had fallen {18} in love more than once. He had been

praised, blamed, accused, acquitted. But whether or not this man was

good or bad, no living soul could tell. He was well off, well looking,

well read, and in good company. He re-entered the inn at Hull that

April night, stood by the fire smoking, asked for a cup of strong

coffee, went to bed.

The next morning the two met at breakfast They were going south. No

matter where. Whether to the dreamy vales of Devonshire, to verdant

Somersetshire, or the gardens of Hampshire--no matter. They were going

to what the north Britons call the south. And it did not mean Algeria.

Railways were not everywhere then as railways are now. They had to

travel nearly all day, then to "coach it" to a great town, in whose

history coaches have now long been of the past. Then to get on a

second day by the old "fast four-horse," and to arrive about five

o'clock at a little quiet country town, where a carriage would take

them to the friends and the house whose influence he dreaded.

In fact, that night, in the inn sitting-room, he had offered marriage

to the girl whom he had in charge for safe guardianship on so long a

journey to her far-off home where he was to be a guest. She had felt

that he had abused his trust and taken an unfair advantage of her;

also, she was in that peculiarly feminine state of mind which is

neither expressed by _no_ nor by _yes_. She had upbraided him. He,

pleading guilty in his soul, was in a horror at the thought of losing

her; losing her in that way too, because he had done wrong. Being

miserable, he had shown his misery as a strong man may. He spoke, and

self-reproachfully; but, as he pleaded, he betrayed all he felt. The

girl saw his clasped hands, his bent form, as he leaned down from the

chair on which he sat in the straggling attitude which expressed a

disordered mind. He spoke, looking at the carpet, not loud nor long,

but with a terrible earnestness that frightened the girl, and then she

cried all the more, and seemed to shrink away as if in alarm, and yet

almost angrily. Why would he speak so fiercely--why had he taken this

advantage of her?

Then he had risen up quickly, and said, "Well, you know all now. We

will talk of something else." But she only shook her head and moved

away, and, as we have seen, went to bed.

The next morning they met calmly enough. On his side it was done with

an effort; on hers without effort, yet with a little trembling fear,

which went when she saw his calm, and she poured out tea, and he drank

it, and only a rather extraordinary silence told of too much having

being said the night before.

Now, why was all this? Why were this man and this young English girl

travelling thus to the sweet south coast, and to expecting friends?

While they are travelling on their way, we, you and I, dear reader,

will not only get on before them, but also turn back the pages of

life's story, and read its secrets.

They were going to a great house in a fine park, where fern waved its

tall, mounted feathers of green, and hid the dappled deer from sight--

where great ancestral oaks spread protecting branches; where hawthorn

trees, that it had taken three generations of men to make, stood,

large, thick, knotted, twisted--strange, dark, stunted looking trees

they looked, till spring came, and no green was like their green, and

the glory of their flower-wreaths people made pilgrimages to see. The

place was called Beremouth.

A mile and a half off was a town; one of those odd little old places

which tell of days and fashions past away. A very respectable place.

There had lived in Marston the dowager ladies of old country families,

in houses which had no pretensions to grandeur as you passed them in

the extremely quiet street, but which on the other side broke out into

bay windows, garden fronts, charming conservatories, and a {19} good

many other things which help to make life pleasant. So the inhabitants

of Marston were not all mere country-town's people. They knew

themselves to be _somebodies_ and they never forgot it.

Now, in this town dwelt a certain widow lady; poor she was, but she

had a pedigree and two beautiful daughters. Mary and Lucia Morier were

not two commonly, or even uncommonly, pretty girls; they were

wonderfully beautiful, people said, and nothing less. So lovers came a

courting. One married a Scotchman, a Mr. Erskine. They liked each

other quite well enough, Lucia thought, when she made her promises,

and received his; and so they did. They lived happily; did good;

wished for children but never had any, and so adopted Mr. Erskine's

orphan nephew--namely, the very man who behaved with such strange

imprudence in the inn at Hull. Mr. Erskine the uncle was twenty years

older than Mrs. Erskine the aunt. Mr. Erskine the younger was but a

child when they adopted him. But he was their heir, as well as the

inheritor of his father's' fortune, and they loved and cared for him.

Mary Morier did differently. She married at twenty, her younger sister

having married the month before at eighteen. Mary did differently, for

she did imprudently. They had had a brother who was an agent for

certain mines thirty miles off; and there he lived; but he came home

often enough, and made the house in the old town gay. A year before

the sister married, in fact while that sister was away on a visit to

friends in Scotland, the brother came home ill. He was ill for six

months. It is wonderful how much expense is incurred by a mother in

six months for a son who is sick. It made life very difficult. The

money to pay for Lucia's journey home had to be thought of. To be

sure, she was not there to eat and drink, but then her extra finery

had cost something. George had only earned one hundred a year. It had

not been more than enough to keep him. He came home ill with ten

pounds in his pocket, beside his half-year's rent, which would be due

the next month--certainly money at this time was wanted, for our

friends were sadly pinched. But the one most exemplary friend and

servant Jenifer was paid her wages, and tea and sugar money to the

day; and the doctor got so many guineas that he grew desperate and

suddenly refused to come--then repented, and made a Christian-like

bargain, that he would go on coming on condition that he never saw

another piece of any kind of money.

Mary and her mother looked each other in the face one day, and that

look told all. There was some plate, and they had watches, and a

little fine old-fashioned jewelry--yes, they must go. They were

reduced to poverty at last--this was more than "limited means"--hard

penury had them with a desperate grasp.

Fortune comes in many shapes, and not often openly, and with a

flourish of trumpets--neither did she come in that way now; but

shamefacedly, sneakingly, and ringing the door-bell with a meek, not

to say tremulous pull; and her shape was that of a broad-built, short,

wide-jawed, lanky-haired, pig-eyed, elderly man, with a curious

quantity of waistcoat showing, yet, generally, well dressed. "Your

mistress at home?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer." "Mr. George better?" "No. Never

will be, sir." "Bless me! I beg your pardon!" "Granted before 'tis

asked, sir." "Ah! yes; I have a little business to transact with your

mistress. Can I see her alone?" Mr. Brewer was shown by Jenifer into

the little right-hand parlor. He gravely took out a huge pocket-book,

and then a small parchment-covered account-book appeared. I believe he

had persuaded himself that he was really going to transact business,

and not to perform the neatest piece of deception that a {20}

respectable gentleman ever attempted. A lady entered the room. "Madam,

jour son has been my agent for mines three years--my mine _and land_

agent since Christmas. He takes the additional work at seventy-five

pounds a year extra. The half of that is now due to him. I pay _that_

myself. I have brought it" And thirty-seven pounds ten shillings Mr.

Brewer put on the table, saying, "I will take your receipt, madam.

Don't trouble Georges's head about business; for when you _do_ speak

of that you will have, I am sorry to say, to inform him that in _both_

his places I have had to put another man. I have to give George three

months' payment at the rate of one hundred and seventy pounds a year,

as I gave him no quarter's warning. That is business, do you

understand?" asked Mr. Brewer. "It is for my son to discharge himself,

sir--since he cannot"--the mother's voice faltered. "Ah--only he

didn't, and I did," said Mr. Brewer. "Your receipt? When your son

recovers, let him apply to me. I am sorry to end our connexion so

abruptly. But it is business. Business, you know"--and there Mr.

Brewer stopped, for Mary Morier was in the room, and her beauty filled

it, or seemed to do so. And Mr. Brewer departed muttering, as he had

muttered before often, "the most beautiful girl in the world." Still,

he had an uncomfortable sensation, for he felt he was an underhand

sneak, and that Mary had found him out; and so she had. She knew that

her brother had been "discharged" only to afford a pretext for giving

the quarter's money; and she was sure that his being land agent, at an

additional seventy-five pounds a year, was a pure unadulterated

fiction.

Mr. Brewer was an extraordinary man. He had a turn for the

supernatural. He would have liked above all things to have worked

miracles. He did do odd things, such as we have seen, which he made,

by means of the poetic quality that characterized him, a purely

natural act. He was praising George for a saving, prudent, industrious

young man, who had never drawn the whole of his last year's salary,

before an hour was over. And his story looked so like truth that he

believed it himself.

Mr. Brewer was what people call "a risen man." But then his father had

been rising--and, for the matter of that, his grandfather too. All

their fortunes had flowed into the life of the man who has got into

this story; and he, having had a tide of prosperity exceeding all

others, in height, and strength, and riches, had found himself

stranded on the great shore of society, at forty years of age, with

more thousands a year than he liked to be generally known. Could he

have transformed himself into a benignant fairy he would have been

very happy, and acts of mercy would have abounded on the earth. But

no--Mr. Brewer was Mr. Brewer, and anything less poetic to look

at--more impossible as to wands, and wings, and good fairy appendages,

it is difficult to imagine. Mr. Brewer was a middle-aged man, with

hands in his pockets; plain truth is always respectable. There it is.

But there was a Mrs. Brewer. Now Mrs. Brewer was an excellent woman,

but not excellent after the manner of her husband. She was three years

older. They had not been in love. They had married at an epoch in Mr.

Brewer's life when public affairs occupied his time so entirely as to

make it desirable to have what people call a "missus;" we are afraid

that Mr. Brewer himself so called the article, a "missus, at home."

Mrs. Brewer had been "a widow lady--young--of a sociable and domestic

disposition" who "desired to be housekeeper--to be treated

confidentially, and as one of the family--to a widower--with or

without children." On inquiry, it was found that young Mrs. Smith had

not irrevocably determined that the owner of the house that she was to

keep should have been the husband of one wife, undoubtedly {21} dead;

the widower was an expression only, a sort of modest way of putting

the plain fact of a single man, or a man capable of matrimony--the

expression meant all that; and when Mrs. Smith entered on the

housekeeping, she acted up to the meaning of the advertisement, and

married Mr. Brewer. Neither had ever repented. Let that be understood.

Only, Mr. Brewer, when he knew he could live in a great house, dine

off silver, keep a four-in-hand, or a pack of hounds, or enter on any

other legitimate mode of spending money, did none of them; but eased

his mind and his pocket by such contrivances as we have seen resorted

to in the presence of the beautiful Mary Morier. He tried curious

experiments of what a man would do with ten pounds. He had dangerous

notions as to people addicted to certain villanies being cured of

their moral diseases by the administration of a hundred a year. In

some round-about ways he had put the idea to the proof, and not always

with satisfactory results. He held as an article of faith--nobody

could guess where he found it--that there were people in the world who

could go straighter in prosperity than in adversity. He never would

believe that adversity was a thing to be suffered. He had replied to a

Protestant divine on that subject, illustrated in the case of a

starving family, that that might be, only it was no concern of his,

and he would not act upon the theory. And the result was a thriving,

thankful family in Australia, to whom Mr. Brewer was always, ever

after, sending valuable commodities, and receiving flower-seeds and

skins of gaudy feathered birds in return.

Mr. Brewer had a daughter, Claudia was her name. "A Bible name," said

Mr. Brewer, and bowed his head, and felt he had done his duty by the

girl. What more could he do? She went to school, and was at school

when he was paying money in Mrs. Morier's parlor. She was then ten

years old; and being a clever child, she had, in the holidays just

over, chosen to talk French, and nothing else, to a friend whom she

had been allowed to bring with her. A thing that had caused great

perturbation in the soul of her honest father, who prayed in a

wordless, but real anxiety, that the Bible name might not be thrown

away on the glib-tongued little gipsy. It will be perceived that

Claudia was a difficulty.

Now, when Mr. Brewer was gone out of Mrs. Morier's house, the mother

took up the money, wiped her eyes, and said, "What a good boy George

was." And Mary said "_Yes;_" and knew in her heart that if there had

been any chance of George living, Mr. Brewer would never have done

_that_.

George died. There was money, just enough for all wants. Lucia came

home engaged to the married to Mr. Erskine. And when she was gone

there went with her a certain seven hundred pounds, her fortune,

settled--what a silly mockery Mr. Erskine thought it--on her children.

The loss made the two who were left very poor. Lucia sent her mother

gifts, but the regular and to be reckoned on eight-and-twenty pounds a

year were gone. She who had eaten, drank, and dressed was gone

too--but still it was a loss; and Mary and her mother were poor. Also,

Mary had long been engaged to be married to the son of a younger

branch of a great county family house, Lansdowne Lorimer by name. He

was in an attorney's office in Marston. In that old-world place, the

attorney, himself of a county family, was a great man. It was hard to

see Lucia marry a man of money and land, young Lorimer thought, so he

advised Mary to assert their independence of all earthly

considerations, and marry too. And they did so.

The young man had no father or mother. He had angry uncles and

insolent aunts, and family friends, all to be respected, and prophets

of evil, every one of them. He had, also, a place in the office, a

clear head, a determined will, a handsome {22} person, a good

pedigree, and a beautiful wife. She, also, had her eight-and-twenty

pounds a year. But they gave it back regularly to Mrs. Morier; for,

you know, they, the young people, _were_ young, and they could work.

Mrs. Morier never spent this money. She and Jenifer, the prime

minister of that court of loyal love, put it by, against the evil day,

and they had just enough for themselves and the cat to live upon

without it.

The county families asked their imprudent kinsman to visit them with

his bride. How they flouted her. How they advised her. How they

congratulated her that she had always been poor. How they assured her

that she would be poor for ever. How, too, they feared that Lansdowne

would never bear hard work, nor anxiety, nor any other of those

troubles which were so very sure to happen. How surprised they were at

the three pretty silk dresses, the one plain white muslin, and the

smart best white net. How they scorned when they heard that she and

Jenifer, and her mother, and a girl at eightpence a day, had made them

all. And, then, how they sunned themselves in her wonderful beauty,

and accepted the world's praises of it, and kept the triumph

themselves, and handed over to her the gravest warnings of its being a

dangerous gift.

Dangerous, indeed! it was the pride of Lorimer's life. And Mary was

accomplished, far more really accomplished than the lazy, half-taught

creatures who had never said to themselves that they might have to

play and sing, and speak French and Italian, for their or their

children's bread. Mary had said it to herself many a time since her

heart had been given to the man who was her husband. A true, brave,

loving heart it was, and that which her common sense had whispered to

it that heart was strong to do, and would be found doing if the day of

necessity ever came. So, at that Castle Dangerous where the bride and

bridegroom were staying, Mary outshone others, and was not the

better loved for that; and one old Lady Caroline crowned the triumph

by ordering a piano-forte for the new home at Marston, with a savage

"Keep up what you know, child; you may be glad of it one day." Old

Lady Caroline was generally considered as a high-bred privileged

savage. But that was the only savage thing she ever said to Mary. She

told Lorimer that he was a selfish, unprincipled brute for marrying

anybody so perfect and so pretty. And Lorimer bore her

misrepresentations with remarkable patience, only making her a

ceremonious bow, and saying in a low voice, "You know better." "I know

you will starve," and she walked off without an answer.

They did not starve. In fact, they prospered, till one sad day when

Lorimer caught cold--and again and again caught cold--cough, pain,

symptoms of consumption--a short, sad story; and then the great end,

death. Mary was a widow three years after her wedding day, with a

child of two years of age at her side, and an income from a life

insurance made by her husband of one hundred a year. We have seen the

child--grown to a beautiful girl of seventeen--we have seen her in the

room with Mr. Erskine, at the inn at Hull.

Mrs. Lorimer went back to live with her mother, Jenifer, and the great

white cat.

The year after this great change, Mrs. Brewer died, and Claudia at

thirteen was a greater difficulty than ever. The first holidays after

the departure of the good mother, the puzzled father had written to

the two Miss Gainsboroughs to bring the child to Marston and stay at

his house during the holidays. He entertained them for a week, and

then went off on a tour through Holland. The next holidays he proposed

that they should take a house at Brighton, and that he should pay all

expenses. This, too, was done, and Mr. Brewer went to a hotel and

there made friends with his precocious daughter in a way that

surprised and pleased {23} him. He visited the young lady, and she

entertained him. He hired horses, and they rode together. He took

boxes at the theatre, and they made parties and went together. He gave

the girl jewelry and fine clothes, and they really got to know each

other, and to enjoy life together as could never have been the case

had they not been thus left to their own way. The child no longer felt

herself of a different world from that of her parents--the father had

a companion in the child who could grace his position, and keep her

own. They parted with love and anxious lookings forward to the summer

meeting. They were both in possession of a new happiness. When Mr.

Brewer got back to Marston, he led a dull, dreamy life--a year and a

half of widowhood passed--then he went to Mrs. Morier's, saw Mary, and

asked her to be his wife. It is not easy to declare why Mary Lorimer

said--after some weeks of wondering-mindedness--why she said "Yes."

She knew all Mr. Brewer's goodness. She preferred, no doubt, not to

wound a heart that had so often sympathized with the wounded. She

never, in her life, could have borne to see him vexed without great

vexation herself. She liked that he should be rewarded. She was

interested in Claudia. She liked the thought of two hundred a year

settled on her mother. She liked to feel that her own little Mary

might be brought up as grandly as any of those little saucy "county

family" damsels, her cousins, who already looked down on her, and

scorned her pink spotted calico frock.

Mary and Mr. Brewer walked quietly to church; Mrs. Morier still in

astonishment, and Jenifer "dazed;" bat all the working people loved

Mr. Brewer. And they walked back, man and wife, to her mother's house,

and had a quiet substantial breakfast before they started for London.

And when there Mr. Brewer told her that they were not to return to the

respectable stone-fronted house facing the market-place in Marston,

but that he had bought Lord Byland's property--and that Beremouth was

theirs. Beremouth, with its spreading park, and river, and lake, its

miles of old pasture-land, its waving ferns, and dappled deer;

Beremouth, with its forest and gardens, royal oaks and twisted

hawthorn trees; Beremouth, the finest place in the county. And all

that Mary felt was, that he who had kept this secret, had had a true

hero's delicacy, and had never thought to bribe her, or to get her by

purchase into his home. I think she almost loved him then.

In due time, after perhaps six months of wandering, and of

preparation, Mr. and Mrs. Brewer arrived at their new home, made

glorious by all that taste and art could do, with London energy

working with the power of gold. With them came Claudia. The child

loved her new mother with an abandonment of heart and a perfect

approval. She was still too young to argue, but she was not too young

to feel. The mother she had now got, though not much more than ten

years older than herself, was the mother to love, admire, delight

in--is the mother who could understand her.

Then Beremouth just suited this young lady's idea of what was worth

having in this world; and without any evil thought of the homely

mother who had gone, there was a thought that "Mother-Mary," as Mrs.

Brewer was called by her step-daughter, looked right at Beremouth, and

that another class of person would have looked wrong there--so wrong

that her father under such circumstances would never have put himself

in the position of trying the experiment.

Minnie Lorimer was very happy in her great play-ground; for all the

world, and all life, was play to little Minnie. She loved her new

sister; and the new sister patronized and petted her, so all seemed

right. It was, indeed, a great happiness for Claudia that her father

had chosen Mary Lorimer. Claudia was a vixenish, little handsome

gipsy; very clever, very {24} high-spirited, full of life, health, and

fun--a girl who could have yielded to very few, and who brought the

homage of heart and mind to "Mother-Mary," and rejoiced in doing it.

These two grew to be great friends, and when after three years Claudia

came home and came out, all parties were happy.

In the meantime Mr. Brewer's way in the world had been straight,

plain, and rapidly travelled. The county was at his feet. Mary was no

longer congratulated on having been brought up to poverty. Behind her

back there were plenty of people to say that Mr. Brewer was happy in

having for his wife a well connected gentlewoman. Her pedigree was

told, her poverty forgotten. Her singing and playing, dancing and

drawing, were none the worse for unknown thousands a year. And people

wondered less openly at the splendor of velvets and diamonds than they

had at the new muslin gown. To Mary herself life was very different in

every way. Daily, more and more, she admired her husband, and approved

of him. It was the awakening into life of a new set of feelings. She

knew none of the love and devotion she had felt for her first husband.

Mr. Brewer never expected any of it. But he intended that she should,

in some other indescribable manner, fall in love with him, and she was

doing it every day--which thing her husband saw, and welcomed life

with great satisfaction in consequence.

It was when Claudia came out that the man we have seen, Horace

Erskine, first came to them. He was just of age. Mary did not like

him. She could give no reason for it. Her sister had always praised

him--but Mary _could_ not like him. He came to them for a series of

gay doings, and Mr. Brewer admired him, and Claudia--poor little

Claudia! She gave him that strong heart of hers; that spirit that

could break sooner than bend was quite enslaved--she loved him, and he

had asked for her love, and vowed a hundred times that he could never

be happy without it. He asked her of her father, and Mr. Brewer

consented. It was not for Mary to say no; but her heart went cold in

its fear, and she was very sorry.

The Erskines in Scotland were delighted--all deemed doing well. But

when Horace Erskine talked to Mr. Brewer about money, he was told that

Claudia would have on her marriage five thousand pounds; and ten

thousand more if she survived him would be forthcoming on his death--

that was all. "Enough for a woman," said Mr. Brewer; and Erskine was

silent. It went on for a few weeks, Horace, being flighty and odd,

Claudia, for the first time in her life, humble and endearing. Then he

told her that to him money was necessary; then he asked her to appeal

to her father for more; then she treated the request lightly, and, at

last, positively refused. If she had not enough, he could leave her.

If he left her, would she take the blame on herself? It would injure

him in his future hopes and prospects to have it supposed to be _his_

doing if they parted? Yes, she said. It was the easiest thing in the

world. Who cared?--not he of course--and, certainly, not Claudia

Brewer. It broke her heart to find him vile. But she was too

discerning not to see the truth; her great thought now was to hide it.

To hide too from every one, even from "Mother-Mary," that her heart

felt death-struck--that the whole place was poisoned to her--that life

at Beremouth was loathsome.

She took a strange way of hiding it.

A county election was going on. The man whom Mr. Brewer hoped to see

elected was a guest at Beremouth. An old, grey-haired, worldly,

statesmanlike man. A man who petted Claudia, and admired her; and who

suddenly woke up one day to a thought--a question--a species of

amusing suggestion, which grew into a {25} profound wonder, and then

even warmed into a hope--surely that pretty bright young heiress liked

him, had a fancy to be the second Lady Greystock. It was a droll

thought at first, and he played with it; a flattering fancy, and he

encouraged it. He was an honest man. He knew that he was great,

clever, learned. Was there anything so wonderful in a woman loving

him? He settled the question by asking Claudia. And she promised to be

his wife with a real and undisguised gladness. Her spirit and her

determination were treading the life out of her heart. She was sincere

in her gladness. She thought she could welcome any duties that took

her away from life at Beremouth, and gave her place and position

elsewhere.

Mary suspected much, and feared everything. But Claudia felt and knew

too much to speak one word of the world of hope and joy and love that

had gone away from her. She declared that she liked her old love, and

gloried in his grey hairs, and in the great heart that had stooped to

ask for hers.

Now what are we to say of Horace Erskine? Was he wholly bad? First, he

had never loved Claudia with a real devotion. He had admired her; she

had loved him. He had gambled--green turf and green cloth--gambled

and recklessly indulged himself till he had got upon the way to ruin,

and had begun the downward path, and was glad to be stopped in that

slippery descent by a marriage with an heiress. There was a sparkle,

an originality, about Claudia. It was impossible not to be taken with

her. But Claudia with only _that_ fortune was of no use to him. He

knew she was brave and true-hearted; so he boldly asked her to guard

his name--in fact, to give him up, and not injure his next chance with

a better heiress by telling the truth. _He_ told _her_ the truth; that

he wanted money, and money he must have. She would not tell him that

the worst part of her trial was the loss of her idol. It was despising

him that broke her heart. But because he had been her idol she would

never injure him--never tell.

So the day came, and at Marston church she married Sir Geoffrey

Greystock, "Mother-Mary" wondering; Mr. Brewer believing, in the

innocence of his heart, that the fancy for Horace Erskine had been a

bit of the old wilfulness. "The last bit--the last," he said, as he

spoke of it to her that very day, making her chilled heart knock

against her side as he spoke, and kissed her, and sent her with

blessings from the Beremouth that she had married to get away from.

_To get away_--it had more to do with her marrying than any other

thought. To get away from the house, the spreading pastures, the

bright garden, and above all from the _old deer pond_ in the park--the

most beautiful of all the many lovely spots that nature and art, and

time and taste, had joined to create and adorn Beremouth. The old deer

pond in the park! Sheltered by ancient oak; backed by interlacing

boughs of old hawthorn trees; shadowed by tall, shining, dark dense

holly, that glowed through the winter with its red berries, and

contrasted with the long fair wreaths of hawthorn flowers in the sweet

smiling spring. There, in this now dreaded place, Horace Erskine had

first spoken of love; and there how often had he promised her the

happiness that had gone out of her life--for ever. In the terrible

nights, when her broken-hearted pains were strongest, this deer pond

in the park had been before her closed eyes like a vision. In its

waters she saw in her sleep her face and his, so happy, so loving, so

trusting, so true. Then the picture in that water changed, and she

watched it in her feverish dreams with horror, but yet was obliged to

gaze, and the truth went out of his face, and the terror came into

hers. And, worse and worse, he grew threatening--he was cold--he had

never loved--he was killing her; and she fell, fell from her height of

happiness; no protecting {26} arm stayed her, and the dark waters

opened, and she heard the rushing sound of their deadly waves closing

over her, as she sunk--sunk--again and again, night after night Oh, to

get away, to get away! And she blessed Sir Geoffrey, and when he said

he was too old to wait for a wife she was glad, for she had no wish to

wait. Change, absence, another home, another life, another

world--these things she wanted, and they had come. Is it any wonder

that she took them as the man who is dying of thirst takes the

longed-for draught, and drains the cup of mercy to the dregs?

It was a happy day to marry. Mr. Brewer had not only an excuse, but a

positively undeniable reason for being bountiful and kind. For once he

could openly, and as a matter of duty, make the sad hearts in

Marston--and elsewhere--sing for joy. His blessings flowed so

liberally that he had to apologize. It was only for once--he begged

everybody's pardon, but it could never happen again; he had but this

one child, and she was a bride, and so if they would forgive

everything this once! And many a new life of gladness was begun that

day; many a burden then lost its weight; many a record went up to the

Eternal memory to meet that man at the inevitable hour.

Little Mary was the loveliest bridesmaid the world ever saw; standing

alone like an angel by her dark sister's side. She was the only thing

that Claudia grieved to leave. She was glad to flee away from

"Mother-Mary." She dreaded lest those sweet wistful eyes should read

her heart one day; and she could not help rejoicing to get away from

that honest, open-hearted father's sight. Her poor, wrecked, shrunken

heart--her withered life, could not bear the contrast with his free,

kind, bounteous spirit that gave such measure of love, pressed down

and running over, to all who wanted it. Her old husband, Sir Geoffrey,

resembled that great good heart in whose love she had learnt to think

all men true, more than did her young lover Horace Erskine--she could

be humble and thankful to Sir Geoffrey; a well-placed approval was a

better thing than an ill-placed love. So with that little vision of

beauty, Minnie Lorimer, by her side, Claudia became Sir Geoffrey's

wife.

Four months past, the bride and bridegroom were entertaining a grand

party at their fine ancestral home, and Mr. Brewer was the father of a

son and heir. Horace Erskine read both announcements in the paper one

morning, and ground his teeth with vexation. He went to his desk and

took out three letters, a long lock of silky hair, a small

miniature--these things he had begged to keep. Laughing, he had argued

that he was almost a relation. His uncle had married "Mother-Mary's"

sister. She had had no strength to debate with him. She had chosen to

wear the mask of indifference, too, to him. He now made these things

into a parcel and sent them to Sir Geoffrey Greystock without one word

of explanation. When they were gone he wrote to his uncle, begged for

some money, got it, and started for Vienna. The money met him in

London, and he crossed to France the same day.

In the midst of great happiness the strong heart of good Sir Geoffrey

stood still. His wife sought him. She found him in his chair in a fit.

On a little table by his side was the parcel just received. Claudia

knew all. She took the parcel into the room close by, called her

dressing room, rung for help, but in an hour Sir Geoffrey was dead;

and Claudia had burnt the letters and the lock of silky hair.

The business of parliament, the excitement attendant on his marriage

with that beautiful girl, the entertainment of that great house full

of company--these reasons the world reckoned up, and found sufficient

to answer the questions and the wonderings on Sir Geoffrey's death.

But when those solemn walls no longer knew their master, Claudia, into

whose new life the new things held but an {27} unsteady place, grew

ill. First of all, sleepless nights: how could she sleep with the

sound of those waters by the deer pond in her ears? How could she help

gazing perpetually at the picture on the pond's still surface: Horace

and Sir Geoffrey, and herself not able to turn aside the death-stroke,

but standing, fettered by she knew not what, in powerless misery, only

obliged to see the changing face of her husband till the dead seemed

to be again before her, and Horace melted out of sight, and she woke,

dreading fever and praying against delirium? She was overcome at last.

Terrible hours came, and "Mother-Mary's" sweet face mingling with some

strong, subduing, life-endangering dream, was the first thing that

seemed to bring her back to better things, and to restore her to

herself.

In fact, Claudia had had brain fever, and whether or not she was ever

to know real health again was a problem to be worked out by time.

Would she come back to her father's house? No! The very name of

Beremouth was to be avoided. Would she go abroad? Oh, no; there was a

dread of separation upon her. "Somewhere where you can easily hear of

me, and I of you; where you can come and see me, for I shall never see

Beremouth again." It was her own thought, and so, about five miles

from Beremouth, in the house of a Doctor Rankin, who took ladies out

of health into his family, Claudia determined to go. It was every way

the best thing that could be done, for every day showed more strongly

than the last that Claudia would never be what is emphatically called

"herself" again. So people said.

Dr. Rankin was kind, learned, and wise; Mrs. Rankin warm-hearted and

friendly. Other patients beside Lady Greystock were there. It was not

a private asylum, and Claudia was not mad; it was really what it

called itself, a home which the sick might share, with medical

attendance, cheerful company, and out-door recreations in a well-kept

garden and extensive grounds of considerable beauty. Claudia had known

Dr. and Mrs. Rankin, and had called with her father at Blagden, where

they lived. And there her father and "Mother-Mary" took her three

months after her husband's death, looking really aged, feeble, and

strangely sad.

After a time--it was a long time--Claudia was said to be well.

"Perfectly recovered," said Dr. Rankin, "and in really satisfactory

health." So she was when Minnie Lorimer stood in the room at the inn

in Hull, talking to that very Horace Erskine, who was bringing her

home from her aunt's in Scotland to her mother at Beremouth.

"Sweet seventeen!" Very sweet and beautiful, pleasing the eye,

gratifying the mind, filling the heart with hope, and setting

imagination at play--Minnie Lorimer was beautiful, and with all that

peculiar beauty about her that belongs to "a spoilt child" who has not

been spoilt after all.

Claudia--how old she looked! Claudia, with that one only shadow on her

once bright face, was still living with Dr. and Mrs. Rankin. It was

Lady Greystock's pleasure to live with them. She said she had grown

out of the position of a patient, and into their hearts as a friend.

"Was it not so?" she asked. It was impossible to deny that which

really brought happiness to everybody. "Well, then, I shall build on a

few rooms to the house, and I shall call them mine, and I shall add to

the coach-house, and hire a cottage for my groom and his wife--I shall

live here. Why not? You will take care of me, and feed me, and scold

me, and find me a good guidable creature. You know I shall be ill if

you refuse."

It all happened as she chose. Hers was the prettiest carriage in the

county, the best horses, the most perfectly appointed little

household--for she had her own servants. Among her most devoted

friends were the good doctor and his wife. Lady Greystock was as

positive and as much given to {28} govern as the clever little Claudia

in school-girl days. But the arrangement was a success, and

"Mother-Mary," who saw her constantly, was very glad. Only one trouble

survived; Claudia would never go and stay at Beremouth. She would

drive her ponies merrily to the door, and even spend an hour or two

within the house, but never would she stay there--never! She used to

say to herself that she dared not trust herself with the things that

had witnessed her love, her sorrow, her marriage--with the things that

told her of him who had ruined everything like a murderer--as he was.

And so, to save appearances, she used to say that she never stayed

away from Blagden for a single night, and she never left off black. It

was not that she wore a widow's dress, or covered up the glories of

her beautiful hair. She was but twenty-nine at the moment recorded in

the first page of this story. She was very thin and pale, but she was

a strong woman, and one who required no more care than any other

person; but she had determined never again to see Horace Erskine. What

he had done had become known to her, as we have seen. She only

bargained with life, as it were, in this way, that _that_ man should

be out of it for ever. And for this it was that she made her

resolution and kept it.

Horace Erskine had been abroad for some years; but though she had felt

safe in that fact, she had looked into the future and kept her

resolution. And so she lived on at Blagden, doing good, blessing the

poor, comforting the afflicted, visiting the sick, and beautifying all

things, and adorning all places that came within her reach. Certain

things she was young enough to enjoy greatly; the chief of these was

the contemplation of Frederick Brewer, her half-brother, a fine boy of

nine years old, for nine years of widowhood had been passed, and

through all that time this boy, her dear father's son, had been Lady

Greystock's delight. She loved "Mother-Mary" all the better for having

given him to her father, and she felt a strong, unutterable

thanksgiving that, his birth having been expected, the test of whether

or not Horace Erskine loved her for herself had been applied before

she had become chained to so terrible a destiny as that of being wife

to a thankless, disappointed man. Terrible as her great trial had

been, she might have suffered that which, to one of her temper, would

have been far worse. So Fred Brewer would ride over to see his sister.

Day after day the boy's bright face would be laid beside her own, and

to him, and only to him, would she talk of Sir Geoffrey. Then they

would ride together down to Marston to see Mrs. Morier and Jenifer,

who was a true friend, and lived on those terms with the lady who

loved her well; then to the market-place where the old home stood, now

turned into an almshouse of an eccentric sort, with all rules included

under one head, that the dear old souls were to have just whatever

they wanted. Did Martha Gannet keep three parrots, and did they eat as

much as a young heifer? and scream, too? ah, that was their

nature--never go against a dumb creature's nature, Mr. Brewer said

there was always cruelty in that--and did they smell, and give

trouble, and would they be mischievous, and tear Mrs. Betty's cap?

Indeed. Mr. Brewer was delighted. An excellent excuse for giving new

caps to all the inmates, and to look up all troubles, and mend

everybody's griefs--such an excellent thing it was that the fact of

three parrots should lead to the discovery of so many disgraceful

neglects that Mr. Brewer begged leave to apologize very heartily and

sincerely while he diligently repaired them. It was a very odd school

to bring up young Freddy in. But we are obliged to say that he was not

at all the worse for it.

And here we must say what we have not said before. Mr. Brewer was a

Catholic. He and Jenifer were {29} Catholics; Mrs. Brewer had not been

a Catholic; and Claudia had been left to her mother's teaching. When

Freddy was born, Mr. Brewer considered his ways. And what he saw in

his life we may see shortly. He had been born of a Catholic mother who

had died, and made his Protestant father promise to send him to a

Catholic school. He had stood alone in the world, he had always stood

alone in the world. He seemed to see nothing else. Three miles from

Marston was a little dirty sea-port, also a sort of fishing place. A

place that bore a bad character in a good many ways. Some people would

have finished that character by saying that there were Papists there.

To that place every Sunday Mr. Brewer went to mass. Many and many a

lift he had given to Jenifer on those days. How much Jenifer's talk

assisted his choice of Mary for his wife, we may guess. When Freddy

was born Jenifer said her first words on the subject of religion to

Mr. Brewer: "You will have him properly baptized:" "Of course." "Order

me the pony cart, and I'll go to Father Daniels." "I must tell Mrs.

Brewer." "Leave that to me--just send for the cart." It _was_ left to

Jenifer. By night the priest had come and gone. It had not been his

first visit. He had been there many times, and had known that he was

welcome. The Clayton mission had felt the blessing of Mr. Brewer's

gold. He had seldom been at the house in the market-place in Marston,

but at Beremouth Mary had plucked her finest flowers, and sent them

back in the old gentleman's gig, and he had been always made welcome

in her husband's house with a pretty grace and many pleasant

attentions. Now, when Freddy was baptized, Mr. Brewer went to his wife

and bent over her, and said solemnly, "Mary--my dear wife; Mary--I

thank thee, darling. I thank thee, my love." And the single tear that

fell on her cheek she never forgot.

Then Mr. Brewer met Jenifer at his wife's door. "It's like a new life,

Jenifer." And the steady-mannered woman looked in his bright eyes and

saw how true his words were.

"It's a steady life of doing good to everybody that you have ever led,

sir. It was a lonely life once, no doubt. I was dazed when she married

you. But, eh, master; I have _that_ to think about, and _that_ to pray

for, that a'most makes me believe in anything happening to _you_ for

good, when so much is asked for, day and night, in my own prayer."

"Put _us_ into it; let me and mine be in Jenifer's prayer," he said,

and passed on.

TO BE CONTINUED.

----

From The Month.

PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR THE STEAM-ENGINE.

The present year has been remarkable for the large number of machines

invented for the purpose of superseding steam, in at least some of its

lighter tasks. Many of these are due to French engineers; being

further proofs, if any were required, of the great activity now

displayed in France in all matters of mechanical invention.

Two of these new engines are especially interesting as illustrating

that all-important law in modern physics, the correlation or

convertibility of forces. By this is meant that the forces of

inanimate nature, such as light, heat, electricity--nay, even the

muscular and nerve forces of living beings--have such a mutual

dependence and connection that each one is only produced or called

into action by another, and only ceases to be manifest when it has

given birth to a fresh force in its turn. Thus motion (in the {30}

shape of friction) produces heat, electricity, or light; heat produces

light or electricity; electricity, magnetism; and so on in an endless

chain, which links together all the phenomena of this visible

universe.

As a metaphysical principle, this is as old as Aristotle, and may be

found dimly foreshadowed in the forcible lines of Lucretius:

"--Pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether

In gremium matris terrai praecipitavit;

At nitidae surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt,

Arboribus crescunt ipsae, fetuque gravautur,

Hinc alitar porro nostrum genus atque ferarum.

* * * * * *

Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,

Quando aliud ex alio reflcit natura, nec ullam

Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adjuta aliena." [Footnote 8]

[Footnote 8: Lucret. lib. i. 250-65.]

But the rediscovery of this law, as a result of experiment, is due to

English physicists of our own day; and it is so invariably true, and

the produced force is always so perfectly proportioned to the force

producing it, that some [Footnote 9] have gone so far as to revive a

very old hypothesis in philosophy, supposing that all the forces of

nature are but differently expressed forms of the Divine Will.

[Footnote 9: Dr. Carpenter, Philos. Trans. 1840, vol. ii. ]

As a corollary to this law, it follows that many a force of nature,

hitherto neglected because of its position or intractability, may be

turned to practical account by using it to produce some new power,

which may be either stored up or transmitted to a distance, and so can

be employed wherever and whenever it is required. Thus, in the first

machine we propose to notice, a M. Cazal has just hit upon a plan by

which to use the power of falling water at a considerable distance. He

employs a water-wheel to turn a magneto-electric machine (of the kind

used for medical purposes, on a very large scale), and the electric

force so obtained may be conveyed to any distance, and employed there

as a motive power. In this way a mountain stream in the Alps or

Pyrenees may turn a lathe, or set a loom in motion, in a workshop in

Paris or Lyons; or even (as has been remarked), if a wire were laid

across the Atlantic, the whole force of Niagara would be at our

disposal.

The idea is at present quite in its infancy; but we are told that the

few experiments hitherto made show that such an engine is not only

very ingenious but perfectly feasible, and (most important of all)

economical.

The second engine gave promise of considerable success when first

brought out in Paris about eight months ago. It was invented by a M.

Tellier, and proceeds on the principle of storing up force, to be used

when wanted. It has long been well known to chemists that a certain

number of gases (as chlorine, carbonic acid, ammonia, and sulphuretted

hydrogen) can be condensed into liquids by cold or pressure, or both

combined. Of all these gases, ammonia is the most easily liquefied,

requiring for this purpose, at ordinary temperatures, a pressure only

six and a half times greater than that of the atmosphere. A supply of

liquid ammonia obtained in this manner is kept by M. Tellier in a

closed vessel, and surrounded with a freezing mixture, so that it has

but little tendency to return to the gaseous state. A small quantity

is allowed to escape from this reservoir under the piston of the

engine, and, the temperature there being higher than in the reservoir,

the ammonia becomes at once converted into gas, increasing thereby to

more than twelve hundred times its previous bulk, and so driving the

piston with great force to the top of the cylinder. A little water is

now admitted, which entirely dissolves the ammonia, a vacuum being

thus created, and the piston driven down again by the pressure of the

air without. M. Tellier employs three such cylinders, which work in

succession; and the only apparent limit to the power to be obtained

from this machine is the amount of liquid ammonia which would have to

be used, about three gallons (or twenty-two pounds) being required for

each horse-power per hour. There is no waste of material; for the

water which has dissolved {31} the gas is saved, and the ammonia

recovered from it by evaporation, and afterwards condensed into a

liquid. M. Tellier proposed to use his engine for propelling omnibuses

and other vehicles; but it would appear that it is too expensive and

too cumbrous to be practically useful; there can, however, be very

little doubt that the principle will be used with success in some new

form. A patent has quite recently been taken out for such an engine in

England. It will be perceived at once how the ammonia engine

illustrates the law of storing up force. It originates no power of its

own, but simply gives out by degrees the mechanical force which had

been previously employed to change the ammonia from a gas to a liquid.

Lenoir's "gas-engine" has been more successful; for, although but a

few months old, it has been already largely adopted in Parisian

hotels, schools, and other large establishments, for raising lifts,

making ices, and even--for what is not done now-a-days by

machinery?--cleaning boots. In London, it was lately exhibited in

Cranbourne Street, and is now used for turning lathes and for other

light work.

This engine, like the ammonia-engine, is provided with an ordinary

cylinder, into which coal-gas and air are admitted, under the piston,

in the proportions of eleven parts of the latter to one of the former.

The mixture is then exploded by the electric spark, and the remaining

air, being greatly expanded, drives up the piston. When the top is

reached the gas and air are again admitted, but this time above the

piston, and the explosion is repeated, so that the piston is driven

down again. The most ingenious part of the whole thing is the

mechanism by which the electric spark is directed alternately to the

upper and lower ends of the cylinder. This cannot be satisfactorily

explained without a diagram, but is brought about (roughly speaking)

by connecting either end of the cylinder with a semicircle of brass,

which is touched by the "rotary crank" in the course of its

revolution. The crank is already charged with electricity, and so

communicates the electric spark to each of the semicircles in turn.

The cylinder is kept plunged in water, so that there is no fear of its

overheating by the constant explosions.

This engine has cheapness for its main recommendation. A

half-horsepower gas-engine (the commonest power made) costs, when

complete, £65, and consumes twopence worth of gas per hour; while the

cost of keeping the battery active is about fourpence per week.

An engineer of Lyons, M. Millon, has since proposed to use, instead of

coal-gas, the gases produced by passing steam over red-hot coke. These

gases are found to explode rather more quickly than coal-gas, when

mixed with common air, and fired by the electric spark. They will

probably be found cheaper and more efficient when they can be

obtained; but in many cases coal-gas will be the only material

available.

A M. Jules Gros has recently invented an engine in which gun-cotton is

exploded in a strong reservoir and air compressed in another, the

compressed air being afterward employed to move the pistons of the

machine. This sounds more dangerous than it perhaps really is, since

gun-cotton is now known to be more tractable than gunpowder, when

properly used; but we very much doubt whether the machine can be

regular or economical enough to be more than a curiosity.

To close the list of French inventions of this kind, we may state that

Count de Molin has lately patented an electro-magnetic machine, which,

he states, will be more powerful than any previously made. It is too

complicated for a mere verbal description to be of any use; but is

apparently not free from the fault of all electro-magnetic engines, of

costing too much to be of practical value.

{32}

[ORIGINAL]

CHRISTINE.

A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,

IN FIVE CANTOS,

BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Copyright secured.]

PRELUDE.

The Queen hath built her a fairy Bower

In the shadow of the Accursed Tower,

For the Moslem hath left his blood-stained lair,

And the banner of England waveth there.

Thither she lureth the Lion King

To hear a wandering Trovère sing;

For well she knew the Joyous Art

Was surest path to Richard's heart.

But the Monarch's glance was on the sea--

Sooth, he was scarce in minstrel mood,

For Philip's triremes homeward stood

With all the Gallic chivalry.

And as he watched the filmy sail

Upon the furthest billow fail,

He muttered, "Richard ill can spare

Thee and thy Templars, false and fair;

Yet God hath willed it--home to thee,

Death or Jerusalem for me!"

Then pressing with a knightly kiss

The peerless hand that slept in his,

"Ah, would our own Blondel were here

To try a measure I wove last e'en.

What songster hast thou caught, my Queen,

Whose harp may soothe a Monarch's ear?"

She beckoned, and the Trovère bowed

To many a Lord and Ladye fair

That gathered round the royal pair;

But most his simple song was vowed

To a sweet shape with dark brown hair,

Half hidden in the gentle crowd;

Pale as a spirit, sharply slender.

In maiden beauty's crescent splendor.

And never yet bent Minstrel knee

To Mistress lovelier than she.

{33}

THE FIRST SONG.

I.

Ye have heard of the Castle of Miolan

And how it hath stood since time began,

Midway to yon mountain's brow,

Guarding the beautiful valley below:

Its crest the clouds, its ancient feet

Where the Arc and the Isère murmuring meet

Earth hath few lovelier scenes to show

Than Miolan with its hundred halls,

Its massive towers and bannered walls,

Looming out through the vines and walnut woods

That gladden its stately solitudes.

And there might ye hear but yestermorn

The loud halloo and the hunter's horn,

The laugh of mailèd men at play.

The drinking bout and the roundelay.

But now all is sternest silence there.

Save the bell that calls to vesper prayer;

Save the ceaseless surge of a father's wail,

And, hark! ye may hear the Baron's Tale.

II.

"Come hither. Hermit!--Yestermorn

I had an only son,

A gallant fair as e'er was born,

A knight whose spurs were won

In the red tide by Godfrey's side

At Ascalon.

{34}

"But yestermorn he came to me

For blessing on his lance,

And death and danger seemed to flee

The joyaunce of his glance,

For he would ride to win his Bride,

Christine of France.

"All sparkling in the sun he stood

In mail of Milan dressed,

A scarf, the gift of her he wooed,

Lay lightly o'er his breast.

As, with a clang, to horse he sprang

With nodding crest

"Gaily he grasped the stirrup cup

Afoam with spicy ale,

But as he took the goblet up

Methought his cheek grew pale.

And a shudder ran through the iron man

And through his mail.

"Oft had I seen him breast the shock

Of squire or crownèd king,

His front was firm as rooted rock

When spears were shivering:

I knew no blow could shake him so

From living thing.

"'Twas something near akin to death

That blanched and froze his cheek,

Yet 'twas not death, for he had breath,

And when I bade him speak,

Unto his breast his hand he pressed

With one wild shriek.

"The hand thus clasped upon his heart

So sharply curbed the rein,

Grey Caliph, rearing with a start,

Went bounding o'er the plain

Away, away with echoing neigh

And streaming mane.

"After him sped the menial throng;

I stirred not in my fear;

Perchance I swooned, for it seemed not long

Ere the race did reappear,

And my son still led on his desert-bred.

Grasping his spear.

{35}

"Unchanged in look or limb, he came.

He and his barb so fleet,

His hand still on his heart, the same

Stem bearing in his seat,

And wheeling round with sudden bound

Stopped at my feet.

"And soon as ceased that wildering tramp

'What ails thee, boy?' I cried--

Taking his hand all chill and damp--

'What means this fearful ride?

Alight, alight, for lips so white

Would scare a Bride!'

"But sternly to his steed clove he,

And answer made he none,

I clasped him by his barbèd knee

And there I made my moan;

While icily he stared at me,

At me alone.

"A strange, unmeaning stare was that,

And a page beside me said,

'If ever corse in saddle sat,

Our lord is certes sped!'

But I smote the lad, for it drove me mad

To think him dead.

"What! dead so young, what! lost so soon,

My beautiful, my brave!

Sooner the sun should find at noon

In central heaven a grave!

Sweet Jesu, no, it is not so

When Thou canst save!

"For was he dead and was he sped,

When he could ride so well,

So bravely bear his plumèd head?

Or, was't some spirit fell

In causeless wrath had crossed his path

With fiendish spell?

"Oh. Hermit, 'twas a cruel sight.

And He, who loves to bless,

Ne'er sent on son such bitter blight.

On sire such sore distress,

Such piteous pass, and I, alas,

So powerless!

{36}

"They would have ta'en him from his horse

The while I wept and prayed,

They would have lain him like a corse

Upon a litter made

Of traversed spear and martial gear.

But I forbade.

"I gazed into his face again,

I chafed his hand once more,

I summoned him to speak, in vain--

He sat there as before,

While the gallant Grey in dumb dismay

His rider bore.

"Full well, full well Grey Caliph then

The horror seemed to know.

E'en deeper than my mailèd men

Methought he felt our woe;

For the barbed head of the desert-bred

Was drooping low.

"Amazed, aghast, he gazed at me,

That mourner true and good.

Then backward at my boy looted he.

As if a word he sued.

And like sculptured pile in abbey aisle

The train there stood.

"I took the rein: the frozen one

Still fast in saddle sate.

As tremblingly I led him on

Toward the great castle gate.

O walls mine own, why have ye grown

So desolate?--

"I led them to the castle gate

And paused before the shrine

Where throned in state from earliest date,

Protectress of our line.

Madonna pressed close to her breast

The Babe Divine.

"And kneeling lowly at her feet,

I begged the Mother mild

That she would sue her Jesu sweet

To aid my stricken child;

And the meek stone face flashed full of grace

As if she smiled.

{37}

"And methought the eyes of the Full of Grace

Upon my darling shone,

Till living seemed that marble face

And the living man seemed stone,

While a halo played round the Mother Maid

And round her Son.

"And there was radiance everywhere

Surpassing light of day,

On man and horse, on shield and spear

Burned the bright, blinding ray;

But most it shone on my only one

And his gallant Grey.

"A sudden clang of armor rang,

My boy lay on the sward.

Up high in air Grey Caliph sprang,

An instant fiercely pawed.

Then trembling stood aghast and viewed

His fallen lord.

"Then with the flash of fire away

Like sunbeam o'er the plain,

Away, away with echoing neigh

And wildly waving mane.

Away he sped, loose from his head

The flying rein.

"I watched the steed from pass to pass

Unto the welkin's rim,

I feared to turn my eyes, alas,

To trust a look at him;

And when I turned, my temples burned

And all grew dim.

"Sweet if such swoon could endless be,

Yet speedily I woke

And missed my boy: they showed him me

Full length on bed of oak.

Clad as 'twas meet in mail complete

And sable cloak.

"All of our race upon that bier

Had rested one by one,

I had seen my father lying there,

And now there lay my son!

Ah! my sick soul bled the while it said--

'Thy will be done!'

{38}

"Bright glanced the crest, bright gleamed the spur,

That well had played their part,

His lance still clasped, nor could they stir

His left hand from his heart;

There fast it clove, nor would it move

With all their art

"I found no voice, I shed no tear.

They thought me well resigned.

All else who stood around the bier

With weeping much were blind;

And a mourning voice went through the house

Like a low wind.

"And there was sob of aged man

And woman's wailing cry,

All cheeks were wan, all eyes o'erran,

Yon fair-haired maidens sigh.

And one apart with breaking heart

Weeps bitterly.

"But sharper than spear-thrust, I trow,

Their wailing through me went;

Stem silence suited best my woe,

And, howe'er well the intent.

Their menial din seemed half akin

To merriment

"For oh, such grief was mock to mine

Whose days were all undone.

The last of all this ancient line

To share whose grief was none!

Straight from the hall I barred them all

And stood alone.

"'Receive me now, thou bed of oak!'

I fell upon the bier.

And, Hermit, when this morning broke

It found me clinging there.

O maddening morn! That day dare dawn

On such a pair!

"I sent for thee, thou man of God,

To watch with me to-night;

My boy still liveth, by the rood,

Nor shall be funeral rite!--

But, Hermit, come: this is the room:

There lies the Knight!"

{39}

III.

But she apart

With breaking heart?--

That very yestermorn she stood

In the deepest shade of the walnut wood,

As a Knight rode by on his raven steed,

Crying, "Daughter mine, hast thou done the deed?

I gave thee the venom, I gave thee the spell,

A jealous heart might use them well."

But she waved her white arms and only said,

"On oaken bier is Miolan laid!"

"Dead!" laughed the Knight. "Then round Pilate's Peak

Let the red light burn and the eagle shriek.

When Miolan? heir lies on the bier,

Low is the only lance I fear:

I ride, I ride to win my Bride,

Ho, Eblis, to thy servant's side.

Thou hast sworn no foe

Shall lay me low

Till the dead in arms against me ride!"

------

THE SECOND SONG.

I.

They passed into an ancient hall

With oaken arches spanned.

Full many a shield hung on the wall,

Full many a broken brand.

And barbèd spear and scimetar

From Holy Land.

And scarfs of dames of high degree

With gold and jewels rich,

And many a mouldered effigy

In many a mouldering niche,

Like grey sea shells whose crumbling cells

Bestrew the beach.

{40}

The sacred dead possessed the place,

The silent cobweb wreathed

The tombs where slept that warrior race,

With swords for ever sheathed:

You seemed to share the very air

Which they had breathed.

Oh, darksome was that funeral room,

Those oaken arches dim,

The torchlight, struggling through the gloom,

Fell faint on effige grim,

On dragon dread and carvèd head

Of Cherubim.

Of Cherubim fast by a shrine

Whereon the last sad rite

Was wont for all that ancient line,

For dame and belted knight--

A shrine of Moan which death alone

Did ever light.

But light not now that altar stone

While hope of life remain,

Though darksome be that altar lone,

Unlit that funeral fane,

Save by the rays cast by the blaze

Of torches twain.

Of torches twain at head and heel

Of him who seemeth dead,

Who sleepeth so well in his coat of steel.

His cloak around him spread--

The young Knight fair, who lieth there

On oaken bed.

One hand still fastened to his heart.

The other on his lance,

While through his eyelids, half apart.

Life seemeth half to glance.

"Sweet youth awake, for Jesu's sake,

From this strange trance!"

But heed or answer there is none.

Then knelt that Hermit old;

To Mother Mary and her Son

Full many a prayer he told,

Whose wondrous words the Church records

In lettered gold:

{41}

And many a precious litany

And many a pious vow,

Then rising said, "If fiend it be,

That fiend shall leave thee now!"

And traced the sign of the Cross divine

On lips and brow.

As well expect yon cherub's wings

To wave at matin bell!

Not all the relics of the kings

Could break that iron spell.

"Pray for the dead, let mass be said,

Toll forth the knell!"

"Not yet!" the Baron gasped and sank

As if beneath a blow,

With lips all writhing as they drank

The dregs of deepest woe;

With eyes aglare, and scattered hair

Tossed to and fro.

So swings the leaf that lingers last

When wintry tempests sweep,

So reels when storms have stripped the mast

The galley on the deep,

So nods the snow on Eigher's brow

Before the leap.

Uncertain 'mid his tangled hair

His palsied fingers stray,

He smileth in his dumb despair

Like a sick child at play.

Though wet, I trow, with tears eno'

That beard so grey.

Oh, Hermit, lift him to your breast,

There best his heart may bleed;

Since none but heaven can give him rest,

Heaven's priest must meet his need:

Dry that white beard, now wet and weird

As pale sea-weed.

Uprising slowly from the ground,

With short and frequent breath.

In aimless circles, round and round,

The Baron tottereth

With trailing feet, a mourner meet

For house of death.

{42}

Till, pausing by the shrine of Moan,

He said, the while he wept,

"Here, Hermit, here mine only one,

When all the castle slept,

As maiden knight, o'er armor bright,

His first watch kept.

"This is the casque that first he wore,

And this his virgin shield.

This lance to his first tilt he bore,

With this first took the field--

How light, how lâche to that huge ash

He now doth wield!

"This blade hath levelled at a blow

The she-wolf in her den.

With this red falchion he laid low

The slippery Saracen.

God! will that hand, so near his brand,

Ne'er strike again?

"Frown not on him, ye men of old.

Whose glorious race is run;

Frown not on him, my fathers bold.

Though many the field ye won:

His name and los may mate with yours

Though but begun!

"Receive him, ye departed brave,

Unlock the gates of light.

And range yourselves about his grave

To hail a brother knight.

Who never erred in deed or word

Against the right!

"But is he dead and is he sped

Withouten scathe or scar?

Why, Hermit, he hath often bled

From sword and scimetar--

I've seen him ride, wounds gaping wide,

From war to war.

"And hath a silent, viewless thing

Laid danger's darling low,

When youth and hope were on the wing

And life in morning glow?

Not yonder worm in winter's storm

Perisheth so!

{43}

"Oh, Hermit, thou hast heard, I ween,

Of trances long and deep,

But, Hermit, hast thou ever seen

That grim and stony sleep.

And canst thou tell how long a spell

Such slumbers keep?

"Oh, be there naught to break the charm,

To thaw this icy chain;

Has Mother Church no word to warm

These freezing lips again;

Be holy prayer and balsams rare

Alike in vain? . . . .

"A curse on thy ill-omened head;

Man, bid me not despair;

Churl, say not that a Knight is dead

When he can couch his spear;

When he can ride--Monk, thou hast lied.

He lives, I swear!

"Up from that bier! Boy, to thy feet!

Know'st not thy father's voice?

Thou ne'er hast disobeyed . . . is't meet

A sire should summon thrice?

By these grey hairs, by these salt tears,

Awake, arise!

"Ho, lover, to thy ladye flee,

Dig deep the crimson spur;

Sleep not 'twixt this lean monk and me

When thou shouldst kneel to her!

Oh 'tis a sin, Christine to win

And thou not stir!

"Ho, laggard, hear yon trumpet's note

Go sounding to the skies,

The lists are set, the banners float.

Yon loud-mouthed herald cries,

'Ride, gallant knights, Christine invites.

Herself the prize!'

"Ho, craven, shun'st thou the melée,

When she expects thy brand

To prove to-day in fair tourney

A title to her hand?

Up, dullard base, or by the mass

I'll make thee stand!" . . . .

{44}

Thrice strove he then to wrench apart

Those fingers from the spear.

Thrice strove to sever from the heart

The hand that rested there.

Thrice strove in vain with frantic strain

That shook the bier.

Thrice with the dead the living strove,

Their armor rang a peal,

The sleeping knight he would not move

Although the sire did reel:

That stately corse defied all force,

Stubborn as steel.

"Ay, dead, dead, dead!" the Baron cried;

"Dear Hermit, I did rave.

O were we sleeping side by side! . .

Good monk, I penance crave

For all I said .... Ay, he is dead,

Pray heaven to save!

"Betake thee to thy crucifix,

And let me while I may

Rain kisses on these frozen cheeks

Before they know decay.

Leave me to weep and watch and keep

The worm at bay.

"Thou wilt not spare thy prayers, I trust;

But name not now the grave--

I'll watch him to the very dust! ....

So, Hermit, to thy cave.

Whilst here I cling lest creeping thing

Insult the brave!"

------

Why starts the Hermit to his feet,

why springs he to the bier,

Why calleth he on Jesu sweet,

Staying the starting tear.

What whispereth he half trustfully

And half in fear?

{45}

"Sir Knight, thy ring hath razed his flesh--

'Twas in thy frenzy done;

Lo, from his wrist how fast and fresh

The blood-drops trickling run;

Heaven yet may wake, for Mary's sake,

Thy warrior son.

"Heap ashes on thy head, Sir Knight,

In sackcloth gird thee well,

The shrine of Moan must blaze in light,

The morning mass must swell;

Arouse from sleep the castle keep,

Sound every bell!"

They come, pale maid and mailèd man

They throng into the hall,

The watcher from the barbican,

The warder from the wall.

And she apart, with breaking heart,

The last of all.

"__Introibo! _Introibo!_"

The morning mass begins;

"_Mea culpa! mea culpa!_"

Forgive us all our sins;

And the rapt Hermit chaunts with streaming eyes,

That seem to enter Paradise,

"_Gloria! Gloria!_"

The shrine of Moan had never known

That gladdest of all hymns.

------

II.

The fair-haired maiden standeth apart

In the chapel gloom, with breaking heart.

But a smile broke over her face as she said,

"The draught was well measured, I ween;

He liveth, thank Allah, but not to wed

His beautiful Christine.

No lance hath Miolan couched to-day:

Let the bride for the bridegroom watch, and pray.

Till the lists shall hear the shriek

Of the Dauphin's daughter borne away

By the Knight of Pilate's Peak."

TO BE CONTINUED.

{46}

A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.,

ON HIS RECENT EIRENICON.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.,

OF THE ORATORY.

Veni, Domine, et noli tardare,

relaxa facinora plebi tuae;

et rovoca dispersos in terram suam.

No one who desires the union of

Christendom, after its many and

long-standing divisions, can have any other

feeling than joy, my dear Pusey, at

finding from your recent volume that

you see your way to make definite

proposals to us for effecting that

great object, and are able to lay down

the basis and conditions on which you

could co-operate in advancing it. It

is not necessary that we should concur

in the details of your scheme, or

in the principles which it involves, in

order to welcome the important fact

that, with your personal knowledge of the Anglican body, and your

experience of its composition and tendencies, you consider the time to

be come when you and your friends may, without imprudence, turn your

minds to the contemplation of such an enterprise. Even were you an

individual member of that church, a watchman upon a high tower in a

metropolis of religious opinion, we should naturally listen with

interest to what you had to report of the state of the sky and the

progress of the night, what stars were mounting up or what clouds

gathering; what were the prospects of the three great parties which

Anglicanism contains within it, and what was just now the action upon

them respectively of the politics and science of the time. You do not

go into these matters; but the step you have taken is evidently the

measure and the issue of the view which you have formed of them all.

However, you are not a mere individual; from early youth you have

devoted yourself to the Established Church, and after between forty

and fifty years of unremitting labor in its service, your roots and

your branches stretch out through every portion of its large

territory. You, more than any one else alive, have been the present

and untiring agent by whom a great work has been effected in it; and,

far more than is usual, you have received in your lifetime, as well as

merited, the confidence of your brethren. You cannot speak merely for

yourself; your antecedents, your existing influence, are a pledge to

us that what you may determine will be the determination of a

multitude. Numbers, too, for whom you cannot properly be said to

speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments; and numbers,

again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only

not your followers because they have outstripped you in their free

speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion,

accept you as their spokesman. There is no one anywhere--among

ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church--who

can affect so vast a circle of men, so virtuous, so able, so learned,

so zealous, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot

pay them all a greater compliment, than to tell them they ought all to

be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray

that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to an act

more pleasing, as I trust, to the Divine Lord of the church, and more

loyal and dutiful to his Vicar on earth, than to attempt, however,

feebly, to promote so great a consummation.

{47}

I know the joy it would give those conscientious men of whom I am

speaking to be one with ourselves. I know how their hearts spring up

with a spontaneous transport at the very thought of union; and what

yearning is theirs after that great privilege, which they have not,

communion with the See of Peter and its present, past, and future. I

conjecture it by what I used to feel myself, while yet in the Anglican

Church. I recollect well what an outcast I seemed to myself when I

took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius

or St. Basil, and set myself to study them; and how, on the contrary,

when at length I was brought into Catholicism, I kissed them with

delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had

lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints

who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, "You

are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake." Such, I

conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of, if they could

wake up one morning and find themselves possessed by right of Catholic

traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty;

and, certainly, I am the last man to say that such violence is in any

case lawful, that the claims of conscience are not paramount, or that

any one may overleap what he deliberately holds to be God's command,

in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter.

I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice

of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in

consequence, for this reason--because their case, as it at present

stands, has, as you know, been my own. You recollect well what hard

things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in

our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the

fugitive queen in the well-known passage, who, "haud ignara mali"

herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were inheritors of

her past wanderings. There were priests, good men, whose zeal

outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently,

when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse

judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in

communion. We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are

now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into

print. One of them wrote thus in a letter addressed to one of the

Catholic bishops:

"That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have

all along considered a perfect delusion. ... I look upon Mr. Newman,

Dr. Pusey, and their associates as wily and crafty, though

unskilful, guides. . . . The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that

would betray us. . . . But--what is the most striking feature in the

rancorous malignity of these men--their calumnies are often lavished

upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of

their treatises closed every avenue against their vituperation. The

three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the

craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of

the Oxford convention. . . . If the Puseyites are to be the new

apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and

gloomy. . . . I would never have consented to enter the lists

against this strange confraternity ... if I did not feel that my own

prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men. . . . .

I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our

religion. . . . . What, my lord, would the Holy See think of the

works of these Puseyites? . . ."

Another priest, himself a convert, wrote:

"As we approach toward Catholicity our love and respect increases,

and our violence dies away; but the bulk of these men become more

rabid as they become like Rome, a plain proof of their designs. ...

I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the

Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical

preacher. . . . Such, rev. sir, is an outline of my views on the

Oxford movement."

{48}

I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I

readily confess that I had used about the church such language that I

had no claim on Catholics for any mercy. But, after all, and in fact,

they were wrong in their anticipations--nor did their brethren agree

with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a

larger and more generous view of us; nor did the Holy See interfere,

though the writer of one of these passages invoked its judgment. The

event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more

prudent; and one of the bishops, who had taken part against us, with a

supererogation of charity, sent me on his death-bed an expression of

his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty

conscience, faithfully obeyed, through God's mercy, had in the long

run brought me right.

Fully, then, do I recognize the rights of conscience in this matter. I

find no fault in your stating, as clearly and completely as you can,

the difficulties which stand in the way of your joining us. I cannot

wonder that you begin with stipulating conditions of union, though I

do not concur in them myself, and think that in the event you yourself

would be content to let them drop. Such representations as yours are

necessary to open the subject in debate; they ascertain how the land

lies, and serve to clear the ground. Thus I begin; but, after allowing

as much as this, I am obliged in honesty to say what I fear, my dear

Pusey, will pain you. Yet I am confident, my very dear friend, that at

least you will not be angry with me if I say, what I must say, or say

nothing at all, that there is much both in the matter and in the

manner of your volume calculated to wound those who love you well, but

love truth more. So it is; with the best motives and kindest

intentions, "Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem." We give

you a sharp cut, and you return it. You complain of our being "dry,

hard, and unsympathizing;" and we answer that you are unfair and

irritating. But we at least have not professed to be composing an

Irenicon, when we treated you as foes. There was one of old time who

wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me--you discharge your

olive-branch as if from a catapult.

Do not think I am not serious; if I spoke seriously, I should seem to

speak harshly. Who will venture to assert that the hundred pages which

you have devoted to the Blessed Virgin give other than a one-sided

view of our teaching about her, little suited to win us? It may be a

salutary castigation, if any of us have fairly provoked it, but it is

not making the best of matters; it is not smoothing the way for an

understanding or a compromise. It leads a writer in the most moderate

and liberal Anglican newspaper of the day, the "Guardian," to turn

away from your representation of us with horror. "It is language,"

says your reviewer, "which, after having often heard it, we still can

only hear with horror. We had rather not quote any of it, or of the

comments upon it." What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a

Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the

controversy by the picture he drew of us? You may be sure that what

creates horror on one side will be answered by indignation on the

other, and these are not the most favorable dispositions for a peace

conference. I had been accustomed to think that you, who in times past

were ever less declamatory in controversy than myself, now that years

had gone on, and circumstances changed, had come to look on our old

warfare against Rome as cruel and inexpedient. Indeed, I know that it

was a chief objection urged against me only last year by persons who

agreed with you in deprecating an oratory at Oxford, which at that

time was in prospect, that such an undertaking would be the signal for

the rekindling of that fierce style of polemics which is now out of

date. I had fancied you shared in that opinion; but now, as if {49} to

show how imperative you deem its renewal, you actually bring to life

one of my own strong sayings in 1841, which had long been in the

grave--that "the Roman Church comes as near to idolatry as can be

supposed in a church, of which it said, 'The idols he shall utterly

abolish,'" p. 111.

I know, indeed, and feel deeply, that your frequent references in your

volume to what I have lately or formerly written are caused by your

strong desire to be still one with me as far as you can, and by that

true affection which takes pleasure in dwelling on such sayings of

mine as you can still accept with the full approbation of your

judgment. I trust I am not ungrateful or irresponsive to you in this

respect; but other considerations have an imperative claim to be taken

into account. Pleasant as it is to agree with you, I am bound to

explain myself in cases in which I have changed my mind, or have given

a wrong impression of my meaning, or have been wrongly reported; and,

while I trust that I have better than such personal motives for

addressing you in print, yet it will serve to introduce my main

subject, and give me an opportunity for remarks which bear upon it

indirectly, if I dwell for a page or two on such matters contained in

your volume as concern myself.

1. The mistake which I have principally in view is the belief, which

is widely spread, that I have publicly spoken of the Anglican Church

as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." In a pamphlet

of yours, a year old, you spoke of "a very earnest body of Roman

Catholics" who "rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in

the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened

by what weakens her who is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against

infidelity in this land." The concluding words you were thought to

quote from my "Apologia." In consequence, Dr. Manning, now our

archbishop, replied to you, asserting, as you say, "the contradictory

of that statement." In that counter-assertion he was at the time

generally considered (rightly or wrongly, as it may be), though

writing to you, to be really correcting statements in my "Apologia,"

without introducing my name. Further, in the volume which you have now

published, you recur to the saying, and you speak of its author in

terms which, did I not know your partial kindness for me, would hinder

me from identifying him with myself. You say, "The saying was not

mine, but that of one of the deepest thinkers and observers in the

Roman communion," p. 7. A friend has suggested to me that, perhaps,

you mean De Maistre; and, from an anonymous letter which I have

received from Dublin, I find it is certain that the very words in

question were once used by Archbishop Murray; but you speak of the

author of them as if now alive. At length a reviewer of your volume,

in the "Weekly Register," distinctly attributes them to me by name,

and gives me the first opportunity I have had of disowning them; and

this I now do. What, at some time or other, I may have said in

conversation or private letter, of course, I cannot tell; but I have

never, I am sure, used the word "bulwark" of the Anglican Church

deliberately. What I said in my "Apologia" was this: That that church

was "a serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its

own." A bulwark is an integral part of the thing it defends; whereas

the words "serviceable" and "breakwater" imply a kind of protection

which is accidental and _de facto_. Again, in saying that the Anglican

Church is a defence against "errors more fundamental than its own," I

imply that it has errors, and those fundamental.

2. There is another passage in your volume, at p. 337, which it may be

right to observe upon. You have made a collection of passages from the

fathers, as witnesses in behalf of your doctrine that the whole

Christian faith is contained in Scripture, as if, in your sense of the

words. Catholics contradicted you here. {50} And you refer to my notes

on St. Athanasius as contributing passages to your list; but, after

all, neither do you, nor do I in my notes, affirm any doctrine which

Rome denies. Those notes also make frequent reference to a traditional

teaching, which (be the faith ever so certainly contained in

Scripture) still is necessary as a Regula Fidei, for showing us that

it is contained there--_vid_. pp. 283, 344--and this tradition, I

know, you uphold as fully as I do in the notes in question. In

consequence, you allow that there is a twofold rule. Scripture and

tradition; and this is all that Catholics say. How, then, do Anglicans

differ from Rome here? I believe the difference is merely one of

words; and I shall be doing, so far, the work of an Irenicon, if I

make clear what this verbal difference is. Catholics and Anglicans (I

do not say Protestants) attach different meanings to the word "proof,"

in the controversy whether the whole faith is, or is not, contained in

Scripture. We mean that not every article of faith is so contained

there, that it may thence be logically proved, _independently_ of the

teaching and authority of the tradition; but Anglicans mean that every

article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be proved,

_provided_ there be added the illustrations and compensations of the

tradition. And it is in this latter sense, I conceive, the fathers

also speak in the passages which you quote from them. I am sure at

least that St. Athanasius frequently adduces passages as proofs of

points in controversy which no one would see to be proofs unless

apostolical tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting,

then as authoritatively ruling, their meaning. Thus, _you_ do not deny

that the whole is not in Scripture in such sense that pure unaided

logic can draw it from the sacred text; nor do _we_ deny that the

faith is in Scripture, in an improper sense, in the sense that

_tradition_ is able to recognize and determine it there. You do not

profess to dispense with tradition; nor do we forbid the idea of

probable, secondary, symbolical, connotative senses of Scripture, over

and above those which properly belong to the wording and context. I

hope you will agree with me in this.

3. Nor is it only in isolated passages that you give me a place in

your volume. A considerable portion of it is written with reference to

two publications of mine, one of which you name and defend, the other

you tacitly protest against: "Tract 90," and the "Essay on Doctrinal

Development," As to "Tract 90," you have from the first, as all the

world knows, boldly stood up for it, in spite of the obloquy which it

brought upon you, and have done me a great service. You are now

republishing it with my cordial concurrence; but I take this

opportunity of noticing, lest there should be any mistake on the part

of the public, that you do so with a different object from that which

I had when I wrote it. Its original purpose was simply that of

justifying myself and others in subscribing to the Thirty-nine

Articles while professing many tenets which had popularly been

considered distinctive of the Roman faith. I considered that my

interpretation of the Articles, as I gave it in that Tract, would

stand, provided the parties imposing them allowed it, otherwise I

thought it could not stand; and, when in the event the bishops and

public opinion did not allow it, I gave up my living, as having no

right to retain it. My feeling about the interpretation is expressed

in a passage in "Loss and Gain," which runs thus:

"'Is it,' asked Reding, 'a received view?' 'No view is received,'

said the other; 'the Articles themselves are received, but there is

no authoritative interpretation of them at all.' 'Well,' said

Reding, 'is it a tolerated view?' 'It certainly has been strongly

opposed,' answered Bateman; 'but it has never been condemned.' 'That

is no answer,' said Charles. 'Does any one bishop hold it? Did any

one bishop ever hold it? Has it ever been formally admitted as

tenable by any one bishop? Is it a view got up to meet existing

difficulties, or has it an historical existence?' Bateman could give

only one answer to {51} these questions, as they were successively

put to him. 'I thought so,' said Charles; 'the view is specious

certainly. I don't we why it might not have done, had it been

tolerably sanctioned; but you have no sanction to show me. As it

stands, it is a mere theory struck out by individuals. Our church

_might_ have adopted this mode of interpreting the Articles; but,

from what you tell me, it certainly has not done so.'"--Ch. 15.

However, the Tract did not carry its object and conditions on its

face, and necessarily lay open to interpretations very far from the

true one. Dr. Wiseman (as he then was), in particular, with the keen

apprehension which was his characteristic, at once saw in it a basis

of accommodation between Anglicanism and Rome. He suggested broadly

that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be made the rule of

interpretation for the Thirty-nine Articles, a proceeding of which

Sancta Clara, I think, had set the example; and, as you have observed,

published a letter to Lord Shrewsbury on the subject, of which the

following are extracts:

"We Catholics must necessarily deplore [England's] separation as a

deep moral evil--as state of schism of which nothing can justify the

continuance. Many members of the Anglican Church view it in the same

light as to the first point--its sad evil; though they excuse their

individual position in it as an unavoidable misfortune. . . . We may

depend upon a willing, an able, and a most zealous co-operation with

any effort which we may make toward bringing her into her rightful

position, in Catholic unity with the Holy See and the churches of

its obedience--in other words, with the church Catholic. Is this a

visionary idea? Is it merely the expression of strong desire? I know

that many will so judge it; and, perhaps, were I to consult my own

quiet, I would not venture to express it. But I will, in simplicity

of heart, cling to hopefulness, cheered, as I feel it, by so many

promising appearances. . . .

"A natural question here presents itself--what facilities appear in

the present state of things for bringing about so happy a

consummation as the reunion of England to the Catholic Church,

beyond what have before existed, and particularly under Archbishops

Laud or Wake? It strikes me, many. First, etc. . . . A still more

promising circumstance I think your lordship will with me consider

the _plan_ which the eventful 'Tract No. 90' has pursued, and in

which Mr. Ward, Mr. Oakeley, and even Dr. Pusey have agreed. I

allude to the method of _bringing their doctrines into accordance

with ours by explanation._ A foreign priest has pointed out to us a

valuable document for our consideration--'Bossuet's Reply to the

Pope,' when consulted on the best method of reconciling the

followers of the Augsburg Confession with the Holy See. The learned

bishop observes, that Providence had allowed so much Catholic truth

to be preserved in that Confession that full advantage should be

taken of the circumstance; that no retractations should be demanded,

but an explanation of the Confession in accordance with Catholic

doctrines. Now, for such a method as this, the way is in part

prepared by the demonstration that such interpretation may be given

of the most difficult Articles as will strip them of all

contradiction to the decrees of the Tridentine Synod. The same

method may be pursued on other points; and much pain may thus be

spared to individuals, and much difficulty to the church."--Pp. 11,

35, 38.

This use of my Tract, so different from my own, but sanctioned by the

great name of our cardinal, you are now reviving; and I gather from

your doing so, that your bishops and the opinion of the public are

likely now, or in prospect, to admit what twenty-five years ago they

refused. On this point, much as it rejoices me to know your

anticipation, of course I cannot have an opinion.

4. So much for "Tract 90." On the other hand, as to my "Essay on

Doctrinal Development," I am sorry to find you do not look upon it

with friendly eyes; though how, without its aid, you can maintain the

doctrines of the Holy Trinity and incarnation, and others which you

hold, I cannot understand. You consider my principle may be the means,

in time to come, of introducing into our Creed, as portions of the

necessary Catholic faith, the infallibility of the Pope, and various

opinions, pious or profane, as it may be, about our Blessed Lady. I

hope to remove your anxiety as to these consequences, before I bring

my {52} observations to an end; at present I notice it as my apology

for interfering in a controversy which at first sight is no business

of mine.

5. I have another reason for writing; and that is, unless it is rude

in me to say so, because you seem to think writing does not become me.

I do not like silently to acquiesce in such a judgment You say at p.

98:

"Nothing can be more unpractical than for an individual to throw

himself into the Roman Church because he could accept the _letter_

of the Council of Trent. Those who were born Roman Catholics have a

liberty which, in the nature of things, a person could not have who

left another system to embrace that of Rome. I cannot imagine how

any faith could stand the shock of leaving one system, criticising

_it_, and cast himself into another system, criticising _it_. For

myself, I have always felt that had (which God of his mercy avert

hereafter also) the English Church, by accepting heresy, driven me

out of it, I could have gone in no other way than that of closing my

eyes, and accepting whatever was put before me. But a liberty which

individuals could not use, and explanations which, so long as they

remain individual, must be unauthoritative, might be formally made

by the Church of Rome to the Church of England as the basis of

reunion."

And again, p. 210:

"It seems to me to be a psychological impossibility for one who has

already exchanged one system for another to make those distinctions.

One who, by his own act, places himself under authority, cannot make

conditions about his submission. But definite explanations of our

Articles have, before now, been at least tentatively offered to us,

on the Roman and Greek side, as sufficient to restore communion; and

the Roman explanations too were, in most cases, mere supplements to

our Articles, on points upon which our Church had not spoken."

Now passages such as these seem almost a challenge to me to speak, and

to keep silence would be to assent to the justice of them. At the

cost, then, of speaking about myself, of which I feel there has been

too much of late, I observe upon them as follows: Of course, as you

say, a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in

simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and

measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among

those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living

system, with a living teaching, and not to a mere collection of

decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the

framework, not the body and substance, of the church. And this is a

truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other

religion, not only the convert. By the Catholic system I mean that

rule of life and those practices of devotion for which we shall look

in vain in the Creed of Pope Pius. The convert comes, not only to

believe the church, but also to trust and obey her priests, and to

conform himself in charity to her people. It would never do for him to

resolve that he never would say a Hail Mary, never avail himself of an

indulgence, never kiss a crucifix, never accept the Lent

dispensations, never mention a venial sin in confession. All this

would not only be unreal, but dangerous, too, as arguing a wrong state

of mind, which could not look to receive the divine blessing.

Moreover, he comes to the ceremonial, and the moral theology, and the

ecclesiastical regulations which he finds on the spot where his lot is

cast. And again, as regards matters of politics, of education, of

general expedience, of taste, he does not criticise or controvert. And

thus surrendering himself to the influences of his new religion, and

not losing what is revealed truth by attempting by his own private

rule to discriminate every moment its substance from its accidents, he

is gradually so indoctrinated in Catholicism as at length to have a

right to speak as well as to hear. Also, in course of time, a new

generation rises round him; and there is no reason why he should not

know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those

who perhaps number fewer years than he does Easter communions. {53} He

has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian

from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era.

He knows that there is much of what may be called fashion in opinions

and practices, according to the circumstances of time and place,

according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day,

or the chief prelates of a particular country, and that fashions

change. His experience tells him, that sometimes what is denounced in

one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has

in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense,

or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought

before public opinion; and that loud talkers, in the church as

elsewhere, are apt to carry all before them, while quiet and

conscientious persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in

matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches

the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and

decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own

judgment on a point is to be disloyal to his superiors.

So far generally; now in particular as to myself. After twenty years

of Catholic life, I feel no delicacy in giving my opinion on any point

when there is a call for me, and the only reason why I have not done

so sooner, or more often than I have, is that there has been no call.

I have now reluctantly come to the conclusion that your volume _is_ a

call. Certainly, in many instances in which theologian differs from

theologian, and country from country, I have a definite judgment of my

own; I can say so without offence to any one, for the very reason that

from the nature of the case it is impossible to agree with all of

them. I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from

the same causes, and by the same right, which justify foreigners in

preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less

singularity and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with

what is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but

availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on becoming a

Catholic; and it is a pleasure to me to think that what I hold now,

and would transmit after me if I could, is only what I received then.

The utmost delicacy was observed on all hands in giving me advice;

only one warning remains on my mind, and it came from Dr. Griffiths,

the late vicar-apostolic of the London district. He warned me against

books of devotion of the Italian school, which were just at that time

coming into England; and when I asked him what books he recommended as

safe guides, he bade me get the works of Bishop Hay. By this I did not

understand that he was jealous of all Italian books, or made himself

responsible for all that Dr. Hay happens to have said; but I took him

to caution me against a character and tone of religion, excellent in

its place, not suited for England. When I went to Rome, though it may

seem strange to you to say it, even there I learned nothing

inconsistent with this judgment. Local influences do not supply an

atmosphere for its institutions and colleges, which are Catholic in

teaching as well as in name. I recollect one saying among others of my

confessor, a Jesuit father, one of the holiest, most prudent men I

ever knew. He said that we could not love the Blessed Virgin too much,

if we loved our Lord a great deal more. When I returned to England,

the first expression of theological opinion which came in my way was

_apropos_ of the series of translated saints' lives which the late Dr.

Faber originated. That expression proceeded from a wise prelate, who

was properly anxious as to the line which might be taken by the Oxford

converts, then for the first time coming into work. According as I

recollect his opinion, he was apprehensive of the effect of Italian

{54} compositions, as unsuited to this country, and suggested that the

lives should be original works, drawn up by ourselves and our friends

from Italian sources. If at that time I was betrayed into any acts

which were of a more extreme character than I should approve now, the

responsibility of course is mine; but the impulse came not from old

Catholics or superiors, but from men whom I loved and trusted who were

younger than myself. But to whatever extent I might be carried away,

and I cannot recollect any tangible instances, my mind in no long time

fell back to what seems to me a safer and more practical course.

Though I am a convert, then, I think I have a right to speak out; and

that the more because other converts have spoken for a long time,

while I have not spoken; and with still more reason may I speak

without offence in the case of your present criticisms of us,

considering that, in the charges you bring, the only two English

writers you quote in evidence are both of them converts, younger in

age than myself. I put aside the archbishop, of course, because of his

office. These two authors are worthy of all consideration, at once

from their character and from their ability. In their respective lines

they are perhaps without equals at this particular time; and they

deserve the influence they possess. One is still in the vigor of his

powers; the other has departed amid the tears of hundreds. It is

pleasant to praise them for their real qualifications; but why do you

rest on them as authorities? Because the one was "a popular writer;"

but is there not sufficient reason for this in the fact of his

remarkable gifts, of his poetical fancy, his engaging frankness, his

playful wit, his affectionateness, his sensitive piety, without

supposing that the wide diffusion of his works arises out of his

particular sentiments about the Blessed Virgin? And as to our other

friend, do not his energy, acuteness, and theological reading,

displayed on the vantage ground of the historic "Dublin Review," fully

account for the sensation he has produced, without supposing that any

great number of our body go his lengths in their view of the Pope's

infallibility? Our silence as regards their writings is very

intelligible: it is not agreeable to protest, in the sight of the

world, against the writings of men in our own communion whom we love

and respect. But the plain fact is this--they came to the Church, and

have thereby saved their souls; but they are in no sense spokesmen for

English Catholics, and they must not stand in the place of those who

have a real title to such an office. The chief authors of the passing

generation, some of them still alive, others gone to their reward, are

Cardinal Wiseman, Dr. Ullathorne, Dr. Lingard, Mr. Tierney, Dr.

Oliver, Dr. Rock, Dr. Waterworth, Dr. Husenbeth, and Mr. Flanagan;

which of these ecclesiastics has said anything extreme about the

prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin or the infallibility of the Pope?

I cannot, then, without remonstrance, allow you to identify the

doctrine of our Oxford friends in question, on the two subjects I have

mentioned, with the present spirit or the prospective creed of

Catholics; or to assume, as you do, that, because they are

thorough-going and relentless in their statements, therefore they are

the harbingers of a new age, when to show a deference for antiquity

will be thought little else than a mistake. For myself, hopeless as

you consider it, I am not ashamed still to take my stand upon the

fathers, and do not mean to budge. The history of their times is not

yet an old almanac to me. Of course I maintain the value and authority

of the "Schola," as one of the _loci theologici;_ still I sympathize

with Petavius in preferring to its "contentious and subtle theology"

that {55} "more elegant and fruitful teaching which is moulded after

the image of erudite antiquity." The fathers made me a Catholic, and I

am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the

church. It is a ladder quite as serviceable for that purpose now as it

was twenty years ago. Though I hold, as you remark, a process of

development in apostolic truth as time goes on, such development does

not supersede the fathers, but explains and completes them. And, in

particular, as regards our teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin,

with the fathers I am content; and to the subject of that teaching I

mean to address myself at once. I do so because you say, as I myself

have said in former years, that "that vast system as to the Blessed

Virgin . . . . to all of us has been the special _crux_ of the Roman

system," p. 101. Here, I say, as on other points, the fathers are

enough for me. I do not wish to say more than they, and will not say

less. You, I know, will profess the same; and thus we can join issue

on a clear and broad principle, and may hope to come to some

intelligible result. We are to have a treatise on the subject of our

Lady soon from the pen of the most reverend prelate; but that cannot

interfere with such a mere argument from the fathers as that to which

I shall confine myself here. Nor indeed, as regards that argument

itself, do I profess to be offering you any new matter, any facts

which have not been used by others--by great divines, as Petavius, by

living writers, nay, by myself on other occasions; I write afresh

nevertheless, and that for three reasons: first, because I wish to

contribute to the accurate statement and the full exposition of the

argument in question; next, because I may gain a more patient hearing

than has sometimes been granted to better men than myself; lastly,

because there just now seems a call on me, under my circumstances, to

avow plainly what I do and what I do not hold about the Blessed

Virgin, that others may know, did they come to stand where I stand,

what they would and what they would not be bound to hold concerning

her.

I begin by making a distinction which will go far to remove good part

of the difficulty of my undertaking, as it presents itself to ordinary

inquirers--the distinction between faith and devotion. I fully grant

that _devotion_ toward the Blessed Virgin has increased among

Catholics with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the

_doctrine_ concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe that

it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning.

By "faith" I mean the Creed and the acceptance of the Creed; by

"devotion" I mean such religious honors as belong to the objecis of

our faith, and the payment of those honors. Faith and devotion are as

distinct in fact as they are in idea. We cannot, indeed, be devout

without faith, but we may believe without feeling devotion. Of this

phenomenon every one has experience both in himself and in others; and

we express it as often as we speak of realizing a truth or not

realizing it. It may be illustrated, with more or less exactness, by

matters which come before us in the world. For instance, a great

author, or public man, may be acknowledged as such for a course of

years; yet there may be an increase, an ebb and flow, and a fashion,

in his popularity. And if he takes a lasting place in the minds of his

countrymen, he may gradually grow into it, or suddenly be raised to

it. The idea of Shakespeare as a great poet has existed from a very

early date in public opinion; and there were at least individuals then

who understood him as well, and honored him as much, as the English

people can honor him now; yet, I think, there is a national devotion

to him in this day such as never has been before. This has happened

because, as education spreads in the country, there are more men able

to enter into his {56} poetical genius, and, among these, more

capacity again for deeply and critically understanding him; and yet,

from the first, he has exerted a great insensible influence over the

nation, as is seen in the circumstance that his phrases and sentences,

more than can be numbered, have become almost proverbs among us. And

so again in philosophy, and in the arts and sciences, great truths and

principles have sometimes been known and acknowledged for a course of

years; but, whether from feebleness of intellectual power in the

recipients, or external circumstances of an accidental kind, they have

not been turned to account. Thus, the Chinese are said to have known

of the properties of the magnet from time immemorial, and to have used

it for land expeditions, yet not on the sea. Again, the ancients knew

of the principle that water finds its own level, but seem to have made

little application of their knowledge. And Aristotle was familiar with

the principle of induction; yet it was left for Bacon to develop it

into an experimental philosophy. Illustrations such as these, though

not altogether apposite, serve to convey that distinction between

faith and devotion on which I am insisting. It is like the distinction

between objective and subjective truth. The sun in the springtime will

have to shine many days before he is able to melt the frost, open the

soil, and bring out the leaves; yet he shines out from the first,

notwithstanding, though he makes his power felt but gradually. It is

one and the same sun, though his influence day by day becomes greater;

and so in the Catholic Church, it is the one Virgin Mother, one and

the same from first to last, and Catholics may acknowledge her; and

yet, in spite of that acknowledgment, their devotion to her may be

scanty in one time and place and overflowing in another.

This distinction is forcibly brought home to a convert, as a

peculiarity of the Catholic religion, on his first introduction to its

worship. The faith is everywhere one and the same; but a large liberty

is accorded to private judgment and inclination in matters of

devotion. Any large church, with its collections and groups of people,

will illustrate this. The fabric itself is dedicated to Almighty God,

and that under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, or some

particular saint; or again, of some mystery belonging to the Divine

name, or to the incarnation, or of some mystery associated with the

Blessed Virgin. Perhaps there are seven altars or more in it, and

these again have their several saints. Then there is the feast proper

to the particular day; and, during the celebration of mass, of all the

worshippers who crowd around the priest each has his own particular

devotions, with which he follows the rite. No one interferes with his

neighbor; agreeing, as it were, to differ, they pursue independently a

common end, and by paths, distinct but converging, present themselves

before God. Then there are confraternities attached to the church: of

the sacred heart, or the precious blood; associations of prayer for a

good death, or the repose of departed souls, or the conversion of the

heathen: devotions connected with the brown, blue, or red scapular;

not to speak of the great ordinary ritual through the four seasons,

the constant presence of the blessed sacrament, its ever recurring

rite of benediction, and its extraordinary forty hours' exposition.

Or, again, look through some such manual of prayers as the _Raccolta_,

and you at once will see both the number and the variety of devotions

which are open to individual Catholics to choose from, according to

their religious taste and prospect of personal edification.

Now these diversified modes of honoring God did not come to us in a

day, or only from the apostles; they are the accumulations of

centuries; and, as in the course of years some of them spring up, so

others decline and die Some are local, in memory of some particular

saint who happens to be the evangelist, or patron, or pride of the

{57} nation, or who is entombed in the church, or in the city where it

stands; and these, necessarily, cannot have an earlier date than the

saint's day of death or interment there. The first of such sacred

observances, long before these national memories, were the devotions

paid to the apostles, then those which were paid to the martyrs; yet

there were saints nearer to our Lord than either martyrs or apostles;

but, as if these had been lost in the effulgence of his glory, and

because they were not manifested in external works separate from him,

it happened that for a long while they were less thought of. However,

in process of time the apostles, and then the martyrs, exerted less

influence than before over the popular mind, and the local saints, new

creations of God's power, took their place, or again, the saints of

some religious order here or there established. Then, as comparatively

quiet times succeeded, the religious meditations of holy men and their

secret intercourse with heaven gradually exerted an influence out of

doors, and permeated the Christian populace, by the instrumentality of

preaching and by the ceremonial of the church. Then those luminous

stars rose in the ecclesiastical heavens which were of more august

dignity than any which had preceded them, and were late in rising for

the very reason that they were so specially glorious. Those names, I

say, which at first sight might have been expected to enter soon into

the devotions of the faithful, with better reason might have been

looked for at a later date, and actually were late in their coming.

St. Joseph furnishes the most striking instance of this remark; here

is the clearest of instances of the distinction between doctrine and

devotion. Who, from his prerogatives and the testimony on which they

come to us, had a greater claim to receive an early recognition among

the faithful? A saint of Scripture, the foster-father of our Lord, was

an object of the universal and absolute faith of the Christian world

from the first, yet the devotion to him is comparatively of late date.

When once it began, men seemed surprised that it had not been thought

of before; and now they hold him next to the Blessed Virgin in their

religious affection and veneration.

As regards the Blessed Virgin, I shall postpone the question of

devotion for a while, and inquire first into the doctrine of the

undivided church (to use your controversial phrase) on the subject of

her prerogatives.

What is the great rudimental teaching of antiquity from its earliest

date concerning her? By "rudimental teaching" I mean the _primâ facie_

view of her person and office, the broad outline laid down of her, the

aspect under which she comes to us in the writings of the fathers. She

is the second Eve. [Footnote 11] Now let us consider what this

implies. Eve had a definite, essential position in the first covenant.

The fate of the human race lay with Adam; he it was who represented

us. It was in Adam that we fell; though Eve had fallen, still, if Adam

had stood, we should not have lost those supernatural privileges which

were bestowed upon him as our first father. Yet though Eve was not the

head of the race, still, even as regards the race, she had a place of

her own; for Adam, to whom was divinely committed the naming of all

things, entitled her "the mother of all the living;" a name surely

expressive not of a fact only but of a dignity; but further, as she

thus had her own general relation to the human race, so again had she

her own special place, as regards its trial and its fall in Adam. In

those primeval events, Eve had an integral share. "The woman, being

seduced, was in the transgression." She listened to the evil angel;

she offered the fruit to her husband, and he ate of it. She

co-operated not as an irresponsible instrument, but intimately and

personally in the sin; she brought it about. As the history stands,

she was a _sine qua non_, a positive, active cause of it. {58} And she

had her share in its punishment; in the sentence pronounced on her,

she was recognized as a real agent in the temptation and its issue,

and she suffered accordingly. In that awful transaction there were

three parties concerned--the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at

the time of their sentence an event was announced for the future, in

which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent, the

woman, and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve,

and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. "I will put

enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed."

The seed of the woman is the word incarnate, and the woman whose seed

or son he is is his mother Mary. This interpretation and the

parallelism it involves seem to me undeniable; but, at all events (and

this is my point), the parallelism is the doctrine of the fathers,

from the earliest times; and, this being established, by the position

and office of Eve in our fall, we are able to determine the position

and office of Mary in our restoration.

[Footnote 11: _Vid_. "Essay on Development of Doctrine," 1845, p.

384, etc.]

I shall adduce passages from their writings, with their respective

countries and dates; and the dates shall extend from their births or

conversions to their deaths, since what they propound is at once the

doctrine which they had received from the generation before them, and

the doctrine which was accepted and recognized as true by the

generation to whom they transmitted it.

First, then, St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165), St. Irenaeus (120-200),

and Tertullian (160-240). Of these Tertullian represents Africa and

Rome, St. Justin represents Palestine, and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and

Gaul--or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been

taught by the martyr St. Polycarp, who was the intimate associate, as

of St. John, 60 of the other apostles.

1. St. Justin: [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: I have attempted to translate literally without caring

to write English. ]

"We know that he, before all creatures proceeded from the Father by

his power and will, . . . and by means of the Virgin became man,

that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its

beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being

a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the

serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary,

taking faith and joy, when the angel told her the good tidings, that

the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the

highest overshadow her, and therefore the holy one that was born of

her was Son of God, answered. Be it to me according to thy

word."--_Tryph_. 100.

2. Tertullian:

"God recovered his image and likeness, which the devil had seized,

by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the

word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be

introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life; that,

what by that sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be

brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary

believed Gabriel; the fault which the one committed by believing,

the other by believing has blotted out."--_De Carn. Christ_, 17.

3. St Irenaeus:

"With a fitness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, 'Behold

thy handmaid, O Lord; be it to me according to thy word.' But Eve

was disobedient; for she obeyed not, while she was yet a virgin. As

she, having indeed Adam for a husband, but as yet being a virgin,

. . . becoming disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself

and to the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined

man, and being yet a virgin, being obedient, became both to herself

and to the whole human race the cause of salvation. . . . And on

account of this the Lord said, that the first would be last and the

last first. And the prophet signifies the same, saying, 'Instead of

fathers you have children.' For, whereas the Lord, when born, was

the first begotten of the dead, and received into his bosom the

primitive fathers, he regenerated them into the life of God, he

himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the

beginning of the dying. Therefore also Luke, commencing the lines of

generations from the Lord, referred it back to Adam, signifying that

he regenerated the old fathers, not they him, into the gospel of

life. And so the knot {59} of Eve's disobedience received its

unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin,

bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith."--

_Adv. Haer_, iii. 22. 34.

And again:

"As Eve by the speech of an angel was seduced, so as to flee God,

transgressing his word, so also Mary received the good tidings by

means of the angel's speech, so as to bear God within her, being

obedient to his word. And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the

other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the virgin Mary

might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had

been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being

preserved, a virgin's disobedience by a virgin's obedience."

--_Ibid_. v. 19.

Now, what is especially noticeable in these three writers is, that

they do not speak of the Blessed Virgin as the physical instrument of

our Lord's taking flesh, but as an intelligent, responsible cause of

it; her faith and obedience being accessories to the incarnation, and

gaining it as her reward. As Eve failed in these virtues, and thereby

brought on the fall of the race in Adam, so Mary by means of them had

a part in its restoration. You imply, pp. 255, 256, that the Blessed

Virgin was only a physical instrument in our redemption; "what has

been said of her by the fathers as the chosen _vessel_ of the

incarnation, was applied _personally_ to her" (that is, by Catholics),

p. 151; and again, "The fathers speak of the Blessed Virgin as the

_instrument_ of our salvation, _in that_ she gave birth to the

Redeemer," pp. 155, 156; whereas St. Augustine, in well-known

passages, speaks of her as more exalted by her sanctity than by her

relationship to our Lord. [Footnote 13] However, not to go beyond the

doctrine of the three fathers, they unanimously declare that she was

not a mere instrument in the incarnation, such as David, or Judah, may

be considered; they declare she co-operated in our salvation, not

merely by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon her body, but by specific

holy acts, the effect of the Holy Ghost upon her soul; that, as Eve

forfeited privileges by sin, so Mary earned privileges by the fruits

of grace; that, as Eve was disobedient and unbelieving, so Mary was

obedient and believing; that, as Eve was a cause of ruin to all, Mary

was a cause of salvation to all; that, as Eve made room for Adam's

fall, so Mary made room for our Lord's reparation of it; and thus,

whereas the free gift was not as the offence, but much greater, it

follows that, as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary

co-operated in effecting a much greater good.

[Footnote 13: Opp., t. 8, p. 2, col. 369, t. 6, col. 342.]

And, beside the run of the argument, which reminds the reader of St.

Paul's antithetical sentences in tracing the analogy between Adam's

work and our Lord's work, it is well to observe the particular words

under which the Blessed Virgin's office is described. Tertullian says

that Mary "blotted out" Eve's fault, and "brought back the female

sex," or "the human race, to salvation;" and St. Irenaeus says that

"by obedience she was the cause or occasion" (whatever was the

original Greek word) "of salvation to herself and the whole human

race;" that by her the human race is saved; that by her Eve's

complication is disentangled; and that she is Eve's advocate, or

friend in need. It is supposed by critics, Protestant as well as

Catholic, that the Greek word for advocate in the original was

paraclete; it should be borne in mind, then, when we are accused of

giving our Lady the titles and offices of her Son, that St. Irenaeus

bestows on her the special name and office proper to the Holy Ghost.

So much as to the nature of this triple testimony; now as to the worth

of it. For a moment put aside St. Irenaeus, and put together St.

Justin in the East with Tertullian in the West. I think I may assume

that the doctrine of these two fathers about the Blessed Virgin was

the received doctrine of their own {60} respective times and places;

for writers after all are but witnesses of facts and beliefs, and as

such they are treated by all parties in controversial discussion.

Moreover, the coincidence of doctrine which they exhibit, and, again,

the antithetical completeness of it, show that they themselves did not

originate it. The next question is, Who did? For from one definite

organ or source, place or person, it must have come. Then we must

inquire, what length of time would it take for such a doctrine to have

extended, and to be received, in the second century over so wide an

area; that is, to be received before the year 200 in Palestine,

Africa, and Rome? Can we refer the common source of these local

traditions to a date later than that of the apostles, St. John dying

within thirty or forty years of St. Justin's conversion and

Tertullian's birth? Make what allowance you will for whatever possible

exceptions can be taken to this representation; and then, after doing

so, add to the concordant testimony of these two fathers the evidence

of St. Irenaeus, which is so close upon the school of St. John himself

in Asia Minor. "A three-fold cord," as the wise man says, "is not

quickly broken." Only suppose there were so early and so broad a

testimony to the effect that our Lord was a mere man, the son of

Joseph; should we be able to insist upon the faith of the Holy Trinity

as necessary to salvation? Or supposing three such witnesses could be

brought to the fact that a consistory of elders governed the local

churches, or that each local congregation was an independent church,

or that the Christian community was without priests, could Anglicans

maintain their doctrine that the rule of episcopal succession is

necessary to constitute a church? And recollect that the Anglican

Church especially appeals to the ante-Nicene centuries, and taunts us

with having superseded their testimony.

Having then adduced these three fathers of the second century, I have

at least got so far as this, viz., no one, who acknowledges the force

of early testimony in determining Christian truth, can wonder, no one

can complain, can object, that we Catholics should hold a very high

doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin, unless indeed stronger

statements can be brought for a contrary conception of her, either of

as early, or at least of a later date. But, as far as I know, no

statements can be brought from the ante-Nicene literature to

invalidate the testimony of the three fathers concerning her; and

little can be brought against it from the fourth century, while in

that fourth century the current of testimony in her behalf is as

strong as in the second; and, as to the fifth, it is far stronger than

in any former time, both in its fulness and its authority. This will

to some extent be seen as I proceed.

4. St Cyril, of Jerusalem (315-386), speaks for Palestine:

"Since through Eve, a virgin, came death, it behoved that through a

virgin, or rather from a virgin, should life appear; that, as the

serpent had deceived the one, so to the other Gabriel might bring

good tidings."--_Cat_. xii. 15.

5. St. Ephrem Syrus (lie died 378) is a witness for the Syrians proper

and the neighboring Orientals, in contrast to the Graeco-Syrians. A

native of Nisibis, on the farther side of the Euphrates, he knew no

language but Syriac:

"Through Eve the beautiful and desirable glory of men was

extinguished; but it has revived through Mary."--_Opp. Syr._, ii. p.

318.

Again:

"In the beginning, by the sin of our first parents, death passed

upon all men; to-day, through Mary, we are translated from death

unto life. In the beginning, the serpent filled the ears of Eve, and

the poison spread thence over the whole body; to-day, Mary from her

ears received the {61} champion of eternal happiness; what,

therefore, was an instrument of death, was an instrument of life

also."--iii. p. 607.

I have already referred to St. Paul's contrast between Adam and our

Lord in his Epistle to the Romans, as also in his first Epistle to the

Corinthians. Some writers attempt to say that there is no doctrinal

truth, but a mere rhetorical display, in those passages. It is quite

as easy to say so as to attempt so to dispose of this received

comparison, in the writings of the fathers, between Eve and Mary.

6. St. Epiphanius (320-400) speaks for Egypt, Palestine, and Cyprus:

"She it is who is signified by Eve, enigmatically receiving the

appellation of the mother of the living. . . . It was a wonder that

after the fall she had this great epithet. And, according to what is

material, from that Eve all the race of men on earth is generated.

But thus in truth from Mary the Life itself was born in the world,

that Mary might bear living things and become the mother of living

things. Therefore, enigmatically, Mary is called the mother of

living things. . . Also, there is another thing to consider as to

these women, and wonderful--as to Eve and Mary. Eve became a cause

of death to man . . . and Mary a cause of life; . . . that life

might be instead of death, life excluding death which came from the

woman, viz., he who through the woman has become our life."

--_Haer_. 78. 18.

7. By the time of St. Jerome (331-420), the contrast between Eve and

Mary had almost passed into a proverb. He says (Ep. xxii. 21, ad

Eustoch.), "Death by Eve, life by Mary." Nor let it be supposed that

he, any more than the preceding fathers, considered the Blessed Virgin

a mere physical instrument of giving birth to our Lord, who is the

life. So far from it, in the epistle from which I have quoted, he is

only adding another virtue to that crown which gained for Mary her

divine maternity. They have spoken of faith, joy, and obedience; St.

Jerome adds, what they had only suggested, virginity. After the manner

of the fathers in his own day, he is setting forth the Blessed Mary to

the high-born Roman lady whom he is addressing as the model of the

virginal life; and his argument in its behalf is, that it is higher

than the marriage state, not in itself, viewed in any mere natural

respect, but as being the free act of self-consecration to God, and

from the personal religious purpose which it involves:

"Higher wage," he says, "is due to that which is not a compulsion,

but an offering; for, were virginity commanded, marriage would seem

to be put out of the question; and it would be most cruel to force

men against nature, and to extort from them an angel's life."--20.

I do not know whose testimony is more important than St. Jerome's, the

friend of Pope Damasus at Rome, the pupil of St. Gregory Nazianzen at

Constantinople, and of Didymus in Alexandria, a native of Dalmatia,

yet an inhabitant, at different times of his life, of Gaul, Syria, and

Palestine.

8. St. Jerome speaks for the whole world, except Africa; and for

Africa in the fourth century, if we must limit so world-wide an

authority to place, witnesses St. Augustine (354-430). He repeats the

words as if a proverb; "By a woman death, by a woman life" (Opp. t. v.

Serm. 233); elsewhere he enlarges on the idea conveyed in it. In one

place he quotes St. Irenaeus's words as cited above (adv. Julian i.

4). In another he speaks as follows:

"It is a great sacrament that, whereas through woman death became

our portion, so life was born to us by woman; that, in the case of

both sexes, male and female, the baffled devil should be tormented,

when on the overthrow of both sexes he was rejoicing; whose

punishment had been small, if both sexes had been liberated in us,

without our being liberated through both."--_Opp. t. vi. De Agon,

Christ_, c. 24.

{62}

9. St. Peter Chrysologus (400-450), Bishop of Ravenna, and one of the

chief authorities in the fourth General Council:

"Blessed art thou among women; for among women, on whose womb Eve,

who was cursed, brought punishment, Mary, being blest, rejoices, is

honored, and is looked up to. And woman now is truly made through

grace the mother of the living, who had been by nature the mother of

the dying. . . . Heaven feels awe of God, angels tremble at him, the

creature sustains him not, nature sufficeth not, and yet one maiden

so takes, receives, entertains him, as a guest within her breast,

that, for the very hire of her home, and as the price of her womb,

she asks, she obtains, peace for the earth, glory for the heavens,

salvation for the lost, life for the dead, a heavenly parentage for

the earthly, the union of God himself with human flesh."--_Serm._

140.

It is difficult to express more explicitly, though in oratorical

language, that the Blessed Virgin had a real, meritorious

co-operation, a share which had a "hire" and a "price" in the reversal

of the fall.

10. St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe in Africa (468-533). The homily

which contains the following passage is placed by Ceillier (t. xvi. p.

127) among his genuine works:

"In the wife of the first man, the wickedness of the devil depraved

her seduced mind; in the mother of the second Man, the grace of God

preserved both her mind inviolate and her flesh. On her mind he

conferred the most firm faith; from her flesh he took away lust

altogether. Since then man was in a miserable way condemned for sin,

therefore without sin was in a marvellous way born the God

man."--_Serm_. 2, p. 124, _De Dupl. Nativ._

Accordingly, in the sermon which follows (if it is his), he continues,

illustrating her office of universal mother, as ascribed to her by St.

Epiphanius:

"Come ye virgins to a virgin, come ye who conceive to her who

conceived, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a mother, ye that

suckle to one who suckled, young girls to the young girl. It is for

this reason that the Virgin Mary has taken on her in our Lord Jesus

Christ all these divisions of nature, that to all women who have

recourse to her she may be a succor, and so restore the whole race

of women who come to her, being the new Eve, by keeping virginity,

as the new Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, recovers the whole race of

men."

Such is the rudimental view, as I have called it, which the fathers

have given us of Mary, as the second Eve, the mother of the living. I

have cited ten authors. I could cite more were it necessary. Except

the two last, they write gravely and without any rhetoric. I allow

that the two last write in a different style, since the extracts I

have made are from their sermons; but I do not see that the coloring

conceals the outline. And, after all, men use oratory on great

subjects, not on small; nor would they, and other fathers whom I might

quote, have lavished their high language upon the Blessed Virgin, such

as they gave to no one else, unless they knew well that no one else

had such claims as she had on their love and veneration.

And now I proceed to dwell for a while upon two inferences, which it

is obvious to draw from the rudimental doctrine itself; the first

relates to the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, the second to her

greatness.

1. Her _sanctity_. She holds, as the fathers teach us, that office in

our restoration which Eve held in our fall. Now, in the first place,

what were Eve's endowments to enable her to enter upon her trial? She

could not have stood against the wiles of the devil, though she was

innocent and sinless, without the grant of a large grace. And this she

had--a heavenly gift, which was over and above and additional to that

nature of hers, which she received from Adam, as Adam before her had

also received the same gift, at the very time (as it is commonly held)

of his original creation. This is Anglican doctrine as well as

Catholic; it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written a

dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which "many of

the schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created {63} in grace--that is,

received a principle of grace and divine life from his very creation,

or in the moment of the infusion of his soul; of which," he says, "for

my own part I have little doubt." Again, he says: "It is abundantly

manifest, from the many testimonies alleged, that the ancient doctors

of the church did, with a general consent, acknowledge that our first

parents, in the state of integrity, had in them something more than

nature--that is, were endowed with the divine principle of the

Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity."

Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who

agree with you maintain it as well as we do, I ask, Was not Mary as

fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference that she, who was to

co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less

endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a helpmate to

her husband, did in the event but co-operate with him for its ruin? If

Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which

we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had a greater grace? And

this consideration gives significance to the angel's salutation of her

as "full of grace"--an interpretation of the original word which is

undoubtedly the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant

assumption that grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance,

answering to the word "favor;" whereas it is, as the fathers teach, a

real inward condition or superadded quality of soul. And if Eve had

this supernatural inward gift given her from the moment of her

personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift

from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know

how to resist this inference--well, this is simply and literally the

doctrine of the immaculate conception. I say the doctrine of the

immaculate conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or

less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and

it really does seem to me bound up in that doctrine of the fathers,

that Mary is the second Eve.

It is to me a most strange phenomenon that so many learned and devout

men stumble at this doctrine, and I can only account for it by

supposing that, in matter of fact, they do not know what we mean by

the immaculate conception; and your volume (may I say it?) bears out

my suspicion. It is a great consolation to have reason for thinking

so--for believing that in some sort the persons in question are in the

position of those great saints in former times who are said to have

hesitated about it, when they would not have hesitated at all if the

word "conception" had been clearly explained in that sense in which

now it is universally received. I do not see how any one who holds

with Bull the Catholic doctrine of the supernatural endowments of our

first parents, has fair reason for doubting our doctrine about the

Blessed Virgin. It has no reference whatever to her parents, but

simply to her own person; it does but affirm that, together with the

nature which she inherited from her parents, that is, her own nature,

she had a superadded fulness of grace, and that from the first moment

of her existence. Suppose Eve had stood the trial, and not lost her

first grace, and suppose she had eventually had children, those

children from the first moment of their existence would, through

divine bounty, have received the same privilege that she had ever had;

that is, as she was taken from Adam's side, in a garment, so to say,

of grace, so they in turn would have received what may be called an

immaculate conception. They would have been conceived in grace, as in

fact they are conceived in sin. What is there difficult in this

doctrine? What is there unnatural? Mary may be called a daughter of

Eve unfallen. You believe with us that St. John Baptist had grace

given to him three months before his birth, at the time {64} that the

Blessed Virgin visited his mother. He accordingly was not immaculately

conceived, because he was alive before grace came to him; but our

Lady's case only differs from his in this respect, that to her grace

came not three months merely before her birth, but from the first

moment of her being, as it had been given to Eve.

But it may be said, How does this enable us to say that she was

conceived without _original sin_? If Anglicans knew what we mean by

original sin, they would not ask the question. Our doctrine of

original sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original

sin," with us, cannot be called sin in the ordinary sense of the word

"sin;" it is a term denoting the _imputation_ of Adam's sin, or the

state to which Adam's sin reduces his children; but by Protestants it

is understood to be sin in the same sense as actual sin. We, with the

fathers, think of it as something negative; Protestants as something

positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a change of nature, a

poison internally corrupting the soul, and propagated from father to

son, after the manner of a bad constitution; and they fancy that we

ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin, different

from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold

nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others;

that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's

sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake

of him who was to redeem her and us upon the cross, to her the debt

was remitted by anticipation; on her the sentence was not carried out,

except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when her time

came, as others. All this we teach, but we deny that she had original

sin; for by original sin we mean, as I have already said, something

negative, viz., this only, the _deprivation_ of that supernatural

unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their creation--deprivation

and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more

than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her

by God's free bounty from the very first moment of her existence, and

thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which

consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege in

order to fit her to become the mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit

her mentally, spiritually, for it; so that, by the aid of the first

grace, she might so grow in grace that when the angel came, and her

Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace," prepared, as far as a

creature could be prepared, to receive him into her bosom.

I have drawn the doctrine of the immaculate conception, as an

immediate inference, from the primitive doctrine that Mary is the

second Eve. The argument seems to me conclusive; and, if it has not

been universally taken as such, this has come to pass because there

has not been a clear understanding among Catholics what exactly was

meant by the immaculate conception. To many it seemed to imply that

the Blessed Virgin did not die in Adam, that she did not come under

the penalty of the fall, that she was not redeemed; that she was

conceived in some way inconsistent with the verse in the _Miserere_

psalm. If controversy had in earlier days so cleared the subject as to

make it plain to all that the doctrine meant nothing else than that,

in fact, in her case the general sentence on mankind was not carried

out, and that by means of the indwelling in her of divine grace from

the first moment of her being (and this is all the decree of 1854 has

declared), I cannot believe that the doctrine would have ever been

opposed; for an instinctive sentiment has led Christians jealously to

put the Blessed Mary aside when sin comes into discussion. This is

expressed in the well-known words of St. Augustine. All have sinned

"except the holy Virgin Mary, {65} concerning whom, for the honor of

the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are treating

of sins" (de Nat. et Grat. 42); words which, whatever St. Augustine's

actual occasion of using them (to which you refer, p. 176), certainly,

in the spirit which they breathe, are well adapted to convey the

notion that, apart from her relation to her parents, she had not

personally any part in sin whatever. It is true that several great

fathers of the fourth century do imply or assert that on one or two

occasions she did sin venially or showed infirmity. This is the only

real objection which I know of; and, as I do not wish to pass it over

lightly, I propose to consider it at the end of this letter.

2. Now, secondly, her _greatness_. Here let us suppose that our first

parents had overcome in their trial, and had gained for their

descendants for ever the full possession, as if by right, of the

privileges which were promised to their obedience--grace here and

glory hereafter. Is it possible that those descendants, pious and

happy from age to age in their temporal homes, would have forgotten

their benefactors? Would they not have followed them in thought into

the heavens, and gratefully commemorated them on earth? The history of

the temptation, the craft of the serpent, their steadfastness in

obedience--the loyal vigilance, the sensitive purity of Eve--the great

issue, salvation wrought out for all generations--would have been

never from their minds, ever welcome to their ears. This would have

taken place from the necessity of our nature. Every nation has its

mythical hymns and epics about its first fathers and its heroes. The

great deeds of Charlemagne, Alfred, Coeur de Lion, Wallace, Louis the

Ninth, do not die; and though their persons are gone from us, we make

much of their names. Milton's Adam, after his fall, understands the

force of this law, and shrinks from the prospect of its operation:

"Who of all ages to succeed but, feeling

The evil on him brought by me, will curse

My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure;

For this we may thank Adam."

If this anticipation has not been fulfilled in the event, it is owing

to the needs of our penal life, our state of perpetual change, and the

ignorance and unbelief incurred by the fall; also because, fallen as

we are, from the hopefulness of our nature we feel more pride in our

national great men than dejection at our national misfortunes. Much

more then in the great kingdom and people of God--the saints are ever

in our sight, and not as mere ineffectual ghosts, but as if present

bodily in their past selves. It is said of them, "Their works do

follow them;" what they were here, such are they in heaven and in the

church. As we call them by their earthly names, so we contemplate them

in their earthly characters and histories. Their acts, callings, and

relations below are types and anticipations of their mission above.

Even in the case of our Lord himself, whose native home is the eternal

heavens, it is said of him in his state of glory, that he is a "priest

for ever;" and when he comes again he will be recognized, by those who

pierced him, as being the very same that he was on earth. The only

question is, whether the Blessed Virgin had a part, a real part, in

the economy of grace, whether, when she was on earth, she secured by

her deeds any claim on our memories; for, if she did, it is impossible

we should put her away from us, merely because she is gone hence, and

not look at her still, according to the measure of her earthly

history, with gratitude and expectation. If, as St. Irenaeus says, she

did the part of an advocate, a friend in need, even in her mortal

life, if, as St. Jerome and St. Ambrose say, she was on earth the

great pattern of virgins, if she had a meritorious share in bringing

about our redemption, if her maternity was earned by her faith and

obedience, if her divine Son was subject to her, and if she stood by

the {66} cross with a mother's heart and drank in to the full those

sufferings which it was her portion to gaze upon, it is impossible

that we should not associate these characteristics of her life on

earth with her present state of blessedness; and this surely she

anticipated, when she said in her hymn that "all generations shall

call her blessed."

I am aware that, in thus speaking, I am following a line of thought

which is rather a meditation than an argument in controversy, and I

shall not carry it further; but still, in turning to other topics, it

is to the point to inquire whether the popular astonishment, excited

by our belief in the Blessed Virgin's present dignity, does not arise

from the circumstance that the bulk of men, engaged in matters of the

world, have never calmly considered her historical position in the

gospels so as rightly to realize (if I may use the word a second time)

what that position imports. I do not claim for the generality of

Catholics any greater powers of reflection upon the objects of their

faith than Protestants commonly have, but there is a sufficient number

of religious men among Catholics who, instead of expending their

devotional energies (as so many serious Protestants do) on abstract

doctrines, such as justification by faith only, or the sufficiency of

holy Scripture, employ themselves in the contemplation of Scripture

facts, and bring out in a tangible form the doctrines involved in

them, and give such a substance and color to the sacred history as to

influence their brethren, who, though superficial themselves, are

drawn by their Catholic instinct to accept conclusions which they

could not indeed themselves have elicited, but which, when elicited,

they feel to be true. However, it would be out of place to pursue this

course of reasoning here; and instead of doing so, I shall take what

perhaps you may think a very bold step--I shall find the doctrine of

our Lady's present exaltation in Scripture.

I mean to find it in the vision of the woman and child in the twelfth

chapter of the Apocalypse. [Footnote 14] Now here two objections will

be made to me at once: first, that such an interpretation is but

poorly supported by the fathers; and secondly, that in ascribing such

a picture of the Madonna (as it may be called) to the apostolic age, I

am committing an anachronism.

[Footnote 14: _Vid_. "Essay on Doctr. Development," p. 384, and

Bishop Ullathorne's work on the "Immaculate Conception," p. 77.]

As to the former of these objections, I answer as follows: Christians

have never gone to Scripture for proofs of their doctrines till there

was actual need from the pressure of controversy. If in those times

the Blessed Virgin's dignity were unchallenged on all hands as a

matter of doctrine, Scripture, as far as its argumentative matter was

concerned, was likely to remain a sealed book to them. Thus, to take

an instance in point, the Catholic party in the English Church (say

the Non-jurors), unable by their theory of religion simply to take

their stand on tradition, and distressed for proof of their doctrines,

had their eyes sharpened to scrutinize and to understand the letter of

holy Scripture, which to others brought no instruction. And the

peculiarity of their interpretations is this--that they have in

themselves great logical cogency, yet are but faintly supported by

patristical commentators. Such is the use of the word [Greek text] or

_facere_ in our Lord's institution of the holy eucharist, which, by a

reference to the old Testament, is found to be a word of sacrifice.

Such again is [Greek text] in the passage in the Acts, "As they

_ministered_ to the Lord and fasted," which again is a sacerdotal

term. And such the passage in Rom. xv. 16, in which several terms are

used which have an allusion to the sacrificial eucharistic rite. Such,

too, is St. Paul's repeated message to the _household_ of Onesiphorus,

with no mention of Onesiphorus himself, but in one place, with the

addition of a prayer that "he might find mercy of the Lord" in the day

of {67} judgment, which, taking into account its wording and the known

usage of the first centuries, we can hardly deny is a prayer for his

soul. Other texts there are which ought to find a place in ancient

controversies, and the omission of which by the fathers affords matter

for more surprise; those, for instance, which, according to

Middleton's rule, are real proofs of our Lord's divinity, and yet are

passed over by Catholic disputants; for these bear upon a then

existing controversy of the first moment and of the most urgent

exigency.

As to the second objection which I have supposed, so far from allowing

it, I consider that it is built upon a mere imaginary fact, and that

the truth of the matter lies in the very contrary direction. The

Virgin and Child is _not_ a mere modern idea; on the contrary, it is

represented again and again, as every visitor to Rome is aware, in the

paintings of the Catacombs. Mary is there drawn with the Divine Infant

in her lap, she with hands extended in prayer, he with his hand in the

attitude of blessing. No representation can more forcibly convey the

doctrine of the high dignity of the mother, and, I will add, of her

power over her Son. Why should the memory of his time of subjection be

so dear to Christians, and so carefully preserved? The only question

to be determined, is the precise date of these remarkable monuments of

the first age of Christianity. That they belong to the centuries of

what Anglicans call the "undivided church" is certain; but lately

investigations have been pursued which place some of them at an

earlier date than any one anticipated as possible. I am not in a

position to quote largely from the works of the Cavaliere de Rossi,

who has thrown so much light upon the subject; but I have his "Imagini

Scelte," published in 1863, and they are sufficient for my purpose. In

this work he has given us from the Catacombs various representations

of the Virgin and Child; the latest of these belong to the early part

of the fourth century, but the earliest he believes to be referable to

the very age of the apostles. He comes to this conclusion from the

style and the skill of the composition, and from the history,

locality, and existing inscriptions of the subterranean in which it is

found. However, he does not go so far as to insist upon so early a

date; yet the utmost liberty he grants is to refer the painting to the

era of the first Antonines--that is, to a date within half a century

of the death of St. John. I consider then that, as you fairly use, in

controversy with Protestants, the traditional doctrine of the church

in early times, as an explanation of the Scripture text, or at least

as a suggestion, or as a defence, of the sense which you may wish to

put on it, quite apart from the question whether your interpretation

itself is traditional, so it is lawful for me, though I have not the

positive words of the fathers on my side, to shelter my own

interpretation of the apostle's vision under the fact of the extant

pictures of Mother and Child in the Roman Catacombs. There is another

principle of Scripture interpretation which we should hold with

you--when we speak of a doctrine being contained in Scripture, we do

not necessarily mean that it is contained there in direct categorical

terms, but that there is no other satisfactory way of accounting for

the language and expressions of the sacred writers, concerning the

subject-matter in question, than to suppose that they held upon it the

opinions which we hold; that they would not have spoken as they have

spoken _unless_ they held it. For myself I have ever felt the truth of

this principle, as regards the Scripture proof of the Holy Trinity; I

should not have found out that doctrine in the sacred text without

previous traditional teaching; but when once it is suggested from

without, it commends itself as the one true interpretation, from its

appositeness, because no other view of doctrine, which can be ascribed

to the inspired writers, so happily {68} solves the obscurities and

seeming inconsistencies of their teaching. And now to apply what I

have said to the passage in the Apocalypse.

If there is an apostle on whom, _à priori_, our eyes would be fixed,

as likely to teach us about the Blessed Virgin, it is St. John, to

whom she was committed by our Lord on the cross--with whom, as

tradition goes, she lived at Ephesus till she was taken away. This

anticipation is confirmed _à posteriori_; for, as I have said above,

one of the earliest and fullest of our informants concerning her

dignity, as being the second Eve, is Irenaeus, who came to Lyons from

Asia Minor, and had been taught by the immediate disciples of St.

John. The apostle's vision is as follows:

"A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and

the moon under her feet; and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And

being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be

delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a

great red dragon . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was

ready to be delivered, that, when she should be delivered, he might

devour her son. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all

nations with an iron rod; and her son was taken up to God and to his

throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness." Now I do not deny, of

course, that, under the image of the woman, the church is signified;

but what I would maintain is this, that the holy apostle would not

have spoken of the church under this particular image _unless_ there

had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the

object of veneration to all the faithful.

No one doubts that the "man-child" spoken of is an allusion to our

Lord; why, then, is not "the woman" an allusion to his mother? This

surely is the obvious sense of the words; of course it has a further

sense also, which is the scope of the image; doubtless the child

represents the children of the church, and doubtless the woman

represents the church; this, I grant, is the real or direct sense, but

what is the sense of the symbol? _who_ are the woman and the child? I

answer, They are not personifications but persons. This is true of the

child, therefore it is true of the woman.

But again: not only mother and child, but a serpent, is introduced

into the vision. Such a meeting of man, woman, and serpent has not

been found in Scripture, since the beginning of Scripture, and now it

is found in its end. Moreover, in the passage in the Apocalypse, as if

to supply, before Scripture came to an end, what was wanting in its

beginning, we are told, and for the first time, that the serpent in

Paradise was the evil spirit. If the dragon of St. John is the same as

the serpent of Moses, and the man-child is "the seed of the woman,"

why is not the woman herself she whose seed the man-child is? And, if

the first woman is not an allegory, why is the second? if the first

woman is Eve, why is not the second Mary?

But this is not all. The image of the woman, according to Scripture

usage, is too bold and prominent for a mere personification. Scripture

is not fond of allegories. We have indeed frequent figures there, as

when the sacred writers speak of the arm or sword of the Lord; and so

too when they speak of Jerusalem or Samaria in the feminine; or of the

mountains leaping for joy, or of the church as a bride or as a vine;

but they are not much given to dressing up abstract ideas or

generalizations in personal attributes. This is the classical rather

than the Scripture style. Xenophon places Hercules between Virtue and

Vice, represented as women; AEschylus introduces into his drama Force

and Violence; Virgil gives personality to public rumor or Fame, and

Plautus to Poverty. So on monuments done in the classical style, we

{69} see virtues, vices, rivers, renown, death, and the like, turned

into human figures of men and women. I do not say there are no

instances at all of this method in Scripture, but I say that such

poetical compositions are strikingly unlike its usual method. Thus we

at once feel its difference from Scripture, when we betake ourselves

to the Pastor of Hermes, and find the church a woman, to St.

Methodius, and find Virtue a woman, and to St. Gregory's poem, and

find Virginity again a woman. Scripture deals with types rather than

personifications. Israel stands for the chosen people, David for

Christ, Jerusalem for heaven. Consider the remarkable representations,

dramatic I may call them, in Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and Hosea;

predictions, threatenings, and promises are acted out by those

prophets. Ezechiel is commanded to shave his head, and to divide and

scatter his hair; and Ahias tears his garment, and gives ten out of

twelve parts of it to Jeroboam. So, too, the structure of the imagery

in the Apocalypse is not a mere allegorical creation, but is founded

on the Jewish ritual. In like manner our Lord's bodily cures are

visible types of the power of his grace upon the soul; and his

prophecy of the last day is conveyed under that of the fall of

Jerusalem. Even his parables are not simply ideal, but relations of

occurrences which did or might take place, under which was conveyed a

spiritual meaning. The description of Wisdom in the Proverbs, and

other sacred books, has brought out the instinct of commentators in

this respect. They felt that Wisdom could not be a mere

personification, and they determined that it was our Lord; and the

later of these books, by their own more definite language, warranted

that interpretation. Then, when it was found that the Arians used it

in derogation of our Lord's divinity, still, unable to tolerate the

notion of a mere allegory, commentators applied the description to the

Blessed Virgin. Coming back then to the Apocalyptic vision, I ask, If

the woman must be some real person, who can it be whom the apostle

saw, and intends, and delineates, but that same great mother to whom

the chapters in the Proverbs are accommodated? And let it be observed,

moreover, that in this passage, from the allusion in it to the history

of the fall, she may be said still to be represented under the

character of the second Eve. I make a further remark; it is sometimes

asked, Why do not the sacred writers mention our Lady's greatness? I

answer, she was, or may have been, alive when the apostles and

evangelists wrote; there was just one book of Scripture certainly

written after her death, and that book does (if I may so speak)

canonize her.

But if all this be so, if it is really the Blessed Virgin whom

Scripture represents as clothed with the sun, crowned with the stars

of heaven, and with the moon as her footstool, what height of glory

may we not attribute to her? and what are we to say of those who,

through ignorance, run counter to the voice of Scripture, to the

testimony of the fathers, to the traditions of East and West, and

speak and act contemptuously toward her whom her Lord delighteth to

honor?

Now I have said all I mean to say on what I have called the rudimental

teaching of antiquity about the Blessed Virgin; but, after all, I have

not insisted on the highest view of her prerogatives which the fathers

have taught us. You, my dear friend, who know so well the ancient

controversies and councils, may have been surprised why I should not

have yet spoken of her as the Theotocos; but I wished to show on how

broad a basis her greatness rests, independent of that wonderful

title; and again, I have been loth to enlarge upon the force of a

word, which is rather matter for devotional thought than for polemical

dispute. However, I might as well not {70} write on my subject at all

as altogether be silent upon it.

It is, then, an integral portion of the faith fixed by ecumenical

council, a portion of it which you hold as well as I, that the Blessed

Virgin is Theotocos, Deipara, or Mother of God; and this word, when

thus used, carries with it no admixture of rhetoric, no taint of

extravagant affection; it has nothing else but a well-weighed, grave,

dogmatic sense, which corresponds and is adequate to its sound. It

intends to express that God is her Son, as truly as any one of us is

the son of his own mother. If this be so, what can be said of any

creature whatever which may not be said of her? what can be said too

much, so that it does not compromise the attributes of the Creator?

He, indeed, might have created a being more perfect, more admirable,

than she is; he might have endued that being, so created, with a

richer grant of grace, of power, of blessedness; but in one respect

she surpasses all even possible creations, viz., that she is Mother of

her Creator. It is this awful title, which both illustrates and

connects together the two prerogatives of Mary, on which I have been

lately enlarging, her sanctity and her greatness. It is the issue of

her sanctity; it is the source of her greatness. What dignity can be

too great to attribute to her who is as closely bound up, as

intimately one, with the Eternal Word, as a mother is with a son? What

outfit of sanctity, what fulness and redundance of grace, what

exuberance of merits must have been hers, on the supposition, which

the fathers justify, that her Maker regarded them at all, and took

them into account, when he condescended "not to abhor the Virgin's

womb?" Is it surprising, then, that on the one hand she should be

immaculate in her conception? or on the other that she should be

exalted as a queen, with a crown of twelve stars? Men sometimes wonder

that we call her mother of life, of mercy, of salvation; what are all

these titles compared to that one name, Mother of God?

I shall say no more about this title here. It is scarcely possible to

write of it without diverging into a style of composition unsuited to

a letter; so I proceed to the history of its use.

The title of _Theotocos_ [Footnote 15] begins with ecclesiastical

writers of a date hardly later than that at which we read of her as

the second Eve. It first occurs in the works of Origen (185-254); but

he, witnessing for Egypt and Palestine, witnesses also that it was in

use before his time; for, as Socrates informs us, he "interpreted how

it was to be used, and discussed the question at length" (Hist. vii.

32). Within two centuries (431), in the general council held against

Nestorius, it was made part of the formal dogmatic teaching of the

church. At that time Theodoret, who from his party connections might

have been supposed disinclined to its solemn recognition, owned that

"the ancient and more than ancient heralds of the orthodox faith

taught the use of the term according to the apostolic tradition." At

the same date John of Antioch, who for a while sheltered Nestorius,

whose heresy lay in the rejection of the term, said, "This title no

ecclesiastical teacher has put aside. Those who have used it are many

and eminent, and those who have not used it have not attacked those

who did." Alexander again, one of the fiercest partisans of Nestorius,

allows the use of the word, though he considers it dangerous. "That in

festive solemnities," he says, "or in preaching or teaching,

_theotocos_ should be unguardedly said by the orthodox without

explanation is no blame, because such statements were not dogmatic,

nor said with evil meaning." If we look for those, in the interval

between Origen and the council, to whom Alexander refers, we find it

used again and again by the fathers in such of their works as are

extant: by {71} Archelans of Mesopotamia, Eusebius of Palestine,

Alexander of Egypt, in the third century; in the fourth, by Athanasius

many times with emphasis, by Cyril of Palestine, Gregory Nyssen of

Cappadocia, Gregory Nazianzen of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Syria, and

Ammonius of Thrace; not to speak of the Emperor Julian, who, having no

local or ecclesiastical domicile, speaks for the whole of Christendom.

Another and earlier emperor, Constantine, in his speech before the

assembled bishops at Nicaea, uses the still more explicit title of

"the Virgin Mother of God;" which is also used by Ambrose of Milan,

and by Vincent and Cassian in the south of France, and then by St.

Leo.

[Footnote 15: _Vid_. "translation of St. Athanasius," pp. 420, 440,

447.]

So much for the term; it would be tedious to produce the passages of

authors who, using or not using the term, convey the idea. "Our God

was carried in the womb of Mary," says Ignatius, who was martyred A.D.

106. "The word of God," says Hippolytus, "was carried in that virgin

frame." "The Maker of all," says Amphilochius, "is born of a virgin."

"She did compass without circumscribing the Sun of justice--the

Everlasting is born," says Chrysostom. "God dwelt in the womb," says

Proclus. "When thou hearest that God speaks from the bush," asks

Theodotus, "in the bush seest thou not the Virgin?" Cassian says,

"Mary bore her Author." "The one God only-begotten," says Hilary, "is

introduced into the womb of a virgin." "The Everlasting," says

Ambrose, "came into the Virgin him." "The closed gate," says Jerome,

"by which alone the Lord God of Israel enters, is the Virgin Mary."

"That man from heaven," says Capriolus, "is God conceived in the

womb." "He is made in thee," says Augustine, "who made thee."

This being the faith of the fathers about the Blessed Virgin, we need

not wonder that it should in no long time be transmuted into devotion.

No wonder if their language should be unmeasured, when so great a term

as "Mother of God" had been formally set down as the safe limit of it.

No wonder if it became stronger and stronger as time went on, since

only in a long period could the fulness of its import be exhausted.

And in matter of fact, and as might be anticipated (with the few

exceptions which I have noted above, and which I am to treat of

below), the current of thought in those early ages did uniformly tend

to make much of the Blessed Virgin and to increase her honors, not to

circumscribe them. Little jealousy was shown of her in those times;

but, when any such niggardness of devotion occurred, then one father

or other fell upon the offender, with zeal, not to say with

fierceness. Thus St. Jerome inveighs against Helvidius; thus St.

Epiphanius denounces Apollinaris, St. Cyril Nestorius, and St. Ambrose

Bonosus; on the other hand, each successive insult offered to her by

individual adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate

sacred affection with which Christendom regarded her. "She was alone,

and wrought the world's salvation and conceived the redemption of

all," says Ambrose; [Footnote 16] "she had so great grace, as not

only to preserve virginity herself, but to confer it upon those whom

she visited." "The rod out of the stem of Jesse," says Jerome, "and

the eastern gate through which the high priest alone goes in and out,

yet is ever shut" "The wise woman," says Nilus, who "hath clad

believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing

of incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness."

"The mother of life, of beauty, of majesty, the morning star,"

according to Antiochus. "The mystical new heavens," "the heavens

carrying the Divinity," "the fruitful vine," "by whom we are

translated from death to life," according to St. Ephrem. "The manna

which is delicate, bright, sweet, and virgin, {72} which, as though

coming from heaven, has poured down on all the people of the churches

a food pleasanter than honey," according to St. Maximus.

[Footnote 16: "Essay on Doctr. Dev.," p. 408]

Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of

price," "the church's diadem," "the expression of orthodoxy." "Run

through all creation in your thought," he says, "and see if there be

one equal or superior to the Holy Virgin, Mother of God." "Hail,

mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not," says Theodotus,

or some one else at Ephesus--"hail, all-undefiled mother of holiness;

hail, most pellucid fountain of the life-giving stream." And St. Cyril

too at Ephesus, "Hail, Mary, Mother of God, majestic common-treasure

of the whole world, the lamp unquenchable, the crown of virginity, the

staff of orthodoxy, the indissoluble temple, the dwelling of the

illimitable, mother and virgin, through whom he in the holy gospels is

called blessed who cometh in the name of the Lord, .... through whom

the Holy Trinity is sanctified, through whom angels and archangels

rejoice, devils are put to flight, .... and the fallen creature is

received up into the heavens, etc, etc." [Footnote 17] Such is but a

portion of the panegyrical language which St. Cyril used in the third

ecumenical council.

[Footnote 17: Opp., t. 6, p. 355. ]

I must not close my review of the Catholic doctrine concerning the

Blessed Virgin without directly speaking of her intercessory power,

though I have incidentally made mention of it already. It is the

immediate result of two truths, neither of which you dispute: first,

that "it is good and useful," as the Council of Trent says,

"suppliantly to invoke the saints and to have recourse to their

prayers;" and secondly, that the Blessed Mary is singularly dear to

her Son and singularly exalted in sanctity and glory. However, at the

risk of becoming didactic, I will state somewhat more fully the

grounds on which it rests.

To a candid pagan it must have been one of the most remarkable points

of Christianity, on its first appearance, that the observance of

prayer formed so vital a part of its organization; and that, though

its members were scattered all over the world, and its rulers and

subjects had so little opportunity of correlative action, yet they,

one and all, found the solace of a spiritual intercourse, and a real

bond of union, in the practice of mutual intercession. Prayer, indeed,

is the very essence of religion; but in the heathen religions it was

either public or personal; it was a state ordinance, or a selfish

expedient, for the attainment of certain tangible, temporal goods.

Very different from this was its exercise among Christians, who were

thereby knit together in one body, different as they were in races,

ranks, and habits, distant from each other in country, and helpless

amid hostile populations. Yet it proved sufficient for its purpose.

Christians could not correspond; they could not combine; but they

could pray one for another. Even their public prayers partook of this

character of intercession; for to pray for the welfare of the whole

church was really a prayer for all classes of men, and all the

individuals of which it was composed. It was in prayer that the church

was founded. For ten days all the apostles "persevered with one mind

in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the Mother of

Jesus, and with his brethren." Then again at Pentecost "they were all

with one mind in one place;" and the converts then made are said to

have "persevered in prayer." And when, after a while, St. Peter was

seized and put in prison with a view to his being put to death,

"prayer was made without ceasing" by the church of God for him; and,

when the angel released him, he took refuge in a house "where many

were gathered together in prayer."

{73}

We are so accustomed to these passages as hardly to be able to do

justice to their singular significance; and they are followed up by

various passages of the apostolic epistles. St. Paul enjoins his

brethren to '"pray with all prayer and supplication at all times in

the Spirit, with all instance and supplication for all saints," to

"pray in every place," "to make supplication, prayers, intercessions,

giving of thanks for all men." And in his own person he "ceases not to

give thanks for them, commemorating them in his prayers," and "always

in all his prayers making supplication for them all with joy."

Now, was this spiritual bond to cease with life? or had Christians

similar duties to their brethren departed? From the witness of the

early ages of the church, it appears that they had; and you, and those

who agree with you, would be the last to deny that they were then in

the practice of praying, as for the living, so for those also who had

passed into the intermediate state between earth and heaven. Did the

sacred communion extend further still, on to the inhabitants of heaven

itself? Here too you agree with us, for you have adopted in your

volume the words of the Council of Trent which I have quoted above.

But now we are brought to a higher order of thoughts.

It would be preposterous to pray for those who are already in glory;

but at least they can pray for us, and we can ask their prayers, and

in the Apocalypse at least angels are introduced both sending us their

blessing and presenting our prayers before the divine Presence. We

read there of an angel who "came and stood before the altar, having a

golden censer;" and "there was given to him much incense, that he

should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which

is before the throne of God." On this occasion, surely, the angel

Michael, as the prayer in mass considers him, performed the part of a

great intercessor or mediator above for the children of the church

militant below. Again, in the beginning of the same book, the sacred

writer goes so far as to speak of "grace and peace" being sent us, not

only from the Almighty, but "from the seven spirits that are before

his throne," thus associating the Eternal with the ministers of his

mercies; and this carries us on to the remarkable passage of St.

Justin, one of the earliest fathers, who, in his "Apology," says, "To

him (God), and his Son who came from him, and taught us these things,

and the host of the other good angels who follow and resemble them,

and the prophetic Spirit, we pay veneration and homage." Further, in

the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul introduces, not only angels, but

"the spirits of the just" into the sacred communion: "Ye have come to

Mount Sion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to God,

the Judge of all, to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to

Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament." What can be meant by having

"come to the spirits of the just," unless in some way or other they do

us good, whether by blessing or by aiding us? that is, in a word, to

speak correctly, by praying for us; for it is by prayer alone that the

creature above can bless or aid the creature below.

Intercession thus being the first principle of the church's life, next

it is certain again that the vital principle of that intercession, as

an availing power, is, according to the will of God, sanctity. This

seems to be suggested by a passage of St. Paul, in which the supreme

intercessor is said to be "the Spirit:" "The Spirit himself maketh

intercession for us; he maketh intercession for the saints according

to God." However, the truth thus implied is expressly brought out in

other parts of Scripture, in the form both of doctrine and of example.

The words of the man born blind speak the common sense of nature: "If

any man be a worshipper of God, him he heareth." {74} And apostles

confirm them: "The prayer of a just man availeth much," and "whatever

we ask we receive, because we keep his commandments." Then, as for

examples, we read of Abraham and Moses as having the divine purpose of

judgment revealed to them beforehand, in order that they might

deprecate its execution. To the friends of Job it was said, "My

servant Job shall pray for you; his face I will accept." Elias by his

prayer shut and opened the heavens. Elsewhere we read of "Jeremias,

Moses, and Samuel," and of "Noe, Daniel, and Job," as being great

mediators between God and his people. One instance is given us, which

testifies the continuance of so high an office beyond this life.

Lazarus, in the parable, is seen in Abraham's bosom. It is usual to

pass over this striking passage with the remark that it is a Jewish

expression; whereas, Jewish belief or not, it is recognized and

sanctioned by our Lord himself. What do we teach about the Blessed

Virgin more wonderful than this? Let us suppose that, at the hour of

death, the faithful are committed to her arms; but if Abraham, not yet

ascended on high, had charge of Lazarus, what offence is it to affirm

the like of her, who was not merely "the friend," but the very "Mother

of God?"

It may be added that, though it availed nothing for influence with our

Lord to be one of his company if sanctity was wanting, still, as the

gospel shows, he on various occasions allowed those who were near him

to be the means by which supplicants were brought to him, or miracles

gained from him, as in the instance of the miracle of the loaves; and

if on one occasion he seems to repel his mother when she told him that

wine was wanting for the guests at the marriage feast, it is obvious

to remark on it that, by saying that she was then separated from him

_because_ his hour was not yet come, he implied that, when that hour

was come, such separation would be at an end. Moreover, in fact, he

did, at her intercession, work the miracle which she desired.

I consider it impossible, then, for those who believe the church to be

one vast body in heaven and on earth, in which every holy creature of

God has his place, and of which prayer is the life, when once they

recognize the sanctity and greatness of the Blessed Virgin, not to

perceive immediately that her office above is one of perpetual

intercession for the faithful militant, and that our very relation to

her must be that of clients to a patron, and that, in the eternal

enmity which exists between the woman and the serpent, while the

serpent's strength is that of being the tempter, the weapon of the

second Eve and Mother of God is prayer.

As then these ideas of her sanctity and greatness gradually penetrated

the mind of Christendom, so did her intercessory power follow close

upon and with them. From the earliest times that mediation is

symbolized in those representations of her with uplifted hands, which,

whether in plaster or in glass, are still extant in Rome--that

church, as St. Irenaeus says, with which "every church, that is, the

faithful from every side, must agree, because of its more powerful

principality;" "into which," as Tertullian adds, "the apostles poured

out, together with their blood, their whole doctrines." As far,

indeed, as existing documents are concerned, I know of no instance to

my purpose earlier than A.D. 234, but it is a very remarkable one;

and, though it has been often quoted in the controversy, an argument

is not the weaker for frequent use.

St. Gregory Nyssen, [Footnote 18] a native of Cappadocia in the

fourth century, relates that his namesake, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea,

surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the century preceding, shortly before he was

called to the priesthood, received in a vision a creed, which is still

extant, from the Blessed Mary at the hands of St. John.

[Footnote 18: _Vid_. "Essay on Doctr. Dev." p. 386.]

{75}

The account runs thus: He was deeply pondering theological doctrine,

which the heretics of the day depraved. "In such thoughts," says his

namesake of Nyssa, "he was passing the night, when one appeared, as if

in human form, aged in appearance, saintly in the fashion of his

garments, and very venerable both in grace of countenance and general

mien. Amazed at the sight, he started from his bed, and asked who it

was, and why he came; but, on the other calming the perturbation of

his mind with his gentle voice, and saying he had appeared to him by

divine command on account of his doubts, in order that the truth of

the orthodox faith might be revealed to him, he took courage at the

word, and regarded him with a mixture of joy and fright. Then, on his

stretching his hand straight forward and pointing with his fingers at

something on one side, he followed with his eyes the extended hand,

and saw another appearance opposite to the former, in the shape of a

woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not, bear the

apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject of his

doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the faith, but

learned their names, as they addressed each other by their respective

appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in woman's

shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the mystery

of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in this

matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a

formulary, well turned and complete, and so vanished. He, on the other

hand, immediately committed to writing that divine teaching of his

mystagogue, and henceforth preached in the church according to that

form, and bequeathed to posterity, as an inheritance, that heavenly

teaching, by means of which his people are instructed down to this

day, being preserved from all heretical evil." He proceeds to rehearse

the creed thus given, "There is one God, father of a living Word,"

etc. Bull, after quoting it in his work upon the Nicene faith, alludes

to this history of its origin, and adds, "No one should think it

incredible that such a providence should befal a man whose whole life

was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as all ecclesiastical

writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) witness with one

voice."

Here she is represented as rescuing a holy soul from intellectual

error. This leads me to a further reflection. You seem, in one place

in your volume, to object to the antiphon, in which it is said of her,

"All heresies thou hast destroyed alone." Surely the truth of it is

verified in this age, as in former times, and especially by the

doctrine concerning her on which I have been dwelling. She is the

great exemplar of prayer in a generation which emphatically denies the

power of prayer _in toto_, which determines that fatal laws govern the

universe, that there cannot be any direct communication between earth

and heaven, that God cannot visit his earth, and that man cannot

influence his providence.

I cannot help hoping that your own reading of the fathers will on the

whole bear me out in the above account of their teaching concerning

the Blessed Virgin. Anglicans seem to me to overlook the strength of

the argument adducible from their works in our favor, and they open

the attack upon our mediaeval and modern writers, careless of leaving

a host of primitive opponents in their rear. I do not include you

among such Anglicans; you know what the fathers assert; but, if so,

have you not, my dear friend, been unjust to yourself in your recent

volume, and made far too much of the differences which exist between

Anglicans and us on this particular point? It is the office of an

Irenicon to smooth difficulties; I shall be pleased if I succeed in

removing some of yours. Let the public judge between us here. Had you

{76} happened in your volume to introduce your notice of our teaching

about the Blessed Virgin with a notice of the teaching of the fathers

concerning her, ordinary men would have considered that there was not

much to choose between you and us. Though you appealed ever so much to

the authority of the "undivided church," they certainly would have

said that you, who had such high notions of the Blessed Mary, were one

of the last men who had a right to accuse us of quasi-idolatry. When

they found you calling her by the titles of Mother of God, Second Eve,

and Mother of all Living, the Mother of life, the Morning Star, the

Stay of Believers, the Expression of Orthodoxy, the All-undefiled

Mother of Holiness, and the like, they would have deemed it a poor

compensation for such language that you protested against her being

called a co-redemptress or a priestess. And, if they were violent

Protestants, they would not have read you with that relish and

gratitude with which, as it is, they have perhaps accepted your

testimony against us. Not that they would have been altogether right

in their view of you;--on the contrary, I think there is a real

difference between what you protest against and what with the fathers

you hold; but unread men and men of the world form a broad practical

judgment of the things which come before them, and they would have

felt in this case that they had the same right to be shocked at you as

you have to be shocked at us;--and further, which is the point to

which I am coming, they would have said that, granting some of our

modern writers go beyond the fathers in this matter, still the line

cannot be logically drawn between the teaching of the fathers

concerning the Blessed Virgin and our own. This view of the matter

seems to me true and important; I do not think the line _can_ be

satisfactorily drawn, and to this point I shall now direct my

attention. It is impossible, I say, in a doctrine like this, to draw

the line cleanly between truth and error, right and wrong. This is

ever the case in concrete matters, which have life. Life in this world

is motion, and involves a continual process of change. Living things

grow into their perfection, into their decline, into their death. No

rule of art will suffice to stop the operation of this natural law,

whether in the material world or in the human mind. We can indeed

encounter disorders, when they occur, by external antagonisms and

remedies; but we cannot eradicate the process itself out of which they

arise. Life has the same right to decay as it has to wax strong. This

is specially the case with great ideas. You may stifle them; or you

may refuse them elbow-room; or you may torment them with your

continual meddling; or you may let them have free course and range,

and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to expose and

restrain those excesses after they have occurred. But you have only

this alternative; and for myself, I prefer much, wherever it is

possible, to be first generous and then just; to grant full liberty of

thought, and to call it to account when abused.

If what I have been saying be true of energetic ideas generally, much

more is it the case in matters of religion. Religion acts on the

affections; who is to hinder these, when once roused, from gathering

in their strength and running wild? They are not gifted with any

connatural principle within them which renders them self-governing and

self-adjusting. They hurry right on to their object, and often in

their case it is, more haste and worse speed. Their object engrosses

them, and they see nothing else. And of all passions love is the most

unmanageable; nay, more, I would not give much for that love which is

never extravagant, which always observes the proprieties, and can move

about in perfect good taste, under all emergencies. What mother, what

husband or wife, what youth or maiden in love, {77} but says a

thousand foolish things, in the way of endearment, which the speaker

would be sorry for strangers to hear; yet they were not on that

account unwelcome to the parties to whom they are addressed. Sometimes

by bad luck they are written down, sometimes they get into the

newspapers; and what might be even graceful, when it was fresh from

the heart, and interpreted by the voice and the countenance, presents

but a melancholy exhibition when served up cold for the public eye. So

it is with devotional feelings. Burning thoughts and words are as open

to criticism as they are beyond it. What is abstractedly extravagant,

may in religions persons be becoming and beautiful, and only fall

under blame when it is found in others who imitate them. When it is

formalized into meditations or exercises, it is as repulsive as

love-letters in a police report. Moreover, even holy minds readily

adopt and become familiar with language which they would never have

originated themselves, when it proceeds from a writer who has the same

objects of devotion as they have; and, if they find a stranger

ridicule or reprobate supplication or praise which has come to them so

recommended, they feel as keenly as if a direct insult were offered to

those to whom that homage is addressed. In the next place, what has

power to stir holy and refined souls is potent also with the

multitude; and the religion of the multitude is ever vulgar and

abnormal; it ever will be tinctured with fanaticism and superstition

while men are what they are. A people's religion is ever a corrupt

religion. If you are to have a Catholic Church, you must put up with

fish of every kind, guests good and bad, vessels of gold, vessels of

earth. You may beat religion out of men, if you will, and then their

excesses will take a different direction; but if you make use of

religion to improve them, they will make use of religion to corrupt

it. And then you will have effected that compromise of which our

countrymen report so unfavorably from abroad:--a high grand faith and

worship which compel their admiration, and puerile absurdities among

the people which excite their contempt.

Nor is it any safeguard against these excesses in a religious system

that the religion is based upon reason, and develops into a theology.

Theology both uses logic and baffles it; and thus logic acts both as a

protection and as the perversion of religion. Theology is occupied

with supernatural matters, and is ever running into mysteries which

reason can neither explain nor adjust. Its lines of thought come to an

abrupt termination, and to pursue them or to complete them is to

plunge down the abyss. But logic blunders on, forcing its way, as it

can, through thick darkness and ethereal mediums. The Arians went

ahead with logic for their directing principle, and so lost the truth;

on the other hand, St. Augustine, in his treatise on the Holy Trinity,

seems to show that, if we attempt to find and tie together the ends of

lines which run into infinity, we shall only succeed in contradicting

ourselves; that for instance it is difficult to find the logical

reason for not speaking of three Gods as well as of one, and of one

person in the Godhead as well as of three. I do not mean to say that

logic cannot be used to set right its own error, or that in the hands

of an able disputant the balance of truth may not be restored. This

was done at the Councils of Antioch and Nicaea, in the instances of

Paulus and Arius. But such a process is circuitous and elaborate; and

is conducted by means of minute subtleties which will give it the

appearance of a game of skill in the case of matters too grave and

practical to deserve a mere scholastic treatment. Accordingly, St.

Augustine simply lays it down that the statements in question are

heretical, for the former is trltheism and the latter Sabellianism.

That is, good sense and a large {78} view of truth are the correctives

of his logic. And thus we have arrived at the final resolution of the

whole matter; for good sense and a large view of truth are rare gifts;

whereas all men are bound to be devout, and most men think they can

argue and conclude.

Now let me apply what I have been saying to the teaching of the church

on the subject of the Blessed Virgin. I have to recur to a subject of

so sacred a nature, that, writing as I am for publication, I need the

apology of my object for venturing to pursue it. I say then, when once

we have mastered the idea that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the

Eternal in the form of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush

and flood of thoughts which such a doctrine involves? What awe and

surprise must attend upon the knowledge that a creature has been

brought so close to the Divine Essence? It was the creation of a new

idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy

apostles announced that God bad become incarnate; and a supreme love

and devotion to him became possible which seemed hopeless before that

revelation. But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on

mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was

understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is

perfectly distinct from the former, the one does not interfere with

the other. He is God made low, she is a woman made high. I scarcely

like to use a familiar illustration on such a subject, but it will

serve to explain what I mean when I ask you to consider the difference

of feeling with which we read the respective histories of Maria

Theresa and the Maid of Orleans; or with which the middle and lower

classes of a nation regard a first minister of the day who has come of

an aristocratic house and one who has risen from the ranks. May God's

mercy keep me from the shadow of a thought dimming the light or

blunting the keenness of that love of him which is our sole happiness

and our sole salvation! But surely, when he became man he brought home

to us his incommunicable attributes with a distinctiveness which

precludes the possibility of our lowering him by exalting a creature.

He alone has an entrance into our soul, reads our secret thoughts,

speaks to our heart, applies to us spiritual pardon and strength. On

him we solely depend. He alone is our inward life; he not only

regenerates us, but (to allude to a higher mystery) _semper gignit;_

he is ever renewing our new birth and our heavenly sonship. In this

sense he may be called, as in nature, so in grace, our real father.

Mary is only our adopted mother, given us from the cross; her presence

is above, not on earth; her office is external, not within us. Her

name is not heard in the administration of the sacraments. Her work is

not one of ministration toward us; her power is indirect. It is her

prayers that avail, and they are effectual by the _fiat_ of him who is

our all in all. Nor does she hear us by any innate power, or any

personal gift; but by his manifestation to her of the prayers which we

make her. When Moses was on the Mount, the Almighty told him of the

idolatry of his people at the foot of it, in order that he might

intercede for them; and thus it is the Divine presence which is the

intermediating power by which we reach her and she reaches us.

Woe is me, if even by a breath I sully these ineffable truths! but

still, without prejudice to them, there is, I say, another range of

thought quite distinct from them, incommensurate with them, of which

the Blessed Virgin is the centre. If we placed our Lord in that

centre, we should only be degrading him from his throne, and making

him an Arian kind of a God; that is, no God at all. He who charges us

with marking Mary a divinity, is thereby denying the divinity of

Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is. Our Lord cannot {79}

pray for us, as a creature, as Mary prays; he cannot inspire those

feelings which a creature inspires. To her belongs, as being a

creature, a natural claim on our sympathy and familiarity, in that she

is nothing else than our fellow. She is our pride,--in the poet's

words, "Our tainted nature's solitary boast." We look to her without

any fear, any remorse, any consciousness that she is able to read us,

judge us, punish us. Our heart yearns toward that pure virgin, that

gentle mother, and our congratulations follow her, as she rises from

Nazareth and Ephesus, through the choirs of angels, to her throne on

high. So weak, yet so strong; so delicate, yet so glory-laden; so

modest, yet so mighty. She has sketched for us her own portrait in the

magnificat. "He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaid; for

behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. He hath

put down the mighty from their seat; and hath exalted the humble. He

hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent

empty away." I recollect the strange emotion which took by surprise

men and women, young and old, when, at the coronation of our present

queen, they gazed on the figure of one so like a child, so small, so

tender, so shrinking, who had been exalted to so great an inheritance

and so vast a rule, who was such a contrast in her own person to the

solemn pageant which centred in her. Could it be otherwise with the

spectators, if they had human affection? And did not the All-wise know

the human heart when he took to himself a mother? did he not

anticipate our emotion at the sight of such an exaltation? If he had

not meant her to exert that wonderful influence in his church which

she has in the event exerted, I will use a bold word, he it is who has

perverted us. If she is not to attract our homage, why did he make her

solitary in her greatness amid his vast creation? If it be idolatry in

us to let our affections respond to our faith, he would not have made

her what she is, or he would not have told us that he had so made her;

but, far from this, he has sent his prophet to announce to us, "A

virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name

Emmanuel," and we have the same warrant for hailing her as God's

Mother, as we have for adoring him as God.

Christianity is eminently an objective religion. For the most part it

tells us of persons and facts in simple words, and leaves the

announcement to produce its effect on such hearts as are prepared to

receive it. This at least is its general character; and Butler

recognizes it as such in his "Analogy" when speaking of the Second and

Third Persons of the Holy Trinity: "The internal worship," he says,

"to the Son and Holy Ghost is no further matter of pure revealed

command than as the relations they stand in to us are matters of pure

revelation; for the relations being known, the obligations to such

internal worship are _obligations of reason arising out of those

relations themselves_." [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: _Vid_. "Essay on Doctr. Dev.," p. 50.]

It is in this way that the revealed doctrine of the incarnation

exerted a stronger and a broader influence on Christians, as they more

and more apprehended and mastered its meaning and its bearings. It is

contained in the brief and simple declaration of St John, "The Word

was made flesh;" but it required century after century to spread it

out in its fulness and to imprint it energetically on the worship and

practice of the Catholic people as well as on their faith. Athanasius

was the first and the great teacher of it. He collected together the

inspired notices scattered through David, Isaias, St. Paul, and St.

John, and he engraved indelibly upon the imaginations of the faithful,

as had never been before, that man is God, and God is man, that in

Mary they meet, and that in this sense Mary {80} is the centre of all

things. He added nothing to what was known before, nothing to the

popular and zealous faith that her Son was God; he has left behind him

in his works no such definite passages about her as those of St.

Irenaeus or St. Epiphanius; but he brought the circumstances of the

incarnation home to men's minds by the manifold evolutions of his

analysis, and secured it for ever from perversion. Still, however,

there was much to be done; we have no proof that Athanasius himself

had any special devotion to the Blessed Virgin; but he laid the

foundations on which that devotion was to rest, and thus noiselessly

and without strife, as the first temple in the holy city, she grew up

into her inheritance, and was "established in Sion and her power was

in Jerusalem." Such was the origin of that august _cultus_ which has

been paid to the Blessed Mary for so many centuries in the East and in

the West. That in times and places it has fallen into abuse, that it

has even become a superstition, I do not care to deny; for, as I have

said above, the same process which brings to maturity carries on to

decay, and things that do not admit of abuse have very little life in

them. This of course does not excuse such excesses, or justify us in

making light of them, when they occur. I have no intention of doing so

as regards the particular instances which you bring against us, though

but a few words will suffice for what I need say about them:--before

doing so, however, I am obliged to make three or four introductory

remarks.

1. I have almost anticipated my first remark already. It is this: that

the height of our offending in our devotion to the Blessed Virgin

would not look so great in your volume as it does, had you not placed

yourself on lower ground than your own feelings toward her would have

spontaneously prompted you to take. I have no doubt you had some good

reason for adopting this course, but I do not know it. What I do know

is that, for the fathers' sake, who so exalt her, you really do love

and venerate her, though you do not evidence it in your book. I am

glad, then, in this place, to insist on a fact which will lead those

among us who know you not to love you from their love of her, in spite

of what you refuse to give her; and Anglicans, on the other hand, who

do know you, to think better of us, who refuse her nothing, when they

reflect that you do not actually go against us, but merely come short

of us in your devotion to her.

2. As you revere the fathers, so you revere the Greek Church; and here

again we have a witness on our behalf of which you must be aware as

fully as we are, and of which you must really mean to give us the

benefit. In proportion as this remarkable fact is understood, it will

take off the edge of the surprise of Anglicans at the sight of our

devotions to our Lady. It must weigh with them when they discover that

we can enlist on our side in this controversy those seventy millions

(I think they so consider them) of Orientals who are separated from

our communion. Is it not a very pregnant fact that the Eastern

churches, so independent of us, so long separated from the West, so

jealous of antiquity, should even surpass us in their exaltation of

the Blessed Virgin? That they go further than we do is sometimes

denied, on the ground that the Western devotion toward her is brought

out into system, and the Eastern is not; yet this only means really

that the Latins have more mental activity, more strength of intellect,

less of routine, less of mechanical worship among them, than the

Greeks. We are able, better than they, to give an account of what we

do; and we seem to be more extreme merely because we are more

definite. But, after all, what have the Latins done so bold as that

substitution of the name of Mary for the name of Jesus at the end of

the collects and petitions in the breviary, nay, in the ritual and

liturgy? Not {81} merely in local or popular, and in semi-authorized

devotions, which are the kind of sources that supplies you with your

matter of accusation against us, but in the formal prayers of the

Greek eucharistic service, petitions are offered, not "in the name of

Jesus Christ," but "of the Theotocos." Such a phenomenon, in such a

quarter, I think, ought to make Anglicans merciful toward those

writers among ourselves who have been excessive in singing the praises

of the Deipara. To make a rule of substituting Mary with all saints

for Jesus in the public service, has more "Mariolatry" in it than to

alter the Te Deum to her honor in private devotion.

3. And thus I am brought to a third remark supplemental to your

accusation of us. Two large views, as I have said above, are opened

upon our devotional thoughts in Christianity; the one centring in the

Son of Mary, the other in the Mother of Jesus. Neither need obscure

the other; and in the Catholic Church, as a matter of fact, neither

does. I wish you had either frankly allowed this in your volume, or

proved the contrary. I wish, when you report that "a certain

proportion, it has been ascertained by those who have inquired, do

stop short in her," p. 107, that you had added your belief, that the

case was far otherwise with the great bulk of Catholics. Might I not

have expected it? May I not, without sensitiveness, be somewhat pained

at the omission? From mere Protestants, indeed, I expect nothing

better. They content themselves with saying that our devotions to our

Lady _must necessarily_ throw our Lord into the shade, and thereby

they relieve themselves of a great deal of trouble. Then they catch at

any stray fact which countenances or seems to countenance their

prejudice. Now I say plainly I never will defend or screen any one

from your just rebuke who, through false devotion to Mary, forgets

Jesus. But I should like the fact to be proved first; I cannot hastily

admit it. There is this broad fact the other way: that if we look

through Europe we shall find, on the whole, that just those nations

and countries have lost their faith in the divinity of Christ who have

given up devotion to his Mother, and that those, on the other hand,

who have been foremost in her honor, have retained their orthodoxy.

Contrast, for instance, the Calvinists with the Greeks, or France with

the north of Germany, or the Protestant and Catholic communions in

Ireland. As to England, it is scarcely doubtful what would be the

state of its Established Church if the Liturgy and Articles were not

an integral part of its establishment; and when men bring so grave a

charge against us as is implied in your volume, they cannot be

surprised if we in turn say hard things of Anglicanism. [Footnote 20]

In the Catholic Church Mary has shown herself, not the rival, but the

minister of her Son. She has protected him, as in his infancy, so in

the whole history of the religion. There is, then, a plain historical

truth in Dr. Fisher's words which you quote to condemn: "Jesus is

obscured, because Mary is kept in the background."

[Footnote 20: I have spoken more more on this subject in my "Essay

on Development," p. 438. "Nor does it avail to object, that, in this

contrast of devotional exercises, the human is sure to supplant the

divine, from the infirmity of out nature; for, I repeat, the

question is one of fact, whether it has done so. And next, it must

be asked, _whether the character of Protestant devotion toward our

Lord has been that of worship at all:_ and not rather such as we pay

to an excellent human being? . . . Carnal minds will ever create a

carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid them the service of the

saints will have no tendency to teach them the worship of God.

Moreover. . . . great and constant as is the devotion which the

Catholic pays to St. Mary, it has a special province, and _has far

more connection with the public services and the festive aspect of

Christianity,_ and with certain extraordinary offices which she

holds, _than with what is strictly personal and primary_ in

religion." Our late cardinal, on my reception, singled out to me

this last sentence for the expression of his especial approbation.]

This truth, exemplified in history, might also be abundantly

illustrated, did my space admit, from the lives and writings of holy

men in modern times. Two of them, St. Alfonso Liguori and the Blessed

Paul of the Cross, for all their notorious devotion {82} to the

Mother, have shown their supreme love of her divine Son in the names

which a have given to their respective congregations, viz, "of the

Redeemer," and "of the Cross and Passion." However, I will do no more

than refer to an apposite passage in the Italian translation of the

work of a French Jesuit, Fr. Nepveu, "Christian Thoughts for every Day

in the Year," which was recommended to the friend who went with me to

Rome by the same Jesuit father there with whom, as I have already

said, I stood myself in such intimate relations; I believe it is a

fair specimen of the teaching of our spiritual books:

"The love of Jesus Christ is the most sure pledge of our future

happiness, and the most infallible token of our predestination.

Mercy toward the poor, devotion to the Holy Virgin, are very

sensible tokens of predestination; nevertheless they are not

absolutely infallible; but one cannot have a sincere and constant

love of Jesus Christ without being predestinated. . . . The

destroying angel which bereaved the houses of the Egyptians of their

first-born, had respect to all the houses which were marked with the

blood of the Lamb."

And it is also exemplified, as I verily believe, not only in formal

and distinctive confessions, not only in books intended for the

educated class, but also in the personal religion of the Catholic

populations. When strangers are so unfavorably impressed with us,

because they see images of our Lady in our churches, and crowds

flocking about her, they forget that there is a Presence within the

sacred walls, infinitely more awful, which claims and obtains from us

a worship transcendently different from any devotion we pay to her.

That devotion might indeed tend to idolatry if it were encouraged in

Protestant churches, where there is nothing higher than it to attract

the worshipper; but all the images that a Catholic church ever

contained, all the crucifixes at its altars brought together, do not

so affect its frequenters as the lamp which betokens the presence or

absence there of the blessed sacrament. Is not this so certain, so

notorious, that on some occasions it has been even brought as a charge

against us, that we are irreverent in church, when what seemed to the

objector to be irreverence was but the necessary change of feeling

which came over those who were there on their knowing that their Lord

was away?

The mass again conveys to us the same lesson of the sovereignty of the

incarnate Son; it is a return to Calvary, and Mary is scarcely named

in it. Hostile visitors enter our churches on Sunday at mid-day, the

time of the Anglican service. They are surprised to see the high mass

perhaps poorly attended, and a body of worshippers leaving the music

and the mixed multitude who may be lazily fulfilling their obligation,

for the silent or the informal devotions which are offered at an image

of the Blessed Virgin. They may be tempted, with one of your

informants, to call such a temple not a "Jesus Church," but a "Mary

Church." But, if they understood our ways, they would know that we

begin the day with our Lord and then go on to his mother. It is early

in the morning that religious persons go to mass and communion. The

high mass, on the other hand, is the festive celebration of the day,

not the special devotional service; nor is there any reason why those

who have been at a low mass already, should not at that hour proceed

to ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin for themselves and all

that is dear to them.

Communion, again, which is given in the morning, is a solemn,

unequivocal act of faith in the incarnate God, if any can be such; and

the most gracious of admonitions, did we need one, of his sovereign

and sole right to possess us. I knew a lady who on her death-bed was

visited by an excellent Protestant friend. She, with great tenderness

for her soul's welfare, asked her whether her prayers to the {83}

Blessed Virgin did not, at that awful hour, lead to forgetfulness of

her Saviour. "Forget him!" she replied with surprise; "why, he has

just been here." She had been receiving him in communion. When, then,

my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is

it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, did the

author write nothing else? Did he write on the blessed sacrament? Had

he given up "all for Jesus?" I recollect some lines, the happiest, I

think, which that author wrote, which bring out strikingly the

reciprocity, which I am dwelling on, of the respective devotions to

Mother and Son:

"But scornful men have coldly said

Thy love was leading me from God;

And yet in this I did but tread

The very path my Savior trod.

"They know but little of thy worth

Who speak these heartless words to me;

For what did Jesus love on earth

One half so tenderly as thee?

"Get me the grace to love thee more;

Jesus will give, if thou wilt plead;

And, Mother, when life's cares are o'er,

Oh, I shall love thee then indeed.

"Jesus, when his three hours were run,

Bequeathed thee from the cross to me;

And oh I how can I love thy Son,

Sweet Mother, if I love not thee?"

4. Thus we are brought from the consideration of the sentiments

themselves, of which you complain, to the persons who wrote, and the

places where they wrote them. I wish you had been led, in this part of

your work, to that sort of careful labor which you have employed in so

masterly a way in your investigation of the circumstances of the

definition of the immaculate conception. In the latter case you have

catalogued the bishops who wrote to the Holy See, and analyzed their

answers. Had you in like manner discriminated and located the Marian

writers, as you call them, and observed the times, places, and

circumstances of their works, I think they would not, when brought

together, have had their present startling effect on the reader. As it

is, they inflict a vague alarm upon the mind, as when one hears a

noise, and does not know whence it comes and what it means. Some of

your authors, I know, are saints; all, I suppose, are spiritual

writers and holy men; but the majority are of no great celebrity, even

if they have any kind of weight. Suarez has no business among them at

all, for, when he says that no one is saved without the Blessed

Virgin, he is speaking not of devotion to her, but of her

intercession. The greatest name is St. Alfonso Liguori; but it never

surprises me to read anything unusual in the devotions of a saint.

Such men are on a level very different from our own, and we cannot

understand them. I hold this to be an important canon in the lives of

the saints, according to the words of the apostle, "The spiritual man

judges all things, and he himself is judged of no one." But we may

refrain from judging, without proceeding to imitate. I hope it is not

disrespectful to so great a servant of God to say, that I never read

his "Glories of Mary;" but here I am speaking generally of all saints,

whether I know them or not; and I say that they are beyond us, and

that we must use them as patterns, not as copies. As to his practical

directions, St. Alfonso wrote them for Neapolitans, whom he knew, and

we do not know. Other writers whom you quote, as De Salazar, are too

ruthlessly logical to be safe or pleasant guides in the delicate

matters of devotion. As to De Montford and Oswald, I never even met

with their names, till I saw them in your book; the bulk of our laity,

not to say of our clergy, perhaps know them little better than I do.

Nor did I know till I learnt it from your volume that there were two

Bernardines. St. Bernardine, of Sienna, I knew of course, and knew too

that he had a burning love for our Lord. But about the other,

"Bernardine de Bustis," I was quite at fault. I find from the

Protestant Cave that he, as well as his name-sake, made himself

conspicuous also for his zeal for the holy name, {84} which is much to

the point here. "With such devotion was he carried away," says Cave,

"for the bare name of Jesus (which, by a new device of Bernardine, of

Sienna, had lately began to receive divine honors), that he was urgent

with Innocent VIII. to assign it a day and rite in the calendar."

One thing, however, is clear about all these writers; that not one of

them is an Englishman. I have gone through your book, and do not find

one English name among the various authors to whom you refer, except,

of course, the name of that author whose lines I have been quoting,

and who, great as are his merits, cannot, for the reasons I have given

in the opening of my letter, be considered a representative of English

Catholic devotion. Whatever these writers may have said or not said,

whatever they may have said harshly, and whatever capable of fair

explanation, still they are foreigners; we are not answerable for

their particular devotions; and as to themselves, I am glad to be able

to quote the beautiful words which you use about them in your letter

to the "Weekly Register" of November 25th last. "I do not presume,"

you say, "to prescribe to Italians or Spaniards what they shall hold,

or how they shall express their pious opinions; and least of all did I

think of imputing to any of the writers whom I quoted that they took

from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his Mother." In these

last words, too, you have supplied one of the omissions in your volume

which I noticed above.

5. Now, then, we come to England itself, which after all, in the

matter of devotion, alone concerns you and me; for though doctrine is

one and the same everywhere, devotions, as I have already said, are

matters of the particular time and the particular country. I suppose

we owe it to the national good sense that English Catholics have been

protected from the extravagances which are elsewhere to be found. And

we owe it, also, to the wisdom and moderation of the Holy See, which

in giving us the pattern for our devotion, as well as the rule of our

faith, has never indulged in those curiosities of thought which are

both so attractive to undisciplined imaginations and so dangerous to

grovelling hearts. In the case of our own common people I think such a

forced style of devotion would be simply unintelligible; as to the

educated, I doubt whether it can have more than an occasional or

temporary influence. If the Catholic faith spreads in England, these

peculiarities will not spread with it. There is a healthy devotion to

the Blessed Mary, and there is an artificial; it is possible to love

her as a Mother, to honor her as a Virgin, to seek her as a Patron,

and to exalt her as a Queen, without any injury to solid piety and

Christian good sense: I cannot help calling this the English style. I

wonder whether you find anything to displease you in the "Garden of

the Soul," the "Key of Heaven," the "Vade Mecum," the "Golden Manual,"

or the "Crown of Jesus?" These are the books to which Anglicans ought

to appeal who would be fair to us in this matter. I do not observe

anything in them which goes beyond the teaching of the fathers, except

so far as devotion goes beyond doctrine.

There is one collection of devotions, beside, of the highest

authority, which has been introduced from abroad of late years. It

consists of prayers of various kinds which have been indulgenced by

the popes; and it commonly goes by the name of the "Raccolta." As that

word suggests, the language of many of the prayers is Italian, while

others are in Latin. This circumstance is unfavorable to a

translation, which, however skilful, must ever savor of the words and

idioms of the original; but, passing over this necessary disadvantage,

I consider there is hardly a clause in the good-sized volume in

question which even the sensitiveness of English Catholicism would

wish changed. Its anxious observance of doctrinal exactness is almost

a fault. {85} It seems afraid of using the words "give me," "make me,"

in its addresses to the Blessed Virgin, which are as natural to adopt

as in addressing a parent or friend. Surely we do not disparage divine

Providence when we say that we are indebted to our parents for our

life, or when we ask their blessing; we do not show any atheistical

leanings because we say that a man's recovery must be left to nature,

or that nature supplies brute animals with instincts. In like manner

it seems to me a simple purism to insist upon minute accuracy of

expression in devotional and popular writings. However, the

"Raccolta," as coming from responsible authority, for the most part

observes it. It commonly uses the phrases, "gain for us by thy

prayers," "obtain for us," "pray to Jesus for me," "speak for me,

Mary," "carry thou our prayers," "ask for us grace," "intercede for

the people of God," and the like, marking thereby with great emphasis

that she is nothing more than an advocate, and not a source of mercy.

Nor do I recollect in this book more than one or two ideas to which

you would be likely to raise an objection. The strongest of these is

found in the novena before her nativity, in which, _apropos_ of her

birth, we pray that she "would come down again and be re-born

spiritually in our souls;" but it will occur to you that St. Paul

speaks of his wish to impart to his converts, '"not only the gospel,

but his own soul;" and writing to the Corinthians, he says he has

"begotten them by the gospel," and to Philemon, that he had "begotten

Onesimus in his bonds;" whereas St. James, with greater accuracy of

expression, says "of his own will hath God begotten us with the word

of truth." Again we find the petitioner saying to the Blessed Mary,

"In thee I place all my hope;" but this is explained in another

passage, "Thou art my best hope after Jesus." Again, we read

elsewhere, "I would I had a greater love for thee, since to love thee

is a great mark of predestination;" but the prayer goes on, "Thy Son

deserves of us an immeasurable love; pray that I may have this grace

--a great love for Jesus;" and further on, "I covet no good of the

earth, but to love my God alone."

Then, again, as to the lessons which our Catholics receive, whether by

catechizing or instruction, you would find nothing in our received

manuals to which you would not assent, I am quite sure. Again, as to

preaching, a standard book was drawn up three centuries ago, to supply

matter for the purpose to the parochial clergy. You incidentally

mention, p. 153, that the comment of Cornelius à Lapide on Scripture

is "a repertorium for sermons;" but I never heard of this work being

used, nor indeed can it, because of its size. The work provided for

the purpose by the church is the "Catechism of the Council of Trent,"

and nothing extreme about our Blessed Lady is propounded there. On the

whole, I am sanguine that you will come to the conclusion that

Anglicans may safely trust themselves to us English Catholics as

regards any devotions to the Blessed Virgin which might be required of

them, over and above the rule of the Council of Trent.

6. And, now at length coming to the statements, not English, but

foreign, which offend you in works written in her honor, I will

frankly say that I read some of those which you quote with grief and

almost anger; for they seemed to me to ascribe to the Blessed Virgin a

power of "searching the reins and hearts" which is the attribute of

God alone; and I said to myself, how can we any more prove our Lord's

divinity from Scripture, if those cardinal passages which invest him

with divine prerogatives after all invest him with nothing beyond what

his Mother shares with him? And how, again, is there anything of

incommunicable greatness in his death and passion, if he who was alone

in the garden, alone upon the cross, alone in the resurrection, after

{86} all is not alone, but shared his solitary work with his Blessed

Mother--with her to whom, when he entered on his ministry, he said for

our instruction, not as grudging her her proper glory, "Woman, what

have I to do with thee?" And then again, if I hate those perverse

sayings so much, how much more must she, in proportion to her love of

him? And how do we show our love for her, by wounding her in the very

apple of her eye? This I said and say; but then, on the other hand, I

have to observe that these strange words after all are but few in

number, out of the many passages you cite; that most of them exemplify

what I said above about the difficulty of determining the exact point

where truth passes into error, and that they are allowable in one

sense or connection, and false in another. Thus to say that prayer

(and the Blessed Virgin's prayer) is omnipotent, is a harsh expression

in everyday prose; but, if it is explained to mean that there is

nothing which prayer may not obtain from God, it is nothing else than

the very promise made us in Scripture. Again, to say that Mary is the

centre of all being, sounds inflated and profane; yet after all it is

only one way, and a natural way, of saying that the Creator and the

creature met together, and became one in her womb; and as such, I have

used the expression above. Again, it is at first sight a paradox to

say that "Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background;"

yet there is a sense, as I have shown above, in which it is a simple

truth.

And so again certain statements may be true, under circumstances and

in a particular time and place, which are abstractedly false; and

hence it may be very unfair in a controversialist to interpret by an

English or a modern rule whatever may have been asserted by a foreign

or mediaeval author. To say, for instance, dogmatically, that no one

can be saved without personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin, would be

an untenable proposition: yet it might be true of this man or that, or

of this or that country at this or that date; and if the very

statement has ever been made by any writer of consideration (and this

has to be ascertained), then perhaps it was made precisely under these

exceptional circumstances. If an Italian preacher made it, I should

feel no disposition to doubt him, at least as regards Italian youths

and Italian maidens.

Then I think you have not always made your quotations with that

consideration and kindness which is your rule. At p. 106 you say, "It

is commonly said, that if any Roman Catholic acknowledges that 'it is

good and useful to pray to the saints,' he is not bound himself to do

so. Were the above teaching true, it would be cruelty to say so;

because, according to it, he would be forfeiting what is morally

necessary to his salvation." But now, as to the fact, where is it said

that to pray to our Lady and the saints is necessary to salvation? The

proposition of St. Alfonso is, that "God gives no grace except through

Mary;" that is, through her intercession. But intercession is one

thing, devotion is another. And Suarez says, "It is the universal

sentiment that the intercession of Mary is not only useful, but also

in a certain manner necessary;" but still it is the question of her

intercession, not of our invocation of her, not of devotion to her. If

it were so, no Protestant could be saved; if it were so, there would

be grave reasons for doubting of the salvation of St. Chrysostom or

St. Athanasius, or of the primitive martyrs; nay, I should like to

know whether St. Augustine, in all his voluminous writings, invokes

her once. Our Lord died for those heathens who did not know him; and

his mother intercedes for those Christians who do not know her; and

she intercedes according to his will, and, when he wills to save a

particular soul, she at once prays for it. {87} I say, he wills indeed

according to her prayer, but then she prays according, to his will.

Though then it is natural and prudent for those to have recourse to

her who, from the church's teaching, know her power, yet it cannot be

said that devotion to her is a _sine quâ non_ of salvation. Some

indeed of the authors whom you quote go further; they do speak of

devotion; but even then they do not enunciate the general proposition

which I have been disallowing. For instance, they say, "It is morally

impossible for those to be saved who _neglect_ the devotion to the

Blessed Virgin;" but a simple omission is one thing, and neglect

another. "It is impossible for any to be saved who _turns away_ from

her;" yes; but to "turn away" is to offer some positive disrespect or

insult toward her, and that with sufficient knowledge; and I certainly

think it would be a very grave act if, in a Catholic country (and of

such the writers were speaking, for they knew of no other), with

ave-marias sounding in the air, and images of the Madonna at every

street and road, a Catholic broke off or gave up a practice that was

universal, and in which he was brought up, and deliberately put her

name out of his thoughts.

7. Though, then, common sense may determine for us that the line of

prudence and propriety has been certainly passed in the instance of

certain statements about the Blessed Virgin, it is often not easy to

prove the point logically; and in such cases authority, if it attempt

to act, would be in the position which so often happens in our courts

of law, when the commission of an offence is morally certain, but the

government prosecutor cannot find legal evidence sufficient to insure

conviction. I am not denying the right of sacred congregations, at

their will, to act peremptorily, and without assigning reasons for the

judgment they pass upon writers; but, when they have found it

inexpedient to take this severe course, perhaps it may happen from the

circumstances of the case that there is no other that they can take,

even if they would. It is wiser then for the most part to leave these

excesses to the gradual operation of public opinion--that is, to the

opinion of educated and sober Catholics; and this seems to me the

healthiest way of putting them down. Yet in matter of fact I believe

the Holy See has interfered from time to time, when devotion seemed

running into superstition; and not so long ago. I recollect hearing in

Gregory the XVI.'s time of books about the Blessed Virgin which had

been suppressed by authority; and in particular of a representation of

the immaculate conception which he had forbidden, and of measures

taken against the shocking notion that the Blessed Mary is present in

the holy eucharist in the sense in which our Lord is present; but I

have no means of verifying the information I received.

Nor have I time, any more than you have had, to ascertain how far

great theologians have made protests against those various

extravagances of which you so rightly complain. Passages, however,

from three well-known Jesuit fathers have opportunely come in my way,

and in one of them is introduced, in confirmation, the name of the

great Gerson. They are Canisius, Petavius, and Raynaudus; and as they

speak very appositely, and you do not seem to know them, I will here

make some extracts from them:

(1.) Canisius:

"We confess that in the _cultus_ of Mary it has been and is possible

for corruptions to creep in; and we have a more than ordinary desire

that the pastors of the Church should be carefully vigilant here,

and give no place to Satan, whose characteristic office it has ever

been, while men sleep, to sow the cockle amid the Lord's wheat. . .

. For this purpose it is his wont gladly to avail himself of the aid

of heretics, fanatics, and false Catholics, as may be seen in the

instance of this _Marianus cultus_. This _cultus_, heretics,

suborned by Satan, attack with hostility Thus, too, certain mad

heads are so {88} demented by Satan, as to embrace superstitions and

idolatries instead of the true _cultus_ and neglect altogether the

due measures whether in respect to God or to Mary. Such indeed were

the Collyridians of old. . . . Such that German herdsman a hundred

years ago, who gave out publicly that he was a new prophet and had

had a vision of the Deipara, and told the people in her name to pay

no more tributes and taxes to princes. .... Moreover, how many

Catholics does one see who, by great and shocking negligence, have

neither care nor regard for her _cultus_, but, given to profane and

secular objects, scarce once a year raise their earthly minds to

sing her praises or to venerate her!"--_De Mariâ Deiparâ_, p. 518.

(2.) Father Petau says, when discussing the teaching of the fathers

about the Blessed Virgin (de Incarn. xiv. 8):

"I will venture to give this advice to all who would be devout and

panegyrical toward the Holy Virgin, viz., not to exceed in their

piety and devotion to her, but to be content with true and solid

praises, and to cast aside what is otherwise. The latter kind of

idolatry, lurking, as St. Augustine says, nay implanted, in human

hearts, is greatly abhorrent from theology, that is from the gravity

of heavenly wisdom, which never thinks or asserts anything but what

is measured by certain and accurate rules. What that rule should be,

and what caution is to be used in our present subject, I will not

determine of myself, but according to the mind of a most weighty and

most learned theologian, John Gerson, who in one of his epistles

proposes certain canons, which he calls truths, by means of which

are to be measured the assertions of theologians concerning the

incarnation. . . By these truly golden precepts Gerson brings within

bounds the immoderate license of praising the Blessed Virgin, and

restrains it within the measure of sober and healthy piety. And from

these it is evident that that sort of reasoning is frivolous and

nugatory in which so many indulge, in order to assign any sort of

grace they please, however unusual, to the Blessed Virgin. For they

argue thus: 'Whatever the Son of God could bestow for the glory of

his mother, that it became him in fact to furnish;' or again,

'Whatever honors or ornaments he has poured out on other saints,

those all together hath he heaped upon his mother;' whence they draw

their chain of reasoning to their desired conclusion; a mode of

argumentation which Gerson treats with contempt as captious and

sophistical."

He adds, what of course we all should say, that, in thus speaking, he

has no intention to curtail the liberty of pious persons in such

meditations and conjectures, on the mysteries of faith, sacred

histories, and the Scripture text, as are of the nature of comments,

supplements, and the like.

(3.) Raynaud is an author full of devotion, if any one is so, to the

Blessed Virgin; yet, in the work which he has composed in her honor

("Diptycha Mariana"), he says more than I can quote here to the same

purpose as Petau. I abridge some portions of his text:

"Let this be taken for granted, that no praises of ours can come up

to the praises due to the Virgin Mother. But we must not make up for

our inability to reach her true praise by a supply of lying

embellishment and false honors. For there are some whose affection

for religious objects is so imprudent and lawless, that they

transgress the due limits even toward the saints. This Origen has

excellently observed upon in the case of the Baptist, for very many,

instead of observing the measure of charity, consider whether he

might not be the Christ"--p. 9. ". . . St. Anselm, the first, or

one of the first, champions of the public celebration of the Blessed

Virgin's immaculate conception, says (de Excell. Virg.) that the

church considers it indecent, that anything that admits of doubt

should be said in her praise, when the things which are certainly

true of her supply such large materials for laudation. It is right

so to interpret St. Epiphanius also, when he says that human tongues

should not pronounce anything lightly of the Deipara; and who is

more justly to be charged with speaking lightly of the most holy

Mother of God, than he who, as if what is certain and evident did

not suffice for her full investiture, is wiser than the aged, and

obtrudes on us the toadstools of his own mind, and devotions unheard

of by those holy fathers who loved her best? Plainly as St. Anselm

says that she is the Mother of God, this by itself exceeds every

elevation which can be named or imagined, short of God. About so

sublime a majesty we should not speak hastily from prurience of wit,

or flimsy pretext of promoting piety; but with great maturity of

thought; and, whenever the maxims of the church and the oracles of

{89} faith do not suffice, then not without the suffrages of the

doctors. . . . Those who are subject to this prurience of

innovation, do not perceive how broad is the difference between

subjects of human science and heavenly things. All novelty

concerning the objects of our faith is to be put far away; except so

far as by diligent investigation of God's word, written and

unwritten, and a well founded inference from what is thence to be

elicited, something is brought to light which, though already indeed

there, had not hitherto been recognized. The innovations which we

condemn are those which rest neither on the written nor unwritten

word, nor on conclusions from it, nor on the judgment of ancient

sages, nor sufficient basis of reason, but on the sole color and

pretext of doing more honor to the Deipara."--p. 10.

In another portion of the same work, he speaks in particular of one of

those imaginations to which you especially refer, and for which,

without strict necessity (as it seems to me), you allege the authority

of à Lapide:

"Nor is that honor of the Deipara to be offered, viz., that the

elements of the body of Christ, which the Blessed Virgin supplied to

it, remain perpetually unaltered in Christ, and thereby are found

also in the eucharist. . . . This solicitude for the Virgin's glory

must, I consider, be discarded; since, if rightly considered, it

involves an injury toward Christ, and such honors the Virgin loveth

not. And first, dismissing philosophical bagatelles about the

animation of blood, milk, etc., who can endure the proposition that

a good portion of the substance of Christ in the eucharist should be

worshipped with a _cultus_ less than _latria_? viz., by the inferior

_cultus_ of _hyperdulia?_ The preferable class of theologians

contend that not even the humanity of Christ is to be materially

abstracted from the Word of God, and worshipped by itself; how then

shall we introduce a _cultus_ of the Deipara in Christ, which is

inferior to the _cultus_ proper to him? How is this other than

casting down of the substance of Christ from his royal throne, and a

degradation of it to some inferior sitting-place? Is is nothing to

the purpose to refer to such fathers as say that the flesh of Christ

is the flesh of Mary, for they speak of its origin. What will

hinder, if this doctrine be admitted, our also admitting that there

is something in Christ which is detestable? for, as the first

elements of a body which were communicated by the Virgin to Christ

have (as these authors say) remained perpetually in Christ, so the

same _materia_, at least in part, which belonged originally to the

ancestors of Christ, came down to the Virgin from her father,

unchanged, and taken from her grandfather, and so on. And thus,

since it is not unlikely that some of these ancestors were

reprobate, there would now be something actually in Christ which had

belonged to a reprobate and worthy of detestation."--p. 237.

8. After such explanations, and with such authorities, to clear my

path, I put away from me, as you would wish, without any hesitation,

as matters in which my heart and reason have no part (when taken in

their literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally

take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them), such

sentences, and phrases, as these: that the mercy of Mary is infinite;

that God has resigned into her hands his omnipotence; that

(unconditionally) it is safer to seek her than her Son; that the

Blessed Virgin is superior to God; that he is (simply) subject to her

command; that our Lord is now of the same disposition as his Father

toward sinners, viz., a disposition to reject them, while Mary takes

his place as an advocate with Father and Son; that the saints are more

ready to intercede with Jesus than Jesus with the Father; that Mary is

the only refuge of those with whom God is angry; that Mary alone can

obtain a Protestant's conversion; that it would have sufficed for the

salvation of men if our Lord had died not to obey his Father, but to

defer to the decree of his mother; that she rivals our Lord in being

God's daughter, not by adoption, but by a kind of nature; that Christ

fulfilled the office of Saviour by imitating her virtues; that, as the

incarnate God bore the image of his Father, so he bore the image of

his mother; that redemption derived from Christ indeed its

sufficiency, but from Mary its beauty and loveliness; that us we are

clothed with the merits of Christ, so we are clothed with {90} the

merits of Mary; that, as he is priest, in like manner is she

priestess; that his body and blood in the eucharist are truly hers and

appertain to her; that as he is present and received therein, so is

she present and received therein; that priests are ministers, as of

Christ, so of Mary; that elect souls are born of God and Mary; that

the Holy Ghost brings into fruitfulness his action by her, producing

in her and by her Jesus Christ in his members; that the kingdom of God

in our souls, as our Lord speaks, is really the kingdom of Mary in the

soul--and she and the Holy Ghost produce in the soul extraordinary

things--and when the Holy Ghost finds Mary in a soul he flies there.

Sentiments such as these I never knew of till I read your book, nor,

as I think, do the vast minority of English Catholics know them. They

seem to me like a bad dream. I could not have conceived them to be

said. I know not to what authority to go for them, to Scripture, or to

the fathers, or to the decrees of councils, or to the consent of

schools, or to the tradition of the faithful, or to the Holy See, or

to reason. They defy all the _loci theologici_. There is nothing of

them in the Missal, in the Roman Catechism, in the Roman '"Raccolta,"

in the "Imitation of Christ," in Gother, Challoner, Milner, or

Wiseman, as far as I am aware. They do but scare and confuse me. I

should not be holier, more spiritual, more sure of perseverance, if I

twisted my moral being into the reception of them; I should but be

guilty of fulsome, frigid flattery toward the most upright and noble

of God's creatures if I professed them, and of stupid flattery too;

for it would be like the compliment of painting up a young and

beautiful princess with the brow of a Plato and the muscle of an

Achilles. And I should expect her to tell one of her people in waiting

to turn me off her service without warning. Whether thus to feel be

the _scandalum parvulorum_ in my case, or the _scandalum

Pharisaeorum_, I leave others to decide; but I will say plainly that I

had rather believe (which is impossible) that there is no God at all,

than that Mary is greater than God. I will have nothing to do with

statements which can only be explained by being explained away. I do

not, however, speak of these statements as they are found in their

authors, for I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that

they have meant what you say; but I take them as they lie in your

pages. Were any of them the sayings of saints in ecstasy, I should

know they had a good meaning; still, I should not repeat them myself;

but I am looking at them not as spoken by the tongues of angels, but

according to that literal sense which they bear in the mouths of

English men and English women. And, as spoken by man to man, in

England, in the nineteenth century, I consider them calculated to

prejudice inquirers, to frighten the unlearned, to unsettle

consciences, to provoke blasphemy, and to work the loss of souls.

9. And now, after having said so much as this, bear with me, my dear

friend, if I end with an expostulation. Have you not been touching us

on a very tender point in a very rude way? Is not the effect of what

you have said to expose her to scorn and obloquy who is dearer to us

than any other creature? Have you even hinted that our love for her is

anything else than an abuse? Have you thrown her one kind word

yourself all through your book? I trust so, but I have not lighted

upon one. And yet I know you love her well. Can you wonder, then--can

I complain much, much as I grieve--that men should utterly misconceive

of you, and are blind to the fact that you have put the whole argument

between you and us on a new footing; and that, whereas it was said

twenty-five years ago in the "British Critic," "Till Rome ceases to be

what practically she is, union is _impossible_ between her and

England," you declare, on the contrary, "It is _possible_ as soon as

Italy and England, {91} haying the same faith and the same centre of

unity, are allowed to hold severally their own theological opinions?"

They have not done you justice here because, in truth, the honor of

our Lady is dearer to them than the conversion of England.

Take a parallel case, and consider how you would decide it yourself.

Supposing an opponent of a doctrine for which you so earnestly

contend, the eternity of punishment, instead of meeting you with

direct arguments against it, heaped together a number of extravagant

descriptions of the place, mode, and circumstances of its infliction,

quoted Tertullian as a witness for the primitive fathers, and the

Covenanters and Ranters for these last centuries; brought passages

from the "Inferno" of Dante, and from the sermons of Whitfield; nay,

supposing he confined himself to the chapters on the subject in Jeremy

Taylor's work on "The State of Man," would you think this a fair and

becoming method of reasoning? and if he avowed that he should ever

consider the Anglican Church committed to all these accessories of the

doctrine till its authorities formally denounced Taylor and Whitfield,

and a hundred others, would you think this an equitable determination,

or the procedure of a theologian?

So far concerning the Blessed Virgin, the chief but not the only

subject of your volume. And now, when I could wish to proceed, she

seems to stop me, for the Feast of her Immaculate Conception is upon

us; and close upon its octave, which is kept with special solemnities

in the churches of this town, come the great antiphons, the heralds of

Christmas. That joyful season, joyful for all of us, while it centres

in him who then came on earth, also brings before us in peculiar

prominence that Virgin Mother who bore and nursed him. Here she is not

in the background, as at Eastertide, but she brings him to us in her

arms. Two great festivals, dedicated to her honor, to-morrow's and the

Purification, mark out and keep the ground, and, like the towers of

David, open the way to and fro for the high holiday season of the

Prince of Peace. And all along it her image is upon it, such as we see

it in the typical representation of the Catacombs. May the sacred

influences of this time bring us all together in unity! May it destroy

all bitterness on your side and ours! May it quench all jealous, sour,

proud, fierce antagonism on our side; and dissipate all captious,

carping, fastidious refinements of reasoning on yours! May that bright

and gentle lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her

sweetness, and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually

for their conversion!

I am, yours, most affectionately,

John H. Newman.

THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM,

_In fest. S. Ambrosii_, 1865.

{92}

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

HAVEN'T TIME

A CHAPTER FOR PARENTS.

"That boy needs more attention," said Mr. Green, referring to his

eldest son, a lad whose wayward temper and inclination to vice

demanded a steady, consistent, wise, and ever-present exercise of

parental watchfulness and authority.

"You may well say that," returned the mother of the boy, for to her

the remark had been made. "He is getting entirely beyond me."

"If I only had the time to look after him?" Mr. Green sighed as he

uttered these words.

"I think you ought to take more time for a purpose like this," said

Mrs. Green.

"More time!" Mr. Green spoke with marked impatience. "What time have I

to attend to him, Margaret? Am I not entirely absorbed in business?

Even now I should be at the counting-house, and am only kept away by

your late breakfast."

Just then the breakfast bell rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Green, accompanied

by their children, repaired to the dining-room. John, the boy about

whom the parents had been talking, was among the number. As they took

their places at the table he exhibited certain disorderly movements,

and a disposition to annoy his younger brothers and sisters. But these

were checked, instantly, by his father, of whom John stood in some

fear.

Before the children had finished eating, Mr. Green laid his knife and

fork side by side on his plate, pushed his chair back, and was in the

act of rising, when his wife said:

"Don't go yet. Just wait until John is through with his breakfast. He

acts dreadfully the moment your back is turned."

Mr. Green turned a quick, lowering glance upon the boy, whose eyes

shrank beneath his angry glance, saying as ho did so:

"I haven't time to stay a moment longer; I ought to have been at my

business an hour ago, But see here, my lad," addressing himself to

John, "there has been enough of this work. Not a day passes that I am

not worried with complaints about you. Now, mark me! I shall inquire

particularly as to your conduct when I come home at dinner-time; and,

if you have given your mother any trouble, or acted in any way

improperly, I will take you severely to account. It's outrageous that

the whole family should be kept in constant trouble by you. Now, be on

your guard!"

A moment or two Mr. Green stood frowning upon the boy, and then

retired.

Scarcely had the sound of the closing street-door, which marked the

fact of Mr. Green's departure, ceased to echo through the house, ere

John began to act as was his custom when his father was out of the

way. His mother's remonstrances were of no avail; and, when she

finally compelled him to leave the table, he obeyed with a most

provoking and insolent manner.

All this would have been prevented if Mr. Green had taken from

business just ten minutes, and conscientiously devoted that time to

{93} the government of his wayward boy and the protection of the

family from his annoyances.

On arriving at his counting-house, Mr. Green found two or three

persons waiting, and but a single clerk in attendance. He had felt

some doubts as to the correctness of his conduct in leaving home so

abruptly, under the circumstances; but the presence of the customers

satisfied him that he had done right. Business, in his mind, was

paramount to everything else; and his highest duty to his family he

felt to be discharged when he was devoting himself most assiduously to

the work of procuring for them the means of external comfort, ease,

and luxury. Worldly well-doing was a cardinal virtue in his eyes.

Mr. Green was the gainer, perhaps, of two shillings in the way of

profit on sales, by being at his counting-house ten minutes earlier

than would have been the case had he remained with his family until

the completion of their morning meal. What was lost to his boy by the

opportunity thus afforded for an indulgence in a perverse and

disobedient temper it is hard to say. Something was, undoubtedly,

lost--something, the valuation of which, in money, it would be

difficult to make.

Mrs. Green did not complain of John's conduct to his father at

dinner-time. She was so often forced to complain that she avoided the

task whenever she felt justified in doing so; and that was, perhaps,

far too often. Mr. Green asked no questions; for he knew, by

experience, to what results such questions would lead, and he was in

no mood for unpleasant intelligence. So John escaped, as he had

escaped hundreds of times before, and felt encouraged to indulge his

bad propensities at will, to his own injury and the annoyance of all

around him.

If Mr. Green had no time in the morning or through the day to attend

to his children, the evening, one might think, would afford

opportunity for conference with them, supervision of their studies,

and an earnest inquiry into their conduct and moral and intellectual

progress. But such was not the case. Mr. Green was too much wearied

with the occupation of the day to bear the annoyance of the children;

or his thoughts were too busy with business matters, or schemes of

profit, to attend to the thousand and one questions they were ready to

pour in upon him from all sides; or he had a political club to attend,

an engagement with some merchant for the discussion of a matter

connected with trade, or felt obliged to be present at the meeting of

some society of which he was a member. So he either left home

immediately after tea, or the children were sent to bed in order that

he might have a quiet evening for rest, business reflection, or the

enjoyment of a new book.

Mr. Green had so much to do and so much to think about that he had no

time to attend to his children; and this neglect was daily leaving

upon them ineffaceable impressions that would inevitably mar the

happiness of their after lives. This was particularly the case with

John. Better off in the world was Mr. Green becoming every day--better

off as it regarded money; but poorer in another sense--poorer in

respect to home affections and home treasures. His children were not

growing up to love him intensely, to confide in him implicitly, and to

respect him as their father and friend. He had no time to attend to

them, and rather pushed them away than drew them toward him with the

strong cords of affection. To his wife he left their government, and

she was not equal to the task.

"I don't believe," said Mrs. Green, one day, "that John is learning

much at the school where he goes. I think you ought to see after him a

little. He never studies a lesson at home."

"Mr. Elden has the reputation of being one of our best teachers. His

school stands high," replied Mr. Green. {94} "That may happen," said

Mrs. Green. "Still, I really think you ought to know, for yourself,

how John is getting along. Of one thing I am certain, he does not

improve in good manners nor good temper in the least. And he is never

in the house between school-hours, except to get his meals. I wish you

would require him to be at your counting-house during the afternoons.

School is dismissed at four o'clock, and he ranges the streets with

other boys, and goes where he pleases from that time until night.

"That's very bad,"--Mr. Green spoke in a concerned voice,--"very bad.

And it must be broken up. But as to having him with me, that is out of

the question. He would be into everything, and keep me in hot water

all the while. He'd like to come well enough, I do not doubt; but I

can't have him there."

"Couldn't you set him to do something?"

"I might. But I haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is

business, and cannot be interrupted."

Mrs. Green sighed, and then remarked:

"I wish you would call on Mr. Elden and have a talk with him about

John."

"I will, if you think it best."

"Do so, by all means. And beside, I would give more time to John in

the evenings. If, for instance, you devoted an evening to him once a

week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing, and

give you a control over him not now possessed."

"You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret."

But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. Mr. Green could never

find time to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at

leisure, or in the right mood of mind, to devote to the boy even a

single evening.

And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from

year to year, until, finally, John was sent home from school by Mr.

Elden with a note to his father, in which idleness, disorderly

conduct, and vicious habits were charged upon him in the broadest

terms.

The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who gave

him a more particular account of his son's bad conduct, and concluded

by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his school.

Strange as it may seem, it was four months before Mr. Green "found

time" to see about another school, and to get John entered therein;

during which long period the boy had full liberty to go pretty much

where he pleased, and to associate with whom he liked. It is hardly to

be supposed that he grew any better for this.

By the time John was seventeen years of age, Mr. Green's business had

become greatly enlarged, and his mind more absorbed therein. With him

gain was the primary thing; and, as a consequence, his family held a

secondary place in his thoughts. If money were needed, he was ever

ready to supply the demand; that done, he felt that his duty to them

was, mainly, discharged. To the mother of his children he left the

work of their wise direction in the paths of life--their government

and education; but she was inadequate to the task imposed.

From the second school at which John was entered he was dismissed

within three months, for bad conduct. He was then sent to school in a

distant city, where, removed from all parental restraint and

admonition, he made viler associates than any he had hitherto known,

and took thus a lower step in vice. He was just seventeen, when a

letter from the principal of this school conveyed to Mr. Green such

unhappy intelligence of his son that he immediately resolved, as a

last resort, to send him to sea, before the mast--and this was done,

spite of all the mother's tearful remonstrances, and the boy's threats

that he would {95} escape from the vessel on the very first

opportunity.

And yet, for all this sad result of parental neglect, Mr. Green

devoted no more time nor care to his children. Business absorbed the

whole man. He was a merchant, both body and soul. His responsibilities

were not felt as extending beyond his counting-house, further than to

provide for the worldly well-being of his family. Is it any cause of

wonder that, with his views and practice, it should not turn out well

with his children; or, at least, with some of them?

At the end of a year John came home from sea, a rough, cigar-smoking,

dram-drinking, overgrown boy of eighteen, with all his sensual desires

and animal passions more active than when he went away, while his

intellectual faculties and moral feelings were in a worse condition

than at his separation from home. Grief at the change oppressed the

hearts of his parents; but their grief was unavailing. Various efforts

were made to get him into some business, but he remained only a short

time in any of the places where his father had him introduced.

Finally, he was sent to sea again. But he never returned to his

friends. In a drunken street-brawl, that occurred while on shore at

Valparaiso, he was stabbed by a Spaniard, and died shortly afterward.

On the very day this tragic event took place, Mr. Green was rejoicing

over a successful speculation, from which he had come out the gainer

by two thousand pounds. In the pleasure this circumstance occasioned,

all thoughts of the absent one, ruined by his neglect, were swallowed

up.

Several months elapsed. Mr. Green had returned home, well satisfied

with his day's business. In his pocket was the afternoon paper, which,

after the younger children were in bed, and the older ones out of his

way, he sat down to read. His eyes turned to the foreign intelligence,

and almost the first sentence he read was the intelligence of his

son's death. The paper dropped from his hands, while he uttered an

expression of surprise and grief that caused the cheeks of his wife,

who was in the room, to turn deadly pale. She had not power to ask the

cause of her husband's sudden exclamation; but her heart, that ever

yearned toward her absent boy, instinctively divined the truth.

"John is dead!" said Mr. Green, at length, speaking in a tremulous

tone of voice.

There was from the mother no wild burst of anguish. The boy had been

dying to her daily for years, and she had suffered for him worse than

the pangs of death. Burying her face in her hands, she wept silently,

yet hopelessly.

"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!" said Mrs.

Green, lifting her tearful eyes, after the lapse of nearly ten

minutes, and speaking in a sad, self-rebuking tone of voice.

When those with whom we are in close relationship die, how quickly is

that page in memory's book turned on which lies the record of

unkindness or neglect! Already had this page been turned for Mr.

Green, and conscience was sweeping therefrom the dust that well-nigh

obscured the handwriting. He inwardly trembled as he read the

condemning sentences that charged him with his son's ruin.

"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!"

How these words of the grieving mother smote upon his heart. He did

not respond to them. How could he do so at that moment?

"Where is Edward?" he inquired, at length.

"I don't know," sobbed the mother. "He is out somewhere almost every

evening. Oh! I wish you would look to him a little more closely. He is

past my control."

"I must do so," returned Mr. Green, speaking from a strong conviction

of the necessity of doing as his wife suggested; "if I only had a

little more time----"

{96}

He checked himself. It was the old excuse--the rock upon which all his

best hopes for his first-born had been fearfully wrecked. His lips

closed, his head was bowed, and, in the bitterness of unavailing

sorrow, he mused on the past, while every moment the conviction of

wrong toward his child, now irreparable, grew stronger and stronger.

After that, Mr. Green made an effort to exercise more control over his

children; but he had left the reins loose so long that his tighter

grasp produced restiveness and rebellion. He persevered, however; and,

though Edward followed too closely the footsteps of John, yet the

younger children were brought under salutary restraints. The old

excuse--want of time--was frequently used by Mr. Green to justify

neglect of parental duties; but a recurrence of his thoughts to the

sad ruin of his eldest boy had, in most cases, the right effect; and

in the end he ceased to give utterance to the words--"I haven't time."

However, frequently he fell into neglect, from believing that business

demanded his undivided attention.

------

[ORIGINAL.]

THE SONG OF THE SHELL.

WRITTEN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

There's a music aloft in the air

As if devils were singing a song;

There's a shriek like the shriek of despair.

And a crash which the echoes prolong.

There's a voice like the voice of the gale,

When it strikes a tall ship on the sea;

There's a rift like the rent of her sail.

As she helplessly drifts to the lee.

There's a rush like the rushing of fiends.

Compelled by an horrible spell;

There's a flame like the flaming of brands,

Snatched in rage from the furnace of hell.

There's a wreath like the foam on the wave,

There's a silence unbroke by a breath;

There's a thud like the clod in a grave,

There are writhings, and moanings, and death!

------

{97}

From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The chief was well aware of the reputation which the priest had

obtained through the parish for medical skill, and was himself

convinced of how well he deserved it. Indeed, had the alternative

rested in any case between Father Farrell and the dispensary doctor,

there was not a parishioner who would not have preferred his pastor's

medical as well as spiritual aid.

The chief, instead of ordering off the dispensary doctor to see young

Lennon upon a rumor that he was worse, went quietly to Father Farrell,

who must know the truth, and be able to give good advice as to what

steps, if any, were necessary to adopt.

The matter turned out to be another black-crow story. Father Farrell

had also heard it in its exaggerated form, and had not lost a moment

in proceeding to the spot. Young Lennon had gone out to assist his

father in planting some potatoes--so far the rumor was correct. But he

had been premature in his own opinion of his convalescence. The very

first stoop he made he felt quite giddy; and although he did not fall

forward on his face, he was obliged to lean upon his father for

support for a few moments. This little experiment served to keep him

quiet for a while longer; but Father Farrell assured the chief that

matters were no worse than they had been--he might make his mind easy;

there was no injury beyond the flesh, which, of course, had become

much sorer, and must do so for a few days still.

The chief, however, suggested the prudence, if not the necessity, of

having a medical man to see him. "Not," said he, "but that I have as

much, if not more, confidence in your own skill and experience than in

any which is available in this wild district."

"That is rather an equivocal compliment; but perhaps it is fully as

much as I deserve," said the priest.

"Well, I don't mean it as such, Father Farrell; but you know a great

responsibility would rest upon me, should anything unfortunate occur."

"I see. It would not do in a court of justice to put a priest upon the

table in a medical position. I certainly could not produce a diploma.

You are quite right, my dear sir; you would be held responsible.

However, I can go the length to assure you that at present there is

not the slightest necessity for medical aid, particularly--between you

and me--under existing circumstances, which I understand very well.

The matter was a mere accident I am fully persuaded. Bat, supposing

for a moment that it was not, I know young Lennon since he was a child

running to school in his bare feet, with 'his turf and his

read-a-ma-daisy;' and I am convinced that no power on earth would

induce him to prosecute Tom Murdock."

"Why? are they such friends?"

"No; quite the reverse, and that is the very reason. But ask me no

more about it. Another objection I see to calling in the dispensary

doctor is this--that I am aware of an ill-feeling existing between him

and Tom {98} Murdock about a prize at a coursing-match, which the

doctor thinks was unfairly given to Tom Murdock through his influence

with the judge; and the doctor was heard to say in reference to it,

'that it was a long lane that had no turning.' Now here would be an

open for the doctor to put a turn on the lane, however straight it

might be in fact. He would not certify that Lennon's life was out of

danger--you would have to arrest Tom Murdock; young Lennon would go

distracted, and the two parishes would be in an uproar. Ill-will would

be engendered between all the young men of opposite sides, and all for

nothing; for young Lennon will be as well as ever he was in ten days.

These are my views of the case. But if your official responsibility

obliges you to differ with me, I am ready to hear you further."

This was a great oration of Father Farrell's, but it was both sensible

and true from beginning to end, and it convinced the chief of the

propriety of "resting on his oars" for a few days longer at all

events.

The result proved at least that there was more luck in leisure than

danger in delay. Emon-a-knock grew better; but it was by degrees. He

could not yet venture to attend to his usual daily labor, by which he

so materially contributed to the support of the family. The weather

was fine, and "the spring business" was going forward rapidly in all

directions. Poor Emon fretted that he was not able to add his

accustomed portion to the weekly earnings; but Father Farrell watched

him too closely. Once or twice he stole out to do some of their own

work, and let his father earn some of the high wages which was just

then to be had; but his own good sense told him that he was still

unable for the effort. At the end of an hour's work the old idea

haunted him that an attempt had been made to murder him, and if he had

been made a merchant-prince for it, he could not recollect how it had

happened. The only thing he did recollect distinctly about it was,

that Shanvilla won the day, and that he had been sent home in Winny

Cavana's cart and jennet--_that_, if he were in a raging fever, he

could never forget.

But it was a sad loss to the family, Emon's incapacity to work. He had

been now three weeks ill; and although the wound in his head was in a

fair way of being healed, there was still a confused idea in his mind

about the whole affair which he could not get rid of. At times, as he

endeavored to review the matter as it had actually occurred, he could

not persuade himself but that it was really an accident; and while

under this impression he felt quite well, and able for his ordinary

labor. But there were moments when a sudden thought would cross his

mind that it had been a secret and premeditated attempt upon his life;

and then it was that the confusion ensued which rendered him unable to

recollect. What if it were really this attempt--supposing that

positive proof could be adduced of the fact--what then? Would he

prosecute Tom Murdock? Oh, no. Father Farrell was right; but he had

not formed his opinion upon the true foundation. Emon-a-knock would

not prosecute, even if he could do so to conviction. He would deal

with Tom Murdock himself if ever a fair opportunity should arise; and

if not, he might yet be in a position more thoroughly to despise him.

In the meantime Lennon's family had not been improving in

circumstances. Emon was losing all the high wages of the spring's

work. Upon one or two occasions, when he stealthily endeavored to do a

little on his own land, while his father was catching the ready penny

abroad, he found, before he was two hours at work, the haunting idea

press upon his brain; and he returned to the house and threw himself

upon the bed confused and sad. In spite of this, however, the wound in

his head was now progressing more favorably, and {99} returning

strength renewed a more cheerful spirit within him. He fought hard

against the idea which at times forced itself upon him. The priest,

who was a constant visitor, saw that all was not yet right. He took

Emon kindly by the hand and said: "My dear young friend, do you not

feel as well as your outward condition would indicate that you ought

to be?"

"Yes, Father Farrell, I thank God I feel my strength almost perfectly

restored. I shall be able, I hope, to give my poor father the usual

help in a few days. The worst of it is that the throng of the spring

work is over, and wages are now down a third from what they were a

month or three weeks ago."

"If _that_ be all that is fretting you, Emon, cheer up, for there is

plenty of work still to be had; and if the wages are not quite so high

as they were a while back, you shall have constant work for some time,

which will be better than high wages for a start. I can myself afford

to make up for some of the loss this unfortunate blow has caused you.

You must accept of this." And he pulled a pound-note from his breeches

pocket.

If occasionally there were moments when Emon's ideas were somewhat

confused, they were never clearer or sharper than as Father Farrell

said this. It so happened that he was thinking of Winny Cavana at the

moment; indeed, it would be hard to hit upon the moment when he was

not. Shanvilla was proverbially a poor parish; and Father Farrell's

continual and expressed regret was, that he was not able personally to

do more for the poor of his flock. Emon was sharp enough, and stout

enough, to speak his mind even to his priest, when he found it

necessary.

He looked inquiringly into Father Farrell's face. "No, Father Farrell,

you _cannot_ afford it," he said. "It is your kindness leads you to

say so; and if you could afford it there are--and no man knows it

better than you do--many still poorer families than ours in the parish

requiring your aid. But under no circumstances shall I touch _that_

pound."

The priest was found out, and became disconcerted; but the matter was

coming to a point, and he might as well have it out.

"Why do you lay such an emphasis upon the word _that_?" said he. "It

is a very good one," he added, laughing.

"Well, Father Farrell, I am always ready and willing to answer you any

questions you may choose to ask me, for you are always discreet and

considerate. Of course I must always answer any questions you have a

right to ask; but you have no right to probe me now."

"Certainly not, Emon, but you know a counsel's no command."

"Your counsel, Father Farrell, is always good, and almost amounts to a

command. I beg your pardon, if I have spoken hastily."

"Emon, my good young friend, and I will add, my dear young friend, I

do not wish to probe you upon any subject you are not bound to give me

your confidence upon; but why did you lay such an emphasis just now on

the word _that_? If you do not wish to answer me, you need not do so.

But you must take _this_ pound-note. You see I can lay an emphasis as

well as you when I think it is required."

"No, Father Farrell. If the note was your own, I might take the loan

of it, and work it in with you, or pay you when I earned it. But I do

not think it is: there is the truth for you, Father Farrell."

"I see how it is, Emon, and you are very proud. However, the truth is,

the pound was sent to me anonymously for you from a friend."

"She might as well have signed her name in full," said Emon, sadly,

"for any loss that I can be at upon the subject--or perhaps you

yourself, Father Farrell."

"Well, I was at no loss, I confess. But you were to know nothing about

it, Emon; only you were so sharp. {100} There is no fear that your

intellects have been injured by the blow, at all events. It was meant

kindly, Emon, and I think you ought to take it--here."

"You think so, Father Farrell?"

"I do; indeed I do, Emon."

"Give it me, then," he said, taking it; and before Father Farrell's

face he pressed it to his lips. He then got a pen and ink, and wrote

something upon it. It was nothing but the date; he wanted no

memorandum of anything else respecting it. But he would hardly have

written even that, had he intended to make use of it.

The priest stood up to leave. He knew more than he chose to tell

Emon-a-knock. But there was an amicable smile upon his lips as he held

out his hand to bid him goodby.

Oh, the suspicion of a heart that loves!

"Father Farrell," he said, still holding the priest's hand, "is this

the note, the very note, the identical note, she sent me?"

"Yes, Emon; I would not deceive you about it. It is the very note;

which, I fear," he added, "is not likely to be of much use to you."

"Why do you say that, Father Farrell? You shall one day see the

contrary."

"Because you seem to me rather inclined to 'huxter it up,' as we say,

than to make use of it. Believe me, that was not the intention it was

sent with; oh, no, Emon; it was sent with the hope that it might be of

some use, and not to be hoarded up through any morbid sentimentality."

"Give me one instead of it. Father Farrell, and keep this one until I

can redeem it."

"I have not got another, Emon; pounds are not so plenty with me."

"And yet you would have persuaded me just now that it was your own and

that you could afford to bestow it upon me!"

"Pardon me, Emon, I would not have persuaded you; I was merely silent

upon the subject until your suspicions made you cross-examine me. I

was then plain enough with you. I used no deceit; and I now tell you

plainly that if you take this pound-note, you ought to use it;

otherwise you will give her who sent it very just cause for

annoyance."

"Then it shall be as she wishes and as you advise, Father Farrell. I

cannot err under your guidance. I shall use it freely and with

gratitude; but you need not tell her that I know who sent it."

"Do you think that I am an _aumadhawn_, Emon? The very thing she was

anxious to avoid herself. I shall never speak to her, perhaps, upon

the subject."

The priest then left him with a genuine and hearty blessing, which

could not fail of a beneficial influence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The priest had been a true prophet and a good doctor, and perhaps it

was well for all parties concerned that the dispensary M.D. had been

dispensed with. Emon now recovered his strength every day more and

more. The wound in his head had completely healed. There was scarcely

a mark left of where it had been, unless you blew his beautiful soft

hair aside, when a slight hard ridge was just perceptible. Father

Farrell had procured him a permanent job of some weeks, at rather an

increase of wages from what was "going" at the time, for the spring

business was now over and work was slack. But a gentleman who had

recently purchased a small property in that part of the country, and

intended to reside, had commenced alterations in the laying-out of the

grounds about his "mansion;" and meeting Father Farrell one day, asked

him if he could recommend a smart, handy man for a tolerably long job.

There would be a good deal of "skinning" and cutting of sods, {101}

levelling hillocks, and filling up hollows, and wheeling of clay. For

the latter portion of the work, the man should have help. What he

wanted was a tasty, handy fellow, who would understand quickly what

was required as it was explained to him.

Father Farrell, as the gentleman said all this, thought that he must

have actually had Emon-a-knock in his mind's eye. He was the very man

on every account, and the priest at once recommended him. This job

would soon make up for all the time poor Emon had lost with his broken

head. And for his intelligence and taste Father Farrell had gone bail.

Thus it was that Emon after all had not broken the pound-note, but, in

spite of the priest, had hoarded it as a trophy of Winny's love.

Emon would have had a rather long walk every morning to his work, and

the same in the evening after it was over. But Mr. D---- on the very

first interview with young Lennon, was sharp enough to find out his

value as a rural engineer, and, for his own sake as well as Lennon's,

he made arrangements that he should stop at a tenant's house, not far

from the scene of his landscape-gardening, which was likely to last

for some time. Mr. D---- was not a man who measured a day's work by

its external extent. He looked rather to the manner of its

accomplishment, and would not allow the thing to be "run over." He did

not care for the expense; what he wanted was to have the thing well

done; and he gave Father Farrell great credit for his choice in a

workman. If he liked the job when it was finished, he did not say but

that he would give Lennon a permanent situation, as overseer, at a

fixed salary. But up to this time he had not seen, nor even heard of,

Winny Cavana, except what had been implied to his heart by the

priest's pound-note. He was further now from Rathcash chapel than

ever; nevertheless he would show himself there, "God willing," next

Sunday. What was Tom Murdock's surprise and chagrin on the following

Sunday to observe "that confounded whelp" on the road before him, as

he went to prayers--looking, too, better dressed, and as well and

handsome as ever! He thought he had "put a spoke in his wheel" for the

whole summer at the least; and before that was over, he had determined

to have matters irrevocably _clinched_ if not _settled_ with Miss

Winifred Cavana.

After what manner this was to be accomplished was only known to

himself and three others, associates in his villany.

The matter had been already discussed in all its bearings. All the

arguments in favor of, and opposed to, its success had been exhausted,

and the final result was, that the thing should be done, and was only

waiting a favorable opportunity to be put in practice. Some matters of

detail, however, had to be arranged, which would take some time; but

as the business was kept "dark" there was no hurry. Tom Murdock's

secret was safe in the keeping of his coadjutors, whose "oath of

brotherhood" bound them not only to inviolable silence, but to their

assistance in carrying out his nefarious designs.

The sight of young Lennon once more upon the scene gave a spur to

Tom's plans and determination. He had hoped that that "accidental tip"

which he had given him would at least have had the effect of reducing

him in circumstances and appearance, and have kept him in his own

parish. He knew that Lennon was depending upon his day's wages for

even the sustenance of life; that there was a family of at least four

beside himself to support; and he gloated himself over the idea that a

month or six weeks' sick idleness, recovering at best when there was

no work to be had, would have left "that whelp" in a condition almost

unpresentable even at his own parish chapel. What was his

mortification, therefore, when he now beheld young Lennon before him

on the road!

{102}

"By the table of war," he said in his heart, "this must hasten my

plans! I cannot permit an intimacy to be renewed in that quarter. I

must see my friends at once."

Winny Cavana, although she had not seen Emon-a-knock since the

accident, had taken care to learn through her peculiar resources how

"the poor fellow was getting on." Her friend Kate Mulvey was one of

these resources.

Although it has not yet oozed out in this story, it is necessary that

it should now do so: Phil M'Dermott, then, was a great admirer of Kate

Mulvey. He was one of those who advocated an interchange of

parishioners in the courting line. He did not think it fair that

"exclusive dealing" should be observed in such cases.

Now, useless as it was, and forlorn as had been hitherto the hope,

Phil M'Dermott, like all true lovers, could not keep away from his

cold-hearted Kate. It was a satisfaction to him at all events "to be

looking at her;" and somehow since Emon's accident she seemed more

friendly and condescending in her manner to poor Phil. It will be

remembered that Phil M'Dermott was a great friend of Emon-a-knock's,

and it may now be said that he was a near neighbor. It was natural,

then, that Kate Mulvey should find out all about Emon from him, and

"have word" for Winny when they met. This was one resource, and Father

Farrell, as he sometimes passed Kate's door, was another. Father

Farrell could guess very well, notwithstanding Kate's careless manner

of asking, that his information would not rest in her own breast, and

gave it as fully and satisfactorily as he could.

Kate Mulvey, however, "would not for the world" say a word to either

Phil M'Dermott or Father Farrell which could be construed as coming

from Winny Cavana to Emon-a-knock; she had Winny's strict orders to

that effect. But Kate felt quite at liberty to make any remarks she

chose, as coming from herself.

Poor Emon, upon this his first occasion of, it may be said, appearing

in public after his accident, was greeted, after prayers were over,

with a genuine cordiality by the Rathcash boys, and several times

interfered with in his object of "getting speech" of Winny Cavana, who

was some distance in advance, in consequence of these delays.

But Winny was not the girl to be frustrated by any unnecessary prudery

on such an occasion.

"Father," she said, "there's Emon at our chapel to-day for the first

time since he was hurt. Let us not be behindhand with the neighbors to

congratulate him on his recovery. I see all the Rathcash people are

glad to see him."

"And so they ought, Winny; I'm glad you told me he was here, for I did

not happen to see him. Stand where you are until he comes up." And the

old man stood patiently for some minutes while Emon's friends were

expressing their pleasure at his reappearance.

Winny had kept as clear as possible of Tom Murdock since the accident

at the hurling match; so much so that he could not but know it was

intentional.

Tom had remarked during prayers that Winny's countenance had

brightened up wonderfully when young Lennon came into the chapel, and

took a quiet place not far inside the door; for he had been kept

outside by the kind inquiries of his friends until the congregation

had become pretty throng. He had observed too, for he was on the

watch, that Winny's eyes had often wandered in the direction of the

door up to the time when "that whelp" had entered; but from that

moment, when he had observed the bright smile light up her face, she

had never turned them from the officiating priest and the altar.

Tom had not ventured to walk home with Winny from the chapel for some

Sundays past, nor would he to-day. What puzzled him not a little was

what his line of conduct ought to be with respect to Lennon, whom he

had not seen since the accident. His course {103} was, however, taken

after a few moments' reflection. He did not forget that on the

occasion of the blow he had exhibited much sympathy with the sufferer,

and had declared it to have been purely accidental. He should keep up

that character of the affair now, or make a liar of himself, both as

to the past and his feelings.

"Beside," thought he, "I may so delay him that Miss Winifred cannot

have the face to delay for him so long."

Just then, as Emon had emancipated himself from the cordiality of

three or four young men, and was about to step out quickly to where he

saw Winny and her father standing on the road, Tom came up.

"Ah, Lennon!" he said, stretching out his hand, "I am glad to see you

in this part of the country again. I hope you are quite recovered."

"Quite, thank God," said Emon, pushing by without taking his hand.

"But I see Winny and her father waiting on the road, and I cannot stop

to talk to you;" and he strode on. Emon left out the "Cavana" in the

above sentence on purpose, because he knew the familiarity its

omission created would vex Tom Murdock.

"Bad luck to your impudence, you conceited cub, you!" was Murdock's

mental ejaculation as he watched the cordial greeting between him and

Winny Cavana, to say nothing of her father, who appeared equally glad

to see him.

Phil M'Dermott had come for company that day with Emon, and had

managed to join Kate Mulvey as they came out of chapel. She had her

eyes about her, and saw very well how matters had gone so far. For the

first time in her life she noticed the scowl on Tom Murdock's brow as

she came toward him.

"God between us and harm, but he looks wicked this morning!" thought

she; and she was almost not sorry when he turned suddenly round and

walked off without waiting for her so much as to "bid him the time of

day."

"That's more of it," said Tom to himself. "There is that one now

taking up with that tinker."

He felt something like the little boy who said, "What! will nobody

come and play with me?" But Tom did not, like him, become a good boy

after that.

He watched the Cavanas and Lennon, who had not left the spot where

Lennon came up with them until they were joined by Kate And Phil

M'Dermott, when they all walked on together, chatting and laughing as

if nobody in the world was wicked or unhappy.

He dodged them at some distance, and was not a little surprised to see

the whole party-"the whelp," "the tinker," and all--turn up the lane

and go into Cavana's house.

"_That will do_," said he; "I must see my friends this very night, and

before this day fortnight we'll see who will win the trick."

Emon-a-knock and Phil M'Dermott actually paid a visit to old Ned

Cavana's that Sunday. Tom Murdock had seen them going in, and he

minuted them by his silver hunting-watch--for he had one. His eye

wandered from the door to his watch, and from his watch to the door,

as if he were feeling the pulse of their visit. He thought he had

never seen Kate Mulvey looking so handsome, or Phil M'Dermott so clean

or so well-dressed.

But it mattered not. If Kate was a Venus, Tom will carry out his plans

with respect to Winny, and let Phil M'Dermott work his own point in

that other quarter. Not that he cared much for Winny herself, but he

wanted her farm, and he _hated "that whelp Lennon."_

They remained just twenty-five minutes in old Cavana's; this for Kate

Mulvey was nothing very wonderful, but for two young men--neither of

whom had ever darkened his doors before--Tom thought it rather a long

visit.

{104}

There they were now, going down the lane together, laughing and

chatting, all three seemingly in good humor.

Cranky and out of temper as he was, Tom's observation was correct in

more matters than one, Phil M'Dermott was particularly well-dressed on

this occasion, his first visit to Rathcash chapel. Perhaps after

to-day he may be oftener there than at his own.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Perhaps there was nothing extraordinary, after the encouragement which

Emon had met with upon his first appearance at Rathcash chapel after

"the accident," if he found it pleasanter to "overtake mass" there

than to come in quietly at Shanvilla. The walk did him good. Be this

as it may, he was now a regular attendant at a chapel which was a mile

and a half further from his home than his own.

Two Sundays had now come round since Tom Murdock had seen the

reception which "that whelp" had met with from the Cavanas, not only

as he came out of the chapel, but in asking him up to the house, and,

he supposed, giving him luncheon; for the visits had been repeated

each successive Sunday. Then that fellow M'Dermott had also come to

their chapel, and he and Kate Mulvey had also gone up with the

Cavanas. This was now the third Sunday on which this had taken place;

and not only Winny herself, but her father seemed to acquiesce in

bringing it about.

Tom's fortnight had passed by, and he had not "won the trick," as he

had threatened to do. "Well," thought he, "it cannot be done in a

minute. I have been dealing the cards, and, contrary to custom, the

dealer shall lead beside; and that soon."

Winny's happy smile was now so continuous and so gratifying to her

father's heart, that if he had not become altogether reconciled to an

increased intimacy with Edward Lennon, he had at all events become a

convert to her dislike to Tom Murdock, and no mistake.

In spite of all his caution, one or two matters had crept out as to

his doings, and had come to old Ned's ears in such a way that no doubt

could remain on his mind of their veracity. He began to give Winny

credit for more sharpness than he had been inclined to do; and it

crossed his mind once that, if Winny was not mistaken about Tom

Murdock's villany, she might not be mistaken either about _anybody

else's worth_. The thought had not individualized itself as yet. In

the meantime young Lennon's quiet and natural manner, his unvarying

attention and respect for the old man himself, and his apparent

carelessness for Winny's private company, grew upon old Ned

insensibly; and it was now almost as a fixed rule that he paid a

Sunday visit after mass at Rathcash, the old man putting his hand upon

his shoulder, and facing him toward the house at the end of the lane,

saying, "Come, Edward Lennon, the murphys will be teemed by the time

we get up, and no one can fault our bacon or our butter."

"_My_ butter, Emon," said Winny on one occasion, at a venture.

Her father looked at her. But there was never another word about it.

All this was anything but pleasing to Tom Murdock, who always sulkily

dogged them at some distance behind.

Now we shall not believe that Emon-a-knock was such a muff, or Winny

Cavana such a prude, as to suppose that no little opportunity was

seized upon for a kind soft word between them _unknownt_. Nor shall we

suppose that Kate Mulvey, who was always of the party, was such a

marplot as to obstruct such a happy casualty, should it occur,

particularly if Phil was to the fore.

Emon's careless, loud laugh along the road, as he escorted Kate to her

own door, gave evidence that his heart was light and that (as Kate

thought, though she did not question him) {105} matters were on the

right road for him. Winny, too, when they met, was so happy, and so

different from what for a while she had been, that Kate, although she

did not question her either, guessed that all was right with her too.

Matters, as they now seemed to progress, and he watched them close,

were daggers to Tom Murdock's heart. He had seen Winny Cavana, on more

than one evening, leave the house and take the turn toward Kate

Mulvey's. On these occasions he had the meanness and want of spirit to

watch her movements; and although he could not satisfy himself that

young Lennon came to meet her, he was not quite satisfied that he did

not.

Winny invariably turned into Kate Mulvey's, and remained for a long

visit. Might not "that hound" be there?--Tom sometimes varied his

epithets--might it not be a place of assignation? This was but the

suspicion of a low, mean mind like Tom Murdock's.

The fact is, since Tom's threat about "winning the trick" he had been

rather idle. His game was not one which could be played out by

correspondence--he was too cunning for that--and the means which he

would be obliged to adopt were not exactly ready at his hand. He saw

that matters were not pressing in another quarter yet, if ever they

should press, and he would "ride a waiting race," and win

unexpectedly. Thus the simile of Tom's thoughts still took their tone

from the race-course, and he would "hold hard" for another bit.

Circumstances, however, soon occurred which made him "push forward

toward the front" if he had any hope "to come in first."

Edward Lennon having finished his "landscape gardening" at Mr. D----s,

and the overseership being held over for the present, had got another

rather long job, on the far part of Ned Cavana's farm, in laying out

and cutting drains, where the land required reclaiming. He had shown

so much taste and intelligence, in both planning and performing, that

old Ned was quite delighted with him, and began to regret "that he had

not known his value as an agricultural laborer long before." There was

one other at least--if not two--who sympathized in that regret. At all

events, there he was now every day up to his hips in dirty red clay,

scooping it up from the bottom of little drains more than three feet

deep, in a long iron scoop with a crooked handle. This job was at the

far end of Ned's farm, and, in coming to his work, Lennon need hardly

come within sight of the house, for the work lay in the direction of

Shanvilla. Emon did not "quit work" until it was late; he was then in

anything but visiting trim, if such a thing were even possible. He,

therefore, saw no more of Winny on account of the job than if he had

been at work on the Giant's Causeway. But a grand object had been

attained, nevertheless--he was working for Ned Cavana, and had given

him more than satisfaction in the performance of the job, and on one

occasion old Ned had called him "Emon-a-wochal," a term of great

familiarity. This was a great change for the better. If young Lennon

had been as well acquainted with racing phraseology as Tom Murdock, he

also would have thought that he would "make a waiting race of it." But

the expression of _his_ thoughts was that he "would bide his time."

The Sundays, however, were still available, and Emon did not lose the

chance. He now because so regular an attendant at Rathcash chapel, and

went up so regularly with old Ned and his daughter after prayers, that

it was no wonder if people began to talk.

"I donna what Tom Murdock says to all this, Bill," said Tim Fahy to a

neighbor, on the road from the chapel.

"The sorra wan of me knows, Tim, but I hear he isn't over-well

plaised."

"Arrah, what id he be plaised at? Is it to see a Shanvilla boy,

without a cross, intherlopin' betune him an' his bachelor?"

"Well, they say he needn't be a bit afeared, Lennon is a very good

workman, {106} and undherstan's dhrainin', an' ould Ned's cute enough

to get a job well done; but he'd no more give his daughter with her

fine fortin' to that chap, than he'd throw her an' it into the

say--b'lieve you me."

"There's some very heavy cloud upon Tom this while back, any way; and

though he keeps it very close, there's people thinks it's what she

refused him."

"The sorra fear iv her, Tim; she has more sinse nor that."

"Well, riddle me this, Bill. What brings that chap here Sunda' afther

Sunda', and what takes him up to ould Ned Cavana's every Sunda' afther

mass? He is a very good-lookin' young fellow, an' knows a sheep's head

from a sow's ear, or Tim Fahy's a fool."

"_Och badhershin_, doesn't he go up to walk home wid Kate Mulvey, for

she's always iv the party?"

"And _badhershin_ yourself, Bill, isn't Phil M'Dermott always to the

fore for Kate?--another intherloper from Shanvilla. I donna what the

sorra the Rathcash boys are about."

Other confabs of a similar nature were carried on by different sets as

they returned from prayers, and saw the Cavanas with their company

turn up the lane toward the house. The young girls of the district,

too, had their chats upon the subject; but they were so voluble, and

some of them so ill-natured, that I forbear to give the reader any

specimen of their remarks. One or two intimate associates of Tom

ventured to quiz him upon the state of affairs. Now none but an

intimate friend, indeed, of Tom's should have ventured, under the

circumstances, to have touched upon so sore a subject, and those who

did, intimate as they were, did not venture to repeat the joke. No, it

was no joke; and that they soon found out. To one friend who had

quizzed him privately he said, "Suspend your judgment, Denis; and if I

don't prove myself more than a match for that half-bred _kiout_, then

condemn me."

But to another, who had quizzed him before some bystanders in rather a

ridiculous point of view, he turned like a bull-terrier, while his

face assumed a scowl of a peculiarly unpleasant character.

"It is no business of yours," he said, "and I advise you to mind your

own affairs, or perhaps I'll make you."

The man drew in his horns, and sneaked off, of course; and from that

moment they all guessed that the business had gone against Tom, and

they left off quizzing.

Tom felt that he had been wrong, and had only helped to betray

himself. His game now was to prevent, if possible, any talk about the

matter, one way or the other, until his plans should be matured, when

he doubted not that success would gain him the approbation of every

one, no matter what the means.

The preface to his plans was, to spread a report that he had gone back

to Armagh to get married to a girl with an immense fortune, and he

endorsed the report by the fact of his leaving home; but whether to

Armagh or not, was never clearly known.

Young Lennon went on with his job, at which old Ned told him "to take

his time, an' do it well. It was not," he said, "like digging a plot,

which had to be dug every year, or maybe twice. When it was wance

finished and covered up, there it was; worse nor the first day, if it

was not done right; so don't hurry it over, Emon-a-wochal. I don't

mind the expense; ground can't be dhrained for nothin', an' it id be a

bad job if we were obliged to be openin' any of the dhrains a second

time, an' maybe not know where the stoppage lay; so take your time,

and don't blame me if you botch it."

"You need not fear, sir," said Lennon. (He always said "sir" as yet.)

"You need not fear; if every drain of them does not run like the

stream from Tubbernaltha, never give me a day's work again."

{107}

"As far as you have gone, Emon, I think they are complate; we'll have

forty carts of stones in afore Saturda' night. I hope you have help

enough, boy."

"Plenty, sir, until we begin to cover in."

"Wouldn't you be able for that yourself? or couldn't you bring your

father with you? I'd wish to put whatever I could in your way."

"Thank you, sir, very much. I will do so if I want more help; but for

the lucre of keeping up his wages and mine, I would not recommend you

to lose this fine weather in covering in the drains."

"You are an honest boy, Emon, and I like your way of talkin', as well

as workin'; plaise God we won't see you or your father idle."

Up to this it will be seen that Emon was not idle in any sense of the

word. He was ingratiating himself, but honestly, into the good graces

of old Ned; "if he was not fishing, he was mending his nets;" and the

above conversation will show that he was not a dance at that same.

It happened, upon one or two occasions, that old Ned was with Emon at

leaving off work in the evening, and he asked him to "cum' up to the

house and have a dhrink of beer, or whiskey-and-wather, his choice."

But Emon excused himself, saying he was no fit figure to go into any

decent man's parlor in that trim, and indeed his appearance did not

belie his words; for he was spotted and striped with yellow clay, from

his head and face to his feet, and the clothes he brought to the work

were worth nothing.

"Well, you'll not be always so, Emon, when you're done wid the

scoopin'," said old Ned; and he added, laughing, "The divil a wan o'

me'd know you to be the same boy I seen cumin' out o' mass a Sunda'."

Emon had heard, as everybody else had heard, that Tom Murdock had left

home, and he felt as if an incubus had been lifted off his heart. Not

that he feared Tom in any one way; but he knew that his absence would

be a relief to Winny, and, as such, a relief to himself.

Emon was now as happy as his position and his hopes permitted him to

be; and there can be little doubt but this happiness arose from an

understanding between himself and Winny; but how, when, or where that

understanding had been confirmed, it would be hard to say.

Old Ned's remarks to his daughter respecting young Lennon were nuts

and apples to her. She knew the day would come, and perhaps at no far

distant time, when she must openly avow, not only a preference for

Emon, but declare an absolute determination to cast her lot with his,

and ask her father's blessing upon them. She was aware that this could

not, that it ought not to, be hurried. She hoped--oh, how fervently

she hoped!--that the report of Tom Murdock's marriage might be true:

that of his absence from home she knew to be so. In the meantime it

kept the happy smile for ever on her lips to know that Emon was daily

creeping into the good opinion of her father. Oh! how could Emon, her

own Emon, fail, not only to creep but to rush into the good opinion,

the very heart, of all who knew him? Poor enthusiastic Winny! But she

was right. With the solitary exception of Tom Murdock, there was not a

human being who knew him who did not love Edward Lennon. But where is

the man with Tom Murdock's heart, and in Tom Murdock's place, who

would not have hated him as he did?

CHAPTER XXIX.

Tom Murdock, seeing that his hopes by fair means were completely at an

end, and that matters were likely to progress in another quarter at a

rate which made it advisable not to let the leading horse get too far

ahead, {108} determined to make a rush to the front, no matter whether

he went the wrong side of a post or not--let that be settled after.

He had left home, and left a report behind him, which he took care to

have industriously circulated, that he had gone to Armagh, and was

about to be married to "a young lady" with a large fortune, and that

he would visit the metropolis, Fermanagh, and perhaps Sligo, before he

returned. But he did not go further than an obscure public-house in a

small village in the lower part of the county of Cavan. There he met

the materials for carrying out his plan. The object of it was shortly

this--to carry away Winny Cavana by force, and bring her to a

_friend's_ house in the mountains behind the village adverted to. Here

he was to have an old buckle-beggar at hand to marry them the moment

Winny's spirit was broken to consent. This man, a degraded clergyman,

as the report went, wandered about the country in green spectacles and

a short, black cloak, always ready and willing to perform such a job;

doubly willing and ready for this particular one from the reward which

Tom had promised him. If even the marriage ceremony should fail,

either through Winny's obstinacy or the clergyman's want of spirit to

go through with it in the face of opposition, still he would keep her

for ten days or a fortnight at this _friend's_ house, stopping there

himself too; and at the end of that time, should he fail in obtaining

her consent, he would quit the country for a while, and allow her to

return home "so blasted in character" that even "that whelp" would

disown her. There was a pretty specimen of a lover--a husband!

It was now the end of June. The weather had been dry for some time,

and the nights were clear and mild; the stars shone brightly, and the

early dawn would soon present a heavy dew hanging on the bushes and

the grass. The moon was on the wane; but at a late hour of the night

it was conspicuous in the heavens, adding a stronger light to that

given by the clearness of the sky and the brilliancy of the stars.

Rathcash and Rathcashmore were sunk in still repose; and if silence

could be echoed, it was echoed by the stillness of the mountains

behind Shanvilla and beyond them. The inhabitants of the whole

district had long since retired to rest, and now lay buried in sleep,

some of them in confused dreams of pleasure and delight.

The angel of the dawn was scarcely yet awake, or he might have heard

the sound of muffled horses' feet and muffled wheels creeping along

the road toward the lane turning up to Rathcash house, about two hours

before day; and he must have seen a man with a dark mask mounted on

another muffled horse at a little distance from the cart.

Presently Tom Murdock--there is no use in simulating mystery where

none exists--took charge of the horse and cart to prevent them from

moving, while three men stole up toward the house. Ay, there is

Bully-dhu's deep bark, and they are already at the door.

"That dog! he'll betray us, boys," said one of the men.

"I'd blow his brains out if this pistol was loaded," said another;

"and I wanted Tom to give me a cartridge."

"He wouldn't let any one load but himself, and he was right; a shot

would be twiste as bad as the dog; beside, he's in the back yard, and

cannot get out. Never heed him, but to work as fast as possible."

Old Ned Cavana and Winny heard not only the dog, but the voices.

Winny's heart foretold the whole thing in a moment, and she braced her

nerves for the scene.

The door was now smashed in, and the three men entered. By this time

old Ned had drawn on his trousers; and as he was throwing his coat

over his head to got his arms into the sleeves he was seized, and ere

you could count ten he was pinioned, with his arms behind him and his

legs tied {109} at the ankles, and a handkerchief tied across his

mouth. Thus rendered perfectly powerless, he was thrown back upon the

bed, and the room-door locked. Jamesy Doyle, who slept in the barn,

had heard the crash of the door, and dressed himself in "less than no

time," let Bully-dhu out of the yard, and brought him to the front

door, in at which he rushed like a tiger. But Jamesy Doyle did not go

in. That was not his game; but he peeped in at the window. No light

had been struck, so he could make nothing of the state of affairs

inside, except from the voices; and from what he heard he could make

no mistake as to the object of this attack. He could not tell whether

Tom Murdock was in the house or not, but he did not hear his voice.

One man said, "Come, now, be quick, Larry; the sooner we're off with

her the better."

Jamesy waited for no more; he turned to the lane as the shortest way,

but at a glance he saw the horse and cart and the man on horseback on

the road outside; and turning again he darted off across the fields as

fast as his legs could carry him.

Bully-dhu, having gained access to the house, showed no disposition to

compromise the matter. "No quarter!" was his cry, as he flew at the

nearest man to him, and seizing him by the throat, brought him to the

ground with a _sough_, where in spite of his struggles, he held him

fast with a silent, deadly grip. He had learned this much, at least,

by his encounter with the mastiff on New Year's day.

Careless of their companion's strait, who they thought ought to be

able to defend himself, the other two fellows--and powerful fellows

they were--proceeded to the bed-room to their left; they had locked

the door to their right, leaving poor old Ned tied and insensible on

the bed. Winny was now dressed and met them at the door.

"Are you come to commit murder?" she cried, as they stopped her in the

doorway; "or have you done it already? Let me to my father's room."

"The sorra harm on him, miss, nor the sorra take the hair of his head

well hurt no more nor your own. Come, put on your bonnet an' cloak,

an' come along wid us; them's our ordhers."

"You have a master, then. Where is he? where is Tom Murdock?--I knew

Tom _Murder_ should have been his name. Where is he, I say?"

"Come, come, no talk; but on wid your bonnet and cloak at wanst."

"Never; nor shall I ever leave this house except torn from it by the

most brutal force. Where is your master, I say? Is he afraid of the

rope himself which he would thus put round your necks?"

"Come, come, on wid your bonnet an' cloak, or, be the powers, we'll

take you away as you are."

"Never; where is your master, I say?"

"Come, Larry, we won't put up wid any more of her pillaver; out wid

the worsted."

Here Biddy Murtagh rushed in to her mistress's aid; but she was soon

overpowered and tied "neck and heels," as they called it, and thrown

upon Winny's bed. They had the precaution to gag her also with a

handkerchief, that she might not give the alarm, and they locked the

door like that at the other end of the house.

Larry, whoever he was, then pulled a couple of skeins of coarse

worsted from his pocket, while his companion seized Winny round the

waist, outside her arms; and the other fellow, who seemed expert, soon

tied her feet together, and then her hands. A thick handkerchief was

then tied across her mouth.

"Take care to lave plenty of braithin' room out iv her nose, Larry,"

said the other ruffian; and, thus rendered unable to move or scream,

they carried her to the road and laid her on the car. The horseman in

the mask asked them where the third man was, and they replied that he

must have {110} "made off" from the dog, for that they neither saw nor

heard him after the dog flew at him.

This was likely enough. He was the only man of the party in whom Tom

Murdock could not place the most unbounded confidence.

"The cowardly rascal," he said. "We must do without him."

But he had _not_ made off from the dog.

The cart was well provided--_to do Tom Murdock justice_--with a

feather-bed over plenty of straw, and plenty of good covering to keep

out the night air. They started at a brisk trot, still keeping the

horses' feet and the wheels muffled; and they passed down the road

where the reader was once caught at a dog-fight.

But to return, for a few minutes, to Rathcash house. Bully-dhu was

worth a score of old Ned Cavana, even supposing him to have been at

liberty, and free of the cords by which he was bound. The poor old man

had worked the handkerchief by which he had been gagged off his mouth,

by rubbing it against the bed-post. He had then rolled himself to the

door; but further than that he was powerless, except to ascertain, by

placing his chin to the thumb-latch, for he had got upon his feet,

that it was fastened outside. He then set up a lamentable demand for

help--upon Winny, upon Biddy Murtagh, and upon Bully-dhu. The dog was

the only one who answered him, with a smothered growl, for he still

held fast by the grip he had taken of the man's throat. Poor Bully!

you need not have been so pertinacious of that grip--the man has been

_dead_ for the last ten minutes! Finding that it was indeed so, from

the perfect stillness of the man, Bully-dhu released his hold, and lay

licking his paws and keeping up an angry growl, in answer to the old

man's cries.

We must leave them and follow Jamesy Doyle across the fields, and see

if it was cowardice that made him run so fast from the scene of

danger. Ah, no! Jamesy was not that sort of a chap at all. He was

plucky as well as true to the heart's core. Nor was his intelligence

and judgment at fault for a moment as to the best course for him to

adopt. Seeing the fearful odds of three stout men against him, he knew

that he could do better than to remain there, to be tied "neck and

crop" like the poor old man and Biddy. So, having brought Bully-dhu

round and given him 'his cue, he started off, and never drew breath

until he found himself outside Emon-a-knock's window at Shanvilla, on

his way to the nearest police station.

"Are you there, Emon?" said he, tapping at it.

"Yes," Emon replied from his bed; "who are you, or what do you want?"

"Jamesy Doyle from Rathcash house. Get up at wanst! They have taken

away Miss Winny."

"Great heaven I do you say so? Here, father, get up in a jiffy and

dress yourself. They have taken away Winny Cavana, and we must be off

to the rescue like a shot. Come in, Jamesy, my boy." And while they

were "drawing on" their clothes, they questioned him as to the

particulars.

But Jamesy had few such to give them, as the reader knows; for, like a

sensible boy, he was off for help without waiting for particulars.

The principal point, however, was to know what road they had taken.

Upon this Jamesy was able to answer with some certainty, for ere he

had started finally off, he had watched them, and he had seen the cart

move on under the smothered cries of Winny; and he heard the horseman

say, "Now, boys, through the pass between 'the sisters.'"

"They took the road to the left from the end of the lane, that's all I

know; so let you cut across the country as fast as you can, an' you'll

be at Boher before them. Don't delay me now, for I must go on to the

police station an' hurry out the sargent {111} and his men; if you can

clog them at the bridge till I cam' up with the police, all will be

rights an' we'll have her back wid us. I know very well if I had a

word wid Miss Winny unknown to the men, she would have sent me for the

police; but I took you in my way--it wasn't twenty perch of a round."

"Thank you, Jamesy, a thousand times! There, be off to the sergeant as

fast as you can; tell him you called here, and that I have calculated

everything in my mind, and for him and his men to make for

Boher-na-Milthiogue bridge as fast as possible. There, be off, Jamesy,

and I'll give you a pound-note if the police are at the bridge before

Tom Murdock comes through the pass with the cart."

"You may keep your pound, man! I'd do more nor that for Miss Winny."

And he was out of sight in a moment.

The father and son were now dressed, and, arming themselves with two

stout sticks, they did not "let the grass grow under their feet." They

hurried on until they came to the road turning down to where we have

indicated that our readers were once caught at a dog-fight. Here Emon

examined the road as well as he could by the dim light which

prevailed, and found the fresh marks of wheels. He could scarcely

understand them. They were not like the tracks of any wheels he had

ever seen before, and there were no tracks of horses' feet at all,

although Jamesy had said there was a horseman beside the horse and

cart.

Emon soon put down these unusual appearances--and he could not well

define them for want of light--to some cunning device of Tom Murdock;

and how right he was!

"Come on, father," said he. "I am quite certain they have gone down

here. I know Tom Murdock has plenty of associates in the county Cavan,

and the pass between 'the sisters' is the shortest way he can take.

Beside, Jamesy heard him say the words. Our plan must be to cut across

the country and get to Milthiogue bridge before they get through the

pass and so escape us. What say you, father--are you able and willing

to push on, and to stand by me? Recollect the odds that are against

us, and count the cost."

"Emon, I'll count nothing; but I'll--

"Here, father, in here at this gap, and across by the point of Mullagh

hill beyond; we must get to Boher before them."

"I'll count no cost, Emon, I was going to tell you. I'm both able and

willing, thank God, to stand by you. You deserve it well of me, and so

do the Cavanas. God forbid I should renuage my duty to you and them!

Aren't ye all as wan as the same thing to me now?"

Emon now knew that his father knew all about Winny and him.

"Father," said he, "that is a desperate man, and he'll stop at

nothing."

"Is it sthrivin' to cow me you are, Emon?"

"No, father; but you saw the state my mother was in as we left."

"Yes, I did, and why wouldn't she? But shure that should not stop us

when we have right on our side; an' God knows what hoult, or distress,

that poor girl is in, or what that villain may do to her; an' what

state would your mother be in if you were left a desolate madman all

your life through that man's wickedness?"

These were stout words of his father, and almost assured Emon that all

would be well.

"Father," he continued, "if we get to the bridge before them, and can

hold it for half an hour, or less, the police will be up with Jamesy

Doyle, and we shall be all right."

The conversation was now so frequently interrupted in getting over

ditches and through hedges, and they had said so much of what they had

to say, that they were nearly quite silent for the rest of the way,

except where Emon pointed out to his father the easiest place to get

over a ditch, or through a hedge, or up the face of a {112} hill. Both

their hearts were evidently in their journey. No less the father's

than the son's: the will made the way.

The dappled specks of red had still an hour to slumber ere the dawn

awoke, and they had reached the spot; there was the bridge, the

Boher-na-Milthiogue of our first chapter, within a stone's throw of

them. They crept to the battlement and peered into the pass. As yet no

sound of horse or cart, or whispered word, reached their ears.

"They must be some distance off yet, father," said Emon; "thank God!

The police will have the more time to be up."

"Should we not hide, Emon?"

"Certainly; and if the police come up before they do, they should hide

also. That villain is mounted; and if a strong defence of the pass was

shown too soon, he would turn and put spurs to his horse."

As he spoke a distant noise was heard of horses' feet and unmuffled

wheels. The muffling had all been taken off as soon as they had

reached the far end of the pass between the mountains, and they were

now hastening their speed.

"The odds will be fearfully against us, father," said Emon, who now

felt more than ever the dangerous position he had placed his father

in, and the fearful desolation his loss would cause in his mother's

heart and in his home. He felt no fear for himself. "You had better

leave Tom himself to me, father. I know he will be the man on

horseback. Let you lay hold of the horse's head under the cart, and

knock one of the men, or both, down like lightning, if you can. You

have your knife ready to cut the cords that tie her?"

"I have, Emon; and don't you fear me; one of them shall tumble at all

events, almost before they know that we are on them. I hope I may kill

him out an' out; we might then be able for the other two. Do you think

Tom is armed?" he added, turning pale. But it was so dark Emon did not

see it.

"I am not sure, but I think not He cannot have expected any

opposition."

"God grant it, Emon! I don't want to hould you back, but don't be

'fool-hardy,' dear boy."

"Do you want to cow me, father, as you said yourself, just now?"

"No, Emon. But stoop, stoop, here they are."

Crouching behind the battlements of the bridge, these two resolute men

waited the approach of the cavalcade. As they came to the mouth of the

pass the elder Lennon sprang to the head of the horse under the cart,

and, seizing him with his left hand, struck the man who drove such a

blow as felled him from the shaft upon which he sat. Emon had already

seized the bridle of the horseman who still wore the mask, and pushing

the horse backward on his haunches, he made a fierce blow at the

rider's head with his stick. But he had darted his heels--spurs he

had none--into his horse's sides, which made him plunge forward,

rolling Emon on the ground. Forward to the cart the rider then rushed,

crying out, "On, on with the cart!" But Lennon's father was still

fastened on the horse's head with his left hand, while with his right

he was alternately defending himself against the two men, for the

first had somewhat recovered, who were in charge of it.

Tom Murdock would have ridden him down also, and turned the battle in

favor of a passage through; but Emon had regained his feet, and was

again fastened in the horse's bridle, pushing him back on his

haunches, hoping to get at the rider's head, for hitherto his blows

had only fallen upon his arms and chest. Here Tom Murdock felt the

want of the spurs, for his horse did not spring forward with life and

force enough upon his assailant.

A fearful struggle now ensued between them. The men at the cart had

not yet cleared their way from the {113} desperate opposition given

them by old Lennon, who defendant himself ably, and at the same time

attacked them furiously. He had not time, however, to cut the cords by

which Winny was bound. A single pause in the use of his stick for that

purpose would have been fatal. Neither had he been successful in

getting beyond his first position at the horse's head. During the

whole of this confused attack and defence, poor Winny Cavana, who had

managed to shove herself up into a sitting posture in the cart,

continued to cry out, "Oh, Tom Murdock, Tom Murdock! even now give me

up to these friends and be gone, and I swear there shall never be a

word more about it."

But Tom Murdock was not the man either to yield to entreaties, or to

be baffled in his purpose. He had waled Edward Lennon with the butt

end of his whip about the head and shoulders as well as he could

across his horse's head, which Lennon had judiciously kept between

them, at times making a jump up and striking at Tom with his stick.

Matters had now been interrupted too long to please Tom Murdock, and

darting his heels once more into his horse's sides, he sprang forward,

rolling young Lennon on the road again.

"All right now, lads!" he cried; "on, on with the cart!" and he rode

at old Lennon, who still held his ground against both his antagonists

manfully.

But all was not right. A cry of "The police, the police!" issued from

one of the men at the cart, and Jamesy Doyle with four policemen were

seen hurrying up the boreen from the lower road.

Perhaps it would be unjust to accuse Tom Murdock of cowardice even

then--it was not one of his faults--if upon seeing an accession of

four armed policemen he turned to fly, leaving his companions in for

it. One of them fled too; but Pat Lennon held the other fast.

As Tom turned to traverse the mountain pass back again at full speed,

Lennon, who had recovered himself, sprang like a tiger once more at

the horse's head. Now or never he must stay his progress.

Tom Murdock tore the mask from his face, and, pulling a loaded pistol

from his breast, he said: "Lennon, it was not my intention to injure

you when I saw you first spring up from the bridge to-night; nor will

I do so now, if your own obstinacy and foolhardy madness does not

bring your doom upon yourself. Let go my horse, or by hell I'll blow

your brains out! this shall be no mere tip of the hurl, mind you." And

he levelled the pistol at his head, not more than a foot from his

face.

"Never, with life!" cried Lennon; and he aimed a blow at Tom's

pistol-arm. Ah, fatal and unhappy chance! His stick had been raised to

strike Tom Murdock down, and he had not time to alter its direction.

Had he struck the pistol-arm upward, it might have been otherwise; but

the blow of necessity descended. Tom Murdock fired at the same moment,

and the only difference it made was, that instead of his brains having

been blown out, the ball entered a little to one side of his left

breast.

Lennon jumped three feet from the ground, with a short, sudden shout,

and rolled convulsively upon the road, where soon a pool of bloody mud

attested the murderous work which had been done.

The angel of the dawn now awoke, as he heard the report of the pistol

echoing and reverberating through every recess in the many hearts of

Slieve-dhu and Slieve-bawn. Tom Murdock fled at full gallop; and the

hearts of the policemen fell as they heard the clattering of his

horse's feet dying away in quadruple regularity through the mountain

pass.

Jamesy Doyle, who was light of foot and without shoe or stocking,

rushed forward, saying, "Sergeant, I'll follow him to the end of the

pass, {114} an' see what road he'll take." And he sped onward like a

deer.

"Come, Maher," said the sergeant, "we'll pursue, however hopeless.

Cotter, let you stop with the prisoner we have and the Young woman;

and let Donovan stop with the wounded man, and stop the blood if he

can."

Sergeant Driscol and Maher then started at the top of their speed, in

the track of Jamesy Doyle, in full pursuit.

There were many turns and twists in the pass between the mountains. It

was like a dozen large letter S's strung together.

Driscol stopped for a moment to listen. Jamesy was beyond their ken,

round one or two of the turns, and they could not hear the horse

galloping now.

"All's lost," said the sergeant; "he's clean gone. Let us hasten on

until we meet the boy; perhaps he knows which road he took."

Jamesy had been stooping now and then, and peering into the coming

lights to keep well in view the man whom he pursued. Ay, there he was,

sure enough; he saw him, almost plainly, galloping at the top of his

speed. Suddenly he' heard a crash, and horse and rider rolled upon

the ground.

"He's down, thank God!" cried Jamesy, still rushing forward with some

hope, and peering into the distance. Presently he saw the horse trot

on with his head and tail in the air, without his rider, while a dark

mass lay in the centre of the road.

"You couldn't have betther luck, you bloodthirsty ruffian, you!" said

Jamesy, who thought that it was heaven's lightning that, in justice,

had struck down Tom Murdock; and he maintained the same opinion ever

afterward. At present, however, he had not time to philosophize upon

the thought, but rushed on.

Soon he came to the dark mass upon the road. It was Tom Murdock who

lay there stunned and insensible, but not seriously hurt by the fall.

There was nothing of heaven's lightning in the matter at all. It was

the common come-down of a stumbling horse upon a bad mountain road;

but the result was the same.

Jamesy was proceeding to thank God again, and to tie his legs, when

Tom came to.

Jamesy was sorry the man's _thrance_ did not last a little longer,

that he might have tied him, legs and arms. With his own handkerchief

and suspenders. But he was late now, and not quite sure that Tom

Murdock would not murder him also, and "make off afoot."

Here Jamesy thought he heard the hurried step of the police coming

round the last turn toward him, and as Tom was struggling to his feet,

a bright thought struck him. He "whipt" out a penknife he had in his

pocket, and, before Tom had sufficiently recovered to know what he was

about, he had cut his suspenders, and given the waist-band of his

trousers a _slip_ of the knife, opening it more than a foot down the

back.

Tom had now sufficiently recovered to understand what had happened,

and to know the strait he was in. He had a short time before seen a

man named Wolff play Richard III. in a barn in C.O.S.; and if he did

not roar lustily, "A horse, a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" he

thought it. But his horse was nearly half a mile away, where a green

spot upon the roadside tempted him to delay a little his journey home.

Tom was not yet aware of the approach of the police. He made a

desperate swipe of his whip, which he still held in his hand, at the

boy, and sprung to his feet. But Jamesy avoided the blow by a side

jump, and kept roaring, "Police, police!" at the top of his voice. Tom

now found that he had been outwitted by this young boy. He was so

hampered by his loose trousers about his heels that he could make no

run for it, and soon became the prisoner of Sergeant Driscol and his

companion. Well done, Jamesy!

TO BE CONTINUED.

{115}

Translated from Le Monde Catholique.

FREDERICK HURTER.

Frederick Hurter, the illustrious historian of Pope Innocent III.,

died on the 27th of August, 1865, in Gratz, Austria, in the

sevens-eighth year of his age. Of all the great Catholic characters

which we have lost during the past year, there were undoubtedly very

few who have shed a greater brilliancy on our era, and still our loss

has, comparatively, passed unnoticed. Germany has certainly paid some

homage to the memory of that great Christian; but outside that country

almost general silence has enshrouded his tomb. In France, for

example, not more than three or four religious newspapers have devoted

to him even a few lines, and these all derived from a common source,

and we should not be surprised if many of our own readers should now

learn for the first time, from this notice, the death of a man so

justly celebrated.

To what, then, have we to ascribe this forgetfulness or indifference?

Perhaps a simple comparison of dates will account for it. Hurter died,

as we have stated, in the latter part of August, and La Moricière in

the early part of the following month. It is therefore natural to

conjecture that the memory of the great historian was almost

forgotten, or for the time absorbed, in the midst of the extraordinary

manifestations and triumphal funeral ceremonies which have honored the

remains of the immortal vanquished of Castelfidardo. It must be

admitted, however, that such was not just; it would have been better

to allow to each his legitimate share of respect, and, without

derogating from the glory of La Moricière, render also to Hurter the

honor to which he was so justly entitled. Beside, their names were

destined to be associated, for both have fought under the same flag,

although in a different manner. Both have been the champions of the

Papal See, one with his brave sword and the other with his not less

brave pen; and both have left magnificent footprints in the religious

annals of the nineteenth century.

Another explanation of this apparent neglect, more natural and perhaps

more truthful, might be found in the character of Frederick Hurter

itself, and in that of his last writings. A long time previous to his

death he had achieved the zenith of his fame; the latter part of his

long life being devoted to learned studies of undoubted merit and

immense advantage, but which have not had the same general attraction

as his earlier productions, particularly with the French people. We

freely acknowledge that this fact does but little credit to the

Catholic mind of France, but it is nevertheless undeniable. A kind of

comparative obscurity has covered with us the latter portion of

Hurter's life, and this, in our opinion, is the principal reason that

the news of his death has not created a deeper sensation in this

country.

In order to repair, as far as it lies in our power, this injustice

which the Catholics of Germany might well consider unfair or

ungrateful, we would like to render, in these few pages, at least a

feeble homage to the illustrious dead. We desire to gather together a

few of the glorious remembrances which are associated with his name,

and, above all, to point out that insatiable love of truth and justice

which {116} was the distinguishing feature of his character and which

seems to have pervaded his whole being under all circumstances and at

all times.

Frederick Emmanuel Hurter was born of Protestant parents on the 19th

of May, 1787, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. His father was prefect of

Lugano; his mother remarkable for her intellect as well as for her

decision of character, having sprung from the noble family of the

Zieglers. When scarcely six years old, the child was deeply moved at

hearing an account of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, and before

he had attained the age of twelve years he had conceived such a

distaste for the excesses of the revolutionary spirit then prevailing

that it seems never to have forsaken him. At this early age he was an

eager student of the "History of the Seven Years' War," and declared

himself in favor of Maria Theresa and against the King of Prussia. Two

years afterward a discussion having arisen between himself, his

school-fellows, and his teacher, on the relative merits of Pompey and

Caesar, he promptly and energetically took the part of the former,

believing that in the character of the latter was to be seen the

personification of the revolutionary spirit. These were the first

germs of that admirable sense of right which distinguished him on all

occasions. There could even then be foreseen in that child the future

man destined at some day to be the defender of the most august power

in the world.

From his youth upward, and doubtless from the same feeling of being

right, he applied himself with marked attention to ascertain the true

history of that most misrepresented epoch, the middle ages, its

monastic institutions, and its great pontiffs. Of the latter St.

Gregory VII. seemed to have most attracted him, and his youthful mind

seems to have delighted in comparing him with the great men of ancient

Rome.

Having finished his preliminary studies in his native town, Hurter

studied in the different classes of theology at the University of

Göttingen, whence he obtained his diploma, and, having been first

appointed pastor of an obscure village, was soon removed to

Schaffhausen.

In 1824 he was appointed chancellor of the consistory; but neither his

theological studies nor the duties of his office as pastor, a calling

he had embraced through deference for his father rather than from

personal inclination, diverted him from the object of his early

predilections. Thus, while at Göttingen he found leisure to write a

"History of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths." It was his first essay

as historian, being at the time only twenty years old.

Later he wrote a book on the following subject, proposed by the

National Institute of France: "The Civil State during the Government

of the Goths, and the Fundamental Principles of the Legislation of

Theodoric and his Successors." But this work remained among his

manuscripts unpublished. It was at Schaffhausen that he resumed his

favorite studies on the middle ages, and completed them. His great

attraction was not, as might be expected, Gregory VII., but Innocent

III., probably on account of a collection of letters written by that

great pontiff, published by Baluze, and which he had formerly bought

at public sale at Göttingen. He certainly had not then the remotest

idea that that book would at some future day form the foundation of

his fame, and the means of a radical change in his Christian and

social life. He commenced his book on Innocent III. in 1818, but it

was not until 1833 that the first volume appeared. The second was

published the year following. In 1835 he became president of the

consistory, an office which placed him at the head of the clergy of

his district, and which he resigned after fulfilling its duties for

six years. He published the third volume of his "History of Pope

Innocent" in the meantime, and in {117} 1842 the fourth and last

volume was given to the press.

This "History" was not only a great literary success, it was more. It

produced a decided revolution in historical science. The effect of it

in Switzerland, Germany, and in fact the whole of Europe, was immense.

The extraordinary part enacted by that great Pope was seen for the

first time in its proper light. By the irresistible logic of facts,

Hurler demonstrated how the august institutions of the papacy

accomplished its mission with a success which, up to his time, had

never been conjectured. Every one became convinced that it was the

papacy alone that had mastered and tempered the overwhelming forces of

the half-civilized nations of Europe, in order to more eternal and

spiritual ends. "Since then," says Hurter himself, in his preface to

the third German edition of his first volume, page 21, "a great number

of inveterate errors were corrected, many traditional prejudices

dissipated, many doubts removed; certain minds drew light therefrom,

others found a guide in it, and others attained _conviction_ from its

pages. Comparing the present with the past, people became more

circumspect in their judgments and less inconsistent in their

conclusions, and at last an answer was found to the famous question of

the Roman governor, "What is truth?" (_Quid est veritas?_) "Truth is

what is based on the indisputable proofs of history and agrees with

the nature of all things." Sebastian Brunner, a distinguished German

writer, after reading the "History of Innocent III.," gave the

following opinion of its author: "I hold Mr. Hurter to be the greatest

of historians; no one previous to him embraces a whole century in so

admirable a picture. Hurter is the apostolic historian of the

nineteenth century." This apostleship of Frederick Hurter was the more

efficient, being exercised by a Protestant, and, what was more, by the

president of a consistory. And beside, who would not yield to the

testimony of a man whose loyalty and integrity were above all

suspicion, and who had made it the rule of his life to observe the

most rigid impartiality in all his own views; to seek nothing but the

truth, and to honor virtue and merit wherever met, without excepting

those who differed from him, so as to neglect nothing in the

accomplishment of his task in the most perfect possible manner? His

indeed were admirable qualities, particularly when we consider how

history was written in those times by writers looked upon as models

and masters. But let us not enlarge on this topic; the "History of

Innocent" is found in every library; let us rather show how that book

earned for its author a reward far greater than mere worldly

reputation.

His literary success, and, what was more, the undeniable services he

had rendered to the Catholic cause, could not but excite the jealousy

and dislike of his fellow Protestants. His "Excursion to Vienna and

Presburg," which was published soon after he visited Austria, in 1839,

excited their anger to the highest degree. Blinded by their passions,

they resolved to put him on trial, so as to find him guilty and so

depose him. In his "Exposé of the Motives of his Conversion" he states

that they put him the unfair question, "Are you a Protestant at

heart?" "This question," he continues, "had no relation whatever with

the alleged facts bearing on my public office, but only with my

'History of Innocent III.' and with a visit to Vienna. I refused to

answer, because they wanted rather to discover what I disbelieved than

what I believed." This refusal excited a violent storm of indignation

against him. After trying many times to avert it, and after suffering

the most unworthy attacks with patience and fortitude, he seized his

pen and fulminated his defense under the following title, "President

Hurter and his Pretended Colleagues."

More painful trials still awaited him. Two of his daughters, one

immediately after the other, became afflicted with {118} a malady

which was soon to deprive him of them, and, while prayers for their

recovery were being offered up in all the Catholic convents of

Switzerland, his puritanical opponents exhibited the most uncharitable

joy, thrusting the dagger of grief still further into a parent's

heart. A less energetic character would doubtless have succumbed to

such cruel wounds, but Hurter remained true to the maxim of the poet:

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum

Non civium ardor, prava jubentium,

Non vultus instantis _tyranni_

Mente quatit solida. . ."

"The race of those tyrants is not yet extinct," he somewhere says. "I

find still men who desire every one to bow before them, and that

everything they do against those who dare discard such a miserable

servitude should be commended." [Footnote 21] Hurter did better than

to imitate the ancient philosopher; he accepted his trials with truly

Christian resignation, perceiving in them the call of God to newer and

higher duties. "I discovered in them," he writes, "the means of my

salvation and my sanctification. I look upon the storm which has burst

over me as a signal on the road I have to follow. At the same time I

received the deep conviction that no peace was to be expected with

such people. My choice was therefore made. I threw off titles,

offices, and incomes, and went back to private life because I was

disgusted with a sect which, through rationalism, upset all Christian

dogmas, and, through pietism, tramples morals under foot." [Footnote

22] What hearty frankness, what Noble feelings, and what a true sense

of justice!

[Footnote 21: Third ed., 1st vol. (Pref. P. V.)]

[Footnote 22: "Life of Fr. Hurter," by A. de Saint Cheron, p. 120.

Some of the details of this article are extracted from this work, as

well as from an article published in "Le Catholique" of Mayence, of

September, 1865.]

Justice he demanded as well for others as for himself; therefore he

did not fear to defend the Catholic cause in his books. In his work on

the "Convents of Argovia and their Accusers" (1841), and on the

"Persecutions of the Catholic Church in Switzerland" (1843), he

denounces the tyranny of his Protestant compatriots in unmeasured

terms. For this reason, also, he went to Paris in 1843 to plead,

although in vain, the cause of the Catholics in Switzerland.

Having, as we have seen, resigned his position, he had ample leisure

to devote himself to the more profound study of the Catholic doctrine,

the dogmas of which he had already inwardly admitted. The "Symbolism"

of Moehler he found of great utility, and the "Exposition of the Holy

Mass," by Innocent III., served greatly to strengthen his religious

convictions.

Hurter, however, was not precipitate. He desired that in taking so

important a step conviction should be preceded by mature deliberation.

About this time he writes: "He would certainly be mistaken who should

think that I entered the _interior_ of the Catholic Church because I

was solely led away by its external forms. I was neither a wanderer

nor hair-brained. Undoubtedly the exterior impressed me; but I was

not, however, therefore relieved from examining its fundamental

principles with due care, or from studying the interior with proper

caution. I entered it first through curiosity, a mere visitor, as it

were, and I examined everything that I saw like one who, wanting to

purchase a house, first looks closely at every part of it before

closing the bargain. In that way I think I acquired, on many points,

truer and more complete ideas than the frequenters of the house, and

those who have spent their lives in it. I have too long postponed my

free decision not to have earned the right to be able to decide

whether the house suits me or not, or if any changes be required."

It is interesting to see, in his "Exposition of Motives," the

narration of all the doubts under which he labored previous to making

a final decision; how his mind gradually approached to a knowledge of

the truth as he progressed in his investigation; how a thousand

external circumstances, designed by Providence, powerfully {119}

contributed to shake his will, and finally how his conversion was less

his own work than the effect of that divine favor solicited by

Catholic charity, of which he speaks so feelingly in his "Geburt und

Wiedergebart."

The struggle was at last over. On the 16th of June, the feast of St.

Francis Regis, he formally made his abjuration before Cardinal Ostini,

formerly nuncio in Switzerland, at the Roman college, and five days

afterward, on the feast of St. Louis de Gonzaga, he received the

blessed sacrament in the presence of an immense congregation of the

faithful. The prophetic words of Gregory XVI. were then confirmed:

"_Spero che lei sera mio figlio_" (I hope that one day you will be my

son). The church and her head numbered one child more. God had thus

rewarded by his grace the perfect sincerity which the humble penitent

had ever made the rule of his life. We may also be allowed to believe

that the sweet protection of the Mother of God had efficaciously

operated in his favor, for even while a Protestant he had many times

pleaded her cause with his brethren.

The news of his conversion created quite different feelings. If the

great Catholic family rejoiced, and with unanimous voice thanked God

for having favorably heard their prayers, Protestantism felt wounded

to the very heart. The reason is easily understood. The edifying

example of humility exhibited by a man like Hurter was necessary to

win over a great number of souls until then irresolute and wavering,

as some planets attract their satellites in space.

As to him, full of gratitude toward God, his soul replete with light

and peace, his head high and serene, he went back to his native town

to resume his literary labors in retirement, as well as to undergo a

series of new persecutions, the last consecration of the Christian. "I

am not so narrow-minded," he wrote some time afterward, "that I did

not expect wicked judgments, base calumnies, and every kind of insult.

Facts have, however, far exceeded my anticipations, and I must confess

that I did not think those men capable of going so far in their

wickedness." Finally it became impossible for Hurter to remain longer

at Schaffhausen, and, beside, a new and better career was soon opened

for him. He received from Vienna an invitation to become the

historiographer of the empire. He accepted the appointment and entered

upon the fulfilment of its duties. Safe from the interruptions caused

by the troubles of 1848, he soon after accepted the position, of privy

councillor and the patent of nobility which were tendered him.

The last portion of his life was devoted to the practice of Christian

virtues and to the completion of his great work on Ferdinand II. To

this book he devoted twenty years' arduous labor, and was fortunate

enough to complete it one year previous to his death.

In commencing this work Hurter collected all his powerful faculties,

intending to display in its composition all that remarkable mental

energy with which he had been gifted by nature. With incredible

patience he examined one after another thousands of documents of all

kinds long buried in the archives of the empire, and most of which

were utterly unknown even to the learned. He could not understand to

be history that which was not supported by undeniable documents. _Quod

non est in actis, non est in mundo_, was his maxim--a maxim, alas!

which is too often neglected by the generality of our modern

historians. Nothing excelled his perseverance, I might almost say his

rapture, when he desired to throw light on an obscure fact, to fill a

hiatus, or to discover any historical truth. Never, perhaps, were

scruples of accuracy, and at the same time independence of thought and

courage in expression, carried to greater limits. Let us add, that

when composing the "History of Ferdinand II." he was filled with a

strong sympathy for his subject, and {120} in his admiration for that

great man he could, like Tacitus, console himself with the sight of

like grievances, and say with the Roman historian: _Ego hoc quoque

laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum, quae nostra tot per

annos vidit aetas, tantisper, aum prisca illa tota mente repeto,

avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere

a vero, sollicitum tamen efficere possit._

This work of Hurter's consists of eleven volumes. The first seven

comprise the history of events from the reign of Archduke Charles,

father of Ferdinand II., to the coronation of the latter prince; the

remaining four being exclusively devoted to the reign of Ferdinand. In

this comprehensive review of the events of that epoch the illustrious

author has shown, by the light of true history, the great emperor and

all the principal personages by whom he was surrounded, or in any way

connected; particularly portraying the Archduke Charles, the

Archduchess Maria, that splendid model of a Christian mother, Gustavus

Adolphus of Sweden, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Hurter studied the

character of the latter with particular zeal, first in his sketch of

the "Material to be used for the History of Wallenstein" (1855), and

then in the more elaborate monography, "The last Four Years of

Wallenstein" (1862), and finally in the "History of Ferdinand" itself.

He arrives at the conclusion that the Duke of Friedland had really

been guilty of treason, and that his tragic end is in no way to be

attributed to Ferdinand. At the same time he does full justice to the

great qualities of Wallenstein, acknowledging in him great capacity

for organization, wonderful activity, and almost regal liberality; nor

does he hesitate to class him among not only the greatest men of his

age, but of all time.

But, as may be well understood, his great central figure was

Ferdinand, whom he considers a most admirable and accomplished type of

all the virtues surrounding royalty, notwithstanding his memory has

been burthened with such foul calumnies by Protestant historians and

their copyists. To relieve his name from these unjust aspersions was a

task worthy of the genius of the historian of Innocent III. Having

shown in the life of that pontiff the true embodiment of the Christian

principles of the supreme priesthood, should he not also point out a

temporal prince as the personification of genuine Catholic royalty?

We would desire to reproduce here the incomparable portrait of

Ferdinand as it has been drawn by Hurter in his last volume, but,

unfortunately, the limits of this article do not permit it. What

compensates us, in some measure, for being able to give only so feeble

an idea of that great work is, that we hope soon to see the _studies_

undertaken to speak of it more fully. We hope also that a competent

translator will be soon found to give to France that work which, with

the "History of Innocent III.," will immortalize the name of Hurter.

Yes, the great historian shall live in his writings, in which he has

shown a soul so strong, so firm, so just, so humble, and yet so proud;

so earnestly devoted to truth and so deeply adverse to falsehood,

meanness, and hypocrisy. He will live in those countless works of

charity of which he was the ever efficient author. He will live in the

remembrance of so many hearts he has edified by his pious example,

strengthened by his advice, and brought back to the true path by his

admonitions. He will live, also, in the perpetual and grateful regard

of a company, always so dear to him, to which he has given one of his

sons, and whose motto he was proud to quote on the frontispiece of his

great work. _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_.

We will end this sketch by repeating the words which an apostolic

missionary, now a cardinal, once applied to the great historian; they

cannot be {121} better or more happily chosen to sum up his whole

life. Twenty years ago, after being a witness to his conversion, the

Abbé de Bonnechose, writing from Rome, says of him: "_Justum deduxit

Dominus per vias rectas et ostendit illi regnum Dei, et dedit illi

scientiam sanctorum; honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit

labores illius_" (Sap. x.) Yes, Hurter's mind was right, and God led

him by the hand. He has shown him his kingdom on earth, the church of

Christ, and the chair of Peter, where his authority sits enthroned,

where he speaks and governs in the person of his vicar. It was he who

endowed him with a knowledge of the science and philosophy of his

doctrine and of the divine mysteries of the faith, and inspired in him

those noble ideas the end and aim of which ought always to be the

worship and exaltation of the true church, and the defence of the

pontificate when calumniated. He has blessed the labors which have

been conducted with such success, filling them with spirit and energy,

to the end that they may bear the fruits of immortality! _Honestavit

illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius._

J. MARTINOF.

------

WORDS OF WISDOM.

TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY DR. BOWRING.

To seek relief from doubt in doubt,

From woe in woe, from sin in sin--

Is but to drive a tiger out,

And let a hungry wolf come in.

Who helps a knave in knavery.

But aids an ape to climb a tree!

On an ape's head a crown you fling;

Say--Will that make the ape a king?

Know you why the lark's sweet lay

Man's divinest nature reaches?

He is up at break of day

Learning all that nature teaches.

The record of past history brings

Wisdom of sages, saints, and kings;

The more we read those reverend pages

The more we honor bygone ages!

Whate'er befit--whate'er befal.

One general law commandeth all:

There's no confusion in the springs

That move all sublunary things.

All harmony is heaven's vast plan--

All discord is the work of man!

{122}

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

IRELAND AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798.

There has lately issued from the press a work under the title which

heads our article, and which is amusing and instructive in the highest

degree. Were it not written by a man whose ability and character are

pledges for his veracity, we should rank it with Harrison Ainsworth's

efforts, and designate it as an almost impossible romance. It has, as

we think, appeared at a very opportune and timely juncture, and, in

our opinion, Mr. Fitzpatrick is entitled to great praise for the

talent, industry, and research evidenced in his volume.

Francis Higgins, the hero of Mr. Fitzpatrick's remarkable biographical

sketch, and familiarly known by the title of "The Sham Squire," was

born nobody exactly knows where, and reared nobody knows how. He

commenced his career, however, in stirring times, and when great

events were in their parturition, during which the history of Ireland

presents a series of panoramic images--a mixture of light and

shadow--instances of devoted fidelity and abounding rascality--

groupings of mistaken enthusiasm, selfish venality, and the most

abhorrent domestic treason--such as we in vain look for in the annals

of any other country or any other age. It is supposed that Higgins was

born in a Dublin cellar, and while yet of tender years became

successively "errand-boy, shoeblack, and waiter in a

public-house"--improving trades for one of so ripe a spirit, but which

he soon left, directed by a vaulting ambition, in order to become a

writing-clerk in an attorney's office. While in this position, he

commenced practice on his own account, by rejecting popery as

unfashionable and impolitic, and by forging a series of legal

documents purporting to show to all "inquiring friends" that he was a

man of property and a government official. He had an object in this,

as he was by this time to appear in a new character, as the lover of

Miss Mary Anne Archer, who possessed a tolerable fortune and a foolish

old father. Miss Archer happened to be a Roman Catholic, and was

strong in her faith; but this was only a trifle to Higgins, who again

forsook the new creed for the old, and proved thereby, like Richard,

"a thriving wooer." They were married, and the Archer _père_ did at

last what he ought to have done at first, ferreted out the real

antecedents of his precious son-in-law, and discovered that he had a

very clever fellow to deal with; while his daughter, finding, after a

short time, that her husband was "by no means a desirable one," fled

back to her bamboozled parent, who straightway indicted the pretender.

Higgins was found guilty and imprisoned for a year, and it was during

Judge Robinson's charge to the jury that he fastened the name of the

"Sham Squire" on the prisoner, a sobriquet which stuck to him

persistently during the remainder of his life, and proved a greater

infliction to his vanity than an apparently heavier penalty would have

been. This was in 1767. "Poor Mary Anne" died of a broken heart, and

her parents survived her for only a short lime; while the widower, in

order to make his prison life endurable, paid his addresses to the

daughter of the gaoler and eventually married her, as her father was

pretty well to do in the world, the situation being a {123}

money-making one, as the order of that day was, as proved before the

Irish House of Commons, that "persons were unlawfully kept in prison

and loaded with irons, although not duly committed by a magistrate,

until they had complied with the most exorbitant demands." When the

Sham's term of a year's imprisonment ended, he had life to begin anew,

and for some years we find him exercising many vocations, such as

"setter" for excise officers, billiard-marker, hosier, etc. For an

assault as a "setter," he was again tried and again convicted; but

nothing daunted, as his old webs were broken, he proceeded in the

construction of new. In 1775, we not only find him "a hosier," but

president of the Guild of Hosiers; and in 1780 his services were

engaged by Mr. David Gibbal, conductor of the "Freeman's Journal,"

then, as now, one of the most popular and well-conducted papers in

Ireland. But from the period of the Sham Squire's connection with it,

it seems to have degenerated, as in April, 1784, the journals of the

Irish House of Commons show an "order" that "Francis Higgins, one of

the conductors of the 'Freeman's Journal,' do attend this house

to-morrow morning." He did so, and escaped with a reproof. Having

gained some knowledge of law in the solicitor's office, we now find

him anxious to become an attorney, which end he accomplished by the

aid and influence of his friend and patron John Scott, afterward

chief-justice, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Clonmel, rather for

his political talents than his professional ones. From 1784 to 1787

Higgins also acted as deputy coroner for Dublin. By a series of

manoeuvres he became the sole proprietor of the "Freeman's Journal,"

and became at once what is called in Ireland "a castle hack." Both as

attorney and editor, the Sham Squire was now a man of importance, and

many called in on him. Shrewd, sharp, and clever, with a glib tongue

and a facile pen, no business was either too difficult or too dirty

for him. He was made a justice of the peace by Lord Carhampton, who,

as Colonel Luttrell, was designated by Grattan as "a clever bravo,

ready to give an insult, and perhaps capable of bearing one;" in fact,

the last allusion was deserved, as Luttrell had been called "vile and

infamous" by Scott without resenting it. Lord Carhampton became

commander-in-chief in Ireland, and during the outbreak of '98 was a

merciless foe to the rebels who fell into his hands. Higgins, by this

time, had become a great man, and lived in St. Stephen's Green, in

magnificent style, keeping his coach and entertaining the nobility. He

was a loyalist of the rosiest hue, and thought no mission too

derogatory by which he might show his zeal. He attended divine service

regularly, and that over, proceeded to "Crane Lane," in order to count

over and receive his share of the gains in a gambling house of which

he was principal proprietor, and which his influence with the police

magistrates prevented the suppression of--then to his editorial

duties, which were to uphold the measures of government and its

officials, and to lampoon, cajole, or threaten all who dared to oppose

them.

It was in the disastrous period of '98, however, that the Sham

Squire's most sterling qualities came into active requisition, as

evidenced by the following extract of a letter written by the

Secretary Cooke to Lord Cornwallis, then lord lieutenant of Ireland.

"Francis Higgins," he writes, "proprietor of the 'Freeman's Journal,'

was the person who procured for me all the intelligence respecting

Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and got--to set him, and has given me

otherwise much information--£300;" meaning thereby that his

excellency should sanction that annual amount for "secret service,"

out of a sum of £15,000, specially laid aside for that purpose. Beside

this, however, a lump sum of £1000 was given to Higgins on the 20th of

June, 1798, for the betrayal of his friend; and, independent of this,

a confederate of his named Francis Magan, a barrister, {124} and a

close ally of Lord Edward, and who positively "set" the unfortunate

nobleman at Higgins's instigation, received £600 and a pension of £200

per annum for the worthy deed. Probably the most startling of all

these revelations of domestic treachery was the conduct of Leonard

McNally, barrister at law, and selected "for his ability, truth, zeal,

and sterling honesty," as Curran's assistant in defending the

prisoners implicated in the rebellion. This fellow seems to have

outsoared even Higgins and Magan in his duplicity, since not alone did

he keep government duly informed of the movements of the suspected,

but when on their trial he exhibited the greatest activity in

suggesting points for their defence, seconding his celebrated leader

in his unwearied endeavors to save them, although he had previously

made known to the law officers what course the accused men's counsel

meant to take for the day, so that Curran and his legal friends were

puzzled and surprised at having their best-concocted measures

anticipated and baffled, although not a man of them ever thought of

looking to "honest Mac" as the cause. For this and other services

McNally received some thousands, and was gratified, in addition, with

a pension of £300 per annum. Singularly enough, the terrible secrets

of Magan and McNally were well kept until long after their deaths, and

until the publication of the "Cornwallis Papers" enabled inquirers to

strike on the true vein. Both these men are said to have been

corrupted by the Sham Squire, who seems to have been the

Mephistopheles of his time; but a still more notorious "informer,"

because an open one, was Reynolds--Tom Reynolds--who was promised a

pension of £2000 a year and a seat in parliament for his services, but

did not receive quite so much. In 1798, however, he received £5000 and

a pension of £1000 a year; and as his demands were always importunate,

it is known that during the remainder of his life he extracted £45,740

from his employers. Reynolds went abroad and died there, as Ireland

would hardly have been for him either a safe or a pleasant residence;

but Magan and McNally lived at home for many a goodly year, and were

looked upon as honest men and sterling patriots to the last. Higgins

did not long survive his victims; he died suddenly, in 1802, worth

£20,000, a greater part of which, strange to say, he left for

charitable purposes!

In reviewing thus the history of this Irish Jonathan Wild and his

detestable comrogues, our object must, we hope, be evident. Their

lives and actions are instructive in many ways, and never promised to

be more so than now. What happened then may happen again; treason will

be dogged by traitors to the end. Fear and avarice are omnipotent

counsellors, and, when coupled with talent and ingenuity, marvellous

indeed are the misery they can cause and the wide-spread devastation

that travels in their track. That a needy and unscrupulous vagabond

like Higgins should hunt his dearest friends to the scaffold is not to

be wondered at; but that men of position and education like Reynolds,

McNally, and Magan should join in the chase, and for years after look

honest men in the face, evinces a hardihood of disposition and a

callosity of conscience which, as a lesson, is instructive, and, as an

utter disregard of remorseful feeling, appears all but impossible. No

doubt such miscreants excuse their crimes on a plea of loyalty, and

the plea would be all-sufficient had they not stipulated for the

price, and had they not exulted in receiving it. There is something

especially abhorrent to our natures in those wretches who voluntarily

plunge into the ranks of anarchy and disaffection at one time, and

then, when cowardice or cupidity overcomes them, overleap all the

boundaries of honor and faith, and trade on the blood or suffering of

the unfortunate men who placed their liberties or lives in their

safe-keeping.

{125}

In the notes which Mr. Fitzpatrick has appended to his biography of

the "Sham Squire" as "addenda" we have some well-authenticated and

racy revelations of many of the singular Irish characters who

flourished during the last thirty or forty years of the last century,

and in the first few years of the beginning of this. Ireland appears

to have been the "paradise of adventurers" in that day, as the times

appear to have been out of joint, and the habits and general _morale_

of the upper and middle ranks were to the last degree loose and

irregular. As the manners and modes of action of a people are in a

considerable degree fashioned and influenced by the example set them

by those who are placed in authority over them, it is not too much to

assert that a great deal of the lax morality, unscrupulous spirit, and

general demoralization were produced by some of the occupants of the

vice-regal throne, and their "courts," the character and course of

life of whom are painted by our author in anything but a seductive

way. Brilliancy, show, pleasure, wit, and extravagance were the order

of the day; lords-lieutenant were either dissipated _roués_, or

incompetent imbeciles, and in either case they were sure to be coerced

or cajoled by a mercenary tribe of political adventurers, who directed

their actions and influenced their minds. We at once see by the

wholesale corruption practised to bring about the Union, how utterly

depraved must have been the men who openly or covertly prostituted

themselves, when it was in contemplation; and never was political

profligacy more open and more daring in its violation of honor,

probity, and principle than in the abject submission of the Irish

parliament, and its unhesitating anxiety to sell themselves, souls and

bodies, to those who tempted them, and who had studied them far too

accurately not to be sure of their prey. Amongst those who consented

to accept the remuneration thus profusely offered them the lawyers

bore a very prominent part; in fact, government could hardly have

succeeded without their aid; of these, Fitzgibbon, afterward Lord

Clare and chancellor, was the most forward and efficient. There was

never a man better adapted for the work he had to do. Bold, active,

astute, and unscrupulous, he could be all things to all men; those

whom he could not cajole, he frightened; equally ready with the pen,

the pistol, and the tongue, he was neither to be daunted nor silenced;

terrible in his vengeance, no windings of his victims could escape

him; and extravagant in his generosity (when the public purse had to

bear the blunt), his jackals and partisans felt that their reward was

sure, and therefore never hesitated to comply with his most exact

demands. Few men had a larger number of followers, therefore, and no

man ever made a more unscrupulous use of them. He had nothing of the

recusant about him, however, and first and last he was consistent to

his party and to the Protestant creed which he had adopted in early

life, for he had been born and partly reared in the Roman Catholic

faith. In his personal demeanor he was a lion-hearted man; when hissed

in the streets by the populace he calmly produced his pistols; and

once, on hearing that a political meeting against the Union was being

held, he rushed into the middle of the assembled mass, commanded the

high-sheriff to quit the chair, and so closed the meeting. On the

bench he was equally fearless, and when recommended to beware of

treachery, his answer was, "They dare not; I have made them as tame as

cats." "If I live," he said, "to see the Union completed, to my latest

hour I shall feel an honorable pride in reflecting on the share I had

in contributing to effect it." He did live to see it, and to take his

seat in the British parliament; but matters were altogether altered

there. In his maiden effort he was rebuked by Lord Suffolk, called to

order by the lord chancellor, while the Duke of Bedford indignantly

snubbed him by {126} exclaiming, "We would not bear such insults from

our _equals_, and shall we, my lords, tolerate them at the hands of

mushroom nobility?" while, to cap the climax, Pitt, after hearing him,

turned to Wilberforce, and said loud enough to be heard by Lord Clare,

"Good G--d! did you ever, in all your life, listen to so

thorough-paced a scoundrel as that!" Disappointed and despairing, he

returned to Ireland, and died of a broken heart, while almost the last

words he uttered to a friend were, "Only to think of it! I that had

all Ireland at my disposal cannot now procure the nomination of a

single gauger!"

John Scott, afterward Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel, was another

prominent actor in those busy times. His birth was lowly, but his

talents were considerable; he was light and flippant rather than

profound, and he felt to the last a terrible mortification that his

claims had been postponed to those of Lord Clare. He had neither the

grasp of mind, nor the unhesitating manner of the chancellor, however;

he was apt to surround himself with companions, like the "Sham

Squire," for instance, who might be pleasant but were by no means

reputable. Beside, his character for probity was distrusted; his first

uprise in life was his wholesale appropriation of the property of a

Catholic friend which he held in trust, as Catholics, at that time,

could not retain property in their hands, and which he refused to

disgorge. He was both venal and vindictive, and but too often

prostituted his authority in pursuit of his passions. On one occasion,

however, he was signally discomfited. A man of the name of Magee, who

owned and edited the "Evening Post," had frequently come under the

lash, and was treated with no mercy. Magee's vengeance took a curious

form. Lord Clonmel was an ardent lover of horticulture, and had spent

many thousand pounds in making his suburban villa a "model." Magee

knew this, and as the chief demesne was skirted by an open common from

which a thick hedge alone separated it, the journalist proclaimed a

rural _fête_, on an enormous scale, to be held on the vacant ground,

and to which the whole Dublin population, gentle and simple, were

invited. Meats and liquors were given to an unlimited extent, and, in

the evening, when the "roughs" were primed with whiskey, several pigs

(shaved and with their tails well soaped) were let out as part of the

amusement of the day. By preconcert, the affrighted animals were

driven against Lord Clonmel's inclosure, which they speedily

over-leaped, followed by the mob. Trees, shrubs, flowers, vases, and

statues were in a wonderfully short time demolished in the "fun,"

while, to make the matter still more deplorable, the owner of the

property thus wantonly devoted to revenge stood on the steps of his

own hall-door, and with alternate fits of imprecation and entreaty

besought the spoilers to desist, but in vain. Toward the close of his

life, Lord Clonmel became a hypochondriac, and, supposing himself to

be a tea-pot, hardly ventured to stir abroad lest he should be broken.

On one occasion, his great forensic antagonist, Curran, was told that

Clonmel was going to die at last, and was asked if he believed it. "I

believe," was the reply, "that he is scoundrel enough to live or die

_just as it meets his convenience_." Shortly before his death he said

to Lord Cloncurry, "My dear Val, I have been a fortunate man, or what

the world calls so; I am chief-justice and an earl; but were I to

begin life again, I would rather be a chimney-sweeper, than consent to

be connected with the Irish government."

Another "celebrity" was John Taler, "bully, butcher, and buffoon," who

was afterward a peer and a judge. He was a bravo in the house and a

despot on the bench. He jested with the wretched he condemned, and

seemed never so happy as when {127} the scaffold was before his eyes.

He was ignorant but ferocious, and when he could not conquer an

opponent he would browbeat him.

"Give me a long day, my lord," said a culprit, whom he had just

doomed.

"I am sorry to say I can't oblige you, my friend," replied Lord

Norbury, smiling; "but I promise you a strong rope, which I suppose

will answer your purpose as well."

When he died, and was about to be lowered into the grave himself, the

tackle was rather short.

"Tare-an-agers, boys, don't spare the _rope_ on his lordship; don't

you know he was always fond of it?" said one of the standers-by.

"I never saw a human face that so closely resembles that of a

bull-dog!" remarked one barrister to another in court.

"Let him get a grip of your throat, and you will find the resemblance

still closer," was the reply.

These and a hundred others, their equals, instruments, and

subordinates, may be supposed to represent the Irish "turnspit"

element; it must be acknowledged, however, that in contradistinction

to them, there were sounding examples of men of a different and far

superior class, such as the Leinsters, Charlemonts, Plunketts,

Currans, Ponsonbys, and so forth, who would have adorned any country,

and who certainly contributed to relieve their own from the almost

intolerable odium which the wholesale venal profligacy of a large

number had brought upon it.

------

From Once a Week.

THE LEGEND OF THE LOCKHARTS.

I.

King Robert on his death-bed lay, wasted in every limb,

The priests had left, Black Douglas now alone was watching him;

The earl had wept to hear those words, "When I am gone to doom,

Take thou my heart and bear it straight unto the Holy Tomb."

II.

Douglas shed bitter tears of grief--he loved the buried man.

He bade farewell to home and wife, to brother and to clan;

And soon the Bruce's heart embalm'd, in silver casket lock'd,

Within a galley, white with sails, upon the blue waves rock'd.

III.

In Spain they rested, there the king besought the Scottish earl

To drive the Saracens from Spain, his galley sails to furl;

It was the brave knight's eagerness to quell the Paynim brood.

That made him then forget the oath he'd sworn upon the rood.

IV.

That was his sin; good angels frown'd upon him as he went

With vizor down and spear in rest, lips closed, and black brow bent:

Upon the turbans, fierce he spurr'd, the charger he bestrode

Was splash'd with blood, the robes and flags he trampled on the road.

{128}

V.

The Moors came fast with cymbal clash and tossing javelin,

Ten thousand horsemen, at the least, on Castille closing in;

Quick as the deer's foot snaps the ice, the Douglas thundered through,

And struck with sword and smote with axe among the heathen crew.

VI.

The horse-tail banners beaten down, the mounted archers fled--

There came full many an Arab curse from faces smear'd with red,

The vizor fell, a Scottish spear had struck him on the breast;

Many a Moslem's frighten'd horse was bleeding head and chest.

VII.

But suddenly the caitiffs turn'd and gathered like a net,

In closed the tossing sabres fast, and they were crimson wet,

Steel jarr'd on steel--the hammers smote on helmet and on sword,

But Douglas never ceased to charge upon that heathen horde.

VIII.

Till all at once his eager eye discerned amid the fight

St. Clair of Roslyn, Bruce's friend, a brave and trusty knight.

Beset with Moors who hew'd at him with sabres dripping blood--

Twas in a rice-field where he stood close to an orange wood.

IX.

Then to the rescue of St. Clair Black Douglas spurred amain,

The Moslems circled him around, and shouting charged again;

Then took he from his neck the heart, and as the case he threw,

"Pass first in fight," he cried aloud, "as thou wert wont to do."

X.

They found him ere the sun had set upon that fatal day,

His body was above the case, that closely guarded lay.

His swarthy face was grim in death, his sable hair was stain'd

With the life-blood of a felon Moor, whom he had struck and brain*d.

XI.

Sir Simon Lockhart, knight of Lee, bore home the silver case.

To shrine it in a stately grave and in a holy place,

The Douglas deep in Spanish ground they left in royal tomb.

To wait in hope and patient trust the trumpet of the doom.

{129}

[ORIGINAL.]

REMINISCENCES OF DR. SPRING. [Footnote 23]

[Footnote 23: "Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of

Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City

of New York." 2 vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.]

Few persons who have lived much in New York during the last quarter of

a century are not familiar with the dignified, resolute, yet kindly

countenance of the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church. Fewer

still are ignorant of his reputation as a leading and representative

man in his denomination; a keen polemic; a great promoter of

missionary, tract, and Bible societies; and, we may add, a very

determined enemy of the Pope of Rome and all his aiders and abettors.

For more than fifty-five years he has preached to the same

congregation which gave him a call when he was first licensed as a

minister. During his career thirteen Presidents of the United States,

from Washington to Lincoln, have died; three Kings of England have

been laid in their graves; the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the

execution of Louis XVI., the rise and fall of the first Napoleon, the

shifting scenes of the Restoration, the Orleans rule, the second

Republic and the second Empire, have hurried each other across the

stage of French history. He has long passed the scriptural term of the

life of man; and now, at the almost patriarchal age of eighty-one, he

gives us a collection of reminiscences of what he has seen and done

during this protracted and eventful career.

It would be natural to suppose that such a book by such a man must be

full of interest. As one of the recognized leaders of a rich and

influential religious denomination, and one of the oldest and most

respectable citizens of the first city of America, how many historical

characters must he have met! to how many important events must he have

been a witness! But any one who takes up these volumes in the hope of

obtaining through them a clearer view of persons and times gone by,

will be disappointed. They are interesting, it is true, but not, we

will venture to say, in the way their author meant them to be. They

cause us to wonder that the doctor should have seen so much and

remembered so little. Yet as a picture of the life of a representative

Presbyterian preacher and a complete exposure of the utter emptiness

of the Presbyterian religion, these garrulous and random

"Reminiscences" are the most entertaining pages we have read for many

a month. We propose to cull for our readers a few of the most

interesting passages.

Dr. Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Feb. 24, 1785. His

father was a minister, of whom the son says that "he would not shave

his face on the Lord's day, nor allow his wife to sew a button on her

son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus

Spring, Esq., arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with the message

that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse

for the journey of seventy miles until the Sabbath sun had gone down."

Though young Gardiner used to wonder, when a boy, why he was not

allowed to participate in the customary sports of children, he seems

to have preserved a warm affection for both his parents, of whom he

speaks in a loving and reverential tone which we cannot too carefully

respect. The thought that most affected him on their death was {130}

"_that he had lost their prayers._" Gardiner was sent to Yale College

at the age of fifteen, and during "a remarkable outpouring of the

Spirit" upon that rather unregenerate institution, in the year 1803,

he became, for a season, "hopefully pious." He had been uneasy for

some time about the state of his soul, and one afternoon he resolved

to pray, several hours, if necessary, until his sins were forgiven.

"There," he says, "in the south entry of the old college, back side,

middle room, third story, I wrestled with God as I had never wrestled

before." The result of this spiritual struggle we do not profess to

understand. He says that he rose from his knees without any hope that

he had found mercy, yet feeling considerably relieved. For several

weeks he went about, peaceful and happy, when, unluckily, the Fourth

of July came, with its speeches and fireworks, and his "religious

hopes and impressions all vanished as a morning cloud, and as the

early dew." It was five or six years before they came back again.

When he graduated his father came to hear him speak, and at the close

of the exercises gave him his blessing and told him to shift for

himself. So, there he was, twenty years old, with four dollars in his

pocket and a profession yet to be acquired. He borrowed two hundred

and fifty dollars from a generous friend, obtained a situation as

precentor in a church, opened a singing school, and applied himself

zealously to the study of law. Before long he married a young lady as

poor as himself, and went with her in 1806 to Bermuda, where he taught

school for some time very successfully; but rumors of war between this

country and Great Britain drove him back to the United States, and in

his twenty-fourth year he entered upon the practice of the law at New

Haven.

In the meanwhile those uneasy feelings of the soul, which he seems

unable to analyze (though we warrant a good confessor would quickly

have solved his perplexities) had not left him at peace. He writes to

his father from Bermuda upon the state of his interior man:

"I should wish to go to heaven, because I should be pleased, with

its employment. Were all my sins mortified and I rendered perfectly

holy, I think I should the happy. . . . . Sometimes I can say, Lord,

I believe; help thou mine unbelief. .... I am avaricious; and in the

present state of my family, make money my god. I strain honesty _as

far as I can_ to gain a little."

This was certainly not a satisfactory condition of things. The lust

for mammon seems strong enough, but the aspirations for heaven might

well have been rather more ardent. He goes to church and sings and

weeps, and the minister and elders crowd around him to see what is the

matter. He goes to prayer-meeting at last in New Haven, and there the

conversion--such as it is--is effected: "As the exercises closed and

the crowded worshippers rose to sing the doxology, I felt that I could

'praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Praise! praise! It was

delightful to praise him! On the 24th of April following, I united

with the visible church under Mr. Stuart's pastorate, and began to be

an active Christian."

We must say that this seems to be a very simple and easy process of

getting out of the power of the devil. Conversion, according to Dr.

Spring's idea, is simply an emotion of the mind, a spasm of sentiment.

It includes neither satisfaction for the past, nor the performance of

any definite religious duty in the present or the future. Any one who

can excite himself into the belief that he is regenerate, or tickle

his mind into the pleasant state indicated by the man who, when asked,

"How it felt to get religion?" replied that "it was just like having

warm water poured down your back"--any such one, we say, may rest

assured of his eternal safety. Dr. Spring is no more exacting with

other candidates for conversion than he was with himself. To a sick

man who inquires "what he shall do?" he answers: "Believe on the Lord

Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

{131}

"But will you not tell me _how_ I shall go to him?"

"Yes, I can tell you; you must not go in your own strength; for your

strength is weakness. You must not go in your own righteousness, for

you have none. You must feel your need of Christ, and see that he is

just the Saviour adapted to your wants. You must adore, and love, and

trust him. . . . . Commit to him your entire salvation, and in all

holy 'obedience live devoted to his service.'" Now in all this there

is just one practical suggestion, namely, to "live devoted to God's

service"--and that the man could not follow because he was dying. Let

our readers contrast Dr. Spring's death-bed ministrations with what a

Catholic priest would have said and done in similar circumstances. The

priest would have given definite instruction and divine sacraments;

the preacher has nothing better to offer than a few commonplace

generalities from his last Sunday's sermon.

But we must return to the reverend doctor's biography. Close upon the

heels of his conversion came the resolution to be a minister. The

pecuniary difficulties in the way of this change of profession were

soon obviated by the generosity of a rich widow of Salem. There was

another obstacle, however, of a more serious nature. This was Mrs.

Spring. She was "not a professed Christian." She was "a worldly

woman." She sought the honors of the world. She did not want to be a

minister's wife. The doctor had a great respect for her. He was afraid

to tell her of his resolution. We must let him describe in his own

words how he got out of the difficulty:

"I then began a course of conduct which I have ever since pursued,

and that was, in all cases where my own duty was plain, and my

resolution formed, quietly to carry my resolution into effect, and

meet the storm afterward. I did so in the present instance, though

there was no other storm than a plentiful shower of tears. I said

nothing to my wife; nothing to any one except Mr. Evarts. I sent my

wife on a visit to my only sister, the wife of the Hon. Bezaleel

Taft, at Uxbridge, the native place of my father, where I engaged in

a few weeks to meet her, and make a further visit to Newburyport.

She had no suspicion of my views, and left me with the confident

expectation that she would return to New Haven.

"In the meantime, after she left me, I was busily employed in

arranging my affairs for my removal to Andover. I announced my

purpose to the church at the next prayer-meeting, and received a

fresh impulse from their prayers and benedictions. Mr. Evarts took

my office and my business, and closed up my unsettled accounts with

his accustomed accuracy, and my ledger now records them. Mr. Smith,

my old teacher, laughed at me; Judge Daggett was silent. Judge

Rossiter said to me, 'Mr. Spring, the pulpit is your place; you were

formed for the pulpit rather than the bar.' My business in New Haven

was closed; my debts paid; my household furniture, small as it was,

was carefully stowed away; my law library, worth about four hundred

dollars, was disposed of, and I was on my way to Uxbridge,

Newburyport, Salem, and Andover.

"When I reached Uxbridge, and was once more in the bosom of my

little family, I felt that the trial had come. I could not at once

disclose my plans to my wife, and was saved that painful interview

by the suspicions of Mr. Taft, who told her that he believed I was

going to be a clergyman! She laughed at him; but she saw a change in

my deportment, and began to suspect it herself. I told her all. She

went to her chamber and wept for a long time. But she came down,

subdued indeed, but placid as a lamb, and simply said, 'It is all

over now; I am ready.' Oh, how kindly has God watched over me! It

seems as though the promise was fulfilled, 'Return unto thy country

and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.' Some day or two

before we left Uxbridge, Mr. Taft said to me, 'Brother Spring, I

have a case before Justice Adams this morning; you are still a

lawyer, and I want you to go and argue it with me.' The thought

struck me pleasantly, and I resolved to go; but instead of assisting

him, without his knowledge I engaged myself to what I thought the

weaker party; and my last effort at the bar was in battling with my

sister's husband, and in the place of my father's nativity."

{132}

After eight months devoted to the study of theology at the Andover

seminary, Mr. Spring was licensed to preach and received a call from

the Brick church in New York. As a preliminary to his ordination, it

was necessary for him to preach a trial sermon before the presbytery,

and to submit to an examination as to his orthodoxy. In this latter

test he did not give unqualified satisfaction, nevertheless they

passed him, and he was duly ordained to the pastorship. As a salve, we

suppose, for their consciences, the presbytery deputed the Rev. Dr.

Milledollar, one of their number, to talk with the young minister, and

try to reason him out of certain heterodox opinions which he

entertained upon the subject of human ability. The result of the

interview was that, in Dr. Milledollar's judgment, "the best way of

curing a man of such views was to dip his head in cold water."

It was but a dismal religion of which he now became the minister.

Tears, gloom, discomfort, and brokenness of heart were the

characteristics of the spiritual life, and peace of mind was an

alarming symptom of the dominion of the devil. "Newark is again highly

favored," writes the minister to his parents: "there are not less than

five hundred persons _very solemn_." "My people appear solemn; they

were so at the lecture on Thursday evening." "I preached on Monday to

a very solemn audience at my own house." "The state of things in the

congregation, notwithstanding the war, is looking up. Our public

meetings and our social gatherings are more full and more solemn." He

visits Paris, and there passes an evening with a small party of his

countrymen: "We could not refrain from weeping during the whole time

we were together." The quantity of tears shed in the course of the

book is positively appalling. Of course there is nothing that remotely

resembles the gift of tears with which Almighty God sometimes rewards

and consoles his saints. It is merely a perpetual gush of mawkish

sentimentality, and we defy anybody to read these "Reminiscences"

without having before him an image of the whole Brick church with

chronic redness of the eyes. A member of the congregation went to the

doctor once with a request that he would baptize a child. He was not

one of the weepers, or, as Dr. Spring expresses it, "not a religious

man." The opportunity was too good to be lost. The doctor labored with

him, preached at him, probably wept at him, tried to impress him with

the solemnity and privilege of the transaction, did not baptize his

child, but finally prayed with him and urged him to come again. The

result of the exhortation is a good commentary upon the whole system

of sentimental spasmodic religion: "He went away," says Dr. Spring,

"and being requested by his wife to have another interview with me,

replied, 'No; _you will not catch me there again_.'" We suppose that

the child was not baptized; but that, according to Dr. Spring, and in

spite of the Bible, makes very little difference. It was his rule "to

baptize only those children, one of whose parents was a professed

Christian"--that is to say, a member of the church; and except in one

instance he has never varied from this strict practice. "That," he

says, "was in the case of a sick and dying grandchild, whose father

was a man of prayer, but not a communicant, and I myself professed to

stand _in loco parentis_, I now look upon the whole transaction as

wrong."

Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day;

but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and

then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of

the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop

Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it;

but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The

controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the

Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society;

the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the

effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society;

the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the

exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other

religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he

still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling.

We subjoin a few extracts:

"The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall

have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report.

I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows

me to go to the Assembly."--_vol. i., p._70.

"The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work,

entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points

of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic

theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed

at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--_Vol. i., p._ 129.

"I find my heart strangely _suspicious_. Sometimes I am resolved to

withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee

they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are

exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the

mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may

prevent."--_Vol ii., p_. 78.

We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following

passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it:

"There have been spurious revivals in my day, and the means of

promoting them are the index of their character. In such seasons of

excitement, great dependence is placed on the way and means of

_getting them up_, and little of the impression [sic] that not a

soul will be converted unless it be accomplished by the power of

God. Whatever the words of the leaders may profess, their conduct

proclaims, 'Mine own arm hath done this!' There is a familiarity, a

boldness, an irreverence in their prayers, which ill becomes worms

of the dust in approaching him before whom angels veil their faces.

A pious and poor woman, in coming out from a religious service thus

conducted, once said, 'I cannot think what it is that makes our

ministers _swear_ so in their prayers.' They count their converts,

and when they survey their work, there is a triumph, a self-reliant

exultation over it, which looks like the triumph of the pagan

monarch, when he exclaimed, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have

built!' And hence it is that so many of the subjects of such a work,

after the excitement is over, find that their own hearts have

deceived them, that they are no longer affected by solemn preaching

and solemn prayers, that _their past emotions were nothing more than

the operations of nature, and that when these natural causes have

exhausted their power there is no religion left."--Vol. i., p_. 219.

Dr. Spring gives a curious illustration of the length to which

excitement sometimes carries the poor victims of the revivalists, in

the case of a Mrs. Pierson, "around whose lifeless body her husband

assembled a company of _believers_, with the assurance that if they

prayed in faith, she would be restored to life. Their feelings were

greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and

strong. They prayed and prayed again, and prayed _in faith_, but they

were disappointed," vol. i., p. 229.

He is rather free sometimes in his criticisms upon his brother

ministers. He listens to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Finney, a noted

revivalist, and says that there was nothing exceptionable in it

"except a vulgarity that indicated a want of culture, and a coarseness

unbecoming the Christian pulpit." He hears a Mr. Broadway preach at

sea, and thus records his impressions: "I must say he is a _John Bull_

of a preacher. What a pity that men who need to be taught what are the

first principles of the oracles of God, should undertake to teach

others!" We dare say Dr. Spring's judgment of both these gentlemen was

sound; but we see no propriety in printing it.

He made several voyages to Europe, and travelled through France,

Germany, and Great Britain. Respecting the state of Protestantism in

France, he makes some significant admissions:

"Protestantism in France is not what I have been in the habit of

considering it. {134} I knew it was in a measure corrupt, but not to

the extent in which I actually find it. I do not think that the

Romanists, as a body, have much confidence in the Roman religion.

But the mischief is that when thinking men throw off the bonds of

Romanism, _they relapse into infidelity_. . . . .

True religion in France _finds its most bitter and unwearied enemies

in Protestants themselves_. The Protestants of this country are high

Arians, if not absolute Socinians. There are now [1835] three

hundred and fifty-eight Protestant pastors in France, beside their

few vacant churches. _But there are comparatively few among them all

who love and obey the truth."--Vol, ii., pp._ 260, 361.

The pages devoted to his European tours are remarkable

exemplifications of the truth of the old adage, that _coelum, non

animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt_. Wherever he goes, his breadth

of vision seems bounded by his own pulpit. The venerable cathedrals of

Europe, rich with the noblest memories, and the great historic places

haunted by the grandest associations of the past, fill him with no

thoughts more elevated than those awakened by the Brick church. He

sees everything distorted through the medium of his own inveterate

prejudices. If he visits a religious shrine, he can think of nothing

but the abominations of the scarlet woman of Babylon. If he sees a

convent, he tells us a cock-and-bull story about subterranean passages

paved with the bones of infants. If he witnesses some grand and

imposing ceremonial, he throws up his eyes, rushes out of the church,

and, while he shakes the dust off his feet, groans over the wickedness

of the Romish priests and their blasphemous mummeries, farcical shows,

and hypocritical disguises. One Sunday, while at Paris, he went with

the well-known missionary. Dr. Jonas King, and some other American

friends, to visit a hill called Mont Calvaire, near the city, to which

numbers of pilgrims were then resorting. They filled their pockets

with tracts, which they distributed, right and left, among the

thousands that were going up and down the mountain. They even

interrupted kneeling worshippers at their prayers to give them tracts.

These valuable gifts were received with avidity, for, as the narrator

elsewhere explains, our respectable parsons were mistaken for Catholic

missionaries. A few days afterward they made another excursion of the

same sort to Mont Calvaire. We give the conclusion of the adventure in

the words of Dr. King, from whose journal Dr. Spring copies it:

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilder, and Miss Bertau, and Mr. Storrow's children,

had gone to Mount Calvary to distribute tracts and Testaments. Dr.

Spring and myself, having filled our pockets, and hats, and hands,

with tracts and Testaments, set off with the hope to find them. Just

as we began to ascend the mountain, we met them coming at a

distance. On meeting them, they informed us that they had been

stopped by the Commissary of the Police, and that a gendarme, by

order of the missionaries (Rom. C. M.), had taken away their tracts

and Testaments, and prohibited them in the name of the law to

distribute any more on Mount Calvary. Mr. W. advised us not to

proceed with the intention of distributing those which we had. We

however, went, giving to every one we met, till we came in sight of

the _gendarmes_, when we ceased giving, but occasionally let some

fall from our pockets, which the wind, which was very high,

scattered in all directions, and were gathered up by the crowd. At

length we arrived at the top of the mountain, took our stand on the

highest elevation near the cross, and there, in our own language,

offered up, each of us, a prayer to the God of heaven for direction,

and to have mercy on those tens of thousands that we saw around us,

bowing before graven images. _I then felt in some degree

strengthened to go on, and, taking a tract from my pocket, presented

it to a lady who stood near me, and who appeared to be a lady of

some distinction._ She received it with thanks, and I was not

noticed by the _gendarmes_. Dr. S. let some fall from his pocket,

and we made our way down to one of the stations. There he laid some

on the charity-box, while I stood before him, to hide what he did.

We then went to another station, and I gave ten or twelve to a lady,

whom I charged to distribute them."

The heroism of these Presbyterian missionaries, who go up and down

hill, dropping divine truth from their coat-tails, reminds us of a

crazy old lady {135}so in New York, whose will was lately contested

before our courts. She had peculiar ideas of her own on the subject of

politics and the war, and used to inscribe her thoughts on great paper

kites, and give them to little boys to fly in the Central Park, in the

belief that the words would somehow or another be disseminated through

the city. Imagine St. Francis Xavier setting sail for the Indies with

his hat, and pockets, and hands full of tracts, scattering them

broad-cast along the inhospitable shores, or trusting them to the

breezes, like those charitable Buddhists Father Huc tells of, who go

up a high mountain on windy days, and throw into the air little paper

horses, which being blown away are, as they believe, miraculously

changed into real horses for the benefit of belated travellers.

Suppose Father Matthew, instead of preaching a crusade against

drunkenness, had contented himself with sneaking into shibeens and

taverns, and, behind the friendly shelter of a companion's back, had

deposited little bundles of temperance tracts on the top of every

barrel of whiskey, as if he expected them to explode like a torpedo,

and fill the air with virtue. Or what would Dr. Spring think if some

Sunday, in the midst of his prayer, two or three Catholic priests

should march into the Brick church and distribute Challoner's

Catechisms up and down the aisles, making the "solemn" Presbyterians

get up from their knees to receive them? It would not be a bit more

outrageous than the doctor's behavior during the mission on Mont

Calvaire.

American travellers in Europe, especially of the fanatical sort, are

but too apt to disgrace themselves and their country by their conduct

in sacred places. Here is another extract from Dr. Spring's book which

no respectable American can read without blushing. The incident

occurred in the famous cathedral of Rouen, built by William the

Conqueror, and reckoned the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in

France:

"A little circumstance occurred here that was somewhat amusing. [!]

Mr. Van Rensallear, in order to procure some little relic of the

place, instead of gathering some flowers, broke off the _nose_ of

one of the marble saints! He hoped to escape the detection of the

guide, but unfortunately, on leaving the cathedral, we had to pass

the mutilated statue, and were charged with the sacrilege. It was a

lady saint whose sanctity our gallantry had thus violated, and we

had to meet the most terrific volleys of abuse. A few glittering

coins, however, obtained absolution for us, but neither entreaty nor

cash could obtain the _nose_."

That must have been a funny scene one Sunday in crossing the ocean,

when the doctor and his wife, and the rest of the passengers, held

service under difficulties:

"We assembled for praise and prayer. Susan was quite sea-sick, yet

she came on deck. The day was cold, and she sat with _a hot potato

in each hand to keep her warm_."

This is certainly the oddest preparation for approaching the throne of

grace that we ever heard of.

Mrs. Spring is a prominent figure all through the book, giving her

reverend husband advice and comfort, and helping him in the work of

the ministry, especially with regard to the women of the flock. He

laments in his introductory chapter that the death of his "beloved

Mrs. Spring must leave a vacuum in these pages which nothing can

fill." In the second volume he gives a long and detailed account of

her sufferings in child-bed when she "became the mother of a lovely

daughter." When she died in 1860, he wrote in his diary as follows:

"I have been her husband and she my wife for four-and-fifty years;

our attachment has been mutual, and strong and sweet to the end. I

had no friend on earth in whom I had such reliance; no counsellor so

wise; no comforter so precious. For the last thirty years we have

rarely differed in opinion; when we did, I generally found she was

right and I was was wrong; and when I persevered in my {136}

judgment she knew how to yield her wishes to mine, and would

sometimes say with a smile, 'God has set the man above the woman.

You are _king_, my husband; but I am the queen!' In all my ministry,

in sickness and in health, at home and abroad, by night and by day,

I never knew her own convenience, comfort, or pleasure take the

place of my duty to the people of my charge. . . . . I bless God

that I had such a wife--that I had her at all, and that I had her so

long. . . . My darling wife, I give you joy: but what shall I do

without you?"

This last question is soon answered in an unexpected manner. Only

eight pages further on, Dr. Spring, aged eighty, records the following

passage:

"_April 13th,_ 1865.--My sweet wife was too valuable a woman ever to

be forgotten. The preceding sketch furnishes but the outline of her

excellences, which I have presented more at large at the close of

the sermon commemorative of one who was my first love. I never

thought I could love another. But I was advanced beyond my

threescore years and ten, partially blind, and needed a helper

fitted to my age and condition; no one needs such a helper more than

a man in my advanced years. I sought, and God gave me another wife.

A few days only more than a year after the death of Mrs. Spring, on

the 14th of August, 1861, I was married to Abba Grosvenor Williams,

the only surviving child of the late Elisha Williams, Esq., a

distinguished member of the bar. She is the heiress of a large

Property, and retains it in her own hands. She is intent on her duty

as a wife, watchful of my wants, takes good care of me, is an

excellent housekeeper, and instead of adding to the expenses of my

household, shares them with her husband."--Vol. ii., pp. 91, 92.

With this extract, Dr. Spring may be left to the charity of our

readers. We have said nothing of the vanity which allows him freely to

quote the commendations of his friends on his efforts in the pulpit

and his publications through the press; because, inconsistent as it

may be with a very elevated piety, it is a weakness that might be

pardoned in such an old man. But we cannot help remarking how on every

page he gives evidence of the utter baselessness of the thing he calls

religion; the unsubstantial, unsatisfying character of those human

emotions which he perpetually mistakes for the operations of the Holy

Ghost; and the strangely unreal, unsanctified nature of the fit of

mental perturbation which he denotes conversion and labors so hard to

produce. The conclusion to which every unprejudiced person must come,

on closing the volumes, is that Dr. Spring has lived in vain.

------

{137}

MISCELLANY.

_Arabian Laughing Plant_.--In Palgrave's "Central and Eastern Arabia"

some particulars are given in regard to a carious narcotic plant. Its

seeds, in which the active principal seems chiefly to reside, when

pounded and administered in a small dose, produce effects much like

those ascribed to Sir Humphrey Davy's laughing gas; the patient

dances, sings, and performs a thousand extravagances, till after an

hour of great excitement to himself and amusement to the bystanders,

he falls asleep, and on awaking has lost all memory of what he did or

said while under the influence of the drug. To put a pinch of this

powder into the coffee of some unexpecting individual is not an

uncommon joke, nor is it said that it was ever followed by serious

consequences, though an over quantity might perhaps be dangerous. The

author tried it on two individuals, but in proportions if not

absolutely homoeopathic, still sufficiently minute to keep on the safe

side, and witnessed its operation, laughable enough but very harmless.

The plant that hears these berries hardly attains in Kaseem the height

of six inches above the ground, but in Oman were seen bushes of it

three or four feet in growth, and wide-spreading. The stems are woody,

and of a yellow tinge when barked; the leaf of a dark green color, and

pinnated with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks smooth

and shining; the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, the anthers

numerous, the fruit is a capsule, stuffed with greenish padding, in

which lie imbedded two or three black seeds, in size and shape much

like French beans; their taste sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate

flavor; the smell heavy and almost sickly.

_The Congelation of Animals_.--It is generally supposed that certain

animals cannot be frozen without the production of fatal results, and

that others can tolerate any degree of congelation. Both these views

have been shown to be incorrect in a paper read before the French

Academy, by M. Pouchet. The writer arrives at the following

conclusions: (1.) The first effect produced by the application of cold

is contraction of the capillary blood-vessels. This may be observed

with the microscope. The vessels become so reduced in calibre that the

blood-globules are unable to enter them. (2.) The second effect is the

alteration in form and structure of the blood-globules themselves.

These alterations are of three kinds: (_a_) the nucleus bursts from

the surrounding envelope; (_b_) the nucleus undergoes alteration of

form; (_c_) the borders of the globule become crenated, and assume a

deeper color than usual. (3.) When an animal is completely frozen, and

when, consequently, its blood-globules have become disorganized, it is

dead--nothing can then re-animate it. (4.) When the congelation is

partial, those organs which have been completely frozen become

gangrenous and are destroyed. (5.) If the partial congelation takes

place to a very slight extent, there are not many altered globules

sent into the general circulation; and hence life is not compromised.

(6.) If, on the contrary, it is extensive, the quantity of altered

globules is so great that the animal perishes. (7.) On this account an

animal which is partially frozen may live a long time if the

congelation is maintained, the altered globules not entering into the

general circulation; but, on the contrary, it dies if heat be suddenly

applied, owing to the blood becoming charged with altered globules.

(8.) In all cases of fatal congelation the animal dies from

decomposition or alteration of the blood-globules, and not from

stupefaction of the nervous system.

_Ordnance and Targets_.--The Admiralty having erected a new target,

representing a portion of the side of the _Hercules_, experiments were

made at Shoeburyness which proved that a thickness of armor casing had

been attained which afforded perfect security against even the largest

guns recently constructed. The target has a facing of {138} 9-inch

armor-plates, and contains altogether eleven inches thickness of iron.

Against this three 12-ton shunt guns were fired, at a distance of only

200 yards, with charges varying from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of powder. One

steel shot, of 300 lbs. weight, 10-1/2 inches in diameter, fired with

60 lbs. of powder, at a velocity of 1,450 feet per second, barely

broke through the armor, without injuring the backing. Sir William

Armstrong has expressed his conviction, in the _Times_, that the

600-pounder gun will be unable to penetrate this target, and that it

will, in fact, require a gun carrying 120 lbs. of powder and steel

shot to pierce this massive shield. Mr. W. C. Unwin has pointed out,

in a letter to the _Engineer_, that for similar guns with shot of

similar form, and charges in a constant ratio to the weight of the

shot, the velocity is nearly constant. Then, assuming the resistance

of the plates to be as the squares of their thicknesses, it follows

that when the diameter of the shot increases, as well as the thickness

of the armor, the maximum thickness perforated will (by theory) vary

as the cube root of the weight of the shot, or, in other words, as the

calibre of the gun; and the weight of the shot necessary to penetrate

different thicknesses of armor will be as the cubes of those

thicknesses. The ratio deduced from the Shoeburyness experiments is

somewhat less than this, being as the 2.5 power and the 5.2 power

respectively. Practical formula deduced from experiments are given,

which agree with Sir William Armstrong's conclusion, and prove that a

gun which can effectively burn a charge of at least 100 lbs. of powder

will be required to effectually penetrate the side of the _Hercules_.

_The Moa's Egg_.--Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg

of the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction,

and "bought in" by the proprietors for £125. Some interesting details

concerning the history of gigantic birds' eggs have been supplied by a

contemporary, and we quote them for our readers: In 1854, M. Geoffroy

de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the

Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of

these was 12.1 inches long, and 11.8 inches wide; the smaller one was

slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also

contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put

up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the

shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M.

de St. Hilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible

to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave

several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some "Notices of the

Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History"

for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a

highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven,

Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held "_thirteen wine quart bottles

of fluid_." The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle,

and "observed that such eggs were _very, very rarely_ met with." Mr.

Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so.

Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called "quarts," the egg

would hold 19-1/2 pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire

held 17-1/2 pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very

great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain

Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a

nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the

ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and

two feet eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and

Travels," xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the

south coasts of New Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage,

etc.," London, 1818, he says: "They were built upon the ground, from

which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference and